Your choice of graphics?

[Willhelm II]

Someone PMed me last week wanting the terrain I posted somewhere - here's the thread.

[AGRICOLA]

I don't like unnecessary clutter and try to maximize ease of play. In the screenshot:

1. People's backgrounds are color coded from green for happy to yellow for content and red for unhappy. If there were any in revolt, they would have black backgrounds. Specialists are white.
2. Resources are represented by highly visible, simple, color coded shapes.
3. The horrible (IMO ), dark pebbled windows of TOT have been replaced by greys approximating vanilla Civ 2. This was done by editing the CIVWIN_back and dialog files in the Original folder. If anybody wants to try these, just post a request.
4. RR's are a wide white stripe and roads a narrower light grey. These are very visible on most terrains.
5. As I always play with the grid on but have no use for city square markings, these have been edited in ICONS.

[curtsibling]

Here is the units/cities compo I use in my ToT original folder!

[torbk]

This is my choise of units when I play civ2. I think they work nicely. I changed the explorer for Missile Frigate (Computers 6/6/6 3h2f "See2, See Subs. Replaces Destroyer) and added a grenadier (Explosives 5/2/1 2h1f. Replaces Legion, Replaced by Marines).

[Sarsstock]

I'd have to say your unitset Curt is hands down the best I've seen. Well done ! I also don't why, but the city graphics in the 5th row from the top are the best city style I've seen to date. Were they made for any particular scenario of yours that I'm forgetting?

[Willhelm II]

I've always dreamed that Curt would one day make and entire set of graphics (terrain, cities, units) for Civ2 the original.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Beyond its scenario-design advantages, ToT also features a marginally tougher AI. I don't have any quantifiable observations, but in my experience, the AI:

expands faster, and keeps expanding longer;
is even harder to negotiate with than in MGE - for some, this may be a disincentive, since diplomacy is nearly pointless even if Spotless; and
is better at contesting the early wonder races.

Of course, the foregoing only applies to vanilla ToT, not necessarily to scenarios.

As to the point of this thread, I usually keep the original ToT sprites, with one of Kestral's terrain sets to make it a little easier on the eyes.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Willhelm II
I've always dreamed that Curt would one day make and entire set of graphics (terrain, cities, units) for Civ2 the original.

I will post up some MGE stuff you soon, dude!

[Willhelm II]

Originally posted by curtsibling


I will post up some MGE stuff you soon, dude!

You're a star!

[Eivind IV]

@AGRICOLA:
I'd be very interested in that tot vanilla civ2 look you got going there.

[AGRICOLA]

Here's a zip of doctored Civwin_back and dialog files from the ORIGINAL folder in the main TOT folder.

[Eivind IV]

Thanks, but I'm still having that hideous TOT look. What am I not doing? Save me, John, save me!

[AGRICOLA]

You're right, I didn't include enough modified files.

To make sure that we are doing the same thing, here's how I play any TOT scen (in this case Empire of the Rising Sun):

1. The modified Civwin_back and dialog files are in the ORIGINAL sub-folder in the main TOT folder. The Civwin_back and dialog files that came with TOT remain in the ORIGINAL folder but have been renamed (or, optionally, deleted) so that they are not used by the program.

2. All downloaded EOTRS scenario files are in a EOTRS folder on DESKTOP.

3. Of the seven graphics files that came with the scen, only ICONS, PEOPLE and TERRAIN files have been modified.

4. PEOPLE has color coded backgrounds and TERRAIN 1 has changed roads and RR's. Depending on the appearance of the files that come with a scen, l either use them as is, modify them or replace them corresponding files from another scen that I have already played.

The ICONS file is a modified version of the file (I believe that this is Catfish's ICONS file) that comes with the scen. All the dark rectangles have been changed to white and there are minor mods to resource, city square and other icons.

BTW, this is where I would gently remove any $@?/# active square indicator arrows that point to an adjacent square.

5. ON the VIEW pulldown, MAP LAYOUT and CITY LAYOUT are toggled so that the main and city windows are the same as in vanilla Civ 2.

Sorry, but I did not realize that, even with all the mods, if one views the city window in the TOT style, one gets something that looks like the inside of a dungeon. IMHO, they must have used a funeral director to select the depressing TOT color palette.

The attachment has the necessary ICONS file as well as the optional PEOPLE and TERRAIN 1. In PEOPLE, the delightful rogues' gallery of surly louts, hookers and hoodlums is the product of Curt's artistry.

[Boco]

Jump for joy Tech, it's a dissenting opinion!

I gotta say that I much prefer the ToT city layout. The darkness of the ToT layout can be fixed as easily for the ToT layout as it was with the traditional layout. Plus you're working with greater color depth.

I also like other parts of the ToT layout. In particular, I like the displays in the shield and food boxes that indicate the numerical progress relative to what's needed (I never enjoyed counting icons and rows in the traditional layout). The larger map of the ToT city screen that extends beyond city limits also helps me as a player. Even though it involves extra clicking, I also prefer to toggle between larger lists for "units present", "support", and "improvements". I find it unacceptably restrictive to face a truncated list of 10 supported units in the traditional layout. Is there a way to see units 11 and greater with the traditional layout?

[techumseh]

There's no question the ToT layout is superior, and some of the graphic upgrades are outstanding. The only weakness is that while you can see every unit in a city by scrolling down, you can't activate the ones that you have to scroll down to see.