About The Graphics of Civ VI

[King Jason]

It's a style choice and I think it's fair to ask why they made it, especially because it looks absolutely ridiculous and childish.

Says you.

Some people like the graphics, others dont. Also, it's not a fair question. It's the art direction and it isn't going to change - They don't need to justify the decision to anyone.

I'm telling you right now as a man in my thirties, if I were in charge of the design of a civ game and the art team presented me with two concepts; one being civ5's art direction, the other being civ6 - I would choose civ6 any day of the week without hesitation or a thought toward a "target audience".

Anytime people see anything that isn't photo-realistic they moan and say that children are being targeted. OR - maybe the art team and the designer actually like the look of this game. Maybe the art team enjoyed the art of civ5, and then decided to go in a different direction because they already did dark brooding realism.

You think the game looks rediculous - I think the game looks amazing. No game will ever cater to every demographic. Sorry the realism crew got the short end of the stick this time but I don't think the graphics are indicative of the gameplay. This game seems more in depth than civ5 from the glance we've been given thus far.

So why it is not PEGI 3 like some other games, FIFA etc. Isn't it because it would be too complex for a kid under the age of 12?

PEGI ratings are for the nature of the content. They aren't like boardgame ratings that suggest that, say, Settlers of Catan is for 8 yr olds or higher. That said, I actually have taught settlers of catan to a 5 year old and they handled the game proficiently.

 

[Haig]

I think one of the signs of maturity is being able to enjoy things without being afraid are they "too childish/not mature enough".

This is the Civ style apart from Civ 5 and Beyond Earth. Deal with it.

Civ 5 even had Giant Death Robot as a unit.. and so what?

 

[darko82]

I think one of the signs of maturity is being able to enjoy things without being afraid are they "too childish/not mature enough".

This is the Civ style apart from Civ 5 and Beyond Earth. Deal with it.

Civ 5 even had Giant Death Robot as a unit.. and so what?

Some people are not afraid of it. They just believe it.

 

[Bkeela]

I think one of the signs of maturity is being able to enjoy things without being afraid are they "too childish/not mature enough".

This is the Civ style apart from Civ 5 and Beyond Earth. Deal with it.

Civ 5 even had Giant Death Robot as a unit.. and so what?

The giant death robot was enough to turn me off Civ V.

My last Civ was IV, and I like the current art style.

 

[rastak]

The giant death robot was enough to turn me off Civ V.

My last Civ was IV, and I like the current art style.

Wow, it doesn't take much to turn you off of a game. Yikes.

 

[m15a]

The giant death robot was enough to turn me off Civ V.

I assume you also have other reasons for not picking up Civ V, but if not, you should know that giant death robots almost never get made in a game unless you go out of your way to make one. (Actually, I don't think I've ever seen an AI make one.)

 

[isau]

I assume you also have other reasons for not picking up Civ V, but if not, you should know that giant death robots almost never get made in a game unless you go out of your way to make one. (Actually, I don't think I've ever seen an AI make one.)

I have over 400 hours in Civ V and have never once seen the Death Robot.

 

[King Jason]

I honestly forgot the death robot was even in that game.

 

[rastak]

I assume you also have other reasons for not picking up Civ V, but if not, you should know that giant death robots almost never get made in a game unless you go out of your way to make one. (Actually, I don't think I've ever seen an AI make one.)

I think I made 3 in 2000+ hours.

That was in vanilla.

 

[EricTheGreat12]

It's not designed for kids, or a younger mobile audience, or to try and look cheap and tacky. It's designed for the players, so we can understand everything without reading lines of text.

Look no offense, but unless you have terrible visibility or you have a certain degree of colourblindness, you don't need more cartoony graphics. While these graphics look more clear, its clearly unnecessary to the majority of the player base.

 

[Thormodr]

Look no offense, but unless you have terrible visibility or you have a certain degree of colourblindness, you don't need more cartoony graphics. While these graphics look more clear, its clearly unnecessary to the majority of the player base.

