Adviser Movies In Civ3?

I think civ3 should feature adviser movie clips like in civ2, that was one of the coolest parts of civ2. What do you ppl think?

[Jeje2]

Well, why not...
Just like the palace they were a nice break in the game.

But I would like to see:
- possibility to turn them off
- More possible advices and better logic into them. In Civ2 I got bored with them, since the they weren't good enough.

Yeah I reckon they did get anoying after a while, it whould be great if they had a much larger variety instead of blabbering on about the same thing, but i'm sure firaxis will come up with better stuff.

[Kuciwalker]

I always turned off that function in Civ2 because if they were telling me to do something, either a) it was just them being stupid and it was horrible advice, or b) I'd already figured that out and they weren't helping me any. I think that if they're in Civ3 then they need to be a lot less stupid.

[eNo]

I'm not particularly against this idea myself but if ther eare 5 advisors, in 3-4 time periods with a large variety of advice each, wouldn't that end up taking up a lot of the CD? I'd rather have some nicer wonder/intro/victory movies instead.

And if there are advisors, please no Elvis's.

[Cyclotron]

I dunno, the King was kind of cool

If it interferes with the rest of the game, certainly not... but realistically guys, I think that nothing will have to be scrapped to fit the advisors in. With a bit of improvement, they should be included, as they are a great part of the civ ambiance.

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

yeah well i suppose if they did replace other stuff then they shouldn't be included, but i'm sure they won't take up too much CD space, the ones in civ2 took up 90mb surprisingly, but if they had 2 cd's for civ3 that whould be ok.

[raingoon]

Hmmm... I vote no. The production value of the original advisers was very low. Mainly because the talent was mediocre and the dialogue written for them to say was amateurish camp.

If live action talent is being considered for the game I strongly urge Firaxis to avoid the assumption that "passable" is good enough. Tongue-in-cheek will not cover up the damage done by mediocre talent in terms of over all game experience. Computer game makers have been notoriously easy on themselves in terms of live action production value, and Civ 2 was no exception. People who defend it usually say stuff the begins with, "I don't know, I kinda..." Firaxis has thus far been a pleasant exception to the no talent live action talent rule.

If they are going ahead with this feature, I recommend Firaxis see "I, Claudius" starring Derek Jacobi in the title role. You can find it next to the Ken Burns Civil War documentary. It has the best dialogue and acting involving actors in a toga probably ever done. If you can't sit through that, you probably have no business writing dialogue for any live action characters in Civ 3.

At first I thought the advisers in Civ 2 were pretty cool, but after a while I ended up turning them off for the reasons stated above - they were either giving useless advice, or giving helpful advice that I had already figured out an hour earlier.

I guess I wouldn't mind seeing advisers like that again in Civ 3 (though I agree that some improvement would be good), so long as it doesn't mean that Firaxis is going to put off doing something else that would be more beneficial to the game.

[Zealot]

Well, yeah, they're funny! Stupid, useless, but funny! Therefor, I would like to see some improvements on this feature's AI.
Much has been said about Civ3's AI. I hope that the improvements reach the Advisors as well.

Civ fans will apreciate that, Firaxis.

[Nikolai]

I would much more like to have the advise as text, or both text and movie! With text it would be simpler to understand what the advisors are saying.

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Who am I? What am I? Do we need Civ? Well....

[Grumbold]

I'd rather have city governors that can be turned on or off and learn by seeing what they do. The ham acting advisors were a momentary amusement but I never seriously listened to their advice.

[yin26]

The only way I'd like to see this done is through famous quotes similar to SMAC...maybe even using footage of the actual person being quoted. This should not only be relatively easier to do but far more classy.

For example, I'd much rather have a few second footage of Allen Greenspan saying something cool about not ignoring the economy than dressing up some Denny's waiter in an Elvis suit and having him endlessly spout "It's about the money...Honney!"

At any rate, I'd even turn that off after a few games. If you ask me, spend more time on the tech tree making it full of great historical knowledge.

[Bender]

I'm in favor of something along these lines. They don't have to be advisors necessarily. I am liking the idea of using footage and quotes from famous people. Of course there needs to be an option to turn these off. Even the best features get annoying after hundreds of games.

I too appreciated the "High Council's" sense of humor. I would like to see them (or a facimile there of) in civ3.

If players get tired of them or just don't want to be bothered with them, have a setting where you can turn them off.

I agree, if disc space is at a premium - then have a 2-Disc Civ3 game.

[bagdar]

Although I liked the Advisor videos, they somehow didn't fit the overall atmosphere of the game. This doesn't necessarily mean that the tongue-in-cheek attidute was distracting, (an attitude which Civ I too had, with more successful harmony) and maybe the reason why I felt this way is because I thought it sounded too much like "So, this is a sequel, it's on a CD, and nowadays games have movie clips etc. so here's some eyecandy." It seems to me that Civ III will a have similar approach, and that'll only serve to increase system requirements and delay the release date. Firaxis isn't only a shrine of game-gods as we imagine it is, but it also is a company that has to think about marketing, so this is how it's bound to be. Sorry if I couldn't express what I meant to express. Anyway. When is the update?
[This message has been edited by bagdar (edited February 23, 2001).]

