unknown battles

[ilike2]

I'm really getting frustrated at not knowing how a battle between the AI players is progressing. The best I have been able to do is station a sentry unit(4th level knight) near a target city and view the cities units every turn. This leaves a lot to be desired. First and utmost I don't know whats going on outside the city.
I have many more frustations caused by my inability to know what the AI is doing, especially when one of the AI players is practicaly my ally, or at least friendly, but I can't recall them at the moment. Also frustating is having to search for injured units and bombed resources. Would it be so hard to program the game to acually tell me what cities and what resources have been damaged. "Spanish bomber had destroyed a mine" isn't much help.
I'm hoping to see more frustations over lack of knowledge that should be available, and ways to overcome. Or better yet a thread or post telling me how stupid I am, and how one option will allow me to know what the heck is going on.

[Axxaer]

I think that to avoid the issue with LOS of other players, it would be kind of interesting to have spies able to inflitrate cities to gain the LOS of that city and its cultural boundaries, or even just to be able to add another temporary (like peace treaties) agreement to share LOS. I also find I can't bear not to have any idea what's happening on the other side of the world so I often just try my best to spread my religion everywhere.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: unknown battles

Originally posted by ilike2
Would it be so hard to program the game to acually tell me what cities and what resources have been damaged. "Spanish bomber had destroyed a mine" isn't much help.

Yes, no, maybe.

It depends on whether you are supposed to know that piece of information or not. It is the reason why there is a fog of war.

There are various ways to obtain information. Having the holy shrine of a religion, for example, will give you information of all cities where that religion is practiced, unless you are running Free Religion.

"Spanish bomber has destroyed a mine" isn't much help, then perhaps you are not supposed to know which one.

OTOH, when a barbarian unit comes in and pillages one of my farms, the program should tell me where. It is absurd that it doesn't.

[ilike2]

Actually it was more like" a spanish bomber has destroyed your mine". If I know something of mine is destroyed don't I logically know what and where it was as well. This was on a large archepelegio(islands) map. I spent 20 minutes looking for the damn mine. It another game my infanty was collecting damage from a fighter or bomber, but would heal by my turn, so I had no possible way of knowing which city was being bombed or where the fighter might be coming from.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by ilike2
Actually it was more like" a spanish bomber has destroyed your mine". If I know something of mine is destroyed don't I logically know what and where it was as well.

Yes it should. It's the same thing when barbarians come pillaging. The game doesn't tell you where. It's absurd.

Originally posted by ilike2
It another game my infanty was collecting damage from a fighter or bomber, but would heal by my turn, so I had no possible way of knowing which city was being bombed or where the fighter might be coming from.

You may not know from where the plane came, but you should know that which one of your unit got hit.

[Hauptman]

The game gives you that friendly little bubble to click to bring you to that mine, or injured unit, etc... Just gotta be quick on the draw is all.

[ilike2]

That's cool. I can't wait to check that out.
PS Is there any cheating envolved?

[Tattila the Hun]

Nope. Below your science/culture modifiers on the top left corner of the screen is also the log button, where you can check happened things, should you miss them.

[eris]

I have always felt that the tech "Printing Press" should allow media reports of battles. They are newsworthy events. Think newspapers and such, leading to other forms of journalism through the ages. There may not be a lot of details, and given the habit of different sides of a battle reporting different numbers, there may be a bit of innacuracy on the number of units involved or killed. "News reports say that Napoleon's Spearman has destroyed twenty of Genghis Khan's Tanks near Paris." You would at least be able to know if your allies were actually doing something. "Journalists claim that Ghandi's troops are marauding and pillaging near Moscow." Also, I don't know about anyone else, but it delights my Machiavellian heart to know that my opponents are beating up on each other. It would definitely increase my entertainment and game playing value. "Rumors imply that Tokugowa's Battleships destroyed several of Eris's Galleons in international waters." Well, I already knew that last one, didn't I?

[Blake]

I'm not sure if anyone has said this concisely yet...

If you open the message log, you can click on the text of an event and it takes you to where the event took place. Very handy for hunting down pillagers and such.

[Axxaer]

Yeah but the OP is talking about a war on completely foreign soil, so it doesn't directly involve the player and isn't in his LOS.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by eris
"News reports say that Napoleon's Spearman has destroyed twenty of Genghis Khan's Tanks near Paris." You would at least be able to know if your allies were actually doing something.

[ilike2]

Drake, your concise solution, i think best solves my dilema.
But damn, Eris, I love your media idea. just think of the possibilities. First newspapers, then radio and finally TV news broadcasts. Heck by Civ XI they could even have protest songs. I do believe "Call to Power" had something like the newsprint idea, but that could have been another game.

[Elias]

I think the newspaper idea was in the ideas for civ4. to bad they didnt do anything about it. wow its been over a year since ive been on the fourms.

[MasterDave]

For a while I was playing with show enemy moves and show friendly moves both turned on, but I found that all of that unit watching between turns really slowed the pace of the game, especially toward the end. Now I just have enemy moves turned on and it is more bearable.

Just getting the messages about cities being captured is enough information about faraway wars.