What is Civilization: Beyond Earth Rising Tide? Why does it have so much punctuation in the title? Does it offer new gameplay possibilities and challenges for players? Let's ask this new trailer.
What's that? "Rising Tide offers news gameplay possibilities and challenges for players." I guess that answers that then. As for what it is, it's a water-focused expansion that brings rejigged diplomacy options, new factions and all the other new and tweaked stuff that you'd expect from a modern Civ expansion.
Oh, and the punctuation thing? That's just because it's a PC expansion. They do that sometimes.
Firaxis has just announced the first expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth, a chunky package that promises to deepen diplomacy, add new playable factions and let you conquer the high seas with new units. We caught up with Beyond Earth's two lead designers to find out more.
PC Gamer: Can you give me an overview of what's going to be in the expansion?
Will Miller, Co-Lead Designer: There are several highlights in this expansion, and one of them as you mentioned is aquatic gameplay, we're really excited about that. The second is an overhauled diplomacy system. This is a brand new take on diplomacy for a Civ game. Hybrid affinities is another big one. So we had three affinity tracks in the first game and a lot of players who tried to multiclass—going down two tracks instead of just one—found themselves not able to access some of the cool units late game. So we've added three new affinities to sit between the big ones, to fill out those gaps. They come with unique units, and unique benefits that the player can get, along with a lot of other tweaks and balance changes and some smaller additions to things like the quest system are all going in, to expand in a significant way the original gameplay.
David McDonough, Co-Lead Designer: Not to forget, there are also four new playable factions.
WM: Oh yeah.
PC Gamer: Can you talk about the new playable factions one-by-one?
DM: Yeah, we're really excited about these. We built on the story of the original Beyond Earth, and introduced these four newcomers who are late to the seeding process. They come from a different angle that's a lot more extreme and intense, so we like to say these four guys will raise the stakes for the original eight. In no particular order, there's Al Falah, a Middle East-themed faction [2K cuts in]...and then there's three others I'll tell you about later. Al Falah are the people who didn't leave. They reclaimed their homeland and made it into space, on a much different and much more treacherous path than the other seeding people. And when they arrived on the planet, they travelled through space not asleep, so it's a generation shift—the people who land on the planet are not the people who left Earth. So there are people who have never seen Earth, maybe never seen a planet. So when they land, they have a lot of different perspectives, different strengths and weaknesses from colonists from the original eight. They're an interesting leftfield expansion faction.
PC Gamer: How does aquatic gameplay affect the fundamentals of Civ, like building your civilization or exploring the map?
DM: You've described the big things that players do with their cities and their territory—and the water in Civ has always been an alternative play space, you play primarily on land and the water is there for a different kind of interaction. We wanted to preserve that and extend the richness of Civ's power base to the water so that your territory, your play space, is the whole planet. There's no part of the planet that's off limits to you. You can play an entirely aquatic Civ or entirely on land and have equal opportunities for power. So a lot of things you would expect from a city and territory are there: there's naval units, naval aliens, a full range of things to explore, fight and settle at sea. But there's a number of twists to the way that they're done, so you can expect the same kind of opportunities you have on land at sea but the challenges you face may be totally different. Playing successfully in aquatic cities and territory may be a whole new strategic proposition. Certainly playing as a hybrid will be a brand new way to play. The thing we're most excited about with aquatic gameplay is that, just by having it at all, and the particular choices that we've made, it totally changes the way all cities are played, land and water alike. It's a completely new way to approach settlement power and competition, and the grandest part of the strategy of Civilization, settling and building up.
PC Gamer: So this expansion brings new unit types as well?
DM: Certainly does. There's a couple of new Naval units—there's a naval melee unit, we brought submarines back so you can have your invisible hunter killers again. And then a variety of other changes to the existing unit catalogue to be more aquatic or to introduce more hovering units so you have armies that are amphibious so they can travel back and forth just fine. And there's a great deal more aliens. There's all kinds of new aquatic aliens, but their behaviour is totally different: the way they spawn, the way they live at sea, is totally different. You have new opportunities for interaction with them as well.
PC Gamer: How will hybrid affinities affect the way a typical game of Beyond Earth plays out?
