One of the perks of dumping points into diplomacy production is that when I became full allies with a nation, they also joined in on any wars I was involved in. The other leaders have a smart AI that makes them prone to backstabbing and behind the scenes skullduggery when they are intimidated through brute force. I could also intimidate my neighbors with the size of my army, but fear-based relationships don’t tend to work out in the long run. Foreign policies became more beneficial when I became closer friends with other colonies, giving me a fresh batch of incentives to play nice. It can be used to purchase and upgrade a large variety of traits for the sponsor, arrange foreign policies, and influence relationships. A currency called diplomatic capital has been introduced, and is collected by building certain structures, entering into international agreements, and doing things that the other leaders approve of. Many of the formerly land-based resources can now be found in water, like floatstone and expeditions, while new ones like eggs and shells are accessible through bed platforms.Īlmost as dramatic are the changes to the diplomacy system. New seafaring aliens and human vessels have been added, including submarines and bio-organic aircraft carriers. Cities can be founded in the water and even moved around like floating platforms. In 'Rising Tide', any game can be played almost start to finish on the high seas. They had a few basic resources here and there, and a couple of aquatic alien types, but that was it. It’s the expansion it needed to do first, both in terms of building on the game if you are in the mood for more, and showing that the series has the right course in mind.Oceans in the vanilla 'Beyond Earth' weren’t that great. It does however move it closer to what it should have been, with its understanding of some of the big problems helping to at least soften the blow of their lingering disappointment first time around. Rising Tide doesn’t turn Beyond Earth into a whole new game. It’s also now much easier to read them, and see when you’re clashing with someone or they’re likely to bail on a deal. Combined, all this opens up a much more interesting diplomatic metagame of mutual favours and reasons to side with specific leaders, without ruling out making deals with assorted devils if the need arises. You can have up to four in play, and swap them out, as well as spend DC to purchase units and buildings outright. Everyone also now has Traits that offer direct upgrades, and advantages that others can buy into using the new Diplomatic Capital resource-a stipend each turn in exchange for a boost. Each faction now has a Fear and Respect bar, the first based on your strength and the latter based on how your actions mesh with their philosophies, such as worrying about your peoples’ health. They’re still one of the least important fundamental changes Rising Tide makes. They’re fun to play with, both in their new mechanic of acquiring territory by moving around the ocean, and a rare example of something feeling like future tech instead of just modern military equipment with a chrome finish. It’s a more appropriate name than it might sound, and not really referring to its new aquatic cities. This is essentially Rising Tide’s approach across the board: big changes, important changes, but not necessarily dramatic changes that completely overhaul what came before. Why wouldn’t you combine technology and aliens? It’s just slightly morbid common sense. This opens up new options, but more than that, it feels endlessly more appropriate. Rising Tide allows for Hybrid Affinities, mixing and matching them. I personally loathed this system, not for the core mechanical idea, but because it philosophically felt less like charting a future for humanity than signing it up to one of three dogmatic space cults, complete with silly space robes. In the original Beyond Earth, these had your society developing down one of three paths-Purity, Supremacy or Harmony. For me, one of the changes I most appreciate is the reworking of Affinities.
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