9+ civs and the screens: cured!

Sarxis · October 20, 2001, 01:45

"Depending on the map size you select, you may play with up to 16 Civs at once. The foreign advisor screen will only display eight civs at a time, however, so you can hold shift & right click on any of the eight slots on that screen to select another known civ to display."

-ask the devs-

Sha na na na! Oh yeah!

Very easy, clean fix for the the limited leader slots in the screens.
And I am sure that this implementation works for all of the relevant screens.

Mars · October 20, 2001, 01:52

Yeah maybe it will work. It sounds like it might get annoying thoug, not being able to see everyone at once. But hey i guess ill just have to wait and see, maybe it will be all good

Rasputin · October 20, 2001, 01:54

now that is great news,,, especially for when MP hits the stores !!!!

genghisvick · October 20, 2001, 02:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Anunikoba
"Depending on the map size you select, you may play with up to 16 Civs at once. The foreign advisor screen will only display eight civs at a time, however, so you can hold shift & right click on any of the eight slots on that screen to select another known civ to display."

-ask the devs-

Sha na na na! Oh yeah!

Very easy, clean fix for the the limited leader slots in the screens.
And I am sure that this implementation works for all of the relevant screens.

Hell yea!

August Borms · October 20, 2001, 05:23

Good news!!

Earthling7 · October 20, 2001, 05:32

It would have been nice to have them all visible, but this is not bad. I wonder if it is because of cluttered screen, or if the 9+ concept was a last minute addition.

lockstep · October 20, 2001, 06:39

This is a further proof that the '16 civs at once'-option was added shortly before Civ3 went gold.

Well, at least I have some option to display all civs, unlike in CtP2.

yin26 · October 20, 2001, 06:43

Quote:

This is a further proof that the '16 civs at once'-option was added shortly before Civ3 went gold.

Precisely. And one wonders what in the world got them to make such a change...hmmm....

Sarxis · October 20, 2001, 06:48

Good morning yin!

lockstep · October 20, 2001, 06:54

Yin is right. The complaints of the Apolytoners about the 8-civs limit were the biggest, if not the only reason for Firaxis to change it. So much about the usefulness of 'whining'.

Comrade Tribune · October 20, 2001, 07:35

Quote:

Originally posted by lockstep
Yin is right. The complaints of the Apolytoners about the 8-civs limit were the biggest, if not the only reason for Firaxis to change it. So much about the usefulness of 'whining'.

Amen!

One thing, though: If they added the 16-player option at the last possible moment, will it have been seriously tested?

Sarxis · October 20, 2001, 07:37

Probably not; but all the same- I am glad it is in

Thanx to all the 'squeaky wheels'

Stuie · October 20, 2001, 10:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
One thing, though: If they added the 16-player option at the last possible moment, will it have been seriously tested?

Isn't that what we're for?

RedWhiteArcher · October 20, 2001, 11:44

I don't get it. Why going gold mean that no further changes can be made?

Akron · October 20, 2001, 11:49

Actually, I would not really consider this an elegant fix, though I appreciate their increasing the natural civ limit to 16 and giving some support for it. The problem is that less than a fourth of all the relations can be seen at one time. Though this may be fine if you've only discovered a few of the civs, later on in the game, seeing the global diplomatic picture will be tedious.

On the eight civ screen 28 relations can be seen. But with 16 civs, there are 120 relations. Hopefully, Firaxis will give an alternate matrix screen with improved functionality for 16 civ games.

Ozymandous · October 20, 2001, 12:11

I agree. Although it is nice to be able to see the other 8 leaders, having to "shift-right click" to add the leaders, note who they have what relations with, then swap them out will be _very_ clunky indeed.

Let's hope they can patch or otherwise change the view screen so that all 16 could be visible at once. On 1024 X 768 resolution they could easily shrink the leader portraits by 50% and fit them all in.

Of course, all this assumes they really want to make the screens "streamlined" for all game options and not simply the options "they think" work best.

