Summary so far

These ideas are in no particular order.

EnochF: The map should have different styles depending on the age it's in. For example, it could be a papyrus scroll during the rennaisance, a map with a compass arrow and fancy European script during the rennaisance, and a viewscreen in the future (JT).
Potential problems/caveats: May make map hard to read.

Ecce Homo: Animate the water tiles.
Problems: May make it hard to customise the map tiles
Suggested fix: Have an animated format for the default that is replacable with a common 2D (.pcx?) format for customization.

Many people: Bring back the throne room!. But make it customizable according to which civilization you have (for example, the Japanese have samurai armor hanging on the wall, the Europeans have knight armor, etc.) Some people also support the palace instead of the throne room, or something completely different.
Problems: May make it hard to customize civlizations.
Potential solutions: In the civlization's text file, have an option to say which kind of throne room is used.

JT: Show wonders in the map grid somewhere within the city's radius.
Problems: May make it hard to see what's in that square.
Solutions: Make the wonder show up under units and special resources(?), make wonder invisible with terrain viewing key (T in SMAC and Civ II).

Many people: Either make the units 2D (unacceptable in a modern game, IMNSHO) or have an alternative 2D format to customize the units with. In SMAC, for example, a historical MOD pack is impossible because there is no way to modify the unit pix ("those chariots look pretty silly with particle impactors" ).
Suggested fix: Provide an alternate 2D graphics file (.pcx?) to provide for the customization of units.

Many people: City architecture should be cilivization-specific.
Implementation: Provide a setting in the civilization's text file to determine the architecture style. This could be the same setting that determines the throne room and unit(?) styles.

Many people: The graphics should not slow down the game too much or require ultra-fast machines in order to run acceptably. For example, the animation for founding a new city in Civ's I and II (something unfortunately missing in SMAC) would just be a pain if there wasn't a way to skip it. The high-res graphics in SMAC ran unacceptably slow on my machine (PII-300 w/ 64 MB, in case you're wondering), but the low-res units looked just fine and ran much better.
Solution: Make the graphics as good as you can without slowing down the game.

evil conquerer: If the units are modular (as in SMAC), the different sections of the unit should be clearly visible. I didn't have this problem, but some people complained that the different weapons and special abilites were hard to tell apart.
Possible solution: Weapons and special abilities may have to be exaggerated slightly on the map screen.

EnochF: If terraforming can be done from inside the city, there should be an icon that indicates work in progress on that square.
Potential problem: Might obscure the resources in that square.

Debate: Should the units be 2D or 3D?
2D isometric: Would make the units easier to edit. Would also make the units move faster (exception: CTP ).
True 3D: Anything less would be unacceptable for a new game. The units would simply look better. An alternate 2D format for editing could be made available relatively easily.

Debate: Should the world be 3D too?
2D isometric map, flat terrain (a la Civ2): Would be easier to edit, would be faster to draw on the screen.
2D isometric map, 3D terrain with altitude (a la SMAC): Altitude is an important concept that the game must have. It looks cool, too.
Would be hard to edit, sometimes obscures units behind a mountain.
True 3D map: Two words. Awesome graphics.
May be hard to get a good sense of proportion or distance. May make terrain really hard to edit. Note: I don't mean a 3D spherical map (that's not my department). I'm just talking about how the map looks.

Icedan: Check out http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/3402/Civ.htm for a quick sketch of what the 3D graphics could look like.
Potential problem: No sense of distance at all.
Solution: I dunno, maybe some kind of gridline system.

Trachmyr: A style of graphics similar to Lords of the Realm II.

Rusty Nail: If fog of war is on, don't make it too hard to see the terrain through the fog of war. For units and terrain, clarity is very important.

evil conquerer: Bring back the city view! It gives the user a sense of satisfaction, even if it is completely useless.

Eggman: Change the monocolor shield to a flag with a symbol on it. For example, the British would have a union jack, etc.
Potential problem: Customization would be hard.
Solution: Leave a space in the faction file for a customizable flag.

Andy B: Make cities look different based on their position on the globe (ex. glacier cities have little igloos, etc.)
Potential problem: May conflict with the idea to have unique cities for different civilizations.
Solution: Pick one, Firaxis . If you can combine the two, that would be awesome.

Fugi the Great: If the graphics are unbearably slow (i.e. CTP) then have a key to speed up the animation of units when they're on a long GOTO, by skipping frames, substituting a 2D unit graphic, or by something else. Make sure you can still see where the unit is going, though.

