Following Firaxis' surprise announcement of Civilization: Beyond Earth just last month, and ahead of a wider unveiling at E3 next month, select members of the press were recently able to get an early look at a pre-alpha build of the game. While it was hard to get a feel for the game's deeper structure in the short early demo (which only included 50 in-game turns), we were still able to get a general idea of the game's interstellar twist on some extremely familiar Civ gameplay.

Right off, the most noticeable difference between Beyond Earth and earlier Civ games was the bug-like aliens swarming around our base city from the get go. The Firaxis representatives urged us not to go full aggro in attacking these aliens from the start, assuring us that they would generally ignore us if we ignored them. Sure enough, in between turns these aliens would mill about threateningly close to my city and units, but they didn't actually attack me until I started to attack them (after I had built up my defenses a bit). This makes this alien "faction" pretty different from the Barbarians in other Civ games, who are pretty much always good targets for a beatdown.

The other big change from the standard Civ gameplay experience came in the new quests that popped up every few turns. Some of these were relatively direct affairs—when a research pod crashes near your city, it only makes sense that you should send an explorer to check it out, for instance. The more interesting quests centered on actual decisions about the direction you wanted your civilization to grow. Early on, I had to decide between two labs that wanted to set up just outside my borders; one focused on "vertically integrated science," the other focused on looking to do "cutting-edge biomechanical research for human-machine interface development."

Later on, I had to decide between introducing a theoretical sciences think tank or a geological mapping enterprise into my city limits, and another choice involved whether a new trade depot would be focused on improving internal production or actually assisting more in trade with nearby civilizations. In each case, both choices brought their own distinct benefits, but they pointed in different developmental directions down different technological branches. "Obviously in a game like Civ, people create the story as they go, through the decisions they make," Firaxis' Pete Murray said during the demo. "These quests provide additional points of interaction and a little bit of additional plot."

Which brings up another major change in Beyond Earth: the replacement of the generally linear "tech tree" with a more connected "tech web." Starting from a central point, this web extends out in several spokes representing everything from communications and power generation to exo-biology and engineering ("Instruct the children not to dream of toys and sweets. Instruct them to dream of infrastructure," says a hilariously self-serious voice when I decide to research the last of these).

Completing research on any one spoke unlocks the ability to research a wider range of spokes one rung further out on the web, which encircles the central starting point like rings on a target. This allows for multiple paths to all of the late game tech decisions; you no longer have to lock yourself into one specific path to get to a specific tech end point that you want. This reflects the fact that "we don't know exactly where humanity’s technological progress will proceed," as Murray put it. Different tech also provides points toward the different "affinities" that eventually allow for very different win conditions in the late game, as Firaxis' Will Miller discussed with Ars last month.























Alongside the tech web is a system of bonus-granting "virtues" in four parallel tracks: might, prosperity, knowledge, and industry. Investing your virtue points deeply into any one of these tracks allows for massive bonuses late in the game. For those that want to be a little more well-rounded, there are also more generalized breadth bonuses given to players that spread out their virtues along all four paths.

Other than these major changes, the early rounds of my first Beyond Earth game played out pretty much like any other Civilization game, save for the obviously alien surroundings. As my initial explorers ventured out to find the borders of this new alien homeworld, I developed some soldiers, cavalry, mining quarries, and trade routes as my city slowly grew out from its limited borders. As I did so, I had to avoid glowing green miasma that damaged my units if they lingered too long to search out resources like the hovering purple floatstone.

The other civilization leaders I ran into didn't seem that willing to form trade partnerships or cooperatives after just meeting me, but neither did they seem eager to declare outright war, sufficing instead to attack the aliens surrounding their borders by lobbing long-range rockets from their hub cities. I was just getting ready to mount my own attack on one of the weaker of these neighboring cultures, using units that had all the "veterancy" advantages of slaughtering some weakling aliens, when my 50-turn demo ran out of time.

In a quick, hands-off demonstration, though, the developers showed off some of the later game content. This included the development of a spy agency that could send covert agents to sap a nearby civilization's energy or even set up an attractor beacon to bring in city-destroying siege worms. Players could also eventually launch satellites into an orbital layer above the planet and have those orbiting machines provide tactical health and combat bonuses in an area-of-effect footprint on the ground.

It's impossible to make any kind of determination on Beyond Earth's lasting appeal based on this short, early demo, which had placeholder text for a fair number of basic menu and dialogue options. Even so, this quick look was enough to whet my appetite for a game that seems to have just enough twists on the established Civilization formula to avoid feeling overly familiar.