28-09-2001 23:22									#1
	the wait for civiliza d4 Increase the size of your Attachments

after taking a short break upon completing demo 3b, progress continues on civiliza.

right now, i'm working on getting the resources system in the game. i'm doing my planning for all the new features for the next release as i go along here.

one major change i am considering is doing away with all the units, and replacing them with armies. with this new way, you will build entire armies from the city screen consisting of a set amount of different units. of course, you will have to have the required resources available to build the army (resources are stockpiled in this game). so instead of having 50+ individual units running around on the map, you will have a small number of armies instead. i'm not sure how i will handle combat with this new system.

he's a screen of the latest build:

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	30-09-2001 16:24									#2
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yayy
i was wondering when someone wood try and beat civ3 with stuff before it came out!

	30-09-2001 17:50									#3
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i have to admit that some of my design is similar to Civ3, but there will definitally be changes. For example, getting the resources will probably be the same, but in my game you will be able to stockpile them, like in RTS games. As for the armies, in Civ3 it will be an option that will give a big boost to your units working together. In my game it won't be something you get from elite units or a wonder, it will in from the very beginning and it will be your only option. Combat will definitally be different. I'm still thinking of how to do combat. Here are a couple of ideas:

1) CTP-like, in a seperate screen with a square of tiles to manuever your troops around. The city walls could be included in this, making siege weapons even more necessary.

2) MoO2-like, in a seperate screen which controls all the combat by itself, and has little unit animations running across the bottom of the screen doing battle. I'm sure it will be a challenge, but it will look great if I can pull it off.

And then, there are lots of things which to be honest with you, I have no idea if they will be in Civ3. I hope they don't have the same nuke system in mind!

	30-09-2001 21:03									#4
	Full PM-box? Change here!

you havent got a tech tree yetand you're already thinking about nukes!
i would like them planet buster style or something really destructive and atrocios!

	01-10-2001 10:25									#5
	Inflate your Upload Space

a lot of my best ideas are nuke related

there will be 3 stages of nukes in civiliza. the first stage will be early nukes that do average damage. these must be delived by bombers. the second stage of nukes does a lot more damage, and can be delivered by ICBM's, which get to their target anywhere on the map in a single turn. the third stage will come from a future tech (likely to be Anti-Matter), and the warheads will devestate the enemy as well as the planet. All the missile launches and interceptions will be animated on the main screen.
Btw, the nuke interceptors will come in three stages too, from a ground-to-air missile launcher that only hits half its targets to a futuristic network of laser-equipped satelites.

	01-10-2001 20:47									#6
	Remove this text

so like the smac planet buster!
this, along with civ 3 having 16 civs is the best news today

i know this is off topic but im a warlord already. and my proper joining date is on the side. i only joined in late august. and to be honest i'm still a civ2 warlord

Last edited by tishco on 01-10-2001 at 21:03

	11-10-2001 05:29									#7
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

screen shot time.

here's a shot of the main map, which takes up nearly the entire screen, the way it should be. no new original artwork here, but the terrain types are all in.

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	11-10-2001 05:33									#8
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the new city window, which basically just centers the view on the city, and props up necessary information. here you can see food resources being harvested from the tiles surrounding the city.

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	11-10-2001 05:38									#9
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and finally, a better way of selecting what unit you want to be built. each unit costs different resources, which are deducted from your stockpiles.


no comment on the blurred out text on the bottom right

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	11-10-2001 21:48									#10
	Support Apolyton

woaw, advancin fast, but what is the red blurry thing? i know its not to be known but please diont do a firaxis. is t somehting to do with new stuff like armies, culture, nukes, tech or diplo. i guess nukes or global warming from nukes pollution or nukelear winter.
was there supposed to be no fog of war?

	18-10-2001 13:15									#11
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

to answer your question, it's a nuke-related button.

regarding the current status of civiliza:
although i have been spending some time away from my project recently (god counter-strike is such an addictive game), much progress has been made. the basic population system is in the game. Population growth is not based on how much food is available like in Civ2. Population growth will be based on the current population in the city, what improvements the city has (like hospitals), what technologies the civilization has. Population growth can be halted by lack of food or biochemical weapons. I've been balancing out the population growth. It works pretty nicely though; small cities take awhile to grow, but this is okay because in the early game the years fly by. larger cities grow a whole lot faster, and as long as you have enough food you can make some pretty huge cities. the city size number can go up to 99, which is reperesentative of 9,900,000 people. i'm going to have to raise this number though.
I've also updated a bunch of the graphics, added city resource gathering management, and added the tech tree. that's right, the tech tree is in the game already and fully functional. The techs themselves dont do anything yet, but the tree is in there

It's going to be awhile until demo 4 is out, i will report on progress every once in awhile.