Kris Huysmans: All these civilization-specific graphics will take forever to edit (custom flags, custom units, custom cities, etc.)
Solution (evil conquerer): The user can, in the civilization's .txt file, either specify which type of graphics to use (i.e. oriental, middle-eastern, european, etc.) or include a 2D graphics file in a common format (.pcx, .gif, etc.) that has all the custom graphics for that civ in it.

Bubba: Make the graphics like AoE.

If I missed anybody's please tell me and I'll gladly put it in. If you disagree with any of the suggested fixes or anything on the list, please feel free to post here with your suggestion.

I have also some sugestions for extra graphics for civ3:

animals : tanks replaced by elephants, airplanes by birts, battleships by whales, ...

WW2 : because WW2 scenarios are very popular

Cartoon : Micky Mouse, Astrix, Donalt Duck, ...

Starwars : for the hardcore fans of starwars

I think that the thing that kept Mods from being a big thing for civ is that they were hard to use, and change from one to the next.

If a Mod organiser was included with the game, it would be a joy!

The city view:
Make the city view like civ1:

First primitive huts, later flats and how bigger the city how more houses. also: rivers, coast line, wonders, city improvements, moving cars and walking people like in sc3000. Maybe you could set these graphics in editable graphic files so that scenario and mod builders can change them. And for a walking person animation you need only 3 pictures(editable of course) per type of person and for a car only one per type car. There should be a option for the scenario builders to set city animations off.

About the head above the city screen
where you can set specialists:

In the cold regions: white heads
In the warm regions : black heads
In warm regions with much rain : Yelow heads
This will gives you more the idea that you are really in a Chine or Iceland and this are only a few graphics to change and in scenarios should there be a option to set this off.

I think that when you play the Bloodlust option, units should die with huge piles of blood. Fatalities like Mortal Kombat would be nice.

Um...

Seriously, all I want for graphics is that they be serviceable. I don't need animated units, death scenes or 3D graphics. Just as long as I can figure out units and terrain by SIGHT (no fifteen shades of red or identical hulls), the info charts are easy to read, the units don't take 5 minutes to move from square to square and the mod makers can edit the graphics without requiring a PhD in computer design, I will be happy.

What if it's not Earth? Then the cities can all look the same, or they'll look different depending on their location on the planet/star system/galaxy. It's not too much to ask to make the cities look different, considering how long the game is expected to take and the high quality that is demanded from modern computer games.

Why do you like the 3D city view? Aesthetic appeal, probably. In the same way, we like the customized cities, flags, and the throne room because of aesthetic appeal.

1. A thing sorta like when you take over a city in Lords of the Realm II. Just show armies marching in, that's it.
2. When your civ gets conquered totally show an execution type thing similar to the gillotuine (or however you spell it!) at the end except it be FOR YOU!
3. Have units move, not all fancy or anything, just walk. When they fight, Hmmmmm, kinda hard having a tank fight a warrior, ain't it?

That's all I can think of right now...

Firaxis includes all the eye candy they want in the game.
In the install, you can select how much detail you want (high, medium, low?).
The base detail level (high, medium, low) and all of the specific detail options are configurable during the game as well.

If it has gone unnoticed there has been a lot of ideas concerning the City View on the General Suggestion board, as well as a significant discussion concerning variable unit graphics per civ, similiar to the different graphics for the city.

The current idea seems to focus and having at least four styles of units to match the pre-industrial buildings, Stone-Age, Classical, Midieval, and Bronze-Age. There would be no difference in unit abilities, just different graphics. The objective of this would be to enhance atmosphere and make the units more distintive from eachother.

Concerning the City View, the consensus appears to be that the style of the one in Civ 1 was superior, though weaker in graphics than that of Civ 2. Most ideas concern the use that this window could be put to, such as showing different things happening to the city.

Some of the actions which would produce a reaction would be Military Invasion, with enemy units being distinguishable unit types, rather than Civ 1's generic infantry. Riots (Hopefully a rotund fellow in a top hat being chased by a mob with pitchforks and torches), as well as We Love the Days. Other possible uses would be to display disasters, building construction, and the current happy level.

After all, you're never going to see the vehicle from more than 4 sides anyway since it can have only 4 facings. (assuming that you can rotate the map).

I would suggest PNG for the format- it doesn't have the licensing problems of gif.

If you want to achieve the tilting effect of SMAC, just assign a baseline to the image and then rotate according to the plane of the square.

This way, you'd get 3d, and users could still create their own graphics.

