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  • Civilization V Interface and Other Points

    OK so I am a Civ addict, and despite of the game turning me off to play it a few times since it came out, I managed to make myself play one game to turn 258, and here are some observations. Not on gameplay, but on actual Civ V interface with the player.

    I’ll start with buttons. Buttons are like luxury for any software interface. If you are playing a game for 10 hours and are clicking on something that you need 1000 times, why would you want to click on the same thing 2000 times because you have introduced an unnecessary menu?
    I have no idea why, but on many levels this is exactly what Civ V makes you do, and it is frustrating coming straight from a really well thought out Civ IV BTS interface.

    Here are some question for the interface designers:

    - In Civ IV: Top right corner has all the overview screens listed by a button click, unobtrusive design, with all the views required, 11 of them.
    - In Civ V: You start with a menu - extra click for no use, and only 7 options, but hey they simplified the game and gave you less choice. That is an improvement right? You got an extra menu click, or get used to hitting the “F” keys again, and less information…
    - If we go to individual screens themselves…
    o Tech tree –looks OK, a bit slow, reminds me of CTP which is not necessarily bad…
    o Diplomacy – no comments necessary, greatly simplified, they could have taken it out altogether it would not be much different
    o Military overview – do you see where your (very important now) units are? No. Can you group them by type? No. You have to scroll up and down. No minimap to indicate the unit location. Do you see unit promotions? No, I didn’t think you did.
    o Economic overview – merge of the older City overview, and spending summary, simpler, less information, but when you click on a city in the overview to check it, do you go there? Off course not, this is Civ V, I should get used to this already.
    o What is left, ah yes “social policies” old “civics” that became the second tech tree now… but at least for what it is – a new concept and all – the interface is actually fine on that one, and I am not going into the gaming concepts in this post, will leave that one to others… like incompetent AI, and half broken MP where the biggest innovation in this series 1UPT would come to best advantage.

    - There is also something we gained in Civ V – an extra simplified menu pull in the top left corner, repeating information that is already available on the right hand side menus, just “simpler” ie less information. There you can also see the cities, you can also select them, see units, go to them, and see the science… So you can go to cities and units here, but you cannot do it from a more information full menu on the right hand side. So when you see your city/unit overview with more information on the “right” you better exit, go to the left hand side of the screen, find your unit or city or unit, click there, and there you are 5+ clicks only for what it could have taken one click. Impressive.

    - In Civ V: We also got the advisors back, and I do not mind them, but the advisors have the mind of their own, they block the whole view?!? What is that, the simplified interface overtaken??? Don’t get me wrong, I do not mind that one bit, but given the rationale for the other changes for the worse, this one seems like the odd positive one out.

    - Civilopedia, not going there, called HELP now, and less helpful than before, again harder to read in general, but whatever… skipping this one…

    After covering the information screens we can go and take a look at the graphics themselves.

    From Drop Box


    From Drop Box


    When compared next to each other, can you tell which game is 5 years old, and which one needs quadruple CPU and GPU power to run it’s engine? Not that easy for me on this screen nor from within the game if anything Civ IV had a more pleasant color palette so it was easier to play, to my eyes at least.

    The point of a TBS game visually should not be in making invisible details that you cannot even see when you zoom in to the max, but in making an easy and recognizable style where you can distinguish units immediately and not only after playing 100 hours, or by hovering over the shield to see what it is, while making a TBS game THE system hog.

    Not to forget Civ V color palette: Green forests, on green grass, with green hills, on dark green tundra, with green jungle, and green marshes, yellow green plains , pale green deserts and pale green with some green spots flood plains. Very eco is this green game. It should be called Green Civ Revolution. Even the shallow see is more green than turquoise blue… the only other colors we get is the dark blue see and white for ice and hex clouds.
    After getting used to the colors, what next? A quiz

    From Drop Box


    How many units are in this screen?

