We've also got a new edition of ask the Civ team.

And oh, by the way, we have some official screenshots for you as well.
http://www.firaxis.com/civ3

Have a good weekend,

I have finished reading through everything and it looks pretty good. I am glad to see strong influences from master of orion showing up in this game.
I still think there should be a public beta test of civ3 especially on the multiplayer side. I am sure you will find many people willing to help that are programmers and familier with defect tracking/reporting.. like me hint hint

My guess is yes, that when you originally build a city you can only farm, mine, etc in your own city. And as culture is added that radius expands. But what about that huge border radius around Rome? Can I place workers anywhere within that border? I would guess not. And by looking at the gallery it has the standard Civ, Civ II, SMAC border tiles shown where the city is going to be founded. So I wonder how exactly does workers in a city work?

Also if luxuries and resources can be shared within your own nation's trade community can more than one nation build colonies near these resources and also gain their advantages? Or do they have to trade with you?

I would say that only one nation can build colonies on a resource and force the world to trade with you. But that is just my belief.

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 05-11-2001 05:55 PM This is somethig that I haven't been able to figure out for sure so I am asking the community and Firaxis if they have time. I have now read the pages multiple times and am confused by the borders. Obviously as the borders expand due to culture, the better your chances for gaining resources such as coal, iron, and oil. But what about regular resources such as food, shilds, and trade? Do I know need to have culture and borders to simply maintain the normal level of production in the past? My guess is yes, that when you originally build a city you can only farm, mine, etc in your own city. And as culture is added that radius expands. But what about that huge border radius around Rome? Can I place workers anywhere within that border? I would guess not. And by looking at the gallery it has the standard Civ, Civ II, SMAC border tiles shown where the city is going to be founded. So I wonder how exactly does workers in a city work? Also if luxuries and resources can be shared within your own nation's trade community can more than one nation build colonies near these resources and also gain their advantages? Or do they have to trade with you? I would say that only one nation can build colonies on a resource and force the world to trade with you. But that is just my belief. That's it for my questions.

The way it currently stands, your borders are seperate from your "workable city tiles". The number of city tiles you can work does increase as your city grows, but it doesn't expand nearly as far as your city borders do. Even if your city has only the beginning 1-square (no) border, you can work the requisite number of surrounding squares. But until those squares actually fall within your borders, the enemy can come onto them and do what he pleases. Once you've got borders around those squares, you can tell the other players to get out (and in most cases, they listen).

As for colonies, the resources go to whoever builds a colony and connects it with a road first. Consequently, colonies become key while your borders are expanding, and if you leave them unguarded or weakly guarded, you will pay the price. Also, since colonies need to be connected to a city with roads, an enemy can destroy your roads and sever the connection to that resource.

This can be disastrous, especially when you're relying on goods to pacify unhappy citizens. I had a game going this week and the CPU destroyed my roads at a key juncture and sent four cities into revolt.

But those screen shots are just mouth watering!!!

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 05-11-2001 05:55 PM Obviously as the borders expand due to culture, the better your chances for gaining resources such as coal, iron, and oil. But what about regular resources such as food, shilds, and trade? Do I know need to have culture and borders to simply maintain the normal level of production in the past?

Yup looks that way to me. You can only harvest your own city square until you build a temple or other improvements. Its brillant and solves so many problems. The biggest one of which is ICS. It looks like you won't even be able to produce a settlar until you have a temple built.(your city needs food to get to size 3) The other thing this solves is that someone won't be able to build a ton of units right off the bat and try and go hunting down others. Because getting your city up to size 3 is going to be your number one task...

quote: Originally posted by SerapisIV on 05-11-2001 06:17 PM Oh yeah, and does a colony take up a whole settler? Or can a simple worker build one? Because if a colony takes up 2 pop, why not just build a new city? Also do the borders depend on an individual cities cutlture or the whole nations?

Let me guess, worker settlars build colonies and the settlars that take up 2 food build cities.

quote: Originally posted by Snapcase on 05-11-2001 07:02 PM Dan: Nothing happens when I click the links on the slide show. Is the highlighting (or whatever) a (gasp!) IE-only feature?

Just to check for you I quickly downloaded Netscape 6.0 and yes it does appear to be a IE only feature. If I get some time tonight I'll see if I can get some screen captures to allow all you Netscape people a chance to see what Firaxis has in store.

quote: Originally posted by SerapisIV on 05-11-2001 06:15 PM Dan, what the heck is the psychodelic peace flag in the city window of the last resource tutorial screenshot? Thanks for the update by the way

Programmer art, baby!

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 05-11-2001 07:12 PM Just to check for you I quickly downloaded Netscape 6.0 and yes it does appear to be a IE only feature. If I get some time tonight I'll see if I can get some screen captures to allow all you Netscape people a chance to see what Firaxis has in store.

As promised, here you go. Not the highest quality due to size of file shrinking coming from a screen capture. But anyway...

Screen 1
Screen 2
Screen 3
Screen 4
Screen 5
Screen 6
Screen 7
Screen 8

quote: Originally posted by SerapisIV on 05-11-2001 06:15 PM Dan, what the heck is the psychodelic peace flag in the city window of the last resource tutorial screenshot? Thanks for the update by the way

My guess, a "we love the king day."

