Slax, I disagree with you, simply because Hitler didn't hover thousands of ft above the land looking down from the sky and saying I want that unit there, a city there, etc etc.

Again, it's not 'correct'. It's Chess: Civilization.

Your military advisor can help you out there.

Maybe, you could have a map inside your castle, or whatever, and it is a map of what your civilization knows, and where all your units, cities, etc all are.

And you can say, well I think we should build a city here on the map.

And you can go outside and see that starting to happen.

The issue of graphics really comes down to one thing - what kind of CIV gamer is the player? Do they play a fast game with the goal of a quick win, or do they design their own history of the world in which they are immersed.

Take Quake 3, for example, the box says it can run on a 266. Yes, it can, but its nowhere near playable unless you've got a 350 or higher. And John Carmack has been donig 3D for far longer than most people, especially Peter Moleneaux (sp). You cannot just "design" a program to run smoothly can overcome hardware drawbacks...well, you can...but this involves cutting down graphical quality.

When I say the game will run smoothly on a P200, without a 3D card, then I mean it!

This is not one of your average games, or one of your new-tech games, its even more than that! Stop thinking in what you know already and start thinking differently, cause this is what the game is about!

*cough* hundreds of people are allowed to go into their studios to beta-test it everyday.

So in 5 years from now, I could have a 3ghz computer and a card that supports a zillion polygons, etc etc.

The game will then look 10 times better. It's a game that just gets better the more power it receives, even if the technology hasn't been discovered.

Yes, it will slow the computer to a crawl, but the game will still run smoothly.

The engines rule is to run at 15fps, So if the frame drops to 14fps, then it will lower the graphics a bit to bring it back to 15. Thats one of the main advantages to this scalable engine.

The game is now becoming so popular and important, that they're releasing it for PC, Playstation 2, Dreamcast, XBox, Linux and BeOS.

"The visual is the most important medium to clearly communicate information with minimal chance of misinterpretation. Out of our five senses, we comprehend over 80% of the environment around us through our eyes. Not only does 3D cross over language barriers, but it provides a completely unique experience. Whether it is stunning gameplay or saving time to market, the time for the 3D revolution is upon us."

quote: Originally posted by L o k i on 05-22-2000 06:25 AMI didn't say it! nvidia did!

And nvidia sells what, exactly? 3D CARDS!!! What else did you expect them to say: "Most great games are, at their base, about solid gameplay and the minimum graphics required to ignite the imagination, and this means 2D is here to stay."

Don't buy the company line, Loki. If you personally love 3D and can't get enough, great. But many of us here were weaned on outstanding games with meager graphics, and while we would all like a better visual experience, we have learned that most beautiful games pretty much sucked after the first few days of play.

Certainly B&W is bringing something very exciting to gaming...and I certainly share in the anticipation. Perhaps one day we'll look back and pin-point B&W as a watershed moment in 3D programming.

quote: Originally posted by L o k i on 05-22-2000 06:25 AM I hope you don't mind me rubbing this in "The visual is the most important medium to clearly communicate information with minimal chance of misinterpretation. Out of our five senses, we comprehend over 80% of the environment around us through our eyes. Not only does 3D cross over language barriers, but it provides a completely unique experience. Whether it is stunning gameplay or saving time to market, the time for the 3D revolution is upon us." I didn't say it! nvidia did!

There is some truth is this, of course. However, 3D is not always applicable to every situation. For example, web browsers definitely don't need to be in 3D.

I also don't think 3D is suitable for a grand stretagy game such as Civ. For a game such as Panzer General Assault 3D, sure. The 3D interface runs smoothly for the most part, but even for a handful of units there are problems, particularly with moving and attacking with air units. It also relies a lot on a supplementary 2D information system.

By the way, this world is mostly in fractal, not 3D

Something that always humbles me when I ponder the great advancements of computer technology and immersive visual interfaces is the following fact. You know what the most sophisticated and imagination-stimulating graphical engine is to date?

A pencil.

A pencil and a piece of paper, actually. Put this in the hands of a genius like, say, Sid Meier and nothing can touch it for sheer ability to spark the imagination. To stimulate my senses? No. Not that. But give me the right idea on paper and I will be utterly and totally immersed. So will you. Just look how immersive this thread appears to have been so far? Face it, the debate on this thread alone is more immersive than at least three high-end graphical games you've played in the past -- put together. Because what a pencil and paper can do is spark the imagination. The job of a graphics engine like the B&W engine, what Loki wants, is to immerse me in a world that I don't have to imagine.

