User Interface Requests / UI Bugs / Pedia Typos / Gameplay Issues

[kounoupi]

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.

[Fosse]

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.

[Stone-D]

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?

[Marid Audran]

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.