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**Backpack** · October 29, 2005, 21:55

Reserved

**Backpack** · October 30, 2005, 00:34

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.

**meriadoc** · October 30, 2005, 06:42

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.

**Tventano** · October 30, 2005, 07:11

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.

**chumly** · October 30, 2005, 07:32

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

**chumly** · October 30, 2005, 14:15

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

**darthx86** · October 30, 2005, 14:38

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.

**snottily** · October 30, 2005, 14:50

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.

find the CivilizationIV.ini file and edit it - that is where the computer name is stored for in game use.

**vovan** · October 30, 2005, 16:07

Originally posted by darthx86
The Load Saved Game should automatically list the last saved game, like Civ 3.

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.

Vovan

**darthx86** · October 30, 2005, 23:40

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.

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.

**beeper917** · October 30, 2005, 23:48

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?)

**vovan** · October 30, 2005, 23:54

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.

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.

**chumly** · November 1, 2005, 05:55

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)

**bugme** · November 21, 2005, 16:46

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.

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