The graphics, man, the graphics!

[Akka]

Akka, Civ 3's graphics sucked as well, that's why almost everyone uses graphics mods. However, just because something is 3D doesn't mean it looks good. That's just absurd.

It doesn't mean it looks good, but it means it's better than 2D.

And these graphics, for as much as I saw, look okay/good, and are INCREDIBLY better than those of Civ3.

This 3D looks like its from years ago, even the quake II engine was prettier than this.

Bullcrap. You're in the classical "I'll exagerate ridiculously in order to press my point". The style of graphics are quite different (not the same type of game), and you can't expect that a strategy game will be as polygon-filled as a FPS, but you obviously had not looked at Quake II since long ago. Or are simply of bad faith.

Until its released, and the community gets modding.. i think the graphics are appaling for a game released in 2005.

Well, I played the recently remade Pirates !, and though there IS better graphics out there, it's DEFINITELY not a graphic engine that is shameful. In fact, I found Pirates ! quite pretty. Except if they f-worded up big time, and the screenshots doesn't look like it, the game will be, in fact, quite good-looking.
As a note, though : this engine is quite good also due to the very nice and smooth animations. These don't show up on a screenshot, and not on the bad quality movies we've seen up to now.

I know the graphics are virtually irrelevant in a game like this, but it would have been soo easy to add a few more pixels so i acutaully looked nice, why bother only oging half way when they could have gone the whole hog?

Bring on Sn00py!

No, the graphics aren't irrelevant, graphics are always good to have, even if they aren't the main point, and actually the only thing I have to reproach to the game is the "kid-cartoonish" design, which seems to have been toned down quite a bit in the last screenshots anyway.

 

[mag827]

It's strange no one has made a poll for this yet, since it's one of the most debated topic in civ4. Now the game is just one month away from release, we can safely assume that the most recent screenshots from Gamespot pretty much represent the look of the game in the final release. It'll be interesting to see what people actually think about the new 3D graphics of the game. anyone agree?

 

[Masquerouge]

I support Akka all the way. The graphics are pretty. Much better than CIV3. And on par for a 2005 game.

 

[ported]

Well, I wasn't trying to re-ignite the graphics debate. I was trying to rationalize some of the changes Firaxis is bringing to Civ4. For the most part, I completely agree with their use of the 3D engine, and I agree with maintaining the surreal scale of units and resources. Future versions of the game should only look better and more complex.

Civ4 in all honesty will probably make better use of the engine than Pirates did. In Pirates, they didn’t fully use the zoom-in feature, with the exception of searching out quest objectives on land. Ground combat was a separate scene (with a fixed camera) once you happened upon an enemy location. And you didn’t “really” need to have the capability to rotate your view, although it helped to see objects on the horizon.

Adopting a 3D engine also gives the designers (and modders) greater flexibility in different areas. I know zooming in and out of the world will be useful to me. But the terrain shape itself looks less realistic to me than the pre-rendered tiles of Civ3. And for anyone to argue “3D vs. 2D”, that’s not the overall point (Age of Empires 3 is 3-D, checkout that demo).

Whatever algorithms for creating geography, Civ4 looks blockier and more simplified in the screenshots. Can you imagine a complex archipelago with single-tile islands and trees hanging out over the water? I have yet to see any Civ4 shots featuring remotely as complicated the geography as you could find in Civ3.

But hey, as long as the game is fun, I don’t care... right?

 

[Akka]

Well, I wasn't trying to re-ignite the graphics debate. I was trying to rationalize some of the changes Firaxis is bringing to Civ4. For the most part, I completely agree with their use of the 3D engine, and I agree with maintaining the surreal scale of units and resources. Future versions of the game should only look better and more complex.

Actually, they seriously diminished the ridiculous scales of units. They haven't been deaf to the complaints here.
The face of Isabella seems to mean that, either she's a graphic style of her own, either they ALSO seriously toned down the childish "cartoon for babies" design. If it's the case, another good point for them.

Whatever algorithms for creating geography, Civ4 looks blockier and more simplified in the screenshots. Can you imagine a complex archipelago with single-tile islands and trees hanging out over the water?

I understood that these bug with trees/improvements/etc. in the water, were resolved weeks, if not monthes, ago.
Remember, that most of the screenshots that fueled the complaints, were quite old.
The newer seems much smoother.

