Civilization: Beyond Earth
2014 video game
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is a turn-based strategy, 4X video game in the Civilization series developed by Firaxis Games, published by 2K Games and released for Microsoft Windows on October 24, 2014, the Mac App Store on November 27, 2014 and for Linux on December 18, 2014. The game's premise is that Earth became uninhabitable due to an undescribed disaster known as "the Great Mistake", forcing humanity to colonize space in the 23rd century. As a spiritual successor to the 1999 game Alpha Centauri, Beyond Earth shares much of its development team and some concepts, most notably its setting on an exoplanet in the future.
An expansion pack, titled Rising Tide, was released on October 9, 2015.
Gameplay
Beyond Earth is a turn-based strategy game played on a hexagonal grid, iterating the ideas and building upon the engine of its predecessor, Civilization V. Co-lead designer David McDonough described the relationship between the two games by saying "The bones of the experience are very much recognisably Civ. The idea of the cities, city-base progression, leaders, the passage of time, tile-based, turn-based, building improvements, technologies. A lot of them are very familiar themes to the Civ player."
Changes from the traditional Civilization formula
There are a number of significant changes from the Civilization model. In previous Civilization titles, players selected from historical empires led by historical figures, each with preset personalities. In Beyond Earth, players make choices at the beginning of the game, including what sponsors backed their expedition, what kind of spacecraft they used to reach the planet, and who and what they brought to the new world, allowing players to create a customized civilization of their own. Early decisions have a significant effect on the gameplay.
“Civilization: Beyond Earth” enters the record as 2014 video game. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Civilization, Beyond and Earth can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Civilization: Beyond Earth” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Civilization, Beyond and Earth provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16333765. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014, 1999 and 2015.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Civilization: Beyond Earth”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Civilization: Beyond Earth primary sources, Civilization: Beyond Earth archive and Civilization research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Civilization: Beyond Earth”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Civilization: Beyond Earth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.