The end of Civ3 is now here.

Absolutely, WO. The point is simply: CivIV is the best place right now for some kinds of modding (ie, the trailblazing, "How the hell do we do such and such?" kind of thing you're up to right now), and CivIII remains the best place right now for the other kinds of modding (eg, the "Let's make such and such a scenario"). One day, no doubt, CivIV will be the place to do the latter kind as well, thanks to the efforts of you and those like you, and I look forward to that day. But it's a long way off yet - perhaps just as well, not only because of the amount of projects still in the pipeline for CivII, but also because I suspect that working out how to do all that stuff, and laying the groundwork for future libraries, and turning out the first experimental units etc, is a fun enterprise in its own right!
 
My main issue currently is that there is no plugin for inexspensive 3d programs (such as Shade 7) for creating Gamebryo models. This wouldn't be such an issue except for the fact that there is no way in Hell I could make the FF mod for Civ IV just by re-skinning models, therefore until someone develops a Shade or OpenFX plugin for exporting to Gamebryo, I'm most likely going to offer what support I can to Steph in finishing his Steph's Strategical Simulation, which not only has a lot of the features that Civ IV has, but also allows you to use standard Civ III graphics (a win/win situation, IMO), as well as not requiring a NASA grade super computer to run.....

XML and Python aren't that big of an issue for me, since Micro$oft FrontPage should be able to edit XML (after all, XML can be opened in M$IE, and FP can edit anything that IE opens), and since Poser 5 uses Python, I can just learn by opening up some of Poser's .py files and twiddling around with them.

Therefore, as I said previously, I'm waiting until I even consider buying Civ IV, because from the modding end at least, it's sounding more and more like MoO III. (which was very difficult to mod except for LH and certain race attributes that could be edited with Rad Video Tools and M$ Exce, respectively).
 
Weasel Op said:
How are you supporting Steph? I thought he was doing it all on his own.
Click to expand...

Well, for now, I'm mostly offering moral support....
 
NavyDawg said:
I've been looking at reviews for Civ IV on amazon.com, and it looks like maybe this thread should be renamed to "the end of Civ IV is now here."
Click to expand...

So what you're saying is that my Civ IV = Masters of Orion III theory is not that far off the mark?! :lol: I guess my experiences with certain games over the past 3 years ("oh look it's in 3d so it must be teh aw3som3!!!!!!!!!11111111" and two months later it's "Aww man this game sux!") has given me some insight into predicting how a game will do. Particularyly MoO III, Dungeon Siege and Warcraft III (oh look! shiny new graphics, but the same #%$%#%&#% "swarm the enemey with as many cheap units as possible" strategy that's the weak point of all other Blizzard strategy games), all of which were extremely buggy and almost completely unmoddable when released, and subsequent expansions (if any) did little to address these issues, and unfortunately, such games are more and more becoming the norm rather than the exception in the PC gaming community.

Thankfully, for every MoO III there's a Galactic Civilizations (a 2d game that came out AFTER MoO III but the gameplay is 500% better and it out-sold MoO III with all of its flashy 3-d graphics by over 4-1), and I just hope that people will wake up and realize that 3d graphics do not necesarily a good game make.
 
I wouldn't pass judgment on Civ4 simply on reviews alone. I intend to get Civ4 very soon to see what it's all about. Of course, the things that have been discussed in the Civ4 Creation and Customization forum does have me a bit concerned regarding modability issues...
 
I must agree! 3d grafics do not neccessariely make a good game. This is especially the case for strategy games. EG I always thought Empire Earth was a pain to look at with all this polygoneous units that looked so unnatural. Earth 2150 solved the problem by just having no organic units.... This would never work for a Civ...
The level of detail in 2d is soo much higher compared to 3d (Yes you can see a unit from every angle if it's 3d but if it looks ugly it will look ugly from every point of view) For turnbased strategy games I think the 2d units were always morea kind of symbol for "a couple of units of this type" or a couple of units of that type. So they were always just representative. In 3dshooters like Quake or what ever you always show "exactly" what there should be and there's no need to symbolice.
So => 3d is good for shooter
but not rally necs for strategy games.

