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[Mr Crabman]

I just saw the new embark select screen video, and one thing that leaped out at me was how the ocean looked really weirdly still.

Maybe this is already planned (I wouldn't be surprised if it is), but just in case it isn't... It would be good if those tiles were animated; oceans having some motion (especially at coasts) and rivers having flowing (especially in the actual direction they are really flowing) would be the obvious ones to do and most important. An example of what I mean from another game:

https://gfycat.com/ashameddimpledkouprey-chucklefish-wargroove

Good biomes should also have a "sparkle" effect; to be clear, this seems to be there already, but it's not animated, just little green dots all over the place, and it looks weird to have sparkles that don't sparkle.

That covers the animations that are truly important IMO, because the alternatives now look actively weird being so still, but other less important candidates for world map animations that would just be nice extras (which could be done at a later date when there's no hurry to get the Steam release done, though depending on how the animations are coded, maybe adding extra stuff would be pure artist work) include:

- Shadows from clouds floating by.
- Active volcanoes and inhabited settlements billowing smoke (depending on volcano sprite sizes, maybe you might see bubbling magma in them too?).
- Hot biomes having a "heat haze" effect of sorts.

Some animation types would be okay for the embark screen, whereas others would be best restricted to actual history playing out during worldgen or on the civ screen, and would ideally be based on actual events occurring in worldgen (or on the civ screen):

- Weather events like rain and snow.
- Settlements being razed/destroyed.
- A "transition" animation for corruption/evil areas spreading gradually from tile to tile.

Others may depend on more updates to happen (for example, after the map update I believe there are going to be natural disasters like volcanic eruptions?), but the more the merrier!