~A crossover with Civilisation: Beyond Earth~
Equestria is living on borrowed time. By controlling the movements of the sun and moon, the Unicorns, and later the Princesses, were able hold off the death of their star. But now that time is up, and Ponykind wants to survive, they will have to copy a species they discovered only recently, and take to the stars in search of a new home.
If you like the story so far, leave a like to show your support
. If there are some parts that you feel are weak (i.e. Structure, Continuity Error, Characterisation) please feel free to point it out in the comments. This story will get better as it goes on both in content and structure. Trust me:pinkie happy:
Credit List:
Co-Authors: Architect Ironturtle, Brother Malachai
Editors and Proofreaders: Architect Ironturtle, Savoured Thoughts, Malefactory, Curious Quill
Artists: Hei201, CheshireTwilight
If you like to know the progress of the story, head over to my user page and check the story progress box.
Featured: 07-1-2016 Thank you guys!
judging from the pic is rainbow the only one that picked purity? regardless purity rules!
I had asked the artist to style Rainbow after the Slavic Federation's leader.
If you are looking for a purity character to follow, try Rarity.
…Well, crap. What am I going to call my Beyond Earth crossover now?
Just a heads up, I'll be releasing new chapters once ever 2 weeks on Sat/Sundays.
Season 5 is here today! Screw my sleep yesterday, i finished this chapter with my Co-Author to bring this chapter out as early as possible to celebrate the new season coming out.
(Hype for Season 5)*My hashtag key on my laptop is broken for some reason
So… shouldn't this story have the "human" tag if it's going to involve the original Beyond Earth leaders?
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I was going to only mention them as a possibe reason for the contact victory being possible but hey that gives me an idea
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Just saying.
I've reviewed your story for the Goodfic Bin, and unfortunately there are far too many problems with it for me to accept it into the bin. I'll be rejecting it from submissions.
I got to say you have me torn here. I can definately see the potential in this story, I do like the idea and general premise so far. I cannot wait for the ponies to actually start making civilizations and encountering problems. Also yay, Rarity is going for Purity
I do have to say however that I found some things completely unbelievable - ponies being able to observe humans just like that? Because "magic"? That's a hard hit to suspension of disbelief. So is the fact they managed to make a starship in 10 years. Sure, they could observe humans (which on itself is absurd, as I mentioned) but they would have to start basically from scratch. It just seems unlikely to say the least. Not a big fan of references either.
Still though, I think it is very nice and promising story. Was very pleasant to read and waiting for more.
Great read so far, I'm a huge fan of Civ and I can't wait to see where the next chapters will take us.
Well, that was fast, specially the alicorn transformation.
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Well it is several years in the future. The alicorning is about five years from the present in FIM and after another unknown period of time Tia started to weaken. Ten years after that, they left the planet. So a bare minimum of 10 years after the present in FIM.
Not a bad start; I'm interested to see how this all turns out. Because you ask, my hunch is you'd do better releasing the chapters as they're completed and proofed, but there's nothing wrong with saving until you can release several at once.
There is one issue I'd like to point out and one suggestion I'd offer. First, and more importantly, whenever you have a change of speaker during dialogue, you should have a new paragraph. I only mention it because there are at least three paragraphs in this chapter which include multiple speakers, and it makes it a little tougher to read. Second, merely as a suggestion, you may want to use a different sort of punctuation for breaks than a couple ellipses, or at the very least it would be wise to have them centered to make it clear it's not part of the text proper.
As a minor aside dealing with the story proper, I'm a touch confused as to why Trixie - referred to in the first chapter as "Captain" - is considered Twilight's student, especially given that they seem to be about the same age; you may want to flesh out that bit of backstory a little more.
Again, I look forward to further chapters; though I think it could use a bit of polish, it holds much potential!
Now, away from the story-stuff, I'd like to talk stats. I'll be blunt here: your suggested stats for the sparkle sponsorship seem rather overpowered compared to those in the game proper, and a little too mono-directional as well, and I'm not at all fond of the choice of penalty. For your consideration:
* A broad 15% shaving of research time is effectively a 15% bonus to Science as a resource. The usual sponsors have a couple of similar, focused abilities; consider the PAC (+10% 20xProductionBE Production towards Wonders) and PAU (+10% 20xFoodBE Food in growing cities when 20xHealthBE Healthy). Essentially, this already puts them above the canon factions.
* The bonus for cities sharing a tile yield conversion from production have a couple of issues. First, they're going to stack up very fast indeed since they need additional cities working on it. Second, they will inherently encourage expansionist gameplay to get more cities to use for this, especially as that would allow them to continue to build while other cities simply stack up a resource.
