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Dr Strangelove
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Is it nearly definite that there will be an end game replay feature for Civ3? If so, Hooray! The last I heard, many months ago, was that opinion was very much against such a feature.
Does anyone have an idea what the final victory condition will be? It had better be something other than a space ship, an alien child or "transcendence".
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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If endgame export is to be the case, I don't think you'll get Flash or anything else for two reasons: file size and complexity. Flash is good for vector-based animations, but you don't get that in Civ 3. Flash files increase in size very rapidly when you put a lot of bitmapped images in them. You are also asking Firaxis to write a whole section of code just to write out Flash files. That's just too much work for a little bit of extra. Both GIF and MPEG are simpler but they have their own problems. GIF is copyrighted, so Firaxis needs to pay royalty. It allows only 256 colors and is not instrinsicly suitable for compressing Civ map. MPEG generates smaller files, but you lose the details.
Generating a text/HTML file is also bothersome, since around 80% (or even more) of the time units will be just in the wilderness somewhere. Who knows where [1399, 512] is?
The only real workable solution is to have it's own file format, and put a section of code in Civ to play these files like films. There are three advantages to this:
[*]The images are generated on the fly, so the file themselves will be small, which means you don't need a T1 to download them from the 'Net 
[*]Free, no need to pay royalty
[*]No loss of details
[/list]
The other alternative I can think of is PNG graphics. It overcomes the limitations of GIF and is free. However, you will still have problems with file sizes.
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited February 28, 2001).]
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Adm.Naismith
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Milano - Italy
Oct 1999
time: 06:12
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To add more fuel to the "HTML replay or not", I think appropriate to quote an interview with Jeff McBride, Lead developer of Stars! Supernova genesis (the full interview can be found here
For better understanding, please note that "Chronicle" is the equivalent of "history book and replay" we mention about CIV III
quote:
Q: Is the incorporation of HTML in to Stars! Supernova Genesis a feature that was planned originally? Also, how do you think this will enhance the
play aspect of the game?
A: Stars! Supernova Genesis evolved over a significant period of time. The early spec work on "Stars! 3", looked nothing like what you see today. It was far closer to original Stars!. The embedded HTML stuff was a natural reaction to our decision to go with a more polished look. As it turns out, it was one of the best decisions we could have made. It gives us an unprecedented level of interconnectiveness between areas of the game. In Stars! 2, when you received a message the Goto button took you to the subject of the message. We, as game designers, had to guess in advance what action was appropriate for each possible message. By shifting to an HTML display of messages in Stars! Supernova Genesis we can now have as many links for each message as we want. The HTML interface we are using allows us to filter the links and handle the ones that ought to make the game do something rather than just be HTML navigation links. In other words, a link can select an object on the map or open the Tech Browser or the Ship Designer or whatever. Every reference to every object that you get in a message is a link to that object. So if you get a message that says that the fleet Foo has bombed the Fungaloid colony Zap then Foo, Fungaloid and Zap are all links. We can also log the HTML messages in your Chronicle so that you have a recorded history of your empire. [i] (bold added by me - Adm.Naismith).
The links stay active as long as the object they refer to still exists. The
embedded HTML mechanism turns out to be, perhaps, the single biggest improvement in playability over Stars! 2.
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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited March 01, 2001).]
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CapTVK
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Voorburg, the Netherlands, Europe
Jan 1970
time: 05:12
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 02-28-2001 11:34 AM
If endgame export is to be the case, I don't think you'll get Flash or anything else for two reasons: file size and complexity. Flash is good for vector-based animations, but you don't get that in Civ 3. Flash files increase in size very rapidly when you put a lot of bitmapped images in them. You are also asking Firaxis to write a whole section of code just to write out Flash files. That's just too much work for a little bit of extra. Both GIF and MPEG are simpler but they have their own problems. GIF is copyrighted, so Firaxis needs to pay royalty. It allows only 256 colors and is not instrinsicly suitable for compressing Civ map. MPEG generates smaller files, but you lose the details.
Generating a text/HTML file is also bothersome, since around 80% (or even more) of the time units will be just in the wilderness somewhere. Who knows where [1399, 512] is?
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited February 28, 2001).]
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Is the GIF format copyrighted!? I always thought the gif format was patented, not copyrighted. It's just a graphic compression format, how could you get copyright on a compression algorithm? In fact, I think this patent might be reaching the end of its license in a few years. Still, that means some royalties will have to be paid at this moment.
My preference would go to a animated gif map. I used animated maps with succes in "tales from the front-II" myself. And the benefit of a universal graphic format is that you can edit the pictures afterwards, no in-game- only endgame for me please.
For the rest of the info it should just generate a formatted textfile with the years, city founded, demographics etc...With this we can quickly import it stuff into a spreadsheet and do our own evaluation.
[This message has been edited by CapTVK (edited March 01, 2001).]
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27-02-2001 03:45
), it should exportable to some common format. if there is text involved(your achievements or everything else that has been suggested) is should be exportable to a text file. if there is animation then animated gif or even better flash!
I was going to fix it too, but you beat me to it. 
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