Another Gamespot article

[Aussie_Lurker]

Okay, I wanna try and put this ridiculous unit-scale argument to bed once and for all (though the Civ-haters will still probably try and hate the game regardless of what I say )

1. From what Soren said on Apolyton, you can scale each and every individual object on the map using the XML editor. Do you hear me North King? Thats individual objects!! Now, if Soren said it wrong-or if I read it wrong-then I apologise, but it sounds to me like the unit scaling issue is solved from the get-go.

2. Every time I have seen units on a screen capture, my first reaction has always been 'uuurggh, yuck', yet when I see it on a video, it suddenly looks so right -even on maximum zoom. Don't know why that is, but maybe the screen captures just don't do the game justice.

3. The Giant units exist only at the maximum zoom which, from watching the various demos, is something you only do if you are planning to have a fight. Now, if you scale most of your units down so they look 'lifelike' in Zoom mode, then I can almost guarantee that you probably won't be able to even see them in lower zooms.

There, hope that shuts a few people up.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Commander Bello]

What really confuses me is this:
The same people praising the zoom functionality don't have any problem with the most detailled zoom in which I can distinguish each single window at a house, yet still have a unit of giants like skyscrapers.
At the same level we see little mines, where even smaller carts are being pushed back and forth.
And the whole thing then is called "more alive than ever", "more attracting than ever before"?

Small disproportions will always be needed and I am sure that most people would not complain about this. But what we see here is just crap.
The unit sizes are not a little bit out of proportion, they blow up the whole imagination of looking at a real world. It's just kid's little toyland.

 

[North King]

Okay, I wanna try and put this ridiculous unit-scale argument to bed once and for all (though the Civ-haters will still probably try and hate the game regardless of what I say )

1. From what Soren said on Apolyton, you can scale each and every individual object on the map using the XML editor. Do you hear me North King? Thats individual objects!! Now, if Soren said it wrong-or if I read it wrong-then I apologise, but it sounds to me like the unit scaling issue is solved from the get-go.

Individual objects? Does that include each individual unit? Besides which, I still want formations of 100s, do you hear me!?

2. Every time I have seen units on a screen capture, my first reaction has always been 'uuurggh, yuck', yet when I see it on a video, it suddenly looks so right -even on maximum zoom. Don't know why that is, but maybe the screen captures just don't do the game justice.

Perhaps... I guess I'll play a game of civ before deciding to mod them immediately.

3. The Giant units exist only at the maximum zoom which, from watching the various demos, is something you only do if you are planning to have a fight. Now, if you scale most of your units down so they look 'lifelike' in Zoom mode, then I can almost guarantee that you probably won't be able to even see them in lower zooms.

I believe it is possible to make them visible and distinguishable from minimum zoom. However, I do think other than the units, I'd like playing this on maximum. If it weren't for the units.

There, hope that shuts a few people up.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

You're so nice...

 

[Commander Bello]

Back to the article:
What was really frightening in there was that they said corruption in Civ3 was implemented as a means against the infinite settler spawn.
Well, it is quite obvious that a city with a max production of 1spt can't do anything more senseful than just produce workers and settlers. Everything else required massive rushing.

And the same people are now designing Civ4? Oh my....

Another interesting thing:
Soren "now" spends all his time an the AI? Well, I think I've read this in April already, so four months ago.
What is right, then? Does he do so now... or is he doing so since months, what everyone would call "...since quite some time / since months" or whatever, but not "now"?

 

[joethreeblah]

Soren "now" spends all his time an the AI? Well, I think I've read this in April already, so four months ago.
What is right, then? Does he do so now... or is he doing so since months, what everyone would call "...since quite some time / since months" or whatever, but not "now"?

Definately B, not now. I mean SINCE MONTHS. Or A - Now. Wait

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Aussie is exactly correct on the unit scale on XML. They said that specifically on one of the previous interviews. My only worry with that is that it might be annoying to do a Civ4-wide scaling. Say you merely wanted to make all the units slightly smaller or larger. It would be a pain to go change every unit scale by the same factor. Of course, someone fairly proficient in XLS can write a script to make a systematic change to the XML. (I could do it, but would take me awhile since I'm no XLS guru.)

As for carping/fanboys, I've become convinced that some people are perfectly positioned to criticize every little detail of Civ and never cut the developers any slack. Since the critics aren't actually required to produce anything themselves, they can imagine all kinds of things that sound halfway plausible but would run into trouble in reality. You know, when you actually playtested and found out that "great" idea interacted with other "great" ideas in bad ways? Criticizing things is not unreasonable. Never letting up with the unrelenting negativity is just being a jerk.

Edit. PS, some critics would do well to improve their reading comprehension. They seem to keep reading the most negative thing possible out of statements, assuming that their intrepretation is the only one, then "reasoning" from that assumption into all kinds of conclusions that may make them look like morons when the game comes out.

