The people have offered to upgrade your palace!

[Tiberius]

Do you use the "upgrade your Palace" feature?

NO -> GOTO (1)
YES -> GOTO (2)

(1): suggestion for Firaxis:
- make a freakin' option and make possible to turn the damn thing off from the very beginning!

Now, Palace hating people, get lost, the rest of the thread is not for you!
Accordingly: GOTO (END), damnit!

(2): Is there anybody left, reading this?
I have a few complains and suggestion about the Palace:

- first of all, it is very boring. I'm getting tired building the same palace all over again. Sometimes I combine the styles and make it ugly as hell! This is at least half-satisfactory
Making the Palace customizable would solve this problem. I'm thinking on downloadable Palace styles, that people could design on their own and share them with the civ community.

- It could be useful, too. The grandeur of your Palace should have a positive influence on your visitors (read: leaders you are talking to). In the same way a powerful culture positively influence your negotiations, an impressive Palace should do the same thing.
To put it in simpler terms: bigger Palace = better diplomatic/trade deals

- The Palace could have certain "levels" of greatness and generate culture accordingly. Thus, the bigger the Palace is, the more culture it would generate.

That's it. Maybe you have more and better ideas. Let them roll. Now GOTO (END)


(END): Have a nice weekend and good civin' !

[Fab Riano]

Personally, I like the Palace feature but agree that it is somewhat repetitive. I do try to choose an appropriate style for the civ and hate missing style for asthetic reasons.

But, I thought that building the Palace was a reflection of how well you doing relative to the other civs rather than it having a direct effect on other leaders etc. Thus, depending on the other leaders opinion of you, they are already polite or hate your guts anyway (probably Palace envy!).

Ciao,

FAB

[Lucarse]

I say make an option to turn the freaking thing off!!

Once you have built it the novelty wears off real quick ( like the celebration we love the king day screens in CIV 1) it has absolutely no in game use so build it once admire it then turn it off!!!!!!.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Fab Riano
But, I thought that building the Palace was a reflection of how well you doing relative to the other civs rather than it having a direct effect on other leaders etc.

Actually, it is a reflection of how much your people love you. IMHO it has nothing to do with your foreign relations.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Lucarse
I say make an option to turn the freaking thing off!!

Once you have built it the novelty wears off real quick ( like the celebration we love the king day screens in CIV 1) it has absolutely no in game use so build it once admire it then turn it off!!!!!!.

My point exactly. The way it is now, better make an option to disable it because it is repetitive and boring, maybe after a while even annoying.

...or

make it more appealing (customizable) and make it useful, give us a purpose to build it (culture or reputation or something like this).

[Flandrien]

You can simply close the message box, and you will never have to upgrade your palace.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Maestro
You can simply close the message box, and you will never have to upgrade your palace.

... until you reload the game.

[Alex]

They could add this feature: from the palace screen, you could access a small movie portaying the construction of the corresponding part of the palace, and you'd get to see the workers stopping whatever they're doing to salute you and you'd even be whipping some lazy ones and...

Hm. It won't happen.

[Nikolai]

Why not? Already in Civ1 you saw the palace built. But I for one got tired of waiting in "half an hour"(felt like that... ) to proceed...

[Skeeve]

The Palace is nice for the first 3-4 games, but after that its just eye-candy.

If there was some noticeable effect on the game - such as was mentioned above - then it might be more worthwhile.

I think it bears mentioning, that some eye-candy is not all that bad. For example, I miss the wonder movies from Civ2.

[One_Brow]

I think that, rather than choosing the palace style, it should be chosen for you based upon the cultural grouping of your people. For example, if you start as the Aztecs, the first few pieces come in the Mezo-American style. If you incorporate a few Egyptian cities, say up to third of your populace being Egyption, than the next few pieces come in the Greco-Roman style until about a third of your palace is Greco-Roman. Rather than have an interactive thing, you would just get a screen that could appear every x turns, years, etc.