WM: Well the base game tries to funnel you down a single affinity. The mechanics are designed to make that the cheapest way to play, and the victory conditions are aligned with those three affinities. One of the things we've wanted to do is support players who want to broaden their choices. They want to play a split or perhaps all three, and we've filled in the unit catalogue with new units, new unique units that support that. And at the highest end of our upgrade tree, we've introduced hybrid versions, so things like the ranged marine: these basic unit types now have additional options for upgrading and hybridising your approach to affinity. And we've rebalanced the affinity themed victory conditions to make them achievable by hybrid players. So this is really cool: each of those affinities definitely caters to a particular playstyle in the tactical part of the game. Introducing hybrid units is to help those tactics change and be augmented and supported.
PC Gamer: What challenges did this bring to balancing the existing affinities?
WM: Any time you add that many units to the game, it's going to be a challenge to balance it. As affinities work in the base game, they work to specific play styles—so we can target these units' abilities to augment those play styles. We do a lot of internal testing and testing with our beta group to help us do that, but it's certainly a challenge when you add that much stuff to the catalogue.
PC Gamer: How does the revamped diplomacy system work vs the existing system?
WM: We're trying not to get into too many details, but I can give you a philosophical overview. One of our takeaways from the original release of Beyond Earth is that without the historical characters, the diplomacy system from Civ V doesn't really carry over to a science fiction setting. Because the player doesn't have that built-in knowledge of the stories behind those characters. Playing Civ V, you know Gandhi is going to behave a certain way, because you are familiar with those characters from history. We don't really have that in our fiction and in our audience. So we have to build a system that supports the player in making decisions about what they're doing in a diplomatic landscape. And we wanted to take that and make it more of a game, to bring more of its mechanics out in front of the player, to give it a bit of progression, and to make the decision making of the AI and the player into a game. We're, I guess, inspired by boardgames here. So games like Tales of the Arabian Knights, where your character in that game is a combination of attributes that you pick up along the way. That was an inspiration for this. So the diplomacy system does a very good job of giving the player the ability to wheel and deal on the diplomatic landscape, to understand the AI's personality better, and to understand when that personality changes—as well as crafting their own personalities across the course of the game to reinforce their play style. That's a high level overview, and I'm excited to get into the details, but I don't think we can go much more than.
PC Gamer: With Civ, it feels like you treat expansions differently to other series. It's almost like the base game is a platform and you build on top of that—is that fair to say?
WM: I'd say it's a fair assessment for how Civ normally works for expansions, yeah. I'd say our expansion sits somewhere between a traditional Civ expansion and the XCOM expansion. Think about the XCOM expansion and how that really changed the gameplay at a fundamental level—that's kind of what we're going for. Previous Civ expansions have done that, but the diplomacy system is a wholesale replacement of that system... Playing this game is going to be very different to playing the base game. It's deep systemic changes.
DM: When Enemy Within came out, some critics described it as a Firaxis-style expansion, an expansion that changes everything about the way the game plays. I really liked that, and I think the expansion we're making now really earns that.
Firaxis has just unveiled Civilization: Beyond Earth's first expansion. It's called Rising Tide, and it will do pretty much what you might expect from that title. As with Civilization V's expansions, Rising Tide will add new systems on top of the existing game—in this instance, allowing you to colonise and mine the seas of the game's alien world.
In addition, Rising Tide will expand the role of diplomacy, and let players unlock new hybrid Affinity units and upgrades. You can see the list of key features below, via 2K's press release:
Building floating settlements and accessing natural resources hidden beneath the seas of the alien planet, while alien beasts with unique abilities inhabit the water and challenge players in distinctive ways
Shaping the diplomatic landscape by upgrading traits, changing diplomatic relationships, and leveraging the benefits of your allies, all with political capital
Unlocking a dynamic set of Diplomatic Traits while activating different combinations in response to the changing world
Playing as one of four new factions, including the Al Falah, a group of nomad explorers descended from wealthy and resilient Middle Eastern states
Investing in multiple Affinities to unlock hybrid Affinity units and upgrades for the first time;
Collecting and combining alien relics via a new Artifact System that unlocks powerful benefits
Exploring one of two new biomes, Primordial world, an untamed biome rife with volcanic activity and indicative of a chaotic landscape still forming in the new world
Civilization: Beyond Earth Rising Tide is due out in Autumn, and will cost 20.
It's Sid Meier's PC Gamer Show! In this special extended episode, the legendary strategy designer stops by to talk about the history of the Civilization series, what's up with his new game Starships, modding, the future of strategy in VR, and what it takes for a game to earn the "Sid Meier's" title.
