Firaxis, Will Civs No Longer Be Rigidly Grouped By Color?

One of the most aggrievating and annoying aspects of the mis-design of Civ II was its arbitrary groupings of civs by COLOR. Because you could not have two civs of the same color in a game, you could NEVER set up a game with say, both Celts and Romans (WHITE), Celts and Russians (WHITE), or French and Germans (BLUE), Spanish and Aztecs (YELLOW), Americans and Chinese (LIGHT BLUE), etc.

Please, Firaxis, I beg you, in Civ III allow us to choose ANY combination of civs up to the maximum allowable number FIRST and then assign colors to them AFTER! You could even allow us to assign the colors (from the set of available colors) ourselves AFTER we select our civs in the set-up. Now THAT would be perfect!


[This message has been edited by Arator (edited May 19, 2001).]

[SerapisIV]

I hope so, I'd like to be able to choose any civ combination, not just one of the blue civs and one of the yellow civs

[ancient]

oh yes thats always very annoying when playing a game..

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I don't know if they're gonna do that. It would be a nice idea, but say you choose too many civs in europe on a small map with historic start locations. How are you gonna fit the English, Celts, Romans, Spanish, French, German, and Russians all in the same slot?

------------------
Goooooooooooood Morning Vietnam!

[Gramphos]

I do really hope so especially as the civs are unique, and Multiplayers would probably have a favorite civ, and It is easier to set up if you just not have to choose the same civ as earlier players, then if you must not choose any civ with the same color as earlier players.

The best for multiplayer is to allow all players to any civ (the same if they won’t to), and that you just have to choose color.

quote: Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia on 05-20-2001 02:01 PM I don't know if they're gonna do that. It would be a nice idea, but say you choose too many civs in europe on a small map with historic start locations. How are you gonna fit the English, Celts, Romans, Spanish, French, German, and Russians all in the same slot?

I think that's called a scenario, not a game. Obviously restrictions in civ selection are in order with scenarios, but not with normal game play. That's what I'm talking about.

[Sabre2th]

DEFINATELY. I don't think I could stand having the same old colors matched up with the same civs all the time. BLEH

------------------
"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
--Thomas A. Edison

As requested. It would be nice to chose the Civ. that we play againt.

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

Open the rules.txt file and switch them around.

[Jarouik]

I wish they had 16 different colors, each assigned to a particular civilization, so the Germans would always be blue, the Greeks black etc... if anybody here still remembers Civnet, in it you could choose any combination of seven nations out of 14 but there were only seven different colors, so the color a specific civ had would change between games. I, however, always liked the idea that each civ has its own color, and after playing Civ 1 I found it confusing to have the colors change in Civnet every time I started a new game. Also, this would make sense if they made the maximum number of civs in one game 16, although I doubt they will do that and will be fine without it.

[Grumbold]

Nations should have unique flags not rely on these naff colours. Lets move into the 21st Century - it only takes a little artwork.

[Jarouik]

quote: Originally posted by Grumbold on 05-21-2001 05:29 AM Nations should have unique flags not rely on these naff colours. Lets move into the 21st Century - it only takes a little artwork.

Although I have nothing against national flags, it is a lot easier to instantly distinguish the different civs in graphs, on the map etc. if they are assigned a particular color each, which is consistently used to indicate that nation's cities, units and any other stats visible in any of the screens.

[Grumbold]

quote: Originally posted by Jarouik on 05-21-2001 05:44 AM Although I have nothing against national flags, it is a lot easier to instantly distinguish the different civs in graphs, on the map etc. if they are assigned a particular color each, which is consistently used to indicate that nation's cities, units and any other stats visible in any of the screens.

I totally agree - wasn't thinking about the graph, border and minimap. The colours there will need to be crisp and configurable by the player(s) to ensure maximum contrast between neighbours.

[ember]

I strongly agree with the national flags idea. When too many colours are used, It can become very difficult for colour-deficient people (like myself) to tell the units of two civilizations apart...
This is, of course, a bad thing.

[Lord_Davinator]

Definetley requiered.
A really small thing to implement and can create large changes

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Arator

You obviously can't see the possible implications of not haveing rigit color groups. I agree with the random colors, but only in certain instances.

[tniem]

Colors and civs definitely need to be seperated. We had ways on this forum to distinguish 32 different civs just in case Firaxis allowed us to do so. Now if we have 16 civs there is no way that we should lose 8 that we can't play with because we have the other one in the color selected. I don't think Firaxis would do that to us.

[Kyle]

Wow, I never even realized that limitation was there. I agree with the original post.

[Cyclotron]

As long as we don't use the CTP "ever-blue" style

[ajbera]

Originally posted by ember
I strongly agree with the national flags idea. When too many colours are used, It can become very difficult for colour-deficient people (like myself) to tell the units of two civilizations apart...
This is, of course, a bad thing.

Here here! I started a thread to address this topic a while ago. No definite conclusions were reached, and of course we heard nothing from Firaxis, but the issue is quite important to the chromatically challenged. We're handicapped and we need help. At the very least, ensuring that we can identify a unit's civilization by right-clicking the unit would be invaluable.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The flags sound like a good idea. Another one would be stadards (lie the roman eagle) But how would each unit hold the flag?

[tniem]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
The flags sound like a good idea. Another one would be stadards (lie the roman eagle) But how would each unit hold the flag?

The phalanx would have it on his shield. The tank would have it painted on the front of the vechile. A plane on the wing. A chariot would have it on the side of it.

Firaxis might have to be creative but they could put it on the actual units.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Well, it might get a little small (i think the phalanx already has something on its shield anyway) Also, how are you going to put a flag on ship without it being too small?

[Uncle Sparky]

Wouldn't editing city.txt file or using St. Leo's Tribe Editor accomplish the same thing ? Why not have it built into the new game ?

[Wittlich]

I do like the idea of being able to choose my own country's color at the beginning of the game!

[DarkCloud]

This should be in the game, for it is supposed to be an improvement- it does not seem as if this feature would take too long for the programmers to implement.

In fact, you should be able to choose from a whole pastel of colors for your civs- at least 24 choices are needed.

[JosefGiven]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
This should be in the game, for it is supposed to be an improvement- it does not seem as if this feature would take too long for the programmers to implement.

In fact, you should be able to choose from a whole pastel of colors for your civs- at least 24 choices are needed.

Indeed, and there ought to be an alternative colour for the barbarians, so we can choose red if we want to. Ideal for us commies!

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, it would be nice to be able to mix-and-match the civilisations without being constrained by the colour groups they belong to. Something that in the present day isn't really necessary.

[Uncle Sparky]

As long as they keep the editing mech simple, like in CivII MGE even a computer illiterate like me can place any civs into the line up. The entire editing mech should be as user friendly as possible.

[Arator]

Bump to Dan from Firaxis!