GameSpy preview including two new screenshots!

Buck Birdseed · May 17, 2001, 09:54

http://www.gamespy.com/e3/civ3/

Wait a few minutes and I will write up the news item...

Henrik · May 17, 2001, 10:13

quote:

Originally posted by Snapcase on 05-17-2001 09:54 AM
GameSpy preview including two new screenshots!

There are three new screnshots

One which must be a screenshot of the bargaining table,
One of the map,
And one of the city screen.
[This message has been edited by Henrik (edited May 17, 2001).]

Fiera · May 17, 2001, 10:19

quote:

Originally posted by Henrik on 05-17-2001 10:13 AM
There are three new screnshots

Ah, Henrik, you beat me to it!

Also, I've spotted a city called Salamanca. Will the Spanish finally make it into Civ3? Thanks for the link, Snapcase!

Buck Birdseed · May 17, 2001, 10:34

Damn. I missed that one. Corrected for the news item, at least...

Grumbold · May 17, 2001, 10:48

The map screenshots being produced still look deeply suspicious to me. Despotism in 450 A.D. Roads going in odd places. Text sitting underneath a horse for no reason.

Seeing the 'culture' borders at work with several civs jostled together I am worried that it will result in a mess whenever two nations collide. Each will build new cities in available spots unhindered by the borders because of poor culture. Then the borders slowly grow into place leaving isolated pockets potentially cutting each other off from their capital. If you built a road away from your capital and founded a city at the end of it, you would consider both the city and the road as part of your domain even if the new city did not have the influence to push your culture further outward. I'm reminded of games like Disciples and Starcraft where you slowly change the terrain around your buildings to indicate your control. Your influence should flow outward along roads a lot further than across undeveloped tiles. Almost as if your cultural influence got the movement bonus I.e:

XXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXC~~~~~~C
XXXXXXXXX
XXX

Buck Birdseed · May 17, 2001, 13:03

Already posted as a news item a few days ago.

KISS: Psycho Circus is a light-weight FPS from a few years ago, which had the band members from KISS going around doing stupid things.

senowen · May 17, 2001, 13:23

quote:

Seeing the 'culture' borders at work with several civs jostled together I am worried that it will result in a mess whenever two nations collide. Each will build new cities in available spots unhindered by the borders because of poor culture. Then the borders slowly grow into place leaving isolated pockets potentially cutting each other off from their capital.

I don't think that will happen because of the ability of culture to take over cities. Why would you or your enemy build too close to each other when you know that when the older cities get more culture they are going to take over your new cities? Another thing is that I think this is an extreme example. You are looking at at least 3 civilizations all clumped together in a very small space, but it could actually be more than that originally. It looks like the Americans took over one of the Native American civs. Look at the tribal warrior at the bottom of the screen. It also looks like Salamanca may have gotten taken by some other non-Spanish civ.

quote:

If you built a road away from your capital and founded a city at the end of it, you would consider both the city and the road as part of your domain even if the new city did not have the influence to push your culture further outward. I'm reminded of games like Disciples and Starcraft where you slowly change the terrain around your buildings to indicate your control. Your influence should flow outward along roads a lot further than across undeveloped tiles. Almost as if your cultural influence got the movement bonus I.e:

How do you know that isn't the way it works in some respect. If you are attached by road to the capital city maybe you do start off with some culture in new cities as long as the capital city has a certain amount of it's own. But you shouldn't get lots of culture with a new city because of the chances of ICS.

[This message has been edited by senowen (edited May 17, 2001).]

Ralf · May 17, 2001, 13:30

Thanks Firaxis!

That all-inportant visible city-area tile feedback, has NOT been "streamlined away" after all, as it was in CTP-2. Click on the blue link and check it out. I guess I suspected that all along - but its really nice and reassuring to get 100% confirming screenshot anyway. Great!!

