Is anyone interested in maintaining a city-set of the month contest, like Flamand's one for units?

I do not want to do it since i make city graphics, but if anyone else does it would be great imo :)

ps: it could either be monthy, or bi-monthly, depending on how much work is posted, and it may bring new life to this sector of civ3 modding

It would be fantastic, but I haven't seen anyone else than you making city sets these days (edit: oops, I've seen one from and Aion recently).

Ogedei is making some sets too from time to time; he just uploads more rarely because he is making only 4-era sets now i think :)

Good to know.
Anyway if there are enough competitors it would be as good as the unit maker challenge.

Maybe you could establish a limit, like 5 city sets for each month. If there are more than five no problem, if there are less wait another month. Another idea would be to admit multiple entries from the same maker (but just with the condition that you can't participate alone!).

I've been thinking of making a city set lately. Maybe I'll get around to actually doing it if a competition is held.

Then again, maybe not. :p

A good rule would be to include each seperate era of a multi-era set as a different entry; this way if one makes a 4-era set he immediately has four entries ;)

This is a very good idea. But only if you aren't the only maker from that month.

Well civ3 city sets are pretty much dead atm, apart from my work and some sets by Aion and Ogedei, but if there is a competition there may be a new interest in them, and new city creators appearing.

Also there could be a retro feature ;) With the presentation of some sets of old etc etc


In reality civ3 city work never did take off. In the old days the main creator was RedAlert, who has now sadly left the forums :(
Unlike what had happened in civ2, with hundreds of sets being produced, the larger scale of civ3 cities made new work less easy to make.
One may think that it is easy to make a static graphic, but in reality the size of a civ3 set is such that you have to really plan your work if it is going to look at least decent. In civ2 the significantly smaller size of the cities allowed for less planned work, and the development of micro-graphic teckniques which later on were standardised, as can be seen in the Apolyton civ2 city-set collection. In Civ3 this never happened; there are still individual styles, and there hasnt been any attempt to form any compatible style. Even the shadowing is different. Imo this is what prevented this sector of civ3 modding from taking off, something which had happened with civ3 unit making due to the introduction of a paperdoll :)

I hope too that there will be new interest in city making. We already saw one member who thought of making a city set after seeing this thread.

The retro idea sounds good too.

What about a graphic of the month? It could be anything non-animated/PCX- cities, terrain, buildings, etc. There would be more competition that way.

Ogedei is making some sets too from time to time; he just uploads more rarely because he is making only 4-era sets now i think :)

And because I am constantly being pestered by an annoying little aspect of my time which can be called "real life." ;) I'm still working on cities; I just can't crank out cities very fast. I should get the third era for my Vietnam city set done by this coming weekend, though. :)

Well, it could be an interesting alternative to the World Sauna Championships (http://www.scandinavica.com/culture/sports/sauna.htm). The only problem is that if city making is sauna competition then you are the Finns - hardly anybody else is doing it :lol: Ok, there's Ogedei and me, but both of us are... well, not very industrious ;) So like 95% of the city set output comes from you. It would definitely be a good idea if there were more city makers. But we're on a sinking ship, aren't we? :(

What you say about the development of city creating is quite interesting IMO. Haven't thought it from that point, but you might be right. I still think that city making is the easiest gfx modding discipline around (that's why I'm making this...). But you're right, the paper doll has standardised unit making pretty much, while in city making different artists have their own styles.

I still think that we could agree on some sort of standardising of style, or have two or three standard styles, one from each creator.
For example i made my last three sets using the same city shape and most of the building placement was again standard. If you watch them carefully you will note that only some major buildings in the center are really entirely different, and then some peripheral buildings change drastically in form, and then the houses only change in colour.
In this way there can be a form of standard style :)

Ogedei does pretty much the same thing with his work. The center is always the same, taken from the firaxis asian set. Then there is a tower, and some small houses, which change in texture. Then the larger buildings can be more different.

Hmm... maybe City set of the year? :)
C`mon varwnos, you are the only one that posts city files every so often, Aion and Ogedei work alot slower cos of the reasons they posted above. So lets just call you the THE CITY MAKER OF THE PRESENT TENSE, and have them challenge you every once in a while :)

I still think that we could agree on some sort of standardising of style, or have two or three standard styles, one from each creator...
I don't see any positive value in comformity.

What about a graphic of the month? It could be anything non-animated/PCX- cities, terrain, buildings, etc. There would be more competition that way.Yeah, I prefer this too.

well this was originally my Idea, but never followed it thru. Im too busy at the moment to do this, I hope someone can.

I don't see any positive value in comformity.


Try using the firaxis euro medieval along with redalert's mideastern set. The sizes of houses in the first are liliputian in comparisson to the other.

When you asked me this a couple of months ago I thought it would be kind of useless since it would be a competition between Varwnos, Varwnos and Varwnos... :lol:
But since there seems to be a demand I'll start one right away... ;)

Maybe these competitions should be stickied?

Is anyone interested in a "Rambuchan of the Month" contest?

;)