Would you like to see Civilization V’s art style back in VI?

[pokiehl]

Brian has updated the mod to fix the broken search feature. I have no clue how this mod affected that!

 

[kaspergm]

Color in Civ VI was adjusted to match the cartoony style, which the was the goal. Without the "oversaturation" it looks less like a colorful cartoon to me etc.

Civ V was dull, not sharp. Civ VI was supposed to be the opposite. Bright and colorul, which I prefer a lot more.

Personally, I still think Civ6 would look amazing if the saturation was turned down. This mod is a nice gesture, but I do think the Civ6 models look better overall, just not the colours. Here's a fake at how I would like Civ6 to look:

Spoiler :

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Kaspergm and darko82, I think you are both on the right track. Now, an this be turned into a Mod or a set of instructions for the rest of us to try out ourselves?

 

[kaspergm]

Kaspergm and darko82, I think you are both on the right track. Now, an this be turned into a Mod or a set of instructions for the rest of us to try out ourselves?

I asked in the mod forum a couple of days to see if anybody knew of a way to make a mod that filters the colours, similar to how the game applies more/less saturation during golden and dark ages. But sadly, nobody have given me an answer that leads me to something I have been able to make this actually happen in game.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

Very cool. I have no interest in it personally, but always cool to see well done mod work like this!

 

[darko82]

This is really interesting stuff to me. This is what I want myself, like mentioned above, to desaturate the colours but not change the models. How did you do this, can it be done without editing the individual graphic files, or did you change the actual assets?

I tried to look through the game to see if I could identify the code that controls the tweaks for golden ages and dark ages, and to see if the numbers could be modified to have custom settings, but I couldn't find the right place in the code.

Gorgeous! Is this a mod, too? Or would you tell me/us your settings?
Thanks for sharing!

I'm afraid you just proved my point: if the only way to discern what the map is supposed to show you is to go to Strategic View, then why have the 'normal' map view at all?

I think this is much, much closer to what I want: Hills show up very clearly, colors less garish but distinct among the various terrain types. I second the motion from others: either make this available as a Mod, or let us know what color/graphics 'tweaks' you used to get this so we can try it.

Yes, I would be interested to know how to do that to learn something new.

Guys, first you need to install this:

Reshade (a generic post-processing injector) https://reshade.me/downloads/ReShade_Setup_4.2.1.exe by crosire

and you can start playing with it/creating your own presets/settings.

I am using ReShade_Setup_4.1.1 version because I am having problems with the above version (on Windows 10 - 64-bit).

It only works with Direct 11 (no Direct 12 currently supported).

I can share with you my own settings/presets/mod if you like them. You can share with me your own creations/settings etc. That will be interesting.

Here is my current one (which has more color).



I use it in most of my games to modify the graphics, including Mass Effect, the Witcher and many, many other games.

Obviously, you need high end graphics card. That can be an issue for some people. Your need 1060/1070 GTX, depending on a game. I haven't tested it how it works below 1070 GTX Asus Strix 11 GB VRAM. I always set Ultra Settings in most games, so... I have no idea how is the performance on other systems etc.

 

[Ondolindë]

@darko82, thank you very much for the information.

 

[darko82]

@darko82, thank you very much for the information.

No problem. Let me know if you need any help. Cheers!

 

[Tiger Genocide]

I just finished a full game running this mod. Freaking loved it. Even though I did not do my typical warmongering (Mali & Diplo Victory, my first on both) I did not make movement mistakes even once. I could see the hill clearly and knew better than to move onto it and lose the rest of my movement points. Usually I make 5-10 of these on a typical game on the base game map. I think I will be using this map mod permanently. Only way I probably will not is if I know that I am doing a for sure peaceful game with no war.

The only critique of the mod I have is that the water could look a little bit smoother. The water is beautiful in 6 already. 5's water looks great too, but somehow it does not look as good as the other tiles in the mod.

God Bless the person that made this mod. Thank you!

 

[Mahi]

I still struggle with civ VI graphics/art style. It's so blant and boring to look at. I'm quite sure it was made that way to optimise it for handheld devices, which is a big 'no no' in my book. I may take a look at this as well.

 

[Gedemon]

I still struggle with civ VI graphics/art style. It's so blant and boring to look at. I'm quite sure it was made that way to optimise it for handheld devices, which is a big 'no no' in my book. I may take a look at this as well.

You may not like the style, but AFAIK the models and textures (not even talking of the visual effects) are in fact more detailed in civ6 than civ5.

 

[kaspergm]

Obviously, you need high end graphics card. That can be an issue for some people. Your need 1060/1070 GTX, depending on a game. I haven't tested it how it works below 1070 GTX Asus Strix 11 GB VRAM. I always set Ultra Settings in most games, so... I have no idea how is the performance on other systems etc.

