I was *just* about to write up my first blackshirt impressions, but you've already scored most of my points, so I'll just add to yours
- The economy is super improved. No longer just spamming banks + malls. I really like the lumber mills + adjacency buildings. It gives me a reason to want to expand. I'm really happy with this.
Agreed. As a blackshirt I can't comment on the previous versions, but I did find myself using a lot of different building types, which felt nice. There was always a choice to make for what to build.
- The district + city center system is interesting. I originally thought you'd need a city center for each district. I like the fact that it gives you a reason to expand, but the "3 districts apart" feels a bit weird.
I don't mind the restriction, but some flavour text at some point to explain why might be nice for the player?
- I was 86 turns into my game, and I didn't have any pressure in the game beyond making my cash flow increase and fix whatever the current reason I can't expand.
- Unlike AI War, there wasn't any obvious short term goal. For example, in a game of AI war, I know I need to build defenses, then scout, then find the nearest advanced factory/research and work towards getting it. In beyond reach, I don't really have that.
- If you needed a city center in each district to build in it, it'd give you a reason to expand to nearby districts and claim territory. And the limits would give you a push to get into research and/or the talent tree.
Definitely on board with this. My full writeup is below, but I also felt no real midgame pressure (except for a disease that almost got out of control). I set my own goals, and reached them well enough without interference from the AI. Perhaps 0.895's expansionism will impact that...
- I'm assuming the talent/culture tree is being reworked. There is little there that excites me (compare to http://civilizationbeyondearth.gamepedia.com/Virtues).
I believe so. If not, I'd +1 that mantis
My first game (Zenith) aborted around turn 100 from a crash-to-desktop before I'd enabled autosave. Sadface, but no major loss.
My second game was Skylaxian. I went heavy into research, diplomacy and linguistics. Could speak to everyone, got some nice trade deals. Had a disease problem that threatened to swamp me midgame (25% of the city infected with Ooze, and it was getting worse), but then I discovered the toxin screening option, and got back on top. From here I had no real pressures; my city was fine, occupying about 7 districts (just around the lander, no new centres), ~6k population, minor pollution & crime but easily handled. With no clear direction, I figured I'd have to pick one of my own.
So I beat up on the Burlusts just to try out combat - that felt a bit weird. Initially I was in a war with them via an international incident I joined, and I couldn't get near them. Everything I built in an adjacent sector (helipads, guard posts, even a military centre) got swamped and destroyed. So I left it a while, and waited until the incident was over. Then I filled every hex in the sector with barracks and helipads, and my opening turn of the "war" took out all miltary Burlust buildings except the core (which took me another 50 turns to kill). They probably should have surrendered (do Burlusts ever do that? Is it mantis-worthy? I have a savefile). Seems like there's still a massive first-mover advantage, and the AI doesn't currently seem to respond to massive military buildup in adjacent sectors.
Then I subjugated the Andors, to see if I could. Using my newfound combat knowledge, they surrendered very quickly
. Finally I pooled my resources, bought the space tech from the Spire, and achieved a space victory (wildlife is no match for lasers...).
All in all, good fun. Going to try a different race with the new expansionist AI now...