I have yet to see any Civ4 shots featuring remotely as complicated the geography as you could find in Civ3.

I have yet to see them too, but I think it's more due to maps being considerably more zoomed-in to show the nice graphics, hence encompassing much smaller areas of the world (=> seems less complex).

Considering that both games, graphics aside, are tile-based, each tile being a type of terrain, I don't see why Civ4 couldn't have the same map quality than Civ3 (which had, very unlike Civ2, excellent generated maps, which seemed very natural and varied), except if they downgraded the generator, which would make no sense.

 

[ported]

The limitation is polygon count and texturing detail. In Civ3, since each tile is pre-rendered, you could have relatively complex tiles. For example, the striations in a river delta, or the little variations in coastal terrain with miniature peninsulas and inlets. There was a lot of detail in just a single tile, and many terrain images gave the appearance as if they overlapped the surrounding tiles. Recall all of those times you had to double-check that sandbar/isthmus to see if your galley really COULD cross it.

I know this level of geographic detail is possible in a 3d environment (not sure about this particular engine, though), but it exponentially increases the hardware specs and texture art required. Who knows what our community modders will be capable of.

 

[Akka]

Not necessarily.
A 3D tile can also be pre-rendered, you know
You have, of course, higher ressources required, because you work with three axis rather than two, but it's not "exponential".

 

[osco]

the graphics a perfect....

 

[Leonel]

I think the graphics are great. At least I can see wonders and improvements on the game map now and from a screenshot I saw on the news section about the world builder, the urban sprawl(?) looks very neat.

 

[Charles 22]

One thing that does bring me a little bit of comfort, graphic-wise that is, and that is the likelihood of another SHOWW2 situation here. For one thing a number of people have talked about the game looking better than it's photographing, and also about not really playing on many of these screenshot levels. What do i think that basically means? That there are fanboys who can't admit that the graphics are pretty much this bad throughout? No, again, I think about what I was saying about SHOWW2 and what the posters have said. What's likely happening is that CIV4 has a place where the graphics look very good, it's just that for some odd reason very many of the screenshots are taken from too close in, a level it probably wasn't intended to be looking it's best at. If you don't understand my point, it's sort of like adjusting your tracking on your VCR, where there's a certain razor-sharp focus, and then there's the other variations that are off-key. I'm thinking now that so many of these screenshots are just taken from off-key, because I know SHOWW2 can look awful, but at a certain level the graphcis look excellent. For SHOWW2, it's a night and day difference.

I guess a lot of you have seen the AoEIII graphics. Look super, huh? That's the difference with this game. AoEIII has had it's screen shots taken at the optimum level, whereas this game for the most part has done them on a much poorer level. The prospective user naturally is concerned, because if the screenshots show this, are they not showing you the optimum for the game?

 

[JavalTigar]

The graphics are fine. They tell the story and gameplay has always been more important. I was worried from the begining when I first heard they were taking this game 3D. But from the very first screenshot, I have thought the graphics were on par with the whole series.

 

[Sentoa]

Personally, I don't think the graphics looks as good as they could. There are plenty of games that utilize the 3D zoom and look astounding by comparison... Desert Rats and Panzer General 3D immediately spring to mind.

My main concern though is whether my favorite modders here at CivFanatics will be able to recreate the custom units to be incorporated in the new version. I don't think I can live without the Parachutiste and Seperatist units which I downloaded here a long while ago for Civ III...

 

[ported]

Not necessarily.
A 3D tile can also be pre-rendered, you know
You have, of course, higher ressources required, because you work with three axis rather than two, but it's not "exponential".

Ok, had to comment... I think most people mentioning "3D" mean in real-time. Pre-rendered with sprites don't count. I think they used a raytracing program to create the 2D object graphics in Command & Conquer (1)... and I think Myst was even earlier.

 

[Akka]

It still doesn't eat that much power.
Just look the "Total War" serie, with Rome, in full 3D, needing barely more power than Medieval, with only the scenery in 3D. We're talking about hundred (not the thousands, because admitedly, at long distance, the soldiers are switched back to sprites) of lil' guys entirely in real-time 3D battling, marching and running all over the place.

 

[CivFan91]

Great. Now I have images in my head of little wind-up soldiers running around killing each other...

The graphics are much better than Civ III, Civ II, and definately Civ I. Isn't that enough? I'm a little more interested in the new ways to play the game instead.