If (when) this happens its no surprise really, modders can improve graphics for years to come while game developers dont have that kind of time.
Yes, but we shouldn't have to wait for modders for good graphics.
The point here is that the level of graphics should be a significant step up from civ 4. They really don't look like it. The rivers are terrible, even the ones in civ 4 looked better!
Don't get me wrong, not *all* of it looks bad. There are just small things that really need polishing (and I'm hoping that's what they're doing now).
- Rivers annoy me the most, especially the shoreline blending with the land and the texture used for rivers needs to be better too. At the moment it looks like a stagnant sea, i.e. it doesn't look like a flowing river.
- Some land textures still seem very bland (there are ways to make all terrain interesting, even deserts and plains)
- Hills look great, but the mountains are lack-luster - they just look like stretched hills. Hopefully this just takes a re-worked texture that can handle the stretching height of a mountain.
- Farms are cool but the still seems to go under the sea and rivers. This needs to be fixed up (this is not something a mod can do, it needs to be fixed in the game engine)
- Roads also seem very lack-luster compared to earlier civs.
Now, I may have been negative, so here are the things I love:
- The sea looks awesome, love the sun-light reflection
- I love that that fog of war is literally a storm/fog out on the horizon.
- The hills look cool
- The city buildings look interesting and loving the wonders (e.g. saw a pyramid in one shot)
- Ships look cool with reflections in the water and when they fire their guns
- Forests are cool and I like how sometimes they get sparse going up hills.
- I saw in a video a city burning when it's under seige, seems really cool as it's worn down you see parts of the city go black from being completely burnt out.
- UI looks great =D