But the secret is -- and you won't hear this from people who sell 3D graphics cards -- it takes imagination to spark imagination.

Often we want to license that job out to technological stimulants, usually visual. Sometimes aural. And they stimulate your imagination to a point -- but they do not spark your imagination to create for itself the way a book will, or a basic abstraction -- even the Civ I graphics engine sparked a rational construct to take shape in your imagination that far exceeded the graphics of Civ 2 or any other game. I'll give you this, Loki, the B&W visuals look a lot like what it might look like if I was standing in my Civ. But that's just sensual stimulation. WHat you don't know, but I promise is true, is that after you played your fantasy Civ game a short while, you'd get the same experience we've all had with high-end visual games before. A tiny little voice in the back of your head would begin to say, incredibly: "...Huh -- this is MAYBE as fun as Civ I was, what's going on?"

Here's what's going on (or would be going on, as it were). Just like pornography is amazing for ten minutes, so would Civ 3D be amazing for ten minutes. Because it stimulates your senses as nearly as possibly approximating the real thing. After ten minutes, as someone once said, "you'd never want to have sex again." It's the same with computer games. The sensual stimulation of looking at such an amazing visual is NOTHING compared to the stimulation you get from imagining one. Why do you think Civilization was such a success in the first place?

The word "immersion" in this context does not mean literally to be immersed in a sensual sense. It means to be immersed in your own imagination. Which, oddly enough, requires the sparking of same, not -- and this is important -- an appreciation for what someone else has imagined. Cool as those B&W shots are, fantastic as that jet flying over your head is, you'll use your mouse to glance up at it on your computer monitor a few times, and after that you'll just wait for the sound to come out of your speakers letting you know it's there. Why? Because you can imagine what it looks like at least as well the game can render it.

Are cool graphics bad? No, no, no... They're fine. I'm talking about these so-called "immersive" graphics in the B&W engine. Those are bad for Civ 3 for the reasons I've mentioned, and because there is a point of diminishing returns in terms of drawing me into a computer game, and you're describing a scenario that would be beyond that point. This pseudo VR would be intriguing, to be sure. Even mind-blowingly fun -- for ten minutes. But it's not the real thing I'm after. What I'm after is the real game.

The only thing that keeps us bloody humans going is change, and if you're going to make a computer game with change, you need a powerful graphics engine and a powerful AI.

I don't know if you have heard of Evolva, but apparently everything changes, morphs into something else randomly, so it's always a different game every time you play. This game needed a 3D engine and a powerful AI.

Just because you make a game 3D doesn't mean you change its freakin GENRE, gods sake! Get a grip, its just giving the game more depth and power, which Civ DESERVES!

Civ and Civ2 were replayable, but! that doesn't mean you can't improve on that!!

Half-Life did it quite well, The Longest Journey did it well, Monkey Island 2, Civ2 did it well through the use of the diplomatic screens, wonder movies and also the council.

It's actualy very hard to use graphics to a strategy games advantage, but I think Black and White will be the first to accomplish it very well.

I seem to remember a game called Myth , and Myth II, etc - didn't that game supposedly have all the 3D graphics, rotatable camera angles, "immersive" view, etc - well, where is it now? And 4 years from now - who will remember it?

Name one game, with all the spiffy "new" and "latest" graphics and technology, that has captured the interest and imagination that Civ II has (a 4 year old game).

Age of Empires and Age of Kings are great games (still 2D) but they do not have the in-depth level of play that CivII does. I wish game companies would realize that the latest and greatest in techno-wizardry is NOT where it's at when it comes to certain games. OK in first-person shooters, racing games and sports games, you want great graphics. But on the scale of Civ II or III - and remember the scale here - this graphics intensive environment would change everything we love about Civ II.

For example, Battlecry (3D Real-Time world) will be a different game from Warlords IV (2D Turn-based). Or that PG3D (a 3D 1999 game) is different from PG2 (2D 1997 game) (the latter has garnered a far greater following than the former). Gee, I wonder why that is?

All Civ III needs is to IMPROVE upon WHAT is already there - some better graphics in cities, military units, etc. Lush terrain (but not too much - let us distinquish what we have on the ground). Great sounds, movie clips, greatly improved AI and diplomacy (via SMAC), a longer technology tree (let it take us longer to move from epoch to epoch), and improve upon the combat (not a "winner takes all" approach).

