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**Peter Dobrovka** · May 20, 1999, 10:18

Roads and RR built by people? I think this is meant to reduce micromanagement.
In reality this depends from government and economic model. In Europe roads and RR were built by government nearly exclusively. The private RR companies as in USA as reflected in Railroad Tycoon are only a possibility.
I would some more word to this but this would be off topic in this thread. I will post it in time to the gov. model discussions.

Will you have enviroment pollution?

I see no 'external buildings' like mines, fortifications, cities... I remember you wrote something like there will be no explicit cities, a province may contain up to hundreds of cities or so.

Peter

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**Mark_Everson** · May 20, 1999, 10:33

Peter:

It says right in my post that the player (aka government) can set out and built roads and RRs. Just if you don't, the people will probably do it themselves after a while.

Pollution should be there, I just don't have clear thoughts about it yet. My opinion is it should Not show on the main map, but should be investigated in an alternate map... The people should definitely respond to it though in terms of health etc.

Mines are just a local improvement. I don't think we want to show it on the main map, just on an alternate econ one. A major coal mine for instance would show up as a special.

On all these alternate maps I don't know exactly how to show them. I'm sure it will make Dominique ill if I suggest we just use a color code to show population density or industrial development. So I am open to suggestions on the presentation of alternate information that should be available to the player.

Hmmm. I have planned to have explicit urban squares. One will generally be the provincial capital. The distinction with civ is that a province can contain any number of urban (I call them city) squares. Production from all the urban and rural squares is aggregated into the capital of the province to simplify the econ system.

**Dominique** · May 20, 1999, 14:56

Mark:

You were right - the idea makes me ill... on the other hand...

You know, the idea of different map modes is not exactly new. Problem is that you often just see one source of information at a time and are forced to switch back and forth. On the other hand, showing too much at the same time clutters the map (which indeed makes me ill ) and makes the map too hard to read. Again, I think "optional" is the keyword here - and your color code could in fact be done:

Let's say our "normal" map is done in all colors needed to represent a nice map, with clearly identifiable terrain etc. Now, when clicking on the "economy button", one could fade out the color from the map (making it greyscale) and overlay this with the color coding. Effectively you'd have tiles tinted in the colors corresponding to certain values while still seeing the greyscale landscape (which should be recognizable, still).

If our coders can manage to extract the grey values and tint any given tile with the appropriate color (filtering again), you can have hundreds of color values if you want.

The only thing I'd like to mention is that (afar from game aspects) a hex map would look much better since you otherwise have differently colored boxes near each other whichs doesn't look too professional (the art of doing good game graphics often lies in hiding the fact that nearly everything consists of rectangle regions, in the end).

A compromise?

By the way, talking of terrain, layers etc., it wouldn't hurt if one could switch every single layer on/off.

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If somebody asks you "Art thou a god?", you tell him "YES!"

**Mark_Everson** · May 20, 1999, 22:51

D:

Layers on and off would be ok.

On the Gray-map idea. I think it is good, but rather than color-coding the whole thing how about little color-coded symbols on the greyed map. suppose I want to see population and industrial production. We could put a number of "gold" people using a log scale. one means up to 10k, 2 means 10-50k, etc. For industrial production you could do blue smokestacks or whatever, again on a log scale. Anyway, little images in log scale on a grey background lets you look at a few things at once and might give good effects. The log scale means you could use the same thing thruought the whole game, with maybe 10 little figures being the most you'd ever have.

Have I made you ill yet again or no? If not I'm obviously not trying hard enough

BTW I advertised for some graphical artists on the "creation" forums for both Civ2 and CTP. With luck we will have some more with similar talents soon for you.

**Glak** · May 21, 1999, 01:06

I back and I read some of the new threads. I think that the basic map should have about as much information as a civ game but that there should be special map thing. Like you would press the map button and the normal interfact would be replaced by a map interface. You would have more controls for zoom and various layers.