To be honest I have sometimes problems to see use in 3d games if you use a 2d display...:confused: (yes you can zoom an rotate and so on with 3d but is there any real use during a normal game)

In the end I also ordered Civ 4 in the hope for good and usefull changes in the 3d sector but all the critics say the opposite...
 
Well I think Civ3 is going to be alive for awhile yet. Sure it will take a hit, but it will still live on. I admit I have spent the past 5 days on Civ4 (just playing), with practically nothing done in Civ3, but it is getting old already. Too buggy at the moment, IMHO. Great gameplay, and once the SDK comes out the level of modding we should have available will be awesome, but to be honest I would expect it to be about a year before the modding community swings more heavily to civ4. That is how it will be for me anyway. it needs a few patches, some tutorials, the SDK, and perhaps the first expansion before I start focusing more on 4. I know that means I will never get noticed by the develepors and offered a job by them like previous trailblazers, but that's fine by me - this is a hobby not a resume'.
 
Sword_Of_Geddon said:
I have no doubt that this community will still be here. But it will be practically a ghost board. New posts will occur every few days at the most. And new materal....:lol: maybe once a month if we are lucky.

I want desparately to go to Civ4, but I will not until I know that I will be able to make units for it.
Click to expand...

I've been watching the Civ4 community from a distance for some time now, and now that some people I know have bought it, from up close too. There's a lot of dissatisfaction. It appears that Civ4 requires such high-end hardware that it's out of range for a lot of people. And modding? Forget it. I for one, and everyone I know, don't want to learn all the language skills necessary to mod in Civ4. In fact, I've only heard it's possible, I haven't seen any actual evidence of Civ4 mods...

Civ3 is a good, turn-based game, and it's accessible to modding. I think there will be a come-back, when modders out there realize Civ4 is just too much work. Civ3 is a good balance, it's easy to learn, can use a wide variety of programs, and has decent graphics.

Cheer up! It's not the end of the world!:cool:
 
It took forever to get decent mods for Civ III, it dosen't look like it will take forever for Civ IV, but I will play civ III until they do (and I get enough $$ to upgrade computer.) Also Civ IV, from reviews dosen't = Moo III, It is just not tested enough, but that will come, with time.
 
The premise goes as followed; the more open sourced the game is, the greater is the difficulty for the average person to mod. Yet, in theory, the greater the expertise required to mod for said game, the higher the quality of said mod, just fewer mods to choose from.
 
Gaias said:
The premise goes as followed; the more open sourced the game is, the greater is the difficulty for the average person to mod. Yet, in theory, the greater the expertise required to mod for said game, the higher the quality of said mod, just fewer mods to choose from.
Click to expand...
The problem with your theory is two fold.
The first is ignorance the second is arrogance.

Ignorance: Open source and moddable are not the same. Moddable and difficult are not related. It could have been completely open and easily approachable. Especially the units, which will require special high-end software (Gamebryo requires 3d studio max or Maya). Similarly shipping it without even a rudimentary editor is nothing but false advertising. The game says on the box it is the most modifiable version yet... strange, Conquests had the ability to add units, and replace every graphic in the game right out of the box. What it should have said was that SOME of the rules are modifiable with expert knowledge of XML & Python, but the graphics are not. Yes, some small amount of reskinning of pre-existing meshes can be done by expanding the art using the later bug fix info for ATI video cards, but this is not modabilty, and has nothing to do with their on the box claims

Arrogance: Fewer mods does not equal better mods. This is elitist crap. Fewer mods is just fewer mods. Excluding many of the bright minds who were active contributors to some of the finest add-ons in Civ3 just because they either don't know XML & Python or because they don't have the time or money to spend 1000's on software in no way leads to better mods. There is no correlation between being rich and making good units. Nor is there any correlation between the ability to program and the ability to design a good mod.
 
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