Announcement

**Ecce Homo** · May 26, 1999, 20:03

Newspapers: Yes, but they look anachronistic during most of the game. Maybe they could alter appearance as your civ evolves:

Ancient - clay tablets with cuneiform type.
Medieval - rough paper with blackletter type.
Industrial - ordinary newspaper.
Information age - web-browser.

Informal language: I agree with EnochF: I feel more like a great ruler when I use Nuclear Missiles than when I play with "nukes". Why did you make that one red?

**Alexander's Horse** · May 26, 1999, 20:56

Definitely support the idea that graphics are less important than game play and if there has to be a trade off, it should be for lesser graphics for better gameplay (this is one area where CTP went badly wrong).

Reviews can be very misleading on this - some of them rave about the graphics (and the music) but that's because they're only playing the game for a short period before writing their review (it also sometimes indicates the reviewer is not a regular "God Gamer"). For those who play a game week in, week out, even the best graphics become "so what". What you need are graphics that don't intrude and are attractive (over the long haul) but easy on the eyes (for those long hours crouched in front of the screen). I mean, I saw a review of CTP which raved about the fact that the sprites threw shadows. Who cares! How much wasted work went into that?

Also, the intro videos for games are of interest for about 10 seconds. How much space/game development time/money are they taking up? I didn't even see the opening sequence for Civ II until about six months after I started playing it. I've probably only seen it that once in two or more years of playing the game. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Also, keep the commentaries in the dip interface etc. as dry and factual as possible. The cornball lines and little jokes really wear after your 100th game and the American sense of humour and sensibility doesn't travel well (i.e. what gets them rolling in the aisles at Firaxis may be cringing stuff in Germany, Australia and Japan).

P.S. really like your summary and the traffic lights system Dominique.

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 26, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 26, 1999).]

**Icedan** · May 26, 1999, 21:48

Unfortunetly, the majority of people in this world look for cool graphics, animations and movies.

And I know where your coming from aswell, you want a political, battle planning, economics type of game, and basic graphics.

I am SURE there are games which focus on just those things.
But Civilization is not just any game, I've said this before! Again and again! It is one of the worlds best games, probably THE best ever created. And to keep it that way, It has to be enhanced in all the area's in the game, not just a few, just a few won't allow Civilization live up to its standards.

I know, that the diplomatic, economic, battle planning are the most important in being a leader.
I noticed CtP failed in this area. CtP seems to focus on a child or teenages point of view. Which was clearly the wrong way to go.
This is not a childs game, ITS CHESS MADE BETTER!

There is no excuse on making the games graphics look better. You don't need 16 or 32 bit graphics to make things look cool and run smooth. It just depends on how you use and create them.

Anyway, I am being totally ignored. So I'll be back maybe when the game is released.
And I am never going to trust Activision again. Stuff em!

**Dominique** · May 26, 1999, 23:51

Hey, Icedan,

why do you think no one listens to you?

But I think I can settle this arising argument here. Fact is that most "addicted" players don't care too much for how cute the graphics are... but... in order to GET many people so far as to be addicted, to d"draw them into the game", there has to be some eycandy, really.

And as you can see from quite a lot of posts: There are those gfx gimmicks that are really LOVED by many people (like the High Council).

But to make my personal point of view clear: I do NOT think that "perfect" graphics add to a game's atmosphere. Not at all. But CAREFULLY MADE graphics do. Graphics in which you can see the thought - and the love - of the designer.

Honetsly, some weeks ago I played Empire deLuxe for 3 days - for those who don't know: A strategy game back from '94 with 16-color gfx. And I enjoyed it!

But, frankly, I wouldn't touch a game that comes out with that kind of graphics TODAY

As I see it, graphics must be done well - but "well" in this case (CIV) means: In such a way that they blend into the game and aren't just for the sake of "cool graphics"... and, of course, they mustn't slow down the game.

Lastly, concerning CtP: I don't really think people would complain about CtP's (admittedly cool) game graphics if the game itself would be better / more atmospheric / more balanced. As it is, people complain about the obvious stress on eyecandy on behalf of the actual game, something which NO ONE of us wants CIV3 to show.

Alexander's Horse:

Thx for the compliments
But I have to disagree with you in one point: The intro movie. For me, it's the same with all games: I watch the intro and think "So you wanna really show how cool you are and how great this game is, yeah? Well, let's see..." After having played the game for a while, I decide:

Either it's "Well, nice try, but the best of this game was the intro, so what?" or
"Yes, THAT's a game!"
And in case of the latter, I actually enjoy watching the intro again, now being able to identify with it. Then (and ONLY then) the intro becomes an important part of the overall atmosphere.

Hm... what you said about the little jokes... IMHO these really make a game come to life, if done well. As I could see from many posts here, most loved the High Council. Some remembered the newspaper headlines from CIV1 (come on, how many of such tiny details do you remember from other games?). Depends on what kind of joke it is - certainly some odd punchline is less funny after the 100th game than this evil "For the mother country" the spy in CtP utters (which is - astonishingly - even brilliantly translated into german!). The latter one makes me chuckle again and again

[This message has been edited by Dominique (edited May 26, 1999).]

**NotLikeTea** · May 27, 1999, 07:36

Speaking of intro movies...

The "movie" for CivI was very nice (in the beginning, the world was without form, and void), but after multiple viewings, I still don't get the CivII movie (lots of spinning clocks).. no real relation to the game...

