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Join Date 07/2003

UI changes I want to see.

In the last poll about what changes we want to see, like many others I voted for tactical and general combat mechanics.

The game itself is kind of fun even without the changes in the combat and magic that I'm waiting for, but the thing that really stops me from having fun is not the balance or the tactics, it's the UI.

There were improvements in the 1.09 patch, but there are still several things that can really make me want to stop playing, especially when the empire becomes big.

1) The cities screen did remove one major item from the list I intended to write, but if I can ask for one tiny improvement: clicking on the city name should zoom in on it.

2) Caravans are very hard to count or control in a big empire.

I often find that I lack food just because I didn't know a specific city didn't send a caravan yet.

Losing a caravan for random monsters makes it worse.

Do I really have to check all the cities and find which one can build a caravan?

3) When I build something in a city, when I click the build location, the screen centers and the building will not be set in the place I intended.

In a game that these things are important, this is a serious bug.

4) Details on a city before choosing an upgrade.

Sure, this can be solved by putting words like "gold" or "tech" in the city name, but what if the city has 2 types? What if it is an emergency and I need guardians to prevent the city from being taken? What if I just took another resource in my zone of control and the status changed?

There are many other small bugs and UI problems, and I know they were mentioned before in the forums. But these four: locating a city, managing caravans, building properly and getting info before a choice, are the thing that I consider critical if I want a good long game.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

1) The cities screen did remove one major item from the list I intended to write, but if I can ask for one tiny improvement: clicking on the city name should zoom in on it.

I agree with this. Gal Civ 2 has this system and I feel this should be implemented in Elemental.

Quoting ,

quoting post

2) Caravans are very hard to count or control in a big empire.

I often find that I lack food just because I didn't know a specific city didn't send a caravan yet.

Losing a caravan for random monsters makes it worse.

Do I really have to check all the cities and find which one can build a caravan?

In Gal Civ 2, we have this search panel where we can get an overview of all the planets and ships we have. Again, this should be implemented in elemental, where we can have any overview of all the units we have.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

1) The cities screen did remove one major item from the list I intended to write, but if I can ask for one tiny improvement: clicking on the city name should zoom in on it.

I agree with this. Gal Civ 2 has this system and I feel this should be implemented in Elemental.

Sorrie for double entry cause i'm not sure how to use quote.

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Adding one additinal annoying display bug:

if I hit "b" to go to the city's build screen/mode more than just once

if i hit the "next turn" button while still in the city's build screen/mode

then

I get stuck in the "straight top down" view mode for the entire game indefinitely

(even on cloth map, so zooming in/out doesn't end it, like entering/leaving build mode another time, too),

the only way to get the isometric view back is saving the game and restarting the program...

---

On the "request for UI features" front:

is it just me or is anybody else calling the "smart player color" scheme not really "smart" ?

It would be too nice to have a switch I can hit on/off (on the cloth map only) to display each faction's controlled territory in it's own color - and please make these colors dinstinguishable or use shades/stripes/whatever to that effect

Currently I get only get these three: blue for "my own", yellow for "everything ele I am at peace with", red for "everything I am at war with" - it doesn't even distinguish between "taken" and "free to hire" npc wandering around, all shown as yellow .

Switching that "smart coloring" off is nearly but not exactly what I would like -- some faction's colors are way too similar if not identical and it shows only occupied space (city & resource tiles) instead of controlled territory, so it doesn't give me info like "who/which faction can reach which other faction by travel without being blocked by another neutral faction".

...and that makes it a horrible click-fest to determine which city/player stack belongs to whom or who shares a common border with each other, which cities have become cut-off from the rest of their faction's territory, things like that

The fact that at least on my large screen resolution (1920 widescreen) the identifying crest on the info popup for each city/unit is way too small, so that, for example kraxis and gildar are easily mistaken at a first/quick glance, doesn't really make this task easier :-/

Giving me another switch or hotkey to hide/unhide identified unowned ressources and notable (quest) locations _separately_ on the cloth map would be a nice icing on the cake, too, but not as important as the above; could be helpful if you are searching ONLY for those quest locations on an otherwise cluttered map (info overload) - for example, unowned gold and currently active quest hut are sometimes easily mistaken if zoomed-out far

Oh, that reminds me - can we please get an option to make the grid overlay a bit more prominent ?

