Should walking, talking advisors be ressurected?

[vee4473]

I wanted to ask everyone their thoughts on bringing back the video advisors of civ 2. I know that in civ2 they got a little repetitive over time, but they added spice.
The same goes for the wonder movies.

I'm thinking that the videos of various advice could be varied enough in this day and age, to actually be useful as well as entertaining.

I vote yes.

[Fosse]

I voted no. I certainly have fond memories of most of the old advisors... but I'd rather we had useful advirsors than animated ones. SOmething more like the Datalinks in SMAC, where you could get great breakdowns of anything you wanted.

I also don't want animated leaderheads, or or anything else that replaces functionality with glitz.

[Enigma_Nova]

In this day and age, we should be able to combine something functional with something that looks good.

But indeed - "Only if they're varied enough not to get repeditive", because I don't need someone telling me what I already know or have already guessed they're going to tell me. :/

[lajzar]

One thing that bugged me about civ3 was having animated leaders, and then teh advisors, whose graphical quality was similar, not being animated. Lets have a little consistency here!

[Enigma_Nova]

Leaders are more important than mere advidors.

[MrWhereItsAt]

The Civ2 Advisors screen was terrific entertainment value. Beyond that it was not so useful.

THe Civ3 Advisors (with the exception of some of the Military and Foreign Affairs Advisors' info) were quite useless. Perhaps a section of info that the advisors give (and will need to give in the new cIV) but no Advisors heads needed.

At the same time I would not so no to anything as entertaining as the Civ2 advisors, I just consider it surplus to working on the game mechanics.

[Enigma_Nova]

I presume that the game mechanics will be botchy like the other civ games.
Might as well add some hillarity to make the game worth playing - at least it would have Roleplaying value.

[patcon]

Bring back the Egyptian ambassador.
For some unknown reason the Egyptians usually could get better deals from me.

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Leaders are more important than mere advidors.

I agree. It is just a tad jarring to see the advisers teleport between poses though.

[Enigma_Nova]

Maybe.
...
Do you reckon they could get Voice acting and CG models for cIV?
Just wondering.

[Dauphin]

Voted banana.

Yes, in Civ2 they were nice, but they were not that important.

What I would prefer is the old theme tunes playing when you discover a tech or take a city. I love the old civ theme tunes like Augustus Rises. In fact that was my main reason for playing the Romans in Civ1.

[Enigma_Nova]

So you're saying that the Atmosphere is an important part of the game?
That's true. But do Advisors add to the atmosphere, or detract from it with their humorous ineptitude?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
So you're saying that the Atmosphere is an important part of the game?
That's true. But do Advisors add to the atmosphere, or detract from it with their humorous ineptitude?

If done right, then they could really add to the atmosphere. It would be nice to see the military advisor, for instance, ask you to boost your troops along some border because he doesn't trust them. Even more so if that civilization had broken some treaties in the past. Of course, if you already have a lot of troops there, maybe he should comment on it and give some other advice.

I think this would require a fair amount of effort to do well, but it could do things well. Part of it depends on the AI, I think. If the AI is programmed with short term and long term goals that it develops, and these goals are pretty decent, then this could work well. You basically just get the AI's opinion on things. Of course, this is prone to abuse if the AI still cheats with how it looks at other cities.

Otherwise it would be tricky, but not impossible.

-Drachasor

[Vince278]

Sounds like alot of work but I'd like to see it as well.

[Enigma_Nova]

The problem with making an advisor seem competent is
the same problem as making a turing bot work -
how do you get them to understand the complex variables in the equation?

You can't, so the best you can do is make them idiots which can be laughed at.