A large patch has gone live on Civilization: Beyond Earth that more than anything fixes a lot of balancing issues. One of the big features is now Health really impacts your civilization. Where as pre-patch you could go negative and not really see any impacts but now once you go -20 each negative point after that you see a decrease in all production, energy, culture, science by 1%. That is huge but it isn’t just for negative health civs; if you are +20 and higher you get +1% for each +1 health. Here are the patch notes that are located here (http://www.civilization.com/en/news/2014-12–civilization-beyond-earth-fall-update-now-live/):

Balance

Wonders and Buildings:

• Holon Chamber provides 3 Science, 4 Energy (was 5 Science)

• Mind Stems cannot be bought with Energy.

Diplomacy:

• Any diplo item can now be traded in exchange for a peace treaty

• Lump Energy trade requires a Cooperation Agreement.

Trade:

• Water trade routes no longer receive any increased yield.

• Revised trade route formula for city-to-city trade, with reduced yields.

• Trade Depots can no longer be purchased with Energy.

Aliens:

• Clearing a friendly alien nest now removes the Xenomass resource from player stockpile.

• Adjusting passive recovery rate for alien opinion to be slower, to permit easier aggression escalation.

Covert Ops:

• Establish Network now has 0 difficulty and produces 0 intrigue. This prevents players from exploiting it to increase intrigue.

Health effects balancing:

• From -20 to -70, Production is penalized -1% per point (up to -50%).

• From -15 to -65, enemy Covert Ops Intrigue is increased +2% per point (up to +100%).

• From -10 to -60, Science is penalized -1% per point (up to -50%).

• From -5 to -55, Culture is penalized -1% per point (up to -50%).

• From 0 to -50, Outpost Growth is penalized -2% per point (up to -100%).

• From 0 to -50, City Growth is penalized -2% per point (up to -100%).

• From 1 to 5, nothing happens.

• From 5 to 25, Production bonus +1% per point (up to +20%).

• From 10 to 30, enemy Covert Ops Intrigue is decreased -2% per point (up to -40%).

• From 15 to 35, Science bonus +1% per point (up to +20%).

• From 20 to 40, Culture bonus +1 per point (up to +20%).

• From 25 to 45, City Growth bonus +1% per point (up to +20%).

• From 25 to 45, Outpost Growth bonus +2% per point (up to +40%).

Virtues:

• Eudaimonia (Tier III Prosperity virtue) now provides -15% less Unhealth (was -25%)

• Learning Centers now provides +1 Science for Academies (was +2)

Game Setup:

• Sponsors:

o Kozlov Ability: Orbital units last 50% longer, +50% Petroleum resource (was Orbital units last 20% longer and first launch grants free technology)

o Barre Ability: +10% Growth when Healthy, all cities start with an Old Earth Relic (was +10% Growth when Healthy)

o Rejinaldo Ability: Melee units +10% Strength, all units +5 Heal when fortified (was +10% Melee combat strength)

o Elodie Ability: provides 1 free Virtue for every 10 Virtues earned normally through Culture (was 1 free Tech for every 10 Virtues earned in any way)

• Colonists:

o Aristocrats now provide +4 Energy per City (no Health bonus)

o Artists now provide +3 Culture per City (no Health bonus)

Tech Web:

• Clear Miasma now unlocks on Ecology (was Alien Biology)

• Miasmic Repulsor now unlocks on Alien Biology (was Ecology)

• Array Science bonus now unlocks on Astrodynamics (was Orbital Automation)

• Planet Carver now unlocks on Orbital Automation (was Astrodynamics)

• Markov Eclipse now unlocks on Transcendental Math (was Artificial Intelligence)

Stations:

• Station start turn base is now 30 (was 20)

• Station minimum allowed distance to another station is now 2 (was 3)

• Station minimum allowed distance to a city is now 6 (was 5)

• Station minimum allowed distance to an outpost is now 5 (was 3)

Affinity Perks:

• Harmony level 1 grants Miasma Immunity to the Explorer unit (was Alien opinion recovers twice as quickly)

• Purity level 1 adds double combat strength when defending to Explorer unit (was Aliens cannot attack Explorers)

Quests:

• Affinity rewarded as a quest reward now ramps up slowly over the first 100 turns (on standard). This ramp will vary with game speed.

• All players now get affinity quests within 1 turn of each other. If it’s not possible for all players to receive a quest at the same time, the game waits until this is possible, then immediately gives all players a new affinity quest.

• Autoplant Building Quest grants bonus Production (was +1 Trade Route)

Units:

• Explorers now have 6 combat strength (was 3).

• Sea units now follow the same rules for ranged combat defense as all other units: they use the highest of their combat values (ranged combat or melee combat) when calculating defense.

• Combat Rover unit can no longer fortify, and no longer receives defense bonuses from the terrain it is on.

