What's in Civ4. Just the facts, ma'am.

[Adagio]

I still have to say that Civ 1 had probably the best map view

I have to agree here...

[:) Smiley]

Agreed. Ideally, a civ map would look like one of those old fashioned hand-drawn maps. There was a really neat mod along such lines made in the Civ3 files board.

[Jon Shafer]

3D CAN work for Civ, but you have to be careful of how it's implimented. I will be the first to say that I let out a groan when I heard about 3D. But as I got to thinking more about it, it could help streamline things (one of Soren's sticking points), and not ruin the series.

3D would be just fine (or even an improvement) if it was simply used to replace the current graphics engine along with a couple of other features that could help you navigate. Better zooming, panning, etc. Features that are useful and practical, and don't stand out by themselves but rather help to improve the rest of the game.

But if you try to go much beyond that, that's when you get into trouble. I saw a post over at CFC suggesting that 3D was a good idea because you could zoom in and see citizens working or individual battles being fought. Now that is heading down a dark dark road. That's when instead of improving the game, the 3D is detracting from it by drawing resources away from gameplay and the AI, and instead wasting them on frivolous eye candy - NOT the sticking point of Civ.

However, I think that with Soren's advertised focus things will probably take the former path rather than the latter. Anyone who knows anything about Civ knows that going the latter would only bastardize the series.

[Adagio]

But if you try to go much beyond that, that's when you get into trouble. I saw a post over at CFC suggesting that 3D was a good idea because you could zoom in and see citizens working or individual battles being fought. Now that is heading down a dark dark road. That's when instead of improving the game, the 3D is detracting from it by drawing resources away from gameplay and the AI, and instead wasting them on frivolous eye candy - NOT the sticking point of Civ.

I can't believe anyone would actually believe this would improve the game

[Harovan]

3D can improve the game if done well. I often wish I could turn the map to have a look from another perspective, or to look from the zenith to have a look at the undistorted map, or to zoom in/out smoothly in order to give me more overview or more detail. But by more detail I don't mean working people or fighting individuals, which would indeed be a waste of resources for unnecessary eye-candy and give the game a RTS touch (). By the way, 3D would hamper the moddability of the graphics, wouldn't it?

[DarkCloud]

I can't believe anyone would actually believe this would improve the game

I don't see why idiots want that to be in EVERY game... people wanted it in Rollercoaster Tycoon... but it didn't improve Theme Park Tycoon which was the same idea as RCT... and people wanted to ride rides- but that didn't make the game any more fun.

Games should *focus*

[Solver]

Well, fast forward to end of 2005, the possible release time for Civ 4. Doom 3 and Half Life 2, shooters with next-generation graphics have been released. Quake 4 is released recently, or going to be soon. On the RTS front, a few new games have been announced, such as Age of Empires 3, and it looks like they will have very good and realistic graphics. The upcoming RPGs look quite a lot like movies, and are smooth.

On that background, the casual gamer isn't going to buy a game that isn't 3D. 2D games are getting old now, and will be by then. We, the hardcore civvers, don't care about the count of Ds, but the casual gamer will. And without having an appeal to casual gamers, Civ 4 can't hope to sell a few millions copies.

[DarkCloud]

The upcoming RPGs look quite a lot like movies, and are smooth.

But I generally hate how they look- admittedly 3D is beginning to improve- but still- even HALO looks a bit trashy on computer.

Unreal Tournament 2004 is the first really high quality 3D game released...

hybrid 3D's work 'ok' generally (like Empire Earth) but full 3D's like Neverwinter nights are clunky.

Personally, the more games that went to 3D the less that I bought- the newest game I have is neverwinter nights.

everything else I have is pre 2001. [Except Baseball Mogul 2003... but that's just a spreadsheet- no graphics]

(And I have over 200 games... so that's a bit scary )

These new games are trashy (in my opinion)

Then again, I understand the rhetoric that casual gamers are idiots... as evidenced by people's calls for 'let's zoom in to see the little people... I know its a useless feature and has nothing to do with the game, but it'll be C00l... H3ll, it r0x0rZ.'

*Sigh*

[bob rulz]

My two cents

"Unreal Tournament 2004 is the first really high quality 3D game released..."

Have you seen the screenshots for Half-Life 2? It looks REAL. That is one of those games that will have kick-ass graphics AND will also have good gameplay. But the Civ series isn't FPS, it's Turn-based Strategy, and this wouldn't work as well.

As for the palace expansions...I don't think they detract from the flow of the game at all. You have to have a little bit of eye-candy, you can't just get rid of it completely. You guys make it sound like eye-candy is a BAD thing. Not EVERYTHING in a game has to be trategic or useful. Like, for example, the city view. I think it would be cool if they gave a realistic interpretation based ont eh view around it. You won't HAVE to use it, but it's there if you want to. Since, as long as your not moving units, Civ is automatically paused (sort of), you can just do other things. Just sitting there playing the game for several hours straight is just tiring in my opinion, you've got to have some eye-candy and visual stuff if you want it.

