Demo 7 Testbed Bugs and Comments

[Richard Bruns]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I wonder whether I should put a global military cost multiplier somewhere, so that all costs are changed and one doesn't need to change every element by hand. Either a global one or, for each element, implement the "default" behaviour for costs and allow a multiplier.

That would be good. The globals and multiplier system in teh technology model has worked out well, making it easy to tweak things.

I will change the xml file, but will deliver it only when I am sure that I can get both Dawn and Delenda working fine.
(I don't want Dawn to take forever to build a unit.)

Another reason to implement seperate xml files for different scenarios.

[Richard Bruns]

Oh, one more thing. I noticed that upkeep of units is not defined in the military xml file. Instead, the economy xml file has the cost for one unit of military supplies. This makes me assume that all elements have exactly the same upkeep cost. I don't like this, since it would mean that a modern attack helicopter would have the same supply requirements as a bunch of guys with sharp sticks. Can we have element upkeep determined in the military xml file?

[LDiCesare]

This makes me assume that all elements have exactly the same upkeep cost. I don't like this, since it would mean that a modern attack helicopter would have the same supply requirements as a bunch of guys with sharp sticks. Can we have element upkeep determined in the military xml file?

I thought about the same, though I said nothing because I don't have the code here handy to check (at work I am). I think this can wait after D7 as it is not really pressing now but we'd better get rid of it fast. I will check the code when I have the opportunity and try to see how to get this right.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Gents, some good points raised. I agree with Laurent that some things are handled wrong now, like supplies, but we know they're wrong, and we'll fix 'em after D7.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I wonder whether I should put a global military cost multiplier somewhere, so that all costs are changed and one doesn't need to change every element by hand.

I really don't think this is the right way to go. I'd rather see the unit sizes changed and have the costs per unit of manpower per element type set once and for all. So personally I'd rather see a multiplier on default unit size for a scenario, with the cost just scaled from that. What do you think about that way to handle it? It would be a one-parameter-per-scenario thing.

[LDiCesare]

I disagree with you Mark. Units of manpower will be the mark until you get helicopters and tanks, which really don't have much manpower, and a multiplier there would be meaningless. I'd rather have a multiplier for the costs because it will make the numbers easier to adjust. For D7, we can just change whatever we want being scenario-specific, so that is not an issue. It is just that when you want to adjust the costs to get them right, you have to tweak them. Tying that to population loss is bad. If you suddenly discover all costs must be multiplied by 5, it makes much a difference with multiplying the population loss by 5. We can add a population multiplier which also affects the costs, but we need a cost-effector which is independant. My preferred solution is to have costs be a multiple of base (default) element cost.
As for the upkeep cost, it is not that bad now. The only problem with it is that all units have the same proportion of food, prod and services, which is OK till we get to artillery, tanks and planes which don't really need that much food.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Laurent, your points are well taken. Actually I didn't present my proposed solution very well. What I meant was to have a multiplier that changes the quantity of every material asset in every element. This would apply to manpower, tanks, planes, and even swords if we care to model their number. That still seems the best way to do it to me. Doesn't seem essential to have the final answer in time for D7 though .

IIRC the element sizes are going to get revised after D7 so that we can have just a single element of each type in a unit. When that is being done, it'd be a good time to figure out the right way to do this.

[LDiCesare]

IIRC the element sizes are going to get revised after D7 so that we can have just a single element of each type in a unit. When that is being done, it'd be a good time to figure out the right way to do this.

I know Gary wants it, but I somewhat disagree. Some elements are already 1 per unit (elephant). Others have to be more than one if you want to reuse them. For instance if I use 5 light spears in a phalanx and 8 in a legion, there is no reducing the 5 and 8 numbers to 1 unless you make them different elements. Considering skirmishers in particular which are in almost all units, if you want a unit with 2 of them and one with only one, do not create a new element with more men. Element sizes will be revised on an element per element basis, based on the units they appear in, and when I redo the boarding ship code so it is based on the number of men or something better (an elephant takes more room than its cooley).

[Gary Thomas]

My view of elements is that they should be used to determine the fighting characteristics of the element, but not the size. So the weapons characteristics would be set, essentially on some kind of per head basis. The unit itself, instead of specifying the number of elements of each type, would specify the number of men in the single element. So, in effect, each element represents one man (or elephant). This actually gives far more flexibility than the present system.

