Terrain is how cities, units, buildings, and wonders calculate their values and effects in Civilization: Beyond Earth.
Summary
In Civilization: Beyond Earth, the alien world is made up of hexagonally- shaped “tiles” (also occasionally referred to as hexes or spaces). These tiles come in a variety of “terrain types”: desert, plains, grassland, hills and so forth – and many include “features”, like forests.
These help determine the tile’s usefulness to a nearby city as well as how easy or difficult it is to move through the tile. A tile’s terrain and features may have important effects upon any combat occurring there.
The tiles may also contain resources that offer benefits when “improvements” are constructed in the tile; resources are sources of food, productivity, energy or culture. Additionally, they may provide other special bonuses to a colony. Some are visible at the start of the game, while others require the acquisition of specific technologies before you can see them.
Terrain Types
There are ten basic terrain types in the game; in addition, groupings of one to ten hexes of water terrain are termed “lakes". You may not see all ten types in a given game.
Terrain Features
Features are elements of terrain or vegetation that appear in a hex, atop the hex’s terrain. (A grassland hex might, for instance have forest or marsh on it.) Features modify a hex’s productivity and might also alter the amount of “Movement Points” (MPs) a unit expends when entering the hex.
Features may also provide defensive combat bonuses or penalties to a Unit occupying the hex.
Feature Values
Like terrain, features also have values that determine yield, movement, and combat.