GAME ATMOSPHERE (v 1.0) hosted by Dominique

Music is SOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Important!!!

I REFUSE to do ANY art without some music in the background!

Because music helps me so much, to put me in the right mind! put me in the enviroment I want to be in!

And then there is music that makes you want to get up and dance, How much more interaction can you get!?

[NotLikeTea]

As someone else mentioned, off of an offcial list, population is important.

Have cities withe realistic populations. Even modern civs the previous games never went much past a couple of million inhabitants, with a world population of well under a billion.

Looking at a civ with believable population really helps suspend disbelief. Of course, this needs to be balanced against work, since we don't want 100x (or more) the workers and population points in 1990 as in 0090. We don't want size 100+ cities. Urngh.

[Jason Beaudoin]

You want atmosphere?

Make civilizations distinct from one another. Make the architecture different for each civilization (where applicable) and make the interface different in some cases (like Age of Empires). Have the advisors look different for each civilization.

It would also help if the advisors had their own personalities, which brings me to another idea... what if characters were incorporated into CIV III. You have to admit, a large part of governing an empire is handling many different personalities. After all, one cannot always rule by virtue of birth right. One must also have skill as a diplomat.

[NotLikeTea]

Another atmosphere builder I miss from CivI.

Remember generating the little history reply? Since it was in SMAC< I assume it's a CivIII feature as well.

But, in addition to the replay, you could export it to a text file, and get a nice little listing of all the conquests, all the discoveries, etc. It was nice to read over this after the fact and remember your epic story.

With modern computers (with more HD space) it would be nice to do this, along with exporting the replay video as a real animation you could replay later, and maybe a bitmap image of the final map, or graphs...

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

[EnochF]

Diodorus: I'll agree with everything you said. Except the bit about varying the High Council depending on culture. Too much memory. The graphics, sound, wonder movies, possible animations are going to fill up the CD very quickly (not to mention the musical CD tracks that are the hallmark of Civ games), and I don't want to get a message, "The Japanese High Council meets in Edo: Insert CD #3."

Historical Timeline: Back before I got the game, this is what I assumed would be the one and only major focus. The construction of a fictional history in detail. In my constructed history, I would like major battles to be summarized in fairly believable terms. Giving names to military units and geographic features will go nearly halfway in accomplishing that goal. "In the Valley of Suleidan, the Emperor Hammurabi did battle against the disorganized forces of Empress Cleopatra and routed the forces." Later on, it would be something like "On the banks of the Tiber, King Hammurabi's Third Legion was driven back by the fortified phalanxes of Emperor Julius Caesar." And that's just the military side of things. You might read "Babylonian scientist Alhazen codifies the science of Astronomy," or "Unhealthy living conditions lead to a week of rioting in the heart of Babylon." Nothing's too trivial for me. "The world's first library is built in Ur." "Uruk produces the I.B.S. Ishtar, the world's first aircraft carrier." "Babylonian explorers discover Mt. Babel, the world's tallest mountain." "King Hammurabi meets with noted musician Kalesh in hopes of quelling the disturbances in Babylon." "A sudden Visigoth attack on Uruk was easily quelled by the defending archers of the city." "New trade routes opened between Babylon and the French city of Orléans." "An age of scientific cooperation begins between the Babylonians and the Romans." "Emperor Charlemagne cuts off diplomatic ties with the Babylonians." "Russian troops seen in Tigris River Valley, traditionally known as Babylonian territory since 3100 B.C." Stuff like that. Later on, I got caught up in the mechanics of gameplay and lost sight of how much I wanted to construct a history, rather than just expand my empire and win. Civ III shouldn't make a player lose sight of his role, a creator, an instrumental shaper of history.

[Ecce Homo]

EnochF - your Historical Timeline should be combined with the good old Civ1 Replay. Of course, it must not be to detailed if it covers all of the world history until today!

[Onmoy]

Diodorus:
to expand on your comment about seeing what you build in each city.. As far as wonders go, i believe that wonders should take up and entire tile adjacent to each city.. after all , they are supposed to be "Wonders", ie. "Wonderous Accomplishments".. normal city improvements? nah.. they're just fine the way Civ2 handles it.. but Wonders are Wonders.. show 'em off..

Onmoy

[Diodorus Sicilus]

- First Post in this Thread-

Some of this is going to repeat things I've mentioned in other threads where they related to specific Game Playing matters...