Gosh, he sure is nice.
As usual, we answer your questions at the end of the episode. To ask us a question for next week's show, tweet @pcgamer with the hashtag #AskPCGamer.
Firaxis will roll out a new Civilization: Beyond Earth update soon, introducing connectivity with the studio's forthcoming Sid Meier's Starships. It makes sense as the games are set in the same universe, though few details on how the connectivity will work in practice have been provided. Once the patch has rolled out you'll be able to log-in to a my2K account from within Beyond Earth, granting you an exclusive Glacier planet map.
Sid Meier's Starships is a turn-based space strategy game set in the Beyond Earth universe, and is expected to release some time in the first half of 2015. You can see the game in action over here.
Meanwhile, the new update will also usher in new game balance changes, with Wonders the main target for revision. "One of the most consistent pieces of feedback the team received was that certain Wonders were built only rarely, and players reported that some felt like marginal upgrades over other resource buildings," the patch notes read. "The Beyond Earth team took a general cost pass on all the Wonders in the game, and changed the effects of most of them." Changes to Wonders will have a knock-on effect for other aspects of the game.
Other major changes include a new city population requirement for trade routes, with routes unlocking with certain population milestones. The full patch notes are here, and they're lengthy, so kick back and put some Tangerine Dream on.
Want to play some free games this weekend? Steam's latest Free Weekend promotion has a couple to choose from, and they couldn't be more different. One lets you colonise an alien world, another lets you spray liquid faeces at buildings and people.
I'll let you decide which sounds more appealing. No judgements.
I particularly enjoyed the latter two Saints Rows, which are enjoyably silly and perfect for a mindless weekend of laughs and carnage. If you are in the mood for something more considered, Beyond Earth is a perfectly good alternative. I'm not it's greatest fan—much preferring last year's Endless Legend—but our reviewer liked it a lot.
To download any of the games, head to their Steam page and click the "Play Game" button. You've got until Sunday to get your free time in, and each game is discounted until Monday if you like what you play.
The Civilization: Beyond Earth fall update is now live, addressing various technical problems including the infamous "144hz monitor issue"—the bizarre inability to run the game at resolutions greater than 1280x720 on monitors running at 144hz refresh rates—and making changes to units, the tech web, quest rewards, AI, UI, and more.
To be honest, there's nothing in the patch notes that really leaps out at me in a, "Oh, thanks goodness they fixed that" kind of way. "Revised trade route formula for city-to-city trade, with reduced yields," is one change, selected at random; "Miasmic Repulsor now unlocks on Alien Biology (was Ecology)" is another. The combat strength of Explorers has doubled, from 3 to 6, and the AI will now only pursue Domination once the game has gone into extended mode. Individually, none of this sounds all that important, but collectively it adds up to a pretty major overhaul.
"In addition to fixing these and other issues, Firaxis has also addressed a number of gameplay balance requests from the community—like optimizing trade route yields and doing away with one particular Covert Ops exploit," Community Manager David Hinkle wrote. "This is a substantial update, so please take a few moments to pore over the full patch notes below before you jump back into Beyond Earth."
The Civilization: Beyond Earth update should download and install automatically. If it doesn't, Hinkle suggested restarting Steam.
We like cheap PC components and accessories. But you know what we like even more? Expensive PC components and accessories that are on sale. We ve partnered with the bargainmeisters at TechBargains to bring you a weekly list of the best component, accessory, and software sales for PC gamers.
Some highlights this week: Both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Far Cry 4 are 25% off with the code found below. The classic Jet Set Radio is only $1.24 in today's deal on GreenManGaming.com. The EVGA GeForce GTX 780Ti is over $300 off and comes with your choice of Assassin's Creed Unity, Far Cry 4, or The Crew. The MSI Radeon R9 290X sheds $100 off its usual price and comes with four free games: Civilization: Beyond Earth plus your choice of three more from a list that includes Alien: Isolation, Star Citizen, Sniper Elite 3, Thief, Tomb Raider, and many more.
Games:
— Dragon Age: Inquisition is $45 on GreenManGaming with the code 1MZ9FW-H92JSD-2CT74F
— Far Cry 4 is $45 on GreenManGaming with the code 1MZ9FW-H92JSD-2CT74F
— Today only, Wing Commander Saga (8 games in a bundle) is only $9.52 on GOG.com.
