No city lights on planets

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hi all,

I read in the developer's journals that planet graphics include "city lights" that you can see on the planet darks sides - that city lights increase as population increases. This does not show up in game for me and am wondering if it is a problem with graphics settings, maybe a problem that I did not download certain files, settings problems, or bug? Any thoughts? Its a small thing, but a cool feature so I wanted to figure out how to make it work. Thanks for any help!
12,777 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think these city lights look more like snow on my planets :/ Try looking for snow
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can see them. And my settings are very average. 2xAA, 1280 x 1024, and don't forget to turn up the contrast a bit. Looks really cool.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Watch carefully. They're little white dots, and only show when the planet has a decent pop and you're zoomed in to the max. If you angle yourself so you're directly behind the sun and the planet, you can see little white dots start to appear on the night side.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I see them all the time...sometimes on unihabited planets even. Your not the only one how says that they can't see them.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do occasionally see them and I think it's a great touch to the game. I like studying geography and seeing those cities at night time inspires the perverted desire to write fanboy fiction about how the geography caused those cities to develop and spread over that particular world.

However, I have noticed quite often that of multiple random worlds of close population (10 billion), only one or rarely two will show city lights. This was during close observation of the game with the various worlds zoomed all the way in and letting the planet rotate through the dark side for all 360 degrees. Ambient light turned all the way down, etc. I also have a 256 MB GeForce 4000 video card. Maybe it's the card?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's probably the card...

Might need something better. 6800GS's are going for around $200 or so. FX 5500's are going for around $60.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
thanks, all. I still can't figure it out. I tried changing the contrast and brightness settings. I have an older video card, Radeon X300, so maybe that's it. (Definitely too much CIV IV. And now too much GCII)
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't think it's your card - I have an X800 and when I have seen the "city" lights, they are prominent enough that I wouldn't miss them. But, they seem to almost never show up - and when they do, it's on some planet I just colonzied that has almost no one on it and no improvements. I'm pretty sure it isn't working correctly. In fact, has anyone EVER seen lights on Earth? I was looking around in the game directories, and there is some file called "earth_lights.dds" (or something similar) which implies that Earth should get lights. But, regardless of tech, population, etc. I've never seen them there.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's bugged; not showing at all sometimes. When they do, it's illogically on low-pop planets, but not on large, populated planets.