ShiroKobbure
Still modding Civ3
I dont belive you should give up on civ 3....
Graphics Modding in Civ4: Looking to the future
- Thread starter Dom Pedro II
- Start date
Sword_Of_Geddon
Arbiter of the Sword
Me neither......I have noticed that many sequels are clearly not as good in many ways as their predessor.
So Civ4 will be only about war? What is the point of the game being a TBS then? It should be an RTS title, where war is the entire game.
And I won't be able to contribute...anyway
So Civ4 will be only about war? What is the point of the game being a TBS then? It should be an RTS title, where war is the entire game.
And I won't be able to contribute...anyway
TopGun
258 kills
Just my 2 cents... I've come to Civ 3 from real-time strategy games, namely the Microsoft's "Age of Empires" suite of games. While I was absolutely enthralled by the combat simulations and graphics, I've always felt that the technology/research/cultural/diplomatic aspect always fell short. Really, it didn't matter as which civ I'd play the game, because it always came down to the same result: war decided the game.
Then I bought Civ 3... and I've found everything I was missing. Plus, finally I had the toolbox at hand to mod my game in such a way that depending on which civ I pick to play, I would get a very unique gaming experience with a very authentic flavor of "my" civ. Alot of it has to with the fact that it is a turn-based game. Everything is a little slower-paced, you can manage every apsect of your civ better, you don't feel rushed and even in combat, I don't miss the real-time thingy at all. After all, it does take time to move and place units on the front-lines, right?
With this being said: It is HIGHLY unlikely for me to switch to Civ 4... because Civ 3 is the ultimate and most versatile gaming experience out there!
Then I bought Civ 3... and I've found everything I was missing. Plus, finally I had the toolbox at hand to mod my game in such a way that depending on which civ I pick to play, I would get a very unique gaming experience with a very authentic flavor of "my" civ. Alot of it has to with the fact that it is a turn-based game. Everything is a little slower-paced, you can manage every apsect of your civ better, you don't feel rushed and even in combat, I don't miss the real-time thingy at all. After all, it does take time to move and place units on the front-lines, right?
With this being said: It is HIGHLY unlikely for me to switch to Civ 4... because Civ 3 is the ultimate and most versatile gaming experience out there!
Hmm... I don't understand hopw anybody could be making judgments about which is better, 3 or 4, when no-one except 100 play testers, has played 4.
And the screenshots are early stage.... They still have months to go, and refine the game.
Firaxis did a great job with Civ 3, IMHO, I believe they will do the same with 4.
And the screenshots are early stage.... They still have months to go, and refine the game.
Firaxis did a great job with Civ 3, IMHO, I believe they will do the same with 4.
Don't forget some people are still working, albeit slowly, on new games that can use all the graphics here with only a few adapatation, and the conversion tools are included
Risbinroch
Prince
Steph said:
How is work going? Waiting thill Civ4 comes out? That way you can take the best ideas from that game aswell...
Varlin Saliptor
Does not hate the future.
I, being a cut'n'paster, do not like the looks of Civ4 at all. I think that Civ3 was more or less perfect, and like Hikaro Takyama, I agree that this is basically a board game on steroids. The 3D is useless. I am staying loyal to Civ3, and ignoring/forgetting Civ4. The game has been ruined IMHO.
LONG LIVE CIVILIZATION III!!
LONG LIVE CIVILIZATION III!!
No, I'm trying to see if I can upgrade my engine to DirectX to increase the performances.Risbinroch said:
I'm also changing things a bit so it can work with different screen resolutions.
But I don't have much time, so it's not going very fast. Especially as I'm busy with a new version of my mod for CivIII
El Justo
Deity
i guess i'll add my three cents...
i'm not too enthused about what i've seen and read of civ 4. i don't like the kiddy-ish 3d gfx, the combat system seems rediculous and they've actually reduced the no. of civs. i mean, WTH?!
the only promising aspects of civ 4, imho, seem to be the lack of hard-coded options. this is great. however, i'm still terribly skeptical from a modding standpoint b/c, well, reducing the no. of civs is like amputating a limb and that's not good.
the last potential issue i have w/ civ 4 is the fact that as a scenario creator, i'll be back at square one w/ available gfx. i can't imagine this...i mean, we are in the 'golden age' for civ 3 gfx and to think of 'starting over' w/ a bare cupboard is not too exiciting.
my opinion seems to echo that of many others; ie, that civ 4 is a step backwards rather than forwards. however, i'll reserve judgment until the sucker comes out and i can get a really close look at it...but i remain a skeptic.
i'm not too enthused about what i've seen and read of civ 4. i don't like the kiddy-ish 3d gfx, the combat system seems rediculous and they've actually reduced the no. of civs. i mean, WTH?!