[Alex]

One idea that could work: to represent different seasons in the palace screen.

Whenever the people wanted to upgrade your palace, the screen would depict the palace in a winter environment, or a summer one, etc.

It would be less boring to watch it (at least for the first few times) and it would be easy to implement (after all, you just have to change the palace screen art.)

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by Tiberius

Making the Palace customizable would solve this problem. I'm thinking on downloadable Palace styles, that people could design on their own and share them with the civ community.

I'm fairly certain that these are just regular graphics files (most likely .pcx files) like the rest and could be easily modded if someone put their mind to it.

[brianshapiro]

WILL PALACES BE ABLE TO BE TURNED OFF IN SCENARIOS? it would have a Mars scenario and then show a gothic palace against a blue sky.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by WarpStorm


I'm fairly certain that these are just regular graphics files (most likely .pcx files) like the rest and could be easily modded if someone put their mind to it.

They are PCX files. The files are in five folders. One for each cultural group.

C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Art\PalaceView

For me the American palace can go. Its VERY ugly even for Mayan architecture. If nothing else it needs a paint job. Mayans painted those things and the bare gray stone in this case just doesn't work. The Aztec stuff looks better without paint than that overdone Mayan garbage.

I like to mix and match but the Mayan stuff is only usefull for making the ugliest palace possible.

[sun_tzu_159]

Does the size/number of building events increase the happiness radius of your empire so that you can build the forbidden palace further away?

If it doesn't it should. More impressed people, bigger palace, wider happiness influence. Perhaps +1 happy citizen in each empire city or +1 radius of happiness effect so that cities in radius get +1 happy citizen per expansion of palace. Then it is not just eye candy but integral to the game.

I believe the celebration days give increased output from those cities. This should be expansion for Golden era for empire so that each city can also have golden era - perhaps triggered by first time it has celebration day. If enough cities do this at the same time it will be like mini golden era.

Regards
Sun_Tzu

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by sun_tzu_159
Does the size/number of building events increase the happiness radius of your empire so that you can build the forbidden palace further away?

If it doesn't it should. More impressed people, bigger palace, wider happiness influence. Perhaps +1 happy citizen in each empire city or +1 radius of happiness effect so that cities in radius get +1 happy citizen per expansion of palace. Then it is not just eye candy but integral to the game.

Interesting! Seems like it can be a good idea. I hope Firaxis still reads thisa forum, and not only the PTW one!

And better:

I believe the celebration days give increased output from those cities. This should be expansion for Golden era for empire so that each city can also have golden era - perhaps triggered by first time it has celebration day. If enough cities do this at the same time it will be like mini golden era.

This really appeals to me! I think I've read this once, maybe in The List. *remember good, old days*

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by sun_tzu_159
Does the size/number of building events increase the happiness radius of your empire so that you can build the forbidden palace further away?

If it doesn't it should. More impressed people, bigger palace, wider happiness influence. Perhaps +1 happy citizen in each empire city or +1 radius of happiness effect so that cities in radius get +1 happy citizen per expansion of palace. Then it is not just eye candy but integral to the game.

I believe the celebration days give increased output from those cities. This should be expansion for Golden era for empire so that each city can also have golden era - perhaps triggered by first time it has celebration day. If enough cities do this at the same time it will be like mini golden era.

That could be easily exploited. Put the luxury slider to 80% and there it is, a golden age.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Tiberius
That could be easily exploited. Put the luxury slider to 80% and there it is, a golden age.

You're problaby right. But I still think that it should be in in a way or another. We have to trust the mighty gods of Firaxis...!

[WarpStorm]

Thinking about this some more (and actually looking at the files involved over the weekend). In PTW, with it's better mod swapping capabilities, you (or an artist, in any case) could make a replacement set of palace graphics to go with a given scenario.

[Tiberius]

That's cool. The only problem is, you need some talent to make this, not only will.

[WarpStorm]

Well, Tiberius, that's the rub, isn't it. I'm just saying that it could be done by someone with the skills.