Does anyone else think that Civ IV looks too Cartoony?

[BarbarianSlayer]

Civ 4 doesn't look realistic enough, civ 3 was somewhat cartoony, but civ 4 crossed the line of reality.

O yeah! I forgot the other games in this series were real!

 

[Drakan]

With all due respect, this is not Rome: Total War. This is Civilization IV, and because of that, the graphics are intended to be more functional than mind-blowing.

The move to 3D and multi-unit graphics and all of that were added to the game to achieve the goal of "what you see is what you get". Now you can just look at the map and see everything that's going on. I think that is a laudable goal, especially after playing a game like Master of Orion III where the interface was completely counterinuitive.

Besides, the great graphics that everyone raves about in Rome: Total War are confined to the battles, which are real time. The strategic, turn-based map of Rome: Total War doesn't look nearly as interesting as that in Civ IV (in my opinion).

I personally like the new leaderheads. I think they look incredibly life-like and full of personality, which most people would regard as a good thing. The Civ III leaderheads, by comparison, were really boring and no less cartoony.

And I think people should stop saying that "they're designing Civ IV to appeal to young kids". That is absolutely ridiculous! No franchise in their right mind would sacrifice their mature audience when it makes up their entire fanbase!

What I like of RTW is the strategic map, not so much the RT battle maps. I believe they could borrow a lot from RTW. They don't hide the fact they've been borrowing heavily from RTS games, it's in any interview with Sid Meir or Soren. Both games are very different, of course and should remain so. RTW lacks the depth and complexity of nuances of the civ franchise.

As for Civ IV appealing to kids I think it's only blatant.

We, the "mature" group, are marrying, having kids etc ... we don't have enough time as yesteryear in our teens or twenties and our numbers are dwindling as the years go by.

In order to secure the survival of the franchise they have to broaden the fan base and appeal to new players. You have to look at what's going on in the market and what other games they play. 90% of players don't play above Monarch level so there's no point in overcomplicating the game. No one is talking of sacrificing the mature audience. They want to keep them albeit add younger people to the fan base.

And I'm all for it. Because I like the game and I want to continue playing it over the next years and for that purpose we need to incorporate younger teen players who will buy and paly it. They are used to more cartoony games.

The franchise would go broke If they only tried to please us hard-core fans, we're only a minority really. It all comes down to numbers and money.

 

[happy_Alex]

Who's to say that kids prefer cartoony graphics anyway? What about the teen audience, are they supposed to go for cartoony graphics?

 

[warpstorm]

Maybe it's not kids they are appealing to with this look, but rather the more casual gamer.

 

[Janos]

To be honest, i don't particularly care. I think that a 3D world is more emersive than a 2D one, for sure, but that it isn't really necessary. I like the screenshots and think they look very pretty. I like the cartoony aspect of the leaders - i think one reason they were made that way was to make their expressions readable easier. It's easier to depict displeasure or nervousness in a cartoon than in a "real" photo due to accentuated features and the like.

I like them... so yeah, no complaints.

My one worry is that gameplay will suffer as a consequence, but a game having been developed for such a long time i'm sure this won't be an issue. You either like them or you don't i guess - i hate Baldur's Gate 2's interface and the like, but that doesn't stop it being an excellent game.

 

[The Q-Meister]

I'm not one to complain about graphics either as gameplay is my major concern. The only thing that bothers me is how the overly large units cover up the cities almost completely as not to see them. This annoys me greatly as a city like "Athens" should be seen easily! I don't want a chariot covering it up. I hope this gets changed and/or modded.

 

[RegentMan]

Am I the only one who really liked Civ II's and Civ III's graphics? I would love for Civ IV to use Civ III's graphics; they weren't bad. I'm afraid Civ IV won't work on my computer simply because of the graphics. I'm not very computer-savvy so I won't know how to fix it. And were those railroads in the ancient age in a previous picture?

And it's called a leaderhead. Whaddya think's going to be the biggest part?

 

[alexchunha]

I'm not one to complain about graphics either as gameplay is my major concern. The only thing that bothers me is how the overly large units cover up the cities almost completely as not to see them. This annoys me greatly as a city like "Athens" should be seen easily! I don't want a chariot covering it up. I hope this gets changed and/or modded.

If I remember correctly, it is supposed to be very easy to scale down the sizes of units. I'm sure someone will figure it out within the first hour and post it here for everyone else.

 

[warpstorm]

They have already said how to scale them.

 

[Biggles]

First time I have looked at the screen shots.
I am shocked.

It looks like a young kids game.
Then there are those soldiers! A thousand feet high. Taller than the mountains.

Young kids don't go for turn based strategy games.
These guys are going to lose their mature age players.

 

[The Yankee]

Can't really complain about the heads. I think that making them little cartoony really adds to their personalities.

As for Saladin, am I the only one who thinks that he looks like a less white version of Saruman? With a less impressive beard too, of course.

Perhaps, but he looks a bit like Osama bin Laden to me.

But anyway, I don't mind it that much. I mean, look at Temujin in Civ III. And I'm sure there will be ways to change some of the graphics with mods.

 

[Serutan]

Am I the only one who really liked Civ II's and Civ III's graphics?

Nope. I for one wouldn't have cared if they had kept
the civ2 graphics for both civ3 and civ4. For me, graphics
just eat resources that could be better used for gameplay.