The Mac version of “Civilization: Beyond Earth” was released recently, and it wasn’t just a simple port of the game – it actually improved the gameplay significantly, fixing various bugs and readjusting the balance to make the playing field more level for everyone. And, as was expected, these changes won’t be exclusive to the Mac version, and they will be released in a patch for the game on other platforms as well.
In fact, it won’t even be the only patch released for the new “Civilization” in the coming weeks – according to a post on the developer’s blog, there are currently two major patches being worked on, and one of them is scheduled for release very soon. Those who’re playing on a Mac should already have access to the new features, while others will have to wait a little longer. Linux users don’t even have a native version of the game, but according to the development team, once it’s released, it will have the patch already integrated into it.
And that, apparently, isn’t too far away either – the Linux version of the game has apparently already been finished on the studio’s end, and now has to go through approval procedures before it can be released. This means that the game might come out on Linux as early as next week!
The changes players can expect to see with the new patch are spread across different aspects of the game’s gameplay, but are mostly focused on fixing outstanding balance issues, as well as various annoying bugs. In terms of balance, Health has been readjusted significantly. The mechanic is still being tweaked heavily, and it was originally intended to serve as a limiting factor against overly rapid progress – however, the way it was implemented meant that it was strategically more viable to simply ignore the statistic altogether, and focus on other aspects of an empire’s development.
The new update changes that significantly, and those who allow their bases to go for too long with a low Health value are now going to face some harsh consequences. According to developers, there will be enough incentive to maintain an empire’s health at sufficiently high levels now, which should have some strong implications on the gameplay as a whole.
Meanwhile, various annoying bugs have now been resolved, and the game is slowly but steadily moving toward a more polished state. It’s pretty normal for a “Civilization” game to require a few updates before it realizes its true potential, and that’s the way it worked with the previous games in the series. It’s likely that, once “Civilization: Beyond Earth” is updated a few more times, it will be closer to what the developers were intending.