I often find myself thinking about how my empire and world would be if I lived in it. To stimulate some of these "role-playing" experiences, if you want to call them that, you could have eye-candy. I stress again, a lot of you don't do this, but some people do. It makes it seem like a more real experience. Just my two cents


Oh ya, and how do you put quotes in those gray boxes?

[Adagio]

Sure, some eye candy can't hurt, but for a Civ game to go into houses in all cities and see people make breakfast is a bit too far away, but being able to see the cities would be great, but they should do realistic looking cities, not cities as in Civ3... and there should be some difference on the cities, so when going to city view you can tell what city it is, not just by looking at the city name at the top of the screen...

For now it looks like most people are worried about the 3D part of Civ4, which doesn't automaticly mean they hate eye-candy

[Jon Shafer]

They just hate eye-candy when it takes away from other parts of the game. They just don't say that explicitly.

Yeah, some eye-candy is good, just to make sure you don't go blind while playing. The fidget animations on Civ 3 units and stuff like that is fine. You need a few things, just to keep the feel of the game going. But like my example earlier, it's when you have little people walking down the streets in cities and individual dudes fighting in battles that you're getting too far away from what Civ really is.

None of the Civs ever had really great graphics for their time, but they've always sold extremely well. And now that computer gaming is more mainstream, the need to have flashy graphics is even less. The name alone will sell plenty of copies. Trying to cater to an audience that plays Warcraft will only turn the game into Warcraft.

[bob rulz]

Well, I must admit, the 3D part does worry me a bit, and ya, going to where you see little people on the street and individual soldiers fighting battles, ya, that's too far and would detract from the game.

Now, as for the 3D part, I hope all they do is make the terrian look realistic, you know, the roads and railroads don't go through the mountain they go around it, and not all mountains go straight up into a pinnacle, mountains can have forests in real life, and you should be able to chop them down in the game...same with hills. Make it so, even when you look at a mountain range, it actually feels like you're walking through the mountains or something. Not like so extreme that it detracts from the game, but to the point where it invigorates you.

Also, I wish you could rotate the camera to see if from different angles. If it's 3D this is almost a necessity. I wish they had more than 2 zoom options, maybe like a smooth zoom option, where you zoom out and it doesn't just automatically jump to the next setting. Now that would be cool.

...and I'm still wondering how to put the quotes in those grayish-blue boxes.

[Adagio]

[off topic]
To put quotes into quote boxes you can do one of those things:

1) Press the "reply with quote" button by the post you want to raply to

2) write [ q ] text [ / q ] without the spaces...



[/offtopic]

[bob rulz]

Thanks for your help

[DarkCloud]

bob_rulz-

Have you seen the screenshots for Half-Life 2? It looks REAL. That is one of those games that will have kick-ass graphics AND will also have good gameplay. But the Civ series isn't FPS, it's Turn-based Strategy, and this wouldn't work as well.

Half Life2 isn't out yet (It's delayed indefinitely) Therefore, my comment stands.

As for the palace expansions...I don't think they detract from the flow of the game at all. You have to have a little bit of eye-candy, you can't just get rid of it completely.

I agree with this, but more because of tradition than anything else- the palace was a very fun 'easter-egg' like function in Civ!

Like, for example, the city view. I think it would be cool if they gave a realistic interpretation based ont eh view around it

Civ II and Civ I had a city view- it was useless. You would look at it for maybe a sum total of 3-4 hours... then never access it ever again... (It was a waste of code)

---

The fidget animations on Civ 3 units and stuff like that is fine.

Personally, I think that sort of 'dumbs-down' the game and instead of making it seem like a wargame/TBS-builder makes it appear more 'kidzy-and-cuddly'... It does add something, I will admit- but it adds more distraction than epic flavor... Instead of making civ epic, it makes it sort of trivial

But like my example earlier, it's when you have little people walking down the streets in cities and individual dudes fighting in battles that you're getting too far away from what Civ really is.

Indeed. Civ is not Shogun:Total War... nor should it be

--

Now, as for the 3D part, I hope all they do is make the terrian look realistic, you know, the roads and railroads don't go through the mountain they go around it, and not all mountains go straight up into a pinnacle, mountains can have forests in real life, and you should be able to chop them down in the game...same with hills. Make it so, even when you look at a mountain range, it actually feels like you're walking through the mountains or something. Not like so extreme that it detracts from the game, but to the point where it invigorates you.

I can actually agree with that suggestion somewhat... I would like terrain like Alpha Centauri, with varying heights... Although honestly, It would be very easy for firaxis to mess this up- since the animations would have to be standing 'in' the mountains to make it work- if they were 'on' the mountains it would look sort of strange- and the mountains couldn't 'hide' the unit or else there would be problems