Civ3 editing tools: what do *you* want to see

[Grrr]

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 01-10-2001 01:52 PM To get past this problem you can force your task bar to be on top at all times. I have done this in some games as I was supposed to be doing some work.

How? How? How? How?

I need this for some of my games!

[Grrr]

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 01-10-2001 01:52 PM To get past this problem you can force your task bar to be on top at all times. I have done this in some games as I was supposed to be doing some work.

How? How? How? How?

I need this for some of my games!

[Colonel Kraken]

quote: Originally posted by Grrr on 01-10-2001 03:43 PM How? How? How? How? I need this for some of my games!

Hold down your [Ctrl] button and push [Esc]. That will minimize your full screen application.

To get your task bar to always be on top, right click on the task bar, click on properties and check mark the option, "Always on top".

Hope that helps.

[JosefGiven]

It is the age old debate:

Reform vs. tradition.

Of course, we, as the Civ gaming community, want to see as much customisation as possible. But, having seen the new Civ III site, it looks as if we won't be able to change units in our scenario as per Civ II.

I would suggest this would be a crying shame. If you are going to include a fully animated graffics set in Civ III, at least allow users to create a 'static' set in the Civ II vein for use in their own scenarios.

It is impicit: Maximum customisation=Max gameplay. This is the single reason Civ II lasted so long, as I'm sure it will continue to do.

I would forget ALTOGETHER any suggestion of any in-game customisation. External utilities were much better at handling Civ scenario creation than the in-game routines. I would recommend the programmers concentrate in the in-game issues, and leave final version files in formats easily customised by established, serious scenario creators. (File types to include .GIF .WAV .BMP etc. as per CIV II protocols...)

Apologies for any readers having to read this blurb. Any grammatical, or other errors, are attributal to the fact that, at the time of writting this email, I was...in fact..very...very, drunk

Yours, with humble respect,

Josef Given
josefgiven@hotmail.com

[The Mad Viking]

Lots of good stuff here that I agree with.

The MOST IMPORTANT THING to me is sophisticated AI modification.

WRT map editor, the random map generator for CIV 2 really sucked. The huge, meandering contintents that covered 60 to 90% of the globe, but were connected by an isthmus in 10 or 20 locations were/are annoying.

Continents should be large, coherent land masses. Oceans should be large, a dotted with archepelagoes. Adjusting for %land/water is fine, but continents should generally resemble real continents.

[Ralf]

If Civ-3 is suppose to end 2020/2040 AD (which i hope), there no hope for ocean-cities.

However, Firaxis should nethertheless make it possible for scenario-creators who want to build futuristic 2100 - 3000 AD ScFi scenarios, to include graphically rewamped ocean-cities if they want to do that.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited February 16, 2001).]

[frokeefe]

Something improved from Microsoft's "Age of ..." type editor would suit me, mostly because I'm used to it. It is not sophisticated enough for me. Let's see real terrain features - swamps, quicksand, bogs, tides, forest fires, unstable ground, snow, seasonal effects (or am I being too imaginative?).

Perhaps a highly complex editor would be too costly for inclusion with the game.

As an aside, I would like to see each civilization be able to build as they were able to do in reality - canals, bridges, tunnels through real mountains, etc.



------------------
Cordially,
Rick

[Shadowstrike]

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I have to say that allowing the customization of unit graphics, as well as other graphics is absolutely vital to making Civ3 great. There are many more scenarios for Civ2 then SMAC. Why? Civ2 allowed for the customization of the unit graphics. SMAC could not.(due to its design workshop model, which would have been hard to draw for)

While SMAC had excellent customizability, it failed at scenario-making by not allowing for customized graphics. There are a good many scenarios which have totally original graphics sets, and many of those are considered the very best.

Secondly, drawing unit graphics must be relatively easy (as easy as it is to draw Civ2 units), or else it will not be used. If it takes a professional graphics artist to draw new units, then why bother at all?

Just my 2 cents.

[Theben]

I said it before, and if case no one has said it here I'll repeat: allow players to tweak AI behavior in such areas as settler/former priorities (in a .txt file) and city production in allied cities (w/sensible limits- an AI city will ignore changes to total lower production, or anything if building a wonder).