If you do a grayscale then you want to make sure that you do the conversion correctly. Green is brightest, red next and blue is dark, they are not all equal. You might want to be able to do an intensity graph with color. Sim City for Super Nintendo had it for things like crime and population density. You could either throw a primary color onto each aspect that you want graphed. Thus the player could drag population into the red box and farmland into the green box. Then the map would be tinted red green and all the yellows between. Since brightness would be based on the actual map you would have to use saturation.

If you go with an icon system where you pile icons onto squares you would need a on/off switch for each layer.

As for colors 256 is extremely strict and hard to deal with. One person might be able to keep himself to 256 with a little effort but Mr.A's 256 colors won't be the same as Mr.B's.

Also clash is going to be isometric I suggest using narrower diamonds than civ2. Civ2 just looks uglier and flatter than civ1. Since wider diamonds tip the terrain you notice the lack of elevation more. For example if you make the width three times the height you get the idea that you are looking out across your land. If there is no elevation then it just looks bad. If you do a top down view you can't possibly depict elevation so nothing is missed. So avoid making the diamonds too wide.

Also I was just curious as to the target resolution. It will only look right on one resolution so that should be decided on. I suggest 1024x768

Oh and does anyone know of a free paint program where you can specify the alpha easily? I just have a very old version of paint shop pro and it can only do simple masks. I'm on a 14.4 so I don't want to download something worthless.

**Dominique** · May 21, 1999, 06:05

Glak:

I'm glad I find someone here as concerned with the graphical aspects as I am

The idea with the saturation map showing 2 aspects at once is good (would be even better if the player can decide whether he wants just one or 2 aspects shown at the same time).

Mark:

No, sorry, no sickness this time
But I see the big dilemma arising: While you seem to be an information grabber (wanting as many info on screen as possible), I'm more the "intuitive player", meaning I'm satisfied if I get a rather crude, nevertheless correct FEELING of what's going on. In an epic game, you DON'T want to analyze numbers all the time. That was IMHO one of the biggest mistakes of Activision when doing the interface of CtP: They forfeited Sid's great idea of rows of icons representing resources and showed (wonderfully exact) numbers in the screens. Bah! No more casual glances which tell me "everything's fine here", but instead reading, analyzing, calculating...!

Of course I noticed that you want to include mini-icons instead of numbers on the "economy map" etc. But on this overview type of map it's IMHO essential to give the player a QUICK, not necessarily exact information. While little icons are VERY fine if presented in decent numbers, having, say, 12 x 12 map tiles with icon information in EACH is not easy to read. Again, I'd say "Make it optional". In a long game, most people will prefer the color coding variant, especially the dual-colored version (e.g. production vs. crime on a red / green scale overlaying the greyscale landscape). Fewer is more here, really!

Glak:

The problem you pointed out with the palette can be overcome - e.g. we simply could use the (excellent) AoE palette. But I see the big problem of needing lots of graphics professionals to draw visaully appealing images when confined to 256 fix colors.

As for the diamond width, I fully agree

Screen size: I'd say design it for 800 x 600 +, 800 x 600 giving you the bare minimum (leaving out some eyecandy and reducing the map by 2 tiles in width and height each).

In the first layout attempt for the screen / interface, I came up with the following numbers, based on 800 x 600 flat map:

11 tile rows
11 tile columns
each tile 48 x 48 pixels

I feel that an odd number of tiles is best for centering reasons. Also, 48 x 48 pixels (maximum zoom-in) should be enough for decent graphics.

Do not forget that in 3D-view, units won't be confined to their respective tiles' (diamond's / parallelogram's) area, but will most often overlap some part of the tile above it.

Paint program:

The most modern version of Paintshop Pro (5.01) is able to work with alpha channles. Since I work primarily with Corel PhotoPaint and Adobe Photoshop, I can't be of any assistance as for how to do it with PSP, sorry. I never liked it's interface...

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If somebody asks you "Art thou a god?", you tell him "YES!"

