Opinion on the Graphics and Unit Designs?

[Selereth]

Here's a concept that hasn't been covered yet, even though I know it's far less relevant than other more concerning issues (i.e. trade routes, AI, etc.)

Although this game has its quirks and problems at least there are a few positives such as the amazing soundtrack and for the most part, polished graphics. It's nice to see them squeezing out what they can from a now 4 year old game engine, even though it's still got a few bugs.

With that in mind, what does everyone think of the units and their designs? Do they strike you as sufficiently sci-fi? The combat animations are pretty cool too, in my opinion. Same with all of the various worker animations.

I did notice however that after a while, the combat animations tend to glitch out a bit; they sort of just disappear and the only way to restore them is to restart the game. Something that I noticed in Civ 5 as well.

 

[Teproc]

The units look awesome, at least the Supremacy ones. I usually don't play with combat animations but I did this time, and I don't regret it.

 

[Antilogic]

I might be in the minority but I like the building graphic icons because they are reminiscent of SMAC.

 

[AriochIV]

I think the unit, city and environment design and graphics look great. My only complaint there is that there are no teamcolors, and that the Affinity colors are always the same. It reduces the variety in each playthrough, makes it harder to tell your units from your opponents' units (especially when the faction icons are of a similar color as with Brasilia/Polystralia or ARC/Franco-Iberia), at leads to situations in which you have units of different Affinities in your army (I had Purity 18 and Harmony 8 in my very first game) and they look like they don't belong in the same army.

These are not huge problems, but they'd be so easily fixed by using the teamcolor feature that's obviously already in the engine...

 

[LDiCesare]

I can hardly tell which unit is what on the map. Then again, I would just like a strategic view and play solely on that, so the 3d models are wasted on me no matter what.

 

[Cyon]

Units look nice, but i have to say that the building are to minimalist for me, would have preferred small images like CiV but less saturated. And I really miss the wonder paintings, the blueprint dosent say much...

 

[Lord Tirian]

I do miss the wonder splashes similar to Civ5. The blueprints are really boring and don't have any atmosphere.

 

[bruntfca]

I think the military looks like they got Fisher Price to build it.

 

[Oddible]

As a UX person with an eye toward information architecture, usability, and interaction design, this game excels in some aspects and falls flat on its face in others. The biggest issues for me after a single play through are:

- icon differentiation, resources: all resources have the same style icon, whether just a tile improvement, or a strategic resource. Different kinds of resources should be differentiated - in CivV you had the option to filter the map by strategic vs luxury vs tile improvements.

- icon differentiation, units: while units have hex icons, alien spawn points have the same icon style as resources, and they are definitely not resources. Additionally, there is no consistent identification in the icon or text for whether a unit is melee, ranged, air, bombard, etc. Some say it, some don't.

- Air units: tiny little transparent numbers at the top of the city label... poor design choice, poor integration with style

- Trade route interaction: trade routes can now be set up for each city, you can have 3+ trade routes for each city. It takes 3 clicks to restart every trade route, once to click on routing, once to select a route, once to confirm yes / no. This is an insanely tedious set of actions, better would be a button that just allowed you to repeat old route, and showing the set of routes when the unit was selected but not currently on a route.

- Trade route, information: the CivV style arrows don't clearly identify who gets what. In CivV this was resolved by showing a pop-up as to why you were getting what you were getting (modifiers), BE doesn't have this. Sure you can memorize that left is you and right is them, but why remove the modifiers info panel too?

- End game / winning is a huge let down. After many hours playing a game I want a bit more than a single simple pop-up. They spent so much money on something I don't care to see more than once - the intro movie - and zero money on something that is one of the critical reasons for playing: the WINNING screen. In fact, all the victory condition sequences seem pretty poorly put together.

That's my short list so far.

 

[PhilBowles]

I just enjoy the animation of aircraft attacking siege worms... Though at the coast siege worms seem to slip into the sea a lot.

 

[Chaos Blade]

As a UX person with an eye toward information architecture, usability, and interaction design, this game excels in some aspects and falls flat on its face in others. The biggest issues for me after a single play through are:

- icon differentiation, resources: all resources have the same style icon, whether just a tile improvement, or a strategic resource. Different kinds of resources should be differentiated - in CivV you had the option to filter the map by strategic vs luxury vs tile improvements.

- icon differentiation, units: while units have hex icons, alien spawn points have the same icon style as resources, and they are definitely not resources. Additionally, there is no consistent identification in the icon or text for whether a unit is melee, ranged, air, bombard, etc. Some say it, some don't.