In short - take what makes Civ II great - tweak it, improve it, make it better - but don't change it...

And if you read through these forums and hear people talk - that is what Civ II players really are looking for. And if they ruin Civ III? (which I strongly doubt) then we will always have CivII for another 4 or 8 or 15 more years...

The juicy interview with Sid Meier is in mp3/ra at:
http://www.gemonthly.com/features/civ3/index.htm

In it he says stuff like how civ3 won't be using cutting edge graphics (quote:"3d extravaganza") so that many people would be able to play.

(Also posted in reply to Loki's question in the Buildings thread.)

I don't understand how being forced to specify where every tank in the entire division is on the field improves the game. I honestly don't want that much detail in a strategy game. Civ (for me ) is about controlling large numbers of units over a large area with a lot of cities and seeing how they react with other civs. This does not require being able to see every millimetre of my world. Talk about micromanagement getting out of hand...

My standard map size is 115x105 (SMAC) or 105x95 (Civ 2) because that is the biggest map my computer (P266MMX laptop, 48MB RAM) can handle at a decent speed. If I could play 1150x1050 I would. Can you imagine how long a single turn in 2010 on BW style map would take to play at that size?

Loki doesn't seem to want to run his civ, he seems to want to be a tourist in it. That's all good, but that's not Civ. That's life, and I thought that that's what The Sims was about. I'm sorry Loki, but the BW scale just doesn't match the style of game Civ is.

1. Even if we have a map of whole Earth in the scale used in B&W, it wouldn't be necessary to draw all of it for each frame, hust the protion the player sees. This way, at maximum only half of the globe would be needed to draw.
2. Even if the map has details 10x10 cm's wide, it wouldn't mean trillions of polygons in each frame. By adding some intelligent code, the level of detail would be decreased when the object is farther.
3. The objects that are not in the player's sight would be handled simply with numbers. Also it wouldn't be necessary to know where every one of the billions of your people are and what they are doing. If people in certain area are handled as a population, all we need to know is what portion of them is attending to what profession, and what the every-day routines of each profession are. Then when player is away, the behavior of each group of people, population, is determined with simple statistical maths. When player comes, can be shown people moving about their tasks. Since there are very many people in the civ and the scale is thousands of years, this is quite enough.
4. The player would not need to adjust each tank millimeter by millimeter. Instead, he could order the whole unit move to certain area, and they would handle themselves. Then the player could micromanage the units if he likes... good AI and automation are the key to handle the MM.
5. Since the game lasts for thousands of years, it's not wise to manage your empire day-by-day. That would take a long time. Instead the game speed could be adjusted, like in X-COM: Apocalypse. When something serious happens, the speed would pause or slow down automatically.

So, with clever programming and design, it would be entirely possible to make a playable and detailed system. But would it be wise, is entirely different thing. Frankly, in civ game so much detail is not necessarily needed, as so many people have said.

But I admit I'd like that kind of game, too. Perhaps it should be an entirely different game. And perhaps in that game the player wouldn't play a 6000 year game, but rather shorter scenarios, and perhaps with a limited playing area, as in Age of Empires.

I'm sure in future there might be games like that, but I have to say it would require a massive amount of work and time to make such a game.

Meanwhile, Loki and all the others wanting more depth in the game, check out the Openciv3 project. Our website is http://civ3.sourceforge.net. No, we don't yet have plans of making a system suggested by Loki, but in future we are going to make a 3d map, and since it is open source, anything is possible in the future. Until that, we will concentrate making the "basic civ" game system, but with more depth than earlier. It is a good intermediate point on the way to Black & White Civilization.

Graphics are great, and more power to them, as long as the game is challenging and fun. Remember, Civ is closer to a board game than it is an action game. The graphics in CTP are the best I've seen in Civ games so far, and they're enough to keep me happy for a long time - just make the gameplay better.

I mean, you should be able to do what the FreeCiv guys want to do --> design 2 different ai scripts that are so powerful that you'll be able to get an absorbing game just by pitting the two script against each other (as in with no humans).

Graphics is only a minor component.

If Civ were to go 3D, I would hope they would buck the current trend of getting alot more graphics and a lot less quantity and variety of things to do (once again, Ultima).

Personally, I don't really see much of the need for it in Civ. Maybe in the "city view" which allows your city to come to life. But from a purely gameplay standpoint, Civ has also been a game where you get to gaze, top down, over your immense gameplay map. Why I would ever need to rotate, look at things from different angles, or zoom in .. I don't know.