1. I LIKE sounds and animations, but they have to have at least a bit of wit, and after a while , too, like to turn off the background music. Still, everytime the spy in CtP mutters "For the mother country!" I get a grin on my face..,
2. Nameable terrain. Let other AI countries name it if they get there first, you get to name it if your exploring unit gets to it first. One 'victory' or victory point rating could be how much of the map you named. Nameable Terrain features include Rivers over X tiles long, More than X number of contiguous Mountain tiles (mountain range), any non-Mountain land tile with X tiles of contiguous Mountain tile bordering (Passes), X tiles of contigous land tiles surrounded by water (Island, Continent). And that's just for starters! The maps could also be generated with a specific Highest Mountain, or even specific terrain features like High Falls, Deepest Lake, Chalk Cliffs, etc.
3. Changeable Leaders. I want, and have posted elsewhere concerning, internal changes in government, revolts, splitting off regions or cities, religious changes not completely or ever controllable by the player, etc. This should result in your name or title changing: Chieftain Friedrich becomes King Friedrich who does something great and is proclaimed Friedrich the Mighty by his people. Or Igor the Inadequate, as the case may be...
4. I want military units that have titles. I want to be able to give them Honorific Titles reflecting their history - the Karakorum Guards, the 3rd Slobbovian Light Horse, etc. I want combats involving more than 1 unit on each side to be Named battles. This allows, at the end of the game (or when you stop from exhaustion) a History of the Empire to be generated with suitable graphics, bells, and whistles, listing Great Events (the 200 Years' War with Slobbovia, the 3rd Battle of Farkis, the Defenestration of Denver, etc), rulers, and achievements.
5. Throw in lots of Period Flavor. When you generate a Map of the Empire for viewing, it should reflect:
Ancient: a world oriented with the Center of the Universe being your capital city, and fanciful animals, peoples, and features on the outskirts.
Medieval: "Here be Dragons and Wierde Beasties" wherever you really don't know what's there
Modern: contour lines, green, white, brown, and blue map colors, mabe even military grid coordinates for everything.
Future: A holographic-3-D sort of thing? Could be too dificult or CPU-eating to program, but make each Era look different.
6. Individualize, Individualize, Individualize!!!
Throne Rooms should reflect the Civ, by architecture and device.
Advisors should dress in Civ-flavored attire, not all pseudo Roman for ancient, pseudo Florentine for Renaissance, etc.
The CivII "city view" and the CtP "Monuments" screen are MAJOR LAME. (As me old instructor would say, the "suck like a starving leech"). Gimme a city view that actually shows the streets and terrain and improvements in context of the city I've built - or don't do it at all
Make the graphics for the Improvements vary with the Civ, even if it's just the 4 Major Architecture Types in CivII
7. Let me see some of what I'm buildng on the map: If I build a Cathedral, my city graphic should show a spire or dome rising in the middle; if I add a harbor, let's see some moles or docks in the water, etc.
Some Wonders should show up on the map: a REAL Great Wall across several tiles, for instance, or a Colossus rising in gleaming bronze and marble over the city.
8. Let's have more of the on-going history flavor, CivII's random Historical report was okay, but only a start: how about a displayed page (in period, of course) or an oral historian (Herodotus in the agora droning on)
giving the latest achievement - or lack of it- of your Empire:
The Glorious Golden Age of Perth Amboy
The Plague Years in Poughkeepsie
The Anabasis of X
Lives of the Twelve Gamers by Suetonius

[Sten Sture]

Excellent suggestions so far... I very much would like to print out maps, as NotLikeTea suggested, political as well as physical, and as the game progresses not just at the end.

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THE THREAD UP*=-

I would like to have an emperor or leader unit but I have posted my thoughts on this on other threads and you said no units...

Other ideas:

. When you enter villages have some interactions with the villagers (animations) instead just a hoard of barbarians appearing or a message box saying what you've found. Perhaps the villagers, if friendly, could tell you something about the surrounding region or give clues to new discoveries (like "we will fight you out of respect for the huge civ over the mountain which your going to meet soon and will surely destroy you" or "please don't harm us, we will happily give this gold/this tech to join your empire and you will find an empire nearby which is much weaker than you and will satisfy your lust for conquest" - could be a lie though). Maybe you should be able to negotiate with villages to join your empire or find out things (techs, reveal map etc.).

. Music: when I played board games we would put music on at critical times - 1812 overture, flight of the valkiries...(daggy I know - but fun too, listen to the music, have a beer or whatever, before playing the decisive turn). Give players more options to choose music for war, peace, revolution. Any Civ game has critical turns. A burst of music could also be programmed when you do particularly clever or dum things - this is apparently one of the things that makes poker and pinball machines so addictive to some people (non-verbal queues).

. Fully agree on too much emphasis on winning. Maybe have several winning threads - conqueror, scientist, government, builder. Players can win on all or some or none.

. Also have "stalemate" or "draw". The best board game I ever played was "Russian Campaign". It was addictive because most games ended in a stalemate or draw. Perhaps you could win a game even when your empire is destroyed because of your achievements to that time. The ancient Greek civilisation for example will always be a winner and in most ways considered superior to the Roman civilisation that succeeded it. The Romans themselves were well aware of this and envious of the Greeks as a result. The Brits are similarly regarded as amongst the greatest empire builders of all time and when the United States and its empire (of which my country is a part) is eclipsed, as it must be, it will probably almost certainly be looked back on as great. In other words, there are different ways of looking at "standing the test of time".

Having said all that, I want to reassure all you peaceful builders out there that all I really want to do is come after you with my invincible army. Can we have a tech/mode of government for "vandalism" please?

"We had to destroy the village to save it".

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited June 03, 1999).]</font>

[Eggman]

BTW, a "History Text" Replay should include major points by other civilizations as well. You know, Civ X wipes out Civ Y. Also, the key techs should be reflected:

1620AD The Chinese develop Gunpowder
1722AD The Industrial Revolution begins in England
1500BC The Golden Age of Philosophy begins in Athens, Greece.

Not all the techs should be reflected, just the big ones.

[Atahualpa]

Hey, there is already a Game Atmosphere v 1.1! Post there, its below!

Ata