Cheers

[LDiCesare]

Gary, it seems a good point. I answer in the relevant thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...28#post1051154

[Mark_Everson]

D7.4 Testbed released, to be followed shortly by D7!

I have just sent out the latest and greatest testbed to Richard, Axi, Twinge and Gonzo. This version is essentially the final version of D7. We will release D7 proper in a day or so. There are still some near-term fixes that we know need to be done, and the coding team plans to release a 7.1 version to clean up known and any not-yet-known serious bugs in the not-too-distant future.

If you are interested in getting the testbed version, and haven't, please let me know by email.

As soon as I've gone over the bug lists to update them I'll post them. I will also notify Markos and Dan that D7 is on the way to get us some advertising.

Here's some info on what's in the testbed, and I'll put out a more detailed feature list soon:

Clash Testbed 7.4 (pre D7) July 27, 2002

The manual for the xml resources files is now quite detailed. It is critical if you want to understand what is going on in the scenario files. It is called dataformat.xml

v. 7.4 This one has a large number of nearly-final implementations
1. First play the tutorial scenario Dawn of Civilization. It introduces many of the new features.
2. Delenda and Jericho are two well-developed scenarios. Both are military-heavy in what the player needs to do. The Jericho scenario is different in terms of difficulty, depending on which city you play. cities that are more central are the hardest. Rome is the more difficult to play in the Delenda scenario. I have relatively little experience testing the Attila scenario. It and Delenda are more demanding on the computer, and may play a bit slowly on some.
3. Sea movement is temporarily broken, just ignore the ships in Delenda for now.
4. The tech levels are still not set correctly for Delenda and
Other changes, and bug fixes, see the D7&8 planning thread.

Known bugs:
1. Naval movement as discussed above
2. DON'T use the Ruler button, exept to look at it (it is quite slick). It has preliminary govt stuff in it, that isn't active yet.

[Mark_Everson]

Current Bug List -- lots are gone! :-)

This is the Bug List - current as of July 27, 2002 (v26)

I have assigned priorities to all bug and small feature requsts they are noted in square brackets at the end of each item. Feel free to question my priorities. If there is enough clamor that something I rate low is of high importance, I'll change it...

Most outstanding bugs are minor and will be addressed within the next few releases. I have eliminated many old bug reports that I personally haven’t seen in a long time. If someone sees a previous bug that I’ve gotten rid of, please let me know. All bugs have a ‘-‘ prefix to distinguish them from the small feature requests, which have a ‘f’ prefix.

-55. When there are too many enemy TFs on a square, right-click does not produce a pop-up window with the details. I noticed this when I let the AI grow huge armies (by turn 80). By that time also the power circle of those mega-concentrations vanishes, cause it's too large and it gets buried under tiles further away which are probably refreshed after that. [don’t know if this is still a problem, low priority, D8]

-116 When econ orders frame comes up first the many little text areas appear with no frame around them then the rest appears. Not critical, but any ideas how to fix this? It didn’t happen in D5. [low priority, will try to fix for D8]

-145 (Richard) Graphical glitches and slowness abound. Whenever I scroll on the main map it looks hideous and I have to move the window to make it look right. Can you code a refresh when the user scrolls? I have a Gateway pile of crap with a Rage 128 pro graphics card. Idea: Is there a way to code a screen refresh when the mouse leaves the scroll bar? [medium, D7]

-147 Program bombs when “Move TF to Enemy City” is selected, but no enemy cities exist .[medium, D7]

-148 When I click "Next" in the Events window that pops up, it just disappears. I don't think it's supposed to do that. (there may be problems with previous also)
(Twinge) I'll go into a little more detail to clarify: When the events window pops up at the begging of the turn, you can hit previous to check the previous turn's events. If you press Next to go back to the current events, the box disappears.[medium, D7.1]

-153 Next TF doesn’t automatically move the map so the selected TF is visible. Should do that [low D7?]