Well yeah i agree the advisers should be completely re-done with much more interesting speeches, and maybee they don't fit into the game, but that depends on the level of civ3's gameplay.

I think that the advisers in civ2 were pretty awsome at first but when I got bored of them i turned them off, Firaxis should creat more advice for the same thing but implied at different angles and debated differently by the other advisers. I also angree that Firaxis should aim at AI improvments for this feature instead of having them say things triggered by events.

[tniem]

Gotta believe that some form of advisors are in the game, if for no other reason than this is a sequel that has to be better than previous versions and include what has at least been a part of the previous versions.

Although, I would agree with Yin that quotes would be a good solution to the repetitive nature of advisors.

[Flandrien]

If the high council takes up too much CD space, why not only include it on the DVD version ?

[tniem]

I think the best advice that can be given is what your people want to see done in the nation. Whether this is through advisors, uprisings, or public opinion polls, I want to know what my people are thinking.

Balancing the opinion of the people inhabiting your civ could become a very important part of the strategic element of Civ III.

[Nemo]

I think they can do a lot more with 90Mb then the silly council - like end of game replay, and more caslte options, and M.A.D. and diplomat scenes, and ... need i go on? the council just wasn't up to snuff - if it was ~10Mb i could see, but 90! too much other, better, stuff can use that CD space

[Juggler_Bob]

I like the advisors, especially when they get snippy with one another.

As I mentioned in a thread over in Civ II Strategy, there are a number of clips that remain unseen in normal (competent) game-play. But they are very useful to the beginning player when something is going very badly, as well as being quite funny(IMHO), at least for the first 1000 times.
The problem is that the Council only spontaneously meets at certain predetermined intervals, and the novice player may not know how to select 'View High Council' when advice is really needed.

I like the suggestion that Sirotnikov made about having the advisors available on their relevent information screens. There could be a text box summarizing their advice, as well as a .avi clip for those so inclined. It would also be interesting if all of the advisors were available (clickable) on city build and research path screens: advice when a (novice) player might really need it. And if Firaxis really wished to make it functional, the player should be able to disagree with the advisor's initial suggestion, and get a second, or even third opinion from them, based on whatever is going on in their (or even other) areas.

Example: Science Advisor
City Build 1st advice - "Build a library" Fairly standard no brainer.

But now the player disagrees (or clicks on "Speak to me about other matters of importance...)

CB 2nd - "Let us encourage the study of science among the populace" Now advising the player to increase the science rate by creating scientists on the city screen (from the working population).

CB 3rd - "Build a diplomat/spy" Perhaps this city has been recently robbed of some tech, and needs protection, (and let us hope Firaxis fixes the undefeatable tech steal situation ,) or perhaps there is a nearby city of another civ that possesses superior tech...

Same thing for the Research Path. 2nd and 3rd advice may be for a certain Wonder that would benefit their area (maybe even one 2 or 3 techs away), or perhaps a tech that provides secondary benefit to their area.

Of course, this level of AI may be far beyond what Firaxis intends to include in Civ III, but I can dream, can't I?


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Semper ubi sub ubi!
[This message has been edited by Juggler_Bob (edited February 27, 2001).]

The High Council was there for a laugh noting more. I never took it serious. I would like to see something one in a while to break up the game. And all of you who played the game already know you can turn it off and on as mush as you like. I would recommend not taking this game so serious. Every game Sid has been associated with that I/m aware of, he has always said he wants his game to be fun and exciting. If a game is to serious and to much of a challenge, a lot people would not buy it because it would not be any fun to play.

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[Sirotnikov]

I think the advisors were very funny and cool.
It is true they became annoying and predicted at some stage.
So we need text based advisors that will be more complex than the civ2 ones but easier to understand and will sometimes show up on their own without you asking. they should be present at heir screens (ie spy screen, trade screen, military screen) and as a council where they could exchange ideas... meaning you hear all of them and then can ratre according to importance who will you listen to.

It should be a bit more like the SimCity 3000 advisors.

[Sirotnikov]

The stuff about having a second (or third) opinion is really good.

But ofcourse the game itself should retire advices which aren't usefull, I mean, you wouldn't want your science advisor telling you to "build more libraries" when you have universities in all your cities?

I did miss though, the possibility of having more than one solution for each problem. having numerous adiveses is very good.

[sulla]

I'd have to say yes because they amuse me alot.

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Sulla-The last dictator of Rome before Caesar. He changed Rome and Rome sure as hell changed him.

While we wait for the eventual release of CIV3, I have gotten a little reminiscent and have started playing CIVNET with my friend. On a side line, you can definately tell the graphics have come a long way!! But I digress, my point is that I actually miss having the High Council from CIV2 in CIVNET. However, I much prefer the Palace than the Throne Room...but that's getting into another thread.