the only promising aspects of civ 4, imho, seem to be the lack of hard-coded options. this is great. however, i'm still terribly skeptical from a modding standpoint b/c, well, reducing the no. of civs is like amputating a limb and that's not good.
the last potential issue i have w/ civ 4 is the fact that as a scenario creator, i'll be back at square one w/ available gfx. i can't imagine this...i mean, we are in the 'golden age' for civ 3 gfx and to think of 'starting over' w/ a bare cupboard is not too exiciting.
my opinion seems to echo that of many others; ie, that civ 4 is a step backwards rather than forwards. however, i'll reserve judgment until the sucker comes out and i can get a really close look at it...but i remain a skeptic.
What would be VERY cool is for Firaxis (or rather Atari) to release the source code of CivIII, so we could add some options into the game engine.
El Justo
Deity
now that's what i'm talking about!Steph said:
could you imagine?
Well, I can't imagine Atari doing it
So I'll continue working on SSS
So I'll continue working on SSS
El Justo
Deity
neither could i but stranger things have happened...Steph said:Well, I can't imagine Atari doing it
I wouldn't write off Civ IV. Not at all.
What I do want to assure all you creation and customization people of is - your work on Civ III won't go to waste. Think of all the people who still play Civ II, including Civ II scenarios. I'm hopeful that Civ IV will be much better than III, but I'm sure there will be some things III does better.
What I do want to assure all you creation and customization people of is - your work on Civ III won't go to waste. Think of all the people who still play Civ II, including Civ II scenarios. I'm hopeful that Civ IV will be much better than III, but I'm sure there will be some things III does better.
Yes, people are still playing and modding CivIII. I'm currently reworking my mod.
And other games, like SSS or Humanitas, will be able to reuse part of CivIII, so all the wonderfull job done here is not lost.
I have the feeling we'll so two community.
A CivIV comminuty with new players and modders, and a CivIII community with old players and modders.
If some one has spent a long time creating a lot of stuff, he could be frustrated to lose it, and instead try to support good old CivIII
And other games, like SSS or Humanitas, will be able to reuse part of CivIII, so all the wonderfull job done here is not lost.
I have the feeling we'll so two community.
A CivIV comminuty with new players and modders, and a CivIII community with old players and modders.
If some one has spent a long time creating a lot of stuff, he could be frustrated to lose it, and instead try to support good old CivIII
Dom Pedro II
Modder For Life
I don't understand how people can say that Civ4 will be more war-oriented when everything we've heard in the last few months suggests an expansion of many other dimensions of the game. Health? Religion? These are important new things.
Personally, from day one, I was disappointed with Civ3. I have never really made that a secret. I worked very hard on it, but truth be told, I wanted something better. With each expansion pack, I hoped for more than I got. Civ Conquests is okay, but it could be better. And really the major problem is the lack of flexibility with code. Civ2 had a Macro Events Language. It was great. It was the crux of good scenarios and certainly could help make good mods. In fact, decent scenarios are all but impossible in Civ3 without some kind of events language. You have to make a lot of sacrifices to your ideas for the sake of making it play out even remotely close to what you want. You want to talk about sequels not living up to their predecessors, look to Civ3. The lack of such a language or flexibility in Civ3 made things extremely difficult for me personally.
One of the main reasons I gave up on my mod was because some civs just didn't have enough techs... so the best thing would be to give them a fast lane to some better technologies... but I couldn't do that. Civ4 DOES allow me to do that, however. And God only knows what else with the XML code.
Personally, I'm convinced that anything Civ3 does better than Civ4 can be modded in Civ4... out of the box Civ4 will probably not be as good as some of the Civ3 mods, but I'm sure a Civ4 mod will blow everything else out of the water.
Am I happy about having to sacrifice all the graphics and work that's been done? No. Of course not. Would I rather the graphics be 2D still? Absolutely. But am I willing to learn how to do 3D game graphics if it means creating a better mod? You better believe it.
Personally, from day one, I was disappointed with Civ3. I have never really made that a secret. I worked very hard on it, but truth be told, I wanted something better. With each expansion pack, I hoped for more than I got. Civ Conquests is okay, but it could be better. And really the major problem is the lack of flexibility with code. Civ2 had a Macro Events Language. It was great. It was the crux of good scenarios and certainly could help make good mods. In fact, decent scenarios are all but impossible in Civ3 without some kind of events language. You have to make a lot of sacrifices to your ideas for the sake of making it play out even remotely close to what you want. You want to talk about sequels not living up to their predecessors, look to Civ3. The lack of such a language or flexibility in Civ3 made things extremely difficult for me personally.