38% or so of people on Civ Fanatics were born in 1979 or before.
As eyesight deteriorates with age, there are quite a few people just on these forums that would appreciate clear looking graphics, thank you very much.

Plus, if it helps people with colourblindness, I'm all for it.

Nice looking and functional graphics are a good thing.

 

[m15a]

Look no offense, but unless you have terrible visibility or you have a certain degree of colourblindness, you don't need more cartoony graphics. While these graphics look more clear, its clearly unnecessary to the majority of the player base.

How do you know that it's "clearly unnecessary to the majority of the player base"? That's not obvious to me, so can you explain it real quick?

 

[GhostSalsa]

Notice that the civ6 skyscrapers have detailed windows and more texture than the civ5 skyscrapers.

Yeah, because the buildings in 6 are too big and the "cities" look like toy office-parks.

I am chiming in again to say I have still have a dislike of the 6 map art and a dislike of the designers' justification.

Beyond whether it is ugly or pretty to anyone at first impression, which time spent with the game will make irrelevant, the 6 art style fails to make cities look like cities. I can't imagine wanting to subdue a virgin wilderness just to put my own little weird overly symbolic building graphics everywhere. I can't imagine the path to making the map more engaging is to remove all resemblance to human sprawl. "Want to make your cluster of five cute houses two dots more better at science by putting it near a mountain?" Er, no thanks I'll just go read a book.

Yes, 5's city-buildings were less detailed. Good. A flat mass of squiggles would look more like a -city- than 6's "can of glass worms that decided to go back in halfway through being opened" look.

For my second problem: can we stop towing the party line that the symbolic city art style is all about functionality? Yes, I like the argument as much as you all do, I like explanations that hold functionality as a prime value, but (and while I do not accuse anyone of being disenginuous in interviews, just perhaps in being caught up in their own rhetoric, still I must say, but), between 2010 and now the mobile and in-browser game market templated a certain style and proved its appeal, I.e. Clash of Clans is where the money is, and here comes Civ6 looking so much like Clash of Clans that the screenshot analysis thread has to argue for three pages about what on Earth the shiny blue juice is. If it looks like pandering to the masses, it's probably pandering to the masses.

 

[King Jason]

If it looks like pandering to the masses, it's probably pandering to the masses.

Civ5 is the 16th best-selling pc game. Games that are ranked higher include varying degrees of graphic styles from gritty realistic, to stylized and cartoony. No one demographic seems to monopolize the genre, even when you get to the top three, which includes Diablo 3 (not cartoony), World of Wacraft (cartoony), and Minecraft - which quite simply has some of the worst graphics of any game, by today's standards. I don't think Civ needs to make graphical updates to reach a wider demographic of users and increase sales. It just needs to do what the rest of the 15 games above it did; Make an exceptional product.

This argument happens over every game that takes this sort of direction, ever. I saw it with Warcraft, The sims 2, spore, even starcraft 2 got the whole "it's way too cartoony! they're appealing to kids!" rants.

OR maybe, just maybe, sometimes people like a particular art style. Like I said - if I ever designed a civ game I would choose a style like civ6's design over civ5's hands down just because I like it better. It's my personal taste.

The Art director of Civ6 is the same art director of CivRev. Maybe he just likes this style. Maybe they decided on a new style because they already did "realism" with civ5? Why would you want to keep churning out the same thing?

"Civilization 6 - Even more realistic looking than the last one! Pre-order today!"

 

[cpm4001]

For my second problem: can we stop towing the party line that the symbolic city art style is all about functionality? Yes, I like the argument as much as you all do, I like explanations that hold functionality as a prime value, but (and while I do not accuse anyone of being disenginuous in interviews, just perhaps in being caught up in their own rhetoric, still I must say, but), between 2010 and now the mobile and in-browser game market templated a certain style and proved its appeal, I.e. Clash of Clans is where the money is, and here comes Civ6 looking so much like Clash of Clans that the screenshot analysis thread has to argue for three pages about what on Earth the shiny blue juice is. If it looks like pandering to the masses, it's probably pandering to the masses.

