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All -
While we know that the folks at Firaxis are working hard to solve the crashing/video corrution/won't start issues, I also wanted to take a moment to list some playability / enjoyment issues that I'm hoping can/will be addessed in the upcoming Patch. Please let me know of any issues like the ones described below that you find. I will come back to this thread and recompile them here at the top if we get lots.
Note: I don't plan on compiling any reports on crashing, video, sound, etc. Those are "The game is broken issues". What I want to collect are "The game could be better" issues. I also however, want to limit it to things that do not change the game engine, or the game balance. That's what MODs and expansion packs are for.
Backpack (KWPulliam)
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U/I (User Interface) Change Requests
What: Quick Start (Re-use previous custom world settings)
Where: Single Player Menu
Why: For easy reloading without the tedium of going back through the custom world menu.
e.g. I wanted to play a OCC, and I had to reload 8+ times to get a start within 1 tile of the ocean on a continent map.
What: City View Exit Button
Where: City View (Perhaps next to the defensive bonus listing)
Why: While clicking in the city view, in the city map, but outside of the fat x is very easy (and intuitive ONCE you figure it out) it's very frustrating before you find it and it is undocumented. Every other screen IIRC in the game has an obvious exit or go back button, why should the City View be any different?
What: Link to the Civilopedia within the 'Research Next' pop-up. (Right Click would work well here).
Where: Research Next Pop-Up
Why: While the mouse over Info-pops are nice, often I want to remind myself stats on the units, and buildings that a tech allows. Currently I have to "See the Big Picture", then find the tech, then click for a link to the Civ. Why not allow a very intuitive location for a link to the civilipedia? The right click on this box is currently not linked to anything.
What: Autoworker Governor Options
Where: Options Menu, Game Options Tab perhaps
Why: Having the ability to set up autoworkers with pre-approved action via a check box list, would allow base customization for each player. (Some players might for instance choose to unselect "Chop Forest" and "Build Workshop")
BUG???
What: Autoworkers 'Keep Going'
Desc: Autoworkers will Mine, farm, etc on tiles outside of any city's workable area, but within the cultural borders. This is a problem firstly, because it might make a new player think they can work those tiles. It is a problem secondly because it's a waste. When the workers run out of useful things to do, I want the to go back to the barn.
Solution: Could be solved with the Autoworker Governor as in "Road outside city Radius", "Mine Outside City Radius". But they should still automatically hook up resources, ala build camp on ivory outside of city
What: Movies Button
Where: In the Advanced Menu
Why: It is documented on page 11 of the manual. It existed at one time, and unless there is a technical issue with it's inclusion, please put it back.
What: Unit List does not expand to use room available
Why: On higher resolutions, the unit list uses only a portion (2/5) of the room available before it shows the <> click buttons to scroll through them. This causes uneeded scrolling and tedium. (Pg 158 of the manual states "If there are more units than can fit on the screen, click on the plus.....") Please let us use the screen real estate we have. (See picture below)
BUG???
What: No mouseover pop-up (as described in manual) when you hover over the game options on the game options menu. (Verified for both Advanced Menu>Options, and In-Game-Menu>Options)
BUG???
What: Left Click does not remove Gold from AI Offer box in negotiations. (Right click brings up a click counter - currently you have to click count it down to zero to remove it). Every other offered item can be removed with a left click. Shouldn't Gold act the same way for consitency and intuitiveness?
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Civilopedia Corrections
What: Base Terrain Snow has been changed to Ice. So now there are two terrain identifiers, both with the name Ice. The manual uses Snow for the base terrain (pg 109, 197), and ice for the feature. maybe it would have been better backwards, but it's certainly MORE confusing and counter intuitive with them having the same name now. Please change one of the Ice's to Snow
What: Base Terrain Peak is missing
What: Terrain Feature Hills is missing
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Additional Manual Errata (for inclusion in an updated Readme perhaps)
What: Snow is in the manual but not in the game. Pgs 109 and 197.
