A problem with 2d leader backgrounds

[Haig]

Well many people were very upset there was just a static wonder screen in Civ 5 instead of wonder movies of previous games, and there was NONE victory movies as previously(and Civ 6 brings those back)

After Civ 5 launch the forums were most bitter I have ever seen as people were angry about missing features, lack of diplomacy, lacklustre moddability and multiplayer.

The animated leader backrounds didn't comfort much back then!

Yeah people have all the right to miss them but in my opinion the leader backrounds, which are going to be under all the diplomacy options and info, are just a superficial scratch on the game surface that I wonder how it can be such a big deal.

I hope it makes the diplo screens load up much faster, I'm not very excited when in the middle of A.I. turns diplo screen starts loading as Pacal pops in to comment the small size of my army.

 

[AriochIV]

I would have been fine with the CivBE method of dropping the leader background altogether and showing the leader directly on the map. At least the Civ VI version of the leader background still shows your resource bar at the top.

Doing wonder and victory "movies" in-engine is exactly the right way to go. That way they can be customized to your game and enhance the experience rather than taking you out of it.

 

[Josephias]

Pushing a bit further what Arioch said, the in-game engine would offer a quite nice background for each leader, it being its capitol and surronding lands in the fog of war-covered / painted map mode.

 

[CoolLizy]

One of the things I was hoping they'd do in Civ VI was implement the more dynamic leader environments that were originally planned for Civ V. (The courtiers that were supposed to be in Elizabeth's throne room, the men gathered around the war planning table behind Bismark, etc.) Looks like they decided to spend their budget elsewhere.

 

[Loaf Warden]

Pushing a bit further what Arioch said, the in-game engine would offer a quite nice background for each leader, it being its capitol and surronding lands in the fog of war-covered / painted map mode.

Oh, that would have been beautiful. Center the map on the leader's capital when you enter diplomacy with them, so you see the leader in the foreground and (most of the time, as you won't generally have units in the vicinity of their capital unless you're about to capture it) a "hand-drawn" map of the center of their empire in the background. Or if you don't know where their capital is yet, just center the map on a random patch of unexplored map to keep the ambience of the map background without giving away their location.

Attention, Firaxis: Please drop what you're doing with the leader screens and make this a thing, stat!

 

[CoolLizy]

Oh, that would have been beautiful. Center the map on the leader's capital when you enter diplomacy with them, so you see the leader in the foreground and (most of the time, as you won't generally have units in the vicinity of their capital unless you're about to capture it) a "hand-drawn" map of the center of their empire in the background. Or if you don't know where their capital is yet, just center the map on a random patch of unexplored map to keep the ambience of the map background without giving away their location.

Attention, Firaxis: Please drop what you're doing with the leader screens and make this a thing, stat!

This is sort of what Beyond Earth did with its leaders. Personally I didn't care for it, but YMMV.

 

[Civciv5]

These 2D backgrounds just look immersion-breaking to me. The leaders of CivV were beautifully designed and nothing is ever going to top that.

Also just putting some painted background sounds like a lazy animation team or poor effort, or both, perhaps in combination with budget limits.

 

[Novu]

They probably spent their 3D budget on Wonder cinematics so the leader backgrounds turned into paintings.

I much preferred the Civ5 approach where Wonders were paintings and the leaders got 3D back grounds.

 

[stealth_nsk]

They probably spent their 3D budget on Wonder cinematics so the leader backgrounds turned into paintings.

I much preferred the Civ5 approach where Wonders were paintings and the leaders got 3D back grounds.

Civ6 seem to have much bigger 3d budget spent on leaders. Animations are a way more detailed and personalized. Having the same animations for horses under each leader was wuite funny in Civ5.

 

[DeutschDachs]

Civ6 seem to have much bigger 3d budget spent on leaders. Animations are a way more detailed and personalized. Having the same animations for horses under each leader was wuite funny in Civ5.

They only did that for Mongolia as a rushed DLC. I wouldn't say Civ VI has much more detailed leaders... it's just a different style.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I'll take 2D static leaders V advisors style with era specific clothing and background any day. If anything V leaders BROKE my immersion... inconsistency in style and uncanny valley is BAD mkay. No matter how well Washington is animated and no matter how much he'll spin that globe in the stone age, it won't make me happy, it will make me cringe. That's just my opinion and I'll stick to it... and never tire repeating it

 

[TheKillerNacho]

Personally I liked Civ 5's realistic style and leader boards, and am disappointed they won't be returning to 6. Having said that, it is no where near a deal-breaker for me.

 

[darko82]

My problem with them is that all of them are too dark (basically 3 of them).

 

[Lord Tirian]

Attention, Firaxis: Please drop what you're doing with the leader screens and make this a thing, stat!

Additionally, if done correctly, it keeps more of the regular UI around, solving the problem of not being able to access information - you could still open all the usual reports and advisor screens to check your current state. Additionally, if you could still scroll around the map, it would work well with Civ6 moving more gameplay - and hence, information - to the map.

 

[ehecatzin]

I don't mind the 2d backgrounds, fully rendered bg does have pros, like creating a better ambience and having the character interact with it. However, they also come with cons, like being really damm costly to create, and also due to the artistic style of Civ5, really limited the characters movemement range. Each leader screen in civ5 looks like a painting it really feels like they wouldn't move the leaders too much in order not to destroy the composition, as in:

Theodora not moving an inch, and half the leaders being sit, some leaders screens allowed for a lot of character movement, but most didn't.

I prefer what they are doing in civ6 TBH, let the bg be just that, and free the characters to act as much as they want, and if Cleopatra animation is any indication, I think it was a good choice.

 

[Morningcalm]

The main reason I'm not fond of the 2D backgrounds is that the ones we have seen so far are a bit too rough.

I think paintings *could* work and be more novel than 3D backgrounds in the long run.

As Dorian Gray of Penny Dreadful put it, paintings capture eternity, whereas photographs (3D backgrounds) only capture a single moment in time.

 

[Krajzen]

The main reason I'm not fond of the 2D backgrounds is that the ones we have seen so far are a bit too rough.

I think paintings *could* work and be more novel than 3D backgrounds in the long run.

As Dorian Gray of Penny Dreadful put it, paintings capture eternity, whereas photographs (3D backgrounds) only capture a single moment in time.

Thanks for that quote, I found it in the original version

Photographs are so ironically impermanent. They capture one moment in time to perfection. A painting can capture eternity.

I like it!

 

[Morningcalm]

Thanks for that quote, I found it in the original version

Photographs are so ironically impermanent. They capture one moment in time to perfection. A painting can capture eternity.

I like it!

Thanks for finding the full quote! XD I thought "Eh, it's hard enough to italicize things with code on an iPhone, so no need to find the exact quote."

But yeah, paintings *can* be better than 3D backgrounds (since both aren't exactly interactive anyway). But what we have seen so far has not impressed me. Maybe a moving painting would be better. Like golden cards in Hearthstone.

 

[isau]

The backgrounds in Civ V were okay, but IMO often immersion breaking for me. Much prefer a more abstract background. Tokugawa having meetings in a grassy field when his capital is a desert metropolis... LOL.

What would be unbelievably awesome BTW would be for the leader to meet with you in front of a random World Wonder they own. And leaders with no World Wonders would always be a little bit scandalized by it.

 

[darko82]

These 2D backgrounds just look immersion-breaking to me. The leaders of CivV were beautifully designed and nothing is ever going to top that.

Also just putting some painted background sounds like a lazy animation team or poor effort, or both, perhaps in combination with budget limits.

Exactly. That said.

And I wonder if all of the Civ VI backgrounds are going to be so dark?