I don't think those are swamps by the way, they look like irrigation. Look how they overlay the tan `plains' in the lower right corner. I agree with those who think they look awfully boxy and artifical. The hills and forests and coastlines are very nice looking though. I'm kinda upset with the `boxy' look though, overall, as with the snowy terrain and dryer terrain. The squares look big enough that they could put smoothing diagonal `fill' to round off the squares and still have be clear what terrain your unit was on. The ninty degree angles need to be smoothed off a lot more.

And honestly, I hope we get flags and not little colored circles. They make it look more like a computer game then a picture of a mighty empire, and seem really unnatural and unattractive. Europa Universalis has these wonderful little waving flags for all the units of all 90 odd nations. I think CivIII can do that or better. I really want flags, even if they're colored flags instead of national ones. National ones would be best though. They could fly over every unit and city, and be as clear, if not more so, then colored flags or circles ever could be.

Actually, it makes me wonder. Everyone keeps saying they're going to change these a lot, but are they? I wonder if they'd even BE releasing screenshots if they weren't /fairly/ close to the final product. Now, my impression of the graphics is a mixed bag. Some parts look very nice, and some look a little iffy. On the other hand, this is not a game I'll be buying because of the graphics, I'll be buying it for the gameplay. The truth is 2D tile-based graphics can only look so good, and these are fairly up there. I think Firaxis might have been better off going with a true 3D map which then had artifical `square' zones of movement superimposed over it.

Here's a thought though, I hope Firaxis sees this. If the advisors are featured so prominently on the interface, they presumbably they're being designed to be very useful. I'm sure you can see lots of info and tweak lots of things with them. However, may I suggest using symbols instead of faces on the main screen? The advisor heads would still appear once you opened them, but they strike me as counter-intuitive on the main interface.

In other words, the military advisor should be crossed swords, economic a pile of coins, diplomacy crossed flags, science a lightbulb and so forth. Then it would be /extremely/ easy to know where you're going immediately. Advisor access should be as intuitive as possible. We shouldn't be guessing which guy is the science advisor, and which is the economic advisor.

Wow. That message sounds much more critical then I intended, I'm actually very enthusastic about the game and seeing more screenshots.... I think there were some funny compression blurriness/scaling issues with that shot. I'll wait until I see some offical Firaxis shots before coming to any final judgements on the graphics.

quote: Originally posted by SerapisIV on 04-26-2001 02:36 PM Thats a great idea !! Simple and efficient. That or maybe the symbols behind the face, with the faces smaller. The faces do kinda add character to the advisors

Oh, well, I suspect those little faces are just a sample of a larger one we'll see when we actually access the advisor. As such, they really shouldn't be on the main screen I don't think. I /know/ I'd be confused by having to pick between a bunch of faces to get info on my diplomatic relations. I'd probably end up messing with my economy instead!

It's interesting to note that the team working on Master of Orion III is trying very hard to add a `Fifth X' to the tradional 4X Civ style game genre (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate). That of eXperience. As such, Firaxis should ask themselves if having the faces up there adds to the experience and feeling of ruling a mighty civilization or detracts from it. I think dramatic symbols would do the job better.

Of course with my luck, they're just place-holding pictures right now, and they've always fully intended to put appopriate symbols up there in time.

I would just like to take this moment to say thanks to PC Gameplay for posting such a revealing screen shot.

I must say I don't like the heads - I prefer Fintilgin's suggestion of crossed swords, coins, etc. Much clearer, and adds a touch of serious purpose to the game. The symbol represents the office, which happens to be held by a particular person. We wouldn't be too happy to receive a letter from the Treasury whose letterhead consisted of a photo of the current incumbent! That would reek of hubris. The office, represented by the symbol, is more enduring than the holder. In Civ2, though the face remains the same - a pleasant fiction to match the fact that the ruler remains the same over 60 centuries! - the costumes change, representing changing times. I'd like to see that continued in Civ3.

I guess the 2 unmarked buttons at the bottom are for functions yet to be decided... If the selected unit is a settler, there should be plenty of functions to choose from!

I like the look of the mini-map window; but isn't it rather small in comparison with the rest of the screen? Seems you'd be hard put to see the location of cities on something that size. Maybe it can be enlarged? That would be cool.

I disagree with airdrik that the cities look like piles of rubble! If you look at them at a larger resolution (or print the pic out to fill a sheet of paper), you'll see clearly that they consist of a series of single-storey buildings around a central circle (marketplace? forum?) - which presumably is the appropriate style for size 2 cities in 120 AD. I must say, tho', that I would have preferred more colour - they look rather drab. But maybe that's still to come...

It's noteworthy that both the Americans and the Aztecs have the same style of city: does that mean civ-specific city styles are out? A pity if so.

I can only assume there's a lot still to be tweaked, e.g. the font in which the city names appear. These are almost unreadable, even on the large printout I have in front of me.

the way the cities appear though and the borders are "copy-paste" from smac, as well the resolution of the units(this last one being pretty bad)...

map seems a little blurry probably jpg helped that. Units have those circles filled with color... I really find that ugly. Shields are better, or not - filled circles.

It seems to me with every new screenshot and piece of info we get that firaxis was quite conservative in all approaches to the game and left quite much for us alternative projects to do

It said something like: "we are constantly playing the game. we have a SMAC engine with Civilization type graphics modification and some rule changes. Nothing will be built for real until we decided upon it.

And this really looks like SMAC with a mod... some controls are changed, but hey, they're firaxis, they can design mods that way.

I hope I'm right in this way. I could be right in another one. This really is a SMAC ripoff only that is what they're going to sell. Knowing Sid's perfectionsim I find that hard to believe, but only he knows....

The units with their circles appear wierd when stepping on trees, this is not a thing perfectionists will do.

the map... form, feel and size is very SMACish.

So I think we can safely say it's a smac mod. We can now hope tis isn't what they're gonna sell.

I think not as IIRC Sid promised a mostly new engine in the same interview i talked about.

About the map, they should reall dump the large squares look. I don't like a map where my 1024x768 screen is filled with 12x12 board....

I know civ 2 graphics are too small for large screens, but that much detail into each square is too much... and very annoying. And I hope the default zoom will contain a rather big terrain with small sqaures. I also hope they have different zooms....

I never played SMAC, but i have played CTP. The cities look very CTPish, as well as the menus.

I think its safe to assume that the games on pause, because it would be very sad if the game was not and 'Emperor Ceaser, The Roman Despotism, 120AD, 10 Gold (+0 per turn)' would hurt the game ever so much.

But as we all have said time and time again, this could all change, and maybe already have by the time this magazine got the screens, and printed the issue.

-units still hace strength bars
-cities have icons on them representing something
-theres a warrior unit on the bottom left corner