Large Screenshot (400k?) and debate

[ContradictioN]

I've put two screenshots together. I am quite annoyed by the graphic work done on the land, I mean its still boring, it's been 6 years for crying out loud, and the graphics are still ugly, they can be much better looking. Can't we at least move away from the flat lifeless look of the world?

I'm not saying graphics is everything, I'm saying, we need to move on to better things. Not just graphics but everything else aswell. I really believe that the flat lifeless land is causing the game to behave flat and lifeless. You can do so much more when you can see more, for instance, now that I've drawn those hills and mountains in (not finished hehe), I can put gunneries up there, I can put fortifications up there, the mining will look proper and overall it just looks better.

Also notice i've changed the plains, I've put wheat on them, I'm not sure if it looks better, but if it could sway in the wind, and when units move through, it cuts out the bottom half, I think that looks great!

I also changed half the water to blue to compare with the original green look. I really dunno which is best. Maybe a very dark ocean blue? like navy

[Jer8m8]

I didn't realize they go together. Nice work

[Guest]

I like the original graphics for the most part, but I do admit that I like the "blue" ocean compared to the "green" ocean. The green is just ugly! Good work though, maybe Firaxis needs you to do some artwork for them?

[Grumbold]

I like your sea colour better than the green. A little darker still would be even better provided it did not start hiding the units too much.

Your "wheat" would be great to represent land actually being farmed (i.e. a worker in the city is assigned to that tile) but that might cause processor overheads each time the map was redrawn. The one thing Civ games never distinguished between was land prepared for cultivation and land actually in use. For the animation fans the mines could operate, ploughs appear in the fields etc

The one thing I thought particularly amusing was the horseman stanfing nect to the horse resources. Clearly the pygmy horses found in the wild grow rapidly when domesticated and ridden

[Kurgan]

I think that the color of the Ocean you have added is much, much better, and more comfortable to look at. But for the wheat in the wild, I think it should be only be placed in areas that are being farmed.

[Yog-Sothoth]

Nice work ContradictioN, I especially like your sea color. I really hope they will change that ugly green sea.





As to the map in general, I actually like the map to be flat. I don't think a map with elevation will give the same overview. It also tend to get more zoomed in while the map scale stays the same, and that just look plain weird. At least thats the feeling I got in SMAC. It's like if you have elevated hill tile, you need to use the 8 tiles around as an transition between the different elevation levels.

[Provost Harrison]

RIVER INBETWEEN TILES?!

Hey, I have just noticed something odd about civ3. The rivers seem to go inbetween tiles, not through them, if you look carefully!!? I wonder what the implication of this is?

[Deathwalker]

Maybe they set up the riivers as obsitcles that you have to pass with a bridge. Early on in the game this would make it harder to explore. But this mean boats can't go up rivers

[Al'Kimiya]

Re: RIVER INBETWEEN TILES?!

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Hey, I have just noticed something odd about civ3. The rivers seem to go inbetween tiles, not through them, if you look carefully!!? I wonder what the implication of this is?

My guess is that river tiles show the river graphics at the bottom of the tile. This is useful for borders, which traditionally should be at the river, not half a tile beyond

[Zanzin]

hey contradiction, nice work.

I too agree, shouldn't the whole civ map concept evolved just a bit in 6 years??

I've long been a proponent of a 3-D map for civ, like you drew. It looks good, and it injects new life into the genre, I feel.

I was a bit disapointed when Firaxis started unveling screenshots....it really did look like civ2 all over again, but just with a different shaded tile set and a bit more detail.

Maybe Firaxis will listen to our pleas....maybe not.......maybe by the time civ4 comes along.

[Ralf]

I like your bluish ocean colour-palette. A definite improvement over the original turquoise one.

I dont like your version of mountains and wheat-tiles. Your mountains, for example doesnt fit in with the rest of the landscape - nor with the tile-wise terrain-type system. And the wheat-tiles are too dense & protruding, so that one cannot see what terrain-type is underneath.

