the wait for civiliza d4

[dexter4dxm]

yeah, it's been awhile tischo. welcome back

hard to say when the next version will be ready. many of the things recently put in the game (like the tech tree and the city improvements) have to be linked together still, lots of unit and improvement art/data has to be filled in, and finally there's the AI, which desperately needs new routines to handle all the new stuff and to do the old stuff better. for example, the AI's way of searching for a new city spot needs to be re-done because there are now more factors for choosing a city location (resources and city radius spacing).

i'd say about 2-3 weeks for the next version, but that's a very rough estimate

[dexter4dxm]

here's a little shot of the new city improvement build queue (btw there will be no build queue for units. cities will continue to build the same unit every turn until you select a new or you run out of the right resources)

[tishco]

wooden walls,
is that upgaradable walls, if so hurrah

[jimmyh]

Very good I must say.

Just want to say that you seem to be comming along very well this you game, congrats.

Also If there are no build cue's for units, you may want to notify the user when things like settlers, spys and caravans are built.

James.

[dexter4dxm]

Originally posted by tishco
wooden walls,
is that upgaradable walls, if so hurrah

yes, walls happen to be one of the city improvements that you can upgrade.

Originally posted by jimmyh
Just want to say that you seem to be comming along very well this you game, congrats.

thanks

Also If there are no build cue's for units, you may want to notify the user when things like settlers, spys and caravans are built

good call. i will add that to the list. perhaps i should notify the user when anything is built, but only prompt the user when settlers are built or an improvement is built and there are no queues left.



hope you guys don't mind me posting so many screens

here's one showing the new view range data for the terrain (all the terrain data is in an editable text file, btw).

it works in a way similar to civ3, higher elevations like hills and mountains will extend your view, but not if other hills, mountains, forests, or jungles are in your way.

this shot shows a settler getting a pretty nice view on top of a mountain. there are some mountains blocking most of his view to the southeast, and some hills blocking the distant view of the southwest. there's even a little valley between the hills and the mountains that the settlers can see from the mountains.

[dexter4dxm]

whoa things are advancing fast. it seems like almost every day i have another new feature to show off. the city window continues to undergo major facelifts, with more information and prettier backgrounds being added. no more city window screenshots for now, however. i want to have some surprises left for the next demo

i know diplomacy was real high on the wanted list for the next release, but it had to take a back seat to other things because it is so involved with the AI and the majority of the AI routines need to be written after the major workings of the game are done.
maybe, just maybe, diplomacy will find it's way in before the release, but that would be at it's most basic level (declarations of war or peace between civs and that's about it).

soon i will begin working on the game's music (i have been an independent musician for years now and those tribal beats sound easy enough). it's not something that i will be devoting a lot of time to, as there are clearly way more important things to do, but hopefully by the time i get sound into the game i'll have a small, somewhat decent soundtrack. i will also be hiring my newbie-artist brother to paint some original artwork for the game. he's getting pretty good at doing landscapes, though we'll have to see how he can handle advanced anti-ballistic missile sites

[tishco]

well, you can add music as long as its not over 7mb download, otherwise my modem will die of overuse!
try to make the music more inspiring than SMAC, and please better than civ call to power tribal stuff!

[dexter4dxm]

well it's hard to find music that fits the game, epsecially because of all the different eras. what do you suggest?

btw i was thinking more along the lines of midi for music. the quality would be pretty bad but the filesize would be tiny and i could fit a lot more for the different eras. like in the future i want it to change to some kind of wierd techno, nothing too in-your-face, just something that sounds decent and fits the mood of the game. as you go through the different ages, the background art will change, so it only makes sense for the music to change too...

[tishco]

music wise you're probably right, midi's ok, and nice and small.
your age changes music is like what i've heard of civ 3.
ancient:like civ 2
medieval: medieval stuff
industrial rev.:?
modern:? ( reviews say civ 3 modern jazz is annoying)
future: techno type

[dexter4dxm]

looks like we're pretty much in agreement about the music.

how about industrial music for the industrial revolution period?

tischo have you been playing Civ 3? remember how we were talking about smooth scrolling and you said it's okay to not have it because even SMAC didnt have it? i seriously laughed out loud the first time i played Civ 3 becausei noticed how damn horrible the scrolling is.

