I know Civilization series never put much emphasis on the graphic. However, beside the great game playing, a better visual can really enhance the gaming experience. It is like cake and milk. Cake (the game playing) tastes good, but without milk (the visual), something is missing. Civilization provides the best "cake". Why not also have the best "milk". The combination of the great game playing and the visual will be greater than the sum of both experiences.

Having better graphic will also increase the sales. This will bring people who disdain the Civilization series because of the poor graphic to buy the game. It will also attract graphic oriented gamers. This means more $$$$$$.

There is not much the Civilization series can improve upon in term of gaming. However, there is a new frontier. The graphic of the game need a lot of improvement. I hope civ4 can expand to this new frontier.

There are few suggestions in term of graphic I want to make.
1. A city should ¡§look¡¨ as if it has more than one square.
2. A more 3-D like map and terrain
3. A more realistic everything including city and map.
4. A more fancy looking city window

Yes, better graphics do add something to the game, but there are also two big problems:

(1) The more complicated the graphics and animations for units, improvements, etc., the harder it is for modders to add their own. Now, personally, I've never made a mod or even played one, but from browsing this site, I get the impression that a lot of people enjoy modding and playing mods, and I think it's great that Civ includes an editor and is (relatively) easy to mod. Flashy graphics would work against this.

(2) One can assume that the developers only have a certain amount of time/money/programmers to devote to creation of the new game, so any focus on fancy graphics will necessarily be at the expense of work on interface, AI intelligence, debugging, and other such things that I personally think are more important than graphics.

:lol: One reason I picked up Civ3 right away was because the graphics were so good! :D

Yes, the graphics of civ3 certainly are good enough. Only they could be altered a bit..

- The standard graphics are too yellow (thanks Snoopy :D)
- And it would be nice to see units not represented by a giant person, but thats just me ;)

I think it's not really like milk, but more like Non-Toxic Glittery Glue.
It won't hurt you badly, and it will make the cake look all shiny, but it'll take your mouth (which represents the computer) alot longer to process the cake and deliver the goods to your stomache (which represents the gamer.) :p
I think the one thing Firaxis should work as little time as possible on is the graphics. Civ3 looks great, making modding tougher and loading longer is not exactly what I'm gonna buy cIV for.

Yes, we need a more fancy looking city window. I want to see a city of +4million poeple with more that 3 big buildings.

I think that the cities should expand( in proportion to their pop), you'll have big biuldings in the middle and smaller ones in the outskirts. And when you destroy a city you'll have ruins scaterd all over.

By the time Civ4 come out you'll probably have a new, better and faster PC.

Civ3's graphics are just fine IMO. They will be better in Civ4 even without us complaining about it, and I just hope that they keep the simple look. It's the content that matters in Civs. The graphics just need to be clear and (preferably) not repulsive. And I actually like the simple graphical looks of Civ3! (Imagine ;) )

Yes, we will have better and newer computers by the time it comes out. Most of us. But what of those who won't? And anyway, even the better computers today take a while to load later-game turns in Civ3... No matter what, cIV will be a more demanding game technically... Graphics will just make it worse.

those who migh have a pc from 1998 are probably those who are complaning, and is they who probably will be buying a pc withing a year or two.

I am not taking about turnnig Civ in to a first person shooter.

Originally posted by EddyG17
those who migh have a pc from 1998 are probably those who are complaning, and is they who probably will be buying a pc withing a year or two.

I am not taking about turnnig Civ in to a first person shooter.
Look, I have a Pentium4 with 2 ghz and 512MB of DDR RAM and an old video card soon to be upgraded. Civ often takes a while to load saves and to load late-game turns. There is no way that I will be significantly upgrading for cIV, even if it means I will have to deal with some loading times. And it will mean that, wether or not the graphics will be improved. The question is how much of a slowdown we're talking about. Better graphics will not improve the gameplay, or the replayability. They will actually hurt replayability because of the increased difficulty of modding. I don't know about you, but when I want eye candy I go play an FPS. When I want quality gameplay with infinite replayability, it's Civ that I go and play.

More to the point, better graphic = harder game to mod.

Do we really want a game where we're stuck with what Firaxis (and a microscopic team of fans with the ressources, time and experience) gives us and unable to make decent units, civilizations and so forth additions and changes because the graphic are too complex for anyone but a professional to work on them?