**manurein** · May 21, 1999, 13:33

I think bith can be used. I like the idea of colors, it can give a goog intuitive perspective, and be at the square level.
OtH many things and numbers will be handled at the province level. I guess provinces are the visual entites on the map (since if I understand u we want to hide the tiles); why not having switches that will allow the player to display little icons for a province? thus you wont have the tiling of the icons, rather something like a geo/eco atltas' map. Btw u could turn names of capital and important cities on/off.
Atlthough I guess there will be a zoom for the map. So maybe u could limit the information available to certain zoom levels, fe having icons at the tile level rather than province when at a sub-province zoom level?
One last idea (I'm not a graphist nor a graphics programmer, so it may be a whole lot of work...). Maybe u could have differents sets of tile grfx for the different epochs, fe allowing for urbanization grfx at the modern times and stuff like this?

**Mark_Everson** · May 21, 1999, 13:40

Manu:

I had no intention to 'hide' the tiles on the map... Provinces will be, as I see it, a collection of tiles on the map. The economy and some other things only function on the provincial level and up, but that's another aspect of the game.

Gotta' Run,
Mark

**Dominique** · May 21, 1999, 14:05

Concerning the "hiding" of the tiles: This is a bit of a problem, indeed - while most screen designers agree that it is essential for a good look to "camouflage" the de facto strict rectangularity of a map layout, this is exeactly the opposite for the "information grabbers": THEY want to know EXACTLY where any given tile is so they can max out their efforts.

Neither of them is wrong, it all depends on what really is important in a game. And if I had to say a word in this, micromanagement on a level where you indeed have to study a specific tiles' resources should be unnecessary. Clash is to be a game apout empires through the centuries. Now imagine you are a (immortal) leader - would you say "go hither and dry that exact swamp at the foot of the hills"? Or wouldn't you rather say "go and dry some swampland" and leave the decision to the peasants?

I see several benefits in the latter approach:

a) the spare time you get by NOT having to care for te tile-by-tile optimization can go into other aspects of the game, thus making Clash differ from CIV.

b) if we do not have to stick to a rigid square layout visually, the actual map can simply be nicer. Again, I refer to AoE: It uses a map grid, sure: Do you actually SEE it? No. It looks great, doesn't it?
After all, we want the player have the feeling to rule an empire, not to watch on a computer-generated map.

Personally, I've long pondered the possibilty of a TBS comletely WITHOUT visible squares, especially as far as movement is concerned. It is not that difficult to go down to exact pixel positioning for units, even cities and other things. This would improve movement realism as well as several influence modifiers (e.g. sight range wouldn't be "2 tiles" but a "100 pixel radius").

Or has this been discussed and decided against before?

**Mark_Everson** · May 21, 1999, 17:54

Oh, it That what Manu meant by hide the tiles. We're already fairly committed to tiles in the AI department. Its also more difficult to write AI for movement in a continuous space. For those reasons alone I'd like to stick to tiles. However within the constraints of tiles maybe we can do some things to make the map less regular.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I'm very good at it .

-Mark

**Dominique** · May 21, 1999, 18:44

Mark:

I'm aware of the fact that "real" tileless programming isn't feasable. Tiles are necessary at least to define parameters like type of terrain etc. Even if one would do this on pixel level, this wouldn't be any change, since pixel aren't anything different from tiles - just smaller.

No, I suggest "tileless" methods for two things only:

- movement
- ranges (as in viewing range, distance bombards, or e.g. range between 2 cities).

In effect, this would lessen the very crude effect on realism tiling has. The only thing one has to keep in mind is to have ranges for most actions, e.g. two units battle not when they enter the same tile but when the get into each others' combat radius (this would be a fabulous playground for adjusting combat values, giving units with a longer range - not bombardment, mind you - a combat advantage).

Coding shouldn't be influenced too much by "tileless" rules: Most things will refer to the (still existing) tiles anyway, e.g. the terrain type. Exact unit coordinates could be done by micro-grids, i.e. the position of a unit within a tile (or simply by using a larger coordinates system, deriving the tile coordinate by simply diving by the tile size).

