What is your greatest wish for Civ 4?

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Most manuals have a page or pullout which has all the keyboard shortcuts on it. It's been a while - doesn't Civ3?

I bought the Collector's Edition. It did not. Dunno about the others. Nice tin box though.

But my point is that basic unit commands SHOULD BE IN THE GAME INTERFACE. They are in SMAC/SMAX, which preceded Civ3. Stupid oversight in Civ3, that needs to be corrected in Civ4.

[DrSpike]

Most of the hotkeys are in the menus though.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Most of the hotkeys are in the menus though.

No, they are not. Show me screenshots of the following commands before I will believe you. Better yet, tell me how you know what they mean, if you learned them in game rather than from the manual.

"e", "cntrl-r", "cntrl-shift-r", "shift-i", "shift-p", "shift-a"

The first 3 at least are very useful to avoid tedium, don't you think?

But the second two still annoy me that I have to locate the end points graphically, unlike SMAC, which preceded Civ3, which not only provides this info via menus, but provides a list of end points, rather than require me to locate the end point graphically.

[Adagio]

I've never learned any commands from manuals and only once I needed someone else to tell me the command
Often you can find the commands in the game, but sometimes you could always try some key-strokes that you believe could do what you want it to do (like if you want to build a road but don't know the shortcut, the first key most people would press is 'R' for 'Road')

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Tommar


No, they are not. Show me screenshots of the following commands before I will believe you. Better yet, tell me how you know what they mean, if you learned them in game rather than from the manual.

"e", "cntrl-r", "cntrl-shift-r", "shift-i", "shift-p", "shift-a"

Some of those were added after release.

I found them all out through forums/manual.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Some of those were added after release.

I found them all out through forums/manual.

Are they in the menu as you asserted? Because that's my complaint. They aren't there.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by Adagio
I've never learned any commands from manuals and only once I needed someone else to tell me the command
Often you can find the commands in the game, but sometimes you could always try some key-strokes that you believe could do what you want it to do (like if you want to build a road but don't know the shortcut, the first key most people would press is 'R' for 'Road')

"Road", I'm happy to report, is one of the few in the game menu.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Some of those were added after release.

I found them all out through forums/manual.

No, I only have the release version of Civ3, cool tin box and all, but nothing added.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Tommar


Are they in the menu as you asserted? Because that's my complaint. They aren't there.

My assertion was 'most'. I'm sure if you count all the hotkeys you will see my assertion is true.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Tommar
"Road", I'm happy to report, is one of the few in the game menu.

I wasn't just talking about Civ3 but talking about shortcuts in generel. I don't remember what shortcuts was in the menus in Civ3, but let's just assume the "road to" wasn't there but you wanted to find the shortcut to it it would be naturally to try 'R' in combination with Shift or ctrl (or both) and hopefully you find it
Of course sometimes you can't find the shortcut using logic (or familiarity (sp?)

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


My assertion was 'most'. I'm sure if you count all the hotkeys you will see my assertion is true.

No. You are incorrect. I'll make this easier for you. The following commands are all available to workers (I omitted obvious ones like C, W). Which ones are available through the interface? Do they amount to "most"?

A
shift-A
shift-I
shift-P
shift-F
shift-J
B
control-F
m
shift-R
control-shift-R
R
control-R
control-B
shift-c
D
G
H
I
Ctrl-I
B
N

(edited note: these are all in my release version, nothing added)

[Tommar]

Originally posted by Adagio



I wasn't just talking about Civ3 but talking about shortcuts in generel. I don't remember what shortcuts was in the menus in Civ3, but let's just assume the "road to" wasn't there but you wanted to find the shortcut to it it would be naturally to try 'R' in combination with Shift or ctrl (or both) and hopefully you find it
Of course sometimes you can't find the shortcut using logic (or familiarity (sp?)

Well, you know, the only reason this point ticks me off so much is because I AM so familiar with games, and Civ3 was so retarded in comparison, even compared to its own preceding game, SMAC. Civ3 should have exceeded SMAC, but it did not, in some very basic interface ways (ignore the pink terrain/weird tech, interesting story, cool movies differences, design workshop, the ability to issue global commands, etc.).

I really hope Civ4 is better.

[Adagio]

I do agree with you that it should all have been in the interface, I'm just saying that it wasn't as bad in Civ3 as you make it out to be. I never had any problems with the interface in Civ3 and I never read the manual for the game

[Tommar]

Originally posted by Adagio
I do agree with you that it should all have been in the interface, I'm just saying that it wasn't as bad in Civ3 as you make it out to be. I never had any problems with the interface in Civ3 and I never read the manual for the game

Fair enough. Did you ever play SMAC or a better game?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Tommar


No. You are incorrect. I'll make this easier for you. The following commands are all available to workers (I omitted obvious ones like C, W). Which ones are available through the interface? Do they amount to "most"?

