What's the 3D engine for?

I play zoomed in early and pop in and out throughout the game.  I'm happy it's there 

well if you want to go that route, graphics in general are pretty "useless" a good deal of the time. most games could be played with little more than text and/or spreadsheets.

it's call immersion. it's called eye-candy. call it what you want, some people enjoy it. you obviously don't: that's your perogative, and you've obviously acted on it. congratulations for having the ability to make a choice, and thanks for sharing.

dystopic - you didn't get my point.

I think 3D graphics can be beneficial when implemented well into the game - for example, see Civ4.
But in galciv I see little use for that. Practically, the 3D engine is much more difficult to play with. What you really need to play the game is a zoomed-out schematic GUI that represents the map's features and units, which is exactly what the tactical view provides. The 3D view is mostly an overkill.

Actually, I think it's there mainly for marketing purposes.

I'm exactly at the opposite end of the spectrum.

I almost NEVER zoom in to tactical icons for more reasons than i could list here... but here's the main logic;

- The feeling of roaming freely INTO a galaxy environment rather than moving chessboard pawns & bishops on a very similar board - the difference being simply the coloring of items and a whole bunch of unidentifiable circles & logos unless with a pair of binoculars!

- I pay to have fun, i might as well immerse myself in the fantastically rendered context.

- Reality in greater scope & proportions.

- The coolest things can happen when you stare in the edges of your 300$ fulled loaded with gimmicks monitor - just that big Drengin Large Hull, heavily armed & faster than anything you've (actually) seen yet comin' out of a fog two parsecs away -- ONE of many more situations.

- The challenge of the unknown & the perspective i get from LOOKING at that all important Homeworld in all its glory cloudy spheroid spinning counterclockwise & at times, emprisonned by rings wide and pride!!

- Besides, with zoom_to_cursor & side_mapping_tricks i can always navigate through my gameplay universe pretty easily and fast enough to plan a strategy worth the extra split-second of thinking & inspiration.

- I'm an artist with extreme sensibilities & a hard-core TBS player with tons of experimentation with plenty of other games.

- Heck, i'd even play in a real 3D interface (say, ala - Ascendency, etc) with enemy fleets coming from above & below - 360* all the way.

I just LOVE it.

Zy put it so eloquently I'll have to agree with him.  

I too, use the 3d rendering a lot. The only time I zoom out to "icon level" is when I'm searching for something or planning out a grand strategy (like a plan of attack, muahahaha!)

i didn't at all, actually; i was responding sarcastically. it's true that the game map is two dimensional, and it's true that at times the tactical view can be more useful for some users. on the other hand, i have a decent graphics card, and while gameplay is primary, i also enjoy having nice graphics.

is it "useless"? that depends on how you define "use". some people "use" a 3D engine to create a game that couldn't or couldn't easily be done in two dimentions or isometrics. others "use" a 3D engine to create a more immersive and visually appealing experience, even if that's all it does. Zy articulates that side of things beautifully, and i see no reason to add to it.

my initial comment was sarcastic. to put it in plain terms: it might not do anything for you, i fail to see the reason you bothered to create a post about that. moreover, it's (metaphorically) myopic of you to assume your experience of "what you need to play the game" is the same as others' experience. i've been playing the game since its initial release, and i absolutely love the ship designer. is it a functionally essentially part of the game? no. it's almost like an electronic lego set tacked on to the game. and that makes my purchase of GC2 and its expansions all the more valuable to me.

ooo, that pesky ship designer. I can get caught in there for hours .

Some peeps just like to see all the pretty stuff. I have an aged machine(to put it mildly) and still crank all the graphics until it slows down. I zoom in close and out to icon view on everyturn and like seeing all the cool little details(planet lights, ships orbiting, etc.)

DA, we're gonna have a bake sale to get you some new hardware.

It's a bit of a matter of personal taste. Sure it's a bit pointless to some people, but so what? Other people like it, and adding it makes it appeal to more people.

If it were just a bunch of 2D icons, yeah, it would appeal to some people, but to be honest there are a lot of people who it wouldn't appeal to.

Agree with it or not, having 3D these days means the difference between a niche game and a popular game. Unfortunately a lot of people will turn down a game just because it's not 3D.

