Working out a new Economy GUI for Demo 7+

[Richard Bruns]

Military Build Orders

Copied from Military thread:

I said:

If I read the dataformat document correctly, the econ xml gives me the ability to put orders in sub-categories in the GUI. So I can have combined arms units at the top level of the tree, and elements at a lower level. (or the other way around)

and Mark replied:

Very Cool idea, but not implemented. And I hadn't forseen going quite that far with it. Certainly combined with Lee's tree stuff on the econ gui, it would take care of my objections to the two basic views of army units. For now you can only use the specific categories and sub-categories in the econ.xml file. That is because those correspond to existing java classes in the code.

But it might not take that much work to get where you want to be. To be specific you would be happy if there were more than one "army unit" sub-class under military? There would be an "army unit C" for combined and an "army unit E" for mono-element units. I will keep this capability in mind as I implement the more-flexible category and sub-category structure. No guarantees but it seems it can be done fairly easily.

Anyone else see any problems with the approach?

Instead of making the playher choose between two sub-layers, the combined arms units can appear at the top layer, as per the current plan. Then there is a sub/category option to make single-element units.

So the standard units are in the Military category, becoming available and obsolete as tech advances. Units that may not be used as much, like special purpose units or single element units, are in subcategories like Military-Elements or Military-Special

So teh player sees a tree like:

+Technology
-Military
    Trireme
    Legion
    Siege Weapons
    +Elements
    -Special Units
        Explorers
        Engineers
+Infrastructure

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Richard:

That does lookd good. It may well be doable without needing to change the current approach too much. I will need to look into it. Probably won't be for a while though, due to too many RL committments in the near future.

[LDiCesare]

Letting know one small change I did: The tax rate is now no longer set in the econ orders frame but in the ruler frame, as it is a directly negociated policy (btw should this be negotiated or negociated?).
Thus in order to change tax rate, one has to use the ruler panel. The results of the new policy won't be seeable until the turn when they are applied (next turn).

I left the textfield in the econ frame, but made it read-only. The only drawback I see with this is that the player won't be able to see the quantities produced next turn if they change the tax rate. Note that predicting the side effects of tax rate change (riots...) would be needed in order to predict the econ output correctly.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Laurent:

Good to see some of the interactions between models finally coming into existance! BTW it is "negotiated".

[alms66]

I'm reviving this thread again because it is nearing the time that it will be essential to have a new econ interface.

I’m going to post several screenshots of interfaces from various games, for the benefit of those who might not own these particular games, so that they can follow the discussion. Then I’ll start the discussion, with my own ideas.

Thus far, from this thread, this has been one of my favorite proposals:

[alms66]

A good trading screen from Chariots of War:

[alms66]

A good overview of the Civ's Economy from CTP2

[alms66]

Another shot from CTP2

[alms66]

SimCity4's overview screen

[alms66]

Tax details:

[alms66]

Infrastructure Upkeep:

[alms66]

Even more Infrastructure Details:

[alms66]

Transportation Infrastructure:

[alms66]

And Loans:

[alms66]

But, by far, the best game to look at for ideas on what the interface should look like is Superpower2. I highly recommend that everyone download and play the demo. You may or may not like the game, but the interfaces are brilliant and very close to what we want to do with Clash. That is a very high level window which gives all needed info, and the ability to drill down and see even more info and micromanage galore, if you choose.

And here's a few screenshots from that game, for those who can't download the demo (it's huge).

The Overview Panels:
(Politics = Diplomacy, Militar & Economy - We'll also have Technology and others perhaps)