civ 3 players will not move on

[Seven05]

@Seven05 The LSystem does sound interesting and eventually I will probably run across that. I am currently in the middle of retexturing the land in Civ 3 and am aware of some of the problems you discuss. As well, eventually I will end up retexturing new terrains into Civ 4 and will most definatley find some of these goodies.

You'll be pleasantly suprised

 

[gps]

Looks like this thread has been hijacked by those of us who are arguing on why 3D should or should not be used while the OP has long move along.

A futile discussion anyway, as the makers of CIV have allready decided years ago that 3D actually should be used.
But as the OP has long moved on, he propably wont keep a grudge against me for hijacking and ruining his thread.

I am sure these people will remember a great software company that is call Infocom. It produces the best adventures ever that none even come close up to today! (Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy anyone? ) And those games had no graphic at all whatsoever eventhough by then there are already graphic adventure in the market like Sierra’s King Quest (so bite me, I am from the older generation ).

That people remebers Hichhiker's guide, because he threw it away after some days because he was to stupid to solve one of the first riddles. Not wanting to cheat said person never was able to enjoy the game to it's full extent. But you are wrong here. The 'best adventures ever' were produced by a company called Lucasfilm/Lucasarts. Those games ruled until the makers went for 3D - hups, and now I really totally ruined all my arguments...

 

[Dark Sheer]

That people remebers Hichhiker's guide, because he threw it away after some days because he was to stupid to solve one of the first riddles. Not wanting to cheat said person never was able to enjoy the game to it's full extent. But you are wrong here. The 'best adventures ever' were produced by a company called Lucasfilm/Lucasarts. Those games ruled until the makers went for 3D - hups, and now I really totally ruined all my arguments...

Ok, I agree that Lucasart did produce some great 2D graphic adventures I kinda remember one involving a wacky rabbit and a dog? But seriously, no other adventure game's phaser ever come close to what Infocom offered back in those days. I say it was great (never said it was easy ) cause it used to be able to capture and give hilarious reply to whatever ridiculous command I type in and not simple generic answer either.

Giving a good example: In a game (I think it was Leather Goddesses of Phobos?) you get a strange thing call T remover (was supposed to be used on some untangle cream so that it become unangle cream to be used elsewhere). As I had no idea what it is for I tend to try it on whatever thing I see, and in this case a poor rabbit. And to my surprise the rabbit promptly turned into a white robbed rabbi. Well, those game can really make you laugh until you are in tears. But I guess those who choose game based on the latest 3D graphic eye candy will never know what they missed.

 

[gps]

But I guess those who choose game based on the latest 3D graphic eye candy will never know what they missed.

Exactly. On the other hand I would not have wanted to miss all (or at least some of) the 3d eye candy games...
I think each sort of game has it's time, and there always comes a day when it's time is over (I really think it's sad, nowone developpes hardcore Sims like GPL or F-16 Falcon any more - but as I am not in school anymore, I don't have the time to play stuff like that anyway, and if noone else buys it...). Infocom was great without graphics, but adding graphics also made great games - and definitely did not kill the genre. Even adding 3d worked - if not for Lucasarts - for many adventure / role-playing franchises. I don't see a reason why strategie should not work together with 3d. CIV for me proves it works.
I also see no wrong in the producers trying to make their games more attractive to other audiences. In the end they have to make sure their games sell to keep their company gooing and to feed their families. What's so wrong in going slightly in the direction of the mass market rather than trying to please a minority of some hardcore 2d fans? CIV is still one of the most complex games out there. And to be honest, some of the simplification of anoying game elements like pollution, unhappiness or totally defenceless catapults that others call sacrilege, for me are real improvements, because I don't have to bother with game design or interface micromangement b*llsh*t issues any more but can concentrate on real world matters like what wonders do I built or what ressources to secure first or how do deal with my fellow rulers.

 

[Dark Sheer]

I really think it's sad, no one develope hardcore Sims like GPL or F-16 Falcon any more - but as I am not in school anymore, I don't have the time to play stuff like that anyway, and if noone else buys it.... Infocom was great without graphics, but adding graphics also made great games - and definitely did not kill the genre.

Agreed. F-16 was the first game that demand a math co-processor back in the 386 days (I do play combat flight sim ) and if you compare Sid's own F-15 (84/85? using pure wireframe 3D. But hey, it ran on a 64K Apple II+ ) with F-15 II (89/90? with fully textured graphic) and later on F-15 III, that is what I called a real progress and proper utilisation of the latest hardware. Adding good look to games never kill the genre, the game maybe. Take M1A1 by Sid in 89/90 and compare it with M1A2 from Novalogic a few years later. Of course the later being produced a few years later has much improved graphic over Sid's original one. But playing the original you feel like you are driving a tank and the later a ferrari The speed for the later was so horribly fast that you usual die within a minute if you play the mission that come with the game (think 4 M1 being surrounded from all side by T-80s and Hinds ). All I remember for my very first game was "Hind! Hind! Hind!" (the sound effect. Things happen way too fast to see where the enemy are )

I don't see a reason why strategies should not work together with 3d. CIV for me proves it works.
I also see no wrong in the producers trying to make their games more attractive to other audiences. In the end they have to make sure their games sell to keep their company going and to feed their families.

