Impressed with Interface

[Sarxis]

I am very impressed with how clean the interface is in CivIII.
All of the screenshots I have seen with the interface included show that it is very well done- not exagerated, and not cluttered, but still looks superb.

Great job Firaxis!

[Footie Mad]

It reminds me a little to much of CTP but then again I cant judge it properly until having played the game.

[Ralf]

To me it seems to be the very anti-pode of CTP/CTP-2 interface design-philosophy. In those games everything was organized in as multiple moveable manager-screens - many of them also multi-tabbed. Not so in Civ-3.

[tishco]

the only nag is that the govenmmnet and gold per turn is at the bottom of the screen with unitas and there isnt a little power graph like SMAc but samc had bad amount of menus but had a good little com link for talking to civs but the unit workshop was pesky to obselte stuff.

[Ralf]

Check out the map-screenshot on this page

The four small (too small?) letter-buttons on the below/right little info-screen means...

D: Diplomacy-screen,
E: Espionage-screen,
P: Palace-screen,
H: Histograph-screen (demographics?).

I guess an S-button will pop up as well: Spaceship-screen. The G-button on the mini-map toggles between geography & terrain. The three buttons in the upper/left area of the main-screen means from left to right...

* Preferences,
* Civilopedia
* Advisors

Check out this thread for Dan Magaha's comments. Anyway, all of above info is just one single mouseclick away (with the exception of the multi-tabbed advisor-screen that requires a second click in order to pinpoint the appropriate advisor).

The Advisor-screen have 6 tabs from top to bottom, and they are...

Tab 1: Domestic advisor,
Tab 2: Trade advisor,
Tab 3: Military advisor,
Tab 4: Foreign advisor (treaty & trade-connections),
Tab 5: Cultural advisor, and finally
Tab 6: Science-advisor.

You can jump back and forth easily; everything just one click away. Great!

The City-screen (or City-mode perhaps) on this page is only one click away. Hopefully one can tweak it to jump up automatically, whenever a build-queue is empty - the less clicks the better.
I guess the build-button in City-mode (with the wall-street picture on it) leads to the Build-manager/ Governor-screen (mode?) with items available to build. No build-manager & governor screenshots have been released so far (and not of the espionage-screen, either).

Anyway, I hope they think about small click-reducing details also: Once you have choosen what to build, and clicked the OK-button, the build-manager should automatically close down, and after clicking "quit City-mode", the map should automatically re-center on the next "no orders" unit/city.

[HalfLotus]

I believe the interface will make Civ3 MUCH more enjoyable to play. I get peeved in the modern ages of Civ2...too much moving and clicking.

[Patriqvium]

Originally posted by Ralf
To me it seems to be the very anti-pode of CTP/CTP-2 interface design-philosophy. In those games everything was organized in as multiple moveable manager-screens - many of them also multi-tabbed. Not so in Civ-3.

The CTP interface seemed to be summoned from Hell itself using some wicked rituals. First of all, the turn report system was idiotical (especially in the endgame) with 50 or so many messages popping up in the left end of the screen. Second, it was way too slow for my older computer. Third, everything was spread out into so many windows you never wanted to look at those "fun to have but not necessary screens" like city toplists and the like. Horrendous...

And yes, it seems to be that I am going to like the Civ3 interface. Very much.

[Guest]

I'm happy with some of the things 'said' about the interface, but I haven't seen nearly enough of it to make a conrete judgement as far as it's asethetic value or it's ease of use.

[Nemo]

Interface looks nice, but i never used it in Civ1, Civ2, CTP, or CTP2, anyway.
I ALWAYS use Shortcuts (whenever possible, and teh more the merrier )