    I think there were about 20 here… and where do you want to “store” them, sure just let them hang out around the map… and this is not the whole continent, off course, my whole map is littered with units … sure some will say “but this is not how it’s meant to be played” ( Nvidia ) but well if I had a decent enemy, I’d want to have as many units as my empire can handle… than what? If you have a war – how do you get them to fight. One by one . Not going into the game mechanics and the fact that no way that AI can be up to it, especially defensive part, just interface mechanics. It is just plain poor, and don’t go into the “limiting” direction, Civ is about a lot of stuff/cities/units/empires, which need to be managed all together with an intuitive interface and not by limiting “you can only play with 10 units/cities/empires on the map, and that should be enough for this game”… In case you do not want that, you get a clickhaton. I guess I am just disappointed with the direction the developers took civ to. A game which can be large and have the interface to manage a big number of units/cities on screen can also provide a good small game, but the reverse not quite as much. The direction of Civ V is towards manageable small sizes, and a clickathon at large ones. 1 unit per tile per turn. :facepalm: .

    If we take this direction to the maximum , I bet designers would be the happiest if we all played on small maps, with up to 7 civs, 5 cities each, and 10 units each. All that in wonderful GFX glory, as this obviously sells, even in a TBS…

    City View

    From Drop Box

    From Drop Box



    In Civ IV – you can see the trade; see the bonuses, see the food, visually and not just a number, see the production in the same visual and numerical way see the clear food/gold/production in the tiles, not tiny specs that you do not know if it is floodplain green mush or food.

    Again in Civ IV clear view of the specialists, in the past you add them with one click, and now select from the specific building. Do really do you care if the scientists comes from library or the univeristy like in Civ V? Change for the change itself, and not necessarily for the better.

    Clear and uncluttered view of the great people generation (OK now you know who is coming first, but boy is it unecessarily BIG) Change for the change itself.
    Building list, nice and unobtrusive in Civ IV, (with effects of each building) but big and with less immidiately available information in Civ V. Change for the change itself, and for the worse too.

    You even have the minimap so you can see where you city is in Civ IV -not so in Civ V.

    Production Queue – let’s not even go there… OK we have to so... Blocks ¼ of the screen, cannot queue more than 6 units, no automation in assigning the queue. Design failure, knowing where you are coming from, which is Civ IV. In the end you have to keep on clicking in asigning those build queues, why make it one click when you can click 6 times instead over multiple intervals in same city.

    Others:
    • What happened to turning off enemy moves every turn (barbarians in particular )?
    • What happened to turning off animations?
    • Automatic naming of save games in Civ V, gone from Civ V.
    • Hovering is a big thing in Civ V interface… for the lack of better word – design idiots.
    - Constant messages from city states blinking there for my attention, making me want to raze them except they provide for such great bonuses so that misses half of the point from new Civ game

    Which interface takes more screen real estate?

    o If anything civ V has the whole right hand side covered with not so useful popup messages
    o Civ IV has the bottom filled in with useful and readily available unit information wihout menu diving
    o Civ V – left hand side pointless scientific area obstruction, and City/Unit menu where you can actually select them - change for sake of change, and making it worse in the process
    - So in the end in Civ V you use the similar amount of screen real estate with fewer bigger buttons and more menu diving.
    - Vertical Unit Bar with extra menu diving for fortifying the unit = unnecessary annoyance, again change for sake of change and making it worse for it
    - Strategic view – worse than “natural zoom out” strategic view in Civ IV
    - No leader/country information easily available as in Civ IV flag
    - Blocking whole right hand side of the full screen for “quick production” update, but not giving us more than 6 slots in the production queue which cannot be memorized (as far as I can tell) – someone got their time investment priorities wrong!!!
    - Technology has the same block ¼ of the screen on the left hand side as an “improvement” instead of the elegant Civ IV space allocation in upper right corner, not obstructive and easy to read = Civ IV; Civ V is obstructive and no prettier for it. Change for sake of change, and worse for it.
    - Minimap – poorer layout than Civ IV
    - On top of Civ IV minimap, useful buttons toggle grid, toggle bare map, toggle yield display, toggle resources, toggle global view; out of it all only strategic/global view stayed as a button (which is, let’s face it - dead ugly too in Civ V) and the rest in Civ V is in a “you guessed” a menu where you can click four items of your choice, but they got rid of the “bare map”… which would be useful especially in such a game littered with units all over the map.
    - In Civ IV On top of that you also got the score – unobtrusively may I add, which you can toggle on and off easily, gone missing in Civ V
    - Shift + Tab does not bring up the log, quests, and overview, but STEAM interface, WOW that is an improvement – NOT.