I say unit-wise, Civ III is already troublesome enough for the graphics at least.

Unitis not need to be changed.
But the terrain they move in could, maybe you could see waves in your coast

Graphics are fine.

I agree that graphics should be improved. I think it would be stupid for developers to use simpler graphics so palyers can "mod easier". There needs to be forward progress in all areas, even graphics. Does it have to be an insane jump forward? Not at all. There are 2 possibilities here: 1. Firaxis releases Civ4 with the same graphics as Civ3. I beleive this would get many complaints, and I think this scenario is very rare in the industry. The only other possibility is that graphics are redone, for better or for worse. And I hope they are better. Maybe they could just up the resolution a bit so there are more pixels to work with? I don't think they should move to full 3D, that would be way too much of a slow down.

I gotta stress this point... Civ does not need better graphics. The graphics right now look very good, and they are easily modded so we get these awesome fan-made terrain sets that we can use if we don't like the originals... Not to mention mods and units of course.
I cannot see any way that 3D could improve this game. None at all. Even multiple levels of terrain elevation could easily be done with 2D.
Waves off my coast? No thanks, I rather my processor calculates the AI's descisions than the movement of water. -.-

Originally posted by Shyrramar
They will be better in Civ4 even without us complaining about it.
This in undoubtedly true: Civ 2 had better graphics than Civ 1, and Civ 3 better than Civ 2. There's no way they'll use exactly the same graphics engine for Civ 4, no matter what we all say here. I think the issue isn't whether better graphics would be a good thing or not, its whether they'll spend too much time on fancy graphics and not enough on great gameplay.
Originally posted by FrenchElvis
I agree that graphics should be improved. I think it would be stupid for developers to use simpler graphics so palyers can "mod easier". There needs to be forward progress in all areas, even graphics. Does it have to be an insane jump forward? Not at all. There are 2 possibilities here: 1. Firaxis releases Civ4 with the same graphics as Civ3. I beleive this would get many complaints, and I think this scenario is very rare in the industry. The only other possibility is that graphics are redone, for better or for worse. And I hope they are better. Maybe they could just up the resolution a bit so there are more pixels to work with? I don't think they should move to full 3D, that would be way too much of a slow down.
I disagree strongly with your second sentence, but the rest of your post is reasonable. Of course they won't use the same graphics as Civ3: it wouldn't really be a brand-new game if they did. And, naturally, we all hope the redone graphics are not worse. But things like where the developers put the most focus/money/time (art vs. gameplay vs. debugging, etc.), what kind of processor power the new game requires, and how easy it is to mod are all valid concerns.

No one's advocating that Civ 4 be playable on a 286, naturally it will require more processor power than Civ 3, just as Civ 3 required more than Civ 2 and 2 more than 1. And no one's suggesting that the developers make a lower quality game just so its easier to mod. We're just hoping that Civ 4 continues the Civ tradition of being playable on the typical computer of its day (as opposed to a gamer's high-end machine), of focusing on gameplay above fancy graphics, and of being friendly towards scenarios and mods. Better graphics don't necessarily conflict with these traditions, but I think there's a great fear that they could, especially if they try to do a fully 3D game.

Well said, judgement. ;)

Yes, I suggest better graphic aspect too.
One level more for the zoom.
Cities hold their original aspect even alfter conquest, only the color changes.

We are not taking about 3D
Cities could expand acording to their landscape, skyscrappers in grassland, suburbs in hill.
When you bomb a city which has expanded maybe you could see at the closest zoom small ruins.
Cities in the desert should look different that cities in in tundra.
Grassland could become more grassy.
roads and railroad could be redone so that they curve according their land scape, when you build a road from mountain to mountain maybe you could see a small brige there in between.

EddyG17, even that would mean - with the current system of graphics - about ten times as many files for city graphics. The result would be that to make a total conversion mod people would have to work way harder, as if it's not hard enough already... I think it could be nice to have graphics for a city in decay or destruction, but seperate graphics for every terrain is really unnecessary.

Look at games like Battlefield 1942, I'm sure it is very time consuming to mod graphics in that game, but people do it and do it well. Better graphics will mean it will be harder to mod them, it's true. But the truly great modders will take the time. I will stick with my beleif that a game developer should never worry about how easy their game is to mod. Laughable.

Laughable?