I generally like the overal graphical approach choosen for Civ-3, as described in the Game revolution preview:

The first and most obvious one is to the overall look of the game. Unsurprisingly, the graphics look more detailed and intricate than past games in the series. They are not, however, slick or modern. Rather than emulating the bright, smooth textures of games like Age of Mythology (link), the design team chose to build the overall look of the game around Pieter Bruegel's Tower of Babel (link).

Even a casual look at the new "City View" screen shows the influence of Bruegel's work, which was itself patterned after the ancient buildings Bruegel saw in Rome. Whether or not this is a good thing will probably turn out to be a matter of personal preference (and has already proven to be so among the GR editorial staff)

I however dont like the irrigated tiles at all. They should make the irrigation-canals more thin & regular: so that it looks obviously manmade. Also some slightly protruding crops between the thin canals. Its perhaps a tricky job for the graphic-artists, because the underlying original terrain-type must also be able to shine through.

Finally; the team should also consider some minor height-difference between land and ocean-tiles, so that the whole continent/island slightly rises above the waterline somewhat.

[KrazyHorse]

I've got to say that I really like the look of Civ III as it is. The turquoise ocean colour gives such a nice sixteenth-century feel to the map. Your wheat resources look beautiful, though. The only thing I can't stand about the Civ III graphics the way they stand now is the mountain squares. The mountain rises up out of nowhere, almost vertically. Its height is too exaggerated, and it looks silly. Question: Do the numbers after the current production item represent the number of turns left to completion?

[ContradictioN]

Thanks for the input

Let me finish the picture, I've cropped it into a smaller square so that I don't have to do so much work.

I want to change the entire land so that it all fits in properly, because I understand that the hills and mountains don't fit with the tree's and the colour of the land. I know what it will look like when i'm finished, I just need to get it done. I will try and get it done by tonight.

I've made the ocean darker now, it looks twice as good as the last blue.

Also I've taken out the borders, and all the text on the screen, so that I can start fresh without too much mess on it. I feel that the borders are a wee bit too ugly, and should be something nicer. The borders look like big broken railroads to me. It really annoys me. It think it should look different.


I agree with the wheat, I feel that the wheat should only be for irrigated land, but I also feel that imagine its 1990, and all the land is now wheat, it might look quite ugly. So I think that the irrigated areas should be a different colour according to the type of land its on. So that way it doesn't look too messy and you can see the different types of land there are.

Also when you draw a road or a railroad through the wheat, it will cut through it, I think that would look super cool.

I will see if I can elevate the land from the ocean, thanks for the idea, and I agree with the mountains and hills, they look silly out there by themselves, they're not even attached to each other, nor are the tree's, they're too scattered, I think it needs to be slightly thicker, also its looks more like a mess rather than plantlife. So I will be fixing them too.


I found that when I was editing the land, that the rivers seem to be a layer above the land itself, which is allowing it to cross over tiles, I also found that each 'tile' doesn't really look like a 'diamond' its more of a warped diamond, which is allowing the land to blend in more realisticaly. You can see it from the coastal areas, it's actualy like that right through the land I think.


If there's any other thoughts I could use while I am editing the picture, please post em, I wanna help make Civ3 a great game, I worry that the graphics are a bit of a let down, and I'm getting that feeling from most of the people here.

Hills should roll and gently rise, not go directly up and not roll. It just looks like a big green rock, and those mountains look like they come from Hawaii.

I will make the image smaller

[Nadexander]

Re: Large Screenshot (400k?) and debate

Wow. Are you kidding. Compared to Civ2 and even SMAC i think the graphics are gorgeous. Im sure the animations will make it look even better. While not flashy and state-of-the-art i think its the perfect look for civilization: Everything i could possibly wannt.

BTW It looks to me like a very large city will occupy more than one square!!

-Nadexander

[Inverse Icarus]

personally, i found that mountain horrid.

not to say that i could do any better.