Anyone else think Civ4 graphics are kinda ugly?

[bob rulz]

I didn't like the graphics until I saw the latest screenshots from Gamespot.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/screenindex.html

I still don't like the leaderheads though.

Also, am I the only one who doesn't hate the mountains? They're less stand-alone than they were in Civ III. However, the civ borders are too hard to see, the units are too big, and the cities are too small. Otherwise, I think the graphics look good (although a lot better close up than zoomed out).

 

[nerovats]

If so, why are you so upset?

If the game is about tactics and not graphics, why are you considering not buying it simply because of the graphics?

When I read all these threads about the graphics, the word "whiners" really spring to mind. Have you seen the videos? Have you played the game? Do you realize how much difference that would make as opposed to watching a static screenshot?

As I wrote it's not just the grafics but the tactical changes too. It seems like to much to remember, e.g. which promotions did I give to which unit. But the question was about grafics. There's is to much information on the screen. The small huts on worked tiles might seem a good idea but to me it's distracting. And no I haven't played the game, I probably will borrow it from someone once it get's out and try before I dicide to buy or not.

 

[JavalTigar]

I have said from the beginning, they should focus on the content. But on the other hand, Graphics play a key role in playablity. If they are distracting or annoying or just plain hard to comprehend, then they do you no good.

I think the 3D graphics are the next logical step. They may not got it right on the first try but you need to start somewhere. To maintain their market share Firaxis needs to branch out and adapt. Let's face it, Civ 3 could likely run pretty easily on a PS ONE. If they continued to use graphics of the previous computer generation, the gaming industry would no longer take them seriously. If we would like to have Civ game around to whine about in these forums, then it has to turn a profit.

They analyzed their situation, saw the RtS empire developed the next level of tech and are heading for its boarders. Firaxis reduced their luxuries and channeled forward to make the next leap, to stay competitve. If we can't understand that strategic move & respect them for it then we need to find a diffent hobby.

 

[Dearmad]

I like the graphics so far. And I like the leaderheads a lot! I don't want realistic looking ugly leaders, I want more cartoonish, stylized ugly leaders...

though cleopatra looks kinda cute. or whatever her name was this time out.

 

[Avayaman]

i think the graphics are sufficient. I wish it could be better, but then again, if it's going to make then delay the release date, or take away resources from the content, then i'd rather not.

 

[SK138]

I think the new Gamespot screens are either outdated or their is an option to pick the size of the units on the screen because the units look a bit smaller on the screenshots at Firaxis' page.

 

[Flotsam]

I think the new graphics look great. The units only look too big when its zoomed in all the way but I doubt I'd play on that setting anyway so it doesnt bother me.

 

[frankthe butler]

I hate the graphics

 

[Pounder]

I don't like them at all. I don't think that they should have gone with the 3D world.

I think that Civ3 is much better graphics wise and better suited for the type of game play in Civ.

It will be a long time before I have any interest buying the game the way it looks now, I have always been the first to buy the latest and greatest when it comes to Civ, but I have a bad feeling about Civ4. They may have lost me.

 

[CyberChrist]

Since the units are true 3D generated in-game, I hope they include an option in-game to scale them to your liking.

 

[The Q-Meister]

I don't understand why the cities are so small and why the units appear so massive that you can hardly even see the cities!

Honestly, I had trouble identfying any part of the city/town itself and if not for the name appearing right over it, I might have passed them up for barbarian huts or something! To those that say the units looked massive in Civ 3 I say this, compared to the screenshots we've seen thus far, Civ 3 units look microscopic !

 

[The Q-Meister]

I think the new Gamespot screens are either outdated or their is an option to pick the size of the units on the screen because the units look a bit smaller on the screenshots at Firaxis' page.

While I would love to believe you, it would appear that if anything is outdated it is the ones on the Firaxis site. There are only 3 screenshots there and they have been around for as long as I can remember while the IGN screenshots are continously updated and number about 27 now.

 

[eg577]

Okay, it was only a matter of time before someone did a side by side comparison of civ3 and civ4 screenshots.
http://www.imagehosting.us/imagehosting/showimg.jpg/?id=556040
This was kinda thrown together. I used just vanilla civ3 and not c3c. I'm not sure what all the terrain improvement doohickeis are on the screen in the civ4 screenshots, but I used irrigation/mines as their civ3 equivalents. Someone else could probably do a much better comparison.

I was deeply upset about civ4 going to 3D when it was first announced. 3D games often don't live up to earlier 2D incarnations. After seeing the screenshots and video though I think civ4 looks good. The gameplay itself is still the unmistakable 2D we love (thank god), and you can are free to stick with civ3 style views.

By the way, has anyone read this game blog? http://www.costik.com/weblog/
Scroll down to the bottom article 'Why 3D is not always a good idea'. It's a good article about some of the pitfalls of 3D, mentioning Civilization and Heroes of Might & Magic specifically. The three problems of 3D he lists are: a smaller field of view, loss of iconographic representation, and slower game speed. Civ4 seems to dodge the first two problems: The field of view in the two screenshots is identical (the only editing I did in the civ3 image was taking out the user interface, the civ4 image was taken unedited from gamespot) The 3D units also remain iconographic, i.e. they don't look as though they should represent single soldiers. Whether or not Civ4 will suffer from a slower game speed (due to performance demands) remains to be seen.

 

[CrazyMrLeo]

I'm not too pleased with the 3d. The Civ 3 graphics were so much cleaner and brighter.

