jdog5000
Revolutionary
In civ3 when you select a city, you get a window with the generic map representation of your city surrounded by information and menus. If you wish to see actual buildings in your city (get up close and personal, if you will) and select view city, a totally new screen pops up with a picture of your city that somewhat incorporates the surrounding terrain. The cool, living city is disconnected from the map, with only a generic representation on the map. A new system that incorporates the city into the map would really help bring players into the game world. Your cities would seem more real and the global map would be more interesting.
Here's my idea:
First, the icons that currently represent cities on the map need to be replaced. Instead of the generic icons, have a small representation of the actual layout of that particular city appear. Cities would then lay themselves out to incorporate the terrain, so they'd stretch along rivers and up into valleys. Then, particular features of the cities would be visible from the map (they do this with walls and VP locations now, but it could be so much cooler!). Some city buildings (cathedral, colliseum come to mind), all great wonders (although some would be hard to represent, like theory of evolution), and of course the palace/capital building (which should have a little flag on it) should show up depending on your zoom level. All of this would be much easier if the grid based model were abandoned, but that's another topic.
Anyway, when you select a city, the map zooms in to a closer level of detail on your city. When zoomed in, all the actual building/wonders/etc of your city would be easily visible, as well as the houses and other buildings of the city. Of course panels with city information and production menus etc would still have to appear, but they could easily be made smaller and less intruisive so that the city and its incorporation into the world could be shown. Zooming would have to happen quickly, so as not to slow down play, but actually seeing the zoom in action would help connect the city to the world. Similarly, when the player decides to leave the city, the map would zoom back out to previous settings.
Here's my idea:
First, the icons that currently represent cities on the map need to be replaced. Instead of the generic icons, have a small representation of the actual layout of that particular city appear. Cities would then lay themselves out to incorporate the terrain, so they'd stretch along rivers and up into valleys. Then, particular features of the cities would be visible from the map (they do this with walls and VP locations now, but it could be so much cooler!). Some city buildings (cathedral, colliseum come to mind), all great wonders (although some would be hard to represent, like theory of evolution), and of course the palace/capital building (which should have a little flag on it) should show up depending on your zoom level. All of this would be much easier if the grid based model were abandoned, but that's another topic.
Anyway, when you select a city, the map zooms in to a closer level of detail on your city. When zoomed in, all the actual building/wonders/etc of your city would be easily visible, as well as the houses and other buildings of the city. Of course panels with city information and production menus etc would still have to appear, but they could easily be made smaller and less intruisive so that the city and its incorporation into the world could be shown. Zooming would have to happen quickly, so as not to slow down play, but actually seeing the zoom in action would help connect the city to the world. Similarly, when the player decides to leave the city, the map would zoom back out to previous settings.
