Civ III Engine Proposal

[Frugal_Gourmet]

Ugh...I had the pleasure of watching "beautiful" 3d graphics destroy one of my favorite computer game series of all time (Ultima).

If Civ were to go 3D, I would hope they would buck the current trend of getting alot more graphics and a lot less quantity and variety of things to do (once again, Ultima).

Personally, I don't really see much of the need for it in Civ. Maybe in the "city view" which allows your city to come to life. But from a purely gameplay standpoint, Civ has also been a game where you get to gaze, top down, over your immense gameplay map. Why I would ever need to rotate, look at things from different angles, or zoom in .. I don't know.

Secondarily, 3D graphics does not equate to better graphics by any stretch of the imagination. I still hold to the belief that beautiful hand-drawn by a person graphics beat sterile, rendered 3d graphics any day of the week. I would rather see crisp, beautiful drawings of units, cities, terrain tiles, etc. that can only be looked at from a few perspectives rather than the gross 3D graphics that can be looked at from any angle but still lack creative, artistic beauty. I can't stand how poor 3D graphics have seemed to saturate the computer game world today, and the general belief that every genre of computer game needs to use them to have "good graphics". IMO, shooters and simulators are the only genres which ever need rely exclusively on 3D graphics.

[abuzayd]

The B&W graphics look awesome, but for my .02, I'd rather see Firaxis put their talent and energy into a better AI, a better map and scenario designer, and a more complex civ model.

What about having some kind of "fly-through" for eye candy afficionados? Sorta like "Streets of Simcity" or "Simcoptor" or whatever. Make it simple, not a flight sim or anything, but just a sort of "god cam." It could replace the "city view" and "throne room" features.

[L o k i]

"Why I would ever need to rotate, look at things from different angles, or zoom in .. I don't know."

That's right, you don't know.

And the more I try to explain it, the more you people drift your minds and thoughts off into the wrong direction. So it's pointless trying to explain anything!

I'll say this though, you want more from civ, you want better AI, etc, etc. Well, you have to structure the AI around the interface, so, if you want a better AI, a 3D world can give you that better than a 2D world. (Unless you want an unrealistic game of Civilization).

And if you do, then why the hell did Sid Meier name the game Civilization? Why didn't he call it something else. I wish he did, he's just ruined the true meaning of Civiziliation if he does want a realistic game of CIVILIZATION.

[UltraSonix]

Yawn...

Loki, you're ranting again...

How many time do we have to say it? What you want is to be tourist in your civ, we want mastery over it. To that end, we don't need extremely high-end graphics. Not in Civ3 anyway. I mean, if you enjoy kick-ass graphics so much, just go and play Black and White...

------------------
No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Urban Ranger]

Loki,

You aren't going to based an AI on an interface, that's just folly. An interface is just a way to let you control the underlying data structures. So I am assuming you are saying that AI should be based on the data structres. Sure, but that's just a given.

AI is extremely hard to write. Even in the simpliest cases such as chess and checkers, programs are no match for humans. I know Deep Blue has defeated Kasparov, but it's just an exception that makes the rule. You don't want to make the data structures 3D. That increases the difficulty manifold. Not doubled, not squared. It's a huge leap.

Civ is a lot harder than chess or checkers. Other than the basic rules, almost everything else changes every game -- starting locations, terrain, neighbors, the whole works.

Remember that our brain is a massively parallel computer, and you should get a picture of how tough it is for a PC to even come close to do what we can do.

[STING]

Somebody already said it...

The "modern" game tends to focus too much on how much eye candy it can give, while then lacking in the real gameplay.

All the 3D-engines Loki is talking about, all very great.. but it's really not something we need in Civ3.

What the Civ,Civ2 games made addictive was the clear interface. You could easily do what you wanted to do and FAST. While still having a bit of depth.

Why would we give Civ3 a full fledged 3D engine?

Advantages:
* Eye candy
* More realistic

Disadvantages:
* Less clarity
* Can cause confusion among the user
* Requires a much more high-end system than a 2d engine (let's face it, the adaptive 3d engine will not be in Civ3). While the CPU/memory could be better used for fast gameplay.

Conclusion

A turnbased game like Civ3 should have a 2D engine.. only battles could be programmed with a 3D engine.
The reason a 2D engine is much more appropiate, is because Civilization is based on a huge map, oh sure we can have a Mini-map like in almost all RTS games.. but with Civ you need a good overview of your Empire and you don't need to see all of your cities in a 3d perspective.

Simplicity is power.
The key to a perfect Civ game is finding the balance between Simplicity and Realism... a balance CTP lacks...

STING
----------------------
BorgIRC.NET http://www.borgirc.net

[STING]

Many people have offered suggestions to improve the realism of the Civ series.

We all hope much of them will me implemented.. but my personal hope tends to fucos on the fact that they make the enhancements easily accessible.

Also, what I liked so much of Civ1,2 is that you could do things very fast.
I bought CTP not a long time ago.. and I was already very annoyed that you could not simply hit 'Enter' to end the turn when you did not want to do anything..

So one thing that will really help in creating an easily acceissble GUI is decent keyboard support. All that clicking can be very tiresome and inefficient (example.. ICQ)

UI Summary:

* Decent keyboard support
* 2D-engine
(3d-engine for battle view)
* 16-bit/32-bit colour support, a nice realistic (and diverse) tileset would be very nice. Realistic animations would also be very nice. The animations in Civ2 are just to cartoonish...
* Easily accessible micro-management options.. the city view in Civ1,2 was already very easy to use. But improvements could certainly be made, like building queues,etc.
And of course more and improved automation options..

My thoughts :-)

------------------
STING
----------------------
BorgIRC.NET http://www.borgirc.net

[L o k i]

That is stupid, you assume you can't have a good GUI in a 3D world?

There has to be a possible way, PM has done it, please open your minds, think of alternatives!! Stop listening to the creators of games, because they DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING, infact, anyone of us, could be the worlds best game creator. Admit it, games brought out today are so CRAP. There just isn't any thought in it.

Half-Life, that is one game, that has thought put into it, I can't think of any other game that shows it has a lot of thought put in.

It seems most people on this planet just follow what everyone else is doing, well.....I ain't no stinkin follower, I'd rather make some better changes. Something new and different, that is better than anything before it.

[STING]

I just don't see the advantages of a 3D gui in Civ. The gameplay wouldn't require such, it could even make the gameplay harder.

Civilization 2150.. no way

------------------
STING
----------------------
BorgIRC.NET http://www.borgirc.net

[MidKnight Lament]

quote: Originally posted by STING on 06-07-2000 07:26 AM I bought CTP not a long time ago.. and I was already very annoyed that you could not simply hit 'Enter' to end the turn when you did not want to do anything..

I know you're probably hinting at much more than this problem, but I'll answer it anyway, just in case you didn't know. The 'end turn' shortcut is 'n'. And if you want it to be Enter, there's a text file you can change.

I'll leave Loki to his ranting now.

- MKL

[STING]

Ok my mistake, didn't check out that very sufficiently ;-)

------------------
STING
----------------------
BorgIRC.NET http://www.borgirc.net