What: Terrain Feature FOrest shows +0.4 Health in game and on page 197. Shows +0.5 on page 110. +0.4 is the correct value I believe.
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That's all for now. If I update this I will make a note down here.
Backpack (kwpulliam)
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Hey - Firaxis! - Thanks for reading!!!.
Reserved
---- "What gunpowder did for war, Blake has done for the AI" - Diadem ----
I found the mouse over help for the Game Options text, in file CIV4GameText_Misc1.xml (open it in notepad).
The section with the help text for this screen is fairly near the top (within a page or so). Personally I wanted to know what "Stack Attack" did for me, and I found the following info.
"All selected units will attack in rapid succession (note: this is purely an interface convenience - the underlying battle mechanics are unchanged)"
Just FYI - The text is in the game, It's just not popping up for some reason.
---- "What gunpowder did for war, Blake has done for the AI" - Diadem ----
Well, after three days of heavy use, I have only a couple of improvements to the interface that I would like to see made.
1) The strategy layer. The layer is nice. But it would be nice if its contents could be saved along with the rest of the game. The game crashes on my computer roughly once an hour, and since I can't save the strategy layer, there is no point in using it.
2) Rally points. I remember reading that a rally point could be set up for new unit construction. But, if it's really possible, then the method for doing so has been hidden too well.
3) As has already been mentioned, the more links to the Civilopedia would be appreciated, especially in the Science Screen and New Research "pop-up."
Other than that, it's a great game.
The Electronic Hobbit
Good list.
To add some issues:
Let the game remember my name. Now it always uses the name of the computer, it should use the name I used last as a default, not the name of the computer.
When I get the popup what to produce next, I want to have a quick summary of the concerned city. Did I built barracks in this city? Is the main problem here lack of health or happioness or can I concenrate on more money or science. How much do I produce now in money, science, culture?
Alternatively have some notes with each city, which I can write when in the city screen, and see when hovering over it or when I get the production popup.
From within the city screen I would like the option to call the production popup. That includes the names and would be sometimes more handy.
In the civilopedia it showed that for horses you need a cow.
I beg of you, swap the End of Turn button with the Empire Flag. Why do I have to click on that tiny dot instead of the large flag to end the turn? This might seem minor, but trust me, to the carpal impared, it's a big deal.
Extremely annoying bug - mousewheel does not work on many windows with a scrollbar unless you mouse precisely over the scrollbar itself. Fix please!
Fullscreen windowed rules! Please add it if possible. Basically windowed in terms of alt-tabbing, but no visible bars (WoW is the only current game I can think of that has this without using some third party program)
Don't freeze me into an interface screen ever - if I get contacted diplomatically, let me access my advisors and check the world map screen to examine the diplomatic and strategic decision before making a choice.
Some way to find automated units easily! Very, very, very, VERY frustrating. Let me enable and disable their automation from one source if possible, at the very least, let me locate and change their behavior.
Fix the military advisor. It's terrible and pointless right now, when it should be a useful and valuable tool for evaluating potential wars. Let me upgrade my units, and see the relative strength of opponents, their best units, roughly how strong they are compared to my current military, anything more than the bland and weak 'unit list' screen it is now.
Rollover tips for Options don't seem to work ingame (this applies to some many other info windows as well, and very annoyingly, to unit upgrades). Instead of getting the rollover you'd expect, it gives you the underlying terrain info popup. For unit upgrades, if you have a doubly experienced unit spawn, clicking twice on an upgrade 'fails' after the first click due to the underlying info popup.
Rollovers for advisor windows for the underlying terrain pop up. This looks sloppy, and it seems to lag slightly as it pulls up the info, when you just want to be examining rollovers on the advisor window.
Let double clicking on a city in the city list take you to the full city screen. Let right clicking center on the city
Clicking on a 'will trade' technology/resource in the Foreign Advisor does not take me to the Diplomatic window with the trade brought up as I'd expect - instead I get the civlopedia entry. Not what I want! At least let clicking with a modifier key do one or the other (I'd prefer trading to be the default, with civlopedia entry a shift-ctrl-or-alt modifier)
Same problem on the Resources portion of the FA. Clicking takes you to the pedia entry instead of the trade screen with the resource brought up.