[dexter4dxm]

okay, there's some new stuff to talk about...

POPULATION GROWTH
population growth, as i said before, is based on existing populations and can be hampered by lack of food. population growth is also based on time, meaning that you'll see much much more growth during the turns that span more years. one last factor of population growth is disease. your disease level is calculated based on what certain, specific technologies you possess as well as what city improvements you have. disease takes away a percentage of a city's potential growth.

PRODUCTION AND RESEARCH
every city has its population broken down into worker categories, those who work in the land surrounding the city, and those who work in the city. the ones who work in the city add to that city's production. so if you want, you can sacrifrice resource collection for increased production. at this time there is nothing in place that hampers or limits production, but there will be (any suggestions, or should i just go with corruption?).
research is strictly based on your population and your literacy rate. your literacy rate boosts your research and is based on possession of a few certain techs and some city improvements. of course, the improvements are based on population, so if you have universities in 10 tiny cities, they will not contribute as much to the literacy rate as a school in a metropolis where millions of people are living.

i'm sure you're starting to see what a dramatic affect populations will have on the game. i think this is a great change from all the Civilization series games where these factors are always based on terrain and tile improvements. i will be building on this population-based system i have, and adding elements to the gameplay that affect it, such as propoganda, immigration, media, and general tendencies of citizens to move to certain cities.

[tishco]

the people idea seems good but you will have to try to stop there being too much micromanagement.

i saw a video about civ 3 and noticed the blocky scrolling. i thought it was early days but from what i read in civ 3 general forums it hasnt improved.

i dont have it though, it comes out next weekend, the 16th.

what are your opinions of it?

[dexter4dxm]

Originally posted by tishco
the people idea seems good but you will have to try to stop there being too much micromanagement.

don't worry, there is very little micromanagement involved. you only need to adjust things if you want to rush production, and to adjust the numbers you just click on the tiles you want your workers to work on (or not work on), just like in Civ 2. your cities will automatically assign work to another tile when it grows by 1.
i really really really really want to keep this game as streamlined as possible. when the user is prompted to select a new tech or a new improvement for a city that has no more improvements left in its queue, you will be able to see what was just built/researched and you will be able to select the next tech/improvement all from the same screen and all it takes is one mouse click. no drop-down lists that take extra time, and no having to go to the city window.

i saw a video about civ 3 and noticed the blocky scrolling. i thought it was early days but from what i read in civ 3 general forums it hasnt improved.

not only is the scrolling not smooth in Civ 3 but from time to time the scrolling LAGS really bad, even with fast computers.

i dont have it though, it comes out next weekend, the 16th.
what are your opinions of it?

i have mixed feelings about it, but i think it is definitally worth the money, especially with all the new modifications coming out.

[dexter4dxm]

i just went from a 400 mhz celeron with 128 mb of pc133 ram to a athlon xp 1800+ (which outperforms the pentium4 2 ghz) with 512 mb of ddr ram. i also upgraded my os to windows xp. there were some problems. windows xp refused to install on my drive unless i reformatted the whole thing. at one point i couldn't even backup my information onto the other computers here, and i nearly lost all the progress i made on civiliza (not to mention all the other 40 gb of data that i had on my 60 gig drive). well, thankfully everything has been saved through a long tedius process of transfering files over a network to a computer that only had 1 gig of space left, and then from that computer to another one which had enough space to hold all my stuff. i had to transfer 1 gig at a time twice the whole way through; needless to say it took awhile. but everything is fine now, my system runs great and i can start getting things in order again. i'm pretty busy as it is, so i don't know when i'll get around to re-installing c++ and the directx sdk. i'll try not to delay the next release too much, but it certainly won't be very soon.

[tishco]

i got civ3, laggy even on AMD athlon 1ghz and 128Ram

i also got alien vs pred. 1, but i can collect heads as a predator.