First, we have to look at the setting, taking place after our planets resources have gone dry, that is after a match of Civ 5, and leaders for countries and big corporations journey to seek out new planets to start over.
There are several different planets to land on, and I have to give extra nerd credits that the planets follow the naming convention for star name and discovery order.
Tech Tree
One of the first things you will discover that have changed after landing on the planet will be the tech tree, of tech web which is now divided into main categories, branches, and specializations, leafs. As you landed in a space ship, there's no reason to researching basic technologies such as pottery or irrigation. You can now specialize what you want to focus on. You still have to take some techs to get to the one that you'll want, but you'll only have to take branches, which are cheaper. There has been some concern that you can slingshot your way to some powerful techs that will quickly give you an advantage. But having tested and discussed this, I don't think it's any more powerful than it was before in Civ.There are two things about this new tech web that bothers me, first is that it feels hard to get a quick overview, and if you zoom out, you loose the advisory suggestions. You'll also want to take Pioneering as your first tech about every time, by the time you have the tech you should want to create a second and a third outpost. Pottery or not, this is an auto pick for me, which makes it even less of a choice than Civ 5.
Quests
The next thing you will see that differs is that you now have quests, no need to find a city state to tell you what to do, this game will do this from start and will reward you for it. One of the first things will either be to explore an artifact if you find one, or to settle a new outpost, which is one of the reasons you'll want that technology. The quests makes the game feel more that you get requests from the nation or corporation and will be a driving force for you to progress when you don't know what to focus on. The quests are different from the one that the city states give you in that way that they are not time based, no one will compete for them other than you and they will bring you a more permanent reward rather than an ally. The only downside here is that they can sometimes give you a quest to build some sort of building, which you'll have no idea whether or not you can actually build yet. I find this really strange, especially when other quests that require technologies will tell you to research that tech as a first step, irritating when it so easily could been better. Hope they'll patch this soon.
Social Policies
There are fewer social policy, or virtues as they are called, specializations in beyond earth, actually only four. But each one is much larger and is divided in three tiers. Each tier, regardless of what tree will give you milestone bonuses, such as free technologies or extra production output. Each tree will also give you milestone bonuses for putting points in that tree. So regardless if you have a broad set of virtues or a deepen specialization you will still be rewarded. This is much better compared to the old system in Civ 5, I feel that there are many different ways to match my specific play style that game session and it will take many hours of gaming to explore all the combinations. I also feel so much more rewarded due to the milestone bonuses than in Civ 5 where you get an adoption bonus and a completion bonus.Affinities
Affinities function as ideologies, they will progress your civilization in a specific direction, giving you passive upgrades and even upgrading your troops. There are three different affinities in Beyond Earth. Harmony is for those who want to live happily and coexist with the aliens that wander the planet, they feel very much anti war but of course have unit upgrades as well, kinda like a militaristic version of Greenpeace which can even include domesticated aliens. Purity is for those who doesn't like aliens or their planet and rather terra form it than adapt to it. Supremacy put their trust in technology and augmentation of them self, the middle path. You get points in each three of these affinities by researching and doing quests, and even though you'll want to specialize in one to get your troops upgraded, you also want to broaden a bit to get more bonuses. This system feel new, innovating and fun to explore and ties in to many other parts of the game. Some of the later units will be very strong and require that you have points in a specific affinity, which can make you somewhat focused on unit progression from time to time, especially when in war...Spies
This is my favorite part of the game, spies are such a fun element now, where I can steal energy, technologies or even do a coup d' etat to take control of a whole city, all without having to brake the trade agreements! In Civ 5 you always had your spies in city states to rig elections, to get allies and not upsetting other civilizations. Now spies have a real impact on the game, and making them super interesting, there is even a civilization that specialize in spies, and therefor is my favorite for the moment. Spies are great in this game and broadens the ways of warfare.
Bottom line
Beyond Earth is a really fun 4X game, I recommend that you'll play it, it it's not perfect, but it's fer better than Civ 5 was before Gods and Kings. One thing that's worth mentioning is that the equivalent units of caravans are much stronger when moving internally and can ship production and food from start, it does however feel sometimes that you spend a lot time micro managing your transports more than you should. I'm hoping to see a Mass Effect mod to this game, or why not a nerdy Twilight Imperium mod?
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