Strategic mode only startup

[homan1983]

This 2D sprite based strategic mode may be useful for lighter laptops:

Spoiler :

The 2D mode looks much more visually pleasing that the civ5 version.

Do you think they should allow a mode that starts in strategic mode to allow us to play or continue our games mobally?

I ask because some computers may not be able to launch in the normal game before the user can switch to it.

Perhaps they can have a version you can install that is strategic only, cutting down on the hefty 12gb+ space required for the full version.

 

[Krajzen]

Sir you are a genius... That would be awesome. Especially as civ6 strategic mode is so good looking it could compete with many mobile or "no focus on graphics" modern strategy games.

 

[homan1983]

Even though I have a desktop I can use for the full version. I also own an m3 Surface pro 4 I take to work.

It would be a great idea to allow us to play on older laptops or more portable devices which usually just come with integrated graphics.

 

[MadDjinn]

it would just require an 'option' in the menu to 'start in strategic mode' when you load a game, so yeah, that'd probably be easy to do.

 

[demidyad]

Are we to assume that playing exclusively in strategic view would lower the system requirements? Or would they have taken that into account when deciding on the 'minimum' requirements?\

I do love the strategic view in Civ 6, if there was some indie 4X coming out with just that 2d style, I'd be super keen for it.

 

[MadDjinn]

One would hope that the graphical side would be closer to the minimum if you're just in strategic mode vs normal 3D mode.

 

[Elhoim]

So... beautiful...

 

[demidyad]

One would hope that the graphical side would be closer to the minimum if you're just in strategic mode vs normal 3D mode.

But my question was, are they basing the minimum requirements on the assumption you play in full 3D mode, and that playing exclusively in the strategic mode would lower the requirements below the stated minimum?

 

[MadDjinn]

But my question was, are they basing the minimum requirements on the assumption you play in full 3D mode, and that playing exclusively in the strategic mode would lower the requirements below the stated minimum?

on that, I'd say no.

the minimum probably assumes turning everything down graphic wise, etc, and likely need to be in strategic mode. With some heavy fudging.

 

[Ryika]

I highly doubt it's as easy as just switching a flip to "make the game start in Strategic Mode".

I personally don't see much use in it. According to the min requirements Win 7 64bit is required for the game to run at all (which is a pure software limitation, not a hardware limitation - unless I misinterpret this the game can simply not run on older systems) and 99.999999% of all pcs that run that system will be able to load up the game and render it - possibly with terrible framerate, but render it - until the player can activate 2d-mode themselves.

 

[joncnunn]

I highly doubt it's as easy as just switching a flip to "make the game start in Strategic Mode".

I personally don't see much use in it. According to the min requirements Win 7 64bit is required for the game to run at all (which is a pure software limitation, not a hardware limitation - unless I misinterpret this the game can simply not run on older systems) and 99.999999% of all pcs that run that system will be able to load up the game and render it - possibly with terrible framerate, but render it - until the player can activate 2d-mode themselves.

The Windows 7+ portion is because DirectX 11 requires it; the 64 bit is software.
A careful look at the minimum specs though requires both a video card capable of DirectX 11+ (hardware) and a min CPU speed so high it looks more like a machine that came out after Windows 8 was released than before.

 

[MadDjinn]

I highly doubt it's as easy as just switching a flip to "make the game start in Strategic Mode".

I personally don't see much use in it. According to the min requirements Win 7 64bit is required for the game to run at all (which is a pure software limitation, not a hardware limitation - unless I misinterpret this the game can simply not run on older systems) and 99.999999% of all pcs that run that system will be able to load up the game and render it - possibly with terrible framerate, but render it - until the player can activate 2d-mode themselves.

and yeah, it'd be easy enough to not load the 3D models/etc and kick in the rendering engine on those. The game would be able to switch back and forth between the strategic mode and 3D mode normally, if it's similar to civV wrt strategic/3D mode 'one button press' switch.

So why would it be harder to start in one mode than the other?