— The MSI Radeon R9 290X Gaming video card is $299.99 on Newegg after a $30 rebate, but is also packed full of free games. It comes with a free copy of Civilization: Beyond Earth, plus your choice of three more games from a list that includes Alien: Isolation, Star Citizen, Sniper Elite 3, Thief, Tomb Raider, and many more.
— The Sapphire Dual-X 100373-2L Radeon R9 280 video card is $169.99 on Newegg after a $15 rebate, and also comes with your choice of three games from a list that includes Alien: Isolation, Star Citizen, Sniper Elite 3, Thief, Tomb Raider, and many more, just like above.
— The EVGA GeForce GTX 780Tivideo card is $489.99 on Newegg after a $30 rebate, and comes with your choice of one of the following three games: Assassin s Creed Unity, Far Cry 4, The Crew.
A note on affiliates: some of our stories, like this one, include affiliate links to online stores. These online stores share a small amount of revenue with us if you buy something through one of these links, which help support our work evaluating components and games.
"I'm sorry, I just got back from my Halloween party. How can I help you?"
Critical paths
Every Saturday, Richard Cobbett digs into the story and writing of games - some old, some new...
I never thought I'd miss Sister Miriam, but it only took until my second rival made planetfall in Beyond Earth to start remembering her fondly. If you never played Alpha Centauri... well, firstly, please rectify this situation at once... she's the faction leader everyone loved to hate, without the inherent awkwardness of classic Civilisation jokes about Gandhi getting the Bomb and so on. She heads up the religious faction in the game, the Believers, though that's honestly not why she's hated. It's that she's very strong in the early game, that her faction tends to be aggressive and problematic, that the only reason she'll ever have your back is to stab it, and last but not least, because she has a really punchable face. Her scowl says it all; eyes narrow, contemptuous, looking you in the eye only because she wants you to know the extent of her scorn.
How I wish Beyond Earth had half the personality of that one simple bitmap.
Wasted Halloween opportunity of the year - have Zombie Miriam make planetfall in BE
In a way, I feel bad about making the comparison, because Beyond Earth's team has always been clear that they were making Civ In Space rather than Alpha Centauri 2. It was also going to be nigh-impossible to recapture that lightning in a bottle without simply rehashing what came before. As is often the case, a modern game picking up where an older one left off doesn't simply have to compete with the original, but potentially decades of carefully pruned and polished memories. In Alpha Centauri's case for instance, it's easy to forget that the dialogue was largely done in Mad Lib style - endless conversations along the lines of "Greetings from the [WHO HECK US], honored [PERSON], I hope you are [APPROPRIATE THING TO SAY]!" Any memories of real diplomatic cut-and-thrust are entirely invented or very rose-tinted.
But damn, if it didn't do a great job at creating the illusion.
Alpha Centauri is hands down my favourite 4X game of all time, and it's almost entirely down to its characters and story. The idea to split humanity on ideological rather than national boundaries was a great one, but it's what happened next that marks AC's true genius - the human faces put onto them to make them more than simply a philosophy, mixed with a game that made you feel you were seeing the expression of it. Regardless of the numbers and what specific tactics the AI was using, fighting the Hive felt different to fighting the Gaians; the accumulated weight of the Morganite philosophies and their financial empire making allying with them a very different matter to, say, Chairman Yang, who would turtle up in his bases. It was a personal experience, helped by a thousand tiny little touches like the insults the faction leaders would sling at each other ("Lady Deidre dancing naked through the trees" and so on) that made it feel like they were engaged in the struggle instead of simply controlling their part, and the beautifully written slivers of philosophy that sat effortlessly next to words taken from some of the greatest minds in history.
"Rude? No, no! Oh God, You're Here Too is... a compliment here! Yes!"
Beyond Earth, its defenders say, goes to similar lengths. If you look in the Civpedia, you can find reams of background information on the difference between Franco-Iberia and Brazilia, information on the techs and wonders, where CEO Suzanne Fielding went to school, all of that. And that's true, in much the same way that the plans for the bypass due to knock down Arthur Dent's house were technically on display for him to see. The difference is that these never really feel part of the game. Even after several games, I don't feel any innate sense of how the Slavic Federation rolls vs. the Pan-Asian Co-operative or whatever, nor that the developers even care that much beyond what was needed for balancing. By that, I'm not calling laziness, but rather pointing to the fact that the sweep of the game is about everyone losing interest in all that stuff anyway in favour of the Harmony, Purity and Supremacy affinities that they all inevitably end up subscribing to.
