Large Screenshot (400k?) and debate

I've put two screenshots together. I am quite annoyed by the graphic work done on the land, I mean its still boring, it's been 6 years for crying out loud, and the graphics are still ugly, they can be much better looking. Can't we at least move away from the flat lifeless look of the world?

I'm not saying graphics is everything, I'm saying, we need to move on to better things. Not just graphics but everything else aswell. I really believe that the flat lifeless land is causing the game to behave flat and lifeless. You can do so much more when you can see more, for instance, now that I've drawn those hills and mountains in (not finished hehe), I can put gunneries up there, I can put fortifications up there, the mining will look proper and overall it just looks better.

Also notice i've changed the plains, I've put wheat on them, I'm not sure if it looks better, but if it could sway in the wind, and when units move through, it cuts out the bottom half, I think that looks great!

I also changed half the water to blue to compare with the original green look. I really dunno which is best. Maybe a very dark ocean blue? like navy

[Jer8m8]

I didn't realize they go together. Nice work

I like the original graphics for the most part, but I do admit that I like the "blue" ocean compared to the "green" ocean. The green is just ugly! Good work though, maybe Firaxis needs you to do some artwork for them?

[Grumbold]

I like your sea colour better than the green. A little darker still would be even better provided it did not start hiding the units too much.

Your "wheat" would be great to represent land actually being farmed (i.e. a worker in the city is assigned to that tile) but that might cause processor overheads each time the map was redrawn. The one thing Civ games never distinguished between was land prepared for cultivation and land actually in use. For the animation fans the mines could operate, ploughs appear in the fields etc

The one thing I thought particularly amusing was the horseman stanfing nect to the horse resources. Clearly the pygmy horses found in the wild grow rapidly when domesticated and ridden

[Kurgan]

I think that the color of the Ocean you have added is much, much better, and more comfortable to look at. But for the wheat in the wild, I think it should be only be placed in areas that are being farmed.

[Yog-Sothoth]

Nice work ContradictioN, I especially like your sea color. I really hope they will change that ugly green sea.





As to the map in general, I actually like the map to be flat. I don't think a map with elevation will give the same overview. It also tend to get more zoomed in while the map scale stays the same, and that just look plain weird. At least thats the feeling I got in SMAC. It's like if you have elevated hill tile, you need to use the 8 tiles around as an transition between the different elevation levels.

[Provost Harrison]

Hey, I have just noticed something odd about civ3. The rivers seem to go inbetween tiles, not through them, if you look carefully!!? I wonder what the implication of this is?

[Deathwalker]

Maybe they set up the riivers as obsitcles that you have to pass with a bridge. Early on in the game this would make it harder to explore. But this mean boats can't go up rivers

[Al'Kimiya]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Hey, I have just noticed something odd about civ3. The rivers seem to go inbetween tiles, not through them, if you look carefully!!? I wonder what the implication of this is?

My guess is that river tiles show the river graphics at the bottom of the tile. This is useful for borders, which traditionally should be at the river, not half a tile beyond

[Zanzin]

hey contradiction, nice work.

I too agree, shouldn't the whole civ map concept evolved just a bit in 6 years??

I've long been a proponent of a 3-D map for civ, like you drew. It looks good, and it injects new life into the genre, I feel.

I was a bit disapointed when Firaxis started unveling screenshots....it really did look like civ2 all over again, but just with a different shaded tile set and a bit more detail.

Maybe Firaxis will listen to our pleas....maybe not.......maybe by the time civ4 comes along.

[Ralf]

I like your bluish ocean colour-palette. A definite improvement over the original turquoise one.

I dont like your version of mountains and wheat-tiles. Your mountains, for example doesnt fit in with the rest of the landscape - nor with the tile-wise terrain-type system. And the wheat-tiles are too dense & protruding, so that one cannot see what terrain-type is underneath.

I generally like the overal graphical approach choosen for Civ-3, as described in the Game revolution preview:

The first and most obvious one is to the overall look of the game. Unsurprisingly, the graphics look more detailed and intricate than past games in the series. They are not, however, slick or modern. Rather than emulating the bright, smooth textures of games like Age of Mythology (link), the design team chose to build the overall look of the game around Pieter Bruegel's Tower of Babel (link).

Even a casual look at the new "City View" screen shows the influence of Bruegel's work, which was itself patterned after the ancient buildings Bruegel saw in Rome. Whether or not this is a good thing will probably turn out to be a matter of personal preference (and has already proven to be so among the GR editorial staff)

I however dont like the irrigated tiles at all. They should make the irrigation-canals more thin & regular: so that it looks obviously manmade. Also some slightly protruding crops between the thin canals. Its perhaps a tricky job for the graphic-artists, because the underlying original terrain-type must also be able to shine through.

Finally; the team should also consider some minor height-difference between land and ocean-tiles, so that the whole continent/island slightly rises above the waterline somewhat.

[KrazyHorse]

I've got to say that I really like the look of Civ III as it is. The turquoise ocean colour gives such a nice sixteenth-century feel to the map. Your wheat resources look beautiful, though. The only thing I can't stand about the Civ III graphics the way they stand now is the mountain squares. The mountain rises up out of nowhere, almost vertically. Its height is too exaggerated, and it looks silly. Question: Do the numbers after the current production item represent the number of turns left to completion?

