One very annoying thing I want fixed ASAP

[Diadem]

Originally posted by John-SJ
I believe the OP was referring to the fact that if you leave the city screen WITHOUT selecting something to build, it STILL moves on to the next city rather than returning to the build popup.

Yes! Exactly!

If you do not select anything to build, it first handles all the other cities, and then returns to first city again, asking you what you want to build. Thus, you can first handle all other cities and then decide what you want to build in a city you're not sure about.

Because it does return to the city you first skipped. You don't have to remember that you didn't select anything to build there, the game will remind you. It just handles the other cities first. And that's great.

If you already know what you want to build, there's no reason to exit the city screen without building anything, and then you don't need this feature. But then you won't ever exit the city screen without building something either.

[John-SJ]

Diadem,
Huh! Somehow I did not know that. That's good to know, thanks.

But still, if it your intent to skip a city 'til later, there is no reason for the game design to force you into the ciy screen. A dismiss option on the original popup would be much better.

Aeson,
So that's what that option does! I will have to try that one out sometime soon!

[Dis]

Originally posted by John-SJ
I believe the OP was referring to the fact that if you leave the city screen WITHOUT selecting something to build, it STILL moves on to the next city rather than returning to the build popup. So, one must now remember that does not have any production, must return there to set something.

that's not true in my game. At the end of the city build popup cycle, it will eventually return to the city that is not building anything. The point is you must remember what's in that city (or hit examine city again) to find out what buildings are in that city and what you want that city to accomplish (research, production, military etc.)

[Diadem]

@ John-SJ -> Well if I don't know what to build in a city I usually enter the city to take a closer look. Then when I still don't know what to build, I cycle on to the next city, by leaving the city screen. I don't think I'd often move on to the next city without even taking a look. But, I agree, also having an option there wouldn't hurt.

@ Dis -> But if you already know what you want to build in that city, why exit it without ordering it to build someting in the first place?

[Dis]

Originally posted by Diadem
@ John-SJ -> Well if I don't know what to build in a city I usually enter the city to take a closer look. Then when I still don't know what to build, I cycle on to the next city, by leaving the city screen. I don't think I'd often move on to the next city without even taking a look. But, I agree, also having an option there wouldn't hurt.

@ Dis -> But if you already know what you want to build in that city, why exit it without ordering it to build someting in the first place?

As I said above, I don't like the interface for choosing production in the city screen. It relies too much on you having to memorize the picture for every unit and building. Yeah you can hover the mouse over the picture and it will tell you what it is. But that takes like 1 second. That's 1 second I don't want to lose.

I prefer words over pictures. And I like the popup menu because I can quickly scroll down and select theatre, or whatever.

[Diadem]

I too prefer words over pictures. But it's not as bad as you make it out. The city screen orders your production choices quite nicely, and hovering takes much less than a second. And, of course, if you don't know all the pictures on sight, you don't play this game enough

[Dis]

Originally posted by Diadem
I too prefer words over pictures. But it's not as bad as you make it out. The city screen orders your production choices quite nicely, and hovering takes much less than a second. And, of course, if you don't know all the pictures on sight, you don't play this game enough

yeah I know factory and theatre. 2 of the buildings I frequently order built. And of course settler, worker, and workboat.

[Bogdanovist]

I think Civ could learn somthing from Rome:Total War here. At the start of each turn all the pop-ups for that turn drop down on the left side of the screen each as it's own box. There are easily identifiablt graphics on them telling you what the pop-up is about such as: building completed, unit trained, death of a family member, ciy is under siege etc etc. However when you deal wth these is up to you. Left clicking on each box maximises that pop-up and lets you goto the location it refers to (if relevant). If you want to ignore up pop-up, simply right click on it's little box and it disappears.

This is a simple elegant interface that Civ needs to look at. At the moment I usually want to do other things in a turn first before giving city production orders but the pop-ups are just too in your face!

[John-SJ]

Bogdanovist,
I'm not sure, but that may be the effect of the "minimize popups" option Aeson referred to a few posts up from this. I plan to check it out when I can. If it is something similar to what you expalined for R:TW, that would be great!

[ghen]

That was total war? huh, I'm getting my turn based games mixed up.. Anyway, even though it was a graphic memory hog it was a good system

[Axxaer]

I found this problem even more frequent in other titles (such as SMACX) where I would regularly have too many cities to remember which was where and then have difficulty remembering which were about to be invaded, which needed police units nearby, and so on. Still a problem in CivIV but definitely less so due to less cities and more identifiable terrain. Could be a good option added in later though?

[TomVeil]

Re: One very annoying thing I want fixed ASAP

Originally posted by Strategist83
When production in a city finishes and the pop-up box comes asking you what to build next and you then choose to examine the city, the moment you exit the city screen the view shifts to the next ready city. This makes deciding what to build where more confusing and is a consistent annoyance for me in my games.

In 1.09, there's an option so that the pop-up boxes don't come up at the start of the turn, but instead wait for you, in icon form, along the right side of the screen. That way, you can see which cities are ready for a new item, inspect the general situation, click on the icon, make your choice, and when you've made your choice the focus doesn't jump to anything. If you have trouble finding it, post again and I'll look it up and see what the option is labelled as.

[mjs0]

For me the more annoying thing is that when presented with a popup there is no way to scroll the map or get into more information screens especially the domestic advisor screen in order to make the best decision.

I find this especially annoying when, for example, Oxford University becomes available and I am not sure if this is the best city to start building it in both from the perspective of boosting science and balancing national wonders. So, I have to choose something at random and then hope I remember to go back and do that analysis once the popups are done.

Plus...If you turn popups off and have pause at end of turn disabled then when you eventually get to the popups at the end of the turn there is no way to stop the turn advancing when you finish with the final popup. I did this once and now always pause at end of turn.

[marvinkosh]

If you're not sure what to choose for a city, hit 'Examine City' and then just as quickly exit out. If you're playing with popups minimised, you should get a new hammer icon to the right so that you remember that there is still a city waiting for production orders.

It is generally a good idea to not pick out a Wonder to build when you're presented with a popup, because they each have different effects, no point building Oxford University in a city with 5 beakers, though I somehow doubt that would happen.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by John-SJ
I'm not sure, but that may be the effect of the "minimize popups" option Aeson referred to a few posts up from this. I plan to check it out when I can. If it is something similar to what you expalined for R:TW, that would be great!

Not quite. You get a whole bunch of icons to appear on the upper right hand border of the interface. If you don't click on them by end of turn, the game will start asking you about them - change of civics, builds, etc.