When comparing Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth vs OpenTTD, the Slant community recommends OpenTTD for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” OpenTTD is ranked 32nd while Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is ranked 114th. The most important reason people chose OpenTTD is:
You can't go wrong with a game that has no purchase cost. Even better the user can contribute to the project or even use the code for their own, as the game is open-source.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Includes systems that add story and philosophical elements to the game
Through quest decisions, the affinity system and the victory condition you choose to pursue, the game asks what type of future would you build for humanity. The choices you make will impact both the gameplay and the outcome of the colony.
Pro Engrossing early game
The game starts by preparing your voyage through space by selecting crew, cargo, etc.
Players have a lot of freedom in what to pick or whether to choose a certain strategy which will impact the rest of the game. How you respond to the environment during the early game may very well shape how the rest of your campaign will go.
Pro Great music
Pro You are not locked to a linear tech progression
Pro Unique take on science fiction
While most science fiction games present one or two ways humanity could develop in the future, Beyond Earth presents six.
Human-Alien Hybrids trying to adapt to their alien planet.
Humans in Battlesuits and LEV weapons with a liking for terraforming.
Societies filled with cyborgs and androids.
Societies of people who want to create the perfect humans.
Societies that are supported by a power base made entirely of machines.
Societies that do almost everything by combining biology and technology to create bio-mechanical weapons.
Pro Great art direction
Pro Involved spy system
The player can send a spy to an enemy city in order to learn what that city is building, what they are using for defenses, etc. This will take a few turns in order to set up, but once it is done, having an inside informant on what competing cities are doing can be big leg up.
Once a spy network is set up, a spy can carry out multiple operations with varying results. A few operations one can take part in is stealing credits, technology, or even research. These are all things that take time to do on ones own, but can speed things up by taking some from other cities while also developing or earning your own.
Overall, this is an improvement over Civ V, where the spy system was a bit shallow, luckily it is quite fleshed out in Beyond Earth, which adds quite a deceptive layer to the gameplay.
Pro Free and open-source
You can't go wrong with a game that has no purchase cost. Even better the user can contribute to the project or even use the code for their own, as the game is open-source.
Pro Still actively being developed
There are regular updates still being released for the game, meaning regular bug fixes as well as added features on a consistent basis.
Pro Allows for a lot of railway design creativity
You can build massive and complicated rail networks in the game, giving the player the freedom to come up with their own solutions and crazy designs.
Pro Tons of mods to download
There are many existing mods for the game, which can greatly extend the gameplay beyond that of the stock game.
Pro Very addictive - hard to walk away from when your little world is running
Especially if you're playing with some friends, this game is very enthralling (Heroes of Might and Magic 2 was similar, even though a very different game).
Pro Easily accessible multiplayer
It has built in multiplayer for LAN or online play, which makes it easy for the player to find and create online matches.
Pro Significant enhancements from the original game
- Stable multiplayer mode for up to 255 players in 15 companies, or as spectators
- Dedicated server mode and an in-game console for administration
- In game downloading of new content and game mechanics
Pro Convenient built in mod download interface
This allows the user to easily browse and download new mods for the game from within the game itself.
Pro Infinite possibilities
You seem to never run out of things to do in this game!
Cons
Con Late game is slow
Growing your colony in late game becomes a bit of a slog.
Con Wasted potential
Beyond Earth had a variety of new interesting systems that, unfortunately, fell short of their potential. Units unlocked by the affinity system were only slightly different to what you would get otherwise so your decisions weren't as impactful, quests in reality worked as a choice of upgrade for a building, the freedom of the tech web ended constrained to certain paths due to goals set by the game, and artifacts ended up being unreliable due to their randomness.
Con Can be complicated to play for a beginner
For those unfamiliar with this style of game, there is a lot to learn in order to be competent at the gameplay. Some tutorials online should help, but it is a time investment some may not want to spend on the game.
Con Micromanagement is a bit too much
You have to either use glitches or really make all your decisions right.
Con Can be boring when playing alone
Due to the length of the win conditions and how long it takes to achieve things in the game, it can get a bit boring after much time spent. This is also true of the stock gameplay element, while mods can definitely help, what comes with the game out of the box can get old after a while.
Con Graphics are small on high res displays
When playing this game on a high resolution screen the game will look small and dense, which may be irritating that it does not scale to ones resolution as it can be difficult to read the text or see what is going on. However, in the settings one can set the UI scaling to 2x to make it much easier to tell what is going on.
Con The sounds drive you insane
You sit down to play the game for a slight bit of time, you get your headphones on and get blasted with BEEEEP and GJHHHH including VSHHH and DING DING DING DING WOOOSHHH too.
Con Online does not work cross versions
Old versions can't play online or LAN with newer versions of the game. So for those that prefer using an older version, or just have not updated, they will have to make sure those they want to play with online have the exact same version (or one that is compatible).