Zooming

[vmxa1]

I do not recall ever using zoom in civ2.

[Tiberius]

Without any joking now, this is really a great idea, Admiral.
It would be very useful in planning your FP placement or capitol jump, or generally managing your empire.

One more layer I'd like to see is the "culture" layer. The more culturally "powerful" a civ/region would be, the darkest (or brighter) the layer would become.
One more idea: having a spy, we should be able to see this culture layer for enemy civs, which would allow us to guess more accurately the possibility of a flip.

[aahz_capone]

Originally posted by Alexnm
I don't mind about the zoom option. I thought I would miss it, but I didn't.

But we could have a zoom option in the city view. That would be interesting, with some more features implemented in it.

Speaking of which, it would be cool if you could implement Sim City into your civ cities. Then you could micromanage cities as well as empires! And since Sim City 4000 will be implementing The Sims into SimCity, you could have a game within a game within a game! Infact with SimCity, The Sims and Civ you could control every little detail down to the individual thought process! Be the Ultimate Autocracy!!!

MUH HA HAHAAHAAHAHAAAAA!!!

[Alex]

@ capone: yes, that would be the micromanager's dream, wouldn't it?

Now, if it's a so good idea and so many have used already, why Firaxis' developers never used it?

They wanted to 'streamline' the game since the beginning, to make it accessible to a lot of casual gamers. This would be a great addition, but it would mean another layer of complexity to the game. I know, it doesn't seems so complicated, but imagine a casual gamer trying to find out while playing what these layer buttons mean...

[ruby_maser]

zoom

I know I used the zoom in Civ2... now I feel like I've got my face an inch from the action. sometimes I want to pull back and at least assess the overall situation. Its riduculous to not at least give us the option.

[Alex]

Re: zoom

Originally posted by ruby_maser
Its riduculous to not at least give us the option.

I feel I have to agree with you on this, even if I don't use the zoom myself. The option should exist, because it is a breeze to implement.

[ruby_maser]

zoom

I'll keep my hopes up that PTW will contain a few surprises like that.

They've got people cranking out ways for us to name units and cool but otherwise useless stuff like that. Lets see some more cool and useful stuff

[planetfall]

For my play style, 2 zoom levels is enough.

I would love to have the layer view option implemented. That is a great enhancement concept.

-- PF

[aahz_capone]

Originally posted by Alexnm
They wanted to 'streamline' the game since the beginning, to make it accessible to a lot of casual gamers. This would be a great addition, but it would mean another layer of complexity to the game. I know, it doesn't seems so complicated, but imagine a casual gamer trying to find out while playing what these layer buttons mean...

Alexnm, I don't see too much of a problem for the casual gamer if this happens. Multilayer and zoom buttons would only make the game more complex for us, who use it and might need it at high levels, but the casual gamer wouldn't play at such high levels and consiquently can easily play the game without layers (as we do now, prooving that it is possible). If you hide the buttons of screen the casual player won't even need to know about it. And if they really want to figre it out, RTM (read the manual).

Bottom line as long as these "hypercomplex" options that we love don't affect the gameplay directly, then we can have as many as we want without annoying the "casualites". Or the deadites for that matter. Or am I watching too much Evil Dead?

[problem_child]

I agree aahz_capone, I hate not having the whole zoom range too. I like to step back and take a more wholistsic/strategic view of the map at times, and at other times I like to szoom right in, so close I can almost smell the pollution belching from my industrious cities. I don't know what they were thinking when they left it at just 2 zoom levels! Don't they play the game? How could anyone write off multi-zoom with the words

'Bah, it's not important, just two will do'

MADNESS! INSANITY! This actually perplexed me for weeks after I bought the game, I had assumed my keyboard was brocken befor eit finally sunk in. Sometimes I play SMACX again just to enjoy the freedom to zoom.

[WarpStorm]

Re: zoom

Originally posted by ruby_maser
They've got people cranking out ways for us to name units and cool but otherwise useless stuff like that. Lets see some more cool and useful stuff

While I agree with your sentiment, I disagree with your example. Naming units is very useful especially in scenarios.

[Alex]

capone, I agree with your reasoning, but unfortunately that's not what the folks at Firaxis thought when they designed the game. If they would 'streamline' it, then why would they add complex features like that? I'd love to have that option (I like to play Tropico and the layers are immensely helpful), but the designers may have thought that it would be a wasted effort.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Alexnm
I'd love to have that option (I like to play Tropico and the layers are immensely helpful), but the designers may have thought that it would be a wasted effort.

Or simply they missed it when they checked their To Do List.

BTW I thinked about layered maps because I used some layers graph at my job, to show geographical (area) distribution of a value: we are playing Civ III as "manager", so "business management reports" fits often quite well to the game - and in Civ III environment are less boring, too.

[Sarxis]

In SMAC, I rarely used the multiple zooms; except when pretending I was using a spy satellite:

::vrooooom:: I see Deirdre in the tub! Woohoo!!

[SanPellegrino]

Originally posted by problem_child
MADNESS! INSANITY! This actually perplexed me for weeks after I bought the game, I had assumed my keyboard was brocken befor eit finally sunk in. Sometimes I play SMACX again just to enjoy the freedom to zoom.

The same for me, after I installed it, I hammered 10 minutes on z, y, ctrl z and checked my cable....