	29-10-2001 16:25									#12
	Increase Your PM Length

more work has been done on the population system and the managing of resources in the cities. the resources of the game have been finalized, and they are:

food - aquired from many different types of terrains. used for population cap. may one day be used to buy/maintain armies

wood - aquired from forrests and mountains. used for a few units and many structures

iron - aquired from hills and mountains. used for a few units and structures

gold - aquired from mountains. can be used for cash, but has other uses.

bronze - same as iron

oil - from desert, glacier, or sea tiles. oil is used for many modern-day units.

steel - converted from iron by blast furnaces in a steel plant. used in many modern day units and structures.

power - gathering from many different city improvements, power is used by other improvements and futuristic military units.

electronics - produced by manufacturing plants. used in moden/future military units

uranium - probably going to be hidden amongst the different terrain tiles. this is the rarest of the resources, and is used for nuclear fission/fussion power and their respective nuclear weapons.

there will be no other resources collected in the game. no spices, no luxuries, nothing. as i've said from the beginning, i want to keep complexity away.

Attachment: resources.jpg
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	30-10-2001 04:01									#13
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

dexter:

This is sounding really good.

	02-11-2001 15:09									#14
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thanks Dale.

in the state it's in right now, my program loads up a text file in the game directory, and gets all the data for the resources (this is also true for terrains, units, techs, and improvements). each turn, resources from the worked tiles in each city radius are added up and stockpiled. then you have deductions, like for city populations and military maintenence. then what's left is what you have to work with for unit/improvement/wonder construction. cities can use the stockpiled resources if they are connected to the capital city by roads. this applies to all resources the city needs, including food to help the city grow and ore to build units with.

here's the latest screen. notice how you can set the unit being built as well as the improvement being built (you can build your armies at the same time as building up your city). also you can tell that the backgrounds have been redrawn. i'm really starting to like how my game looks. cant wait till i have backgrounds for all the different eras....

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	04-11-2001 20:54									#15
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i'm back after being unable to post. civiliza is looking very good, i look forward to its next version.
shame about civ3, i have to wait 2 weeks for it to be for sale.
when is the next civiliza coming out?

	05-11-2001 13:29									#16
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yeah, it's been awhile tischo. welcome back

hard to say when the next version will be ready. many of the things recently put in the game (like the tech tree and the city improvements) have to be linked together still, lots of unit and improvement art/data has to be filled in, and finally there's the AI, which desperately needs new routines to handle all the new stuff and to do the old stuff better. for example, the AI's way of searching for a new city spot needs to be re-done because there are now more factors for choosing a city location (resources and city radius spacing).

i'd say about 2-3 weeks for the next version, but that's a very rough estimate

	06-11-2001 07:41									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

here's a little shot of the new city improvement build queue (btw there will be no build queue for units. cities will continue to build the same unit every turn until you select a new or you run out of the right resources)

Attachment: impqs.jpg
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	06-11-2001 19:24									#18
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wooden walls,
is that upgaradable walls, if so hurrah

	07-11-2001 03:13									#19
	Very good I must say. Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Just want to say that you seem to be comming along very well this you game, congrats.

Also If there are no build cue's for units, you may want to notify the user when things like settlers, spys and caravans are built.

James.

	07-11-2001 10:58									#20
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by tishco wooden walls, is that upgaradable walls, if so hurrah

yes, walls happen to be one of the city improvements that you can upgrade.

quote: Originally posted by jimmyh Just want to say that you seem to be comming along very well this you game, congrats.

thanks

quote: Also If there are no build cue's for units, you may want to notify the user when things like settlers, spys and caravans are built

good call. i will add that to the list. perhaps i should notify the user when anything is built, but only prompt the user when settlers are built or an improvement is built and there are no queues left.



hope you guys don't mind me posting so many screens

here's one showing the new view range data for the terrain (all the terrain data is in an editable text file, btw).

it works in a way similar to civ3, higher elevations like hills and mountains will extend your view, but not if other hills, mountains, forests, or jungles are in your way.

this shot shows a settler getting a pretty nice view on top of a mountain. there are some mountains blocking most of his view to the southeast, and some hills blocking the distant view of the southwest. there's even a little valley between the hills and the mountains that the settlers can see from the mountains.

	07-11-2001 19:41									#21
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whoa things are advancing fast. it seems like almost every day i have another new feature to show off. the city window continues to undergo major facelifts, with more information and prettier backgrounds being added. no more city window screenshots for now, however. i want to have some surprises left for the next demo

i know diplomacy was real high on the wanted list for the next release, but it had to take a back seat to other things because it is so involved with the AI and the majority of the AI routines need to be written after the major workings of the game are done.
maybe, just maybe, diplomacy will find it's way in before the release, but that would be at it's most basic level (declarations of war or peace between civs and that's about it).

soon i will begin working on the game's music (i have been an independent musician for years now and those tribal beats sound easy enough). it's not something that i will be devoting a lot of time to, as there are clearly way more important things to do, but hopefully by the time i get sound into the game i'll have a small, somewhat decent soundtrack. i will also be hiring my newbie-artist brother to paint some original artwork for the game. he's getting pretty good at doing landscapes, though we'll have to see how he can handle advanced anti-ballistic missile sites

	08-11-2001 22:02									#22
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

well, you can add music as long as its not over 7mb download, otherwise my modem will die of overuse!
try to make the music more inspiring than SMAC, and please better than civ call to power tribal stuff!

