Civ3 editing tools: what do *you* want to see

[CGreen]

Nice!

[Wolfepac85]

OK everyone's talking about units and everything. What about the cities. What I want and What I miss were the simple things that were in Civ2. I really love and miss the VIEW CITY mode. That was the best thing in the game for me. I also liked the throne room option that was so cool and different. The last thing I would like to see is the colorful graphics that were displayed during negation in diplomacy mode. I wish you guys will take these simply suggestion.

[Darkknight]

I would really like to see a unit editor that is similiar to Civ2FantasticWorlds but with a sprite editor(if thats what you're using) for editing the units and that the sprite editor be accessible both from windows and inside the game.The event trigger in Civ2FW would be good for a basic civ3 one but obviosly more in-depth with more abilities e.g: if a country starts building nukes or other nasties then other countries regard for them would go down.Also for the unit editing there should be a much larger amount of new units that you can design yourself in civ2 there were only 10 spaces.All the files that can be should be in .txt format and easily edited as in CTP2.I think there can be no improvement on the map creator that came with Civ2.Definetly do not go for the in-game method used by CTP2 for creating the map, maybe for placing units and cities you could use either in-game or in map editor small side lists that actually allow you to see more then half the screen. For any other icon/sprite/pic editor it should be in-game like civ2FW and you should also have a terrain value editor in-game.
The technology tree should be editable in-game using a simple full-screen program where you have your tech tree with 10-20 stages in it(changeble) and you can create new tech and set what stage it is in and what form it is(science, war, etc.) you should be able to drag and drop lines from tech to tech indicating pre-requisites.(these lines should be neat lines with 90deg. angles not a jumbled mess ) I know this is verging on in my dreams but Pleeeez .
Although the interface of placing units is horrible in CTP2 their method is better then civ2's, select unit then click where you want it to be and you can place as many as you like without having to select it again.not select tile press CtrlF7 or whatever select unit one appears and repeat as in civ2.
hmmm units tech terrain editing pics/sprites event triggers and all possible in .txt files(E.G.:AIDATA)!
thats all.

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" mind over body "

Yub Yub Dan, here what i would like to see. I may echo a lot of what the people already wrote, but here goes anyway.

Map Editor:

-Resizing Map (like taking a pic and enlarging it. so taking a earth map and enlarge it 10 times bigger)
-Copy and Paste
-Place cities without needing to put a Settler/Colony Pod first and play a turn to make city.
-Can't civs co-owned a city? Take berlin for example, been controlled western democrats and eastern soviets for decades.
- like the SMAC map editor, just with more improvements... will there be terrain levels like SMAC?

Unit Editor:

-be able to create all new units, adding more units to the standard without being limited to amount of units you can have by the amount of squares in a GIF pic. thing dislike in CIV2.
-edit the standard and change the graphics
-able to more so edit on how the AI should use the unit

AI/Civ/Faction Editor

-Be able to create/edit a civ and the AI. Would like to make the AI harder to beat without needing to give them stronger and me weaker. i don't like that, they should be able to be challenging. if they are not, I should be able to make it harder for me.
-The faction editor interface with SMAX is okay, but improve it. I should be able to give the civ character, and each character traits should be more noticeble in the game.
-for the AI, rather i didn't have to learn a complete whole script language to simply edit or create my own AI for the game if possible.

Improvement/Wonders Editor:

-Should be able to create new imporvements and say what the building improves instead of being limited to only edit the existing buildings/wonders. Would be nice to be able to create new wonders to do new things and buildings that gives whatever bonuses we wish to have it give.

Script Editor:

-as with the AI, don't feel like needing to learn a complete whole language just to have a script/triggers and so on. Ala Starcraft Triggers is good ideas, just make more better and make it bit like Visual Basic.
easy to use. Would like to be able to make a story out of a scenerio.