    Music


    Comparing to the earlier versions of civ the default soundtrack is very flat, as if they lifted it from Elder Scrolls Oblivion. While not outright a disaster like the interface, comparing to what we had before it is another serious let down. No distinctive “age” music, all along very similar and bland. Will we be able to change music as the ages change in Civ V?

    And for the last one – Leonard Nimoy kicks ass as a narrator from whoever is the “deadly deep voice” guy they hired this time around.

    Civ V – case closed, at least for the time being.
    Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
    GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"

  • #2
    tl;dr version

    rar rar, change bad.

    The game has flaws, but half the stuff you're griping about is just because it is different.
    - Dregor

    Comment


    • #3
      dregor, he actually has quite good points and a well written and sometimes funny text. Interface is not the strongest part of this game. I think firaxis confused two things 1) welcoming interface for new comers with 2) confusing interface because all information is removed two clicks away and duplicated in various windows... They aimed at 1, but achieved 2.

      OneFootInTheGrave, please, re-post it on 2K forums, it is good feedback. I doubt that Firaxis/2K people regularly read this site.
      The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
      certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
      -- Bertrand Russell

      Comment


      • #4
        They used to browse Apolyton. I'd be pretty disappointed in them if they stopped, specially considering the lead designer of this game used to be a regular here.
        Resident Filipina Lady Boy Expert.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by dregor View Post
          tl;dr version

          rar rar, change bad.

          The game has flaws, but half the stuff you're griping about is just because it is different.
          Not at all. He goes into detail about why certain changes are worse (example what used to get done in just one click now takes multiple clicks; that might not sound important to you but it is very important in MP games).

          Over all an excellent review.
          Try http://wordforge.net/index.php for discussion and debate.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave View Post
            ....

            And for the last one – Leonard Nimoy kicks ass as a narrator from whoever is the “deadly deep voice” guy they hired this time around.
            ....
            If I read it correctly the narrator this time it is a vulcan as well...
            it is the guy who played the vulcan science minister in ST XI


            Aside from this...
            I have to agree with your review,
            I usually prefer to get many numbers rather than too few
            and in this regards, especially the overview screens are a step back from the good interface of Civ IV,
            with giving you much less informations than the interface in CIV did.
            I am especially disappointed with the economics overview, as it doesn´t go deep into the origins of nukmbers
            (not even with mouseover)...
            O.K., I see that I get, for example, x gold from my cities and I see that I have to spend y goild on unit upkeep...
            but which city gives me which amount of gold and how the unit upkeep is broken down into individual units,
            isn´t visivle in the overview (not to mention getting informations on about how exactly each num ber is calculated)
            Tamsin (Lost Girl): "I am the Harbinger of Death. I arrive on winds of blessed air. Air that you no longer deserve."
            Tamsin (Lost Girl): "He has fallen in battle and I must take him to the Einherjar in Valhalla"

            Comment


            • #7
              The originator makes some very good points. Even allowing for unfamiliarity, the Civ V interface is a mess and the nested menus retrograde to say the least. As you can't group upgrade units, I had hoped to be able to do a quick dash from the Military overview to the units in question so that I could upgrade. Instead, I have to go from city to city, which is very Civ I. In some ways I would have to say that the game is probably more accessible for newcomers and, perhaps more importantly, the Console crowd. I really don't think it's advanced the franchise though. As the originator says on several occasions, it's more change for change's sake.
              Tim Bromige

              Comment


              • #8
                Someone should make a mod that brings back the Civ IV interface, with the changes necessary due to differences in gameplay. I really liked the Civ IV interface, as do most people, it seems.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by MxM View Post
                  dregor, he actually has quite good points and a well written and sometimes funny text. Interface is not the strongest part of this game. I think firaxis confused two things 1) welcoming interface for new comers with 2) confusing interface because all information is removed two clicks away and duplicated in various windows... They aimed at 1, but achieved 2.