[Father Beast]

I have beeen playing the civ1 mod/scenario for civ2 lately, and although it's fun, it does show up the limitations of our civ2 editor in being unable to accurately recreate even the original game.

1. GOVERNMENTS. in civ1, monarchy had different unit support settings, republic had different happiness effects. we can't seem to change these basic things.

2. WONDERS. the wonder effects on several of the wonders (i.e. Lighthouse) are different, and we can't change them.

3. RULES. the simplified combat option was there, that's a plus. but we still have waste in addition to corruption (can't turn off), added unhappiness for despotisms with too many cities, and so forth.

Can we get a scenario editor that can at least turn our game into a recreation of a previous version?

[Shadowstrike]

Here's andIdea: Give scenario desigenrs the ability to set unit "groups". For example, the Panther would go under the "Tank" grouping, while the Bireme would go under "Ancient Ship". Also give them the ability to define these groups (and make new one) and make it possible to give units a special ability which multiplies the strength of the unit by a certain number against only this unit which would work like the "x2 vs horse" and "x2 vs air" abilities of Civ2.

[Henrik]

Although not as important as most of the stuff in here, I would like to see an ablity to make certain parts of the map explored/unexplored, as it is now you have to create a unit manually and go discover, if you by mistake hit the wrong key you discover that one square that the civ wasn't supposed to know about and you will have to start all over again.
In civ 3 it should be easier to do this, you should be able to click on a square hit a key (or do something in the cheat menu, or whatever) and make a square/an area of squares explored/unexplored.

[Kuciwalker]

I think that they need to improve the tech tree editor ffrom Civ2. It should be bunch of boxes or something with arrows connecting them. I always failed in my Civ2 scenario-making attempts because I had trouble visualizing the tree.

[Beckdawg]

I have never made any senarios yet but i have messed with the editors a lot. Once i had to rewrite the entire events file for Ansteig WW2 senario because it was MGE and i only had Fantastic Worlds. It wasn't that hard but i have had basic and c++ programming classes. Not every one has and some people have good ideas just don't know how to do them. So i suggest some kind of wizard(can be turned off!! lol) that helps people that have never done it before program events and other parts of senarios. Also you should allow the effects of the wonders to be changed. in Civ 2 even w/ the 4 or 5(don't remember how many there were) extra wonders u couldn't do anything w/ them. They were just eye candy. I understand that it might mess the game up a bunch so i suggest at least a simple editor. An advanced editor would be nice but i know that it might be more trouble then a help. That could add soooooooooooooooo much to a senario. But that is just my 2 cents

[ancient]

I was never able to mkae a scenerio in civ2 because everything was too complex it didnt have the right tools, or anything easy to use.. and when i tried it took to much time and i quit.. i think you should be able to make a scenerio in a couple of hours..

1) Would you rather see an in-game editor, or an external editor (or combination of both), and why? Do you prefer standard Windows-based interfaces with standard types of controls (i.e., select/combo boxes, tree metaphors, etc.) or something more customized and specific to the game?

Ingame, because it gives the game a more unified and streamlined look and feel. Every thing should be really simple to use and not require us to learn any sort of code.. It should have built in tools for editing units and tribes and stuff..

2) What types of functionality are you interested in seeing in a scenario / map editor? Be specific, e.g., "Cut and paste functions for map creation", "Drag and drop terrain tile placement" vs "Paintbrush-style interface", etc.

Paintbrush is the best but the abitility to drag and drop cities would be nice

3) If possible, for each specific suggestion, reference existing game editors that do this well. So, for example, if you think the StarCraft Editor's handling of triggered events is exactly what you're looking for, mention that.

I have made great games for starcraft using their trigger device and i think that is good but you can do better..

4) Try to qualify your suggestions as either a "must-have" function, a "would be nice" function, or a "in my dreams" function. We need to know what the most important features are to you, so that we can direct our efforts towards the features that most of you really think you'll need.

A tool to make your own unique looking 3d animated leaders and units would be nice in my dreams..

5) Examples of why something is or isn't desired are always helpful.

Having to cheat then save as a scenerio..

6) What would also be helpful is an idea of what kinds of scenarios, mods, or conversions you're interested in creating with these tools. It gives us a point of reference for thinking about how all this will have to be implemented to make those ideas happen.


The ability to scan a picture and make it a unit!