Overview
Just a simple sponsor tierlist. No BS.
About this guide
Well hello there dear reader! Thanks for checking out my guide, if you want to cut the crap you can simply scroll down immediately to read my tier list. If you however want to read my quick introduction and understand why I chose to rank the sponsors the way I did, continue reading here 🙂
In Civ V, the most comparable game to date for CIV:BE your Civs defined the way you play for you. While you still had the option to go for a culture victory with Babylon, it would have been a lot easier to simply go for the science victory instead in this example. With Beyond Earth, Firaxis went for a more general approach with the sponsors by forcing (almost) noone into a certain pattern, which leads to unpredictability and flexibility.
The game relies on you to make decisions on the fly, so adapting to the pace of the game is really important.
So a huge factor, besides the basic “3>2” comparisons between sponsor bonuses, is the amount of flexibility the sponsors provide.
Just to give you an example: Polystralia allows you to build a LOT more trade routes. Which sounds good on paper already is then even better when you think about the utility you get from having lots of cities with huge amound of production output: You can build more wonders/wonder quicker, you can instantly train a huge army or you could simply develop your cities to gain science or culture.
Just take this into consideration when reading this guide. Also, feel free to disagree with me and let me know in the comments what you think!
Tier 1
The first Wonder in every city is free. +3/4/5 Diplomatic Capital from Wonders.
Even though most wonders have been hit really hard by the nerfhammer in 2014, most of them still have a atleast a niche place for them to exist. PAC basicly is the Ramses of Beyond Earth: The more wonders, the better. They also get some sweet bonus diplomatic capital from the wonders they built.
+2/3/3 Trade routes in the Capital and +1/1/2 Trade route everywhere else
If you miss Beyond Earths’ release state, look no further. Polystralia favors a really expansive playstyle with lots of traderoutes. Just rush pioneering and enjoy all that mad skrilla you’ll make without even trying. Try to get Warp Gates from the artifact system and you’ll snowball the game from there.
Tier 2
City Developments increased by 50/60/70%.
Civilization has always been about snowballing and while Al Falah doesn’t help you achieve that, her mid and lategame strengths are outright insane enough to let her slip into tier 2. By the time your cities are basicly iced out enough with buildings, you can simply start generating a metric ton of science or culture in the blink of an eye. Her ability won’t help you getting a good start, but if you get to the midgame you’re in a comfortable position.
Covert operations are 30/40/50% faster and require 1/1/2 less intrigue levels to begin.
As with Al Falah ARC truly starts shining in the midgame, when the Agents start to siphon a sh*tload of science and/or technologies. ARC also suffers from the same lack of snowballing that Al Falah has. Being really focused on spying, ARC has both serious up- and downsides. Spying get’s exponentially better the longer the game goes on, because of all the massive upgrades. However, it’s also fairly easy to counter for the enemy, by him stationing agents in his own cities.
+10/15/25% Food in healthy cities and Specialists produce one/one/two extra of their yield.
PAU is really good at getting ahead of your competition in the early game. The bonus food while maintining a positive health favor a “tall” playstyle, so specialists actually come into play. These will also help you maintain a strong grip on the mid- to lategame.
Tier 3
Aquatic cities have 50/60/70% more Strength and cost 50/60/70% less Production to move.
May make Planetfall at sea.
I can’t wrap my head around the NSA. I really want to like them, but the lack of natural border expansion through culture really hurts their early game. Basicly everytime i try to make planetfall on water I come to the point where I think to myself “wow, this really sucks. I’d rather have my city on a continent than this.” However, they really shine in the lategame because defending cities on water is rather easy compared to land.
Agreements cost 50/60/75% less Diplomatic Capital, and units and buildings cost 25/50/75% less to purchase.
INTEGR has simply said the most boring sponsor bonus one could imagine. The bonus is okay in all three stages of the game and only starts to shine when you can drop the ANGELs with the huge surplus of DC.
Begin with one Covert Agent and gain 10/15/30 Science per Agent rank when successfully performing an operation.
May make Planetfall at sea.
Chungsu is basicly ARC, just worse. The early game bonus is sweet, but in the spying game they simply get outclassed by ARC later on in the game. My advice would be to NOT focus on spying but simply use it as a tool to snowball science in the early game and hope for a good midgame.
Cities require 30/40/50% less Culture or Energy to expand tiles.