                  OneFootInTheGrave, please, re-post it on 2K forums, it is good feedback. I doubt that Firaxis/2K people regularly read this site.
                  Thanks MxM ... but hopefully they read the forums here as well...
                  Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
                  GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Proteus_MST View Post
                    If I read it correctly the narrator this time it is a vulcan as well...
                    it is the guy who played the vulcan science minister in ST XI
                    Spock > vulcan science minister
                    Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
                    GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The interface definitely needs improvement, I think they biggest things are needing options to leave things open all the time that always start hidden (like the citizen allotment, unit extra actions, etc.), improving the military and economic overviews and allowing you to double click to units/cities from there. One of the biggest things missing is what is the actual maintenance cost of each unit, this is not shown anywhere and it should be. One thing you didn't mention, you need to be able to zoom in and out and move around on the city screen. When your city gets really big, it's easy to enter the screen and not be able to see all your tiles for allocation and you have to exit, zoom in/out and then reenter the city screen, that's silly IMO

                      I will say I think you are missing out on some of the good things in Civ V's interface. The mouseover information on all the stuff at the top left of the screen is actually pretty good, mouse over your gold, happiness, etc. and get a useful breakdown of where it is all coming from. Also, I again can't understand folks who say that diplomacy is simplified, it's has very different options from CivIV, but it isn't simplified. I found CivIV diplomacy too easy to manipulate to make people my BFFs, now you can only do that with city states, with the other civs you have to constantly keep up with the diplomacy if you want to keep them friendly to you and everything interrelates. Give that part another shot, you might be pleasantly surprised.

                      I actually really like the popups on the right hand side (I hated how the pop ups in CivIV would often fade out before I could read them), but they should definitely add an option to hide them all or to filter out certain things (like city state messages if you don't care about them) and just improving it so it works more consistently. For example, hitting end turn usually gets rid of the "unread" messages from that turn, but not always.

                      I haven't found any mouseovers I miss except for unit mouseovers. Why can I not mouseover or at least click on an enemy unit and see some basic stats? I have to look up stuff in the civilopedia now for enemy units or do a move over attack to see what's going on. And it isn't like I can't get the information in the civilopedia, so why is it so hidden? Again, at least an option to turn this on is needed! The civilopedia is unfinished period, they just need to finish that. And yes, improving the browsing of it would be good too. So far, the search works pretty well.

                      Overall good post though, even though I don't agree with it all, but yeah, they definitely need to improve some things on the interface and give us a lot more options to turn things on and off.
                      Jacob's Law "To err is human: to blame it on someone else is even more human."

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        I really like the new interface. It is clean and easy to use.
                        Captain of Team Apolyton - ISDG 2012

                        When I was younger I thought curfews were silly, but now as the daughter of a young woman, I appreciate them. - Rah

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                        • #13
                          Good OP. I find the interface takes up too much space without providing enough infomation in return. Simplfying the UI in this case seems to have meant burying information a couple of mouse clicks away or abstracting it all together.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Standup View Post
                            Good OP. I find the interface takes up too much space without providing enough infomation in return.
                            Fully agree with those points. Much of the interface hides information rather than providing information. For example, the opaque city labels often hide tiles to the point where it's hard to even find out what sort of tile it is (and the bare map toggle that would solve this was eliminated). Many things are unnecessarily very large (like the building display) forcing a lot of scrolling to see even a moderate number of buildings. The excessive size reminds me of console games. We need something like the darNified UI mods for Oblivion and Fallout 3 that shrink UI items from those of a console game to those of a PC game.
                            "...your Caravel has killed a Spanish Man-o-War."

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