A simpler way to put it is that Alpha Centauri has story, Beyond Earth has lore. The two are often confused, but serve very different purposes. Lore is background. Lore is additional information. All too often, lore is an excuse, seen in many a bullshit argument like "But elves are nymphomaniac nudists in the lore!" Story is a core part of the experience, and in Alpha Centauri more than any other 4X game ever made. There's the obvious stuff with the faction leaders and big text infodumps at regular intervals, but there's also a lot of other important stuff going on that's less front-of-house - not least the constant reinforcement of just how awful everything on the planet actually is. What starts as a mission of hope breaks up before it's even really begun, and it's not long after that that you're nerve-stapling citizens and fighting wars where the losing immortal is thrown screaming into a pain booth. Alpha Centauri's Planet is a terrible, terrible place where the best of intentions go to die.
But here's the thing. It's your terrible, terrible place. Chances are that at least initially you'll take a faction that you feel comfortable with, that chimes at least somewhat with your moral compass or beliefs and set out to make Planet a better place (This is admittedly much less the case in the gimmicker add-on Alien Crossfire). By the time you realise just how bad things really are, it's too late. Dipping into the lore, it's even worse than it may seem - at one point Lady Deidre of the Gaians manages to impress another faction by greeting them without her protective mask on, the mindworms cripple their victims with fear and give them one of the most horrible deaths this side of the Sarlaac pit, and the entire plot is rooted in extinction. But all of that is just trimming on a game that sells the effect with just what we see and what's implied.
Aw, the University wants to wage war. Adorable.
The core difference between the two games though is that Beyond Earth is a game about humanity settling a new world, while Alpha Centauri was about humans doing so. That's a bigger difference than it might initially seem, though one that shows itself again and again in execution details - in quests that honestly believe that a boost to production is the most important part of your choice, or in your first glimpse of your rival factions coming in the form of stock dialogue that sounds like it was written by a robot. "I'm sorry, but we haven't known one another for long enough for me to feel comfortable doing so. Perhaps we can revisit this subject in the future." Sigh. Boring!
This is all very Civilisation in style, of course. But in Civilisation, you don't go in cold. There are expectations of the characters and nations, fair or otherwise, there's... well... there's history. In Beyond Earth, the artifice is gone. These people are simply statistics with a face, every stone left unturned to make them more. It comes from a design school that has stripped away personality with pretty much every sequel, from the first Civilisation where you got to see your cities and build a throne room, to the current one which is far more concerned with warfare and the numbers of production. Alpha Centauri meanwhile picked up where its creator Brian Reynolds left off with Colonisation, where the King was an active player and your direct relationship with home was a fundamental part of the experience - from initial settlement to finally declaring independence and having to hold the land that you'd taken.
Of course, the real way to win the game was to lose. Traitor.
For me though, the wider scope doesn't lead to a more interesting or even more freeform game. Technically, sure, you can argue it does. The Harmony/Supremacy/Purity split is a decent attempt at covering both philosophy and strategic considerations, and for the game, it makes sense. Clarity is important. On a narrative level though, I can never fight the feeling that I'm less forging a path for my society as quietly signing it up to a space-cult. If your vision of the future doesn't conform to one of them, complete with what goes with it, you're left picking on either purely pragmatic reasons, killing the philosophy, or forced into the least personally objectionable. Alpha Centauri meanwhile only provided one real path (multiple victories, yes, but that's not the same thing), but a better illusion. It's like dealing with a magician holding a pack of cards. You're always going to get the Ace of Spades, or close enough. What matters is that you think you chose it.
What do you mean 'no map'? We're from SPACE! Was nobody looking out a window?
I'm certainly not saying Beyond Earth is a bad game here, just not what I was hoping for. It's a solid strategy game about conquering a new world. It's just not the story of the next big jump for humanity, not really, and while most of the other bits that people don't like at the moment can be bulked up or patched with expansions it seems unlikely that any money or attention will go on that side of things, or into future revisions of the concept. It's not that only Brian Reynolds could create something like Alpha Centauri, but that he increasingly feels like the only person who's been high up on the Civ chain of command who appreciates what stepping away from the numbers can do - AC being less a designer's new take on Civilisation as a Civilisation designer exploring philosophy through its lens. Next time, it would be good to see the skill and processing that goes into the mechanical side take a few cues from that, and show us just how much more a world can be than the sum of its strategies.