-155 (Mark) Road costs have odd behavior for multi-length road segments. This originates in that movement cost is used to determine road cost, but it appears that movement cost for a Movement object is measured from the starting square. So if you enter a road build that is three segments long you get this behavior:
[7, 10] plain to [7, 11] plain, cost 12
[7, 11] plain to [8, 12] plain, cost 24
[8, 12] plain to [8, 13] plain, cost 36
I am afraid I’ll break something if I try to fix it [med D7.1]

-166 (Mark) Error sometimes caused by movement of TFs engaged in battle. Suggested work-around, for now don’t try to move TFs out of combat. Looks like between error and combat.txt there may be enough info to at least put a bandaid on it before official D7. Stack trace available, starts with:

MovementOrder movement order
java.lang.NullPointerException
at game.movement.Direction.orthogonal(Direction.java: 128)
at game.movement.AbstractPath.heuristic(AbstractPath. java:243)

from combat.txt: 4th TF retreating to null
==== End of combat ====



Command line switches (Must be in command line mode (FE batch file) to use):
-ef = error logging to a file
-no = no AI movement
-seed = random numbers use constant seed for reproducible behavior
-800x600 = start in 800 x 600 res mode to simulate 800x600 screen
-allecon = allows access to economic orders/info for non-player civs
-riotsoff = turn off riots model (demo 7 feature, default is riots are on)

Full information on command line switch usage is in the testbed readme file

[Mark_Everson]

Current feature list

This is the Feature List current as of July 27, 2002 (v24)

Feature Requests. Frequently it is a judgment call what’s a bug and what’s a small feature, please just accept what I call it… All feature requests will have the prefix 'f' to make it easy to distinguish if it’s a bug or a feature ;-)

I have assigned priorities to all feature requests - they are noted in square brackets at the end of each item. Feel free to question my priorities. If there is enough clamor that something I rate low is of high importance, I'll change it... All bugs have a ‘-‘ prefix to distinguish them from the small feature requests, which have a ‘f’ prefix.


f62 A partial cancellation order is also lacking, so that only the last step of a detailed path will can be cancelled. [eventually need, but low priority]

f63 The units are shown jumping from initial to final state, without me seeing their pacing. [actually there is an update by tick, but its fast on some machines] This is crucial for gameplay, so sliding of units (like in civ2 or civ-evo) has to be introduced. [IMO sliding speed of units should be selectable by player, with the choice included of no sliding (or very little), low priority]

f69 One thing that is needed is some way to know what units are projected to be created in each square and when. Put this in the details frame or the econ info window. Or rather make a city screen, like in the ole civ2! Integration is the key. D8+ nice to have, but not essential, wait for new econ gui to do it]

f72 Economic consequences of battle -- The two armies share the square, fighting every turn. But there seem to be no economic consequences to this raging battle. [medium D7.1 feature, mark will try to implement]

f74 One thing we could use when there are multiple TFs in a square is whether they have movement orders or not. Perhaps you could just put the same red circles you put on the path. So a circled 2 in a TFs box would indicate that it has moves for two more turns registered. This is not urgent, just thought I'd mention it.
[Click on the details in the popup menu to get this.]
[If I have to click on every TF to see which has orders it is just about a useless capability. I should be able to See from the TF box which ones have orders. This is not urgent for D6, but needs to be handled in some way to avoid player (read ‘Mark’) frustration. [eventually need, medium priority, D8?]

f108 Unit details issue. With two TFs in a square right-clicking always gives details for the one selected to move (white outline on box), not the one you rt.-click on. [Very counter-intuitive, but it is the spec for now. Selected TF is one right-click gives info for.] I (Mark) would like to make it a feature that the one you right-click on is the one you get move orders for. If the click is not identifiable as pertaining to a given TF or unit, only then would I have it apply to the selected (white box) one. [eventually want, medium priority, D8?]

f118 “hide events” should also hide the detailed description boxes associated with events. Actually closing them would be best so that we don’t end up with hundreds of little event boxes accumulated and hidden from view by the end of the game. [medium priority, D7.1]

f135 Events suggestion from Laurent -- Events should appear in reverse order. Currently most recent is on top. I had an army fight 4 times in one turn (poor they). The display should have shown events: Health
9->1.5, 1.5->0.8,0.8->0.6,0.6->0.4, but it was the other way round. [medium priority, D7.1]


f136 Combat Reports -- At some point there should probably be a breakdown of number of units of each type on each side, but its not urgent. Also unit power, health, etc should probably just be reported as integers. Health 23.4857392 is a bit disconcerting. [mostly fixed, but sometimes a long string of numbers seen]

f138. (Axi) The movement path of the units is drawn on a layer below the units and the power circles, resulting into it being hard to see sometimes. It should be always drawn on top. [medium, D7]