Perhaps for other games, but when you consider that Civ II : Conflicts in Civilizations, Civ II : Fantastic Worlds AND Civ III : Conquests were *all* based around the very ease of modding you find "laughable", it isn'T as funny anymore.

Civilization is a moddable game series. That has long been one of the series greatest' trademarks - easy to mod games, official game mods. To ruin it now in the name of flashy twelve-years-old-pleasing graphics would be to drop one of the greatest aspects of civ.

Pretty graphics won't keep a game community alive for a good eight years after its release - graphics and such will have moved on by then, and the flashy graphics you thought so cool will be dead.

The mods, on the other hand, can be a big part of doing just that, and have done it for Civilization II.

Please no multisquare cities, it is already hard enough to tell which side of the city rivers are on.

I'm not saying the graphics need to be breathtaking, I'm just saying they need to improve. A little, alot, I really don't care. CivII was a big step up from CivI, Civ III was from CivII. But I personally don't mod, and if a knew a game developer could have mad an improvement but did not for the sole reason that their game would be easier to mod I would be extremely pissed and so would anyone in their rightmind.

I'm not saying no graphics improvements, of course. I'm saying, keep it simple still. IE, no unneeded animated terrain and such.

Civilization without the modding community loses a lot of value.

I understand that the modding community is very important. I just think that ease of modding should not be the driving force behind how they design the graphics. All I want is the graphics to be improved, I don't want the game to look like UT2k4, or any of those fancy games, but I just want it to be the next step above Civ3, keeping with the whole 2D thing is alright.

I liked the metaphore that the "milk" was more like glittery glue, though I tend to think its a lot more dangerous. The entire world is giving into flash over substance, this is nuthin' new, lets face it every indigenous people who ain't no longer indingous to where they once lived, lost their land cuz of bright shiney stuff.

It wasn't plauge, guns or killing the bison that destroyed the first americans it was the fact every simple people (read that as spiritualy connected to the land more than their own greed) wanted things to be easier with the benifits of civilization. The selling point was glass beads & brass nails and too many folks decided pretty was so much better than worthwhile they sold each other out to be more like the invader.

Before I get guff about singling out the first americans...it's happened to every tribal people in every land in every time of history...the franks fell for it with the romans...the saxons/germans/all them people fell for it so much they went and sacked rome to get more glittery stuff of their own.

We become what we fight against.

Nice graphics in a game are nice. If it means sacrificing playablity or interesting features of gameplay then I'd rather have the Black Hills than all the shiney beads in the trader's box.

A comic talked about 70% people worry about how something looks, only 10% worry about what is being said...and I suspect those numbers are truer than I want them to be. The entire gaming industry is geared to High Flash graphics which take your breath away and all the replay value of the average dead skunk. Can't we have one place which still holds sacred the values of chess and go in a modern game? Do we really have to give into the lapdance mentality of pretty pictures in total?

I understand the industry is in it to make money...and if any industry made a non-breakable product, they'd only ever sell 1 per person and go broke. I respect the need to stay competive with the mario-morons and provide higher flash at the cost of something more long lasting.

But Civ is it. There ain't other games out there striving for the perfection of the mind over the perfection of the hand (to eye corridination) Sid M. did something remarkable 20 years ago, he made us gods, and ain't it a shame even little lone gods playing on their magic boxes want to be entertained by electron rather than what their own mind may wrought.

Right on target micmc!
:goodjob:

The reason I brough Civ3 was because it look so damn cool.
I bet the moders would love better graphics because it would mean the they can put as much detail in their work as they want.
with better graphics you could make better looking mods, and if it is too much work for you, you can always move down the ladder.

Originally posted by EddyG17
I bet the moders would love better graphics because it would mean the they can put as much detail in their work as they want.
with better graphics you could make better looking mods, and if it is too much work for you, you can always move down the ladder.
I suppose there is a critical point being made here: better graphics do not always make things worse for modders. So the important thing is that Civ 4 avoid a graphics engine that is difficult for modders to add things to (I fear fully 3D graphics would be in this category). As long as new units, improvements, etc. are easy to add, EddyG17 is right, many modders might appreciate a broader canvas for their art, so to speak.

some of the mod stuff I've seen, the orginal stuff, is incredible. It doesn't seem like the powers that be want to make something impossible to create within for the average (or more than average talented artist types) player. I can't believe their marketing people would let them....if nothing else the sims showed the fun can be in making your own stuff...and I'm all for good graphic changes within the player community.

