Civ7 Visuals Thread

General art style direction

  • Realistic (Civ5 style)

    Votes: 70 46.7%
  • Cartoonish (Civ6 style)

    Votes: 27 18.0%
  • Humankind style

    Votes: 9 6.0%
  • Super Realistic (Unlike previous games)

    Votes: 24 16.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 20 13.3%

  • Total voters
    150
Agree with most of this. I don't care for the graphics of base Civ 4 at all (although I think Blue Marble is quite nice), I do like 3d, even if it meant a smaller map.

Yeah, I can understand that. The Realism Invictus mod (the version of the game that I play) exudes a more "serious" tone (while being far more polished and modernized, as well), and I too dislike the kind of silly cartoony-ness that the vanilla game imbued its 3D graphics with. On the other hand, I really like the UI (from a sheer gameplay standpoint, I can't think of any other game that did a better job with cleanly presenting and making a huge density of information interactable), and the color-pencil sketching of most of the icons is a particularly pleasant look. Ironically, Civ 3 did the opposite and had a more natural appearance with the main map and units, but the UI was a little bit strange and artificial looking.

As others have mentioned, I liked the art deco of 5's UI quite a bit too, but I found the map and units to lack individuality and distinction. (The world also felt more "static" than it did in IV, which came across compellingly as a living, breathing environment that you were playing in, in my opinion.)

If I could have my way, though, I would probably prefer something like a modernized presentation inspired by Civ 3: a generally less "busy" look, which errs on the side of simplicity in emphasizing strategically important information, while still having a definite touch of leading style. Zooming introduces an interesting question, since, in Civ 4's case, in a closeup most things look pretty bad in a way that you wouldn't notice at the intended "medium," but could become enormously system-taxing today with what expensive hardware now enables, for the sake of introducing something that ultimately isn't intended for the primary mode of play.
 
Definitely back to realism for me - Civ 6 was just too cartoony for me. And how about proper BIG maps again? Even a huge map on Civ 6 felt a bit cramped compared to what we have had in previous games - especially with the one unit per hex thing. I didn't like that old map thing with the unexplored terrain either in Civ 6 - again, was better in previous games. I still think the menus could have been implemented better though - they just feel unwieldy and awkward. Having said all that, the most important thing though will always be the A.I...
 
. Anno 1800 has a Personal mode where you can drop right down to eye-level and'walk

I'm unaware of this Personal mode, but it seems it's something like the old Sim City Driver dlc where you could jump into a car (or Helycopter) and have missions inside your creation at ground level.

It could work something similar to detailed strategic map mode, which in both Civ V and VI, it helped quite a lot in the late game on my old (2008 Quad 6600-Radeon6850-1gb Vram) rig, where the framerate would basically halt to
a standstill. Just add in a third map view mode, that would work only when inside a city view, and can not zoom in and out, but have a pre-fixed zoom level.
Inside city view, the map renderer would have to work out only a pre-defined number of tiles, thus resulting in being not overwhelmingly taxing on resources, and still be eye-candy.
A ground level map option also, could work for all intent and purposes, as a map-wise visual trip to the super-detailed map, where one could also jump into a unit, and take control of it.
It would be quite fun to start early exploration as a scout, at ground level, with first POV, and use of a joypad. It would be awesome actually.

I can Imagine being in 1stPOV mode as a scout, and out of the blue, from a forest or behind a hill, a Sabertooth Tiger, a Mammoth, a Giant Deer, a pack of wolves, or maybe even an Allosaurs, why not! Pop out, and you have
this screen wide wild beast attacking you. Beyond awesome I'd say. Then again, it could be enabled as an option for all battles, to auto-jump in to this 1stPOV view mode, like quick-combat.
Lesser capable graphics devices thus be still capable of the main game experience.

In a more chaotic battle scenario, with multiple units, some choices should be made for this 'Total war' mode. With two, or three units in view at the moment of battle, I can see no problems for lesser rigs.
With many units on the map, airplanes, cannons, archers, etc; it might be better to restrain the field of view to the unit view limit, and not a generic camera mode where the map is rendered as far as the horizon.