That silverly liquid is Mercury! Seriously, though, agreed with both this and everything else you said in your post; I'm not buying the "The graphics (both for the cities and everything else) are for functionality and ease of reading" line Firaxis is feeding us. I'm sure there has been an effort to make sure the graphics are understandable, but I'm also seeing a lot that suggests they're trying to appeal to the mobile game lot by dumbing-down the graphics (see: the ridiculous combat animations).

OR maybe, just maybe, sometimes people like a particular art style. Like I said - if I ever designed a civ game I would choose a style like civ6's design over civ5's hands down just because I like it better. It's my personal taste.

And that's fine; there's naught wrong with liking the graphics. However, I am noticing a certain tendency among those who do like the graphics to dismiss out of hand the concerns of those of us who don't like them, writing us off as 'whiny' or just 'afraid of change' or whatever. I suspect this is probably a big part of why this argument's still ongoing.

The Art director of Civ6 is the same art director of CivRev. Maybe he just likes this style. Maybe they decided on a new style because they already did "realism" with civ5? Why would you want to keep churning out the same thing?

Er...Civ VI's graphics look like Civ IV's/Civ Rev's/Civ Rev II's. They're hardly a 'new style'.

 

[Thormodr]

Lol. Things have about come full circle.

People that didn't like Civilization 5 were dismissed out of hand and called "whiney" and afraid of change.

I like the graphics in Civ VI as they remind me of cIV. That game was anything but dumbed down for the mobile crowd and Civ VI is looking to be the same way.

 

[m15a]

I'm not buying the "The graphics (both for the cities and everything else) are for functionality and ease of reading" line Firaxis is feeding us. I'm sure there has been an effort to make sure the graphics are understandable, but I'm also seeing a lot that suggests they're trying to appeal to the mobile game lot by dumbing-down the graphics

What does "dumbing-down the graphics" mean?

 

[King Jason]

And that's fine; there's naught wrong with liking the graphics. However, I am noticing a certain tendency among those who do like the graphics to dismiss out of hand the concerns of those of us who don't like them, writing us off as 'whiny' or just 'afraid of change' or whatever. I suspect this is probably a big part of why this argument's still ongoing.

I personally dismiss the concerns because they're dismissable. For anyone who just doesn't like the graphics, it definitely sucks... but what's there to talk about? Too bad.

For anyone who makes the argument that the graphics are indicative of a watered-down version of civ... well, your evidence maybe be CivRev - but I would counter with Civ5; the most realistic looking version of the game was easily one of the most dumbed down versions as well (vanilla, specifically).

Now, people who said as such were coming off of civ4 and were often told that it was "unfair" to compare civ5 vanilla to civ4 BTS - except it isn't and nor should it be. Civ4 vanilla was overall an improvement on Civ3 conquests... Likewise, civ6 has thus far confirmed that player should expect to get most of the features they found in the completed civ5 BnW - with additional features that seem to further increase the depth of this game (unstacking cities and new civic system, to name a few). Civ5 by comparison really didn't stack up (eyyyyy) to it's predecessor on release.

The only concerns I find justified are if the game, being seemingly so similar to civ5 - is going to be just as easy due to the same absolutely atrocious A.I.

Note - that concern has nothing to do with the graphics because again, civ5 was the most realistic Civ game... and probably had the worst A.I./was the easiest one to play.

Er...Civ VI's graphics look like Civ IV's/Civ Rev's/Civ Rev II's. They're hardly a 'new style'.

You missed the point. Civ IV was stylized, Civ 5 was realistic. Civ 6 is Stylizied. Civ 7 could be realistic. Hence; "why keep doing the same thing over and over again". Between civ 4 and then civrev, it makes sense they went realistic with civ5. From civ5, it makes sense they're going back to arguably the more traditional look; which further makes sense when you add in the whole 25 year anniversary bit.

 

[cpm4001]

What does "dumbing-down the graphics" mean?

Going from fairly realistic (though, I freely admit it, by no means perfect) graphics with more muted colors and semi-realistic designs to a style built around high color saturation and cartoon-like and/or excessively unrealistic building and unit styles.