Thank you for the info. I guess the graphic card my be a limiter for me, I run an old Radeon HD7850, but I was considering getting a new PC for gaming, so this is another motivator.

 

[Xur]

I just don’t like the gameplay. It’s too boardgamey and not enough empirebuilder. The fact that the lead art designer had to mod this in says a lot about the state of modding. Civ4 and Civ5 both had better mods before 2nd expansion. Civ6 is an OK game, but a terrible civ game in terms of gameplay, visuals, AI and modding.

 

[Mahi]

You may not like the style, but AFAIK the models and textures (not even talking of the visual effects) are in fact more detailed in civ6 than civ5.

I'm no expert on the subject but to my eyes V looks better than VI. Perhaps it's the DirectX 12/11/10 that makes the difference in the "quality" of the models - but something about the artstyle in VI is just off to me. I also get the feeling like VI is less dense in what has been cramped into the screen. Some may like it, but to me the landscape often feel naked somehow compared to IV and V.

 

[Medopu]

Now that this mod satisfied my terrain needs, I wish for something completely outside the scope of modding. Imagine how cool it would be if the scaling of the game got completely rethinked, and that cities themselves would be so massive that the districts would actually be a part of a big city sprawl and not these independant "exclaves" that don't feel as if they're connected to the city at all.

I love the idea of districts, Just imagine how fun and amazing it would look like to really see how big your cities can get visually not just with an abstract number attached to the city name. Then i wouldn't even be bothered by the terrain and artistic style of the geography. I'd be too enamoured with the size of my empire.

Imagine the scale of this and compare it to a condensed plot of maybe 8 skyscrapers we have right now.

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[Zaarin]

I'm no expert on the subject but to my eyes V looks better than VI. Perhaps it's the DirectX 12/11/10 that makes the difference in the "quality" of the models - but something about the artstyle in VI is just off to me.

Preferring one style over another is a matter of taste, but objectively the quality of the models, textures, lighting engine, etc. is far superior in Civ6. For my own personal taste, I think Civ5 is cringe-inducingly ugly, a relic of the late 2000s/early 2010s when "photorealism" was the trend; for those who liked the photorealism trend, it's understandable they'd prefer Civ5's art style, though.

Imagine the scale of this and compare it to a condensed plot of maybe 8 skyscrapers we have right now.

That looks like a nightmare personally. On civ's scale, that city makes Tokyo or Beijing look infinitesimal. How would you feed or administrate such a colossal megalopolis?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That looks like a nightmare personally. On civ's scale, that city makes Tokyo or Beijing look infinitesimal. How would you feed or administrate such a colossal megalopolis?

There's also the point, and I think I posted on this all the way back in Civ V days, that it shows only one type of modern/post-modern city. The Civ franchise seems to have settled on one pattern only for Atomic Era and later cities, and it is both limiting and Ugly. What about the vertical arcologies talked about in architectural and city planning circles a couple of decades ago? What about the modern ribbon parks, green belts, vertical farms, and other 'balanced urban ecologies' that are being built all over the world now? What about real growth in cities, where the very look of older city centers and districts changes as old city walls are converted into Ring Roads, boulevards, and later green belts, and older Neighborhoods, Industrial and Commercial areas get 'gentrified'? What about central city parks, which graphic is sadly missing from the game, but have been staples of cities in Europe and North America since the late Industrial Era?
Yes, many modern cities wretchedly resemble each other in sterile piles of steel and glass, but that is Not the only way to go.

 

[kaspergm]

Imagine the scale of this and compare it to a condensed plot of maybe 8 skyscrapers we have right now.

While that city might be taking it to the extremes, I wouldn't mind cities to be more sprawling and integrated. I understand that they need the district info to be "at a glance", and while I'm not sure people really use it that much, it's a sympathetic thought. But maybe there could be a bit more "filling in the gaps" to make city look more coherent.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

While that city might be taking it to the extremes, I wouldn't mind cities to be more sprawling and integrated. I understand that they need the district info to be "at a glance", and while I'm not sure people really use it that much, it's a sympathetic thought. But maybe there could be a bit more "filling in the gaps" to make city look more coherent.

Unfortunately, once they went with discrete, separate Districts, any graphic coherence in the cities disappeared, and ain't likely to come back without modification of the entire District system.

