Check this Out http://www.pcgameplay.co.uk/home.htm

[Sirotnikov]

Further proof:
the map space and form is similar to SMAC and so is the unti info space.

The units with their circles appear wierd when stepping on trees, this is not a thing perfectionists will do.

the map... form, feel and size is very SMACish.

So I think we can safely say it's a smac mod. We can now hope tis isn't what they're gonna sell.

I think not as IIRC Sid promised a mostly new engine in the same interview i talked about.

About the map, they should reall dump the large squares look. I don't like a map where my 1024x768 screen is filled with 12x12 board....

I know civ 2 graphics are too small for large screens, but that much detail into each square is too much... and very annoying. And I hope the default zoom will contain a rather big terrain with small sqaures. I also hope they have different zooms....

[To_Serve_Man]

I dislike the heads in the upper corner. They are out of place and computer 3d humans look nothing like humans. They look like fake computer 3d fiqures, and it does not match the rest of the game.

I never played SMAC, but i have played CTP. The cities look very CTPish, as well as the menus.

I think its safe to assume that the games on pause, because it would be very sad if the game was not and 'Emperor Ceaser, The Roman Despotism, 120AD, 10 Gold (+0 per turn)' would hurt the game ever so much.

But as we all have said time and time again, this could all change, and maybe already have by the time this magazine got the screens, and printed the issue.

------------------

[Depp]

Looks alot like CTP2. Which is quite alright with me...

[jordanz19]

I'm wondering about the second pic. It doesn't look like any Apollo rocket at all. So could it be the Space ending? Or maybe even the first nuclear missle that your civ creates. But it doesn't really look like a missle. Damn, I wish I knew.

[me_irate]

Im not so sure i like these screanshots. But i believe they are zoomed and which makes them less crisp and somewhat blury. What we see is the screen, and i have scroll bars to see the whole thing. So if it was zoomed out to normal distance, it would look mutch better. As the the forest i dont like them much, they look more like bushes than trees. They need to be more crisp and less blury. Did anyone notice that the river that flows from the mountain goes to the ocean? i didn't until the third time i looked at it. I think it should be much more noticable. As for the irrigation they are just plain ugly. But i did like the mountains, and the hills, just not the river in it, it just doesn't fit right. As for the civ specific cities, all civs look very simular to me, a hut is a hut. The only difference could be some might be clay and others huts like the ones shown. The civ specific stuff would come later, as in casles and other more modern times.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Whats weird is that you can see what both civs are building in their cities...
Another problem is the grassland next to tundra syndrome which civ3 seems to have inhereited from civ2. In civ2, your city would have grassland, plain, tundra, desert, and forest squares all in its radius. I think that thats totally dumb and firaxis should change it.

------------------
Its okay to smile; you're in America now
[This message has been edited by Lawrence of Arabia (edited April 26, 2001).]

[Lawrence of Arabia]

"On a whim' I decided to blow up the picture and this is what i found

-units still hace strength bars
-cities have icons on them representing something
-theres a warrior unit on the bottom left corner

------------------
Its okay to smile; you're in America now

[Lord_Davinator]

Civ3 definetely needs a better looking map. Damn it looks so much like ctp it makes me sick. I expected a bit more originality from firaxis...instead of copying and pasteing ctp.

[Nemo]

first off, i agree that the marshes, are actually irrigations, in which i very much like them. (but i still think the sponge paint forest is no good)

IF the heads in teh corner are advisors, then why is it that the only head wearing square glasses looks _nothing_ like teh official science head as shown AND labeled "science guy" on the civ III site. also, 7 is alot of advisors. military, science, diplomacy, finance, happiness, that would mean that they created 2 more advisors for something or other. therefore i lean toward the heads being something else, maybe rival nations, but most likely NOT advisors.

the map in the corner IS resizable (YEAH! ), if you zoom into it, it has a little [] in the bottom right corner, like any graphic which is set to be resized, this is very good.

cities: the pink is Mexico, right? if so, then the capital should be Mexico city, right? well, the blue is the US with Washington as teh capital. so, i want to point out that most of the cities are all size 2 (duh! )but washington has more buildings, and the buildings that are teh same, are bigger. at first i thought this to be teh fact that it was a capitol, but upon second glance, the pink size 2 building in teh upper right is "Tenoc..." and this is not the mexican capital, yet is has teh same extra buildings as does washintonn, therefore, it seems as if when an improvement is built, it is shown on the city view w/o entering it! that would be way cool! it is very realistic to know what buildings your enemies have without having to send a "spy" just to find out, which makes this a little more realistic and also, it means that after awhile you would just have to look at a city to know what improvemnts it has, a great time saver!

although, i do hope the units are drastically altered.

[Gammaray fan]

I disagree. The map looks nothing like CTP! The first thing that came to mind was SMAC with different colours! Just look at the roads, and the borders. Clearly, this is just a modified version of SMAC - they have not ripped off CTP, and as such, we can expect the finished product to look quite different. Still, I quite like the overall feel of the map, and am quite looking forward to the finished product.