Visually, this would certainly improve the game, especially if you think of units moving along given paths (NOT just sliding tile by tile).

One more point comes to mind: Using the tiles in every aspect of the game is the reason for some very unsatisfying "big steps" where finer steps would be more realistic and would have a very balancing effect on the game - consider e.g. movement: I always thoght that giving a unit movement points for a tile system was highly unrealistic because of the limited size of the map. Minimum movement even of a slow unit must be one tile, maximum movement of a fast unit clearly must be much more... but using tiles you only have the option of 2,3, etc.

Now let's say a pikeman unit could move 48 pixels / turn (if we say 1 map tile is 48 x 48), then a heavy cavalry could move e.g. 72 pixels, which is clearly more but not 2 full tiles. Much finer (and more realistic) steps would be possible.

Another thing (just to show what's possible with this): In one thread in the CIV3 ideas forum someone sugested cities should occupy more tiles when growing. Hm. Certainly realistic, but hard to do if you have tiles representing hundreds of square miles. Using pixels as measurement, however, a city's radius of influence could grow for, say, 1 pixel per 100.000 inhabitants (or whatever).

I thaught I could get you realism freak with that one...

So what I recommend is using tiles as a base and "tileless" rules where they could have a positive effect on realism and / or game balance, since bth systems are absolutely compatible.

**Mark_Everson** · May 22, 1999, 00:46

Glak:

Welcome back! Yeah the different-color maps sound interesting. We'll have to see how it looks. And D has already beaten me up on the 256 color thing ... Some of the more detailed suggestions are good, but we need to figure out the Big things first.

On-off switches for each layer is good.

Dominique:

I think we have to make both the intuitive and the number-based player happy. If we just tuck a number in somewhere in the intuitive images (preferred) or make an alternate view with numbers possible, then everyone will be happy. When cities get large in Civ the graphics become fairly UNintuitive for me. I would like to know whether my pop is 12 (need sewer system Now) or 11 (do something else) in the city management screens and I have to Count the Stupid Heads!

**manurein** · May 22, 1999, 04:38

I agree with Dominique at all, although I can't represent how far it will affect coding complexity.
One thought is, if we have a zoom (I'd like to know what u think of that, Mark and Dominique), measuring distances in pixel terms is senseless. Why not using real measurement units (kms or miles) and mapping them to our maps and coordinate systems?

**Mark_Everson** · May 22, 1999, 09:04

Dominique:

First, I neglected to respond to an important point in your previous post. It is indeed our object to have the player virtually never have to deal with a single tile. Main roads, canals and such, when done by the player, should be drawn on the map by the player and assigned a priority. The main areas where this principle needs to be violated are:

Military tactical-level manuvering when the player want's to do it.
City placement
Fortresses, in the age when they are quite expensive (eg "star forts")

Unless I'm missed something these will probably be the only areas that involve direct player attention at the single-square level.

D & M:

On the movement on a sub-tile basis...

But the Whole Emphasis of Clash is Strategic, rather than tactical. The things that you talk about are really effects that should go into a tactical mini-game for battles. I realize that square-size effects are somewhat irritating, but I don't think we can solve all the little problems with such games. The point I'd like to raise is that fraction-of-a-square amounts of movement should virtually Never decide an important issue in Clash.

On the graphical richness question, We can have varying size urban images with respect to tile size already. IMO this has nothing to do with sub-tiles. I agree that movement is more attractive and fluid when done at a smaller scale. Maybe we can use some 'trick' on this issue to make things more visually appealing.

I Really don't think we need this, but if everyone else in the project has a view contrary to mine, I think I'd have to trust all of your judgements. Dividing up the tiles for things like movement does have some advantages. We'd need to look into the ramifications on the movement AI code that is already written. I would propose that, If We Do It At All, It be on the level of dividing the tile into nine segments. This would change movement rigidness down to the 1/3 tile range which I think is Plenty good enough.

-Mark

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