The first frame of the animation would be 'standing still', there'd be a fixed number of frames that each image would cycle through as it moved from square to square.
In whatever definition file that assigns images to units, you do things like they do for Cascading Style sheets:

unit{
chassis: infantry;
weapon: hand;
age: ancient;
attack: 5;
defence: 4;
special: trample;

img-north: uri(n_elephant.png);
img-south: uri(s_elephant.png);
img-west: uri(w_elephant.png);
img-east: uri(e_elephant.png);
}

or like so:
img: "n_elephant.png", "s_elephant.png", ..etc

or if you were lazy:
img: "elephant.png";

And then the engine would know to display that one no matter what facing it had.

If the PNG had no frames, the engine would just not animate it.

Reasons for doing this:
-no more endless arctic wastes, just a tiny region.
-Greenland will no longer be the size of South America.
-Transport through the Arctic Ocean, with the development of dog-sleds/icebreakers.

The view-boxes in Civ I and II are small enough that the curvature of the earth shouldn't make a top-down "flat" map impossible, so just because the spherical map is employed does not necessarily mean that 3D graphics must be employed--those with slow machines (I'm one of them, stuck with this old laptop) needn't be bogged down.

Summary so far

These ideas are in no particular order.

EnochF: The map should have different styles depending on the age it's in. For example, it could be a papyrus scroll during the rennaisance, a map with a compass arrow and fancy European script during the rennaisance, and a viewscreen in the future (JT). Kc7mxo: Extend this concept to all of the game graphics. This has much support on the CivIII disscusion/general (non-list) board.
Potential problems/caveats: May make map hard to read.

Ecce Homo: Animate the water tiles.
Problems: May make it hard to customise the map tiles
Suggested fix: Have an animated format for the default that is replacable with a common 2D (.pcx?) format for customization.

Many people: Bring back the throne room!. But make it customizable according to which civilization you have (for example, the Japanese have samurai armor hanging on the wall, the Europeans have knight armor, etc.) Some people also support the palace instead of the throne room, or something completely different.
Problems: May make it hard to customize civlizations.
Potential solutions: In the civlization's text file, have an option to say which kind of throne room is used.

JT: Show wonders in the map grid somewhere within the city's radius.
Problems: May make it hard to see what's in that square.
Solutions: Make the wonder show up under units and special resources(?), make wonder invisible with terrain viewing key (T in SMAC and Civ II).

Many people: Either make the units 2D (unacceptable in a modern game, IMNSHO) or have an alternative 2D format to customize the units with. In SMAC, for example, a historical MOD pack is impossible because there is no way to modify the unit pix ("those chariots look pretty silly with particle impactors" ).
Suggested fix: Provide an alternate 2D graphics file (.pcx?) to provide for the customization of units.

Many people: City architecture should be cilivization-specific.
Implementation: Provide a setting in the civilization's text file to determine the architecture style. This could be the same setting that determines the throne room and unit(?) styles.

Many people: The graphics should not slow down the game too much or require ultra-fast machines in order to run acceptably. For example, the animation for founding a new city in Civ's I and II (something unfortunately missing in SMAC) would just be a pain if there wasn't a way to skip it. The high-res graphics in SMAC ran unacceptably slow on my machine (PII-300 w/ 64 MB, in case you're wondering), but the low-res units looked just fine and ran much better.
Solution: Make the graphics as good as you can without slowing down the game.

evil conquerer: If the units are modular (as in SMAC), the different sections of the unit should be clearly visible. I didn't have this problem, but some people complained that the different weapons and special abilites were hard to tell apart.
Possible solution: Weapons and special abilities may have to be exaggerated slightly on the map screen.

EnochF: If terraforming can be done from inside the city, there should be an icon that indicates work in progress on that square.
Potential problem: Might obscure the resources in that square.

Debate: Should the units be 2D or 3D?
2D isometric: Would make the units easier to edit. Would also make the units move faster (exception: CTP ).
True 3D: Anything less would be unacceptable for a new game. The units would simply look better. An alternate 2D format for editing could be made available relatively easily.
mindlace: Have 4 image files for 4 different views of the unit.

Debate: Should the world be 3D too?
2D isometric map, flat terrain (a la Civ2): Would be easier to edit, would be faster to draw on the screen.
2D isometric map, 3D terrain with altitude (a la SMAC): Altitude is an important concept that the game must have. It looks cool, too.
Would be hard to edit, sometimes obscures units behind a mountain.
True 3D map: Two words. Awesome graphics.
May be hard to get a good sense of proportion or distance. May make terrain really hard to edit. Note: I don't mean a 3D spherical map (that's not my department). I'm just talking about how the map looks.

Icedan: Check out http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/3402/Civ.htm for a quick sketch of what the 3D graphics could look like.
Potential problem: No sense of distance at all.
Solution: I dunno, maybe some kind of gridline system.

Trachmyr: A style of graphics similar to Lords of the Realm II.

