Announcement

**Gary Thomas** · March 29, 2002, 17:52

It is my view that the cash flow information (is this just money, or are other resources included?) for the whole civilization and for the current province should be permanently visible on some part of the main screen.

I am not sure what is meant by "using bars", but the multi-slider system is faily easy to use and is available in the libraries.gui package and used in the ruler gui (as an example). This might cover some of the required inputs.

Cheers

**Gar** · March 29, 2002, 18:37

Sounds like some good directions to go. Though adding more information to a screen that is already kinda intimidating (crawling up the learning curve, here)?

I see where there is an intention to have essentially scaled learning scenarios in an upcoming demo version. I wonder if there wouldn't be a way to tie complexity of control for the economic system to technological advancement? It works for learning, for the feel I've got so far of the game, might help focus development on critical paths. and even seems to fit the economic model documentation (I'm bit past halfway through that.)

Like when you first start there is only Civ level control and one possible unit t construct, etc. (vs. Grog with his Prometheus brand laptop plots to overthrow the neighboring cave through careful manipulation of mammoth belly futures.)

Having the economics off to the side of the map would be nice too. And though I think Mark mentioned an aspect of this, above... all relevant economic navigation would be useful to have within the same pane (switch level of focus, city selection, close/collapse the window, etc.) If the pane is moved off of the map then theoretically (don't want to make suggestions that require an unrealistic amount of dev time) overlays of the main map could show/select provinces.

But for playing, for me at least initially, getting a strong sense of cause and effect rewards would really make the game more engaging.

**Mark_Everson** · March 29, 2002, 19:17

Originally posted by Gar
Grog with his Prometheus brand laptop plots to overthrow the neighboring cave through careful manipulation of mammoth belly futures.

LOL!

First, Gary, maybe we can get the critical cashflow info on the main view area, but IMO it'll be too much. We could certainly have a treasury level, and an arrow showing whether its increasing or decreasing, and whose size/thickness indicates the rate of change.

I see where there is an intention to have essentially scaled learning scenarios in an upcoming demo version. I wonder if there wouldn't be a way to tie complexity of control for the economic system to technological advancement? It works for learning, for the feel I've got so far of the game, might help focus development on critical paths. and even seems to fit the economic model documentation (I'm bit past halfway through that.) Like when you first start there is only Civ level control and one possible unit t construct, etc.

That would be ok for the tutorial approach. But some scenarios will start with complexity in full swing.

Having the economics off to the side of the map would be nice too. And though I think Mark mentioned an aspect of this, above... all relevant economic navigation would be useful to have within the same pane (switch level of focus, city selection, close/collapse the window, etc.) If the pane is moved off of the map then theoretically (don't want to make suggestions that require an unrealistic amount of dev time) overlays of the main map could show/select provinces.

I think the pane needs to be off the main window since there are a lot of models, and not much screen. The Events equivalent will need to be the thing to clue the player into which if any model overview screens they might want to play with that turn.

But for playing, for me at least initially, getting a strong sense of cause and effect rewards would really make the game more engaging.

Yeah we definitely need more of that.

I had thought we might work toward two econ interface objects. The current econ interface is more like a Second-level econ interface. The detailed one that hopefully one can frequently avoid, but is there for the power-user economy freaks.

The high-level one would be a stripped down version of what I wanted in interface level 'A' described at the top of the thread. It might give the detailed cash flow details, and allow for some high-level things like tax rate setting, and dividing of player economic resources in a guns-v-butter way. (Specifically something like split tax income into three big areas like military, civil investments, and civilian consumption. These could be sliders or something fancier.) When you tweak these settings you'd find out that in 1 turn (# turns selectable) you'd get:
1. Three warriors and a horseman built
2. The economy tax base would grow 0.5%
3. the ability to build three road segments
4. The people will like you 'cause they're undertaxed.

These settings would be based on what is in a lower-level detail screen that would be like the current econ gui, but streamlined. Probably long term specifying overall army size and composition you're looking for would be best for the military end.

How does this sound as a general approach? It gets the player the feedback desired on what "tweaking this knob" does. It allows for detailed adjustments when needed. But if you aren't terribly interested in econ, the high-level screen would be enough to play a solid game (once the AI knows your general desires).

More after dinner...

