Hi everyone. I'm new here and I wanted to say Hi. I like whacky variants and participating in Epics, GOTMS (CFC), SG's ect, and that's why I joined I also have a quick two questions. I know what you're thinking (Damn noobs to RB always asking questions )

Regarding dot maps, what program do you all use to make them? I have noticed that you can use the in-game program, but it is extremely hard to draw a straight line when drawing the city radius.

Also, while reading all the great reports from Epic 1, (I'm exitedly waiting for Epic 2, I plan to join) I noticed that some of you get an in game popup that asks what you want to name your screen shot. I don't get this, my computer automatically names it Screenshot00_ (001,002,003 ect). I looked in the options and all over to turn this option on because it can be a pain to have to leave the game and rename twenty screen shots, but couldn't find it. Do any of you know how to turn this option on?

Knupp715 Wrote:Regarding dot maps, what program do you all use to make them?

Sometimes simpler is better.

I use MS Paint for the dots and lines and squiggles. I paste from my primary image program in to paint, draw on the image, then paste back in to a new instance of my primary image program. (Paint doesn't handle jpeg compression to my liking, so I only use it for drawing over the images, not the actual cropping or saving of images.)

I use an old version of Lview for the main image handling. (The latest version added more features, but lost the elegant simplicity of use that drew me to the program in the first place!)


- Sirian

I *think* shift-printscreen gives you the naming popup, although I've never used it. I just hit printscreen and that saves automatically, although sometimes I've missed some key shots because I didn't verify that the shot got taken.

Photoshop for me, and shift-printscreen to rename the shots IIRC.

Thanks for the help. I will use Shift+Print Screen from now on.

Knupp715 Wrote:Thanks for the help. I will use Shift+Print Screen from now on.

I specifically avoid doing that. It puts the naming window in to the shot!

I use normal PrntScrn and let it number the saves. All the ones from a session will be in a block together, marked by date, etc, so not tough to find. Most shots need to be cropped anyway, right? (If you aren't cropping ANY of your shots, you're not producing an A-Grade report, I'm afraid. That is not to say that you must, but putting extra care in to your reporting will draw extra attention to your results.)

I used to name my cropped shots, but I don't even do that any more. It's #1, #2, #3, ... #245, #246, ... #500, #501... (OK, so only RB1 SG has gone over 500, but you get the idea! I do too many shots these days to come up with unique names for them anyway!)

Just my two bits. Please ignore the crazy man and continue on with your business. 8)


- Sirian

I use alt-tab in full-screen mode all the time, because this is what delivers the best pics and gives the best experience while playing. The downside is that on my relatively low machine (for Civ4), alt-tabbing in the end of the game on large maps (or on highlands map script !! :mad: ) is awfully slow : sometimes it takes like 4 or 5 minutes to get back into the game, so I usually go read a bit or have a snack while waiting... 1.52 must have cut a bit of that time, but I started really far away... Hopefully further patches will cut more time.

As for naming my screenshots, I adopted a unique way of doing when I got Civ4. This is how I named the first pic I took for Epic 1 : krys_epic01-000-4000BC-a. There is my nickname, then the name of the game (expecting the figure to reach 10 at some point in the future !), then the number of the current turn (expecting the figure to reach 100 in each game !) and the associated date (calculated by yours sincerely the hard way, since the game doesn't display the number of the turn, to my knowledge :mad: (how stupid is that ?)), then a letter to differenciate the few pics that might have been taken on the same turn (expecting it to be less than 26 !). This is an automatic process, contrary to Civ3, where I would name the pic after the game ("FirstLeader", "CaptureLondon", etc... with a bit of the data explained above). And I don't crop my pics anymore ; for Civ4, I just resize them from 1024*768 (my screen resolution) to 800*600 (same ratio), which should fit in the forums, using the 1024*768 resolution (my case). I do it when alt-tabbing, and I'm certain to have ALL the pics (PrintScreen forgets some for Civ4 if you don't edit them in an image program immediately).

A little note to say that I know that my spoilers at CDZ are a bit difficult to read, but that's because of the forum software. If (and I say "if") we ever get vBulletin someday, this will be a lot better. I will now also learn to produce less but more interesting pics for my games, while writing more text (Adventures 1 and 2 are not concerned, though).

I guess one solution if you don't want the naming box in the shot, is to zoom out and take the picture. Then you could crop the picture later so it doesn't show the box, but still lets you get all the information you wanted in the picture.

One more question. For those of you that don't post your reports on your own sites, do you write your report in another program and then when it is time to report just copy and paste it? Or do you write the entire report the day it is due?

Edit: Also, what is the size you should usually crop you photos? I know it can be a pain to read a report when somebody hasn't cropped and you have to scroll to the left then back to the right. What is the size that isn't too small, but is small enough for the forums where you don't have to scroll back and forth?

Knupp715 Wrote:One more question. For those of you that don't post your reports on your own sites, do you write your report in another program and then when it is time to report just copy and paste it? Or do you write the entire report the day it is due?

I write it entirely in MS Word when I'm done playing, and then wait for the right day to copy-paste it to my forum. This takes a bit of time too, since I have to upload the screenshots and put the text bits by bits around them, and in different posts if possible.

Quote:Edit: Also, what is the size you should usually crop you photos? I know it can be a pain to read a report when somebody hasn't cropped and you have to scroll to the left then back to the right. What is the size that isn't too small, but is small enough for the forums where you don't have to scroll back and forth?

Like I said, 800*600 seems to be a reasonable size. But in fact, it depends on your resolution (and everyone's). 800*600 is just good when you have a resolution of 1024*768 (no scroll left and right, and the ingame text on the pics is still readable), but above that 800*600 is no problem at all. I also hate to scroll left and right. So I end up resizing all my pics, but I don't crop them. Then of course, you can be limited by the upload size limit. You can still toy with the image quality in certain programs (jpg only) to counter that.