Two extra-important milestones left to go:

1: Artificall Intelligence
[*] Better AI production-strength and better civil improvement emphasis. [*] Better AI advantage-taking of tech-allowed production possibilities.[*] Avoid dust-collecting AI-fortunes: put excess into practical use. [*] More efficient AI city-placements and better land-area exploitation.[*] Better AI diplomacy: greedy AI-exchanging rather then gullible.[*] More/less internal AI quarrels depending on weak/strong HP position. [*] Less potshot border-quarrels; more penetrating stacked army AI-attacks.[*] Better HP-one-square-away AI-decisions; attack, or flee and/or fortify?[*] Better HP city-strength AI-estimations; pillage and/or sieges?[*] Better AI-response to extensive HP military build-ups with obvious intentions.[*] Quality-before-quantity AI-unit build-strategy: less draining upkeep.

2: Game-customization
[*] Extensive and flexible checkbox preference-screens, ala SMAC.[*] More extensive and more enhanced game-rule text-tweak files.[*] Player-editable AI-build & emphasize files; allow AI spoon-feeding.[*] Map-editing invisible arrays of fixed potential AI-city locations. [*] More advanced and extensive tools for the scenario-experts out there. [*] Drag-and-drop for newbies allowing quick standard-rule scenarios.[*] At the moment, I cant think of anythíng more. Feel free to add...

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 17, 2001).]

Maxxes · May 17, 2001, 13:58

In the city screen there is no 'units supported by this city' box, so unit's are probably supported nationwide.

Fintilgin · May 17, 2001, 14:07

Looking good.

I like the diplomacy screen, although I was hoping the leader picture would take up half the screen like it did in Civ1. I /really/ liked that look. The little tiny boxed leader is less impressive, although it'll probably be a different story with animation and civilization appropriate music. I can understand why they had to shrink the leader to allow all the different options, but maybe they could be twice that size? So much more atmospheric the Civ1 way.... mmmm....

Joe

DaveV · May 17, 2001, 14:10

Lots of interesting stuff in that city screen:

Twelve population icons are shown; one is an entertainer. Twelve squares are being worked, so I conclude that the "free" city square is still alive and well.

Although the city contains twelve citizens, the food box size is only 40. Does this mean the food box is constant in size? Yet another anti-ICS measure?

EVERY square is generating at least one dollar sign (trade arrows from Civ2). Although the total is shown as 19, the trade breakdown shows 13 arrows going into the treasure chest and 9 arrows into the beaker. Maybe there's a marketplace improvement that isn't shown?

The temple is shown with one smiley face; luxuries are shown generating six smiley faces. Maybe temples, luxuries, and entertainers will work in the same way to make people happy now?

The cyan triangle above the (rather strangely pictured) colosseum project probably opens the build queue.

The barracks is the only building shown with a support cost (red $ next to it in the list).

City population is being calculated by a different algorithm than Civ 2, which would put a 12 citizen city at 660,000.

Edit: typos.
[This message has been edited by DaveV (edited May 17, 2001).]

DaveV · May 17, 2001, 14:28

More observations:

Those appear to be desert squares next to the river that are generating three food (and no shields) each. Has the production of desert squares changed?

The rules on irrigation seem to have changed. I don't think any of the irrigated squares to the east of the city has access to a river or an ocean square, and the single irrigated square to the south definitely doesn't. So none of those squares could be irrigated in Civ 2.

Gramphos · May 17, 2001, 14:39

quote:

Originally posted by Maxxes on 05-17-2001 01:58 PM
In the city screen there is no 'units supported by this city' box, so unit's are probably supported nationwide.

I think I've read somewhere that the support is taken from the total trade and not from the production of the city anymore.

Nikolai · May 17, 2001, 14:44

Hmmmm... This is VERY interesting!

Notes:
*I can see they use the same icon for civil disorder as in SMAC.

*The colosseum in the city screen looks like a mayan temple...

*A new unit: Privateer

*The city semms to grow out of its square

*The "red" is now a civ(look at the city screen)

*The map looks better than before(forests, roads). There you can see, the ones that didn't like that; it DID change!

------------------
Who am I? What am I? Do we need Civ? Well....

Gramphos · May 17, 2001, 14:53

The picture of the production doesn't seem to be a Colosseum to me. I guess it's a temple. The Cityscreen has changed a lot since the Baltimore screenshot, and that icon isn't probably working jet.

Still I think that the graphics and numbers that showed production in the Baltimore Screenshot looked better.