**Mark_Everson** · March 30, 2002, 15:15

Econ GUI Proposal -- Please Comment

Since I am running out of time before I leave on vacation, I'm just going to throw out a more-detailed proposal based on what I said above. Gar, if you're interested, if you can work up a demo of the concept I'd really appreciate it

.

It seems appropriate to do the econ GUI in two levels, the high-level one will be mostly new stuff (That isn't in demo 6), and a lower-level one will be handling the functionality of the old civ and province level econ GUI as from demo 6. This square level econ GUI will be eliminated for now, since it gives people the impression we are encouraging micromanagement when in fact our goal is the opposite.

The high-level interface:

The more I have thought about it, the more I think we can design the entire higher level interface around cash flow. Put another way, it is built around money inputs and outputs to the civ. This may turn some off, but let me get through the entire description before you form a hard opinion about it. Also, I probably have in this proposal just too much stuff to actually fit decently. But I wanted to present my entire "wish list" so that we can have a discussion about what the best things to eliminate our in getting down to something that is inappropriate size and scope.

The screen would be organized into three basic sections. Moving from left to right these would be inputs to the treasury, the treasury value and amount of change, and spending from the treasury. The different types of income and outgo will be shown as arrows whose size/thickness indiciates the amount. In addition to arrows and an icon showing what each item is, there would be a button or place you can click to go into an area that allows more detailed management. Probably the icon itself is the best place to click.

Income part of high-level interface:

All income is shown here, and also what the player settings are for things that can be changed. Whether we use numbers or a binning into five categories like very high/high/medium/etc. I will leave for discussion. Possibly we will want to leave this to player option. Arrows of course point into the treasury. Income categories are:

Taxes:
where we show the overall tax rate, and provide a way for the player to change the overall rate, or go to a more detailed screen where they can tax FE merchants differently from the rest of the economy. Icon for this could be a money-bag. We will eventually need another interface for the detailed taxation stuff, but let's ignore it for demo 7.

Continuing income from tribute or time payments:
(our design isn't there yet, so ignore for demo 7) Icon could be a pile of coins.

I'm probably missing some other income items here...

Treasury part of high-level interface:

How big is the treasury now, how long will it last at current rates? This is just a display, since the "burn rate" for cash is determined by inputs and outputs. However, one logical function to include in this area, and one with almost endless historical precedent, is "get a loan". One idea for an icon for the treasury would be a big treasure chest in which the values are shown for ancient times, changing to a bank vault or some such for modern times.

Spending part of high-level interface:

This part is where I think we need to give the player some significant feedback on the results of their allocation decisions. This is a key way to make the somewhat arcane functions of the economic model clear in terms of their results for the player. Each item would have an arrow going out from the treasury whose size is proportional to the expenditure in that area. There should be sliders or whatever to allow the player to rebalance these priorities and see what the game results will be in one or a few turns. Changing these settings would change proportionally what is in a lower-level detail screen that would be like the current econ gui, but streamlined to determine the detailed results. I will discuss the lower-level screen(s) later. Another feature I would like to squeeze into most of the spending areas, is how the results of spending compare to the civs that you are competing with. The idea is to emphasize the "horserace" element of being ahead or behind in various areas. You'll see more of what I mean in the Military Spending area.

Military Spending:
in addition to the usual arrow indicating spending this area would give the player the information we think is critical for high-level understanding. Right now it seems to me that would best be done by two different pieces of information. The first is a statement of overall military power, and its amount of change due to the spending. If we can directly contrast this to the current power of any enemies or neighbors, that seems like it would be a really cool feature to have that would pull the player's into a "balance of power" mini-game. The second thing would be a detail of change in forces expected from spending. Three warriors and a horseman built, etc. from this area is there would be a way to get to the lower-level screen where detailed economic orders can be issued for military stuff, similar to the top part of the econ frames in demo 6.

Economic Investment:
the economic analogue of the military spending part, and the overall result would be shown as something like
The economy tax base would grow 0.5%. As before, economic growth could be compared to the main competitors. I think building roads and other infrastructure would go in with this, although how much detail at that level we can afford in the high-level interface I'm not sure about.

Civilian Welfare (need a better name):
how much from the treasury is going straight to the people for charity, government redistribution, or other purposes. The resulting output would be the people's "economic happiness" and began similar to the military view it could be compared to neighbors or other great civilizations of concern.