Civilization: Beyond Earth has only been out for a week, but there are already some amazing mods on the game s Steam Workshop page. As of writing this, there are about 100 mods to choose from, some of which only make small changes and some that aim to do a whole lot more. We went through all the mods currently available and sorted out which ones are already impressive and which ones have the potential to be truly great as they are developed further.
From a simple recoloring to a complete rebalancing, here is our list of the best Civilization: Beyond Earth mods broken down into two categories: mods to get right now and mods to keep your eye on for later. We'll update this list in the future.
Everyone who's played Beyond Earth knows that overwhelming feeling the first time you open the tech web and see its branching paths loom over you. Glidergun s Colorful Tech Web mod looks to ease that pain in the simplest way possible. The mod assigns a different color to each kind of symbol in the tech web, letting you see at a glance if a tech will unlock new units, buildings, wonders, satellites, or what have you. It also adds an icon to units and buildings that will still be locked behind a minimum affinity level after being researched. There are a few other mods that try to organize the tech web, but their color coding systems are overly complex and cause as much confusion as they alleviate.
A few sponsor mods have added custom colonist, cargo, and spaceship choices, but no other mod adds so many options at once. EnhancedLoadout nearly doubles your options at the start of a game. It currently has few balance issues here and there, like an immediate free affinity level, but creator Kleinzach has been patching and updating it regularly. This is a great mod to install and forget about, adding variety to the start of every new game without imposing itself any further.
One thing you might notice is that wonders, being easier to pick and choose between, don t have the oomph they used to. The Empowered Wonders mod aims to change that, giving every wonder a significant boost in power. Now those planet exclusive buildings are strong enough that choosing which ones to pursue can be an influential part of your strategy. This mod might not be for everybody, but it is a well executed response to a common criticism of Beyond Earth without feeling heavy handed.
Tiny tweaks: Simple Clock and Previous Route In Red
These two mods are incredibly small but currently have no compatibility issues with other mods, so there is absolutely no reason to leave them out of your game if you like them. Simple Clock just adds the real world time to the center of the top UI bar. If you are like me and suffer from one more turn syndrome, then it can be a much needed reminder that reality isn t slowing down. Previous Route in Red highlights the Previous Route text when a trade route completes, maybe not a change needed for some people but one that is unobtrusive and helps speed up your play if you don't plan on switching trade routes often.
Info Addict
Original by robk, updated for Beyond Earth by Unknownone |
Steam Workshop page
A classic mod for Civilization V updated for the newest game in the series. Info Addict adds a bunch of time-based infographics showing Civ details like score, military power, energy, affinity level, and much more. A utility tool, Info Addict is more for people curious about the behind-the-scenes of their civ game than those looking to make gameplay changes.
All units in Beyond Earth have the same model and textures regardless of your sponsor, meaning a large amount of the base units have red stripes even if your civ isn't red. Modder SaintDaveUK has set out to correct that, dynamically recoloring the red spots to match the primary color of the sponsor you ve chosen. The mod already works well, but unfortunately only changes four units right now. This will be a great graphics mod when it reaches completion, but currently doesn t feature enough to make it a must have.
Beyond Balance is a monumental, community-driven undertaking that aims to rework the balance of the entire game and make sure no single strategy is dominant over the rest. What seems like an almost insurmountable task is already well under way, as BeBa has taken on explorer weakness, trade routes being overpowered, slow affinity leveling, and many other commonly raised concerns with the base game. Unfortunately, BeBa still has a long way to go and might be erratic until more unified and agreed upon balance decisions are established. It may one day turn into an essential mod for the Beyond Earth experience, but currently comes with a few issues of its own.
Finally, an honorable mention to all the new sponsor mods, which you can
check out here. These are great for adding flavor, but now that choosing a specific sponsor means so much less than choosing a Civ in Civilization V—specifically the lack of unique units and buildings—most of these mods are light on content or change. A lot of them are still very cool and work well, with some modders even going as far as to add a colonist, cargo, and spaceship option themed with their added sponsor. However, until I see a breakout, large scale change-making sponsor mod, what might be considered the best new sponsor is up to personal preference.