Which would allow the designers to focus on game depth and ease-of-use. Which would keep just about everybody happy.

PLEASE no 3D map or anything like that!

Spend time coding the AI or new game concepts, not worrying about making 3D Civ!

I'd rather have a game with a great AI and nice concepts too, rather than a game that looks pretty, but is unplayable. Leave it up to the artists, and the modding community to make great graphics.

Originally posted by Trip
PLEASE no 3D map or anything like that!

Spend time coding the AI or new game concepts, not worrying about making 3D Civ!

I second that. And multiplayer, too. Lets have that the first time around this time.

I third (or is that fourth by now?) Trip, Chieftess and capslock's position.

AI and game concepts first, art *very much* later. Civ I, II and III have been great games despite having average graphics at best each in turn - and they *lasted* as great games, because the gameplay and concepts were great.

Let's keep that notion of gameplay and concepts first, art later at the forefront of the design for the next generation.

Personally I don't really mod my game and really want to buy a game with nice graphics. I might, but I appreciate great graphics in a game.

The only thing I worry about is that the code would be rushed so a great game with great graphics would become unplayable like the SimCity4 fiasco.

I'll wait for the great graphics, but I really do appreciate them once I have them.

The next generation is Civ 4.
Better looking graphics will make the game more appeapling to new costumers and make existing costumers more "loyal" to the game. I think that pretty much every one of us would buy Civ4 regardless of how it looks, but for Atari to get more sales the game will need a make over. Don't judge a game for it cover, but that is the way it is done.

Look at games like Battlefield 1942, I'm sure it is very time consuming to mod graphics in that game, but people do it and do it well. Better graphics will mean it will be harder to mod them, it's true. But the truly great modders will take the time. I will stick with my beleif that a game developer should never worry about how easy their game is to mod. Laughable.

Have you considered the size of the audience who plays BF 1942 it is a helluva lot larger than those who play Civ + Those who play civ are generally older (more work = less time) and BF1942 is a game people play professionally, so mods are far more important as that is their day job playing games. We are fortunate the amound of mods we get for civ considering the size of the community. You don't want to hinder this. As for game developers not making games easy to mod, this is a huge selling point these days and is a primary reason PC software is still alive and consoles havn't entirely taken over the world. Because console games can't really be modded. Developers don't always have time to make something perfect and what people want from their game differs from person to person; through modding everyone can get everything they want out of their game.

As for improving graphics. I think integrating terrain elevation needs to be considered. But I don't want it to end up like smac where the power of the different levels of terrain is very difficult to understand. 2D is fine though I think people will improve their comps before civ4 is released and certainly adding higher resolution support is necessary + more detailed graphics. The main processing of civ goes into turn management I doubt adding better looking 2D graphics will affect the speed much, but I'm no expert.

Civ3's graphics are enough, for me.

If downgrading the graphics will be make the game run better, I'm for it.

Why would better graphics make the game harder to mod?

Its been a day now, and nobody knows why better graphics would make the game harder to mod.

Why? Because when they do Civ4 in 3d (my prediction) only those modders who are comfortable with 3D Studio Max will be able to mod it.

I'm guessing that Civ4 will use Gamebryo for its 3D graphics. It's not terribly hard to import graphics into its formats if you've got the plugins for Maya and 3D Studio. (Read this as nearly impossible if you don't).

What makes you think they want to turn Civ to 3D? When i say better graphics I mean better looking terrain, resources, units, cities, etc.

Soren's speech at the Game Developers Conference leads me to believe that they are doing Civ4 in 3D. (The view graphs are on the net) That and their hiring a 3D graphics programmer for Civ4. I know that they are using Gamebryo for their future projects including Pirates! I assume that they are planning on it for Civ4.

On the upside, he's considering using Python for AI scripting.

Soren Johnson at GDC
- Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)
- Modern interface/help conventions
- Continuous, immersive 3D world (what-you-see-is-what-you-get)
- New design vectors (religion, civics)
- RPG elements (unit upgrades/experience)
- Coding from scratch (multiplayer, mod-friendly)
- Can still take over the world!

well if you really think about it the game is partially 3D already, ex. the Units are 3D, the map is 3D too.