f139. (Axi) A unit that is on the top row of squares of the map gets cut-off by the edge of the window. Perhaps you should leave some black margin above the map area. [medium, D7.1]

f140. (Axi) For users that do not use the same colors as the windows default appearance, the area where you can toggle between traditional and market economy bears the color of the window, while the surrounding area bears the color of the windows default appearance. (I am using a blue-gray tone which makes the thing rather ugly). [low, D8]

f141. (Axi) The TF box around a single bowmen unit is too narrow. [generally there should be a minimum width for the box around a unit regardless of its power. As it is sometimes box shrinks to unappealing size. Low, D7+]

f142. (Axi) The TF box does not need to have a gray background. In demo 4 it had the flat ground for background. Please bring that back and make it so that the background copies the tile which is currently selected. [Low, D7.1]

f143. (Axi) Isn't there a way to rearrange the TFs that are in the unit box? Units can be arranged at will inside TFs by assigning them one at a time, but when the TF is disbanded, they get scrambled again. [This doesn’t seem important to me, any feedback either way? ]

f144. (Axi) Since we can save window settings now, how about adding the general settings (fog of war, hidden map, TF selection and whatever is added next) into that file? [Low, D7+]

f145. (Axi) Shouldn't there be "back" buttons in all the launch screens, along with the "exit" ones? [Low, D7+]

f146. (Axi) The [econ orders] reorder button seems to be reordering infraclasses by groups. Perhaps the expandable list idea mentioned somewhere above should be implemented, providing us with a much nicer representation of expenses. [Good idea, but only when econ interface completely redone IMO]

f147. (Axi) I feel that it would be ergonomically better if we could have a merged window for both civ, province and square orders, where we could give orders side by side. Also an option to clear all orders on each level would be swell. [Hmm, not sure what I think about this, but it’s a long way off anyway]

f148 (Richard) I think that issuing a new move order should cancel the previous one and not get stacked on the end. [stacking seems to work fairly well, this idea would need large
support to change it]

f149 (Richard) There should be some kind of home field advantage. Cities fall over way too easily. Maybe in city battles we should generate free horde units to represent militia. When the city is attacked, the units join the defending TF. Then they return to civilian life when the battle is over. [d7.1 or D8, we have talked recently about an auto-mustered militia].

F151 (Laurent) road-building is pretty fast for me (again, I always put LOTS of kapital in it but even then, 12 squares including 2 hills and a mountain in one turn, it seems a lot).
Mark said: But part of the reason its so fast at 30% road building and above is that 30% is an Enormous amount of resources to put in roads.
What real 'civ' spends more than a few percent of revenues on road-building? There are so many other competing demands...
Laurent said: Yes, but in the game, which is not a simulation, it seems weird. There are so many things the player doesn't see, that roads, which are something he sees (and not in a lost menu but on the map), should have more importance than in real-life.
Anyway, players need feedback on how much money to put in the road-building (so I don't put 30% where 5% is needed), and they can stage it over several turns.
My suggestion, maybe put in an arbitrary delay for road building so it happens over time. This would also prevent flash-building of roads during an invasion. Maybe an automatic 2-turn delay between order and building? [low D7.1]

F152 (Blakis) Why can't I just use the arrow keys to move a unit one tile at a time? [low D7.1?]

X F153 (sas) Make it possible to remove a planned road. I pressed the wrong tile a couple ot times, and couldnt remove it. Mabie i'm missing an option here. [low D8] Gary fixed this, if you right-click while in the process of building roads, all plans are deleted.

F155 (axi) Roadbuilding should have an undo option just as troop movement has. Roadbuilding could use the same code as pathfinding to show on the map the number of turns in which each road segment will be built, with priority based on the order with which the orders were given. [Low D8?]

F156 (Axi) There should be an option to make visible all friendy TF paths on the map. It would also be nice to have a preview of where each unit should be next turn, if nothing intervenes. This is in anticipation of future major wars. [med D8]

F157 Make it so pathfinding into the black doesn’t give away terrain info [med D8]

F158 LARGE number of detailed suggestions by stickdude on the interface. See F160 Not high priority but useful to go over, maybe for D8. Some of the nonfunctional things he specifies should probably be taken out before D7.