For playability, it can be a big impact visually, but then most of the time it would not be used bc it means bigger loading times, and time btw turns.
On a 4K big screen, details even when zoomed out, also, pop out quite distinctively. Not something a DS or even a Switch would even be bothered with, is say tall grass animation after a unit
traverse a grass tile, or playing with a submarine unit, rain effect on the surface of the water in a stormy condition with Tsunami height waves; but on a 4K monitor, these small details would certainly
pop out even at a greater zoom distance. Realism and graphic fidelity can be switched off, like Asintropic Ax3 and FSR 3.1 can be enabled on certain hardware.
Units on map can be 'sandboxed' to single battles. I don't know really if it's all scalable at a manageable for old eyes (mine too) view mode without hurting playing mechanics.
Changing view mode, etc.

As for preferred level of Zoom, it depends. For normal between turns I always zoom out, but at the end of each turn, I always zoom in to the max level, so battles will be displayed at max possible size.
 
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I'm unaware of this Personal mode, but it seems it's something like the old Sim City Driver dlc where you could jump into a car (or Helycopter) and have missions inside your creation at ground level.
I hope this is not done in Civ, I want focus on core features rather than fluff. :)

As for preferred level of Zoom, it depends. For normal between turns I always zoom out, but at the end of each turn, I always zoom in to the max level, so battles will be displayed at max possible size.
Meanwhile, I always zoom max out ALWAYS. :lol:
 
As I said many times, Civ VI just looked too plastic and cartoony for me. I think "mobile game" might be a bit mean, but it's not untrue as far as I can see. I preferred Civ V's glorious art deco but any style that's more realistic and restores some gravitas to the series would be great. No dumb joke quotes also please. And can we get proper leader backgrounds this time, instead of black with some smeared paint on it?

I would also like to see more consistency across the animations. Some Civ VI leaders were animated excellently while others looked stiff.
 
I've said this elsewhere, but honestly, I do not really care about which way the art direction goes for the upcoming game, as long as they do not use any AI-generated assets. Seriously, all else is comically trivial in comparison

Also, hot take: Civ4 is butt ugly. The murky low-res painting icons genuinely gave me nightmares, the way stashed away tribal masks in the attic give to little kids
 
I've said this elsewhere, but honestly, I do not really care about which way the art direction goes for the upcoming game, as long as they do not use any AI-generated assets. Seriously, all else is comically trivial in comparison

Totally with you on this.

Also, hot take: Civ4 is butt ugly. The murky low-res painting icons genuinely gave me nightmares, the way stashed away tribal masks in the attic give to little kids

To each their own, but the UI art is what you particularly dislike, not just map animations? I fail to see how, for instance, my chosen avatar is the stuff of nightmares, but I can understand why the whole aesthetic of the map might be unappealing.
 
I'd like the graphics to be realistic-like, but not too detailed. The color palette should be like the "Blue Marble"-mod for civIV. It's ok for the leaders' animations in diplomacy to be cartoony - the cheezy jokes are much worse than cartoonish appearance. Of course, more diplomatic options help with that. Civ5-6 might as well not have any diplo at all.
 
Civ 6 graphics is the single thing that prevented me from playing it until now, when I found out about mods that alter it. It's not perfect, but at least made the game enjoyable to me. I strongly support the idea of realistic graphics and consider Civ5 to be the best looking one overall.
 
I think the older games had good direction, but they didn't age very well.
So I would say I liked the direction of Civ5, but I do concede that overall the graphical fidelity isn't as good as Civ6 or Humankind.
 
Civ 6 graphics is the single thing that prevented me from playing it until now, when I found out about mods that alter it. It's not perfect, but at least made the game enjoyable to me. I strongly support the idea of realistic graphics and consider Civ5 to be the best looking one overall.
If there's any issue I have with Civ 6's aesthetics, it's not that it's "cartoon-y" or "un-realistic" (frankly, I find using those adjectives as negative, to reflect an attitude towards art & art direction I do not feel comfortable with). No, the pejorative I would use, if any, is barren. Airbrushed. Sparse. A "forest" is just a couple of trees; a "hill" is just a barely visible bump that looks more like a graphical glitch than an actual geographic feature; there is nowhere near enough visual variety within each biome, of which I've always felt there were to few of. This is where I think Humankind got it right, by introducing elevation differences and a greater diversity of climates.

