Scale

[jimmyh]

We want to know what peoples thoughts are about scale.

Should units tower above the cities, trees, mountains, hills, etc

Should the hills and mountains span more than one tile, or is the firaxis way of doing mountains and hill ok.

Or could you just not care about the scale.

[DeathByTheSword]

think civ2...units should be big enough to know easy what they are but not that you cant see what the tile behind them is...

[GeoModder]

I think it would be more realistic if a hill -or mountain area is larger then a tile (visually seen).

For the units, relatively easy visible but not overwhelming.

[Kaak]

i think the huge units in civ4 look quite unattractive...Civ2 style is better, but it would be neat if mountains were bigger than a tile...

[FrostyBoy]

I just want you all to know that the bigger the mountain, the more we can do with it, (more resources per mountain/hill, fortress, lookout, gunneries, etc).

Unfortunately for us, the bigger the mountain the more problems it causes. So we are trying to find the importance and favour of larger than 1 tile mountains.

[Son of moose]

I would certainly support larger than one tile mountains. Indeed, I would go one further:

In the scenario editor, it should be possible for the map designer to be able to create his/her own highly detailed mountain ranges from a series of mountain templates that can be assembled into different configurations.

However, this might be too difficult (and time consuming) for Sn00py and JimmyH to achieve within their development timeframe.

[jimmyh]

We are not supporting modding....well atleast not yet.

We are concentrating on making a single player game that has plenty of depth.

[alms66]

Originally posted by jimmyh
We are not supporting modding....well atleast not yet.

We are concentrating on making a single player game that has plenty of depth.

I'd advise against that attitude and build modding into the game from the get-go. It will make development a whole lot easier later if you decide you want to support it (afterall, if you decide you don't, just don't release the editor). The "default" game should be a mod (scenario) in and of itself. Doing this now will also allow the playtest phase to try several different versions of the game an pick the most balanced options, pulling out un-fun ideas until you are left with a single, well-balanced and fun game.

[jimmyh]

Since I am the primary coder on this project, along with help from some one else, we do not have the time to add in modding capabilities, We'll leave that to firaxis.

I do believe that adding the ability to mod the game would lessen the single player experience some what, since time spent on doing code to enable modding could be spent fine tuning the single player game.

And if we do decide to add modding, it will be added later. I've been programming for 10 years and been in the games industry for 6-7 years, so adding it later would not be a problem.

[Son of moose]

JimmyH:

In the scenario editor, it should be possible for the map designer to be able to create his/her own highly detailed mountain ranges from a series of mountain templates that can be assembled into different configurations

Maybe I should have changed the word "create" to "design" ....

I actually meant that Humanitas should possibly include a couple of mountain type tiles that could be combined (within the editor) to create more realistic (and bigger) mountains.

Sn00py possibly knows what I mean ....

[Kaak]

Originally posted by jimmyh
Since I am the primary coder on this project, along with help from some one else, we do not have the time to add in modding capabilities, We'll leave that to firaxis.

i don't like the way that sounds

[Kaak]

any chance i can get a copy of the game before you give it to firaxis? my confidence in them is....shaky

[GeoModder]

I suppose your reference to Firaxis is for the moddability of cIV, not that Humanitas will be sold to the company?

[LDiCesare]

I do believe that adding the ability to mod the game would lessen the single player experience some what, since time spent on doing code to enable modding could be spent fine tuning the single player game.

I tend to disagree. In Clash, modding is not very powerful, but it's at least possible to create a small map very fast, make sure it's balanced the way you want it to be, and test things very fast. Of course, the fact that recognizing a new tag in the resources (xml) files costs 0 helps (thanks to java reflection). Overall, I think having a parser and some resource files with some, albeit limited, events capabilities, helps develop the game faster. I guess Firaxis pickes Python as a scripting language because it is actually faster to develop the base game in that language than in, say C++.

[Kaak]

on a scale of 1 -10, 10 being most important, mod-ability, to me, would be about, ummm....1. i'd rather have better game play!!!

[Kinjiru]

To get back on topic...

I don't necissarily think that mountains need to be more than a single tile, but they should be restricted to 'grouping'.

It is not very often that you single a single mountain in the middle of a plain. Instead we see clusters and ranges. Meaning, if mountains appear on the map, they should generate in a cluster of at least four tiles, or a range of at least three tiles.

As for unit scale, I agree with most others, the default cIV scale is awful. CivII seemed to have it about right.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Sn00py
I just want you all to know that the bigger the mountain, the more we can do with it, (more resources per mountain/hill, fortress, lookout, gunneries, etc).

Are large mountain really so relevant in game mechanics? I mean, not so much happened (on a civilization scale) on mountain.

Battles? Explorations? Yes. But empires needs grassland, plain and probably a better use of hills as resources for food, wine, tobacco, coffee luxury.

A fluid model to create and show chain of hills and mountains will do the job, IMHO, better than a single "larger than a tile" mountain.

On the unit scale, I have the feeling that the right scale for units depends from the use of them as "status bar" or not. If, as in Civ 4, you use the number of soldier showed as an implicit "strenght status" you must show them large enough to be counted at a glance.

If you want an epic feeling you must "zoom out", reducing units dimension compared to cities (and some CIV IV screenshot available show this level of zoom), but numbers are lost.

Animated mill, farm, etc. have similar trouble: if you use animation to show terrain worked you have to keep buildings large enough that animation is visible. I'd prefer a "grayed out", a bit ruined or subtly incomplete static version of the mill and a coloured (but static) version for worked tile.

I suppose the "grayed out" style can mix well with "fog of war" effect: if the enemy tile is out of you sight you can't really know if it's worked or not.

I keep remember myself: in Civ the map *IS* the territory, so you must be really carefully with too much realistic enhancement, if you end losing the game info into the process.

[Addled Platypus]

no giants in game

IMO unappealing

[Andrewspriggs]

Well, if you are concerned about people and numbers (i.e., there are exact numbers of citizens in cities--not approximations), units should be made of variable sizes (and when stacked, my next idea applies especially).

What I mean is...they should be smaller units--but there should be quite a few of them. When you decide five soldiers = the graphical representation of a unit or whatever, it gives a grander picture.

So, if a person stacks or makes an army, those units should then look like a horde of soldiers all going for the enemy.

Of course...that might be a little hard to draw...but...yeah...

[Addled Platypus]

how big of a group is too big?

I think the largest stack I moved was 18

what about a different style helmet or other design to designate 10 units in that stack...so if you have 35

3 red helmets anf 5 regular

[Straybow]

I'd rather have rectangles with abstract symbols than fancy graphics. This isn't an arcade game. But that's just me...