Debt Repayment:
How you pay off all those loans you've taken out... There could be a way to repudiate loans, but I don't want to go afield on that sort of discussion at the moment.

That is what I have to say about the high-level interface for now. I almost certainly am being too greedy in terms of what can actually fit in the interface without it being too crowded. I will wait to hear what others say before I work on trade-offs and what might need to be gotten rid of. One obvious way to streamline things is to remove all the "horserace" comparisons from spending, and make them accessible in a different screen dedicated just to that aspect of the game.

Lower-Level Econ Interfaces

These will be similar in function to the demo 6 econ frames (but hopefully Much friendlier). As indicated above I think there should probably be separate ones for military spending, and economic investments. We can use a similar interface for orders given to the whole civ and to individual provinces. (For individual province screens, we will probably have to open them the way we do now, by selecting a square in the province, and then clicking a province button. Eventually, the civ-level management screen should probably have a mini-map so provinces can be selected to allow movement directly to a provincial screen from the civ one.)

I have a list of proposed changes I'm going to make below. They are not sweeping, and maintain many of the basic functions of the existing interface. Obviously we can put this information in a nicer package. I'll rely on others to tell me if they don't go far enough. The major changes I would like to make any interface, mostly proposed by others, are:

Hide unused orders. We will only show orders that have non-zero spending selected for them. We will need a button, choice, or some other GUI element to allow the player to insert a new order type into the interface.

Put in a way to say "make X of this, and then stop" so that you can put in an order for 5 legions and know you don't have to return to the interface to shut it off.

Simplify the "cost of orders" information. Right now there are two columns with cost distinguished by whether the order is issued in the screen where you are, or was issued in some other screen. I think we should change it to just show the cost of the order type in the civ or province depending on the window type.

The interface should show on average how many units are built from the order per turn on average. For military units you might also see what turn the next one will actually be available.

The per cent spending for each category should be changed to a slider.

I think I would like to at player option hide the return on investment (ROI) settings. I find them very useful for avoiding micromanagement, but can see how they can certainly confuse especially starting players. So I propose that we start the interface with the ROI shut off, and then let players enable it if they want. I guess when ROI is available we will need another slider, or other element, to allow ROI entry.

Well, that's what I have for now. I have to admit that for the lower-level screen I don't have any particular information on good formatting, and will wait for suggestions on that.

Please let me know if you think this proposal is going in the basically right direction. The goal is to have a much-more-intuitive economics GUI that will draw people into the game, rather than turn them off!

**Fosse** · March 30, 2002, 16:45

Re: Econ GUI Proposal -- Please Comment

The problem I see with this proposal - and you mentioned it yourself so I know this isn't going to be a huge surprise - is that you're trying to far too much information onto one screen.

For what is meant to be primarily an economic GUI the information about how you measure up to other civs should be left off. Managing your economy is - after all - a largely internal affair. The only reason another civ should show up on this screen is if they are a major source of your incomings or outgoings.

The information about how you measure up belongs in its own GUI.... who didn't love the "Top 5 cities" and other demographic screens of CivX and Alpha Centauri? But I do agree that the power balance game is a huge part and that keeping an eye on who is in the lead - provided your civ has the information available to compare of course - is a lot of fun. All the more reason it should have its own GUI. (Not really an interface, per se... more an information page).

Also I would like to be able to look at only the final numbers of differnt outgoing and incoming categories. For example, I don't want to see when my next legion will get done on the econ GUI or find out what percentage of my military budget is going to paying reservists. Rather, I want to see the cash amount that goes into military spending, and be able to click on it and go to a military budget page that breaks everything down.
Sort of like the budget managment screen in Sim City 2000.

I know that there is a lot of effor to keep all vital information within one or two clicks... but I feel that if GUIs like the Military budget were also available via hotkey or thier own icon/menu/whatever and were just linked with the econ GUI then all would be fine. Better than clutter, IMO.

Also... I like the loan idea.... will the loans be coming from other civs or from some imaginary "bank?" Or from your own civ's private sector once the infrastructure is in place? A discussion for another time perhaps, but since you brought up the loans!!

**Gar** · March 31, 2002, 01:48

I like the two layer approach, because right now it definitely feels like I am supposed to be doing amazing micro-management as it is. I still need to wrap my head more into the whole vision of what it would mean to play Clash when it is done.