A
shift-A
shift-I
shift-P
shift-F
shift-J
B
control-F
m
shift-R
control-shift-R
R
control-R
control-B
shift-c
D
G
H
I
Ctrl-I
B
N

(edited note: these are all in my release version, nothing added)

Can we discuss without your bad attitude please? Otherwise I'm stopping now.

All the hotkeys in my statement refers to, well, all the hotkeys. Hotkeys are not limited to worker actions. Yes many advanced worker actions are not in the interface at all. Many on your list are without the associated hotkey.

Maybe the more advanced actions should be. However, as long as the basic ones are in the interface (along with other basic hotkeys) and the advanced ones (both worker actions and other hotkeys) in the manual I'm fine with it. Interfaces can lose usefulness by being too cluttered in my opinion.

That's just my preference. You can feel free to disagree, but really, you should be able to do so by arguing your case not derogatorily "making it easy for us". Many here have played more Civ than you, I suspect.

[Solver]

Firstly, a Civ game will have a big manual, because it's complex. And you can't expect to know every detail if you don't read it.

Secondly, there is a good reason why games ship in big cardboard boxes. One of the best reasons for it is that a fold-out chart can be included with all the hotkeys.

My dream would be a small booklet with all hotkeys, and a fold-out chart with the tech tree, as well as the unit/improvement info.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Solver
Firstly, a Civ game will have a big manual, because it's complex. And you can't expect to know every detail if you don't read it.

Secondly, there is a good reason why games ship in big cardboard boxes. One of the best reasons for it is that a fold-out chart can be included with all the hotkeys.

My dream would be a small booklet with all hotkeys, and a fold-out chart with the tech tree, as well as the unit/improvement info.

Yes, much more sensible than building the entire manual into the interface.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Tommar
Fair enough. Did you ever play SMAC or a better game?

Yes, I've played SMAC, but I wouldn't call it a better game, more on the same level as Civ3 (both has some good and some bad sides)
I didn't like the interface in SMAC though, IMHO the Civ3 interface was better. I believe it would be easy to create an interface for a civ-game that's better than both of those games

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Can we discuss without your bad attitude please? Otherwise I'm stopping now.

All the hotkeys in my statement refers to, well, all the hotkeys. Hotkeys are not limited to worker actions. Yes many advanced worker actions are not in the interface at all. Many on your list are without the associated hotkey.

Maybe the more advanced actions should be. However, as long as the basic ones are in the interface (along with other basic hotkeys) and the advanced ones (both worker actions and other hotkeys) in the manual I'm fine with it. Interfaces can lose usefulness by being too cluttered in my opinion.

That's just my preference. You can feel free to disagree, but really, you should be able to do so by arguing your case not derogatorily "making it easy for us". Many here have played more Civ than you, I suspect.

You were correct for reproving me. I should have simply pointed out the facts without my derogatory remark about "making it easier for you.". I apologize for that.

[AeonOfTime]

I went for the atmosphere - I'm going to be spending a whole lot of time playing that game, and a nice immersive atmosphere would really improve the experience.

Thinking of Civ3, the atmosphere was really bland - I usually turned off all sounds and had my media player running in the background. That wasn't very immersive...

I'd like a Civ game with an original soundtrack and not so invasive unit sounds, that can stay on and actually add to the play experience. Maybe it's silly, but I'd really like to have environmental sounds like wind blowing in the leaves of a forest, waves splashing on the shoreline, spearmen polishing their shields Has anyone here played Black and White? That game had a really immersive sound environment.

What I have read about music in civ4 so far hasn't got me convinced. Here's an excerpt from an interview at IGN:

The game's presentation relies very heavily on music, so much so that Firaxis president Jeff Briggs is personally taking charge of the game's scoring. Since music was Jeff's first career (he did, among other things, the music for the original Pirates!) he's well equipped to handle the composition and music selection tasks required here. But that doesn't mean his job is easy; he anticipates that the game will have more music than any other game ever released. Not only will the game include many of Jeff's original compositions, it will also include licensed performances of pieces by the old greats (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and company) as well as contemporary greats like John Adams and soon-to-be greats like Christopher Tin.

Jeff is also composing the music for the 28 new wonder movies being included in the game and all of the diplomacy music. Where possible he's tried to use folk tunes that represent the character and attitude of each civilization and each ruler. The music for Franklin D. Roosevelt for instance is the Marine Hymn. Jeff's even gone so far as to arrange each piece to suit the various time periods of the game. If you meet with Roosevelt in the early part of the game, you'll hear ancient instruments playing the theme. By the end of the game, the tune will have swelled and taken on a more Sousa-like quality.

I hope that's not going to be midi music again

[Tommar]

I still stand by what I said other than my horrible lapse in manners though.