**monolith94** · May 27, 1999, 10:30

My complaints about the introductory movies are - why do you have to watch the EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! I mean, sure it's nice once or twice, but for the 500th? In civ1, a big complaint of mine was that you had to wait so long for it to finish.

**wheathin** · May 27, 1999, 13:10

COLOR COLOR COLOR!

More than two or three, at least. Easily the worst turn off for SMAC for me was the downer feeling I got playing it. I much prefer the bright feel of Civ1,2 and CtP.

Of course, this needs to be done carefully. Ctp uses enough different colors in enough different places that the players' personal motifs get lost: few colors show up on the Radar Map, the unit flags, the City Name boxes, *and* the diplomacy screens...
... but this was never a prob in Civ2, so I have faith that Sid and BR can find a solution.

Gfx related: make sure that tiles and images that are going to overlap make sense when they do so.

Regarding replay: a must have. But do more: make it more of a history (or as a separate but similar funciton) that can be reviewed at any time. If map features are named, little blurbs can be written that add much more feel to the game. Examples:
"1200 B.C - 950B.C.: {civ name} troops cross the {rivername} into {enemy civ} and destroy a {enemy civ} army."

"45-72AD: First {civname}-{enemy civ} War."

"650AD-704AD: Settlement in the {map feature name} area results in the displacement of the local population."

"1216AD-1244Ad: 22 Years War"

"1715AD-1731AD: {civname} completes its conquest of the {civname}. The last defenders are obliterated at the Battle of {city name or nearby map feature}."

wheathin

PS stupid HTML won't recognize angled brackets

[This message has been edited by wheathin (edited May 27, 1999).]

**Atahualpa** · May 27, 1999, 17:30

Ctp has the best intro! (dont know about smac, but it cant be better than ctp).
When I first saw the Ctp intro as trailer I wanted to have the game! This intro is awesome awesome awesome.

Ata

**Monkey** · May 27, 1999, 17:51

Just an idea that can maybe boost CTP's atmosphere score. Why don't we have different announcer voices for each different age or different govt. for example we could start with that woman's voice at the start and by the time we reached the end the voice has turned into a robot's voice to symbolize your technological advance...

or how about different voices and messages for each government? for example monarchy can have a maybe saying "Building completed your majesty"...and maybe technocracy can say something in a robotic voice

....well i 'll post this in the civ3 forum as well just in case activision decides not to read this

ps replace all occurences of CTP with civ3

**Imran Siddiqui** · May 27, 1999, 20:50

Personalize...even in the interface

You are kidding me right? The only difference that the Chinese can have with the English in interface is marginal at best. So you wish Firaxis to be bogged down in something of marginal value? I think not!

More or less ALL people agree that the wonder movies in CIV2 are unmatched so far!

Not so. As I have said, SMAC matches and exceeds (by a long shot) the Civ2 movies! Just look at the Nano-Factory or Virtual World movies, people!

Please implement a replay option like in CIV1!

Once again look at SMAC. It has a replay at the end of it.

------------------
Imran Siddiqui
Moderator SG Forums - www.sidgames.com/forums/ ,

"Sir, I would rather be right than be President."

-Henry Clay

**monolith94** · May 27, 1999, 21:58

Blah blah blah blah blah blah SMAC blah blah blah better blah blah blah. . . And it just goes on and on.
Imran: The way I want the interface to be personalized is that if it's an asian country, it has an asian look to it, nothing really changes.
And civ2 movies are better :P

**EnochF** · May 28, 1999, 00:16

The Civ I Intro Movie:

Okay, admit it. How many of you reprogrammed the text to say: "In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move..."

**Alexander's Horse** · May 28, 1999, 00:58

Icedan: agree with what you say. All I'm saying is if the designers have to choose between enhanced graphics and enhanced gameplay, I want them to go for the latter. I'm not saying the graphics should be crappy but on the other hand Gary Grigsby (we're not worthy) put out some titles that have very basic graphics but excellent gameplay and they have stood the test of time (War in Russia, War in the Pacific).

Dominique: Always a good idea to suck up to the administrator...I'm not against intro's etc. per se. My concern is development time and disc space etc. One idea... Why don't they put stuff like that on the internet as an optional download? After all, intro movies aren't much different to movie "trailers" and when you go to see the movies, you don't see the trailer. Like Red Alert (?) had a great one.

I also liked the council etc. especially in anarchy, "babble babble, knew this would happen"..., and think they should bring back the woman in Civ II (I only think I'm doing well if she says so) and the military adviser who looked like Norman Schwarzkopf in Civ I. Also, the videos for wonders always make me think I should be using my time better then playing computer games.

My point on humour is that it doesn't travel well. I'm not American and I generally only find Americans funny when they are not trying to be (no offense). For example, what would be funny in my culture would be if when you were doing really badly in war the military advisor came out and said that line from Civ I, "Your doing great general, and we've got you to thank for it". But whilst I might get off on that every time, most of he world would be complaining that the advisers were crap and had a bug. Another example, in my job a lot of people do translation of conversations etc. When say an English speaker tells a joke to say a Japanese, a good translator tells a different joke to get the desired effect. So jokes and cornball comments in the text boxes...I think not.

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 28, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 28, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited May 28, 1999).]

**Atahualpa** · May 28, 1999, 03:33

Civ2 Wonders good? I only like 2: Leo's Workshop and the Women's suffrage. I copied them to HD! The rest didnt interest me after I saw them once.

My opinion (so dont flame me on that)
Ata

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