 

[Ryika]

Well, because I'd assume the whole startup process is coded in a way that assumes non-strategic mode.In Civ 5 the engine is active as soon as the loading screen starts and although the process is usually hidden behind the loading screen image all steps of the map-building process are already being fed into the 3d-engine. The strategic view however can only be toggled once the loading process is actually done, trying to force-toggle it from for example one of the map-creation related files does not work as far as I know. So my conclusion from that is that you can't just flip a switch to make it skip the whole 3d-part.

Obviously I'm not saying it can't be coded in a way that it starts in 2d-view, but that's not "flipping" a switch, that's implementing a switch to flip. If the game wasn't designed with such a switch in mind then implementing such a switch may very be extra work. But again, pure speculation on my part, if you guys know better how it works technically, great. I just found the "It works during the game, so it should also work before we even start the game!"-idea a bit blue-eyed, and not necessarily correct.

 

[LDiCesare]

The 3D view is probably setup to launch at a given zoom level. It's quite likely that this setting canbe set in some .ini or preferences settings file.
So making the game start in 2D could be possible if you set the zoom threshold low enough?
I strongly doubt they considered the min requirements not to include 3D. Too many players would likely hate not to see the nice 3D models, and locking off 90% of the art assets is probably not the same as playing them on low quality.

 

[homan1983]

One would hope that the graphical side would be closer to the minimum if you're just in strategic mode vs normal 3D mode.

The graphics should be far lower than the minimum. 2D sprites would be civ2/3 equivalents that ran in the Pentium I and II era.

 

[demidyad]

Too many players would likely hate not to see the nice 3D models, and locking off 90% of the art assets is probably not the same as playing them on low quality.

Yes, that was my thought too. But it's possible for performance to still be sluggish in strategic mode if your CPU and RAM are not up to task.

 

[God of Kings]

The Civ VI box (as well as the pertinent Civ VI pages for various digital stores) should have screenshots of strategic view as well to prevent potential buyers from assuming that the game only comes with 3D models.

 

[MadDjinn]

The graphics should be far lower than the minimum. 2D sprites would be civ2/3 equivalents that ran in the Pentium I and II era.

Well, first assumption is those are 2D sprites.... It's not.

Second assumption is that they didn't use modern tools like shaders etc. They would.

Third assumption is that "2D sprites" is the only thing on the screen. The entire UI looks the same as per the 3D map.

Fourth assumption is that you can try to use old hardware that doesn't support the shaders etc.

And well, it's a dX 11 minimum game, so that clearly cuts off a lot of older cards.


So, not sure where you were going with that, but clearly you went down the wrong path.

 

[homan1983]

Well, first assumption is those are 2D sprites.... It's not.

The rivers use repeating images, the cities are repeating as is everything on the map besides the UI. So unless you know from insider info that they have used lazy programming then I will stick to what I said, it's 2D images.

Second assumption is that they didn't use modern tools like shaders etc. They would.

You're putting words in my mouth.

Third assumption is that "2D sprites" is the only thing on the screen. The entire UI looks the same as per the 3D map.

WRONG. We know for a fact from the firaxis streams that when they reduced the game resolution to 720p, the UI took a bigger part of the screen. This means the bulk of the UI (minus things such as resource and city names) ARE IN 2D bitmapped to pixels. The rest can be done so as well if they wanted.

And well, it's a dX 11 minimum game, so that clearly cuts off a lot of older cards.

What's your point? No one is saying it WILL RUN on a pentium II, just that it can be done so theoretically in 2D mode. Nothing about a 2d game requires directx 11, the minumum requirement is obviously based on the main game not a strategic-only mode.

So, not sure where you were going with that, but clearly you went down the wrong path.

Here: Even without turning the whole game 2D, a strategic-locked mode would be able to be ran on a LOT more computers, especially laptops and surfaces with integrated graphics that can't handle the 3D gfx. I am hoping, and perhaps suggesting if not already implemented a command-line argument for launch into strategic mode, especially since this is their best 2D model so far.

 

[God of Kings]

Strategic mode is based on 2D vector graphics, which means that enlarging the graphics won't lead to pixellation.

Enlarging raster graphics will lead to pixellation.