I find the interface in Civ3 to be a horrible step backwards from SMAC. And most commands, contrary to your assertion, are not in the interface. Commands like "Go To" are poorly implemented, since they require you to locate the end point graphically, rather than via a drop down list of cities. What's the point? You could have drug your mouse there. Using "go to" only saved you having to hold your mouse button while you did it.

I want ALL unit commands to be in the interface. SMAC allows you to use a simplied interface, btw. I've not tried it, but I've seen the option.

Why is this important? I bought SMAC when it first went retail, as I did Civ3. I've bought upteen games since then, mostly MMORPGs (Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Ages of Camelot, Earth and Beyond, Horizons, Final Fantasy, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft) as well as games with non-persistant worlds (SimCity (all),Starcraft (all), Warcraft (all), Might and Magic (some), Age of Empires (all), Rise of Nations, Emporer, Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Black and White, Port Royale I and II, Homeworld, Dungeon Siege, Sacred, etc.)

When I get bored with them, I go back to SMAC/X, each and every time. Why? I know that I only need a vague idea of what it can do, and all I need do is find the SMAC/x disk to start playing again, no matter how much time has passed. Instead of having to reread the manual or remember that CNTRL-SHIFT-R does something useful that's not in the interface. I can poke around in SMAC menus until I find what I'm looking for. (tech tree is the major exception, and a good cause for complaint.)


I can set SMAC to pause when cities are rioting, when they build anything at all, build just a city improvement, when they've reached max population limit, or queue up a list of 8-items I want a city to build or not bother me at all with any of the above, just do what it thinks best.

Civ3's interface was a step backward, which is annoying since it came AFTER SMAC, but if all the options listed above are too confusing, they could be turned off.

Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be to have all the options, but only if you read the manual to find out how to turn them on?

[Tommar]

If you meet with Roosevelt in the early part of the game, you'll hear ancient instruments playing the theme. By the end of the game, the tune will have swelled and taken on a more Sousa-like quality.

Sousa scares me more than midi. There's some nice tunes in midi. Struggling to think of good march band music I've heard, even produced by real musical instruments.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Tommar
I still stand by what I said other than my horrible lapse in manners though.

I find the interface in Civ3 to be a horrible step backwards from SMAC. And most commands, contrary to your assertion, are not in the interface. Commands like "Go To" are poorly implemented, since they require you to locate the end point graphically, rather than via a drop down list of cities. What's the point? You could have drug your mouse there. Using "go to" only saved you having to hold your mouse button while you did it.

I want ALL unit commands to be in the interface. SMAC allows you to use a simplied interface, btw. I've not tried it, but I've seen the option.

Why is this important? I bought SMAC when it first went retail, as I did Civ3. I've bought upteen games since then, mostly MMORPGs (Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Ages of Camelot, Earth and Beyond, Horizons, Final Fantasy, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft) as well as games with non-persistant worlds (SimCity (all),Starcraft (all), Warcraft (all), Might and Magic (some), Age of Empires (all), Rise of Nations, Emporer, Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Black and White, Port Royale I and II, Homeworld, Dungeon Siege, Sacred, etc.)

When I get bored with them, I go back to SMAC/X, each and every time. Why? I know that I only need a vague idea of what it can do, and all I need do is find the SMAC/x disk to start playing again, no matter how much time has passed. Instead of having to reread the manual or remember that CNTRL-SHIFT-R does something useful that's not in the interface. I can poke around in SMAC menus until I find what I'm looking for. (tech tree is the major exception, and a good cause for complaint.)


I can set SMAC to pause when cities are rioting, when they build anything at all, build just a city improvement, when they've reached max population limit, or queue up a list of 8-items I want a city to build or not bother me at all with any of the above, just do what it thinks best.

Civ3's interface was a step backward, which is annoying since it came AFTER SMAC, but if all the options listed above are too confusing, they could be turned off.

Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be to have all the options, but only if you read the manual to find out how to turn them on?

You should get Gothic I and Gothic II

I never found an RPG more immersive than these ones. You absolutely identify with your CHaracter after a short while of playing and have hours of play alone to get familiar with the surroundings, find the camps of the various factions within the large area, to discover which relationships the factions have to each other and to gain in rank with one or more of these factions.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Tommar
I still stand by what I said other than my horrible lapse in manners though.

I find the interface in Civ3 to be a horrible step backwards from SMAC. And most commands, contrary to your assertion, are not in the interface. Commands like "Go To" are poorly implemented, since they require you to locate the end point graphically, rather than via a drop down list of cities. What's the point? You could have drug your mouse there. Using "go to" only saved you having to hold your mouse button while you did it.

I want ALL unit commands to be in the interface. SMAC allows you to use a simplied interface, btw. I've not tried it, but I've seen the option.

