The affinities of Civilization: Beyond Earth: Supremacy

[Geo]

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth takes place on an alien world and asks you to chart the course for the future of mankind. The guiding philosophy towards the evolution of humanity is shown though the new Affinity System. Each of the three Affinities, Purity, Harmony, and Supremacy, will have unique story and gameplay attributes. This Q&A led by Co-Lead Designers Will Miller and David McDonough and Art Lead Mike Bates sheds light on the Supremacy Affinity.

1. What are the defining aspects of this Affinity?

Supremacy represents the most dramatic change for humanity. This Affinity sees technology as the thing that saved humanity after The Great Mistake. Technology is what took man from Earth to the new planet, so they decide to double down in cybernetics. As the supremacy player sheds his or her humanity, they adopt a more austere robotic appearance. By the end of the game, vehicles and military units are sleek, efficient, and often unrecognizable from their human origin.



2. What geological, technological, or other benefits does this Affinity have over others?

Supremacy has an interesting tactical design. Unique Supremacy units, for the most part, work better in tightly formed groups than they do alone. This is because of the various adjacency buffs the units get from being near each other. This makes positioning your units more important, so you can maximize their battle potential. On the other hand, you can give up these perks for a “lone wolf” upgrade that buffs your unit when they are not next to anyone. You can live out your sci-fi alien-squashing fantasies by taking a lone wolf marine into the middle of an alien nest and open fire.



3. When designing the look for this Affinity, what served as inspiration?

Mike Bates - With Supremacy’s emphasis on advanced technology, we wanted to duplicate the sleek design you would expect to see on a cool piece of hardware. All the tech in Supremacy has been optimized and slimmed down. There’s no bulk or extraneous features. Think about cell phones 20 years ago, and then look at them now. You can compare the approach to Purity’s bulky look. Purity has less sophisticated technology and must use brute force to make up for it. Supremacy has the more elegant streamlined solution and can perform advanced battle tactics.



4. What would a person aligned with this Affinity say to someone aligned with the others?

“Resistance is futile.”

Be sure to check out our post about the design of the Affinity system, or compare these traits with those of the Purity Affinity. Come back next week when we will take a look at the third and final Affinity, Harmony.


http://www.civilization.com/us/news/the-affinities-of-civilization-beyond-earth-supremacy/

_______________________________________

I must say, the fourth 'cavalry' unit looks more like an air unit then anything else.

[Buster's Uncle]

[BlaneckW]

[Buster's Uncle]

What am I looking at?

[BlaneckW]

What am I looking at?

Maybe you ought to be asking that about the game without a backstory for it's concept art.

[Buster's Uncle]

Maybe so.

What am I looking at?  Is that BE art, or what?

[BlaneckW]

It's commonly referred to as concept art.

[Buster's Uncle]

BE concept art?  Work with me, here.

[Geo]

If the "Metzen 96" marker is anything to go by, its definitely no Civ:BE concept art.

[Lorizael]

Google says it's StarCraft concept art. As far as CivBE not having any backstory...

Additionally, each discovered technology comes complete with a special quote voiced by one of the game’s leaders and drawn from each leader’s personal book of philosophy...

From a GameCrate preview. Obviously we don't know how much story we're going to get, but this is exactly how SMAC doled out story.

[Buster's Uncle]

Lori is who I was stealing a lot of BE links from early on - Lori, link your BE folder in your sig.   It's cool.

[BlaneckW]

If they have backstory have them feed that to me instead of this bull[excrement].  I'm not buying it so that Firaxis can make money, I expect art, through and through - and art is primarily backstory.  Artistic vision from a company I care about - and I do not mean ships which I myself could draw - is the only reason I agreed to buy AOW3 before it goes on sale.  And Alpha Centauri is not the simple wargame of the AOW series.  Just because they are catering to idiots doesn't mean they have to skimp - it would be pennies for them to do this right.

[Nikolai]

They've said in interviews they have an extensive back story made out, but they have not (IIUC) decided how much of it will be made public and how much should be left to the player's imagination.

[BlaneckW]

I already have an imagination.  Art does not consist simply of imagination, art has an aim.  Everything in art as such is calculated and has a purpose, contributes to and takes part in that overall vision; the fluff called imagination develops around it.  Otherwise you have a child's work.  Art/literature defines a civilization, and it defines a company, too.  The graphics of the frost and fire giants were certainly not the first things released by Triumph Studios, they were a mid-way release after much talk on the gameplay, part of a larger story, that being the Age of Wonders series and it's revivification which is still going on now.  The first AOW had an enormous story. 

Am I supposed to care about generic ship design?  Give it a name and a place in the story.  Alpha Centauri's ship was the Unity, and it was not just any ship, it was worked on and contributed to by many a country around the world.  Besides that you can always let the player make their own [dang] ship - unless you are selling to a crowd that will literally buy for a display of graphics.  What I am being given is of an extremely low intellectual level.  Do they even have developer's logs?  Why should I pay any attention to them at all?  Even MOO3, building on the legacy of Master of Orion 2 (whose shoes they did not fill), had developer's logs - but not this company.  This company recycles philosophical gimmicks from AC - and has more to say about graphics than gameplay.  They don't seem to even want attention beyond the fact that it is merely expected from the mass that plays Civ 5 or buys into "spiritual successor" hype.

The release of a graphic may excite certain creatures but to feed it to me is simply an insult.  [butt]hats are being left to review beta play where there should be developer diaries.  I can get my sci-fi graphics somewhere else!  I will take lore or detailed descriptions of gameplay, but I will not fawn over screenshots!

[Green1]

Agreed, Blaneck.

While I do admit that artwork is a lot of work and is important, the common nerd wants gameplay. In fact, that is all they care about. "Will I have fun with this game" is the question and graphics are not a guarantee of fun. This game is probably going to cost 50 USD. Some folks may even have an additional cost to upgrade a computer to handle it. To some that may not be an issue, to others who may have limited income it is very much an issue. Is the 50 USD going to give them fun?

Graphics are like air. They only matter when it is not there or is non functional.