So what's up with the super ugly rivers?

[GoRy]

I think that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle together would find it hard to convince me how these smudgy, floating rivers that cast shadow over their own bank in Civ V look better than rivers in Civ IV or Colonization.

I mean, look at this. It looks like a bad Photoshop job.

And in contrast, this is the river from Colonization. Sharp, crystal water through which you can actually see the rocky river bottom, and you half-expect a fish to pop out of the water if you zoom close enough.

Hell, I'm no high-detail graphics whore. I actually prefer simpler graphics in Civ V than in Civ IV, I find it rather stylish. I don't miss animated trees, mills or anything, in fact graphics on the ground is a lot better here. And in the game like Civ, graphics should be secondary to gameplay. It really should. What's bad about this is that it simply sticks out so much, you can't help but see the hideous ugliness of the river that looks like it's been drawn by a 10-year-old in Paintbrush. Hell, rivers in Civ 1 from 1992 had more life that these.

I can only explain (and hope, hope and pray) that this was an overlook by developers, although I can't see that being the case. This is so awful that it makes it impossible to miss on the very first look upon the world, or to ignore subsequently. How the hell can ocean be so gorgeous that you want to make a dive into the monitor thinking you'll end up swimming in crisp azure-blue fluffy waves, and yet the river and their deltas look like sewage overflows?

Agreed. That screenshot sums it up perfectly!

 

[Smips]

The rivers are ugly. You know it, I know it, my grandmother knows it, and I'm sure Firaxis knows it. I'm sure they'll be patched later.

 

[Slecht]

I think those ''white blotches'' are coming from the reflection from the clouds above.

 

[Mivo]

The rivers look like a bug to me. I don't like the static forests either, but they look at least "intended". The rivers don't. Civ5 is slowly growing on me, and it's addictive as all Civ installments, but graphically I found Civ4 and Col2 a whole lot more appealing.

 

[gunter]

I think that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle together would find it hard to convince me how these smudgy, floating rivers that cast shadow over their own bank in Civ V look better than rivers in Civ IV or Colonization.

I mean, look at this. It looks like a bad Photoshop job.

And in contrast, this is the river from Colonization. Sharp, crystal water through which you can actually see the rocky river bottom, and you half-expect a fish to pop out of the water if you zoom close enough.

Hell, I'm no high-detail graphics whore. I actually prefer simpler graphics in Civ V than in Civ IV, I find it rather stylish. I don't miss animated trees, mills or anything, in fact graphics on the ground is a lot better here. And in the game like Civ, graphics should be secondary to gameplay. It really should. What's bad about this is that it simply sticks out so much, you can't help but see the hideous ugliness of the river that looks like it's been drawn by a 10-year-old in Paintbrush. Hell, rivers in Civ 1 from 1992 had more life that these.

I can only explain (and hope, hope and pray) that this was an overlook by developers, although I can't see that being the case. This is so awful that it makes it impossible to miss on the very first look upon the world, or to ignore subsequently. How the hell can ocean be so gorgeous that you want to make a dive into the monitor thinking you'll end up swimming in crisp azure-blue fluffy waves, and yet the river and their deltas look like sewage overflows?

It seems a comparison between a game of late '90 and a modern one

Of course Civ V is the garbage......

 

[Fin]

I found a very odd set of rivers in the Earth map that shipped with the game. There were many little, fugly rivers like this all over northern Canada and Alaska.

Spoiler :

 

[MadRat]

It seems a comparison between a game of late '90 and a modern one

Nope that is from Civ4 - colonization from 2009 ( the standalone mod based on the civ4 engine) not the original colonization. The latter was a pixelfest.
Sadly civ4: colonization was craptastic buggy mess

Rat

 

[devilhunterred]

I found a very odd set of rivers in the Earth map that shipped with the game. There were many little, fugly rivers like this all over northern Canada and Alaska.

Spoiler :

I lol'd.


But a lot of models in CIV 5 are pure garbage, the river and the trading posts being the two most obvious ones.

