After about 40 hours of gameplay, I have finally decided to write a review. This game plays just like any Civ patform, but it reminds me of how much fun I had playing Alpha Centauri (but this version is FAR more complex). I am absolutely frustrated with the Tech Tree view (non-scalable) IE you cannot get a “big picture” of the entire tree. Also, if you want to save yourself some frustration in gameplay, take your time and study the factions and become familiar with the units, resources, and technologies. All of the other variables (diplomacy, battle mode etc) will be similar to previous Civ engines. I do have to admit, this game has crashed on me several times LATE in the game! I modified my autosave to save after each turn (and I manually save after a significant event). I would have rated this game 4 stars if it wouldn’t crash so often.

I purchased this game because I am a player of the original DOS based version called Alpha Centauri. I wasn’t disappointed. I also purchased the Rising Tide and map set adding to this game, they definitely make it better. The only thing I miss about the old Alpha Centauri game is the cool video clips, artwork and animations when completing technology research. In this game a quote appears and is spoken when you achieve new tech. For some reason, this game reminds me of the holographic chess game played by R2D2 and Chewbacca in the original Star Wars movie, the athestic is very similar which is cool. A couple of years later I’m still playing this game wheen I have the time for it. I always have one or two games saved that I can go back to at my convenience.There is a bug I’ve recently encountered: late in the game when I try launching a Phasal Transporter over an annexed city the game crashes (tried it several times.) Maybe once the city is out of the civil unrest phase I will then be able to place the phasal transporter over it.Come out with an upgrade to this game!

I absolutely love this game. The game does have a steep learning curve I agree. But that’s why l liked it. It was challenging to figure out the “New Frontier”.. I just ended up modifying my stradegy. I admit before the last expansion, which is a must, it kinda sucked. Dark and depressing, but the expansion lightened everything up with variety. Also, Who wants to play the same game remade year after year with new editions? I think the complaints are from people who didn’t really “get it” which is cool. I especially loved this game after “Rising Tide” expansion. Way cooler after that. I’ve been playing civ games since they came out and enjoyed the variation. If you are a peacful person then turn off the Domination victory. It chills everyone out. If you like it rough then turn every other victory off but Domination haha! You can call me a moron all ya want but I’ve already enjoyed the exsistance of this game and plan on it for years to come.

I know im just echoing other reviews, but this game is needlessly complicated & involves a massive learning curve before you can really start to enjoy it. I really wanted to love it, and I honestly gave it a shot thinking that I’d get the hang of it, but there is just no way this holds up to a great game like Civ5. While there are a few really clever ideas, It is not intuitive like a normal Civ game becuase it involves building a world based on speculative technology as opposed to the tried and true tech that we know and understand from history. I can see that a lot of work has gone into this, and it looks great, but I am ultimatly dissapointed & I regret the purchase. The true test came after 1 month of buying the game - when I felt the itch to play civ one day. I went to open Civ BE when I looked over at that lonely Civ5 icon in the corner of my screen. I finally decided to throw inthe towel on Civ BE and go back to Civ5. It was like a breath of fresh air - and I’ll never go back. I’ll never go back to the future. (who am I kidding… I’ll buy what ever they release lol)