What about having some kind of "fly-through" for eye candy afficionados? Sorta like "Streets of Simcity" or "Simcoptor" or whatever. Make it simple, not a flight sim or anything, but just a sort of "god cam." It could replace the "city view" and "throne room" features.

That's right, you don't know.

And the more I try to explain it, the more you people drift your minds and thoughts off into the wrong direction. So it's pointless trying to explain anything!

I'll say this though, you want more from civ, you want better AI, etc, etc. Well, you have to structure the AI around the interface, so, if you want a better AI, a 3D world can give you that better than a 2D world. (Unless you want an unrealistic game of Civilization).

Loki, you're ranting again...

How many time do we have to say it? What you want is to be tourist in your civ, we want mastery over it. To that end, we don't need extremely high-end graphics. Not in Civ3 anyway. I mean, if you enjoy kick-ass graphics so much, just go and play Black and White...

You aren't going to based an AI on an interface, that's just folly. An interface is just a way to let you control the underlying data structures. So I am assuming you are saying that AI should be based on the data structres. Sure, but that's just a given.

AI is extremely hard to write. Even in the simpliest cases such as chess and checkers, programs are no match for humans. I know Deep Blue has defeated Kasparov, but it's just an exception that makes the rule. You don't want to make the data structures 3D. That increases the difficulty manifold. Not doubled, not squared. It's a huge leap.

Civ is a lot harder than chess or checkers. Other than the basic rules, almost everything else changes every game -- starting locations, terrain, neighbors, the whole works.

The "modern" game tends to focus too much on how much eye candy it can give, while then lacking in the real gameplay.

All the 3D-engines Loki is talking about, all very great.. but it's really not something we need in Civ3.

What the Civ,Civ2 games made addictive was the clear interface. You could easily do what you wanted to do and FAST. While still having a bit of depth.

Why would we give Civ3 a full fledged 3D engine?

Advantages:
* Eye candy
* More realistic

Disadvantages:
* Less clarity
* Can cause confusion among the user
* Requires a much more high-end system than a 2d engine (let's face it, the adaptive 3d engine will not be in Civ3). While the CPU/memory could be better used for fast gameplay.

Conclusion

A turnbased game like Civ3 should have a 2D engine.. only battles could be programmed with a 3D engine.
The reason a 2D engine is much more appropiate, is because Civilization is based on a huge map, oh sure we can have a Mini-map like in almost all RTS games.. but with Civ you need a good overview of your Empire and you don't need to see all of your cities in a 3d perspective.

Simplicity is power.
The key to a perfect Civ game is finding the balance between Simplicity and Realism... a balance CTP lacks...

We all hope much of them will me implemented.. but my personal hope tends to fucos on the fact that they make the enhancements easily accessible.

Also, what I liked so much of Civ1,2 is that you could do things very fast.
I bought CTP not a long time ago.. and I was already very annoyed that you could not simply hit 'Enter' to end the turn when you did not want to do anything..

So one thing that will really help in creating an easily acceissble GUI is decent keyboard support. All that clicking can be very tiresome and inefficient (example.. ICQ)

UI Summary:

* Decent keyboard support
* 2D-engine
(3d-engine for battle view)
* 16-bit/32-bit colour support, a nice realistic (and diverse) tileset would be very nice. Realistic animations would also be very nice. The animations in Civ2 are just to cartoonish...
* Easily accessible micro-management options.. the city view in Civ1,2 was already very easy to use. But improvements could certainly be made, like building queues,etc.
And of course more and improved automation options..

My thoughts :-)

There has to be a possible way, PM has done it, please open your minds, think of alternatives!! Stop listening to the creators of games, because they DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING, infact, anyone of us, could be the worlds best game creator. Admit it, games brought out today are so CRAP. There just isn't any thought in it.

Half-Life, that is one game, that has thought put into it, I can't think of any other game that shows it has a lot of thought put in.

Civilization 2150.. no way

quote: Originally posted by STING on 06-07-2000 07:26 AM I bought CTP not a long time ago.. and I was already very annoyed that you could not simply hit 'Enter' to end the turn when you did not want to do anything..

I know you're probably hinting at much more than this problem, but I'll answer it anyway, just in case you didn't know. The 'end turn' shortcut is 'n'. And if you want it to be Enter, there's a text file you can change.

I'll leave Loki to his ranting now.