DESIGN: New Diplomanager

[Mihai]

had a few second and thought I'd throw this together..its alittle civ3-ish i know

I have to say that I found the diplomacy in Civ3 better than in CtP2. At least at the interface.

[sekel]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
child of Thor

problem is that your idea is bad I say

I give you advanced infantry(+80 ) + gold500(+10) etc(99) etc()

For all you cities

Too avoid players from taking AI cities easely, the AI should never, ever, sell cities, just like in civ3.

[Ekmek]

Martin are you going to try this with Ctp2?






If you are looking to enlarge the diplomat photos I'll volunteer to help. I was looking around the civ3 section and found a lot of user made flags, so I was thinking of using those for the background and then pasting the Ctp2 heads in front of it (since some are repeated) I have made civ3 style leaderheads before so I'm not afraid of trying to make new heads either.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by E
If you are looking to enlarge the diplomat photos I'll volunteer to help. I was looking around the civ3 section and found a lot of user made flags, so I was thinking of using those for the background and then pasting the Ctp2 heads in front of it (since some are repeated) I have made civ3 style leaderheads before so I'm not afraid of trying to make new heads either.

Actual we have those of CTP1 and Harlan did also a lot of them, of course you should take a look on them, so that you can decide whether they are good enough.

And of course add whatever design stuff you like, e.g. flags civ color bar, some cool things like the age dependent weapons stuff we saw in Civ2, and these advances. However the diplomanager should have the dimension of the Great Library.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

By the way E in which format are these Civ3 leader heads?

-Martin

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Originally posted by sekel


Too avoid players from taking AI cities easely, the AI should never, ever, sell cities, just like in civ3.

no,
there are very good reasons to give away cities:

- the simplest would be sorting your borders, i give you my city which is amidst your borders and you give me yours which is inside mine... of course this should only be done if both parties desire peaceful relations

- often cities at the other end of the world or on isolated islands just suck, you aren't able to defend them well because they are so far away, so why don't trade them (for a high price of course)

- having too many cities for your current government thus forcing you to please all citizens by e.g. high wages thus thwarting your hole empires effectiveness for one stinking rathole

of course there are quit a lot more aspects besides citysize that should be considered in trading:
- strategic position: will it be easy or a pain to defend that city against whoever might lurk in the vicinity? does it act like a canal between oceans? can it be used as a good base for airforces (of course theres a problem, the player will alway have this in mind, the ai shouldn't as long as it has no clue of the fact that there might be something like that)? at least for mods which put much emhasis on goods (like aom) the goods in vicinity should be taken in consideration
- status in empire, is it a good production, science, gold base (or can it become one soon) or just a dull place with nothing but tundras and swamps around it

btw, there is a nice exploit in civ3, because the civ3 ai values even dull towns so high. if you just conquered a city from civ A, though you will never be able to hold it for military reasons as well as those stupid culture thingies and the people's "don't war with our evil tyran feeling) you can sell it to civ B for almost everything they got in goods, money and tech, watch that town convert (or be captured) by civ A in a few turns, conquer it again and at that time there won't be even rebellions because they feel as civAis now.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
By the way E in which format are these Civ3 leader heads?

-Martin

Martin they are FLCs but you cant get them in flicster soI view then through JASC PSP 7's animation shop. I then can take a frame and paste it in paint shop pro and edit from there (i think they are 24 bit also, the only part of civ3).

Do you need a flc to look at? (you can probably download a LH in the Civ3 section though)

Also they are quite large, what size are you looking to do the leader heads? I saw Harlans stuff so I'm thinking of taking the flags and pasting the heads in front of them. It will add some color to the diplomacy screen.

Speaking of, if you are thinking of tabling the diplomacy scren like civ3, do you think it will be better to make the player side one color and the AI a different one? maybe soft shades of red and blue or something? Or maybe add a Civ-Colored border a few pixels thick around the AI side because often I forget which civ is which color.

Maybe we should also look into drafting some greetings text as well to make a more human feel. Its a nice touch in Civ3 too.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by E
Martin they are FLCs but you cant get them in flicster soI view then through JASC PSP 7's animation shop. I then can take a frame and paste it in paint shop pro and edit from there (i think they are 24 bit also, the only part of civ3).

Also they are quite large, what size are you looking to do the leader heads? I saw Harlans stuff so I'm thinking of taking the flags and pasting the heads in front of them. It will add some color to the diplomacy screen.

Actual I thought of converting them to avis, so that we can play them. Actual I prefer the size of the CTP1 leader images, but if it would be to laborious, we can stick to the Civ3 size. Of course the flags should be placed left and right of the leader. Maybe we can overlay some government ensigns like a star and hammer and sickle for the comunists.

That China is a comunist contry is not secret.

Originally posted by E
Speaking of, if you are thinking of tabling the diplomacy scren like civ3, do you think it will be better to make the player side one color and the AI a different one? maybe soft shades of red and blue or something? Or maybe add a Civ-Colored border a few pixels thick around the AI side because often I forget which civ is which color.

Of course always civ color, civ colors needs to be there always.

Originally posted by E
Maybe we should also look into drafting some greetings text as well to make a more human feel. Its a nice touch in Civ3 too.

Something like: You, the leader of a tiny civilization, dare it, to ask the mighty, powerful, noble Ix-Yies for some pleasure?



At least diplomacy needs some consequences.

Civ1: If you don'T accept our proposal then we declare war on you!
Civ2: WAR! War is good, our mighty troops are blood thirsty, they are eager to crush your tiny little wannabe empire. War so be it!

Threads need consequences.

If you are lucky then you might get this:

Civ1: If you don'T accept our proposal then we declare war on you!
Civ2: You and war? Ha Ha! Dare it and we will crush you!

-Martin

[Ekmek]

Just messing around with HArlan's graphics andciv3 flags. Harlans pics are wider where as Civ3 is taller. I have a slight comprise here with this 5 minute Churchill. I'll find ways for govt icons and era stuff too. I did notice some of Harlans pics like constantne are from historic pictures so I may have to redrw them eventually.

[Martin Gühmann]

The image looks good, but actual I had something differend in my. Actual I wanted to put the flags beside the leader image, so in the middle the image and right and left the flag and on the flag the government symbol.

But we have to do something with the background, CTP1 backgrounds look so steril.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

yeah the plain ctp1 backgrounds is why I put the flag back there, it makes it brighter. It will take me awhile but I can make the flags on poles in the background. But maybe we put the government symbol on colums on the sides of the picture? I'd like to have different government advisors for each government like civ1 but that may take awhile to do.

Also are you thinking of doing different era graphics? I'll have to make some different clothes and weapons too. but for each govt and each era it turns out to be a lot of graphics per leaderhead.

[Maquiladora]

I wouldnt bother with different era leaders, it didnt work too well in civ3 because thats not how the leader commonly looks, so its probably not worth the effort for the very little (if any) atmosphere you get from it.

IMO it should give the impression of a diplomatic meeting place in the background, depending on civ of course, flags on poles, paintings/windows/things on walls, or is that too much work

[Martin Gühmann]

Actual I tought of the flags as seperate images, and also the government symbols as seperate overlays. And by the what about female leader images. You have a female leader and the image doesn't match. That was already a problem in Civ2.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

well messing with the dipwizard.ldl I've gotten this far




Of course I still have soem tweaking until its functional again and then make the leaderheads but I guess so far so good.

[Protra3211]

The Power of E! The CtP2 fans should be checking in again as winter time has us spending more time indoors(at the coumputor) so feedback will be coming in on your work -the builds,units, and tile work along with new game features.
Like your tile work this feature update adds spice to the game.