Thanks for the input

Let me finish the picture, I've cropped it into a smaller square so that I don't have to do so much work.

I want to change the entire land so that it all fits in properly, because I understand that the hills and mountains don't fit with the tree's and the colour of the land. I know what it will look like when i'm finished, I just need to get it done. I will try and get it done by tonight.

I've made the ocean darker now, it looks twice as good as the last blue.

Also I've taken out the borders, and all the text on the screen, so that I can start fresh without too much mess on it. I feel that the borders are a wee bit too ugly, and should be something nicer. The borders look like big broken railroads to me. It really annoys me. It think it should look different.


I agree with the wheat, I feel that the wheat should only be for irrigated land, but I also feel that imagine its 1990, and all the land is now wheat, it might look quite ugly. So I think that the irrigated areas should be a different colour according to the type of land its on. So that way it doesn't look too messy and you can see the different types of land there are.

Also when you draw a road or a railroad through the wheat, it will cut through it, I think that would look super cool.

I will see if I can elevate the land from the ocean, thanks for the idea, and I agree with the mountains and hills, they look silly out there by themselves, they're not even attached to each other, nor are the tree's, they're too scattered, I think it needs to be slightly thicker, also its looks more like a mess rather than plantlife. So I will be fixing them too.


I found that when I was editing the land, that the rivers seem to be a layer above the land itself, which is allowing it to cross over tiles, I also found that each 'tile' doesn't really look like a 'diamond' its more of a warped diamond, which is allowing the land to blend in more realisticaly. You can see it from the coastal areas, it's actualy like that right through the land I think.


If there's any other thoughts I could use while I am editing the picture, please post em, I wanna help make Civ3 a great game, I worry that the graphics are a bit of a let down, and I'm getting that feeling from most of the people here.

Hills should roll and gently rise, not go directly up and not roll. It just looks like a big green rock, and those mountains look like they come from Hawaii.

I will make the image smaller

[Nadexander]

Wow. Are you kidding. Compared to Civ2 and even SMAC i think the graphics are gorgeous. Im sure the animations will make it look even better. While not flashy and state-of-the-art i think its the perfect look for civilization: Everything i could possibly wannt.

BTW It looks to me like a very large city will occupy more than one square!!

-Nadexander

[Inverse Icarus]

personally, i found that mountain horrid.

not to say that i could do any better.

[m_m_x]

i like the irrigated tiles
they look great!!!

Nadexander, I know what you're saying, the graphics so far do look great, but they are not as good as they can be.

It's been a long time since Civ2, and even SMAC.

Let me say, I really hate those 3D graphics, they are too fine and unrealistic looking, so I'm not asking for 3D graphics here, I'm simply asking for some quality looking graphics.

I just realised while I was having lunch that Firaxis may want to make the land easy to change, so maybe thats why the land is not so complicated looking. But still, I hope they allow a lot of the land to be changed in a big way. Not just the look of each tile, but to control how the tiles work aswell.

However, I also want to at least inspire them some way some how.

[Eli]

I hope that we will have those terrain files like we had in Civ2 so that you will be able to change them all to such great graphics as the one in that pic.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Nadexander

BTW It looks to me like a very large city will occupy more than one square!!

Wow! I also noticed it only now. It's a major improvement IMO.
I always thought that cities should take more than one tile, it's far more realistic.

But in the pic we are still in the beginning of the game(look at the units), so the city is probably not very big, but still takes more than one tile. I hope that they wont exaggerate with the city sizes.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Nadexander
BTW It looks to me like a very large city will occupy more than one square!!

Hmm! Does this mean that one can found a city one square away from any ocean-squares - then later then that city literally have expanded, nevertheless get ocean-access; enabling the option of building a harbour? Or is it just a graphical thing?

[NakaNaka]

maybe Ralf or you can just build on the water and have it expand inland only.

[Eli]

Originally posted by NakaNaka
maybe Ralf or you can just build on the water and have it expand inland only.

I wonder if it matters how many tiles the city takes.

The cities can expand over the land tiles, the very first screenshot shows it.

[Ilkuul]

I think you've done a great job, ContradictioN -- I especially like the wheat, tho' as you say if large areas were all the same it might look a bit boring, so there'd need to be some way of showing the underlying terrain type.

But I have more basic question: Do we know for sure that what we've seen in the official screenshots IS the (almost-)final state of the graphics? Somewhere I seem to have picked up the idea that Firaxis have some really cool terrain graphics in development that they're not showing us just yet. I can't remember where or what I read that gave me this impression. Has anyone else picked up that idea, or have I just misunderstood something?

If the screenshots we've seen are truly IT, then I share your sense of slight disappointment, and any improvements -- like yours -- are very welcome!

[Geoff the Medio]

the wheat

Maybe different cultures should have different crops shown growing around their cities... ie rice or corn.

If not by culture, perhaps civs starting on the same continent should grow the same crops...

Seems better than everyone growing wheat just cause that's what the people at firaxis eat the most.

lol, love your idea Geoff

[Inverse Icarus]

sooner or later firaxis will do answer our calls.

most likey the latter.

i propose making an account with email askthecivteam@firaxis.com, and sign them up for auto notify on all the important threads.

that would get the message over.