	10-11-2001 12:45									#23
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well it's hard to find music that fits the game, epsecially because of all the different eras. what do you suggest?

btw i was thinking more along the lines of midi for music. the quality would be pretty bad but the filesize would be tiny and i could fit a lot more for the different eras. like in the future i want it to change to some kind of wierd techno, nothing too in-your-face, just something that sounds decent and fits the mood of the game. as you go through the different ages, the background art will change, so it only makes sense for the music to change too...

Last edited by dexter4dxm on 10-11-2001 at 14:36

	10-11-2001 16:29									#24
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

music wise you're probably right, midi's ok, and nice and small.
your age changes music is like what i've heard of civ 3.
ancient:like civ 2
medieval: medieval stuff
industrial rev.:?
modern:? ( reviews say civ 3 modern jazz is annoying)
future: techno type

	11-11-2001 09:11									#25
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looks like we're pretty much in agreement about the music.

how about industrial music for the industrial revolution period?

tischo have you been playing Civ 3? remember how we were talking about smooth scrolling and you said it's okay to not have it because even SMAC didnt have it? i seriously laughed out loud the first time i played Civ 3 becausei noticed how damn horrible the scrolling is.

	11-11-2001 16:54									#26
	Increase Your PM Length

okay, there's some new stuff to talk about...

POPULATION GROWTH
population growth, as i said before, is based on existing populations and can be hampered by lack of food. population growth is also based on time, meaning that you'll see much much more growth during the turns that span more years. one last factor of population growth is disease. your disease level is calculated based on what certain, specific technologies you possess as well as what city improvements you have. disease takes away a percentage of a city's potential growth.

PRODUCTION AND RESEARCH
every city has its population broken down into worker categories, those who work in the land surrounding the city, and those who work in the city. the ones who work in the city add to that city's production. so if you want, you can sacrifrice resource collection for increased production. at this time there is nothing in place that hampers or limits production, but there will be (any suggestions, or should i just go with corruption?).
research is strictly based on your population and your literacy rate. your literacy rate boosts your research and is based on possession of a few certain techs and some city improvements. of course, the improvements are based on population, so if you have universities in 10 tiny cities, they will not contribute as much to the literacy rate as a school in a metropolis where millions of people are living.

i'm sure you're starting to see what a dramatic affect populations will have on the game. i think this is a great change from all the Civilization series games where these factors are always based on terrain and tile improvements. i will be building on this population-based system i have, and adding elements to the gameplay that affect it, such as propoganda, immigration, media, and general tendencies of citizens to move to certain cities.

	11-11-2001 19:42									#27
	Remove this text

the people idea seems good but you will have to try to stop there being too much micromanagement.

i saw a video about civ 3 and noticed the blocky scrolling. i thought it was early days but from what i read in civ 3 general forums it hasnt improved.

i dont have it though, it comes out next weekend, the 16th.

what are your opinions of it?

	13-11-2001 06:49									#28
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by tishco the people idea seems good but you will have to try to stop there being too much micromanagement.

don't worry, there is very little micromanagement involved. you only need to adjust things if you want to rush production, and to adjust the numbers you just click on the tiles you want your workers to work on (or not work on), just like in Civ 2. your cities will automatically assign work to another tile when it grows by 1.
i really really really really want to keep this game as streamlined as possible. when the user is prompted to select a new tech or a new improvement for a city that has no more improvements left in its queue, you will be able to see what was just built/researched and you will be able to select the next tech/improvement all from the same screen and all it takes is one mouse click. no drop-down lists that take extra time, and no having to go to the city window.

quote: i saw a video about civ 3 and noticed the blocky scrolling. i thought it was early days but from what i read in civ 3 general forums it hasnt improved.

not only is the scrolling not smooth in Civ 3 but from time to time the scrolling LAGS really bad, even with fast computers.

quote: i dont have it though, it comes out next weekend, the 16th. what are your opinions of it?

i have mixed feelings about it, but i think it is definitally worth the money, especially with all the new modifications coming out.

	18-11-2001 17:37									#29
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

i just went from a 400 mhz celeron with 128 mb of pc133 ram to a athlon xp 1800+ (which outperforms the pentium4 2 ghz) with 512 mb of ddr ram. i also upgraded my os to windows xp. there were some problems. windows xp refused to install on my drive unless i reformatted the whole thing. at one point i couldn't even backup my information onto the other computers here, and i nearly lost all the progress i made on civiliza (not to mention all the other 40 gb of data that i had on my 60 gig drive). well, thankfully everything has been saved through a long tedius process of transfering files over a network to a computer that only had 1 gig of space left, and then from that computer to another one which had enough space to hold all my stuff. i had to transfer 1 gig at a time twice the whole way through; needless to say it took awhile. but everything is fine now, my system runs great and i can start getting things in order again. i'm pretty busy as it is, so i don't know when i'll get around to re-installing c++ and the directx sdk. i'll try not to delay the next release too much, but it certainly won't be very soon.

	20-11-2001 01:46									#30
	Full PM-box? Change here!

i got civ3, laggy even on AMD athlon 1ghz and 128Ram

i also got alien vs pred. 1, but i can collect heads as a predator.