[airdrik]

Are those numbers in the unit status their attack, defence, and movement/total movement? And interesting way to draw those roads. I wonder if they wind arround mountains and hills as well, but how do you tell if two squares are connected by roads? They migh run most of the way arround the square, but you couldn't tell if the square had roads in it. And those aren't marshes, but irrigation. I like the way they drew that irrigation, you can acually decipher what terrain is behind it.

I agree that the oceans are too green, though, in fact everything could use a little less green and a little more other colors, because that is very green. I don't like the city icons all that much either, they look mainly like piles of rubble that get bigger as the city grows.

[raingoon]

Interesting. Some impressions, educated guesses...

* These are not final graphics but place holders; however, my prediction: look for the color pallet to remain the same although how it looks in this uploaded web shot and how it will look on your computer = HUGELY different. Can NOT yet speak to the color temperature, the yellow vs. green, etc. It WILL look different. Still, some will be disappointed at first blush because this is already in the ballpark. I like where it's going, so long as they learn the lesson of SMAC and don't fall victim to unclear units. That's to watch out for there.

* The GREATNESS of the map generator as depicted in the global map window on the lower right. This map may or may not be generated from the new algorythm or from the previous SMAC engine, but I suspect it's new; either way it appears that Civ 2's "stringy" continent/island maps are a thing of the pass. I cannot overstate that this is the most important revelation I find on this screenshot, bar none.

* The letter F by each city pop number. Probably a flag, but I will look for this in future screen shots; I wonder if their are more than one "identifiers" for each city. For instance, each city will be color coded for your civ, same as always, but now I wonder if they will be also "culture" coded -- meaning your cities may become more dominated by other cultures. What does this mean? Answer that and win a trip to the moon, but my guess is it's a function, a la MOO, of a conquered city's rate of assimilation to your society.

Keep up the good work Firaxis!

[Russian King]

Ladies and Gentlemen (including FIRAXIS!!!) I just love the graphics of grass, hills, mountains and snow. . The forests seem too bushy, the roads suck! Where am i supposed to know the road is going? FIRAXIS: go back to original straight roads!. as for irrigation: it needs to be clear, and not take up the whole tile, just parts of it. cities look alright BUT they need to have a central building! Water needs to be darker. Units look ?ish, i mean i dunno how to adress them. FIRAXIS: make sure you can clearly tell one unit from another! AND Get those ovals out from under the units, they look disgusting. the blue ones seem to wee hemselves and the red ones are probably constantly wounded.
PS: I PROTEST the interface is the right style but not in the right places! There need to be 2 panels: moveable around edges. I hate how the windows hand in mid air above the main map. Thin panels with the properties will do.

[Russian King]

Another PS:

The city names should be either MUCH thicker and bigger and the date and status at the top should ALSO be covered inside a window, otherwise you cant even see all these things!

Otherwise good work.

[Jarouik]

quote: Originally posted by Nemo on 04-26-2001 11:56 PM cities: the pink is Mexico, right? if so, then the capital should be Mexico city, right? well, the blue is the US with Washington as teh capital. so, i want to point out that most of the cities are all size 2 (duh! )but washington has more buildings, and the buildings that are teh same, are bigger. at first i thought this to be teh fact that it was a capitol, but upon second glance, the pink size 2 building in teh upper right is "Tenoc..." and this is not the mexican capital, yet is has teh same extra buildings as does washintonn, therefore, it seems as if when an improvement is built, it is shown on the city view w/o entering it! that would be way cool! it is very realistic to know what buildings your enemies have without having to send a "spy" just to find out, which makes this a little more realistic and also, it means that after awhile you would just have to look at a city to know what improvemnts it has, a great time saver!

Actually, the pink is almost certainly the Aztecs and the size 2 city their capital Tenochtitlan, which, just like Washington, has a different look from other size 2 cities because it is the capital city. So, I am afraid the graphics are only generic city graphics and do not show the improvements in the city... although that would have been nice, with high resolution square graphics being used anyway.

I hope that they will, however, make different city styles so that each nation would have somewhat unique look to their cities and you could immediately recognize the builder of the city by the architecture, in the ancient times at least - only having four styles like in Civ 2 would be boring. Of course initially cities will only be collections of shacks and huts, but every civilization will eventually have in its cities large buildings, monuments etc. unique to its style. This would, of course, also have to be implemented in the city view shown in CGW preview, which would probably mean too much graphics work...

[Roman]

Firaxis, leave the graphics as they are! They are definitely good enough as they currently stand and I would hate Civ 3 to have too good graphics and to have too much animation. That just looks stupid and childish.

[aCa]

For me, the graphic isn't important at all, but the grephic seemed ok. I think it's funny when some of you guys complaint about that the graphics looks too mutch like CTP. There was nothing worng with the graphic in CTP........ it was just verything else that suxed (not everything but you get the point ). If you feel this type of graphic is bad..... go and play Black & White or womthing. The graphic have never been important in this genre games.

The only thing I care about in that screenshot was that you could see the bould que under the city name and that ROCKS. Makes it soo mutch easier to keep track of what your cities build......

Looking forward seeing more in game screen shots.

aCa (a Civilization addict)

[Sparky]

The graphics look great. LOL. Lawrence made fun of me! Anyway, I zoomed in, too.

