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Spartan
Spartan
Join Date 03/2006
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[Functionality] Civilization Coats of Arms

A generation and import system suggestion

November 17, 2008 12:53:08 AM from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

It is my firm belief that each of the civilizations in the game should have their own default coats-of-arms and that the player should be able to create their own custom one for their civilization when setting up a game.

I think SD to include a full coats-of-arms generator within the game that can be accessed from the main menu. In short to be the coats-of-arms generator would be identical to the shop builder for GC2. It should also allow for easy png image importation for players to add to the library of resources.

Such functionality will be a boost to the immersion factor and works well within the given setting of the game.

For those of you whom do not know what I'm talking about please look at the follow images I made for my faction for the CK title.

       

       

I made dozens of coat-of-arms for the title and to be honest, sometime making the coat-of-arms was more fun than playing the game - just a little. Anyway I have several more here if anyone is interested.

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Spartan
landisaurus
Join Date 06/2008
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Reply #1 November 17, 2008 1:15:57 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I do not think that it should be civilization spacific, however I am down for coats of arms like those seen above.   Good work, those are totally awesome.

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Spartan
Bootss1
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #2 November 17, 2008 2:09:25 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

How about it generatater a coat of arms as you play? It starts out as a plain sheild with your civilization color then details are added depending on how you play. If you declare war often it would have sword and other weapons, if you pruduce a lot of resources (stone let's say) there would by symbols specific to a quarry.

 

or just have the coat of arms highlight the strengths of the civilization you choose (12 diffrent coats?)

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Spartan
Spartan
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #3 November 17, 2008 2:26:07 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I think SD should make standard CoAs for each of the cannon factions and allow users to change them when they customize a civilization. Regarding the generation as you play, that would be nice but I think the programming side if things might be difficult. The devices and stuff could be added as achievements in game if SD was inclined to go that way.

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Spartan
Luckmann
Join Date 04/2006
+132
Reply #4 November 17, 2008 4:54:53 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

The first thing that comes to my mind is the coats of arms in King's Bounty: The Legend. At the start of the game, you choose a coat of arm. Anyway, this has very little to do with the discussion; All I'm saying is that I like the style of those arms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regardless, I like the idea. I just hope it's more.. elaborate, than your examples. Otherwise, I'd be much happier with some gunpowder spent to make a good set of pre-generated ones, than to have endless opportunities to create inferior ones. For all intents and purposes, there's a form of Emblem/Coat of Arms/Flag generator for GalCiv2 too. It's called Paint!

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Spartan
Spartan
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Reply #5 November 17, 2008 7:49:28 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Those are very nice and have a consistent visual theme yet faction distinctive. That is pretty much what I would expect for Elemental. Hell the CoA could have ornaments behind them based on the difficulty level of the game and devices based on how many wins at that level.

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Spartan
LDiCesare
Join Date 04/2003
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Reply #6 November 17, 2008 3:55:50 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Heraldry lets you describe coats of arms quite easily. I know the French terms only but with it wouldn't be very difficult to make a program that lets you change metals, furs and enamels (colors) or pick various furniture you want to put on your coat of arms.

Still, it would be easier to have a library of these, which reference images (png, tga, jpg, whatever) and create your own coats using a dedicated program.

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Spartan
Spartan
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Reply #7 November 17, 2008 4:14:45 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting LDiCesare,
reply 6
Heraldry lets you describe coats of arms quite easily. I know the French terms only but with it wouldn't be very difficult to make a program that lets you change metals, furs and enamels (colors) or pick various furniture you want to put on your coat of arms.

Still, it would be easier to have a library of these, which reference images (png, tga, jpg, whatever) and create your own coats using a dedicated program.

Yep. That is what I have been told. I even saw a CoA creator on a UK website for presents two years ago. So I can only assume it is not a major thing on the tech side. For a game like this I think heraldry would be a major bonus.

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Spartan
Luckmann
Join Date 04/2006
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Reply #8 November 17, 2008 4:42:20 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting LDiCesare,
reply 6
Heraldry lets you describe coats of arms quite easily. I know the French terms only but with it wouldn't be very difficult to make a program that lets you change metals, furs and enamels (colors) or pick various furniture you want to put on your coat of arms.

Still, it would be easier to have a library of these, which reference images (png, tga, jpg, whatever) and create your own coats using a dedicated program.
Using my examples, it'd really "just" be a matter of doing the seperate items in the coats of arms. The wings, the draping, the halbers, the weapons, the shields, the symbols, etc, etc, all as proper .png's. Then make the program apply the proper shading and shadows, and bam, we have a new coat of arms.

I don't imagine that it'd be too hard to do. It'd be time-consuming, for sure, though.
I'd LOVE a heraldry-maker. A kind of GalCiv2-Shipyard-like chop-shop, where you make your own flag and coat of arms. It'd add considerable diversity to the game, without having immersion-breaking, badly fingerpainted mod-symbols along with the superb (to be sure) symbols.

BEAR CAVARLY!

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Spartan
omega_zeta
Join Date 06/2006
+8
Reply #9 December 9, 2008 6:33:40 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

All hail ... the stump.

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Spartan
Spartan
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #10 December 10, 2008 5:41:36 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Mine are not so bad on my mothers side:

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Spartan
delad
Join Date 11/2008
+3
Reply #11 December 10, 2008 6:46:52 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

How about giving the player a choice of coat of arms at the start of the game (as opposed to faction specific), kind of like... damn can't remember the name of the game. Basically, you would chose a birth sign at character creation adn that sign would  confer certain bonuses. So i'm thinking along similar lines. However, the idea of including some kind of heraldric design thingy (using real world heraldric motifs, etc) sounds... .

Or you can design a CoA yourself that will confer pros and cons (each symbol representing a strength in one area and a weakness in another)

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Spartan
omega_zeta
Join Date 06/2006
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Reply #12 December 10, 2008 10:34:12 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting delad,
reply 11

Or you can design a CoA yourself that will confer pros and cons (each symbol representing a strength in one area and a weakness in another)

 

Cool idea, I would be the best at clearing land then. 

 

All joking aside I really like the idea. It would  add a lot oF customization to your faction.

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Spartan
Philocthetes
Join Date 10/2003
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Reply #13 December 10, 2008 4:20:38 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Sounds like a neat idea to me, especially if the feature could generate a full coat of arms for use in things like the diplo UI and simpler crest versions for tagging units &/or map features.

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Spartan
Spartan
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #14 December 10, 2008 7:11:00 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Yep I agree. A CoA generator would sort of be like a mini game of sorts. It would be nice to earn elements for a CoA while going through the game and be able to tie a lineage via an epic story generator to the CoA. Both features which I think are strongly supported would be truly something special for the game.

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Spartan
Luckmann
Join Date 04/2006
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Reply #15 January 21, 2010 9:22:08 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I'm going to go ahead and bump this thread right now, since a similar discussion just cropped up.

December 10th, 2008? Wow, it has really been that long?

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Spartan
Anomander
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #16 January 22, 2010 7:07:36 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I'd love a CoA generator... as long as it threw in the right mix of fantasy heraldry and traditional elements?

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