 

[Dearmad]

the reflection of the ships in colonization and the overall look is such a tragic waste on that crap game... and here in civ v we suffer with crap graphics. i just do not get what the hell the developers were thinking here? what did they spend all their time doing!?

 

[MadRat]

But a lot of models in CIV 5 are pure garbage, the river and the trading posts being the two most obvious ones.

Oh yes dear god. the trading post looks like "my first photoshop"

I also hate the roads and railways graphics half the time you have to squint to tell them apart, sometimes they dont even scale right on adjacent tiles.

Rat

 

[TommyVern]

I'm sure rivers and the weird roads will be fixed at some point soon, or at least I hope!

-TV

 

[Guardian_PL]

I'm sure rivers and the weird roads will be fixed at some point soon, or at least I hope!

-TV

Yeah, by users...

 

[For Nall]

I think that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle together would find it hard to convince me how these smudgy, floating rivers that cast shadow over their own bank in Civ V look better than rivers in Civ IV or Colonization.

I mean, look at this. It looks like a bad Photoshop job.

You do know that that is exactly what rivers in real life look like.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

Wait, you guys play Civ for pretty rivers?

I'm really enjoying the graphics, I feel they are far more CivIII inspired than CivIV. I really didn't like the graphics in CivIV, i felt they went half-way and stopped, because of requirements. These graphics however, take a style on their own -- they don't try too hard to be 3D (who cares, after all?) and, in all, look fantastic.

 

[bernlin2000]

Discovered something interesting. Normally the rivers are just these ugly blue strips. BUT for some reason in bottom right corner of my screen they start having some white artifacts on them. Not sure WHY it happens only in that particular portion of the screen, but there they actually look more like water, though I am not sure if that is intentional.

You can see in the screen below how river in top left of screen is the typical ugly blue ribbon, but on bottom right it has white blotches on it. Well in game those blotches move and create fairly decent effect (which I am sure is a bug lol).

Yeah it looks like water reflections: and it's gorgeous. Otherwise their opaque, thin, blobs. They should have made the reflections come out more (maybe making them a bit less bright so that you wouldn't be blinded the whole game ). They look especially awful emptying into an ocean: they don't blend at all. They pretty much look the same as they did in the early screenshots form the beginning of the year: and everyone joked at how unfinished they looked. Oh...how wrong we were

 

[sbrylski06]

Yeah it looks like water reflections: and it's gorgeous. Otherwise their opaque, thin, blobs. They should have made the reflections come out more (maybe making them a bit less bright so that you wouldn't be blinded the whole game ). They look especially awful emptying into an ocean: they don't blend at all. They pretty much look the same as they did in the early screenshots form the beginning of the year: and everyone joked at how unfinished they looked. Oh...how wrong we were

Actually, wrong. They looked better in the pre-release screenshots, and we still complained.

Release...

Spoiler :

Pre-release...

Spoiler :

Looking back, just using the ocean water overlay would have been fine. I can't believe the deemed the "upgraded" river graphics an improvement.

 

[Stormbolt]

The middle parts of the rivers don't bother me at all. It's the ends that look ugly IMO. They just suddenly start, and end with some weird blur effect into the ocean. It's nothing they can't fix with a simple patch, though.

 

[demeryt]

I think that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle together would find it hard to convince me how these smudgy, floating rivers that cast shadow over their own bank in Civ V look better than rivers in Civ IV or Colonization.

I mean, look at this. It looks like a bad Photoshop job.

I'm no graphics expert, but I believe that if you look closely (at the screenshot and in-game) you can see the actual coastline _below_ the river delta (and in-game you can see the ocean's ebb (tides) animate below the delta).

It's like they just crudely put the river delta graphics over the existing shore graphics - this is ridiculous. Otherwise graphics in CiV is fine but this is unacceptable. How do we make them know this so they can patch it?

 

[grandad1982]

Blue Marble. Can't wait.

What I want to know is why this game makes my GPU so hot I could fry eggs on it?! Still as winter sets in won't have to turn my heating up....

 

[Ranbir]

The rivers are noticeably tacky.

Especially river sources. They just start as if it were a canal. Where are the small subtle streams to converge?