I do think in general complexity can be better handled in an interface via dynamic structuring (e.g. tree structure) more so than additional screens. In this way you get detailed structure immediately without losing the larger picture. Split panes with generalized in top portion and details in lower is another approach that maintains this flow.

Each item would have an arrow going out from the treasury whose size is proportional to the expenditure in that area. There should be sliders or whatever to allow the player to rebalance these priorities and see what the game results will be in one or a few turns. Changing these settings would change proportionally what is in a lower-level detail screen that would be like the current econ gui, but streamlined to determine the detailed results.

Yes, I think that is the core concept. One caveat being with too much feedback you risk introducing a whole different type of McDonalds-style micro-management where a player will continuously twiddle the controls to see results until they get their ‘perfect’ result set without actually absorbing the causality. Why a problem? Because many folks will do this and then complain that the game is horrible to play because they ‘have to’ do this.

I’ve seen mention of ‘advisors’ and such, and I understand there is real interesting AI working and in the works along these lines? Is there a potential that rather than have players operate in the middle cause-effect level that they instead could either work in the nitty-gritty (as current) or actually operate against AI goals? (Prepare for war/Need more ground units/etc.) I apologize if this isn’t really in the overall vision, trying to get a better feel.

Hide unused orders. We will only show orders that have non-zero spending selected for them. We will need a button, choice, or some other GUI element to allow the player to insert a new order type into the interface….
Put in a way to say "make X of this, and then stop" so that you can put in an order for 5 legions and know you don't have to return to the interface to shut it off.

excellent on both

Right now there are two columns with cost distinguished by whether the order is issued in the screen where you are, or was issued in some other screen.

Oh, wow, one mystery clarified for me : )

Overall a strong set of steps towards a more intuitive interface, imho.

**Mark_Everson** · March 31, 2002, 05:57

Thanks for the feedback Fosse! I've put a response to your loan stuff in the econ thread.

Hi Gar:

Originally posted by Gar
I do think in general complexity can be better handled in an interface via dynamic structuring (e.g. tree structure) more so than additional screens. In this way you get detailed structure immediately without losing the larger picture. Split panes with generalized in top portion and details in lower is another approach that maintains this flow.

I'm open-minded about this, its more important to do it right the first time. And also as has been said above, we want an approach that can be used similarly in all the high-level screens as much as possible. Can you give a quick demo example of how you think the tree structure approach would work in this context?

Yes, I think that is the core concept. One caveat being with too much feedback you risk introducing a whole different type of McDonalds-style micro-management where a player will continuously twiddle the controls to see results until they get their ‘perfect’ result set without actually absorbing the causality. Why a problem? Because many folks will do this and then complain that the game is horrible to play because they ‘have to’ do this.

I think this is one where we need to do a little experimentation. But because there aren't trivial rules like "building a factory increases production by 50%" I think its very important to tell players directly the responses of their actions. Because the results of our models are designed to be "smooth", without any discontinuous jumps, I *think* the drive for the type of micromanagement you're talking about will be severely lessened.

I’ve seen mention of ‘advisors’ and such, and I understand there is real interesting AI working and in the works along these lines? Is there a potential that rather than have players operate in the middle cause-effect level that they instead could either work in the nitty-gritty (as current) or actually operate against AI goals? (Prepare for war/Need more ground units/etc.) I apologize if this isn’t really in the overall vision, trying to get a better feel.

Yep, we think we can make an AI Much better than standard. The proof is in the pudding though... We hope to use this AI in part to take the burden off the player in places they aren't interested in doing the management, while potentially letting the player exert Very fine control in areas where that is what they want. I don't understand exactly what you mean by "operate against AI goals". Can you clarify.

Overall a strong set of steps towards a more intuitive interface, imho.

Glad to hear it! I've gotten a lot of good suggestions from many people. Hopefully this will make a big difference in player enjoyment!

**Gar** · April 1, 2002, 01:24

I started looking through Swing in JBuilder to try and see if I can put togther an example of what I was thinking with the tree. A bit of a learning curve there, also trying to get enough info together to represent the thought graphically. Heck, I may find the idea blows once I can put it together visually.