Agreed once again. Just like what I have referred to in my post, KOEI shows how great 3D eye candy can work for a TBS (Heck, it actually have those little walkers in the city screen that walk around the city and if you click on these walkers you get a piece of their mind too ) Perhaps Civ5 can go along these lines? However, programmers at Firaxis must first learn to streamline their codes so while it give great looks, it doesn't slow down the game.

CIV is still one of the most complex games out there. And to be honest, some of the simplification of anoying game elements like pollution, unhappiness or totally defenceless catapults that others call sacrilege, for me are real improvements, because I don't have to bother with game design or interface micromangement b*llsh*t issues any more

Heh, Civ game started a new genre in PC games when it was first released! Of course at that time I didn't read any review before buying the game. I buy it purely because it was printed on the box "Sid Meyer's" So now you know I am a hardcore Sid's fan I agree that Civ remain THE best in its genre. AC, MOO, MOM come pretty close (but then they are from Sid too so... ) but Civ is always at the head of the pack. But then we are Civfanatics so I guess our word doesn't count.

 

[azzaman333]

FWIW, this thread inspired me to reinstall Civ3. It's definately been worth it.

 

[Dark Sheer]

FWIW, this thread inspired me to reinstall Civ3. It's definately been worth it.

You meant to say you actually uninstalled Civ3 ??

I still have all version of Civ3 on my HD And of course those CivIIs as well (Ok, granted I reinstall back CivII while I was playing CivIII )

 

[azzaman333]

I ran out of space for downloading, and hadn't played civ 3 in a while so it got the chop. But I bought an external hard drive so I could dump all the crap on it and keep Civ 3 on my computer.

 

[Civinator]

A futile discussion anyway, as the makers of CIV have allready decided years ago that 3D actually should be used.

This discussion is not as futile as you think. Wrong decisions can be revised and without at least implanting an auxiliary 2d system in a next civ-game, 2K and Firaxis will loose a lot of long-time customers.

 

[gps]

This discussion is not as futile as you think. Wrong decisions can be revised and without at least implanting an auxiliary 2d system in a next civ-game, 2K and Firaxis will loose a lot of long-time customers.

There IS an auxiliary isometric 2d system in the game, just press SHIFT or CTRL and left/right arrow, and things look stunningly like Civ III. Do you really think, they'll give you real Civ III graphis as an option in Civ V? Doubble work for all the graphics: 2D bitmaps + next gen console like 3D textured wireframe??? Dream on, NO way! For me that discussion IS futile. So I'll stop now...

 

[Civinator]

There IS an auxiliary isometric 2d system in the game, just press SHIFT or CTRL and left/right arrow, and things look stunningly like Civ III.

I will try that combination. Thanks.

Do you really think, they'll give you real Civ III graphis as an option in Civ V? Doubble work for all the graphics: 2D bitmaps + next gen console like 3D textured wireframe??? Dream on, NO way! For me that discussion IS futile. So I'll stop now...

gps, when I look in your CFC-profil, it sems, you are no modder. Modding 2d-graphics is much easier as to mod these Civ 4 graphics in 3d. If Firaxis and 2k for a next civ-game add a comfortable 3d graphics editor that can import tons of high quality 3d units and buildings for free then I will see what to do.

But the question of this thread is, why Civ 3 players will not move to Civ 4. One of the reasons are these - not only in my eyes - bad looking "Lego-units" of Civ 4 and the barrier to replace them with better graphics or to add better graphics. Additionally the normally good idea to do Civ 4 more friendly for modders was sabotaged by this modding unfriendly 3d graphics engine. So it has no use to try to change something in Civ 4. With all changes I would do, I would get at least graphically unpleasant results. So modding Civ 4 for me is futile.

One general note about some posts concerning interesting low graphic or non-graphic games:

In my eyes, such a sentence, that for a game as it is Civ, the graphics are not important, is wrong. If you have no graphics or very low graphics as in Civ 1, your own phantasy does the job. In the phantasy of the player a Civ 1 ironclad can become a HMS warrior or a predreadnought without big problems.
The player´s phantasy doesn´t get big barriers for doing this job. With civ 3 and the following massive work of modders the civers received tons of units that came -in my eyes- so close to reality, that the phantasy didn´t have problems to accept most of these units. But here -at least for me- some problems came up with accepting some of these Civ 3 units (so of course they had a much higher standard as the Civ 1 units): "oh, this ship is named Graf Spee and parts of it look like the Graf Spee, but the funnel-oh no". That unit and some other Civ 3 units were not accepted by me. They came close enough to the original to give barriers to my phantasy, but something in these graphics disturbed so much, that these unit graphics were not accepted.