I am 17 and shouldn't worry so much about programming this and that and good so deep in techy stuff. I do have a life and don't always want to be stuck on the computer trying to make the AI/create Faction/create scenerio that would be challenging and so on. I like making maps/scenerios, just don't to be a pain in the arse to do all the time. if wasn't, i'd be making bunch of scenerios/maps with the plenty of ideas i have in my head and make available on the net. I many unfinished scenerios/maps i started for various of games, just to annoying to finish them.. with the limitations and annoyances and long time consuming task.

I say we have editors and have the text files editing thing available. oh, don't make leaders 3d dolls like, want to be able to put my face in the game like SMAC as leader

-LordLMP

Sorry if my grammar/spelling sucks :P i have a headache and me need sleep.

-LordLMP

[Darkknight]

I just want to hug you grrr.Really i had this incredible to just shout this man is god and then i realised to Gigs would take 330 hours on a 33000bps connection .Try getting firaxis to release it as a new game give you a load of money and let us buy it

[zyxpsilon]

Another "important" editing aspect;
THEMATIC interfaces...

Simply;
-feel like having fun only > Comic-strip units.
-want to immerse in time > Epoch related only.
-Scientific buffs > High tech, fictioned.

Editors that ADAPTS to the needs with a modifiable environment.

Put differently;
If a player is in a "MOOD"
to conquer, give it a war...
to loose, give it the sense of challenge...
to fool a little, give it some jokes.

"Blue cloudy skies or silicium sand beaches, Bronze metal plating... in addition to the -standard- grey ciment textures."

In fact, Editors that can be edited!

[EnochF]

MUST HAVE

Allow the user to control things like: the effect(s) of City Improvements and Wonders of the World, special abilities of Units, passability of Terrain and whether you can build a City on it, that sort of thing. Include special abilities and Wonder effects not present in the game. If a special ability from one of the early stages of the program is eventually removed, keep it in as part of the editor. That way, we won't have to worry about those stupid Televangelists during a Civ game, but for creating a modpack, we'll be able to use units with Televangelist-like powers. Establish corporate branches, infect cities, capture slaves, build underwater cities, create three different types of Ocean tile, create a Wonder that builds a Bank in every city, build Blimps that can carry Tanks, or Marines that can carry Nukes, or Hover-Tanks that can cross Sea and Land. The key here is variety. Split up Spy Abilities, so that a Mod designer can switch off the ability to Plant a Nuclear Device and Perform Sabotage, but still be able to Poison the Water Supply and Incite a Riot, for example.

Non-proprietary formats on everything. And I mean everything. The fanfares that play when you meet a rival civ. The leader portraits. The graphics in the City View. The pictures in the message boxes. The borders of the main screen. The throne room. The text in the menu bars. All the game sounds, combat and otherwise, including the music (allow the user to play his own MP3 list, maybe). The shape of the health bar.

Unlimited slots for technologies and units. Or if there is a limit, 256 is a nice, round number. City improvements can be limited to 30 or so, and the same with Wonders, but technologies and units need to be expandable to whatever ridiculous scale the Mod designer has in mind.

An intuitive, easy-to-manipulate system for establishing when a unit becomes obsolete and what it can be replaced by. If the Mod designer wants obsolete Horsemen to be replaced with Musketeers instead of Knights, this should be allowed.

WOULD LIKE TO HAVE

More flexibility on how big a role pollution and ecological disaster play in the game, besides merely the ability to turn off the effects of pollution. Allow the Mod designer to decide how the Terrain decays during an ecological disaster, for example, if at all.

One goofy idea might be the ability to establish a new, different "Default Shape" of a city. Some players might enjoy a game with a smaller city radius, or a shape that lends itself towards "honeycombing" the landscape.

The ability to create customized governments from scratch.

Leeway for Fantasy and Sci-Fi Mod designers, i.e., the ability within the editor to create the effects of things like Vampires, Force Fields, Planet Busters, Nazgul, Transporters, and things like that. Sci-Fi designers like to have Terrain squares comprised of individual planets, and Fantasy designers might appreciate the ability for Wizard units to cast ranged spells.