Sixteen civ's will be nice but looks like you'll have to swap out leaders a lot to get the full picture...

Akron · October 20, 2001, 12:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Ozymandous
On 1024 X 768 resolution they could easily shrink the leader portraits by 50% and fit them all in.

This may work, but would it be readable? 120 possible lines connecting 16 nodes arranged in a circle... I don't think you'll be able to tell which line is which!

Haphazard · October 20, 2001, 12:48

There's probably an embassy screen like in Civ2 where it lists all the treaties (up to 15) for each civ, so this 8-pic limit is no great loss. Something to fix in the patch

Wiglaf · October 20, 2001, 12:48

Quote:

Originally posted by RedWhiteArcher
I don't get it. Why going gold mean that no further changes can be made?

the product is no longer at firaxis, final copies are being made and shipped to stores and have been for about a week. adding some extra feature with a patch isn't going to happen, and if it does the quality probably won't be too good.

Grim Leaper · October 20, 2001, 12:49

Quote:

This may work, but would it be readable? 120 possible lines connecting 16 nodes arranged in a circle... I don't think you'll be able to tell which line is which!

I agree, and if i play with the full 16 civs, which i doubt will be very often, i would be surprised if i really need to see 16 portraits at the same time.

I would have thought that for most games and scenarios that 10 civs would more than enough

Lorizael · October 20, 2001, 12:59

Actually I think that all 16 at once would be very cluttered and hard to read. If you can swap out certain pics for the ones you want to see, at least you know what you're looking at. I think playing 16 civs... no matter what... is gonna be difficult. All those relations to keep track of...

BigBopper · October 20, 2001, 13:06

You don't need to see all those lines and stuff, just maintain a state of war with all races all the time.

Lorizael · October 20, 2001, 13:10

Yah, BigBopper... but most of us want to win the game

tniem · October 20, 2001, 13:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Stuie
Isn't that what we're for?

Unfortunately it does appear that those buying the games are simply paying beta testers. It shouldn't be that way but it is.

El hidalgo · October 20, 2001, 14:26

It's not the ideal solution, but I'll take it! I was expecting to be without any information or contact screens for more than the 8 civs which were supported, so this is a definite improvement on my expectations. That was the one thing that was getting me down (so I know how you MP people feel, though that's not high on my wish list, and this was). This is great news for me!

Faboba · October 20, 2001, 14:32

Agreed.

I had finally learned to live with the idea I'd never have more than 8 civs in a game working properly after Ctp. Firaxis has restored my faith.

Now all they need to do is give me MAD and Civil Wars and I'll be verily pleased

Jaybe · October 20, 2001, 14:33

Seeing ALL the relationships -- that is SO Unhistorical

Neglecting (or being ignorant of) occasional "minor" countries is how it's done in real life.
See, this is a realism bonus!

OTH, they could perhaps (ahem) use a 16x16, square matrix, ala CtP. Since there seems to be only 4 or 5 different types of relationships, and most of those go both ways, you could fit those in with just the civ names and skip the leaders. It would fill up most of the screen, and you would have the option to print it.

Each different type of relationship would be indicated by a different symbol. Since you have the potential for at least 2 types of relationships between any 2 civs (e.g., Peace, Military Alliance with/against), there would have to be some economy in the graphic real estate department.

This would come in handy with the MP add-on!

---
On the THIRD Hand, have we even seen the "Trades" screen, the other tab on the "Treaties" screen??

cassembler · October 20, 2001, 18:48

Quote:

Unfortunately it does appear that those buying the games are simply paying beta testers. It shouldn't be that way but it is.

I agree, but I'd rather have the option to play 16 civ's with a few bugs than to not have the option at all.

Bugs can be killed, almost as easily as Civ2 AI.

(I hope Civ2's AI programmer isn't taking all of the Civ2 AI bashing personally... I'd have no idea where to start!)