F160 Put in a method where I could check if a tech has changed "Significantly"? Say we define significantly as the first time the tech reaches every step of 0.1. During that turn it would say its changed significantly, and then reset so it doesn't come up again till the next step level is achieved. Then I could show the player the info only when those changes occur. What are your thoughts on such a thing? I think it would be useful longer-term also, though with an adjustable step size. [Gary]
---
First, I double-click the ClashD6_12.jar file, and I see the ...

"Select the option" screen
1. No splash screen, or opening movie... That's ok. The opening screen looks pretty good, and it works.
2. I know this is picky, but "Select an option" sounds better to me than "the" option.
3. The logo is a button, which seems odd.

I click on "Select a scenario" and up comes the ...

"Select the scenario" screen
1. Should this be resizable, or a fixed size? I vote for fixed, since it's acting like a dialog box.
2. Again, the logo on the left size is a button. Should something happen when I click it (right now nothing does happen)?
3. "Carthago delenda est" is the title of the first scenario. What does that mean?
4. I can delete all the text from the scenario descriptions. Should they be read-only, or better yet, not text boxes at all (see below)?

Here's what I'd expect to see on this screen:
1. All the scenarios are listed, but in a bigger font, and without descriptions. They aren't buttons, either.
2. The logo is still on here somewhere.
3. As the user moves the cursor over the scenario name, the scenario name is highlighted somehow, or a box drawn around it, or something to indicate which scenario you're about to select; and the description is displayed in a different part of the dialog.

4. If the user moves the cursor off the scenario name, the description disappears (basic mouse-over behaviour).
5. If the user clicks on the name of a scenario, that scenario is selected.

Ok, I click "Select" next to the first scenario, and I see the ...

"Select the civilization" screen:
1. Logo = button...
2. While typing this, I forgot which scenario I chose. It would be nice to have the selected scenario and the description displayed here so I can make an informed civilization choice.
3. It would also be nice to have a short description of the differing goals of each civilization in the scenario. Again, this should be a roll-over type effect.
4. If I selected the wrong scenario, there's no way to go back and choose something different. I have to exit and restart.

I click on "Computer Only", and after a little while, up comes the ...

"Clash Demo 6.1" screen
Impressions:
1. The map itself looks very cool. It's not a cool as, say, Age Of Kings, but I can live with that.
2. I'm not sure I like having everything in different frames, like it's set up now. That could be because I'm used to having one main window partitioned into different setions, instead of different windows.
3. On the menu bar, "Options" and "Econ Options" don't have any options below them. They should be grayed out if there's nothing to select.
4. Since the toolbar simply presents the exact options as the menus do, one of them feels redundant.
5. I have to click on a square/unit for them to show up in the Units/Detail Frame windows. It would be really cool for this to happen automatically as the mouse moves over a unit/square.
6. When I click on a unit and it appears in the "Units" window, it's nearly impossible to read the text above the units. Yellow and Green on a grey background doesn't work too well.
7. Also on the "Units" window, scrollbars keep appearing when they aren't necessary.
8. It would be nice to have more information about the units in that window. Simply knowing that the horse icon on the map is really two horse icons doesn't tell me very much. What are the capabilities of the individual units, how healthy are they?
9. Ok, I just right-clicked on one of the units and saw the little pop-up box that lists what I was wondering in the previous comment. It's not intuitive, though.
10. I restarted the game and am playing as a human player, so now I can see how to create/disband Task Forces.
11. I just disbanded a group of 4 units into separate armies. The last unit is halfway out of the "Units" window, but there's no horizontal scrollbar so I can scroll over to that unit; only a vertical scrollbar, which I don't need.
12. I'm getting the hang of giving orders. Pretty cool, once you get the hang of it. I like the "nearest friend/enemy" idea.
13. If I have a number of different units in a square, and I want to form them into two different task forces, is there a way to do that, other than move half the units to a different square?
14. Can we rename the armies?
15. Can we change the "martial attitude"? Does everybody just attack for now?