The map most definitely is not 3D in Civ3. I've reworked the artwork for every tile and looked through the source code and there is no 3D anywhere in it. Did the artists use 3D packages to render to 2D tiles and animations? Yes, they did. But it is a 2D engine.

Gah... :cry:

I definitely agree with the people who want to see graphics improvements.

I've noted before that the aerial view of the cities is deplorable. I think Firaxis developers are well aware of that. They just don't consider it much of a priority. I don't think their artists and designers are familiar with modeling cities.

One should look at cities that have retained their cultural identity through time to find inspiration for modeling city view in Civ 4.
Look at Florence in Italy, Rothenburg in Germany, Carcassonne in France, Rostov the Great in Russia, and you can get the idea how Medieval cities looked.
Also, gotta keep empty roads filled with houses on both sides.

Another thing is Palace View. They are mostly pretty monsterous looking. But the European Gothic palace bothers me especially :cringe: - a concoction of parts from Gothic cathedrals meshed into a fake palace immitation. You want to see how Gothic palaces looked? Just look at the palaces of Florence, Venice, and Siena in Italy, for example. Keep it real.
Furthermore, why are there no Rennaissance- and Romantic-style palaces, like the great Versailles, the Schoenbrunn, and the Hermitage?

A lot of changes need to happen, which don't really involve a lot of work, just some research.

Look I think the graphics are fine. Instead of making the graphics look fancier, how about making them look unique. By this I mean make units from America look different from units from China. Maybe make an american frigate be a 2 masted sailing ship, and one from china look more like a Junk, with triangle sails. Make each culture look unique, but still have the same stats. During the American Revolution Both sides had musketmen, ours wore blue coats, british wore red coats. Something like that I think would make the game 'look' better.

I am fairly sure that they are using a 3D engine for Civ IV. It will be more difficult for modders, however many modders are using 3D software to render images to place into civ 3.

Smart game developers definitely aim at the mod community and community in general. Consider the mother of all modding communities: Half-Life. People still buy Half-Life, a game that does not look so good now. More people probably play HL mods than anything else online. Valve is working with the community to have mods ready to play with HL2 when it comes out. In fact I think they are realeasing a version of Counter-Strike that uses the HL2 engine.

Also, there are many companies that do not concentrate on flash over substance. Total War is a good example of this. I have not played RTW yet, but all the others only looked okay for the day, but had great gameplay. The graphics were representative and allowed me to play better.

Overall, I favor the simple graphical style of the civ series. It left a lot for the imagination to think about battles, movements, and cities. The city view needs to be modified, and some suburban sprawl would be attractive, but that is about it.

actually wouldn't it be easier to actually mod in Civ4 because all we need is a plug-in to export the file format of our models and animations so we don't have to go through rendering all the views and all that junk. i think it would actually be easier.

Yes, Blackbird, it will be easier if you are already doing your mods in 3D.

Look I think the graphics are fine. Instead of making the graphics look fancier, how about making them look unique. By this I mean make units from America look different from units from China. Maybe make an american frigate be a 2 masted sailing ship, and one from china look more like a Junk, with triangle sails. Make each culture look unique, but still have the same stats. During the American Revolution Both sides had musketmen, ours wore blue coats, british wore red coats. Something like that I think would make the game 'look' better.

Darn straight. Personally I would like each civ to have all units be unique in name and look, and stats can still match up. Imagine facing Blackwatches versus Minutemen.

I agree with many of the later messages and I, in fact, feel rather certain that they will make C4 both 3D and include culture specific graphics for units etc. The conquests in C3 already pointed to this direction (culture specific units for Japan and others) and I think the people who are planning this game know that they will have to go the whole way for C4.

In fact, in one of my old posts I wondered if the 'map' for Civ4 would actually be a globe that you could turn and roll in a 3D view and zoom in and out (as you like) to move your units. I doubt computers are powerful enough for that in time for C4, but that's probably the direction we are heading...

It's already too hard to make your own Civ3 graphics units, why make it harder? I liked cdtigst's idea, but I'm guessing he's part of the brilliant people at cdgroup.com who made the Balancer mod. I like DyP better, but Balancer's good too. He'll probably know a lot about modding. I liked the 3D terrain idea, and you could have features and stuff similar to several games, where you can rotate and go into the canyon and see troops on the mountains. Like Command and Conquer. That's the game I was looking for.