What is your greatest wish for Civ 4?

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Most manuals have a page or pullout which has all the keyboard shortcuts on it. It's been a while - doesn't Civ3?

I bought the Collector's Edition. It did not. Dunno about the others. Nice tin box though.

But my point is that basic unit commands SHOULD BE IN THE GAME INTERFACE. They are in SMAC/SMAX, which preceded Civ3. Stupid oversight in Civ3, that needs to be corrected in Civ4.

[DrSpike]

Most of the hotkeys are in the menus though.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Most of the hotkeys are in the menus though.

No, they are not. Show me screenshots of the following commands before I will believe you. Better yet, tell me how you know what they mean, if you learned them in game rather than from the manual.

"e", "cntrl-r", "cntrl-shift-r", "shift-i", "shift-p", "shift-a"

The first 3 at least are very useful to avoid tedium, don't you think?

But the second two still annoy me that I have to locate the end points graphically, unlike SMAC, which preceded Civ3, which not only provides this info via menus, but provides a list of end points, rather than require me to locate the end point graphically.

[Adagio]

I've never learned any commands from manuals and only once I needed someone else to tell me the command
Often you can find the commands in the game, but sometimes you could always try some key-strokes that you believe could do what you want it to do (like if you want to build a road but don't know the shortcut, the first key most people would press is 'R' for 'Road')

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Tommar


No, they are not. Show me screenshots of the following commands before I will believe you. Better yet, tell me how you know what they mean, if you learned them in game rather than from the manual.

"e", "cntrl-r", "cntrl-shift-r", "shift-i", "shift-p", "shift-a"

Some of those were added after release.

I found them all out through forums/manual.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Some of those were added after release.

I found them all out through forums/manual.

Are they in the menu as you asserted? Because that's my complaint. They aren't there.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by Adagio
I've never learned any commands from manuals and only once I needed someone else to tell me the command
Often you can find the commands in the game, but sometimes you could always try some key-strokes that you believe could do what you want it to do (like if you want to build a road but don't know the shortcut, the first key most people would press is 'R' for 'Road')

"Road", I'm happy to report, is one of the few in the game menu.

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Some of those were added after release.

I found them all out through forums/manual.

No, I only have the release version of Civ3, cool tin box and all, but nothing added.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Tommar


Are they in the menu as you asserted? Because that's my complaint. They aren't there.

My assertion was 'most'. I'm sure if you count all the hotkeys you will see my assertion is true.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Tommar
"Road", I'm happy to report, is one of the few in the game menu.

I wasn't just talking about Civ3 but talking about shortcuts in generel. I don't remember what shortcuts was in the menus in Civ3, but let's just assume the "road to" wasn't there but you wanted to find the shortcut to it it would be naturally to try 'R' in combination with Shift or ctrl (or both) and hopefully you find it
Of course sometimes you can't find the shortcut using logic (or familiarity (sp?)

[Tommar]

Originally posted by DrSpike


My assertion was 'most'. I'm sure if you count all the hotkeys you will see my assertion is true.

No. You are incorrect. I'll make this easier for you. The following commands are all available to workers (I omitted obvious ones like C, W). Which ones are available through the interface? Do they amount to "most"?

A
shift-A
shift-I
shift-P
shift-F
shift-J
B
control-F
m
shift-R
control-shift-R
R
control-R
control-B
shift-c
D
G
H
I
Ctrl-I
B
N

(edited note: these are all in my release version, nothing added)

[Tommar]

Originally posted by Adagio



I wasn't just talking about Civ3 but talking about shortcuts in generel. I don't remember what shortcuts was in the menus in Civ3, but let's just assume the "road to" wasn't there but you wanted to find the shortcut to it it would be naturally to try 'R' in combination with Shift or ctrl (or both) and hopefully you find it
Of course sometimes you can't find the shortcut using logic (or familiarity (sp?)

Well, you know, the only reason this point ticks me off so much is because I AM so familiar with games, and Civ3 was so retarded in comparison, even compared to its own preceding game, SMAC. Civ3 should have exceeded SMAC, but it did not, in some very basic interface ways (ignore the pink terrain/weird tech, interesting story, cool movies differences, design workshop, the ability to issue global commands, etc.).

I really hope Civ4 is better.

[Adagio]

I do agree with you that it should all have been in the interface, I'm just saying that it wasn't as bad in Civ3 as you make it out to be. I never had any problems with the interface in Civ3 and I never read the manual for the game

[Tommar]

Originally posted by Adagio
I do agree with you that it should all have been in the interface, I'm just saying that it wasn't as bad in Civ3 as you make it out to be. I never had any problems with the interface in Civ3 and I never read the manual for the game

Fair enough. Did you ever play SMAC or a better game?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Tommar


No. You are incorrect. I'll make this easier for you. The following commands are all available to workers (I omitted obvious ones like C, W). Which ones are available through the interface? Do they amount to "most"?

A
shift-A
shift-I
shift-P
shift-F
shift-J
B
control-F
m
shift-R
control-shift-R
R
control-R
control-B
shift-c
D
G
H
I
Ctrl-I
B
N

(edited note: these are all in my release version, nothing added)

Can we discuss without your bad attitude please? Otherwise I'm stopping now.

All the hotkeys in my statement refers to, well, all the hotkeys. Hotkeys are not limited to worker actions. Yes many advanced worker actions are not in the interface at all. Many on your list are without the associated hotkey.

Maybe the more advanced actions should be. However, as long as the basic ones are in the interface (along with other basic hotkeys) and the advanced ones (both worker actions and other hotkeys) in the manual I'm fine with it. Interfaces can lose usefulness by being too cluttered in my opinion.

That's just my preference. You can feel free to disagree, but really, you should be able to do so by arguing your case not derogatorily "making it easy for us". Many here have played more Civ than you, I suspect.