* Bluntly making the Contact victory easier is unwise. It strongly encourages that victory condition, which is unusual; while a couple of the other factions make certain victory types easier (notably, Brasilia's +10% Strength in melee combat, for example, aids with the Emancipation and Domination victory types), the sponsor benefits remain broadly applicable and helpful with every victory type (notably, Brasilia's benefit helps with defending the Beacon, Mind Flower, or colonists from Earth). As an aside, the Beacon's use of energy just saps the entirety of a faction's produced energy, setting the value to +0 gained per tern. This can actually be a boon, as it will set negative values to +0 as well.
* The penalty, while interesting, is not balanced. To begin with, the penalty is simply worse based on the number of players in the game. Beyond that, given that the enemy can declare war on you, it means you have a conditional penalty that gets worse entirely at the whim of your opponents. If Twi is going to be approaching, let's just say, the Contact victory, all it means in a large player number game is everyone declares war on her and her units suffer grandly, making defending the Beacon very difficult indeed.
As a final thought, having all this also breaks away from the simplicity of the canon sponsor abilities. Given that and the above, I'd suggest using an alternative keeping in the same spirit as what you propose:
* +10% Science in cities while healthy. (Which would stack with the benefit from the Foresight virtue, of course.)
* When converting Production into Science, the conversion rate is 30% rather than 25%
Might take a bit of playtesting to see if the numbers are fair, but that seems more in-line with the sponsors typically available.
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Thanks for pointing out that presentation issue, must have missed it during proofreading.
Well I'm gunning for the fact that since people will be able to rush to the Contact victory condition (And it being relevant to the storyline) , there needs to be an equally fast way to take them down. But to do that, you may need to successfully convince everyone playing to drop what they are doing and go war immediately . That is assuming everyone already has a decent sized army. And having more tech researched means that the player would gain unit upgrades/new units faster, leaving the player with a much more advanced army to defend/attack with. (Weakened LEV Destroyer vs LEV tank seems like a fair fight.) Not adding that combat nerf will turn it into like the Koreans from Civ V. But yeah I am not totally happy with my ability text dump. Too complicated. Your idea is much more simple and not an eyesore to read.
Good story, but I wonder: what kind of affinity do you plan them to choose?
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I think you will be able to tell who 3 of the characters are clearly going for in the flags when I publish the other 5 chapters soon. The other 3 won't be that obvious but you may be able to tell through their interaction with the others. No spoilers after all
6270582
Well, since Twilight already found Firaxite and plans to focus on scientific research, I can only guess she will take the Supremacy road.
edit: now, when we see the flags, it become more obvious.
Day 1 of the updates. It is happening
I haven't started reading the fic yet.... but.... with that synopsis..... doesn't this mean that the "Victory" condition will be either Harmony or First Contact?
As the fact that Equestria is freezing over from Celestia's sun dying means that there will be nopony left alive when the Warp Gates are complete. Then the fact it's still a FiMFic means Harmony trumps all..... and as such the only counter-point to prevent an Harmony win would be if the Alien race they contact is evil thus giving the Mane 6 a reason to band together again....
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I know. That is why I'm modifying some of the victory conditions available as well as making up my own one. Noteable changes can be seen to the Purity and Supremacy victory condition
Day 2 of the updates.
Just a note, I'll be away from any internet connection from tomorrow (6th August) till late Sunday (9th August).
6285866 Uh, guys, you really should pick just one paragraph format and stick to it. I spotted no less than three in here, and it was pretty jarring.
You didn't say anything about releasing this chapter.
I'm still working on the Rarity chapter!
6285941
Well, that's kind of one of the few problems of having multiple authors. We're hoping the editor will pick one style and re-edit the paragraphs to better fit together in future Chapters.
tbh, with the resources you put near to rainbow dash (titanium, floatstone) i thought she'd be going purity.
6318658
Well, those resources are much more closer to Twilight seeing how Dash needs to travel for a while before finding them. On a side unrelated note, since when does the game give you the resources you exactly need? You are going to need flex a little muscle to get those that you need after all...
No Ghandi, you are not going to get my uranium! Your little army dosen't scare me. Go steal it from the Russians. *sigh, Every single time when the AI or I don't wipe him out...
No complains about the story, grammar is good, paragraph use is good; looking up. Nicely done, and I continue to look forward to more - and will be reading the next chapter shortly. Good introduction of both floatstone and miasma, nice character-building tidbits.
On the game stats, please allow me to voice my objections once again:
That's....well, that's amazingly overpowered. Movement and range restrictions are the lifeblood of the combat aspect of a civ game, and even a little extra is an absolutely massive change. It would matter less for sea units; you can tell in the games it's easier to pick those up, and that's because they travel further faster, but a land unit gaining an additional +1 to speed is a 50% increase to its movement, and a +1 range (in a game where 2 is all but exclusive for range) let's them siege cities and units from an unreachable position. Looking at the game proper, the only time we see range and speed increases are at the penultimate - or ultimate - levels of affinity; it's essentially end-game material. Giving out an advantage like that will make this faction flatten their opposition in the early and mid game, and then continue if it stacks with the bonus from affinity.
