Most City Improvement icons are clearly identifiable, while other is, in my oppinion, very hard to read. A few examples.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0006.jpg http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0011.jpg http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0051.jpg http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0041.jpg

Recognize these? These icons reprecent Broadcast Tower, Castle, Theater and Lighthouse. Nice drawings. These are just examples, most other icons are great.

The two worst icons are in my oppinion:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0042.jpg http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0052.jpg

To me, the first icon looks like a corner of a table on fire - thats supposed to be a marketplace... The second one, I've been staring on that one for looooong time to see where the university is hidden in that picture. I finally got to the conclusion, that it isn't supposed to look like a university at all, but that the black thingy probably is the corner of a hat. Dunno 'bout the rest.

Am I a unique idiot, or are there others out there who finds these icons worthy for a redraw?

Not to forget the religous buildings:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0036.jpg http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0037.jpg http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0038.jpg

These are Jewish Temple, Monastery and Synagogue - but which is which? - quick!! I think that the religious icons are pretty, but hard to identify - especially with all these different religions. A common symbol on the icons for Temple, Monestery and "Cathedral", for instance, 1, 2 and 3 small stars on the icons could help..

What icons do you like/dislike most?

I agree that the icons for Market and University are...below par. I can tell that the University icon is a graduation cap on top of a diploma...but only after four months of squinting at it trying to figure out what it is. All I can still tell about the Market icon is that it somehow involves a table.

The Hospital icon is also pretty bad. If I squint at the one in the "City Improvements" part of this site, it's a bloodstained hospital bed with the sheets pulled back. Ingame, however, it looks like a pillow that's been brutally stabbed to death.

the market icon has joints of meat on a table with a knife. i got that easily enough:p agreed though, i can't tell the relig. buildings apart.

Its the size that matters for the religious buildings. A temple is little, so the left one, a synagoge is probably bigger so it belongs to the middle one and a monastery is a giant building with many little priests, so therefore the left one. Easy, ey?

For the university, you must be American or have watched American teenage movies about graduation or whatsoever, they weear these awkward hats to show they've accomplished college. Only the marketplace is quite ugly, I agree on that.

To be honest I had never even heard of some of the religious buildings before the game release. If you would have asked me what a Mandir was I couldn't have guessed. Add that to the fact the icons are small and I agree that some can be hard to recognize at a glance. I for one like netbjarne's idea of adding one, two or three stars to help differentiate them.

Then there is the added problem of zooming in on an enemy city and trying to figure out what improvements it has. Can anyone zoom in to a city and correctly identify all the improvements and buildings?

To be honest I had never even heard of some of the religious buildings before the game release. If you would have asked me what a Mandir was I couldn't have guessed. Add that to the fact the icons are small and I agree that some can be hard to recognize at a glance. I for one like netbjarne's idea of adding one, two or three stars to help differentiate them.

Then there is the added problem of zooming in on an enemy city and trying to figure out what improvements it has. Can anyone zoom in to a city and correctly identify all the improvements and buildings?
I doubt I can identify "all", but I can identify a lot of them...some more easily than others, of course :lol:

They are just icons. It's not like you can't highlight them and see what they are. After a few games you should know what each one is.

They are just icons. It's not like you can't highlight them and see what they are. After a few games you should know what each one is.
Well yeah...that's not the point. He didn't ask "can you identify all the icons", he asked "what icons were the hardest to identify because they looked nothing like what they represent, despite you knowing them by now".

Personally I just hate icons. Didn't most of the human civilisations abandon hieroglyphics after the development of alphabets ? It has of course been said that one picture is worth a thousand words, but that only applies when you are trying to describe a physical object, not trying to use a tiny image to represent an abstract concept or a real one such as a building. For this reason I was delighted when the patch replaced pagefuls of icons with readable lists: no more bodging about trying to identify the unit you're seeking information about, for example.

I find it odd that the market icon involves meat, yet the market itself has nothing to do with meat in the game. The meat resources are boosted by the supermarket.

To me, the first icon looks like a corner of a table on fire - thats supposed to be a marketplace...

It's actually supposed to be the Grocer icon. There's a mistake in the XML and those two icons were switched.

