Screenshot of the week: 10/26

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Sn00py
You could put chocolate sprinkles, cream and a cherry on those railroads, and it would still look ugly.

What in the name of God were they thinking when they did that?
What is it like in the USA? Everywhere you go, a railroad? criss crossing everywhere?

May be it's a way to celebrate the old Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon...

Yeah, the pattern of mines and RR everywhere ruin the map looks quite a lot, IMHO.

[Sandman]

I'll make some suggestions. It's no good just whinging.

An upkeep cost for railroads. This has been suggested many times before. However, with my system, the Mass Transit eliminates the upkeep cost in the eight squares surrounding the city (the suburban communter routes pay for themselves). So the player can have dense rail networks around the city, but then must place them sparingly.

Cities should fit in with their surroundings. So a city built on hills should look different to a city on plains. Also, cities which have one or more sides adjacent to water should not have skyscrapers and factories rising from the waves. A port district or a pleasure beach would look much better.

Get some better irrigation graphics. Those blue scratches just don't cut it. Fields can be any shade of brown, green or even yellow. Or red if you're growing tulips.

And here's something I noticed. See how the railroads are broken up when they pass over mountains or hills? I reckon that they are just about to implement a tunnel graphic which will account for this.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by redfox74
Russian city names are not correct, IMHO.

Tblisi is false. The correct name is Tbilisi (3 i's) or Tiflis.

St.Petersburg and Sverdlovsk together are not correct. Either St.Petersburg and Ekaterinburg (before 1914 and after 1990) or Leningrad and Sverdlovsk (during the socialist government) would be better.

Nice research, Firaxis

With 25+ cities I think that they need all the names they can find .

question to firaxis: how come the russian player sees what the other AI players are building? why is there no fog of war? does appolo program make you see enemy production too?

Dan has stated that his screens are using cheat codes, so you can see the whole map in the SOTW. We don't know about how the real game will look.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Armor, Subs, Stealth Bombers, Mec Inf, Paratroopers

Only units worth building

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


With 25+ cities I think that they need all the names they can find .

question to firaxis: how come the russian player sees what the other AI players are building? why is there no fog of war? does appolo program make you see enemy production too?

Dan has stated that his screens are using cheat codes, so you can see the whole map in the SOTW. We don't know about how the real game will look.

i thought there was no cheat mode???

[yin26]

He's just using the programming version of the game, which lets him reveal all the map, etc.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by UberKruX
i thought there was no cheat mode???

Not for public consumption. They have an internal debug version that Dan was using for last week's SOTW (he "created" the army using a cheat). I'm pretty sure this week's pic is from the same game. Guess I'm saying the same thing Yin just said.

As for the crap graphics, we can all feel free to use the editors and do better, right? Someone with some artistic talent please do something about those mines. I keep thinking that Fred Flintstone is taking over the world.

[CobraA1]

Note on the screenshot: The mounted units has a shadow underneath, possibly indicating that artists can do some sort of transparency.

It looks like we've got some sort of unit in the pollution, possibly cleaning it up? And what's that type or resource nearby?

[Solver]

I think it might be a litte bit different with the cheat mode issue. Maybe the game that we'll all going to have will have cheat codes, but they won't be released, thus making us unable to use them. If they implemented those in their builds, they might have not taken it out for the retail game, just not publish the codes. In which case there's a chance of guessing them, or just an information leak.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Sandman
Yuck.

The modern cities are not exactly inspiring either, a pile of grey boxes, some of which jut out onto the water.

Hmm, just like a real modern city! Grey and boxy.

[Sava]

I counted the squares also, that map is 100 x 100, so quit complaining!!!!

Plus, I'm sure there will be a limit modifier like for Civ II TOT, where map sizes could be large...

At least the ugly railroads are less ugly than Civ II.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by CobraA1
Note on the screenshot: The mounted units has a shadow underneath, possibly indicating that artists can do some sort of transparency.

It looks like we've got some sort of unit in the pollution, possibly cleaning it up? And what's that type or resource nearby?

All the land units have shadows. If you look at the various special units on the civ3.com site, you'll see they all have shadows.

That unit doing the grunt work on the pollution is a worker. Funny that even though his clothing changes through the ages, it still looks like he's using a hoe.

The nearby resource is rubber (represented by two tires). You know - the great rubber plantations of Central Europe...?

[ancient]

why do the railroads at points look connected wrong, and going around mountains like the way they were before?

[eNo]

Sn00py - Havn't seen you in a while! Did you leave once they moved the BW forums?

[Kc7mxo]

Talk about overanalization. yeesh. firaxis sure has all you folk on the ragged edge. :-)


1) Like someone else said, the modern age isn't pretty.
2) Quit critizicing the russian player's tactics. No one here SHOULD have any idea on proper strategic thinking for a game that they can't play yet.
3) And foreign city names are hard to translate. One map says one thing, another says different. Give em a break. Now if they misspell Moscow, you can get pissy. But who the hell can even pronounce Tblsi right?
4) The old maps had europe's size wrong. Look at a globe. Europe is TINY. so's the US for that matter.Our 2d maps exaggerate the size of the areas we will mainly be looking at on purpose.


Yeesh. You all need to think about something else. You've all got civ3 fever. Go play aliens vs predator 2 or something.