...as I'm having a hard time sometimes figuring out how many tiles wide a passable mountain pass is or where the accessible mountain terrain actually ends - so a "blacking out" of impassable terrain on the above-mentioned faction-colored view of controlled terrain would be necessary to really make that "travel" info a complete one, too....

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If I had to create a list of UI changes I would like to see they would probably be as follows:

1) If one builds a city while another unit is waiting for orders, click the improve city button will focus on the unit waiting instead of the new city.

2) I like the new city screen, but this should be the first step towards something implementing easily viewable lists of alot of things. While I think the side bar view for cities and units is nice, I easily get more cities and units than this bar car nicely display. It would be nice to have a list view for cities, combat units, civilian units, and trade routes. All of these were in galciv2 and made managing your civ incredibly easy.

3) Currently under the kingdom view, the player can go through each and every kingdom, getting all sorts of information about the various kingdoms. Personally I feel this view makes limited sense as it gives information without making the player work to gather such information. I think if it were tied to some kind of espionage system or only showed information based upon cities which the player has revealed it would make more sense.

4) I think it would be cool if there was some way to split a party into two or unify two parties in a stack without moving the units.

5) It would be nice to be able to move two parties into a single space without them joining into one party.

6) This may be out of place for UI but I would really like some method of hiding units in forests. Currently, most people hate forests because they require alot of time to traverse and spawn monsters pretty regularly. If a unit which was fortified in a forest could actually hide while fortified it would add a real strategic value to forests.

7) Display zero net income resources in the top bar as long as you have some actually income of the resource. This is particularly aimed at the food resource, which really only shows the income, since it does not stack.

8) Going along with 7, allow the use to see the net income calculation when mousing over a resource in the top bar. This would reduce the number of clicks a player would need to find out this information, and enhance player decision making.

9) Update the grid for the cloth map to only show the grids for movable squares. This is currently done in the regular view but it is not done while in cloth map. For players like myself who tend to play in cloth map only mode due to playing on a laptop, it is sometimes incredibly hard to tell whether a hill or coastal tile is actually available for movement.

10) Allow for some kind of toggle to highlight the strategic grid for the range and possible movements of a party. This is already done in the tactical map but it would be really nice to know without thinking just how far a party can move on the strategic map. Maybe, even adding some method of mousing over any unit to see their current range of movement.

There are several other things I would like to see update/changed but most of them have been discussed to death in other posts.

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Quoting Furinax_GdL,

reply 3

Oh, that reminds me - can we please get an option to make the grid overlay a bit more prominent ?

...as I'm having a hard time sometimes figuring out how many tiles wide a passable mountain pass is or where the accessible mountain terrain actually ends

Like this?

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Quoting Robert Hentschke,

reply 5

Quoting Furinax_GdL,
reply 3
Oh, that reminds me - can we please get an option to make the grid overlay a bit more prominent ?

...as I'm having a hard time sometimes figuring out how many tiles wide a passable mountain pass is or where the accessible mountain terrain actually ends

Like this?

That's nice. I like it & I'm definitely old school. The light green shading on influence zones is very nice.

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I had the same problem.
There is this square that has about 30% mountain graphics in it. Does that mean I can 30 % not move there... ?

Now on the 3rd screenshot you see a mountain pass and you can instantly identify it as "can go".
In the vanilla game this is... harder. With mountain graphics bleeding into the critical hill square from 3 sides it looks like a continuous mountain range.
Only the terrain ID window would tell you - if you suspected this tile to be hills and checked it out...