I think these are the worst:

http://civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0030.jpg http://civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0039.jpg http://civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0042.jpg http://civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0052.jpg

I'd use a white building with a red H helipad on top for the hospital (like in Sim City 4). It's a lot easier to identify than what looked like a bloody pillow.

A stereotypical beaker/flask on a lab table would probably be best for a laboratory -- the current one's too cluttered, doesn't show up well when shrunk to the ingame size. Looked like computer tape spilling out of something at first :)

Two hands trading bartered goods would be good for a market, better than the *cough* flaming table :)

I'm not sure what you could replace the University symbol with.

The religious buildings are hard to tell between. I think it'd be best with having an extra religion symbol on each level of building.

All the others are pretty good -- a good icon is one with a stylized representation of what it stands for. Whole purpose of an icon...

Aside from the market and religious buildings being crappy, I think the Heroic Epic icon looks more like a crashed airplane wreckage than a chariot.

isn't heroic epic a helmet?

Interesting, I never had problem with lab of hospital icons.
They were pretty nice for me.

As for market one, I pretty much agree with other posters.

I think the only retarded one is maket. The rest are pretty good. All the different Jewish buildings are a bit similar but I rarely get that religion and all the others are pretty good.

That market icon does look pretty bad. It almost looks like a forge with all those red.

Market is pretty odd. I pretty much agree with the OP.

That market icon does look pretty bad. It almost looks like a forge with all those red.

But it's not the Market icon, it's the one for the Grocer. You of all people should know that.

I can recognize the Hospital icon quickly, but I still find it disturbing. What's with the blood all over the pillow and sheets? And where did the bleeding patient go?

I can recognize the Hospital icon quickly, but I still find it disturbing. What's with the blood all over the pillow and sheets? And where did the bleeding patient go?


The red on the sheets is just the strawberry jell-o he had for lunch and spilled some of. The patient is fine and was released with a clean bill of health.


It's not hard to recognize, but wouldn't the jail icon be improved by showing jail bars?

Maybe something like:

115914

But it's not the Market icon, it's the one for the Grocer. You of all people should know that.
Ok, I check the Pedia and you are right. The table on fire one is the Grocer.

But it's not the Market icon, it's the one for the Grocer.
Regardless, it's still an ambiguous icon :)

Market, Grocer, whatever...a flaming table doesn't represent either one all that well :lol:

isn't heroic epic a helmet?

I think it's supposed to be a chariot car/cab statue, but then I thought the flaming market/grocer was a pile of gold and not a pile of meat.

I think that most of Civ 4 icons are rather hard to understand or image what it stands for. This applies not only to improvement or building icons/buttons but also to technology, units, bonus resource and commands icon/buttons.
Firaxis made a mistake of trying to make these buttons look like a real picture, not symboic icon.
Civ 4 uses icons that looks like concrete and real life-like small pictures. But I would like to make buttons more abstract symbolic pictogram and cartoon-like picture, whcih resembles symbols used in city map. For example, grocer icon should be small hanging signboard of typical grocer. If they insist meat grocer, sign board having picture of simplified cow head would be nice.
University icon should be just simple graduation hat, not life-like picture of the hat and diploma.
I had some difficulty in associateing picture of the bonus on ground or small iconic display of the resource in resource vie turned on.
The life-like icon/button design is a feature of Civ 4 that I dislike most.
Firaxis need more creative artist who understands symbolic power of the simple graphics in human-intercae design.

I can recognize the Hospital icon quickly, but I still find it disturbing. What's with the blood all over the pillow and sheets? And where did the bleeding patient go?

To the grocers. ;)

To the grocers. ;)
And was burned to death by the flaming table when he went to grab something from it. :eek:

^^no no no. The meat on the table is, was the patient.

I have to agree about flaming table!

Market, BTW, is this one:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0025.jpg

I think that's quite a clear one.

I have to agree about flaming table!

Market, BTW, is this one:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/buildings_sm_0025.jpg

I think that's quite a clear one.

That's grocer I thought.

TABLE ON FIRE ROCKS!!! :dance:

That's grocer I thought.

It was supposed to be the Market. There's a mistake in the XML file and the icons were switched. I understand that will be fixed in the next patch.