Even then, though, I've still felt overall positive about Civ 6's art direction, especially once the map gets properly cluttered with visual details. Just, maybe don't make grasslands a plain, uniform blanket of green for the next instalment, Firaxis. The human eye does like itself some greebling.

To each their own, but the UI art is what you particularly dislike, not just map animations? I fail to see how, for instance, my chosen avatar is the stuff of nightmares, but I can understand why the whole aesthetic of the map might be unappealing.
The icon you're using is alright, I guess. It's more the ones featuring human faces that have always given me the creeps. Beyond that, there were quite a few icons in Civ 4 that I just had no idea what they were supposed to be depicting (What in heaven's name is going on in Feudalism? Or Grocer?), whereas I never had that issue with the following instalments
 
The icon you're using is alright, I guess. It's more the ones featuring human faces that have always given me the creeps. Beyond that, there were quite a few icons in Civ 4 that I just had no idea what they were supposed to be depicting (What in heaven's name is going on in Feudalism? Or Grocer?), whereas I never had that issue with the following instalments

I always thought that the icon for the grocer looked like individual campfires on a table or something. I agree, that one is odd. What at all could that remotely be? The closest I can think of, plausibly, is cuts of meat resting on a butcher's table? Maybe that's it. Feudalism though is simply an open letter with the seal hanging off of the paper broach it is attached to, likely resting on a table. I think it's supposed to depict "News from my lord" or something to that effect.

It's a highly subjective thing of course, but I don't personally see what stands out as creepy in the icons depicting people.
 
I think Civ VI really has mastered its artstyle. It's looking really clean, the map is readable gameplay-wise and it makes me feel like I'm playing my own miniature wonderland. As if the whole game took place in a huge snow globe (mostly without the snow, though). The wonder animations are excellent, the fight animations as well. The leaders are modelled and animated in way that emphasises this experience. Everything is coming together really nicely. It's just a joy to look at this game. (The ski resort easter egg is like an epitome to that)

I really don't mind if the artstyle of Civ VII is different or less cartoony, as long as the concept and the execution of it is as coherent and immersive as Civ VI
 
A mix of realism and good ideas stolen from world art history would be great. And hopefully no more Warcraft-style deformed people, nature and architecture. Or hideous caricatures.

The game should feel weighty, important, tragic, grand and humanistic. Not like a parody or a sterile and ultra-sanitized Pixar cartoon movie.

There is a ton of ways that this could be pulled off, but unfortunately the people who make games today, outside of some indie studios, seems to draw their visual influences from a smaller variety of sources than people did in the 90s. In that time those who made the visuals, were usually inspired heavily by visual media outside of gaming. These days, it feels more and more like the game industry is constantly regurgitating its own creations visually. This is particularly true for strategy games.
 
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I think Civ VI really has mastered its artstyle. It's looking really clean, the map is readable gameplay-wise and it makes me feel like I'm playing my own miniature wonderland. As if the whole game took place in a huge snow globe (mostly without the snow, though). The wonder animations are excellent, the fight animations as well. The leaders are modelled and animated in way that emphasises this experience. Everything is coming together really nicely. It's just a joy to look at this game. (The ski resort easter egg is like an epitome to that)

I really don't mind if the artstyle of Civ VII is different or less cartoony, as long as the concept and the execution of it is as coherent and immersive as Civ VI
The map in Civ VI is absolutely not readable, that's why all the units need to have icons on them so you can tell what they are. The terrain itself is also bad, with it being near-impossible to tell at a glance which hexes are on hills, or even where the borders between hexes are if you have the lines turned off.

I'd like a return to the earlier games like III and IV, where you could actually tell what everything was at a glance. Big, clearly defined and unique-looking units that don't need icons, on top of easy-to-parse terrain. That would be good.
 
It's very personal but I find the visuals in Civ 6 often too cluttering and uneasy on the eyes. I'm open minded regarding what sort of aesthetical style Civ 7 will have but I hope it will be less busy.

At least make it optional with maybe a customizable UI or something 🤔 I have a neurodivergent brain configuration and get easily bothered by this. But that's not the case for everyone of course.
I remember always enjoying the new videos with announcements for new leaders; because it removes all the icons and banners.
 
The map in Civ VI is absolutely not readable, that's why all the units need to have icons on them so you can tell what they are.

Oh yeah and I could absolutely read the units in Civ 4 without looking at the tooltips. /s
 
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