I don't know if this is a bug, but again on the FA, if you click through the names on the Resources window, it shows what they'll trade for - in theory. I saw Saladin had Copper and wanted my Sheep, but when I brought up the trade, he refused it. Another similar trade to another AI did work as the FA indicated.
The technology/resources portions of the FA are nifty - but having to click through every leader to see what they'll actually trade to you could be avoided by having techs/resources that they WILL trade to you (for something) glow blue while you are selected. ie, instead of clicking through each other ruler, I just open the screen, see that Tokugawa's Rifling or Frederick's Sheep are glowing blue, and click on the item to open a trade window with the Rifling or Sheep already selected. Much faster and handier!
The foreign unit displays for the military advisor seem to be bugged. I select a neighbor that has units I can view, and they flash on the minimap if I select all units, but even though they are visible, they show up as 0 total in the list.
Neither pressing Escape nor hitting another advisor function key can get out of the Technology advisor/chooser. Annoying!
Bizarrely, bringing up many of the advisors later in the game (military, religion, victory, etc) causes significant system lag to display what looks to be a simple data screen.
The Financial advisor isn't pulling his weight. Add a display for each city that you can check to see its current base and modified Commerce, along with commerce allocations and maintenence costs. And make sure we can go to the cities from there!
More later as they occur
Another minor one
When starting a game, it'd be nice if your Civ's attributes showed the actual modifier - I'm sure in a little while, I'll have Industrious/Spiritual etc memorized, but for now, it's odd that they don't display on the intro screen
I have a few things to mention, though I'll omit those that are covered by others in this thread already. Keep in mind that I've played through just once (15 hour game), so some of the things I'm listing may just be my own oversights (please advise me if you spot one).
First, a couple misspellings: "Aristole" when a Great Person was born in a far away land; "Withdrawl" when I moused over an opponents mounted unit flag.
The Grid toggle should be saved, if not in the game's INI file, then at least in the saved games.
The Civilopedia should include a listing of Worker actions and the effects on the terrain, like Civ 3.
The Load Saved Game should automatically list the last saved game, like Civ 3.
I miss the City Locator from Civ 3 and Civ 2.
I also miss the Food Caravan from Civ 2. (I can understand this not being included -- I'd just like to see it.)
As mentioned in another thread in another forum, I'd like to see a reforestation ability for workers. Perhaps where planting takes five turns before it's mature and can be harvested.
A unit upgrade like Civ 3, where Shift-U upgrades all identical units. I clicked on the Alt to upgrade and wiped out my treasury upgrading units I had no intention of ever upgrading.
When a city would complete a build, when I clicked on Examine City, then exited the City Screen, the game proceeded to the next city that had completed a build. It would come back around to the first city after the others were complete, but it would then say "This city has completed xxxx." instead of "Chartres has completed xxxx."
Finally, when I made peace with another Civ, my Cav unit was displaced back to my territory (10+ squares away) instead of the ship he had arrived from (just 2 squares away). The game logic should first fill the closest ships with available cargo capacity before teleporting them back within my own borders.
find the CivilizationIV.ini file and edit it - that is where the computer name is stored for in game use.Originally posted by Tventano
Let the game remember my name. Now it always uses the name of the computer, it should use the name I used last as a default, not the name of the computer.
I do believe game saves are sorted by the date/time of the save, so the last saved game will always be on top. Unless I am misunderstanding your question, I think this is just as good.Originally posted by darthx86
The Load Saved Game should automatically list the last saved game, like Civ 3.
Vovan
Yes, it does sort that way. What I was referring to was how Civ 3 would automatically populate the selected game box with the last save, so if you wanted to continue, there was no further mousing required other than clicking ok. For me, with a number of save games kept under many different names, it's a bit of a pain to go fishing for my current game.I do believe game saves are sorted by the date/time of the save, so the last saved game will always be on top. Unless I am misunderstanding your question, I think this is just as good.
