GRAPHIC: Civ3 citizens gone Civ1

[hardjoy]

Like many others I felt the citizens icons were a little cluttered and diffcult to tell apart, especially on the domestic advisor screen. So I made a "downgrade" to citizen icons that look like the ones of Civ1.

This makes it possible instantly to spot cities with unhappiness problems. And IMO it applies some of the timeless flavour and iconographic elegance of the original game.

please note, however, that this "downgrade" does not come without a cost. The citizens nationality colour is no longer displayed. This is a minor price to pay IMO for improved clarity. You'll still get the nationality of citizens by hovering the mouse over their icons. The different icons for each "age" has also been scrapped. I prefer iconographic clarity over this kind of fluff.

Installation : Simply unzip, and copy/move to the "Arts/Smallheads" directory. Remember to backup the original file somewhere safe, if you haven't done so already.

[hardjoy]

Doesn't this look familiar?

[Fintilgin]

Nifty.

I wonder how the nationality color is displayed? Maybe you could have a colored dot by each icon or something, representing its nationality?

I wouldn't mind seeing skin/hair color variations as well as `age' variations though, while keeping with the Light Blue/Dark Blue/Red=Happy/Content/Angry scheme. I might have to fiddle with it for my own personal version.

In any case, I think I'll install it right away. I did ocasionally squint at my citizens to figure out if they were angry or just content. It could be difficult on odd occasions...
Thanks!

Joe

[hardjoy]

Glad you like it!

I might make some adjustments along the way... In fact I did do a "nationality" platform for the icons, but it didn't provide anything useful IMO. It tended to blur the instant recognizability of the icons. There's a limit to the wealth of information in an icon IMO. If all the icons display a red colour (playing the romans), it spoils clarity. You'll still get the nationality by hovering the mouse pointer over the icons.

Mark, please move this to the files section!

[Fintilgin]

Well, what I was thinking was more along the lines of altering skin/hair colors. I don't think this would disrupt readability too much, and would help the `international' feeling.

For example,
European Civs would have a slightly lighter skin tone and yellow hair.
The Roman/Greek/Egyptians would have the light skin with dark hair.
Asian Civs would have the current skin tone with black hair.
Zulu/Persian/Babylonian would have very dark skin and hair
American would have some mix.

A really ambitious mod would give them different clothes too, y'know, light blue kimono for happy Asian, light blue toga for happy Medeteranians. Etc etc....

Joe

[Wolfshanze]

I like this patch... and indeed may use it.

One possible suggestion (at least concerning differant looks over the ages), didn't Civ2 have a differant look every age with it's citizens?

How about a Civ2 to Civ3 conversion, instead of the Civ1 to Civ3 conversion!?!?!?!?!

Still, good work!

[Hueij]

Wow, talking about sweet memories... Now where did I last see those Civ1 disks?

It looks great, I'm downloading right now, tnx

[Wolfshanze]

Civ2 Faces Patch

I went ahead and made a similar conversion for Civ2 heads.

They do show age differances.

As of this moment, it's on the "general" Civ3 forum, though I imagine it will get transfered over to here soon.