With Diplomatic Capital being useable to buy buildings and units energy got an indirect value nerf, while still remaining a fairly easy to gather ressource. The point im trying to make is: Simply buying land is usually more efficient, faster and with the overflow of energy not even a huge loss in the midgame. If you however are not interested in spending energy on tiles, the culture buildings are usually in awkward locations on the techweb and should usually only be the secondary gain you want from the technology. Overall a mediocre sponsor at best.
Tier 4
War Score points increased by 30/40/50% and +1/2/3 Diplomatic Capital from every unit killed in combat.
Warscore is an intresting and rewarding system IF(!) you manage to outright destroy your opponents to get “free” techs from them. However with Rising Tide, Brasilia lost the damagebonus they used to have. Simply said: Brasilia has a goal, yet lost the tools to accomplish said goal. The DC bonus for killing units is also laughable and shouldn’t be the thing you’re looking for. In their current state their outright terrible.
Orbital units require 1/1/2 less Strategic resource and start with 4/6/6 free titanium, geothermal and petroleum resources.
At the point where orbital units come into play, you usually have enough petroleum and titanium around to not give a ♥♥♥♥ about them anymore. You also get some free ressources, which is neat for building some wonders but since you don’t get the yield per round for actually owning a geothermal/petroleum/titanium tile it’s also useless. They simply get outmatched by most of the other sponsors.
Free Virtue for every 10/9/8 Virtues earned normally through Culture.
While Franco-Iberia technically got buffed through Rising Tide, they still manage to claim the last spot on this list. Because there is no culture victory like in Civ V and most virtues are simply not worth the effort they’re by far the worst sponsor in beyond earth.
Balance Suggestions
I don’t know if anyone at Firaxis will ever read this, or if any modder actually takes this into consideration to create a balance mod/patch for Beyond Earth. Take note, that I took Tier 2 as the powerlevel of where I want to see most sponsors balanced around.
Pan Asian Cooperative
PAC will fall into and out of the meta depending on how good (or bad) the wonders are. The thing that makes them shine on the higher end of the tierlist is that even a city with a population of one builds any wonder instantly. If Firaxis wants PAC as the wonderwh0res they are, give them a big multiplier on production to balance them out in. I’m talking like a 100% production boost for the first one, 50% for the second one and 20% for every wonder after that. The bonus diplomatic capital is fine as it is.
Polystralia
Polystralias dominance is also pretty tied into the fact that internal traderoutes are outright awesome. To balance the fact that this is a trade-heavy sponsor with the OPness of internal traderoude yields, I’d recommend tuning the bonus traderoutes to 1/1/2 in the capital and 0/1/1 for every other city.
North Sea Alliance
I think their current bonus is in a good spot, but I’d like to see the NSA being able to acquire tiles with culture on sea, atleast with their capital (Deep Castle). This would define them as an acquatic sponsor and make it actually a viable option to planetfall on water for them!
INTEGR
So, Lena is supposed to be that diplomatic mastermind, but because there is no diplomatic win like in Civ V we have to improvise and improve how she works. My suggestion would be to remove the reduced cost for buying stuff with diplomatic capital and instead give her either the ability to have more active agreements OR(!) make her that iron willed negotiator and let her get agreements for one… i dunno, point on the “how much i like these guys” scale more. Say you’re playing as INTEGR and start an agreement with some other civ and you’re neutral with them, now INTEGR get’s a bonus as if they’d cooperate. If they’re already cooperating, then she gets the allied yields and so on.
Kavathian Protectorate
The thing about KP is that the sponsorbonus points them in no direction. Imagine it like this: You’re playing the original Legend of Zelda, and that guy in the cave doesn’t say “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this” to give you a sword, but instead gives you a banana and says “Times are rough, go figure this out for yourself.” This is because land-grabbing is pretty useless because resources are overflowing with Rising Tide. So, to buff her would mean that she’d get a lil bonus on top. I’d say that increasing the bonus of the inhabitants of your spacecraft would work great, because she has such devoted followers. Basicly, instead of getting 2 production per city from picking engineers in the beginning, you now get 3.
Brasilia
Ha, this one’s easy! Remove the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 1/2/3 DC per unit kill and give them a good combat bonus instead, say 10/15/20% and you’ll have a heavy warfare sponsor that uses raw power to get what he wants.
Slavic Federation
Okay, SF is suffering from the lack of worthwhile and affordable satellites. Give them a bunch of orbital units without the need to research them [Solar Collector, Misama Repulsor, you get the deal] and let them get +1/2/3 more of any geothermal, titanium or petrolium they have improved.
Franco-Iberia
This might be a bit overtuned, but double the synergyboni for her while maintaning the scalable free virtues. This should give FI the flexibility it needs.