In our E3 2015 interview with Firaxis on Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth we chatted with lead producer Andrew Frederiksen about the Rising Tide expansion which ‘addresses fan feedback’.
Specifically it’s ‘opening up the whole world’ in Beyond Earth, which the team acknowledge ”didn’t go far enough” in its quest to conquer this alien planet. Rising Tide is not just about water gameplay.
The expansion is more about ”doubling down” on the stakes in Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth and that means being always involved in diplomacy, and not just when we feel like it. Firaxis want to show fans that ”this is still Civ, it’s just a new kind of Civ.”
Diplomacy has been overhauled with Rising Tide and is founded on ‘new things’ like the traits system, of which we can have up to four each. They help ‘make up our Civ’ and we each have a unique unalterable one. This affects the AI and will have significant impact on their behaviour. These can even be ‘rented out’ to other factions for a fee per turn.
Leaders have ”a lot more dialogue” to beef up their flavour, and give each Civilization a better identity. The studio wanted to flesh them out and not just have them about their bonuses and behaviour. Affinities will still have their affect but not so much. Hybrid affinities are also in response to how the community has been using them.
Our new fancy water cities are movable, reveals Fredrickson, which happens to be one of his new favourite things about Rising Tide. It understandably ‘takes some time’ to move but can be used as a forward base of sorts for the really cunning.
We’re warned a lot of strategies are going to have go back to the drawing board thanks to the new expanded toolkit at our disposal, as well as our enemies.
Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide releases on PC this Fall.
Check out our video interview where Game Watcher’s Alex hurls questions that demand answers from lead producer Andrew Frederiksen.