I wonder about whether luxuries/resources are stackable with one another (ie. if you have two units of silk your people are happier than with one). I guess so, as you can see several resources/luxuries of the same type in one area.

Have no fear! You will indeed be able to decide which tiles within your city border your citizens "work"."

For the next time it would be great to hear more talk about Minor Civs, and some more information about the number of civs in a game. Also, it would be really super to hear more about Nuclear Weapons: What kind of defenses are available against them, will instant retaliation be possible, how will it work ... etc.

----To Dan Magaha FIRAXIS: The Following Contents of This Post Are Irrelevent To Game Development, Please Do Not Waste Time Reading----

“Resources and luxuries outside of your borders can be made available by building a colony. Trade networks can also cross air and water via airports and harbors.”

This is fantastic!! I love the concept of colonies, nice implementation, very realistic, and of course, very fun! I very much like the concept of trade routes by air, also incredibly realistic and something I always dreamed about!

I know most you guys hate annoying graphics, but I think it would be cool if you could see the cargo planes taking off and flying to other cities (I.E. like SC3K), and boats making trade runs with appropriate graphics to whichever age you are in. I know, I know . . . Civ isn’t about graphics, but I can dream if I want too.

“Foreign nationals will reside in captured cities and may choose to resist your rule, or throw your city into revolt.”

Foreign Nationals? Great stuff ... great stuff! You really gotta keep an eye on them though, they’ll slip away from you the first chance they get.

“You'll be pleased to know that the "city view" is back, and will indeed reflect the current state of your city, from wonders to city improvements. You'll even be able to see differences in your city between major eras of the game. Finally, each civilization is reflected in the architecture of buildings within your city. Culture type and era (along with city size) will also determine how your city appears on the main map screen.”

Did you see the way cool city screen view? Look at the graphics, look at how they improved the forest and resolution. See guys? Not to be rude or anything, but IMHO you had no basis for complaining about how the city view screen looked. Great stuff Firaxis!! You still need have a little more work to on the map screen though.

Timeline

That said, i must say that the rivers are fantastic, while the pine forests are a nice touch too It's also good that Civ3 is avoiding the "total beach" look of CTP, which was ridiculous. The Civ3 coasts look generic in that they're too macro to define beaches or rocks or cliffs. This is fine, although i would think that a nice touch would be to include a mixture of beaches and rocky headlands. Hill tiles on coasts should be reflected by cliffs, while mountains could be defined by a sharp drop into the sea with little or no shallows. Of course, they are no more than eye candy, but only serve to enhance the feel of the game.

Okay, so the game isn't finished, and neither are the graphics, but this is constructive criticism, so a couple of suggestions couldn't hurt

the resource thing was good, it worked for me using Netscape Communicator 4.5

So I guess a worker can build a colony, just to work that one resource...
so the colony disappears once the resource comes within your borders. do you get your worker back?

THANKS!!!!

Love the way resources are coming up to be. Those buggers could actually work, I tell you, work! And special units might also not be as bad as first suspected. Still hoping that religion would be in, but it's a long shot, I guess If not religion, then at least bit more formed enemy cultures - for instance, allow me to decide if my state tolerates their existence or tries to actively throw them our.

quote: Originally posted by Stefu on 05-12-2001 03:24 AM One quibble. One thing I never liked in CtP was that there wasn't enough "buildable land". To me, "buildable land" is something you plop your cities in, and it means grassland, in emergency plains are also fine. Looking at screenshots, I'm beginning to wonder if land type allocation is more like in CtP, which I didn't like, than in Civ2, which I liked. Will there be huge swatches of grassland for me to colonize?

Good point! Although I dont think above problem was that apparent in the screenshots. Anyway; NO huge continental-sized areas of "non-buildable" terrain-types. Grasslands and plains should be the base, while terrain-types like jungle, swamp, hills, mountains should be proportionally and carefully sprinkled on top of that - not just layed out in enormous monotone country- or in extreme cases: even continental-sized chunks. Yes, I know about the Amazones, but country/continental chunks of it should be avoided anyway, for gameplay reasons.
Forrests and deserts is a middle-ground terrain-type in this respect. Glaciers and tundras preferbly mostly near the poles. Avoid mixing glacier and tundra side by side with desert and jungle.

quote: Originally posted by Nikolai on 05-12-2001 05:27 AM But one thing I would like to know: Will the colonies be able to grow till they are a new city, or will we have to build a city with a settler or wait till the borders grow? If the colony is far away, it would be difficult, if not say impossible to just wait till the border is huge enough!

I dont believe that colonies can grow into to cities. And therefore they can never produce any "hardware" by themselves. They are merely city-area coverage-extensions - no more, no less. And thats good enough, I think. Also, they dont have to be swallowed up later by your growing borders - its enough that they are road-connected with your city through out the game.

The ressource ideas are very good (especially that the player has to defend its ressources/colonies), gfx are fine, and I see no problem with unique civs/units.

Someone an idea about the borders? What indicate them exactly? Can units of other civs walk through them, as long as you have peace, or not?