I can see I'm going to have to try zooming out - I've never used that view at all in the 18 months I've been playing. Admittedly, I rarely go above medium sized galaxies, as there gets to be just too much stuff for me to manage.. but from the posts above, it may be that there are some real benefits in looking at 2d icons instead. Sometimes.

(OFF TOPIC: By the way, why do some people's metaverse icons appear beneath their posts, and others don't?)

Cheers

One needs to actually pick a character whose metaverse icons will appear under one's signature.  It's a matter of personal taste.

You'll be surprised to discover that I actually got your sarcasm, yet I still feel you didn't quite get my point.
Why did I bother to create a post about it? That's exactly it: The graphical engine is easily one of the most advanced and time-counsuming mechanics to develop for a video game. Brad used to keep explaining times and times again why he thinks a multiplayer in galciv would be a mistake, since it takes lots of time to develop - which is true - that time can be invested in other aspects of the game, such as improving the actual game mechanics and adding new features to it.
But you could also argue and say this is "myopic" of him to think so - many would prefer to see multiplayer in galciv at the expense of the rather shallow campaign and perhaps some scenarios.

It all gets down to design decisions: we could put that into the game, but since our resources are limited, we'll have to make do with that instead. Before any design decision could be made, one must first weight the pros agains the cons.
But what are the benefits of galciv's fancy 3D engine? Does it play any functional role in the game? No. Does it improve in any way the interaction with the game? No, in fact, it's much harder and cumbersome to play with the 3D instead of the 2D map. Does it add any lasting value or immersion to the game? Well, it could, and if it did, I'd be happy with it. Thing is, this feature makes it harder to play the game. It's clumsy, and the board is just too big to be played in the zoomed-in 3D mode. Besides, the game world itself is very static and lifeless and lacks in the way of good animations, or any animations at all... the ships move around the board exactly like pawn and bishops in a chess game. So it doesn't feel real, and personally I can't see the immersion here.

Think of what could be added to the game if it was just built with a simple but nice looking 2D engine. That expensive time Stardock invested in making a fancy and quite a useless 3D engine could be directed in making some really good AI (one that doesn't have to cheat and actually knows how to play the game properly). Or have more in the way of a richer and deeper gameplay experience, because honestly, that's why I'm here for.

Time remaining on autopilot when looking at a destination, number of modules available to install on a starbase...how does one get these in tactical views?

True, looking at the autopilot's time is one of the only reasons i zoom in for the 3D view - and then go straight up again. But this is no justification for the 3D engine itself, is it? quite the contrary, it only makes things unnecessarily more cumbersome.

As for starbases - you just double click them or press "B". No need to dive in.

Yes, it would be nice to have it readily available in tactical view.  I'm running a 5yr old machine and even the ship designer gives me lag even after turning of ship skins.  I play in tactical view just so I can play reasonably.

I like the pretty graphics, now that I have a graphics card that can handle them, but I zoom out when I need to look for things easily, like enemy fleets or colonizable planets.

Same here, and my machine was top-of-the-line three years ago.  I use the 3D view less than 1% of my playing time.  The only thing I use it for regulary is when I cant get the ships to launch the right direction from a planet.

Sentient species taste better... 

Agreed. Although no one is complaining that the game is in 3d, i'd rather see the development time go into something more significant, like gameplay, balance, features and UI improvements. 3d adds absolutely nothing but eyecandy to the game, unlike Homeworld for example where ships could move in any direction. For a 4x game, graphics are simply not as important as depth. In some ways, i like Galactic Civilizations 1 better then 2. Also, as a semi-related note, i find the ship designer to be relatively pointless. I don't mean customizing components of a ship but the ship eyecandy. All those wing dings you add to beautify your craft. For the effort needed to make the thing, i find it adds nothing to gameplay.

not according to the pole they conducted. an overwhelming majority of players considered multiplayer such a low priority they didn't care to see it at all. which in fact makes it far from myopic: they actually took the time to try and determine if their focus away from multiplayer represented their customers' priorities, and it did.