Ralf · May 17, 2001, 14:56

quote:

Originally posted by DaveV on 05-17-2001 02:28 PM
The rules on irrigation seem to have changed. I don't think any of the irrigated squares to the east of the city has access to a river or an ocean square, and the single irrigated square to the south definitely doesn't. So none of those squares could be irrigated in Civ 2.

Check out the city "Hippur" in the background: they also have tiles that couldnt be irrigated with Civ-2 irrigation-rules. I hope they havent chanced the old rules - only irrigating tiles next to river/sea/ocean/irrigated tile seemed sensible. Perhaps thet have done it anyway in order to make it easier on the AI.

Three food-outputs i irrigated desert-squares (but only two foods from irrigated plains) seems strange. And what about that eye-icon? Perhaps an on/off-button for the graphic tile-output info - click on it, and the eyelid shuts.

Nikolai · May 17, 2001, 14:58

quote:

Originally posted by vgriph on 05-17-2001 02:53 PM
The picture of the production doesn't seem to be a Colosseum to me. I guess it's a temple. The Cityscreen has changed a lot since the Baltimore screenshot, and that icon isn't probably working jet.

Still I think that the graphics and numbers that showed production in the Baltimore Screenshot looked better.

well, it STANDS "Colosseum" under the picture. Therefor I really think it must be that. Don't you?

------------------
Who am I? What am I? Do we need Civ? Well....

Gramphos · May 17, 2001, 15:04

quote:

Originally posted by Nikolai on 05-17-2001 02:44 PM
*The colosseum in the city screen looks like a mayan temple...

That Icon was named Temple in the Baltimore screen. (You beat me with it as I double-checked my sources)

Ralf · May 17, 2001, 15:09

quote:

Originally posted by Nikolai on 05-17-2001 02:58 PM
well, it STANDS "Colosseum" under the picture. Therefor I really think it must be that. Don't you?

NO, its definitly NOT a "colosseum" by any stretch of the imagination. And I dont care what it says under the picture. Well, anyway - the game is simply not finished yet. The last figure I heard was about 50% complete (probably more) - many tweaks and adjustments to go before the release-date, I guess.

Nikolai · May 17, 2001, 15:16

quote:

Originally posted by Ralf on 05-17-2001 03:09 PM
NO, its definitly NOT a "colosseum" by any stretch of the imagination. And I dont care what it says under the picture. Well, anyway - the game is simply not finished yet. The last figure I heard was about 50% complete (probably more) - many tweaks and adjustments to go before the release-date, I guess.

Well, anyway... I did also think it was odd.

N35t0r · May 17, 2001, 16:26

well, on the new screenshot of the city view @ Firaxis.com there is a colosseum and the temple-like structure...

also, in that city it can't be a temple as the improvements list mentions one... maybe it's something to prevent the accumulation of shields, if the production has changed but the icon hasn't due to a bug or something like that, it would explain it...

Harlan · May 17, 2001, 17:04

Cool. I'm very pleased with the city screen. It looks like Firaxis has avoided one of CTP's biggest faults: the presenting of info through numbers only or mainly, rather that visually. Its so much better to actually see food, shields and so forth, rather than just read a number.

If there are any Firaxis people reading these boards for reactions, one suggestion: the improvements section shows only 4 improvements at once, which is not enough. There's gonna be a ton of scolling up and down that menu if you keep it that way. That sucks- I want to see everything I need in one glance. I assume the space next to it is gonna be used for wonders, once the city starts having some. But if you reduce the spacing around the words "Improvements", "Garrison" and "Pollution" like you do with "Production", and reduce empty space below Garrison, narrow the width of Pollution (so more units in Garrison before you have to scoll), you'd be able to fit 6 instead of four Improvements and Wonders before needing to scroll. I assume the unit pics next to each improvement are placeholder graphics for where little graphics of improvements will be. Maybe have a graphical option not to include those little graphics, in which case the words that could fit would double, and scrolling would be very rare.

I also second the notion mentioned above that roads (or possibly fortresses) create border effects of their own. Maybe this too could be related to culture: only civs with strong cultures get roads and borders outside their city limits to have borders. At first just the squares they're on, later the squares next to them as well. Cos as mentioned above also, culture and political control does flow much more along roads and controlled points than in a perfect circle out of a city.