COMMENT

The programming "language" for Call to Power struck me as counterintuitive in a lot of ways. I might want to avoid relying on something like SLIC to provide all this customizability. Keep it as similar to the editing process of Civ II as possible.

[thornYdieresis]

Wargame Construction Set III : Age of Rifles is a great model. The unit designer was excellent. Scenerios would benifit if the uniforms could be designed.

[niteowl]

I don't know if this has been mentioned or not, and I don't know if it is a possibility or not but I absolutely love the "Unit Workshop" from Alpha Centauri. I have been able to create units the AI would have never thought of (such as a Foil/Cruiser Probe Team) not to mention putting all of my terraformers on a rover chassis way before the AI thinks to do it.

One thing I would also like to see is the ability to add personnel to a submarine unit. (I have done this myself by manipulating the civ.txt file). It only needs to be 1 or 2 units, and they can be limited to "Marines" but it is a great way to pull a sneak attack on someone.

Okay, hope this helps.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"My dear girl don't flatter
yourself. What I did this evening
was for king and country. You don't
think it gave me any pleasure do you?

--- James Bond
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[This message has been edited by niteowl (edited January 08, 2001).]

[niteowl]

And another thing.

CIV3 MUST be a windows based game. Just like Civ2. That way it can be minimized or switched to the background so I can access another app on my PC without a major hassle. The fact that games such as SMAC run in a "full screen" mode is the one thing that really bugs me.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"My dear girl don't flatter
yourself. What I did this evening
was for king and country. You don't
think it gave me any pleasure do you?
--- James Bond
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I don't know if this is on topic but multiplayers have just modded Civ II for simultaneous play. It would be nice to be able to do stuff like that in Civ III.

More generally, the more open the engine is, the better. There are lots of bright players out there who can make cool mods.


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Chaos, panic and disorder - My work here is done.

Keep the OT sticky thread free!!

[Grumbold]

quote: Originally posted by Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS on 11-29-2000 01:51 PM Hey guys. What would be useful for me is for you to list your top 5 additions to the way the each Civ II FW editor worked. Don't bother mentioning features that were already included in those. If you want to email them, you can reach me at jmorris@firaxis.com. Thanks! Jeff

I'm with Shadowstrike all the way, with one exception:

Units - 1. the option to attach unique graphics to units based on the player, i.e. country specific infantry uniforms for the same unit.

[tniem]

quote: Originally posted by niteowl on 01-08-2001 02:10 AM CIV3 MUST be a windows based game. Just like Civ2. That way it can be minimized or switched to the background so I can access another app on my PC without a major hassle. The fact that games such as SMAC run in a "full screen" mode is the one thing that really bugs me.

To get past this problem you can force your task bar to be on top at all times. I have done this in some games as I was supposed to be doing some work.

[Grrr]

quote: Originally posted by Darkknight on 01-03-2001 12:56 AM I just want to hug you grrr.Really i had this incredible to just shout this man is god and then i realised to Gigs would take 330 hours on a 33000bps connection .Try getting firaxis to release it as a new game give you a load of money and let us buy it

Ever heard of 'Snail Mail'

[Grrr]

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 01-10-2001 01:52 PM To get past this problem you can force your task bar to be on top at all times. I have done this in some games as I was supposed to be doing some work.

How? How? How? How?

I need this for some of my games!

[Grrr]

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 01-10-2001 01:52 PM To get past this problem you can force your task bar to be on top at all times. I have done this in some games as I was supposed to be doing some work.

How? How? How? How?

I need this for some of my games!

[Colonel Kraken]

quote: Originally posted by Grrr on 01-10-2001 03:43 PM How? How? How? How? I need this for some of my games!

Hold down your [Ctrl] button and push [Esc]. That will minimize your full screen application.