We really don't know how well a lot of it will work. But I'm glad the developers have enough sense not to listen to some of things said.

 

[North King]

As for carping/fanboys, I've become convinced that some people are perfectly positioned to criticize every little detail of Civ and never cut the developers any slack. Since the critics aren't actually required to produce anything themselves, they can imagine all kinds of things that sound halfway plausible but would run into trouble in reality. You know, when you actually playtested and found out that "great" idea interacted with other "great" ideas in bad ways? Criticizing things is not unreasonable. Never letting up with the unrelenting negativity is just being a jerk.

Edit. PS, some critics would do well to improve their reading comprehension. They seem to keep reading the most negative thing possible out of statements, assuming that their intrepretation is the only one, then "reasoning" from that assumption into all kinds of conclusions that may make them look like morons when the game comes out.

We really don't know how well a lot of it will work. But I'm glad the developers have enough sense not to listen to some of things said.

Personally, I happen to be looking forward to Civ 4. I also happen to be one of its greatest critics. I also happen to be planning on trying to implement my ideas. So do try and not stereotype a whole group, please.

 

[joethreeblah]

PS, some critics would do well to improve their reading comprehension.

Personally, I happen to be looking forward to Civ 4. I also happen to be one of its greatest critics. I also happen to be planning on trying to implement my ideas. So do try and not stereotype a whole group, please.

 

[Trajan13]

Wow it's really starting to look wonderful. And the interview and new review both suggest that we are moving in an entirely awesome direction.

And we now have a flag for the Mongols too - http://www.gamespot.com//pc/strategy/civilizationiv/screens.html?page=55

Samarquand is apparently on thier list, as it well should be, Timur Lenkh's grand city after all.

Man it's looking great.

EDIT - in that same screenie above^^, on a desert on the far right of the shot, I see glowing green rocks. Uranium? Strange, as it appears the Mongols here are in the ancient age.

 

[PriestOfDiscord]

GS: The combat system has been overhauled, so the infamous "spearmen defeat ultramodern hi-tech main battle tank" problem shouldn't happen anymore. Right? Explain.

BC: The short answer is yes, and the long answer would be fodder for a whole article. The main change is that we brought back a system similar to firepower from Civ II. That system was a bit too complex and many people struggled to understand it; so, like many other things in Civ IV, we decided to streamline the process.

They don't have to understand the process (not that it was even that confusing anyway, but whatever.) Just show the number crunching that goes on before an attack like SMAC did and that problem is solved for everyone.

GS: There are certain great wonders in Civ that are simply heads-and-shoulders better than the rest, such as Great Library, and if you got these wonders, you had a huge edge over the competition. How have you addressed this in Civ IV?

BC: We took a long, hard look at all of the wonders from previous games and changed or eliminated anything that was really unbalanced. In the case of the Great Library, we moved its former effect to the Internet wonder, which comes much later in the game, where the impact is less. The "new" Great Library gives the player the ability to have two free scientist specialists and makes the city more likely to generate a great scientist.

I don't like this at all. Balance should not mean diluting all the various options until they are all equally worthless, otherwise why waste the huge amount of production required to build them? The problem never was that the Great Library was vastly overpowered, but that some Wonders (Longevity, anyone?) weren't worth it. I always liked SMAC better in the regard that a Special Project was a big deal.

But otherwise I'm really excited about the progress of the game, and the graphics are improving quickly enough that I'm not nearly as worried about the overall look of the game as I once was.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, Priestofdiscord, I like the fact that they are diluting The Great Library (kind of like how they diluted Leonardo's Workshop between civ2 and civ3). It always bummed me-as I am sure it did lots of people-whenever I missed out on Great Library, because you could almost guarantee that whoever got it was probably gonna win the tech race. This way, people will still try very hard to get it, but without the same degree of disappointment if they miss out. Also, I think this effect more strongly simulates what The Great Library did in history-basically making the city which build it a Mecca for the worlds scientific/philosophical community-as represented by the free scientist specialists and the chance of getting a great scientist. Another thing is that, by giving this effect to the Internet, it makes the modern age that much more worth playing. It sounds to me like they got the balance right.
One last note. A lot of people are using the Civ3 experience as a basis to Carp about Civ4, but I should point out that there were a lot of things which made Civ3 turn out far worse than it could have been-namely the loss of their lead design team half-way through, and the fact that the game's publishers (Infogrames I believe it was) rushed Firaxis into an earlier release than I believe they would have wanted. I doubt that any of these kinds of problems have plagued this iteration, so we can probably expect a game much closer to the quality that they are promoting. Though, as always, the final proof of the pudding will be in the tasting!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[HourlyDaily]

Trajan13, maybe those glowing green rocks are jade?