Perhaps, rather than simply huge leaps from having borders of 1, then 2, then 3, if you give effects to roads and/or forts, you could have more gradients of the culture effect. For instance, at first you get borders on roads or forts within two squares of existing borders, but later within 4, and so forth. These could be intermediate steps between making the big leaps between radiuses around your cities.

Oh yeah, one more thought. The graphic for Irrigation sucks. These look more like chicken scratches than anything. And the advisors: why does everyone working at Firaxis have to be a white guy with close cropped hair or no hair? How am I supposed to keep straight which advisor is which? Even if everyone in the company looks the same, can't you at least pretend, and make them look more unique - someone grow a beard or long hair, for crying out loud. Get a little crazy and hire a non-white or a female.
[This message has been edited by Harlan (edited May 17, 2001).]

aCa · May 17, 2001, 18:00

In Gamespy img 18 I was wondering one small thing. Why is there no line around the city Bactra. I know u get no border when setteling a new city, BUT the city Onnontare have a no border, BUT have a line around. What do this mean?

Yeah and the shore line looks nice

------------------
aCa (a Civilization addict)

Ralf · May 17, 2001, 18:03

quote:

Originally posted by Harlan on 05-17-2001 05:04 PM
If there are any Firaxis people reading these boards for reactions, one suggestion: the improvements section shows only 4 improvements at once, which is not enough. There's gonna be a ton of scolling up and down that menu if you keep it that way.

Agree! Firaxis, please minimize scrolling/clicking as much as possible.

quote:

I assume the space next to it is gonna be used for wonders, once the city starts having some.

For Wonders? Is that likely? A single city have (at most) 3-4 Wonders and most cities dont have any Wonders at all. I say DONT split the city CI:s/Wonders information into two seperate scroll-sections. Its too inefficient. I want to see at least 8 improvements at once, before I am forced to scroll.

quote:

Oh yeah, one more thought. The graphic for Irrigation sucks. These look more like chicken scratches than anything.

Actually, Im getting chinese ricefields associations then I look at them. Alternatively; swamp or marshes. Its just too much water - just way too much. They should at least make the water-canals more thin - and more straight; so that it looks obviously man-made. Also some slightly protruding wheat (or whatever) between the thin canals. The existing irrigation graphics have "water-sick land" stamped all over it. Change it, please.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 17, 2001).]

me_irate · May 17, 2001, 19:11

"Jeff Briggs, president and CEO of Firaxis", this is the words used at gamespy. when did briggs become pres and ceo? Did anyone else hear anything about this? i dont remeber hearing about this before.

May 17, 2001, 19:25

quote:

Originally posted by me_irate on 05-17-2001 07:11 PM
"Jeff Briggs, president and CEO of Firaxis", this is the words used at gamespy. when did briggs become pres and ceo? Did anyone else hear anything about this? i dont remeber hearing about this before.

since the beggining....

Zanzin · May 17, 2001, 20:39

It looks like your units are colour coded!! Yeah!

In image20 the civ is red and the units have red armour and the like on them! (Has anyone else seen this?)

In imaage18, the Americans are a light blue civ...notice how their units have light blue colours on them?

I think this is a really great feature. Definately adds to you sense of "civilization"

senowen · May 17, 2001, 21:19

quote:

Originally posted by aCa on 05-17-2001 06:00 PM
In Gamespy img 18 I was wondering one small thing. Why is there no line around the city Bactra. I know u get no border when setteling a new city, BUT the city Onnontare have a no border, BUT have a line around. What do this mean?

What the borders tell us is how many culture points those cities are generating. Bactra (apparently) has no culture rating, which probably means they have only produced military units and have no luxury items or inprovements that creates culture. As for Onnontare, it probably just built an improvement of some sort so it finally has a border, but just around the main city, but since cultural improvements create more culture with time, this city's border will eventually grow larger.

SerapisIV · May 17, 2001, 22:01

What the heck are the giant "C"s in the northwest of the regular map in the first Gamespy screenshot?
http://www.gamespy.com/asp/image.asp...v3/image18.jpg

Captain · May 17, 2001, 22:02

hey this might be an ignorant question, but what is the screenshot of the pentagonal thing - is that a cityview? I know the other is a diplomacy screen, world amp screen, and bunch of heads screenshot, but I can't figure out what the other one is supposed to be. maybe my browser just sucks.