What sucks is I doubt the improvements needed in this game will be patched in, I'm afraid we'll need to wait for an expansion. Hopefully a company besides take2 will publish it (atari are you out there?)
Yes, with several games going on at once, it might be hard to keep track of the latest save for each one. What they did for PBEMs, is there is a separate folder for the saves for each game. It would be cool if the same thing was done for single-player games as well.Originally posted by darthx86
Yes, it does sort that way. What I was referring to was how Civ 3 would automatically populate the selected game box with the last save, so if you wanted to continue, there was no further mousing required other than clicking ok. For me, with a number of save games kept under many different names, it's a bit of a pain to go fishing for my current game.
Assuming they want to put them in, I don't think many of the requests listed so far are either unreasonable or excessive. It's just a question of how much time they'll spend on patching the game vs moving resources on to other projects (expansion pack, new game, other thing that actually makes them money vs supporting a shipped product)
A few more:
Top:
1. Fix ability to save the Build Queue.
Medium:
2. Some way to direct/locate any automated workers that have nothing to do. I'd often like to send them to another continent rather than have them sitting idle in one of my cities.
3. Have a toggle so that the Automated Production allows you to have the city build only buildings (not units). Whenever I take over a city I want it to build itself up. I usually don't rely on it to build my military.
Minor:
4. Don't wake the transports everytime I load a new unit onto them.
5. Have an option for how often you want it to autosave the game.
6. Cavalry should upgrade to tanks, not gunships. I use a nice cavalry force to take over cities, however, once I upgrade them I can't take over cities anymore.
A couple of suggestions more, related to multiplayer:
Have the ability to make the chat text linger longer on the screen. Even with one human player it is usual to miss text because you were engaged in ordering your units.
Have the option of having a subtle sound play whenever a new chat message is received, thus you will know someone is talking even when observing a city or advisor screen.
When playing in simultaneous turn mode and a new turn starts, the game forces you to deal with the cities' production while combat with the AI is taking place. I would like to be able to watch the AI movements and battle first, see what is actually happening, and then decide on the city production orders.
Locking the camera at a given spot is an unwanted restriction. I want to be able to scroll around to see my extended strategic options before deciding on what a city will next build, and especially in negotiations with the AI, I would like to be able to scroll around and see the name of their city I demand as tribute to end the war.
Add a minimize button to "What should we do Next" screens at the top of turns. In multiplayer I seem to always finish researching a tech and build a bunch of buildings in cities far from the border the turn after some chump declares war on me. By the time I'm done clicking through that stuff I've had two cities burned down.
I dislike that the game replaces the "Alias" in Civ4.ini with whatever your gamespy login is. Using the gamespy login for multiplayer alias is fine, but I use my first name for single player games, I play more of them than multiplay... logging into the lobby should NOT mean having to edit the .ini later.
I'll stand behind the request to lengthen displays of text for events. Also, make clicking on those events center on the tile in question. Seeing "Your forces are under attack" and not knowing where sucks.
Please add an option to make any in game message available as a popup. When wonders are finished, civs wiped out, wars declared between other civs, etc. Some of these are big deals, and the chance to miss them is too easy.
If I get to one window from another (ie, I open the Foreign Advisor and go from there to talk to Caesar), when I leave the second I should be returned to the first, not dumped back onto the map. This goes for when the city list gets the option to open city screens directly, too.
In EVERY instance when a text input box appears (save game, gold amounts in diplo., etc) the cursor should be active in that box, with any current text selected. I want to be able to just start typing without having to click the little text box every time. For save games, this should be in the save game name, not the save game directory.
Minor point, if you mouse over the direction-icon of a selected unit that is offscreen, say a caravel, the tooltip says : "Caravel has created!"
WTF?
I like this thread, and hopefully it will be sticky-ed, perhaps in lieu of another one which is becoming superfluous.