Rusty Nail: If fog of war is on, don't make it too hard to see the terrain through the fog of war. For units and terrain, clarity is very important.

Many People: Bring back the city view! It gives the user a sense of satisfaction, even if it is completely useless. Kris Huysman: Make the city view look like Civ I, but with moving people and cars like SC3000. Icedan: Use a picture file for the background instead of a static image. This allows for customization *and* photo-realistic scenes.

Eggman: Change the monocolor shield to a flag with a symbol on it. For example, the British would have a union jack, etc.
Potential problem: Customization would be hard.
Solution: Leave a space in the faction file for a customizable flag.

Andy B: Make cities look different based on their position on the globe (ex. glacier cities have little igloos, etc.)
Potential problem: May conflict with the idea to have unique cities for different civilizations.
Solution: Pick one, Firaxis . If you can combine the two, that would be awesome.

Fugi the Great: If the graphics are unbearably slow (i.e. CTP) then have a key to speed up the animation of units when they're on a long GOTO, by skipping frames, substituting a 2D unit graphic, or by something else. Make sure you can still see where the unit is going, though.

Kris Huysmans: All these civilization-specific graphics will take forever to edit (custom flags, custom units, custom cities, etc.)
Solution (evil conquerer): The user can, in the civilization's .txt file, either specify which type of graphics to use (i.e. oriental, middle-eastern, european, etc.) or include a 2D graphics file in a common format (.pcx, .gif, etc.) that has all the custom graphics for that civ in it.

Bubba: Make the graphics like AoE.

Kris Huysman: Change the specialists' (in the city screen) skin tones according to where in the world they're located. Potential problem: On small maps (like a map of Europe for example), skin tones shouldn't change. Solution: Add even more stuff to the map file! :-)

Mo (and some other people): Include all the eye candy you want; just have a way to turn it off. During the install, let the user specify the overall level of detail (high, medium, low). During the game, all of the specific details (city view on, animated units on, etc.) should be available from an options menu. Note that having an "Alternative art files" directory on the CD a la SMAC is not acceptable. Many users will not have the know-how to copy the files over.

Kc7mxo: The general consensus on the CivIII Suggestions/General (non-list) board is that the city view in Civ I was laid out better. Add more city info (somewhere :-) ) to the city window.

If I missed anybody's suggestion please tell me and I'll gladly put it in. If you disagree with any of the suggested fixes or anything on the list, please feel free to post here with your suggestion. In addition, if your name is not on the credits, then please let me know.

And...

Personaly a 3D world like populus 3 wouldn't work for Civ (It's too small).

But a planet like Black and Whites engine would work very well. VERY WELL.

2) This is not really based on graphics but a suggetion on organizing graphic files.

a) For scenarios and games have separate folders for civ1, civ2 (meaning players) and in each folder you could have a units.gif, cities.gif, flg.gif, leader.gif, people.gif, throne room.gif. and so on. So each civilization instead of drawing from one file like civ2 does now it would read from the the specific folder for that civ (not to big of a technology leap) this would also work well with civilization specifc units, wonders, city improvements so they would all have unique graphics, names, abilities. The trick would be having the rules text jump and read properly from the other rules text.

b) there could also be a game folder that would carry the different terrains (for the other maps if its like TOT) and also for seasons (a terain1winter.gif, etc) that would also have a rules values text so as seasons change so do the values of the terrain. (i.e. harvest season, winter less food, etc)

c) I think since the wonders videoes and graphics take up so muh memory if Firaxis would sell the games as a multi-disc set. by this i mean like some of the games like byzatine have more than one disc for all the info. Firaxis would have one disc with the game gine on it. The second disc would have several folders as a graphics and even a civilizations library. several foldes labeled romans, byzatines, etc. so when you start a game if you pick your opponents you select a folder that is a name of a tribe for major civ 1 - 10 and then pick the ones for minor civs (or however minor, major works). Or have a random function that randomly looks for the folders (maybe have an identifyier folder like D:\civs thtt the game looks for to find tribes). This would make it so if there are major minor civs or start up civs it would randomly pick from the disc each time (so it'll be different and you can probably store over 100 civs). This disc could also be the copyright disc that the game will probably have or this disc will be inserted after the game begins i.e. insert disc2).

d) This two disc system would also make add on future disc for more and more civs to add to your game possible. This could be linked to future scenarios discs that have scenarios and specific civs (and wonders etc.) that you can play with or if you build your own can access that civ folder on the disc 3.

Another possibility to fix this problem is to make a zoom-function without the big pixels. This could be done, when you make three graphics (or animations) for the units etc., normal zoom, (very) closed zoom, (very) far zoom.