As to the AI goals. I was imagining some leader with advisors on all the relevant topics, that rather than decide the tax rate or how much to spend on troops, a leader might issue commands as:
"Prepare for war"
"Attract more merchants"
"Make the people in Jericho more happy"

Like in Prolog (if memory serves correctly, it's been 15 years) and how you tell it a goal and it works to satisfy other conditions to achieve this goal.

If such goals are natural to the system they could also simplify higher level scenario scripting?

**Mark_Everson** · April 1, 2002, 07:36

Hi Gar:

Yeah, I'd like to see your tree idea and compare it to what I had in mind. If you can squeeze in the time, in parallel with the tree-based idea, could you fake up a grapic of the one I described too? Like the one on your web page on the tree idea for Events. Of course including your editorial judgement to cut out some things so people can get an overall impression without your doing, at this stage, too much work!

The kind of high-level orders you cited are indeed something we're shooting for. I would even like to get to higher-level ones. Like for the person who doesn't really care about the military "Conquer the SillyPeople". The player would be presented with a crude plan, and could refine timing and resources, or just "let it rip". Similar gross-level advisor-based commands should be available for all major parts of the game.

**topcat_arg** · April 1, 2002, 21:30

sorry i wasn't here... My baby born 30 march

now im a proud father of a boy....

i will read the thread later... maybe get some examples in the next 2 days???

bye...

**Mark_Everson** · April 2, 2002, 08:12

Congratulations Gonzalo!!!

I hope you are all doing great!

Take Care, and best wishes from the whole team!

Best,

Mark

RM · April 3, 2002, 15:06

Hello.

Gars suggestions are good. Here is how I would change them:

Use accounting tables as info. Let the economics window consist of a result budget and a balance count.
(I am unsure about the english accounting terms, hope my attempts of translations to english are understandable)

The result budget being two columns (or even better, trees), one for costs, and one for incomes. The result (incomes – costs) are displayed below, (but on layed out the cost side).

The balance count being two columns (or trees), one for assets and one for debts. The own capital (assets – debts) is displayed below, (but layed out on the debt side).

This is a good layout when you want an overview of the economic situation, the result budget to see where money is coming from and where it is spent, and the balance count to see how big money reserves and/or debts you have.

If combined with the tree approach I think this could be a great visualisation, since it at the highest level could give as little as only 6 items visible at the time: cost, income, result, assets, debts and own capital, for players that only intend to use the high level commands. By clicking on an item you could get more info, the cost-items children could be military, roadbuilding, etc, for players who like more info. Clicking again, on for example roadbuilding could give more detailed info, like how much is spent on roads in one of the provinces.
The main benefit of this will be aesthetic, it will be professional looking.

It should also be possible to do things outside of the economics frame and still influence the economy. If you order a road built, you should get some money spent on the roadbuilding in the budget automatically. When you are not building roads, the budget should stop spending money on roadbuilding. Perhaps this should be possible to turn off, for those who want micromanagement.

RM

**Mark_Everson** · April 3, 2002, 18:50

Hi RM:

Your suggesions might work or be majorly confusing in conjunction with all the other stuff.

I admit that when you say you want to lay it out as in accounting I become concerned that it could look like an accounting spreadsheet

I'll leave it to Gar, who is already thinking in those directions to see if he believes your ideas can be implemented in the interface.

Originally posted by RM
It should also be possible to do things outside of the economics frame and still influence the economy. If you order a road built, you should get some money spent on the roadbuilding in the budget automatically. When you are not building roads, the budget should stop spending money on roadbuilding. Perhaps this should be possible to turn off, for those who want micromanagement.

This is something good to do eventually. We can make simple approaches usable for this kind of stuff in the immediate future. FE once you go to build roads it will either put in resources to finish in 1 turn if less than X% of resources, or use X% if it would take more than one turn.

**Gar** · April 7, 2002, 18:37

Hi, Just wanted to let you know that I am still around. I have been preparing to move on April 12th and that has eaten a good amount of time and will continue to do so. I have alot of the screen sample layout down on paper and a general layout down in my graphics program.

I didn't want to put anything up until I am further along; unless you'd rather see it as is, given a certain degree of incompleteness. Tomorrow or more likely Tuesday night I will have the more complete version up. Til then, ciao.

Announcement

Working out a new Economy GUI for Demo 7+

Working out a new Economy GUI for Demo 7+

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