{The List} - Game Atmosphere

[Optimizer]

Good ideas about maps.

Bring back the newspaper from Civ 1 - it was great! During the ancient age it could be a clay tablet, and then it could improve gradually - resembling a web-browser in the information age.

And there should be dragons and other beasts in the blank spaces of your maps!

[rendelnep]

About the alantis myth - it could be something to signify a relatively advanced nation in comparison to your own or a super tech hut that gives a tech and a free city/settler

[Kramsib]

FROM THE SPANISH COMMUNITY LIST:

22. Include more leaderheads per civ, wonder movies and animations for conquest of cities, victories, civil disorders, “we love the leader days”, advisors, …

23. EVENTS.

Events are excelent to give a real atmosphere to each scenario, they should be brought back and they should be editable.

[Fosse]

Fewer leaderheads per Civ! At least, fewer of the Civ 3 style ones, which tend to suck the atmosphere right out of the game!

I'd rather the art team make the wonder movies and other animations you talked about, or rather that the art money go to other parts of the game.

[AroSch]

Agreed with most afore said.

- Make city view usefull (add statistics/usefull animations/whatever).

- Add wonder movies again.

- If there still will be ages, make them more individual: add interface graphics and or diplomacy graphics for every age.

- No leaderhead animation. It' isn't necessary. Put your artist skills on other things. For example make fractions more individual looking.

- Give more feeback in game. During diplomacy actions I want to contact my foreign minister and the otherones too. Make sure, we could have a rough overview without going in every citie or asking our advisors. I like to get informations from map (the icons for harbors, barracks, airopports allready are a good way, but something more graphical would be much nicer.) Imagine wonders showed on the map...

[Makahlua]

- An umpteenth ditto to no 'leaderheads' - perhaps a revert back to Civ 2's more stylized still portraits.

- And bring back the male/female choice! I feel so odd playing Brennus when I'm used to being Bodiccea

- Perhpas have the overall game interface change from era to era (artistically, not functionally) as well as from culture to culture. Rome going from pillars/marble to the ornate style of the Renissance, for example. England(or the Celts) going from rough stone monolithic looking background to sturdy castle brick and stained glass and then to Victorian steel and glass. Or a Mideast civ going from plain sandstone to colorful tile to the ornate style of 1800's mosques. The modern era I imagine would look mostly the same for all civs (possibly a computer looking interface?)

[lajzar]

They should make teh 3D graphics optional. A single global choice to turn them off. And the installation default should be off if no 3d card graphics is detected.

I have a top end laptop computer in every respect except for no 3d card (very unusual on laptops anyway), and civ3 runs like treacle.

[Plotinus]

I don't know what everyone has against the animated leaderheads. I know they must eat up development time and computer resources that could go on other things, but I rather like them.

[Fosse]

I think that they cost too much for any benefit they have. Also, many feel that the Civ 3 leaderheads went a long way toward removing players from the immersion. It's hard to feel like you're negotiating an important history breaking deal with a great foreign power when they look like a doofus and say the absurd jokey things that they say.

Civ 2's heralds certainly used up resources at the time, but tended to add a bit of integrity to the diplomatic process.

I would rather that the game treat itself seriously.

Also... leaerheads limit mod making which nobody in the Civ community likes too much.

[wrylachlan]

Another Atmosphere thing:

Allies in a war send messages letting you know what's happening on their fronts.

i.e. The French and you (England) are at war with Germany. At the beginning of your turn you get a pop-up with the french diplomatic envoy saying "Aproximately 50 divisions of German Panzers are closing in on Paris. We don't think we can hold them off for very long. Please send reinforcements".

[CaptainVW]

Old World / New World

OK, here's an idea I've had for a long time; now that I've read that CivIV is official, I guess I decided it was time to stop haunting these boards and share my ideas for once.

Anyway, one of the things I missed about Civs I and II was that it was commonplace for two cultures of vastly different tech levels to meet, resulting in a matchup of, say, tanks vs. knights. In CivIII, ai civs contact each other early and trade techs so rapidly that there becomes a worldwide technology level, with only a few techs dividing the leader from the most backwards nation. One fun way to combat this problem would be to create an old world / new world distinction, both in map creation and cultural starting times.

Maps would need to be created with two continental clusters, separated by wide oceans. The Old World continent cluster would contain 3 to 6 continents, either touching each other or fairly close, the New World 2 or 3. The oceans separating these clusters would need to be wide enough to be impassible to triremes. (the a.i. would be forbidden to use the "trireme cheat" in this scenario) Additionally, "deep ocean" squares could form a barrier that would require advanced ships to cross.

All Old World civs (lets say there are 7 in the standard game) start at the beginning of the game, i.e. 4000 b.c. Sometime later in the game, perhaps 1000 b.c. or 1. a.d., the New World civs (perhaps 2 or 3 in number) are allowed to start.

This could be combined with another idea I read in the "civilizations" thread (by azazel), in which a greater number of civs start the game, but as tribes rather than full-fledged civs. With this addition, unsettled areas of the Old World and scattered islands can be seeded with "tribes" at the later time the New World civs start.

The New World could possibly be seeded with denser resources than the Old World.

With a few more tweaks and additions, I think this could be a fun feature. Generally, the a.i. would play the New World civs, but it could be a fun occ-type challenge for a human to play one. It would be important to be able to disable this feature and play a "classic" civ game sometimes too.

What do you guys think?

[CaptainVW]

gamepiece tilesets

While most people hailed civ2's isometric viewpoint and 3D-style graphics as an improvement, I felt that the series took a slight step back immersively. Obviously, no king, no matter how powerful, could look over the earth and see his units towering above forests and hills. But kings and rulers often look at tactical maps of their domains, and that is what the "representative" or "game-piece" feel of the original civ's graphics imparted to me. It would nice to be able to choose between the 3D modern-style presentation and one that would represent the units as 3D gamepieces with a boardgame feel.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I believe that a step away from a realistic graphic representation, and more towards a representative one, would help with game immersion. How about you?

[K.J.H.]

The title of a leader should depend on what style of government the civ has, like Civ2. "Comrade Lincoln" or "President Cleopatra" .... I like it.

[Naokaukodem]

civ is sticking to the time... civ2 was the start of a global view, well, just like it anyway. civ1 was between civ3 and civ2, with portraits and leader escort completly gay from time to time, place to place. "Who is this guy, by the way? I thought i was just in a civilization simulation game, nobody told me that i would have to deal with this pale reproduction of this no-civ leader-like" civ3 is much convenient about history... ironically. People who sticks to facts only are people who may look cynic. Civ is not about real civilizations, i feel that it's the key. **** to cynic people and cold-warmongers who want to cell in us in our fears so that we could not see what's the beginning and the end of the obviousness.

Psychology is the weapon Number 1. And we are all victim of it. This weapon who have been forbidden by God and used for the Irak invasion.

I think civ should be an experience game as we might be able to apprehend it. Civs or some of them could be original. Tech tree could be reproduced or and forward-reverse-engineered so that new ways may arise. The system could be theorised so that civs designs and evolutions would be "proper".

So that i could hunt Canibals and exterminate every of them. °o °

[Plotinus]

And what's wrong with being gay?