PC Zone: 10 Screenshots, 7 Videos

[ContradictioN]

Why do you hate the roads Yin?

[yin26]

Well, actually, we all seem to agree that the mountain/road combo could use some work. But in general, doesn't it look like that basic, snake-like look we already saw in Civ 2? It looks like somebody just took a brown marker and went nuts. Also, do most roads twist and turn so much like that? It just looks messy. I've seen some of your artwork, Contra, and I think you could re-do those roads to look much better.

[Seeker]

Anyone else having problems with this 'streaming' video using Windows Media Player?!

[Jeje2]

Show the train

I do agree that rivers and mountains needs more work, it just looks silly right now.

Yin: Have you seen real countryroads?
At least here in Finland a countryroad is just one big curve to the right and to the left, but never straight ahead. So what I see isn't so bad.

I would like to see the countryside with railroads in it.

Oh, take a look at the tank attack avi-file. When the tank moves something (3 vrtical bares) remains still at wheelheight. Lokks somewhat funny to me. Is it correct?

[TechWins]

Anyone else having problems with this 'streaming' video using Windows Media Player?!

Yeah, I am too. I asked this "What player do you have to have to play the videos?" but nobody answered my question.

[yin26]

Yin: Have you seen real countryroads?

Not since my Idaho cow-tipping days...but I see your point. I guess there is "straight" unnaturalness and "curvy" unnaturalness. I'm not really sure how you'd made the roads look more natural...maybe they should be set into the ground a tiny bit...evolve natural road side features through the ages (start with tiny rocks randomly on the side, moving up to road-signs, etc.). Then, perhaps, it will look too cluttered?

I don't know. I suppose there's no silver bullet to making roads in this kind of game look nice, but surely more could be done than what we've got here. Perhaps the country road / urban road difference is one place to start?

[Henrik]

Anyone else having problems with this 'streaming' video using Windows Media Player?!

It works fine whit Quicktime for me.

[Jeje2]

Yin: Yes, I do agree. More could be done...

But, IMHO worest in those pictures are the colors of citynames.
Blue is unreadable, please make them all in black and separate the nations some other way..

Oh, and the article is skeptic about an october releasedate for Civ3, that has to be good news... (Please oh please let it be Q1 or Q2/02, with good betatesting before)

[TechWins]

But, IMHO worest in those pictures are the colors of citynames. Blue is unreadable, please make them all in black and separate the nations some other way..

Maybe by changing the pop. size number of the city to the color of the civ. Then keeping the name of the city in black.

I wish they would have made the energy bar on the side of a unit bigger.

Perhaps the country road / urban road difference is one place to start?

That would be nice. The urban road would be all the roads in a city radius and the country side roads would be all the non city radius roads. The color for urban roads could be black and for the country roads it could be brown.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by yin26
Well, actually, we all seem to agree that the mountain/road combo could use some work.

Both the mountain/road- and mountain/River combo looks horrible. Why must roads go directly over the peaks? Its better if they meander near the mountain-bases, instead.

It looks like somebody just took a brown marker and went nuts. [...] It just looks messy.

Polypheus had some viewpoints about it in his thread called Infinite Road & Railroad Sprawl. The road/railroad-sprawl phenomenon lays in the fact that building roads and railroads on every improved tile is ONLY beneficial. It shoudnt be. It should be a mixed blessing:

No roads through irrigated tiles means that the max increased food-output can be maintained. Building roads through irrigated tiles means only half food-increase, but you get instead the increased trade-benefit.

Railroads should now ONLY boost shield-output from mined hills & special resource-tiles.
No benefits on other tile-types; neither trade, food or shield ones. The increased movement-benefit is worthwhile enough in order to encourage the player to RR-connect all his cities, plus perhaps adding some strategical shortcuts & RR-knots as well, for more effective war mobilisations and more secure domestic resource-trade. Once ALL of your cities have been RR-connected you perhaps get some reward or trade-bonus as well.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Eli
I hate those mountains...

Perhaps downsized CTP-2 style mountains would look better afterall. Compare with this CTP-2 SCREENSHOT. If they cant fix the road/mountain combo to something better, they should downsize the mountains.

About the roads: I would prefer thin brown lines as in above screenshot instead. I never liked the thick blurry road-look in SMAC, it doesnt look that good in Civ-3, either.

[Alex 14]

Originally posted by TechWins


Yeah, I am too. I asked this "What player do you have to have to play the videos?" but nobody answered my question.

I used realplayer & the pikeman clip worked for me, but the others didn't.

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, I think those things under Berlin and Munich are some sort of special resource. They could be vases, in which case they could be a resource like clay/porcelain or something like that. Alternatively they could be some sort of cannister. Perhaps it is aluminium or something, although I would expect that would only become available on the advent of electricity. This looks too early...

[Provost Harrison]

Oh yeah, I forgot. Roads. I think they look fine, I mean notice how the roads running inbetween cities are actually wider and more major than other random roads in the wilderness. But my major concern lies with the mountains and roads. Either they will have to modify the code for laying roads to weave around the mountains and through valleys in mountain ranges, or modify the mountain terrain to look flatter so that the roads look fine. But I think the 3d look of the mountains is fine if they would implement it correctly...it really does spoil the image when it just seems to hover overhead without going around. I am sure this will have to be a visual image they address.

I suppose the anchor would suggest that there is a ship anchored in port, or that would be my reckoning.

I actually notice that the rivers seem to run inbetween squares which is interesting. I wonder what the implications of this will be...

And the fonts below the city need sorting out.

However from this point of view, they should only be minor gripes, ones which could be sorted out with a bit of application, one which professional designers such as Firaxis should have no problem sorting out for the final release. Little touches like this mean a lot...

[Provost Harrison]

And I would also like to add that some of the difficulty with some of the text, eg, the word Miletos is not because that the contrast would be too hard, but it is to due with the nature of lossy JPEG compression of the image. There is some distortion in compression and I think this is what is happening to the finer text making it difficult to read. I doubt this would actually be a problem on the real thing.

My gripe about the graphics is to sort out the roads on hills, and to make sure the grid goes around it. A lot of it would be sorted out by drawing the thing square by square rather than drawing the whole lot and plonking terrain improvements down on top of the drawn terrain. Also some way to make the roads weave through valleys in hills and mountains; that is a must...