04-07-2004 04:59									#1
	Should walking, talking advisors be ressurected? Remove this text

I wanted to ask everyone their thoughts on bringing back the video advisors of civ 2. I know that in civ2 they got a little repetitive over time, but they added spice.
The same goes for the wonder movies.

I'm thinking that the videos of various advice could be varied enough in this day and age, to actually be useful as well as entertaining.

I vote yes.

	04-07-2004 05:06									#2
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I voted no. I certainly have fond memories of most of the old advisors... but I'd rather we had useful advirsors than animated ones. SOmething more like the Datalinks in SMAC, where you could get great breakdowns of anything you wanted.

I also don't want animated leaderheads, or or anything else that replaces functionality with glitz.

	04-07-2004 07:52									#3
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In this day and age, we should be able to combine something functional with something that looks good.

But indeed - "Only if they're varied enough not to get repeditive", because I don't need someone telling me what I already know or have already guessed they're going to tell me. :/

	04-07-2004 07:59									#4
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One thing that bugged me about civ3 was having animated leaders, and then teh advisors, whose graphical quality was similar, not being animated. Lets have a little consistency here!

	04-07-2004 08:07									#5
	Got spare money?

Leaders are more important than mere advidors.

	04-07-2004 09:16									#6
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The Civ2 Advisors screen was terrific entertainment value. Beyond that it was not so useful.

THe Civ3 Advisors (with the exception of some of the Military and Foreign Affairs Advisors' info) were quite useless. Perhaps a section of info that the advisors give (and will need to give in the new cIV) but no Advisors heads needed.

At the same time I would not so no to anything as entertaining as the Civ2 advisors, I just consider it surplus to working on the game mechanics.

	04-07-2004 09:23									#7
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I presume that the game mechanics will be botchy like the other civ games.
Might as well add some hillarity to make the game worth playing - at least it would have Roleplaying value.

	04-07-2004 11:04									#8
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Bring back the Egyptian ambassador.
For some unknown reason the Egyptians usually could get better deals from me.

	04-07-2004 14:22									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Enigma_Nova Leaders are more important than mere advidors.

I agree. It is just a tad jarring to see the advisers teleport between poses though.

	04-07-2004 16:33									#10
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Maybe.
...
Do you reckon they could get Voice acting and CG models for cIV?
Just wondering.

	04-07-2004 18:38									#11
	Inflate your Upload Space

Voted banana.

Yes, in Civ2 they were nice, but they were not that important.

What I would prefer is the old theme tunes playing when you discover a tech or take a city. I love the old civ theme tunes like Augustus Rises. In fact that was my main reason for playing the Romans in Civ1.

	04-07-2004 23:07									#12
	Increase the size of your Attachments

So you're saying that the Atmosphere is an important part of the game?
That's true. But do Advisors add to the atmosphere, or detract from it with their humorous ineptitude?

	05-07-2004 00:38									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Enigma_Nova So you're saying that the Atmosphere is an important part of the game? That's true. But do Advisors add to the atmosphere, or detract from it with their humorous ineptitude?

If done right, then they could really add to the atmosphere. It would be nice to see the military advisor, for instance, ask you to boost your troops along some border because he doesn't trust them. Even more so if that civilization had broken some treaties in the past. Of course, if you already have a lot of troops there, maybe he should comment on it and give some other advice.

I think this would require a fair amount of effort to do well, but it could do things well. Part of it depends on the AI, I think. If the AI is programmed with short term and long term goals that it develops, and these goals are pretty decent, then this could work well. You basically just get the AI's opinion on things. Of course, this is prone to abuse if the AI still cheats with how it looks at other cities.

Otherwise it would be tricky, but not impossible.

-Drachasor

	05-07-2004 03:15									#14
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Sounds like alot of work but I'd like to see it as well.

	05-07-2004 13:28									#15
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The problem with making an advisor seem competent is
the same problem as making a turing bot work -
how do you get them to understand the complex variables in the equation?

You can't, so the best you can do is make them idiots which can be laughed at.

	07-07-2004 01:24									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I wouldn't mind having the video advisors back. I would like more than one person available for each position, but I guess if we had that they wouldn't be video. One thing I liked about the advisors in Civ2 was it was a good time to do things I didn't do every turn, making any changes I might want. I did follow their advice. Maybe we could have some advice given in video and still portraits of the same advisors to give different sorts of advice. I guess it would be nice to have more bits of advice recorded for the game to choose from than in Civ2. I didn't think the Science or Culture Advisor Screens were useless. It would be nice to have some recorded speach in the game again.

	07-07-2004 01:31									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Enigma_Nova The problem with making an advisor seem competent is the same problem as making a turing bot work - how do you get them to understand the complex variables in the equation? You can't, so the best you can do is make them idiots which can be laughed at.

They can remind you of some simple things you might have forgotten though. A really good player won't need them, but the average player might find them entertaining and helpful.

Also, giving them some kind of attitude like I-hate-those-British-they-keep-knifing-us-in-the-back, would make the game even more fun to play. I am sure many, if not all of us, have moments when we whisper such things to ourselves. Would it not be nice if some video adviser repeated our sentiments, and perhaps added something such as "I say we build an army and eliminate them once and for all!"

That would not be hard to do.

What would be harder is having them give some advice such as build up the eastern armies, or the like. Shouldn't be impossible though. Maybe they'll give bad advice sometimes, but that's not the point. The point is that they will be entertaining and sometimes give decent advice or point out things that maybe slipped our mind.

Speaking of which, it would be nice if you could tell an advisor to remind you to do something in some number of turns or when some condition has been met.

Of course, other gameplay comes first, but this could be a cool addition.

-Drachasor

	08-07-2004 11:11									#18
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Same as with the wonder-movies.
It's nice, but I'd rather see Firaxis focus on the game itself and not on features I'll turn off anyway in 3 weeks.

	08-07-2004 20:56									#19
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quote: Originally posted by CyberShy Same as with the wonder-movies. It's nice, but I'd rather see Firaxis focus on the game itself and not on features I'll turn off anyway in 3 weeks.

I agree here. Best they focus on the most important aspects, and then add the nice perks and fluff if they have time. Hopefully they can do a little of both though, by making sure the important aspects are just general enough to support some fluff (like decent suggestion/reminding advisors).

-Drachasor