 

[PriestOfDiscord]

Actually, Priestofdiscord, I like the fact that they are diluting The Great Library (kind of like how they diluted Leonardo's Workshop between civ2 and civ3). It always bummed me-as I am sure it did lots of people-whenever I missed out on Great Library, because you could almost guarantee that whoever got it was probably gonna win the tech race. This way, people will still try very hard to get it, but without the same degree of disappointment if they miss out. Also, I think this effect more strongly simulates what The Great Library did in history-basically making the city which build it a Mecca for the worlds scientific/philosophical community-as represented by the free scientist specialists and the chance of getting a great scientist. Another thing is that, by giving this effect to the Internet, it makes the modern age that much more worth playing. It sounds to me like they got the balance right.

But Civ already has a load of single-city science boosters like that(Cops. Observatory, Newts University, SETI). Does it really need another? Granted, they could have replaced one of those with another wonder entirely or just tweaked the stats on them as well. Too early to say. On the other hand I totally agree that anything to help out the modern age is a plus, since that is the age of most interest to me.

One last note. A lot of people are using the Civ3 experience as a basis to Carp about Civ4, but I should point out that there were a lot of things which made Civ3 turn out far worse than it could have been-namely the loss of their lead design team half-way through, and the fact that the game's publishers (Infogrames I believe it was) rushed Firaxis into an earlier release than I believe they would have wanted. I doubt that any of these kinds of problems have plagued this iteration, so we can probably expect a game much closer to the quality that they are promoting. Though, as always, the final proof of the pudding will be in the tasting!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well, the publisher this time (Take 2 Interactive) got hit pretty hard recently from the fallout because the soccer moms over on this side of the pond started crying over the hidden content in the latest GTA. Could that cause them to start pressuring Firaxis to release what they know to be instant bank? I personally doubt it, but it could happen. You make an excellent point about some people who seemingly have their minds already made up from previous experiences though. The Firaxis track record is hardly so horrible that we should all throw our hands up in disgust and refuse to see what they finally put out.

 

[Trajan13]

Trajan13, maybe those glowing green rocks are jade?

There's a possibility, but it's the glowing that makes me think radiation which makes me think Uranium.

Oh well, we'll find out sometime in November.

 

[IslandFox]

The units only look huge up close. When you zoom out (which you will spend most of the time in) they look just right.

Still look to big... Hopefully there'll be a mod to scale them down to about half size.

EDIT: Eheh, I didn't see the other 4 pages, and didn't realise people had already talked about this. >.>

 

[Deep_Blue]

about units size...
In civ3 we have no problem with the units being larger than cities , because it is 2D. But in Civ4 this is annoying because its a 3d environment , when people hear 3D they expect to see something that simulates reality in every thing , and there judgment of 3d quality, is how close it is to reality. correct scaling is important when zooming in , but it is not important when zooming out (because it will be closer to 2d view ) .
They could have solved this problem by making units smaller when you zoom in (proportional to city size) and larger when you zoom out (as in civ3).

 

[IslandFox]

about units size...
In civ3 we have no problem with the units being larger than cities , because it is 2D. But in Civ4 this is annoying because its a 3d environment , when people hear 3D they expect to see something that simulates reality in every thing , and there judgment of 3d quality, is how close it is to reality. correct scaling is important when zooming in , but it is not important when zooming out (because it will be closer to 2d view ) .
They could have solved this problem by making units smaller when you zoom in (proportional to city size) and larger when you zoom out (as in civ3).

Personally, I find that I prefer the 2D Civ to the new 3D graphics. Making the world "come alive" and being able to see every few billion citizens fibres in their shoelaces is fine and all, but the thing that I really liked about all the civs was the map-like quality of the game screen. It felt epic, and serious, because everything was very "symbol-like". It was out of proportion, didn't look realistic etc, but felt realistic because you could imagine a great leader sitting down and staring at a map, with the playing peices of the world set upon it.
Now that they've gone and tried to make it look all pretty and detailed, that aspect is completely ruined, and the things that seemed fine before stick out like a hand made completely of sore thumbs, attatched to a rhinocerous. They stick out alot, that is.
Maybe my opinions will change once I play it, but at the moment I prefer the simplistic sybolism of Civ I/II/III than this detailed goofeyness...


NOTE: Just to clarify, I'm not bashing Civ IV completely. I'm really looking foward to some of the game features, and think some of the things they're advancing on are really great, it's just I prefer the "look" of the old Civs. It's an opinion thing, not something you can proove right or wrong, so no one try and argue with me over it.

 

[Snoopy]

And yes, the units can be resized; and I am almost 100% sure they can be resized by unit type.

 

[Commander Bello]

Well done, Sn00py!
Now, just give them a banner or a flag, and it looks almost perfect!

 

[V. Soma]

Ok, well, let's say you resize it to be this small Nice and realistic - I really like it when looking at it...
I am serious!

Now...

Just imagine these 3 little men are capturing that big, big city...


Er... so no ideal solution exists, I believe.

Maybe between the giant and the realistic.
I agree - someone above said - that Civ is enjoyed best when taken on a symbolic level, human player imagination filling up the picture...