One of the main reasons I gave up on my mod was because some civs just didn't have enough techs... so the best thing would be to give them a fast lane to some better technologies... but I couldn't do that. Civ4 DOES allow me to do that, however. And God only knows what else with the XML code.
Personally, I'm convinced that anything Civ3 does better than Civ4 can be modded in Civ4... out of the box Civ4 will probably not be as good as some of the Civ3 mods, but I'm sure a Civ4 mod will blow everything else out of the water.
Am I happy about having to sacrifice all the graphics and work that's been done? No. Of course not. Would I rather the graphics be 2D still? Absolutely. But am I willing to learn how to do 3D game graphics if it means creating a better mod? You better believe it.
Risbinroch
Prince
The most positive thing about Civ4 is that it shall be easier to mod, from what I read at least. But do we have to learn programming languages to do so or does it come with an editor?
I guess I would jump to Civ4 if it's possible to use the units from Civ3 (and most likely in Civ3 fashion, do NOT like the multi-units thing in Civ4) and just fix the camera so it has the same view. Then perhaps mod it to my liking (much like Civ3) but with the extras that comes with Civ4. In Civ4 you can make certain units have bonuses against certain units, so that pikemen gets a bonus against all mounted units etc.
I too was a bit disappointed in Civ3 - allthough every expansion made it better, I would rather have a new expansion that was even better than a totally new game. But Civ4 really scares me, from the looks of it, it doesn't even look like an Civilization game...
I guess I would jump to Civ4 if it's possible to use the units from Civ3 (and most likely in Civ3 fashion, do NOT like the multi-units thing in Civ4) and just fix the camera so it has the same view. Then perhaps mod it to my liking (much like Civ3) but with the extras that comes with Civ4. In Civ4 you can make certain units have bonuses against certain units, so that pikemen gets a bonus against all mounted units etc.
I too was a bit disappointed in Civ3 - allthough every expansion made it better, I would rather have a new expansion that was even better than a totally new game. But Civ4 really scares me, from the looks of it, it doesn't even look like an Civilization game...
LouLong
In love with Rei Ayanami
Remember than many people from Civ2 criticized Civ3 bitterly when it went out (and indeed that was normal if you consider the many shortcomings of vanilla Civ3). So as bkwrm79 wrote it : one should not write off Civ4 (or CIV) from the very beginning, especially after only looking at some previews.
I really don't believe Civ4 will be only focusing on war. Actually based on the infos I have read it seems to me war is potentially much less important than previous iterations of the game. On the contrary it seems the game will be much more macro-management of a civ with religion and civics.
But Civ4 will sure be very different from Civ3 and previous versions. In a way the fact they migrated to 3D and other such stuff makes me think it will be more like a different Civ1 with new programming, new looks,... that will evolve in the future. Civ3 was largely an improvement over Civ2 (and in some ways such as scripting a step backward) especially with C3C.
But Civ4 will be the first step towards another style IMHO. And that could sure annoy many people expecting the game to move always in the same direction.
I really don't believe Civ4 will be only focusing on war. Actually based on the infos I have read it seems to me war is potentially much less important than previous iterations of the game. On the contrary it seems the game will be much more macro-management of a civ with religion and civics.
But Civ4 will sure be very different from Civ3 and previous versions. In a way the fact they migrated to 3D and other such stuff makes me think it will be more like a different Civ1 with new programming, new looks,... that will evolve in the future. Civ3 was largely an improvement over Civ2 (and in some ways such as scripting a step backward) especially with C3C.
But Civ4 will be the first step towards another style IMHO. And that could sure annoy many people expecting the game to move always in the same direction.
LouLong
In love with Rei Ayanami
Risbinroch said:
- Modding : ambiguous here. They say it will extremely opened to mod. Easy it probably won't be as it will require some knowledge of a programming language.
- Expansion : the very problem for that seems to be the inherent limits of the base program of Civ3 that was not written from scratch and thus not very easy to modify.
Civ4 is a new foundation stone. So you might not like it (personally I am not too positive yet) but it will likely improve with time and be the new direction. I fear this new foundation will be a bit like Civ1 in that it needs a lot of machine resources (3D engine) so very large maps for scenarios will probably be off.
El Justo
Deity
i'm not sure i agree w/ this...sure, we have to make sacrifices at times but by no means does the civ 3 modder have to compromise completely; at least this is how i see it.
i agree that an 'event language' would be helpful but there are back-door ways to scripting events and timing in civ 3. it's not nearly as cut-and-dry as you're making it appear.
sure the civ3 conquests editor has its faults but i'd be willing to accept them in light of what's in store (reduced civs-kiddy gfx-obscure combat system).
