Reassuring info from latest Gamespy preview

[Ralf]

Some nice quotes from the Gamespy's latest preview. Read and rejoice!

Several refinements help speed up the game. There are more contextual menus accessible by right clicking on units and cities. This eliminates the need for going to pull down menus for simple commands. The city screen now contains all the information about the city; you no longer have to go through various tabs and screens to get different info about your cities.

The game's level editor is incredibly diverse. Every aspect of the game can be tweaked. Required technologies, civilization effects, combat values, race attributes, governments, and more can be modified. The level of customization is so staggering that it's almost like creating an entirely new game. Modifications and scenarios are saved to a small file that can be used by any player with Civ III on their system. The developer hopes that the Civ community will get creative and conjure up some nifty scenarios for download.

Well, above certainly feels reassuring so far. Keep up the good works!

[General Ludd]

Every aspect of the game can be tweaked. Required technologies, civilization effects, combat values, race attributes, governments, and more can be modified. The level of customization is so staggering that it's almost like creating an entirely new game.

Ah, I've been waiting to hear that for a long time, great news!

[Inverse Icarus]

ok, some kickass editing equipment.

i am going to assemble the best free-working modding crew this side of Alpha Centuari.

move over Sid Mier's Civilization III, here comes UberKruX's Cililisation III.

open source, of course.

think i can get sued for using the brit spelling on that one?

oh yes. theres no fawking u in color.

[korn469]

there are also these little tidbits

Automated units are more intelligent, requiring less babysitting.

There are also several enhancements to the artificial intelligence and interface that make the game flow more smoothly

[Admiral]

Automated units are more intelligent, requiring less babysitting

I very much doubt that automated units will be more useful than in SMAC.

[Bill3000]

Yay! Now I can make some good scenarios about micronationalism! Well, come October 16th of course.

[Ralf]

There are more contextual menus accessible by right clicking on units and cities. This eliminates the need for going to pull down menus for simple commands.

I suspect that Civ-2 style dropdown-menus have been completely eliminated. Replaced by rightclick-menus and screen-buttons and -options only, I guess.

The city screen now contains all the information about the city; you no longer have to go through various tabs and screens to get different info about your cities.

It seems to be the anti-pode of CTP-2 style endless tab-clicking and multiple screen-manager handling.

I can only hope that they also follow this up with automatic map-recentering and unit & city-flashing whenever new orders is needed. I always play without build-queues and governers, so I really NEED it. Please Firaxis, at least make this a free option for those who like to play the game this way.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ralf
I can only hope that they also follow this up with automatic map-recentering and unit & city-flashing whenever new orders is needed. I always play without build-queues and governers, so I really NEED it. Please Firaxis, at least make this a free option for those who like to play the game this way.

I agree, you can never have too many option regardings event information and the flow of your turn.

[Melios]

Anybody know how the customizations you can make will work in Multiplayer modes?

[Ilkuul]

Ralf, did you notice in the Gamespy preview that we may now have the answer to your question in another thread, "Do ALL combat-units need access to resources?" I'm referring to the statement,

"In addition to required technologies, each unit has a requisite resource you must have or trade for before it can be built." (My bolding.)

That's pretty definite, isn't it? Hope it was stated on proper authority and wasn't just 'journalist's licence'... If it's genuine, it means that many resources, at least in the early stages of the game, had better be fairly easy to come by!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Osweld
I agree, you can never have too many option regardings event information and the flow of your turn.

They can even have the interface change to city-manager mode automatically whenever a city needs new build-orders. The less clicks, the better.

By the way; Where is the build-manager? The Sistine chapel-picture in above screenshot looks like its located on a clickable button. If its lead to the build-manager, I hope it manager closes down automatically as soon as I have choosen and confirmed it all with an OK. A small thing perhaps, but I just hate unnecessary clicks in order to handle gameflow-related screens.

Game-behaviour related options-screens is an different matter - they can be extensive as in SMAC.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Ilkuul
"In addition to required technologies, each unit has a requisite resource you must have or trade for before it can be built." (My bolding.)

That's pretty definite, isn't it?

I certainly agree. Each and every unit, it seems. Perhaps NOT Workers and Settlers though. Diplomats?

[Comrade Tribune]

Did You look at the screenshots?

-I think the colours have become brighter and less dull.
-I also think there is somewhat more info in the two shown tech-trees.
-Gandhi looks ugly. Can´t they get any leader right?

[Ilkuul]

Paper or vellum for Diplomats??! But those aren't raw materials. So probably not. Maybe you need sheep --> wool --> cloth --> fancy clothes for your diplomats!

[Darkknight]

I think what he said about Civ3 being returned to the creator is probably the best way to describe civ3.

What if we all said " hey god! Howsa 'bout you fixing Earth for us eh? "

[dainbramaged13]

Lookie at what i found at Civ Fanatics Center


"Civ3 will include a "very robust" civilization editor. You will be able to create new civilizations, import them into the game, and share them with other players. "

[Ralf]

A bump-reply for those who are interested in tweak- and modification-possibilities in Civ-3.

[Christantine The Great]

Originally posted by Ilkuul
Paper or vellum for Diplomats??! But those aren't raw materials. So probably not. Maybe you need sheep --> wool --> cloth --> fancy clothes for your diplomats!

There aren't any Diplomats/Spies anymore. It was said a while back.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Christantine The Great
There aren't any Diplomats/Spies anymore. It was said a while back.

No Diplomats and Spy's? This is news to me.
So everything is handled through the diplomacy-screen? And the comparing democraphics-screen?

Anyway, thats good news, because they shouldnt make important game-elements unnecessarily dependent on how good/bad the AI-units move around & find their targets. They scrapped the caravan as well - even better.

My only concern left is those damn AI-workers ability to improve city-areas and resources effectively. These things should be executed by some kind of automatic sequential tweakable maturing-process instead, with AI-workers just moving around mostly for show (unless road-connecting AI-cities and connecting to other empires).
Also, the AI settler-units ability to exploit the available land-area more effectively by emphasizing coastal-cities, then working inwards - or by adding manually pre-edited potential AI city-locations (at least in edited scenario-maps), from there the AI-civs could expand more freely & effectively without bother about calculating optimal locations.

[Steve Clark]

The game's level editor is incredibly diverse. Every aspect of the game can be tweaked. Required technologies, civilization effects, combat values, race attributes, governments, and more can be modified. The level of customization is so staggering that it's almost like creating an entirely new game. Modifications and scenarios are saved to a small file that can be used by any player with Civ III on their system. The developer hopes that the Civ community will get creative and conjure up some nifty scenarios for download.

Well, above certainly feels reassuring so far. Keep up the good works!

Reassuring? My goodness, Ralf, isn't there a better term? Firaxis had promised this a long time ago. And since I firmly believe that this is the most important element of Civ3, I expected Firaxis to hold to their promise. I don't need to feel reassured, just fulfilled.