02-05-2001 02:50									#1
	totally new engine? Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote from PCGamer

quote: Civ2 programmer Brian Reynolds' code was essentially replaced by that of six new programmers after Reynolds to found Big Huge Games.

	02-05-2001 03:50									#2
	Inflate your Upload Space

I thought it was the SMAC engine.

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Its okay to smile; you're in America now

	02-05-2001 03:55									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Yes, every sign seems to point to the SMAC engine, I doubt this is true

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

	02-05-2001 03:57									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

It doesn't look like the SMAC engine... the fact that it uses Voxels means practically nothing.

	02-05-2001 05:25									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Well, it would be nice to see a new engine. The SMAC logic was left over from Civ2, so if they're basing Civ3 on the SMAC engine, then it's safe to say some of the code will be very similar to that of Civ2, which isn't a good thing.

Sometimes it helps to start over fresh, and I hope that's what Firaxis are doing in this case.

	02-05-2001 13:07									#6
	Support Apolyton

It has never been planned to run CIV3 on SMAC engine. They just put it in a SMAC engine to try and play test it from the beginning, before they had the time to build the new engine.



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aCa (a Civilization addict)

	02-05-2001 15:55									#7
	Remove this text

Well, lets hope so

	02-05-2001 17:09									#8
	Get a bigger avatar today!

It looks nothing like the SMAC engine .. In fact, everything I see, looks like the CIV2 engine. For a start, it doesn't have the Hight levels that SMAC does .. it draws its roads like TOT & not SMAC(which joins everything in the middle of each square) .. The coast lines look very CIV2 ...

All in all, if they re-wrote the main display engine, the map display section was either just made more efficient, or used an identical algorithm to that of TOT ..

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"Wherever wood floats, you will find the British" . Napoleon

	02-05-2001 19:22									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Sid's Gamespot UK interview a few months ago said that the first thing they did was use Civ placeholder art in SMAC when starting game production. Being that the engine and game is an iterative process in Sid's development scheme, its easy to see the engine be similar to SMAC, just because no individual prototype/engine would stray very far from earlier designs, but over time would take on a life of its own. Even with Brian Reynolds departure, I doubt that this method was changed.

	03-05-2001 00:38									#11
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Well, with the whole new resource model, it'd be hard to use the SMAC engine for Civ3. It just wouldn't work right.

	03-05-2001 06:18									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Actually, reading about the resource model they seem MUCH different than just Unity Pod Scattering. I'm not just talking about how they look (though technologies uncovering new resources that you couldn't see before are new), but also how they work with the game itself, making them the underpinnings of the Civ3 game.

	04-05-2001 03:45									#14
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Ok, I better understand your point now. Thanks

I was speaking about graphic engine, you about the game engine (rules engine) as a whole.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

	05-05-2001 02:17									#16
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Voxels graphics? that would be great..
I'm programming with voxel type 3d graphics and they're very powerful (if you have a good computer at least)
They'd fit better on a 3d polygon map too.. which i assume they're using in Firaxis' new game engine.

I'm sure there'll be a lot of new information soon, at least from more games magazine articles.

Admiral Pete

Emperor of BabelFish Oceanus
(CEO of VIRE Tech games )