ultimately i called your point of view myopic because you presented it in such a way as to suggest the gameplay experience you have is the representative of the experience everyone has. it is clearly not, and it is clearly not informed by the same kind of information gathering as stardock's stance on multiplayer. obviously some people agree with your point of view on the 3D engine, and some don't. the popularity of the "show off you ship designs" threads should attest to the fact that there are plenty of people who very much enjoy the 3D bells and whistles.

the reason i've reacted the way i have is that your OP and subsequent responses, while articulate and rationalized, seem pointless. the fact is they have developed a 3D engine and they haven't developed multiplayer. you say you're here for a richer gameplay experience, but you also pretty clearly imply that GC2 hasn't offered that experience to you: you've contradicted yourself, essentially saying that you're here for something you can't get here.

unfortunately there's an important mistake in your logic. you assume the members of stardock who develop the game code are the same as the ones who developed the 3D engine. i know this at least isn't entirely true. i do not know who specifically build the 3D engine, but i know a few things that destabilize your argument. brad was the main force behind the AI, Cari and Code Critter were two of the main forces behind the gameplay coding and UI, and the art department is a separate group of people. furthermore, this 3D engine isn't being used solely for GalCiv2; AFAIK they're also using it for other games (or at least had planned to if they haven't yet).. the 3D engine was a company resource, not someting done specifically for GC2.

... and I play almost exclusively in 3D mode. Zoomed out to where it just stays 3D. Of course you CAN get all the info you need without being zoomed in but I like being able to see the number of ships in a fleet and see that a strabase isn't finished (its too bad that they do looked finished before they are). I like To be able to see hwt ships I'm moving and what ships I'm attacking, without clicking everything. After a while I know what the strength is of an AI ships by looking at it. And of course i just like the way it looks, have you ever zoomed it as far as it would go, especially on an asteroid mine, theres a litrtle guy floating there (when its fully built), its cool. I zoom out occasionally to see whats coming my way of or if there is and AI plantet mixed in with mine that i missed.

I wouldn't say its useless. But what it really comes down to is what you are used to. When I do zoom out I can't tell what planets still have hammers on them etc.

I wouldn't call it useless. If you do, would that make all graphics useless to some degree? Can't banks just be dollar signs on a grid on your planet? 2 dollar signs is a stock exchange. This can be our morale building -->  :) . 

Well, aren't you tiny bit one_sided with such a solid NO to anything that could matter if only you'd give a try?

1-- Nearly an underestimation of the potential built-into most features and how their specific functions are interpreted from multiple perspectives. It's almost yes when you figure that some activities become a *LOT* more obvious if they deploy straight from a reality POV. Total abstraction of such elements can certainly please a category of players, i won't deny this... but (for example) the physical manifestation of an attacking enemy fleet progressing towards a 3d rendered area of my territorial empire adds a function to my thoughts & decision as much as being able to determine what is 'happening' or will happen. Icons DO the very same, i agree. Ever so slightly boring in a sense, though.

2-- To the contrary in this case, to me, it's an absolute YES. I undoubtedly can interact (although, it might be from anybody's complex definition of the term itself) much more with the interface. The feelings are still enhanced above flat plain "devices", the moving items (blue worm holes anomaly alone is some of the coolest Art_work animation around!) simulate plenty enough, fog represents a mystery, etc.

3-- Same reasoning as _2_ above!

Modern hardware exploits these (un-)limited facts beyond Atari_Amiga low-res graphics of the 70's. Spectacular results are there to enjoy or, not. By choices - which i fully respect, btw.

Game=Fun. Or is this line of thought no longer valid?

In fact, shouldn't we all prefer B/W TeeVees over HDTV plasma driven 16:9 higher imaging quality for the eyes or mind?

I think the big argument is though, if time wasn't spent on the 3D engine, could the game itself have been more?  MoO 1 is a game that IMHO still kicks ass.  1992 DOS graphics...yet it has the content to keep me hooked.  I think that if Microprose would have spent more time trying to make the graphics better back then at the cost of content...I wouldn't hold the game as such a high standard.

Graphics always get better over the years, good quality content however lasts a lifetime.

Amen brother Loup!

Sentient species taste better... 

...thats actually the same guideline I follow for women.  Looks fade in time, a rotten personality is for a lifetime, or until divorce proceedings.