FIX THE CIVILOPEDIA! Please! Include the hyperlinking that made the Civ2 and SMAC databases very informative and intuitive to navigate. I can't imagine this would be difficult to do; the civilopedia out the box must have been the most rushed feature of CivIV. And, as has been mentioned, include a more detailed list of terraforming options and what they reap for a city's worker force.
City Screen: Include a small exit button somewhere, perhaps right next or under the "press enter to exit city screen" line of text. It's just helpful to have a visual representation.
Have an option, please, to substitute text instead of graphical representations of buildings/units/wonders in the city screen that one wishes to select to build. It would take up less space and be far more readable for a goodly number of us. I know bells, whisltes, and pretty pictures are high priorities these days but all those icons crowding for space in a tiny window is most vexing; I much preferred the build lists presented in Civ2. Also, the build queue needs to be made simpler. A simple hold down left-clicking would do the trick, dragging something from the middle-botton production list over one box to the build queue, and one could "shuffle" it around with other stuff in the build queue as well. Very easy and intuitive.
I like the idea of a pop-up in the "what shall we build next" query in the main game screen which quickly lists production, commerce, and buildings already in the city in question without necessitating actually opening the city window to verify. Again, a text-based pop-up would be more informative for this and take up less space.
Customizing terraforming options is another must, in the spirit of making micromanagement something that can be left up to the computer within reason. I always have "workers leave old improvements" button clicked because computer-automated workers have a tendency to get the bright idea of razing all my workshops/windmills/cottages in favor of farms, and other improvement snafus. At the same time I realize how some terraforming improves over time and city squares can be tweaked to keep up with the times...I'd like some option to allow workers to terraform squares in a "balanced" way, equally paying attention to commerce, hammer, and food production in any given city's square radius. Could be an option included in the options menu.
With ships transporting units, when one clicks the "disembark" or whatever button, it'd be helpful if it automatically selects all units on board, and then squares adjacent to the ship where the units couldland could light up so that the player may select one, maybe with a question mark or something.
In SMAC, one had the option of assigning "governors" to a city to handle production, and I'd appreciate a similar option. Again, to minimize micromanagement and the trend of turns taking up to half an hour in the Renissance period onwards this would be a godsend. It twould be a quick and painless method to automate the production of low-priority cities to simply mind themselves while we're doing more important tasks in a given turn, like transporting armies or consulting our advisors. The SMAC system had four governor "types" which adequately covered all the ground of production priorities and predilections.
I agree with what's already been brought up here considering unit upgrading; needs to be polished.
Also, in one of the advisor screens, perhaps financial (the one I least use, as one poster has already commented on), have a simple list of the lump sum of resources in one's empire, and the number.
Also, please include a diplomacy option considering missionaries and whether their passage is permitted or not in rival civs. I'm speaking specifically of circumstances where one is at peace but with no open borders agreement with a rival civ, where one could still bargain for the option of allowing missionaries to travel, being a non-combative unit.
Maybe this was a game decision but I find the lack of espionage in the early game to be incredibly disappointing. Part of the joy, at least for me in Civ2, was the early race to infiltrate enemy civs to get info reports of what they were up to (SMAC too with probes). Perhaps Firaxis could consider bringing the diplomat back in some form.
On a related game decision note, I find early seafaring vessels to be appalling pathetic. Before virtually midgame there's the galleon restricted to the shoreline and that's it. In watery worlds this is very limiting. Bring back the trimeme! And the trimeme's risk at being lost at sea dare it venture out into the ocean.
Another suggested game decision: If one has the technology that founds a religion but another civ beat you to it, please have some option to "research" the creed. You'll notice that with the requisite techs one could put all a city's hammer production into commerce, culture, or science. I suggest doing the same for a lump amount of turns "building" a religion hithero unknown to you (perhaps like a minor wonder) but within your technological means, so that one can "discover" the religion, maybe islam or taoism or whatever and then start to spread it.
"I wake. I work. I sleep. I die. The dark of space my only sky. My life is passed, and all I've been will never touch the earth again." --The Ballad of Sky Farm 3, Anonymous, Datalinks
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