We (I) Need 'Fluff' For MP

TechWins · May 7, 2002, 14:47

The few things that keep me sane during the long waiting times while playing MP (Civ2) is the fluff. IMO, Civ2 didn't have nearly as much fluff (demographics, top 5 cities, casualties, etc...) as I would have wished. Also IMO, I think Civ3 has even a little bit less fluff than Civ2. Well, maybe Civ3 does have more fluff than Civ2 (stupid leader heads, etc...), but Civ3 has less useful fluff than Civ2 (casualties screen). Ok what exactly am I getting at besides just continous rambling? For MP to be more enjoyable I think Firaxis needs to bring back me any of the fluff things that were lost in Civ2 and implement many new fluff things. There have been many ideas listed at this site in the recent months, and I think now is the time for Firaxis to implement those. In SP you don't really need all that much fluff, but in MP it is a lot more important.

Here are a few things I would like to see:

a casualty listing screen - exactly like Civ2 had it

a more extensive demographics screen

more top five listings than just top five cities - such as armies, enconomies, etc...

the ablity to individually name each unit

a listing of the battles a unit fought in. and the results of them

however maybe the last two are asking for too much

What are your thoughts on the importance of certain goodies like these for MP?

Dom Pedro II · May 7, 2002, 16:34

No, CtPII had an option to name armies (groups of units), so unit naming should be quite possible in a Civ3 xp. I'd go one step further and opt for the ability to name regions like give a title to specific tiles by right clicking on them or something (or groups of tiles might be better).

Good List

Adm.Naismith · May 7, 2002, 16:39

Quote:

Originally posted by TechWins
Here are a few things I would like to see:

a casualty listing screen - exactly like Civ2 had it

a more extensive demographics screen

more top five listings than just top five cities - such as armies, enconomies, etc...

the ablity to individually name each unit

a listing of the battles a unit fought in. and the results of them

however maybe the last two are asking for too much

What are your thoughts on the importance of certain goodies like these for MP?

Well, I agree on some "extras", but many are probably almost impossible given current Civ III implementation.

I don't understand why do you think some are needed in MP, not in SP.

I just want to add, that I'll enjoy more that additional feature if they have some use:
- demographics that are useful to show strong and weak point of a civilization (e.g. a statistic about the use of a resource if it can hint about the probability of a quick depletion of the source).

Some parts, as name for units and battle history are more for "game immersion", and are a matter of taste (I can love them, while some people will start to cry out loud "OPTION, ONLY IF IT'S AN OPTION!"

)

civman2000 · May 7, 2002, 16:42

definitely...something that I wouldnt blame firaxis for not having (alhtough I think the manual says they were trying to strip in down and get rid of fluff

) but would be very nice to have...

Inverse Icarus · May 7, 2002, 17:03

we definatedly need a casuality list.

IMHO, you could make it so it's groupd by location on a given turn.

example: the battle fought in 200 AD near Rome

click that and it lists all the units that fought an enemy unit near rome on that turn.

things it could include would be an icon of each unit, rankings (elite etc) any promotions given, the HP levels of both, and of course the victor.

for some reason i loathe the wonders fo the world and top 5 cities things in civ3... i dont know, the windowed civ2 was a real catch.

TechWins · May 7, 2002, 17:05

Quote:

so unit naming should be quite possible in a Civ3 xp.

Oh I know it's possible; it's just a matter of whether or not Firaxis will go as far as allowing us to do that.

Quote:

the ability to name regions like give a title to specific tiles by right clicking on them

Kind of like SMAC.

Quote:

Well, I agree on some "extras", but many are probably almost impossible given current Civ III implementation.

I don't see why.

Quote:

I don't understand why do you think some are needed in MP, not in SP.

What I mean is that for MP they are more useful/important than SP. I would still like to have them too with SP, but now that MP will be coming I think they are even more important to have.

Quote:

while some people will start to cry out loud "OPTION, ONLY IF IT'S AN OPTION!"

Yeah, there could be an option that asks for you to name a unit after you build it or without that option checked it would work the same. Plus you can always go back and rename that unit if you wanted to. It's pretty much the samething as naming cities, except you could have an option of doing it or not.

For me, when I play MP games I always get bored while waiting during my turn so I go look at demographics, etc... about every other turn and seeing the samething over and over again gets repetitive. That's why if we had more stuff to look at it wouldn't get as boring. Looking at statistics adds a lot to the game, especially in MP.

Dom Pedro II · May 7, 2002, 17:31

Quote:

Originally posted by TechWins

Kind of like SMAC.

Yeah, thats what made me think of it, but for some reason I could never seem to NAME a region in SMAC. I found regions with names, but I never actually got a region named.

Grrr · May 7, 2002, 17:32

If they want to give us a good scenario editor, naming units/regions is essential.

Dom Pedro II · May 7, 2002, 17:35

I agree with this idea. The scenario editor should definitely had such options.

Grrr · May 7, 2002, 18:21

It is essential. Regions and units need to be nameable. We had this problem in Civ 2.

Nikolai · May 8, 2002, 17:29

Maybe it's because I'm tired, but when I saw the header of this thread, I thought you was talking about the "mysterical" technology "Fluff" that we all was wondering what was for in the early developement of Civ3!

Wow, I need to sleep...

asleepathewheel · May 8, 2002, 18:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Nikolai
Maybe it's because I'm tired, but when I saw the header of this thread, I thought you was talking about the "mysterical" technology "Fluff" that we all was wondering what was for in the early developement of Civ3!

Wow, I need to sleep...

When I saw the title, I thought, yeah, I need a fluffer for an mp game.

Great list, i agree. i most want a kill list.

Oerdin · May 8, 2002, 21:19

I wish they could include some sort of SLIC support like CTP2 has; that way players will be able to freely modify the game any which way they like. The changes and improvements that modders have made to CTP2 via SLIC are absolutely incredible and they keep people playing and replaying the game. It's to bad Firaxis didn't include this sort of support when the game shipped because it would have saved the need to repatch the game every month or so.

Adm.Naismith · May 9, 2002, 10:20

Quote:

Originally posted by myself
Well, I agree on some "extras", but many are probably almost impossible given current Civ III implementation.

Quote:

Originally posted by TechWins
I don't see why.

Ok, as a "once upon a time I was a programmer" guy, I suppose that Civ III game data structure and algorithms are quite "hardcoded", so adding at this point of developement features like the ability to log battle results for every units in game, is quite difficult and memory consuming, and it'll require major game code rewriting.
Hence is not very likely that someone at Firaxis is ready to throw away months of Civ III code and debugging just for the sake of adding nice touch (fluff), IMHO.

Panag · May 9, 2002, 10:37

hi ,

maybe we should stop to look to much at the past and only look at the future , and take some things from the past and improve them , redesign them , ....

have a nice day

TechWins · May 9, 2002, 18:55

Adm.Naismith,

I thought you were saying that it is impossible for it to actually be implemented into the game. Yes, I agree that it's very unlikely that it will be added into the game, for the reasons that you listed, but it still is possible to do it.

Plus remember what I said referring to listing battles fought by a unit and being able to name a unit --- "however maybe the last two are asking for too much".

Quote:

maybe we should stop to look to much at the past and only look at the future , and take some things from the past and improve them , redesign them , ....

Well, I'd be extremely happy if Firaxis were to extend the Demographics, include a couple more top five lists, and a casualty list. Tis that too much to ask?

Grrr · May 10, 2002, 00:43

I knew that I'd seen fluff in the game somewhere before. It is good to see some though. All the orginal development ideas are coming out again.