Why is this important? I bought SMAC when it first went retail, as I did Civ3. I've bought upteen games since then, mostly MMORPGs (Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Ages of Camelot, Earth and Beyond, Horizons, Final Fantasy, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft) as well as games with non-persistant worlds (SimCity (all),Starcraft (all), Warcraft (all), Might and Magic (some), Age of Empires (all), Rise of Nations, Emporer, Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Black and White, Port Royale I and II, Homeworld, Dungeon Siege, Sacred, etc.)

When I get bored with them, I go back to SMAC/X, each and every time. Why? I know that I only need a vague idea of what it can do, and all I need do is find the SMAC/x disk to start playing again, no matter how much time has passed. Instead of having to reread the manual or remember that CNTRL-SHIFT-R does something useful that's not in the interface. I can poke around in SMAC menus until I find what I'm looking for. (tech tree is the major exception, and a good cause for complaint.)


I can set SMAC to pause when cities are rioting, when they build anything at all, build just a city improvement, when they've reached max population limit, or queue up a list of 8-items I want a city to build or not bother me at all with any of the above, just do what it thinks best.

Civ3's interface was a step backward, which is annoying since it came AFTER SMAC, but if all the options listed above are too confusing, they could be turned off.

Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be to have all the options, but only if you read the manual to find out how to turn them on?

Extra options aren't bad. I wouldn't mind a detailed interface and a non-detailed one being available. However, if I had to pick I think that with a lot of options you are better off having key ones in the interface and all the others on a hotkey card like the ones that come with many games.

Of course, you'd have to make sure you didn't lose the card. Maybe a copy could be put on the cd for the poorly organised.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Extra options aren't bad. I wouldn't mind a detailed interface and a non-detailed one being available. However, if I had to pick I think that with a lot of options you are better off having key ones in the interface and all the others on a hotkey card like the ones that come with many games.

Of course, you'd have to make sure you didn't lose the card. Maybe a copy could be put on the cd for the poorly organised.

Oh, yes, I'm lucky if I can find the CD.

Although truthfully, I can find the folder I've got on SMAC techs when I want to.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Extra options aren't bad. I wouldn't mind a detailed interface and a non-detailed one being available. However, if I had to pick I think that with a lot of options you are better off having key ones in the interface and all the others on a hotkey card like the ones that come with many games.

Of course, you'd have to make sure you didn't lose the card. Maybe a copy could be put on the cd for the poorly organised.

Oh, yes, I'm lucky if I can find the CD. Hotkey card? That's what my computer is for, organizing data.

[DrSpike]

And for making +2s.

[kofeiini]

Voted for feeling & atmosphere. Of course things such as good AI and smooth interface are important but after Civ3 I'm afraid that people at firaxis focus even too much in "serious issues". Like I said those are also important things and really should not be forgotten but I want to see also some "useless" stuff.

Things like newspapers from Civ1 or advisors from Civ2 were nice. I'm also a stats and graphs freak and would love to see things such as top 5 cities, demographics and stats about how many military units I have and how many in production. Maybe it would also be cool to see some sort of diagrams about which percentage of the world population are christian, which percentage are hindu and so on. Same diagram could also show which percentage of the world belongs in which country. Some of this information could actually be even useful (depending on how religions & diplomacy work in cIV) If somebody don't like this kind of information they don't need to watch the graphs but I like to take a brake from actual playing every once in a while and just watch things around in my empire and notice things like: whoa it's year 1650 and my literacy rate is 96%!

Oh yeah, one thing I also wish from cIV that I believe hasn't been mentioned yet is that it would be in good balance when relased. I hate if there's going to be months of balancing unit stregths (and things like that) through various updates after relase.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by kofeiini
Things like newspapers from Civ1 or advisors from Civ2 were nice. I'm also a stats and graphs freak and would love to see things such as top 5 cities, demographics and stats about how many military units I have and how many in production. Maybe it would also be cool to see some sort of diagrams about which percentage of the world population are christian, which percentage are hindu and so on. Same diagram could also show which percentage of the world belongs in which country. Some of this information could actually be even useful (depending on how religions & diplomacy work in cIV) If somebody don't like this kind of information they don't need to watch the graphs but I like to take a brake from actual playing every once in a while and just watch things around in my empire and notice things like: whoa it's year 1650 and my literacy rate is 96%!

I agree with you completely. Even if those features doesn't change how the game is played it still gives a nice feeling that you're in a "living world" instead of just some "dead" computer game

[AeonOfTime]

@kofeiini: I hate if there's going to be months of balancing unit stregths (and things like that) through various updates after relase.

I agree - but I don't think that will be the case. From what Soren said, the featureset of the game is implemented, until release they are only giuong to do some polishing and betatesting/balancing gameplay. If they do that for four months straight, it may very well be the most bugfree and balanced Civ yet. It better be!