With Civ 4 units I have this problem with nearly every unit. These low-poly units look so lifeless, unhealthy, steril and artificial, that they are not accepted by me. And these -in my eyes- very ugly and not accepted units dominate the whole Civ 4 map. Even an option as it exists in Civ 3 ,to remove the view of a unit on top of a city seems not to exist in Civ 4. The player is tortured with these graphics and in Civ 4 there exists no escape of them in gameplay. The locical consequence is not to play Civ 4. But I will try the combination you told me. But even if this combination does wonders , what I will see, it´s too late to move from Civ 3 to Civ 4. The second expansion that in the past always was the final work on a game of the civ series is there and until I have learned all the things that would be necessairy to form - may be- a more pleasant gameplay of Civ 4 for me, we will have Civ 5 or civ 6.

And even a keyboard combination "SHIFT or CTRL and left/right arrow" that I haven´t tried yet, doesn´t solve the problem of a complicate modding of these Civ 4 graphics. So I dream on, as you said, and hope Firaxis and 2k will do their job better with their next civ game as they did with Civ 4. I´m not the only one who has problems with these unacceptable graphics.

 

[Zenon_pt]

I have a friend who got me interested in civ by giving me civ 3, when civ 4 came out I bought it and he did not. It has now been almost 3 years since civ 4 came out and he still has not bought it and keeps on saying, Its not good, civ 3 is better, I'm not used to the graphics, stuff like that. He has a new computer too. Do any of you have friends like that, What should I say to try to convince him to buy it.

I understand him, I enjoy more to play civ 3, than civ 4!
But in my case, the guilty one is my CPU!!! It doesn't like to work so good!
I love to play huge worlds, but I can only play it in Civ3! In civ4, the game crak me PC!!! So in civ4, I only CAN play in small or a little more than small worlds!!!

 

[King Flevance]

Just a heads up, all the Ctrl-L/R arrow combo does is rotate the camera. So that you are looking down on little diamonds instead of squares. It is NOT:

There IS an auxiliary isometric 2d system in the game, just press SHIFT or CTRL and left/right arrow, and things look stunningly like Civ III.

...the same thing. It does not look close to Civ 3. It looks like Civ 4... from the left or right respectively.

It is simply camera rotation Civinator.

I always wondered why we can't rotate more than 1 spin in either direction though. (Yes, I know about flying camera) It seems odd that you cannot play in any more angles than 3. Anyone know of a way to mod in the ability to keep pushing "Ctrl+ ->" and be able to make a full circuit? These multiple angles is something I wished for in 3. I actually could actually get some use out of this and would like to add it in.

 

[gps]

gps, when I look in your CFC-profil, it sems, you are no modder. Modding 2d-graphics is much easier as to mod these Civ 4 graphics in 3d.

From my CFC-profile, you don't learn ANYTHING about me. If been modding 3D-cars for Grand Prix Legends ten years ago. Actually one of the very first ever modded Honda cars for said game was made by me. And we did it without support by the company but with fan based tools that needed very much enthousiasm and patience to produce anything. Also my Nascar Racing I Sea World car made car of the year '97 at Sim-Cyberworld. Ok, you can't know that, but nevertheless stop lecturing me about modding graphics. I really know what I am talking about - but as I said:

For me that discussion IS futile. So I'll stop now...

Live is to short to waste it here lamenting and mounring the pass away of isometric 2d graphics. Seriousley!

 

[azzaman333]

<snip>
I always wondered why we can't rotate more than 1 spin in either direction though. (Yes, I know about flying camera) It seems odd that you cannot play in any more angles than 3. Anyone know of a way to mod in the ability to keep pushing "Ctrl+ ->" and be able to make a full circuit? These multiple angles is something I wished for in 3. I actually could actually get some use out of this and would like to add it in.

It would also be much less of a waste of the 3D abilities of Civ 4.

 

[mrt144]

civ 3 players have aspergers. enough said.

Moderator Action: Trolling - warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[King Flevance]

From my point of view its the opposite. Civ 3 players will actually give pointed arguements as to why they prefer Civ 3 and are fully able to communicate their reasoning. Civ 4 players tend to rarely make any pointed arguements, and just say things like "Deal with it, Civ 4 is so much better than Civ 3, Quit whining, etc." When people actually base an solid arguement for Civ 4 like Seven05 did, things go somewhere. But when they run around in circles saying nothing to defend the game but with no defense being present, somehow the people in this thread that actually make some valid points are the ones with social disorders.

 

[Civinator]

civ 3 players have aspergers. enough said.

Do you think this kind of arguement convinces Civ 3 players to change to Civ 4 (what is the theme of this thread)?

 

[jessiecat]

Do you think this kind of arguement convinces Civ 3 players to change to Civ 4 (what is the theme of this thread)?

What does "aspergers" mean anyway?

 

[azzaman333]

Aspergers =/= Ass Burgers.