5. Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth
And unlike the Civilization series, which features the familiar history of humanity, Beyond Earth is set on an alien planet, so things were sci-fi and wholly unfamiliar. Take the technology web, for instance. Unlike Civilization, which featured a technology tree with familiar technologies such as “the wheel”, Beyond Earth has future technologies like “genetic mapping”… so reading the game’s manual or online documentation is mandatory to enjoy the game.
And the gameplay mechanics are multi-layered and subtle like in all other Civilization games, with the player having to worry about economic factors, combat with the aliens and the new quest system and satellite deployment. Speaking of satellites, there was this new “orbital layer” that let you deploy military satellites for example, to support troops in combat.
So Beyond Earth sure was another good game from the masters of turn-based strategy, but a complex one for sure.