 

[Sickman]

Okay, it was only a matter of time before someone did a side by side comparison of civ3 and civ4 screenshots.
http://www.imagehosting.us/imagehosting/showimg.jpg/?id=556040

I was deeply upset about civ4 going to 3D when it was first announced. 3D games often don't live up to earlier 2D incarnations. After seeing the screenshots and video though I think civ4 looks good. The gameplay itself is still the unmistakable 2D we love (thank god), and you can are free to stick with civ3 style views.

By the way, has anyone read this game blog? http://www.costik.com/weblog/
Scroll down to the bottom article 'Why 3D is not always a good idea'. It's a good article about some of the pitfalls of 3D, mentioning Civilization and Heroes of Might & Magic specifically. The three problems of 3D he lists are: a smaller field of view, loss of iconographic representation, and slower game speed. Civ4 seems to dodge the first two problems: The field of view in the two screenshots is identical (the only editing I did in the civ3 image was taking out the user interface, the civ4 image was taken unedited from gamespot) The 3D units also remain iconographic, i.e. they don't look as though they should represent single soldiers. Whether or not Civ4 will suffer from a slower game speed (due to performance demands) remains to be seen.

In my opinion for that height the game looks exactly like Civ 3 with edited by some kind of terrain mod. So it is basically very much the same.

From the pictures I thought the whole idea of zooming in is mostly useless. However I would love to see option that would automatically zoom in to combat situation showing it with extra detail (and after zooming back to normal view) instead that you have to zoom yourself in and out before and after combat to see it in more detail. Chance of modding here?

I wasn't surprised and neither shocked to see Civ IV to go into 3d. Especially since it uses the same engine as Pirates which is very much obvious choice to start. That way can all the glitches graphically be solved beforehand. Of course I was kinda freaked out that the game still goes to 3D mainly because I felt that the game tries to now seduce new wider audience with flashy graphic design and with streamlined gameplay offer little or no value to the actual strategy of the game. (I always get little bit uneasy reading "more easy gameplay for also RTS-fans" commented about new game especially since I don't like RTS games)
I think that units look little freaky from certain perspective (just look at the ship in the far left corner). But that's what 3d does.

I think 3d will make people feel more "closer to your realm" however it can also make the game world "feel smaller" (mainly because buildings look pretty big) which isn't really good thing as we are supposed to control "great empires". But these are issues of human perception and might change over time.
The game fill probably look whole different while you are playing it and moving around compared to the just looking the static screenshots.

I think there however lies problems and that is modding new 3d objects to the world. For some it might be easy but for many it's challenge they don't enjoy. This is especially sad because the other modding options have seemingly increased. So I really wait that there are 3D animators stepping up to take the challenge otherwise the whole modding idea is kinda left into halfway.

I love the idea there are new territorial buildings and that they affect the city enviroment, it makes world look like it's actually moving while earlier versions you would just stare the blinking unit otherwise in motionless world. I wish this also isn't just graphical issue but allows greater interaction between the player, the his empire and the surrounding enviroment.

In my opinion the problems lie in that the game will start trying to compromise with ideas and concentrate into better graphics (which could mean better sales) and going into more direction of "no more turns" (RTS) rather than "one more turn".

Performance issue is rather complicated because we don't know what really is needed to run the damn thing. However this is first time that Civ game is challenging computer's graphical performance and there lies a small worry. However as it has roots in Pirates which runs with pretty average stuff I think nobody would have need to be concerned. However for me it changed little bit the plans for get new laptop as I have to now consider getting a high performance laptop so I can enjoy Civ a bit more.

 

[The Q-Meister]

I've looked at the comparison screen of both Civ 3 and Civ 4 and they confirmed what I knew to be true: the Civ 4 units look massive by comparison and I again have great difficulty seeing the cities. I was even asking myself out loud: "Where are the cities? Where are the cities?" I was so flustered with it.

Honestly, graphics aren't a big deal to me. 2D, 3D, I really don't care. All I care about is at least having some basis in reality and proportion (don't want Pikeman larger than cities) and being to see important objects (like my cities) clearly.

I do hope there is the option to go back to the Civ 3 style because this just isn't working for me. Nor do I understand why Firaxis seems so obsessed with improving graphics when GAMEPLAY is what 99.9% of the complaints/wishlist are about! I was highly disappointed when on the civ4 website the first thing they mentioned was graphics...it seems to me that if they spent half the time on gameplay, listening to their fans, taking in some of our better ideas and creating their own as they do on graphics, we'd have an almost-perfect Civ game right about now.

 

[warpstorm]

...it seems to me that if they spent half the time on gameplay, listening to their fans, taking in some of our better ideas and creating their own as they do on graphics, we'd have an almost-perfect Civ game right about now.

What makes you think they didn't? According to the one interview with Barry that I read in the past few weeks (I really don't remember which one) they've had roughly a hundred of the top Civ players working closely with them for the past year (it will be interesting when the unmasking comes since most of them are no doubt on these forums or 'poly).

 

[Bathory666]

It strikes me that efforts to render the units in 3-D are irrelevant to the appeal of Civ all these years; looks like a panic effort to match the so-called realism of real-time games, first-person shooters, etc.. Worse, it looks childish - like kiddie toy soldiers. I've always appreciated the graphics of Civ games, which seemed to take the units relatively seriously, as if they were part of an actual military strategy map. This looks like it will be a lot harder to immerse oneself in the illusion of alternative histories. It looks to me, in one word: stupid.

 

[Civrules]

like kiddie toy soldiers. I've always appreciated the graphics of Civ games, which seemed to take the units relatively seriously, as if they were part of an actual military strategy map.

I don't know if it is just me, but units in no way seem that cartoonish. Or were you just confusing units with terrain?

 

[Tee Kay]

Units are ridiculously oversized, everything else's fine.