• Raising the secondary level requirement for the hybrid upgrades of affinity units:

o First affinity unit (ex. Xeno Swarm) now upgrades at level 10 of main affinity and level 4 of secondary affinity (was 10+2)

o Second affinity unit (ex. Xeno Cavalry) now upgrades at 12+5 (was 12+3)

o Third affinity unit (ex. Rocktopus) now upgrades at level 14+6 (was 14+4)

o Fourth affinity unit (ex. Xeno Titan) now upgrades at level 16+7 (was 16+5)

• Lowering strategic resource costs for many affinity units, to ensure consistency across affinities and make top tier units easier to build. The first affinity units require 1 strategic, the second require 2, the third require 3, and the fourth require 5.

o CARVR now costs 2 Firaxite (was 3)

o Rocktopus now costs 2 Xenomass and 1 Floatstone (was 3 Xenomass and 1 Floatstone)

o LEV Tank now costs 3 Floatstone (was 4)

o SABR now costs 3 Firaxite (was 4)

o Xeno Titan now costs 5 Xenomass (was 7)

o LEV Destroyer now costs 5 Floatstone (was 7)

o ANGEL now costs 5 Firaxite (was 6)

• Increased production costs of upgraded Combat Rovers and Missile Rovers:

o Combat Rovers now cost 80, 160, 260, 370 (was 80, 140, 220, 320)

o Missile Rovers now cost 100, 190, 290, 400 (was 100, 180, 270, 370)

• Lowering combat strength progression of Combat Rover:

o Combat Rover combat strength progression is now 12, 18, 28, 52 (was 12, 18, 32, 52)

• Changes to the combat strength of affinity units, to make non-upgraded ones more weak in general:

o Xeno Swarm now has 22 combat strength at start, 54 when upgraded (was 34, 54)

o Xeno Cavalry now has 36, 72 (was 48, 72)

o Rocktopus now has 60, 92 (was 60, 82)

o Xeno Titan now has 86, 114 (was 96, 114)

o Battlesuit now has 24, 66 (was 40, 66)

o Aegis now has 34, 34 double strike (was 40, 40 double strike)

o LEV Tank now has 44, 77 (was 52, 77)

o LEV Destroyer now has 74, 104 (was 84, 104)

o CNDR now has 24, 63 (was 38, 63)

o CARVR now has 38, 76 (was 50, 76)

o SABR now has 52, 86 (was 58, 86)

o ANGEL now has 78 with 78 melee, 102 with 88 melee (was 88 with 88 melee, 102 with 102 melee)

AI:

• Once the game is in Extended mode (after the player clicks the One More Turn button) the AI will now only pursue Domination.

• Warmonger threat per city acquisition is now capped.

• Warmonger calculation now scaled down when cities are taken by Sponsors that are reacting to a war that was declared upon them (that is, when that civ is not the aggressor).

• Adjusted AI bonuses on higher difficulty levels.

• Additional AI tuning, improvements, and tweaks.

Gameplay Feedback:

• Implemented anonymous gameplay telemetry for design feedback.

UI

Settings and Game Setup:

• The menu now displays EQAA modes instead of MSAA modes if in Mantle version and the GPU supports EQAA.

• Added option to disable UI/Map blur.

• The player is now informed that enabling max turns disables victory achievements.

Trade:

• Previous trade routes appear in their own category at top of trade route chooser

City/Production UI:

• Adding Health tooltip help in City View to explain health sources and population cap

• City production pop-up now shows the last item completed.

• Increased city renaming from 15 character max to 23 character max.

Misc:

• Allow “One More Turn” after the default win conditions (Contact, Promised Land, Emancipation, Transcendence, Domination, Time), added text to defeat screen explaining how you were defeated.

• Option to make minimap opaque

• ESC leaves orbital mode instead of raising in game shell menu

• Added a badge to covert ops button in the action corner which will show up, and a warning to the covert ops panel when a player has any cities with high intrigue.

• Tech web – adding color underlays to building and wonder types.

• Added additional Advisors for trade convoy and trade vessel.

• Added support for third party wars in diplo overview.

• Full touch/gesture and pen support added (Ultrabook, Surface Pro, etc.).

Multiplayer

• Setting the internet server browser list distance filtering to worldwide.

• All players are notified when anyone completes a victory wonder.

• Multiple improvements to stability.

Modding

• 2D fallback image now supported for leaders on all video quality settings, not just the lowest.

• Added the ability to mod Quests.

Bugs

• Embarked workers can now correctly repair pillaged improvements.

• Fixed an issue where Max turns was getting set on “Reload”, causing achievements to not fire.

• Fixed bug where victory achievements would only unlock for the first player on a team.

• Fixed empty trade requests that could occur during the AI turn.

• Fixed multiple Quest issues (quest tracking, information, and reward bugs).

• Fixed multiple issues with screen resolution on specific displays (like the 144Hz full-screen issue), and a Mantle issue causing the game to not display on the correct screen.

• Setting MaxTurns only affects timed victory conditions. For a timed victory, you must either not set MaxTurns (of which, there will be a default for the game speed), or set it to 100+ turns. All other victory conditions can be achieved regardless of max turns.

• Friendly aliens no longer blockade cities.

• Fixed some specific issues with resources not appearing properly in the player stockpile.