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i'm going to be specific not because i'm making demands, but because i think "better" doesn't help people very much

i would like to see

- bigger scrolling buttons and generally everything to be designed so i very rarely have to scroll anyway

- the tech, spell research, diplomacy, dynasty etc buttons displayed on the main screen so they're always one cllick away

- consistent format for where the "close" button goes: sometimes it's at the bottom, sometimes in the top right

- unit cards that update to show what i have equipped. it's kind of lame that all my units are in armour but my sov can't be. and give me the ability to make my kids unit cards myself.

- a minimap that doesn't freeze on me EDIT: just remembered this was fixed in 1.09. great going guys!

- completely redesigned spellbook. i like the icons and art style, but functionally it's abysmal. first the casting and research menus have different purposes and should be laid out totally differently. for research: have each page/screen represent one magic book and have all the spells within that book SORTED BY LEVEL. use smaller icons if that is necesarry to get them all on one page. consider a full screen interface. highlight each icon slightly differently depending on whether i know, don't know or am learning it. put the big icons on the right with the info for the spell i currently have selected as currently along with a button to toggle learning. then show the small icons of the spells i am currently learning at the bottom (independently of what book i have selected, along with my research production and other constants). for the CASTING menu, show only my spells known that i can cast in that mode (ie, don't show strategic spells in tactical mode), sorted by level or mana cost, and do this in a small transparent overlay, with a brief description appearing as tool tip (right click take me to it's entry in the research screen). consider making this automatically appear on screen when i select a channeler (for a great example see the nwn2 quick cast menu on the left of this screenshot)

in conclusion: research menu fullscreen with lots of detail and art, casting menu small ingame overlay, with spells in some kind of order.

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#1) "Guard" units should not be brought up when tabbing through units who still have action (thanks for taking Caravans off this!)

#2) "Level up city" should be OPTIONAL and something I can do mid turn; window eclipses the city and the inability to look around before choosing is supremely frustrating.

#3) Turn off "AI recommended unit designs" should be an option - 10 different recommended units all named archer, anyone?

#4) Clicking on a city from the city list (new feature - love it!) should take me to that city.

#5) Unit stacks need more information and better interface. Would like to be able to reorder stacks, drag/drop inventory, etc.

#6) Need Army/PC (ie: sov + kids + hirees) list as well at City list.

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Do I really have to check all the cities and find which one can build a caravan?

Or to figure out which cities already have functioning trade routes between them? It's very easy to lose track of this stuff, especially with wandering monsters knocking off your traders.

Given that trade routes are trivial to establish once a road is up, why do we have to manually replace the trader? Why not do it automatically and leave us to the task of taking out whatever killed the last trader?

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According to the 1.09E journal, 2 out of 4 will be fixed tonight.

Keep on the good work!

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The best user interface is one that a user doesn't even realise they're using!

The cloth map is a beautiful example of this.

Instead of having a screen pop-up with 'Kingdom Info', why don't we go to the private study of the sovereign or the steward, and take a look at those parchments on the desk there.

Instead of a mini-map, have a crystal ball.

For diplomacy, instead of selecting from a list of icons representing each rival and double-clicking to talk to someone, instead walk over to the wall with the mirror on it and cast a spell or activate a glyph.

Have optional mini-cutscenes for creature summons and overland spells.

Make some event announcements more of a fanfare, especially when there is some urgency!

Change the stale colour-set and style of the current UI. Have something with a richer texture, leathery or jade or crystal or silver or.... something more interesting.

Immersion people! Immersion!

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The cloth map gfx can be changed easily - with the exception of roads and cliff / beach tiles.

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Just want to emphasize something: When I'm talking about UI, I don't mean graphics or effect, I'm talking about the simple meaning of "user interface".

How easy is it to do a specific action? Do you have the necessary information when you need it? Are the controls intuitive?

While graphics can make a strategy game better, UI can either save or ruin a game.

Especially in TBS games, it doesn't matter if you can zoom in and watch the left nostril of your hero, if you will later need to enter 3 menus with too many clicks to buy and equip that hero's gear.

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