To get your task bar to always be on top, right click on the task bar, click on properties and check mark the option, "Always on top".

Hope that helps.

[JosefGiven]

It is the age old debate:

Reform vs. tradition.

Of course, we, as the Civ gaming community, want to see as much customisation as possible. But, having seen the new Civ III site, it looks as if we won't be able to change units in our scenario as per Civ II.

I would suggest this would be a crying shame. If you are going to include a fully animated graffics set in Civ III, at least allow users to create a 'static' set in the Civ II vein for use in their own scenarios.

It is impicit: Maximum customisation=Max gameplay. This is the single reason Civ II lasted so long, as I'm sure it will continue to do.

I would forget ALTOGETHER any suggestion of any in-game customisation. External utilities were much better at handling Civ scenario creation than the in-game routines. I would recommend the programmers concentrate in the in-game issues, and leave final version files in formats easily customised by established, serious scenario creators. (File types to include .GIF .WAV .BMP etc. as per CIV II protocols...)

Apologies for any readers having to read this blurb. Any grammatical, or other errors, are attributal to the fact that, at the time of writting this email, I was...in fact..very...very, drunk

Yours, with humble respect,

Josef Given
josefgiven@hotmail.com

[The Mad Viking]

Lots of good stuff here that I agree with.

The MOST IMPORTANT THING to me is sophisticated AI modification.

WRT map editor, the random map generator for CIV 2 really sucked. The huge, meandering contintents that covered 60 to 90% of the globe, but were connected by an isthmus in 10 or 20 locations were/are annoying.

Continents should be large, coherent land masses. Oceans should be large, a dotted with archepelagoes. Adjusting for %land/water is fine, but continents should generally resemble real continents.

[Ralf]

If Civ-3 is suppose to end 2020/2040 AD (which i hope), there no hope for ocean-cities.

However, Firaxis should nethertheless make it possible for scenario-creators who want to build futuristic 2100 - 3000 AD ScFi scenarios, to include graphically rewamped ocean-cities if they want to do that.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited February 16, 2001).]

[frokeefe]

Something improved from Microsoft's "Age of ..." type editor would suit me, mostly because I'm used to it. It is not sophisticated enough for me. Let's see real terrain features - swamps, quicksand, bogs, tides, forest fires, unstable ground, snow, seasonal effects (or am I being too imaginative?).

Perhaps a highly complex editor would be too costly for inclusion with the game.

As an aside, I would like to see each civilization be able to build as they were able to do in reality - canals, bridges, tunnels through real mountains, etc.



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Cordially,
Rick

[Shadowstrike]

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I have to say that allowing the customization of unit graphics, as well as other graphics is absolutely vital to making Civ3 great. There are many more scenarios for Civ2 then SMAC. Why? Civ2 allowed for the customization of the unit graphics. SMAC could not.(due to its design workshop model, which would have been hard to draw for)

While SMAC had excellent customizability, it failed at scenario-making by not allowing for customized graphics. There are a good many scenarios which have totally original graphics sets, and many of those are considered the very best.

Secondly, drawing unit graphics must be relatively easy (as easy as it is to draw Civ2 units), or else it will not be used. If it takes a professional graphics artist to draw new units, then why bother at all?

Just my 2 cents.

[Theben]

I said it before, and if case no one has said it here I'll repeat: allow players to tweak AI behavior in such areas as settler/former priorities (in a .txt file) and city production in allied cities (w/sensible limits- an AI city will ignore changes to total lower production, or anything if building a wonder).

[Father Beast]

I have beeen playing the civ1 mod/scenario for civ2 lately, and although it's fun, it does show up the limitations of our civ2 editor in being unable to accurately recreate even the original game.

1. GOVERNMENTS. in civ1, monarchy had different unit support settings, republic had different happiness effects. we can't seem to change these basic things.