- Air units: tiny little transparent numbers at the top of the city label... poor design choice, poor integration with style

- Trade route interaction: trade routes can now be set up for each city, you can have 3+ trade routes for each city. It takes 3 clicks to restart every trade route, once to click on routing, once to select a route, once to confirm yes / no. This is an insanely tedious set of actions, better would be a button that just allowed you to repeat old route, and showing the set of routes when the unit was selected but not currently on a route.

- Trade route, information: the CivV style arrows don't clearly identify who gets what. In CivV this was resolved by showing a pop-up as to why you were getting what you were getting (modifiers), BE doesn't have this. Sure you can memorize that left is you and right is them, but why remove the modifiers info panel too?

- End game / winning is a huge let down. After many hours playing a game I want a bit more than a single simple pop-up. They spent so much money on something I don't care to see more than once - the intro movie - and zero money on something that is one of the critical reasons for playing: the WINNING screen. In fact, all the victory condition sequences seem pretty poorly put together.

That's my short list so far.

I agree with all this, specially the last bit, winning needs to be fulfilling, right now it is empty. worse, there is only one defeat screen never mind the type of victory, you only get the cryptic "we thought we were invincible" and a ruins screen. immersion breaking at its finest.

Honestly they could have wasted a little less on the intro screen and done something about the endgame. let's not mention the lack of a history or what not like in the older civs...

 

[Cyon]

As a UX person with an eye toward information architecture, usability, and interaction design, this game excels in some aspects and falls flat on its face in others. The biggest issues for me after a single play through are:

- icon differentiation, resources: all resources have the same style icon, whether just a tile improvement, or a strategic resource. Different kinds of resources should be differentiated - in CivV you had the option to filter the map by strategic vs luxury vs tile improvements.

- icon differentiation, units: while units have hex icons, alien spawn points have the same icon style as resources, and they are definitely not resources. Additionally, there is no consistent identification in the icon or text for whether a unit is melee, ranged, air, bombard, etc. Some say it, some don't.

- Air units: tiny little transparent numbers at the top of the city label... poor design choice, poor integration with style

- Trade route interaction: trade routes can now be set up for each city, you can have 3+ trade routes for each city. It takes 3 clicks to restart every trade route, once to click on routing, once to select a route, once to confirm yes / no. This is an insanely tedious set of actions, better would be a button that just allowed you to repeat old route, and showing the set of routes when the unit was selected but not currently on a route.

- Trade route, information: the CivV style arrows don't clearly identify who gets what. In CivV this was resolved by showing a pop-up as to why you were getting what you were getting (modifiers), BE doesn't have this. Sure you can memorize that left is you and right is them, but why remove the modifiers info panel too?

- End game / winning is a huge let down. After many hours playing a game I want a bit more than a single simple pop-up. They spent so much money on something I don't care to see more than once - the intro movie - and zero money on something that is one of the critical reasons for playing: the WINNING screen. In fact, all the victory condition sequences seem pretty poorly put together.

That's my short list so far.

Agree wholeheartedly! They should have videos or at least a slideshow of art with music and voice over for the victories, showing for example the refugees as they leave earth, travel through the gate and settle on the new planet, nut just one picture of a blurry white city...

 

[Breezin]

I find the units look too similar, specifically the infantry and ranged units. It's too hard to tell them apart. I like being able to just look at a unit to know what it is rather than having to hover my mouse over it to know which one it was. Several times I've moved my Ranger unit into harms way thinking it was my soldier/marine unit only to see it get shred to pieces.

The aliens are much more distinct looking although I they all sort of blend together when it comes to knowing which one does what- except for the siege worm, of course.

 

[Selereth]

Does anyone else find that the combat animations glitch out after a while, like for instance the animations for artillery firing will kind of disappear as in you can't see the shots being fired? A minor gripe that I've noticed simply because I'm slightly (ok, more like really) OCD about things like this.

Anyone else notice this? It happens for me after playing for a while, and the only way to fix it is to quit the game and restart. Something that I'd like them to add to their list of bugs and glitches.

 

[Oddible]

Does anyone else find that the combat animations glitch out after a while, like for instance the animations for artillery firing will kind of disappear as in you can't see the shots being fired? A minor gripe that I've noticed simply because I'm slightly (ok, more like really) OCD about things like this.

Anyone else notice this? It happens for me after playing for a while, and the only way to fix it is to quit the game and restart. Something that I'd like them to add to their list of bugs and glitches.

Haha, I noticed the opposite. Later in the game my artillery fire for about 30s, about 18 salvos before the animation stops.

 

[darkskies]

Just strictly on the unit graphics, I'm in the 'they are very nice camp.' In fact I actually like them better than the Civ5 ones (but maybe I'm just bored with the Civ5 ones). The UI needs some improvements (or easy ways for the user to customize it) but the units I've seen so far and the aliens and the battles all seem good.