Lawrence, you're right about those icons. A few cities have two in the upper corner. In kansas City one looks like a sword, the other like an Egyptian eye. Atlanta has something totaly different. Almost looks like a biscuit with a hat.

I see the health bars too. They all llok green. The cities have health bars, too, protruding from a small hut on the left like a flagpole.

What on earth is coming out of the mines near St. Louis?? I zoomed WAY in and I swear one looks like a face. Easter Island statues? Or just fruit?

Also, on a piece of land right next to the settler ment, there's a golden icon with a greenish cloud over it. I'm sure it's not a magic lamp...

[The diplomat]

Calm down folks: This is surely placeholder stuff. They are using this to work out the new rules and gameplay to make sure everything works. they told us that they are making new graphics. When they are done, they will probably combine the gameplay with the new graphics. I predict it will look great, especially if those little animated units from the official site are any indication.


------------------
No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[shuttleswo]

quote: To save design time, art and sound assets for certain aspects of the game won't even be approached until they're in for sure.

that's a quote from the CGW article; it's way to early to get bent out of shape about design considerations; we should be trying to interpret what the screen shots represent in terms of gameplay, not design.

[kaminwx]

Ok, I'm a big graphics guy and here is my take on the screenshot.

Good:

The hills and mountains.

The plains and desert terrain looks very nice.

The coastline. It looks good now, but it would be nice to have some animation showing wave action along the shore... similar to the way Railroad Tycoon 2 does it.

Borders look pretty good, but I will have to see how they actually move and function during the game.

So-So:

The forest squares. I know they probably want a general foresty look rather than individual trees, but the plains and especially the tundra squares with forests look a bit splotchy. Actually, the tundra squares with forest look bad. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought tundra is pretty much free of trees. The forest actually looks pretty good against the grassland squares. One last thing about forest...shouldn't the forest areas on grassland look different than forest in the arctic region? Do palm trees grow in the artic or do pine trees grow near the desert?

The city icons are satisfactory. However, please have a different look for each civilization's cities.

The colored circles at the base of units. I think I prefer the flags from Civ 2.

Bad:

What's with that awful looking irrigation? It looks like Firaxis' artist was trying to paint a river and had a seizure. PLEASE, Firaxis, go back to the Civ 2 irrigation/farmland look.

I would love to hear what others think of my analysis, especially the guy from Firaxis that shows up here sometimes.
[This message has been edited by kaminwx (edited April 27, 2001).]

[Dienstag]

The graphics are OK and I expect they'll get better.

That said, did anyone else find it interesting the the river seems to go between squares instead of through them? I've only played Civ II; did any other game do this? This could change all kinds of things like movement, trade, and attacking across a river.

Also, the mini-map seems to have areas of deeper green, so jungles probably haven't been forgotten.

Any guesses as to whether or not the land bridges north and west of Ecatopec will be passable by ships?

[Admiral PJ]

Its not good that the shots don't show SMAC's hilly curving polygon landscapes.. I hope they'll get this working in the final version,
it might be incompatible with specific resource sprite squares thoug-
though I do like being able to see i'm hiding my units on a mountain or hill which was less clear on SMAC.
comments?

Admiral Pete

[Admiral PJ]

It dosen't look like the land art is half way finished, though i like the continental shelf sticking out off the land.

That grass stuff just looks like they've made the SMAC fungus green and used that temporarily. (that twisted green vegetation on the land)

If its going to be released in another year (2002??) then there'll be a lot changing hopefully.. nowadays graphics is important so i hope they make a nice looking landscape.

[Max Webster]

The graphics look terrible. Hey forget the gameplay lets have quality eye candy. Or here is a strange idea, maybe we could have both.

[Omsat]

quote: Originally posted by Nemo on 04-26-2001 10:49 AM what are the little "F" by the cities? mybe a placemarker for the "F"lags? [This message has been edited by Nemo (edited April 26, 2001).]

Did someone already clear this up? The "F" is for Fortify, like the "I" and "R" in the screen are for "I"rragation and "R"oad. What about the screen where they show what looks like a city view? Didn't I read somewhere that their getting rid of the city view? All in all this game looks great.

[ancient]

i read this entire message and have come to a conclusion; you people complain to much....

"oh the citys look like a garbage dump", "its going to be a clone of ctp", "the irrigation looks boxy", "the graphics arent that good", "it looks like they took that right out of smac" just remember no mtter what you think, the game is still in developement, it will turn out all right in the end. so i dont want to hear anymore criticism unless its constructive...

[Lung]

Er, i don't know why, but i can't see any reference to Civ3 on pcgameplay.co.uk !!! Even after a search, there is no reference to it!

Why me?!

[jglidewell]

quote: Originally posted by Lung on 05-02-2001 09:47 PM Er, i don't know why, but i can't see any reference to Civ3 on pcgameplay.co.uk !!! Even after a search, there is no reference to it! Why me?!

Try http://www.pcgameplay.co.uk/media/im...ril/Civ3_1.jpg or go to the news section > last week > last thursday. They update thier web daily.