Sticking with civ2

[H Tower]

It looks like scenario creators are going to be sticking with civ2 for the forseeable future, (unless firaxis announces the release of an add-on soon). It appears that you cannot create a flat map or set starting spots for civs. I've also seen people say that you cannot place units or cities. And events are missing too.

[Case]

Civ 3 appears to be a total write off as far as scenarios go. Hopefully, Firaxis will release a scenario pack including some scenario editing tools. Yhe highlights of the chat are interesting in this regard - the Firaxis spokespeople admit that they droped scenarios at the last moment for 'additional testing'. Given the piss poor maps they saw fit to include, I don't think that thier argument is particularly strong.

As for Civ 2, I've unshelved my planned projects and will start work on them after my Economics exam

[Case]

More from the chat

Some relevent discussions: ( in no particular order)

[ACS_MarkG] Hey Jeff, a question i wanted to ask the guys but they left: Will you be releasing that "civ2-to-civ3 scenario convertor" that Jeff Briggs had mentioned in a PCGamer article?
[Jeff_Morris] We looked into it and it proved too different. Maybe on future products, but right now nobody is assigned to work on it
[Jeff_Morris] Would be cool
[Jeff_Morris] The art formats are pretty different...even if we could get a map converter, it probably wouldn't handle all the mods

--------------------------

[LoQtus] does Civ3 have an event/macro/scripting language of any sort or anything even vaguely resembling it?
[Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS] A scripting language was not implemented for civ3 because we do not have any in-game support for events. I may or may not add scripting language support in the future but it will most likely be more of a visual script akin to StarCraft's editor.

---------------------------

[Gramphos] Can the graphics be replaced? (If the format can't be generated then I doubt it, but...)
[Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS] Technically, the graphics can be replaced (but not through the editor) but you'd have to have FLCs in the incorrect file format. Alternately, you could save a FLC that doesn't use the standard delta-compression scheme and it should work. FLCs have multiple compression schemes and only the default one is incorrect in our engine....

-------------------------------

[Gramphos] Speaking about the editor: Is it possible to add units?
[Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS] Adding (not replacing) units is currently not a feature of the editor but is on our list of future additions. We ran into some problems with the graphics file format that was left over from the SMAC engine and unfortunately not discovered until the game had already been shipped. Because of this the "FLC" format we used for the units does not follow the standard FLC specifications. We are working on some fixes for this right now...

-------------------------------

The last bit stikes me as being an admission that 1. The Game was rushed and 2. They'll be releasing modpacks based on what people yell about most

[H Tower]

wait, so you can't even add units?

not a direct quote but what the hell
"we will provide support to scenario creators for civ3"

[Shadowstrike]

Well, it appears I have no choice per se......

[MarkG]

have some faith guys

- snoopy(icedan) is already working on new terrain(they are in pcx, easily changeable)

- there are at least two ways now to add units and other stuff. one being a hacked version of the editor

- the animations are in flc format(common) but it's not 100% the default one so there might be issues. hopefully this will be dealt with one way or the other


bottom line: there are plenty of things to work on and find sollutions....

[Stefan Härtel]

Sounds like I'll be playing the game for game purposes, but I'll keep makign scens for Civ2...

[techumseh]

I was wondering if anyone is interested in sending an "open letter" from the scenario community to Firaxis/Infogrames about the lack of scenario capability in Civ3 and what we want to see in a patch/v.2? If so, perhaps we could ask our friends over in Spanish Civ if they wanted to sign it as well, since they are essentially scenario makers/players too. (They seem pretty upset about something, but I can't make it out. )

[Case]

Sounds like a good idea Techumseh.
There's also a thread on the Civ 3 Creation Forum dedicated to suggestions for the editor.

At minimum, I would be happy if the game included the ability to make basic scenarios like in the original release of Civ 2, and Firaxis commided themselves to release a FW style editor at a later date.

[Fiera]

Originally posted by techumseh
I was wondering if anyone is interested in sending an "open letter" from the scenario community to Firaxis/Infogrames about the lack of scenario capability in Civ3 and what we want to see in a patch/v.2? If so, perhaps we could ask our friends over in Spanish Civ if they wanted to sign it as well, since they are essentially scenario makers/players too.

Yes, sure we would! Good idea, BTW.

(They seem pretty upset about something, but I can't make it out. )

We were upset since months ago due to the absence of a Spanish Civ, but our most recent 'unrest' comes from the fact that no scenarios can be created...

[BeBMan]

We should "help" Fireaxis to get the editor right...

Originally posted by techumseh
I was wondering if anyone is interested in sending an "open letter" from the scenario community to Firaxis/Infogrames about the lack of scenario capability in Civ3 and what we want to see in a patch/v.2? If so, perhaps we could ask our friends over in Spanish Civ if they wanted to sign it as well, since they are essentially scenario makers/players too. (They seem pretty upset about something, but I can't make it out. )

Good idea, I just mailed Firaxis yesterday but an action by many of us together would be better.

[techumseh]

If there's general agreement, I'll draft something and post it for comments. Or should we do this by email until we have something we can all agree on? I'd like to hear from others as well. It would be great if we could get as many people as possible to sign it. Maybe it would actually have an impact.

[Case]

Here's an encouraging sign: (from http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...924#post575295 )

Originally posted by Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS
In addition, in yesterday's chat I made mention of some graphical glitches that were discovered that make it difficult to modify some of the art and thus support for additional art was not implemented in the editor. Without the ability to add art, the ability to add units, for example, is pointless, so I disabled the feature temporarily. I did not, however, remove the functionality completely as I intend to fix these limitations. Be aware, though, that some of the items were never intended to have add/delete support and are only in there for development purposes. In other words, use these hacks at your own risk.

I've posted a question asking whether this update will be in the form of a patch or a expansion pack, and it will be very interesting to see what the responce is.

IMHO, the essential editing features would be:
1. Abililty to add units, with new graphics, techs etc - if this means reverting to 2D units, thats fine.
2. Ability to place units, cities, etc on maps
3. Flat maps
4. Events support

As this was all included in FW, it shouldn't be that much to ask for

[H Tower]

let's get the letter going, techumseh, it was your idea, why don't you start?

[hardjoy]

Good idea, techumseh. I suggest you try summarize the list of requests in the Civ3 scenario forum, in this thread

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31483

Anyway, I'd be happy to sign such a letter.