Like, Districts should be modifiable and even convertible: as mentioned above, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance Era cities didn't really have separate 'Industrial Districts' at all , unless you counted the area by the river where all the water wheels went by the mid-Medieval period. Workshops were scattered throughout the city, usually in separate 'streets' that specialized in one type of manufacture (there were, for instance, a Street of Sculptors and portrait artists and a Street of Armorers in Classical Athens, and the members of Guilds tended to 'cluster' in Medieval cities). The buildings in 'Holy Sites' - temples, cathedrals, mosques, etc. were almost always found in the middle of the city, not out in a separate district in the countryside. Neighborhoods were built up separately only when stea-powere transportation in the 19th century (Industrial Era) allowed people to travel into the city easily. In the Atomic Era and later, the trend has been to convert older Commercial, Port, Industrial areas into Neighborhoods - "Gentrification". All over Europe Renaissance Walls were torn down in the Industrial and Modern Eras and replaced by 'ring roads' - "Boulevards" in the original sense - and now many of those include green belts and mass transit lines.

So, aside from 'simple' graphic changes like giving us a variety of potential 'modern' city styles instead of every city becoming Shanghai Steel Sick-Inducing, I'd like to see some major revisions of the Districts to better reflect the 'real' growth and specialization of cities - and their defenses. It is, IMHO, ridiculous that the only part of a city that can be walled, even in the Classical Era, is the city center and 'encampment' - which has to be separated from the city center, making the defenses separate as well. Every military and civil engineer in the world before Prussia's 'detached forts' of the mid-18th century would be spinning in his grave like a top!

Here's a sample set of changes:
1. All Districts before Steam Tech must be adjacent to the City Center or to another District that is adjacent to the City Center. That, of course, would require modifying the entire 'Adjacency' system, because you won't have the freedom to scatter your city in detached districts all over the landscape as we do now to 'maximize' Adjacencies until your population can actually travel back and forth easily between them.
2. The City Center should be much more flexible. Specifically, there should be the option to build a Shrine/Worship center there in addition to or as part of the Monument. This wouldn't be as efficient or powerful in its influence as a separate Holy Quarter with a Temple (higher level 'worship' structure), and the Holy Quarter should get a major boost if certain Wonders are built next to it - namely, any 'religious' Wonder like Hagia Sophia or St Basil's Cathedral.
Another point is that Civ-Specific graphics can be added for the 'central worship structure' and the Monument, and some Civs would combine the two in one structure: an Aztec Pyramid with sacrificial altar on top, for instance, or a Greek Agora combining a Stoa and Shrine - there are lots of examples that only require a non-animated graphic and a change in numerical factors, if appropriate.
3. All Districts are convertible to some degree. Ones that I have seen personally in (Atomic Era) cities from the USA to Germany are:
Encampment to Neighborhood (Aschaffenburg, Berlin, San Francisco's Prasedio district)
Harbor or Industrial Zone to add Neighborhood features ("gentrification")
Holy Site to add Commercial Hub features (York Minster, the Domplatz in Mainz)
Encampment to Park
The requirements would have to be carefully defined, and usually involve later Eras, especially when the size of cities changed dramatically in the Industrial and Modern Eras.
4. City defenses would cover the entire city including its contiguous districts, and adding later Districts would require also 'extending' the Walls to cover them. Before the Industrial Era, when city walls essentially became obsolete, this would require more expense (or another 'use' for Military Engineers). On the other hand, walls now made obsolete because they cover a tile side now inside the city could provide Bonuses (see Rothenburg-ob-Tauber, a little Medieval city networked by 'internal' walls it outgrew, which are now some of the major tourist attractions in the town, or Paris, Vienna, or Berlin, all of which outgrew their Renaissance Walls, tore them down, built major Ring Roads/Boulevards on the sites around the city)

 

[mitsho]

The sprawling above only works if a current tile gets split into 5 smaller ones or something alike. I even now run out of tiles to build Wonders on. I could simply destroy a few infrastructures, but I don't like doing that. But that dilemma is what the creators of civ6 had in mind. Still, I like the sprawling. It makes sense.

Still, I think the adjacencies were the wrong way to go, but the district system is a good idea. I would propose a simpler system than that mentioned just before though:

1. Every district has 5 building slots.
2. If a district has a majority of one class of buildings, it becomes a special district (say a Holy Site), gaining bonuses and maybe coloured roofs. There also can be mixed districts, say workshop + barrack = bonus to siege units.
3. Some buildings may only be built on certain spots (Water Mills at a river, observatory next to mountain).
4. Buildings are movable, allowing the micromanagers to min-max their bonuses
5. Wonders take up 3 slots and are not movable, National Wonders take up 2 slots.

So the key point is that you don't decide on a district and then have empty districts lying around for a long time until you can build that tier-3 building, but rather you build districts when you need them. Totally agree on the walls though.