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Slingshot
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Alberta, Canada
Jun 1999
time: 05:14
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RE: A Killer Soundtrack
Above all, Civ is the very best game because it is so immersive. Immersion comes from the addictive story line, the ability to see something worthwhile come from your troubles, and a medium that is appealing to the senses.
But graphics - even wonderful, rich, soul-wrenching graphics can only do part of the job. Probably the best example is Myst and Riven. Both games were primarily visual, and yet the designers felt the experience would be lacking without a soundtrack. For mnay, the music was so good that Cyan even sold the soundtrack on CD!
Here are some other reasons:
- Music is an excellent way to suggest theme. Think of movies like Crimson Tide, the Hunt for Red October, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. Consider how razing the Death Star would feel if there was no music in the background.
- Music can help a Civ player experience that civ's culture, by listening to special tracks "written" by admiring citizens or during a parade in his/her honour.
- A frantic score can emphasize the feeling that you're behind on the powergraph. If another player is fast approaching, the music can foreshadow the struggle to come.
Many themes are age-specific. For example:
- In the beginning, life is lonely .. haunting, dark .. ominous. Players are fighting for knowledge of techs and landscape. There is a lot of music that generates this sort of mood. Eg. celtic (Enya's song "Hymn" comes to mind, or Enya's sister, Marie Brennan's "Gra De"
- During the renaisance, there is are more cavalier themes, including a whole new way to look at exploitation: Imperialism.
- After Imperialism came great conflicts and war on a global scale. As I suggested, works like Gustav Holst's "Mars" is a fitting score.
But there can be problems. BAD music is worse than no music at all! Music is bad when:
- it is overly repititous, or it overstates a theme.
- it is played at the wrong time. Once in CTP I was pummeling the last Viking city after a Blitzkreig-style war. Then came the bzzzt! Hoy Ya! Bong bong Tribal Drum song... That sure killed the mood...
- it is too removed from what the average gamer can stomach. Eg. The William Tell Overture (Lone Ranger Theme Song) would be silly.
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FinnishGuy
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Finland
Jun 1999
time: 07:14
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Resubmitting my proposal from New Ideas (by request of korn469):
<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src=/forums/"/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Make the graphics move fast. No slowdowns, none, no matter how many units or cities or whatever graphics items are on screen. FAST, get it? Thanks.
<img src=/forums/"/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
I'm now extending my proposal to include the CIV3 user interface, which should respond quickly and smoothly. Furthermore, the graphics should be well-designed and of high quality, not horrible looking like in SMAC (credits to Lordstone1 for the quality suggestion).
And to elaborate a bit...
<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src=/forums/"/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>What are the strengths... Well, SMAC is an example how horribly sluggish graphics and interface can ruin an otherwise excellent game. I'd really want to like SMAC but whenever I start a new game, soon after the first few dozen turns it starts to feel more and more like a burden instead of fun. Every damn unit seems to take seconds to move! I don't understand how some people can play SMAC on huge maps with zillion cities and units, for me small maps are the largest tolerable. Consequently, I regard SMAC only a barely good game instead of brilliant. I'm glad to hear that the first thing Firaxis did when they started designing CIV3 was to throw out SMAC's graphics engine. My proposal is there to remind them that they should pay special attention to make the new graphics/interface really FAST and snappy, and in no case repeat SMAC's failure or be satisfied with mediocre solutions.
I don't mean that overall game time should be extremely short or game elements like AI should be compromised. It'll be all fine with me if a game of CIV3 will take several evenings. I just want the graphics/interface to do its' job fast and smoothly so I can fully enjoy the game itself.
<img src=/forums/"/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
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Slingshot
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Alberta, Canada
Jun 1999
time: 05:14
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I will try again, Raingoon.
The title for the thread should be:
Fix # ______. An Age-Relevant, Immersive Soundtrack.
How's that?
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Field Marshal Klesh
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Klesh Marshal Field
Jan 2000
time: 00:14
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Raingoon, here goes:This is an idea I've been pondering. I originally posted this thought in the Civ2Gen/Com, before I realized what this one was all about.
I find it a bit unrealistic that Field artillery, tanks, and ships must be adjacent to the enemy in order to execute an attack. In real life these weapons have the abbility to attack from very long ranges. Is it possible for Civ3to change the attributes of these units? Imagine an attack system for these units(perhaps others) that would be simmilar to the "Paradrop" command. You press perhaps the "a"(for attack) button, then you get a crosshairs pointer(like the parachute icon) that allows for an attack from a few squares away. Battleships maybe three squares, field artillary from two and tanks from one. It seems to me that only infantry should have to risk themselves by getting up close, and personal with the enemy.
This has major implications toward strategy. Imagine parking a battleship within a city and taking out oncoming units which are three squares away!
The argument against this that developed in the other thread is that the atk/def/mov points already take into account the units real life ability. But the 'Move' catagory should be seen that way. Would a battleship go full speed ahead at a cruiser before it attacked it? No, it would fire upon it, and then move into the area. See what I mean? Costal bombardment can now stretch a little inland too.
The crosshairs idea can be put on anything with large missiles or cannons.(not medievil cannons, tank cannons of course)
Mainly I see only the modern units using this new idea.
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23-02-2000 12:45
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