I personally dismiss the concerns because they're dismissable. For anyone who just doesn't like the graphics, it definitely sucks... but what's there to talk about? Too bad.

I wouldn't agree that those concerns are dismissable, at least no more so than the counterarguments that Civ VI's graphics look great. It's a matter of taste; some people like the graphics and some dislike 'em. Agreed that there doesn't seem to be much to talk about, though; we seem to have divided up completely into respective battle-camps.

For anyone who makes the argument that the graphics are indicative of a watered-down version of civ... well, your evidence maybe be CivRev - but I would counter with Civ5; the most realistic looking version of the game was easily one of the most dumbed down versions as well (vanilla, specifically).

Now, people who said as such were coming off of civ4 and were often told that it was "unfair" to compare civ5 vanilla to civ4 BTS - except it isn't and nor should it be. Civ4 vanilla was overall an improvement on Civ3 conquests... Likewise, civ6 has thus far confirmed that player should expect to get most of the features they found in the completed civ5 BnW - with additional features that seem to further increase the depth of this game (unstacking cities and new civic system, to name a few). Civ5 by comparison really didn't stack up (eyyyyy) to it's predecessor on release.

The only concerns I find justified are if the game, being seemingly so similar to civ5 - is going to be just as easy due to the same absolutely atrocious A.I.

Note - that concern has nothing to do with the graphics because again, civ5 was the most realistic Civ game... and probably had the worst A.I./was the easiest one to play.

So, your view is that because Civ V has realistic graphics and Civ VI (like Civ IV) has more stylized graphics, and because Civ V was overly stripped-down at release and Civ IV wasn't (and that Civ VI looks to not be), then ergo stylized graphics automatically mean that Civ VI won't be dumbed down? I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, especially with Ed Beach in charge, but I would say that you might be making a bad link here - if Civ VI proves to in fact not be dumbed-down, I personally would probably assume first that Firaxis just opted to not repeat the Civ V feature debacle.

Now: I believe the issue is that cheesy cartoon graphics (pretty much like those of Civ Rev and going beyond those of Civ IV) are automatically associated with dumb mobile games. Now, admittedly, none of us actually know what the gameplay's really like, so assuming that the graphics mean Civ VI will be itself dumbed-down is undoubtedly extremely questionable, but at the same time the association between this type of graphics and gameplay like that of Civ Rev or mobile games is there. This means that even though the links you note between Civ V's gameplay and its graphics are probably as valid as those between Civ VI and its gameplay, Civ VI's graphics result in a particular association that is highly negative for many people.

I think maybe also that this is all what happens when you have not only people who are used to Civ V-style graphics but also people who have seen the brilliant graphics of the two major Paradox releases this year so far AND Firaxis's own XCOM 2 (amongst several other games), and so expected something more than overtones of "Civ VI: Now Available On iOS and Android!"

You missed the point. Civ IV was stylized, Civ 5 was realistic. Civ 6 is Stylizied. Civ 7 could be realistic. Hence; "why keep doing the same thing over and over again". Between civ 4 and then civrev, it makes sense they went realistic with civ5. From civ5, it makes sense they're going back to arguably the more traditional look; which further makes sense when you add in the whole 25 year anniversary bit.

I'd say that doing the style that's been present in 5 of the major installments in the series and two of the spin-offs pretty much translates to "doing the same thing over and over again", but this particular branch of the argument appears pointless.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

... Diablo 3 (not cartoony) ...

The graphics are mostly irrelevant to me, as I almost always play in Strategic View -- but I wanted to point out that there was a huge uproar about the graphics of Diablo III when the game came out. People were bashing it left and right for 'selling out to the WoW crowd', 'being plastered with rainbows & unicorns', etc. I agreed with them to an extent (in a Diablo game I too care about the graphics); the graphics didn't stop me from playing the game, but they gave it a strange vibe that took away from the nebulous but crucial 'Diablo feel' (although the main culprit were the terrible, terrible, terrible items, which have hardly improved over the years... trust me, all three 'terribles' are quite necessary! ).