2. WONDERS. the wonder effects on several of the wonders (i.e. Lighthouse) are different, and we can't change them.

3. RULES. the simplified combat option was there, that's a plus. but we still have waste in addition to corruption (can't turn off), added unhappiness for despotisms with too many cities, and so forth.

Can we get a scenario editor that can at least turn our game into a recreation of a previous version?

[Shadowstrike]

Here's andIdea: Give scenario desigenrs the ability to set unit "groups". For example, the Panther would go under the "Tank" grouping, while the Bireme would go under "Ancient Ship". Also give them the ability to define these groups (and make new one) and make it possible to give units a special ability which multiplies the strength of the unit by a certain number against only this unit which would work like the "x2 vs horse" and "x2 vs air" abilities of Civ2.

[Henrik]

Although not as important as most of the stuff in here, I would like to see an ablity to make certain parts of the map explored/unexplored, as it is now you have to create a unit manually and go discover, if you by mistake hit the wrong key you discover that one square that the civ wasn't supposed to know about and you will have to start all over again.
In civ 3 it should be easier to do this, you should be able to click on a square hit a key (or do something in the cheat menu, or whatever) and make a square/an area of squares explored/unexplored.

[Kuciwalker]

I think that they need to improve the tech tree editor ffrom Civ2. It should be bunch of boxes or something with arrows connecting them. I always failed in my Civ2 scenario-making attempts because I had trouble visualizing the tree.

[Beckdawg]

I have never made any senarios yet but i have messed with the editors a lot. Once i had to rewrite the entire events file for Ansteig WW2 senario because it was MGE and i only had Fantastic Worlds. It wasn't that hard but i have had basic and c++ programming classes. Not every one has and some people have good ideas just don't know how to do them. So i suggest some kind of wizard(can be turned off!! lol) that helps people that have never done it before program events and other parts of senarios. Also you should allow the effects of the wonders to be changed. in Civ 2 even w/ the 4 or 5(don't remember how many there were) extra wonders u couldn't do anything w/ them. They were just eye candy. I understand that it might mess the game up a bunch so i suggest at least a simple editor. An advanced editor would be nice but i know that it might be more trouble then a help. That could add soooooooooooooooo much to a senario. But that is just my 2 cents

[ancient]

I was never able to mkae a scenerio in civ2 because everything was too complex it didnt have the right tools, or anything easy to use.. and when i tried it took to much time and i quit.. i think you should be able to make a scenerio in a couple of hours..

1) Would you rather see an in-game editor, or an external editor (or combination of both), and why? Do you prefer standard Windows-based interfaces with standard types of controls (i.e., select/combo boxes, tree metaphors, etc.) or something more customized and specific to the game?

Ingame, because it gives the game a more unified and streamlined look and feel. Every thing should be really simple to use and not require us to learn any sort of code.. It should have built in tools for editing units and tribes and stuff..

2) What types of functionality are you interested in seeing in a scenario / map editor? Be specific, e.g., "Cut and paste functions for map creation", "Drag and drop terrain tile placement" vs "Paintbrush-style interface", etc.

Paintbrush is the best but the abitility to drag and drop cities would be nice

3) If possible, for each specific suggestion, reference existing game editors that do this well. So, for example, if you think the StarCraft Editor's handling of triggered events is exactly what you're looking for, mention that.

I have made great games for starcraft using their trigger device and i think that is good but you can do better..

4) Try to qualify your suggestions as either a "must-have" function, a "would be nice" function, or a "in my dreams" function. We need to know what the most important features are to you, so that we can direct our efforts towards the features that most of you really think you'll need.

A tool to make your own unique looking 3d animated leaders and units would be nice in my dreams..

5) Examples of why something is or isn't desired are always helpful.

Having to cheat then save as a scenerio..

6) What would also be helpful is an idea of what kinds of scenarios, mods, or conversions you're interested in creating with these tools. It gives us a point of reference for thinking about how all this will have to be implemented to make those ideas happen.


The ability to scan a picture and make it a unit!