This one's pretty workable, though still a sizable increase; I'm not quite sure how it would work out. It's comparable to Brisalia's +10% melee strength and +5 heal.
I would again like to discourage abilities that mandate a specific style of play. Putting this on will simply assure that this faction goes into Supremacy every time, and because affinity is the major means of advancement of military unit stats (and specialty unit/building access), this also means this faction will inherently level up faster.
Now again, it's possible to make abilities like this balanced against each other, other sponsors of similar strength, but there's no way the canon factions would be able to compete with that.
I'd suggest a similar set of benifits, something that adds flavor and minor specialization without overpowering or placing the faction on a necessary course to victory. As a thought, perhaps something like this:
Before I go commenting on Fluttershy in the next chapter, let me point out that you don't have to give the characters' factions impressive directional advantages to justify their in-story actions or advancement; Twi can rush the beacon just because it's what she wants to do, RD and Fluttershy can spend a lot of effort picking up their chosen affinities for the same reason. These decisions can be carried out within bounds of the typical game with any faction.
What do you think?
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And they never fix it because the Game Company thinks it's hillarious. :-/
Purity is best affinity :)
Alright i will follow this.
BTW. "Rising tides" just released.
Wouldn't it be better if each of the MANE 6 all represend one of the Affinitiy?
(Fluttershy/Harmony, Rarity/Purity, Twilight/Supremacy, Rainbow/Supremacy-Harmony, Applejack/Purity-Harmony, Pinkie/Purity-Supremacy)
Just for Info: The Ultimate Supremacy-Harmony Unit it a Floating Jetcarrier made out of Living Metal.
And all the Purity-Harmony Units look like they are made out of Brass.
(You catch my meaning: Brass=Orangegolden metal)
I thought Rainbow go for purity considering she is the element of loyalty. and supremacy is big on science and I don't see Rainbow being like that. It more Twilight's thing.
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The idea for hybrid affinities was already incoperated into the story when I wrote it before I found out bout Rising Tides. So don't worry. I just haven't got to the stage of their affinities developing.
I AWAIT YOU, PINKIE PIE!
Wrong element for Applejack.
6538350
Woops... Fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out
Well, I wasn't expecting the party pony to have the best, or one of the best, militaries in the story, but there you go.
6564155
I would say why but that is going to be spoilers. But here have a puzzle that may contain spoilers. Have fun and please if you figured it out don't tell the others.
Spoiler= Pinkie's other side+ A line Vinyl Scrach is well known for+ Orbital Lasers+ Flag's Design+What players usually do in Civ V on each other
6564155 She probably has good leaders under her who make the hard decisions after she has one of her "twitchy-twitch" bouts. :P
Well, I must say this story is interesting. However, you really need to work on balancing and broadening the equestrian sponsors. You have their bonuses as too powerful, and several of them are way too affinity specific. How are we brony mega fans of civ supposed to make a mod out of this? You've also got bonuses to factions that make entirely no sense. As the element of honesty, I doubt Applejack would be appreciative of the concept of spies, let alone having a covert ops bonus.
If I may, I would give them these modifications instead.
Twilight: Firaxite, Xenomass, and Floatstone give +1 science when improved.
When converting production into science, production yield is 30% rather than 25%.
Rainbow Dash:+20% combat strength when attacking, -10% combat strength when defending (excluding cities) (This one is actually ok.)
malee units are unaffected by area of command (or whatever it's called.)
Anyway, those are just suggestions. I've got to go, so I'll leave things here for now. Definitely favouriting and liking this story though. Keep up the good work.
6614846
I wrote the traits to let people infer some of the things I have planned for the story. It being OP if they were to be applied into the game is something I completely agree with. I'll take them down and replace them with more balanced stats some time later
6515124
Yes, but Supremacy also leans towards _military_ Supremacy, which is up RD's alley. Even then, she doesn't have to be the "egghead" of the group. That's what the scientists on her staff are for. But, rest assured. More will be shown in time. Stay Tuned.
So flutterbutter is next eh um will any humans get involved?
What? No bonus' to Pinkie for finding the presents around the map?
You have to build the generators out in the countryside, instead of farms.
Is it just me or is there something wrong with a Griffin eating scrambled eggs?
6736446
Only if it's griffin eggs. :P
6746170
Yup, you win an imaginary point
Note to self: I think I gave out too many spoilers...
--The prologue to Sid Meier's Alpha Centuari, conceptual forerunner of 'Civilisation: Beyond Earth'.