I clicked on "Economics" and "Civ Econ Orders"
1. Gasp! What is this? Text boxes everywhere!!
2. I can delete/change any of the text anywhere. I don't think I'm supposed to be able to do that.
3. I've read some of the discussion about completely re-doing these screen to make them more user-friendly, so I'll just wait to see the new and improved econ screens before commenting further.
Other thoughts:
1. I don't know how far along the economic model is, but it would be nice to see some highlights in the "Information frame" at the end of each turn, like income, spending, and current cash balance, units to be produced next turn, etc.
2. When I click "Next" in the Events window that pops up, it just disappears. I don't think it's supposed to do that.
3. I'd probably just use round numbers for the army attack/defence/health stats in the "Information frame". It looks kinda odd to see that my armies health is down to 5.2000003. Or better yet, why not just display them as percentages - i.e. "Health: down to 52%"
Ok, I've played 20 turns now, and the bad guys keep capturing my cities, so I'll probably end up losing. That's ok, though, because it's just a demo.
Overall, I'm quite impressed. The game clearly has a ways to go, but I can definitely see the potential.
---
f161 (twinge) Another irksome style you use is how the menus work. When you click on a menu that has more than one option associated with it (IE, almost every single menu) they pop up somewhere else on the screen. I find that pretty annoying; If it was done similar to standard windows submenus (where you move the mouse down to the menu target, and the submenus pop out--like the start menU) that would be ideal. Something close would be good too; right now it's quite odd =) Perhaps having that fixed by D8 would be good.[thoughts on this?]

f162 Ship boarding GUI (Gary) [tentatively leave for D7.1]

f163 I (Mark) think the new event-driven bulletins work great, thanks for doing it Gary! Some of the bulletins were designed by me to fill "down time" when nothing else was happening. Unfortunately now they can occur when other event-driven bulletins come up. One thing that might be good is to have an event class that says "show on turn 10 or thereafter, but only when no other bulletin is being shown" How hard would that be? If two or more of this type would come up on the same turn, the one with the earliest turn number would be the one shown. Seems to me it would really help in streamlining the tutorial. Also some things I had listed as showing at "event X + 1 turn" seem to show at the same time as event X. [low, D8?] How much does the multiple-bulletins in the dawn tutorial bother people?

F164. Horses is listed as active even before you discover the horses resource, doesn't seem right. [leave pending discussion in tech thread on this topic]

---------------- Requests for manual / tutorial topics -----------------------
X M3 When in move mode, if you right-click on the target square, movement path shows as normal, but moves are not executed. It's a feature allowing you to see path before locking in move that we should explain it in tutorial.

[Gary Thomas]

f108 Unit details issue. With two TFs in a square right-clicking always gives details for the one selected to move (white outline on box), not the one you rt.-click on. [Very counter-intuitive, but it is the spec for now. Selected TF is one right-click gives info for.] I (Mark) would like to make it a feature that the one you right-click on is the one you get move orders for. If the click is not identifiable as pertaining to a given TF or unit, only then would I have it apply to the selected (white box) one. [eventually want, medium priority, D8?]

The reason it works the way it does is that a right click selects a UNIT, not a task force. It has the function of allowing a single unit to be moved to the selected TF. Mark's problem is that he does not appreciate the difference between a right click and a left click (which changes the TF selected).

f138. (Axi) The movement path of the units is drawn on a layer below the units and the power circles, resulting into it being hard to see sometimes. It should be always drawn on top. [medium, D7]

Absolutely not. Please believe me, it would look awful.

f139. (Axi) A unit that is on the top row of squares of the map gets cut-off by the edge of the window. Perhaps you should leave some black margin above the map area. [medium, D7.1]

Fixed this a while back.

f141. (Axi) The TF box around a single bowmen unit is too narrow. [generally there should be a minimum width for the box around a unit regardless of its power. As it is sometimes box shrinks to unappealing size. Low, D7+]

Fixed this a while back.

f142. (Axi) The TF box does not need to have a gray background. In demo 4 it had the flat ground for background. Please bring that back and make it so that the background copies the tile which is currently selected. [Low, D7.1]

The tile does not have the same shape. Anybody wanting this is cordially invited to provide the images. I won't.

f143. (Axi) Isn't there a way to rearrange the TFs that are in the unit box? Units can be arranged at will inside TFs by assigning them one at a time, but when the TF is disbanded, they get scrambled again. [This doesn’t seem important to me, any feedback either way? ]

D7.1 will have the TFs arranged in alphabetic order (there is already a way of renaming them) so you can name them in such a way as to achieve this.

f144. (Axi) Since we can save window settings now, how about adding the general settings (fog of war, hidden map, TF selection and whatever is added next) into that file? [Low, D7+]

They are not intended for that purpose, they are really a debugging aid, not a feature of the game.

f145. (Axi) Shouldn't there be "back" buttons in all the launch screens, along with the "exit" ones? [Low, D7+]

Done where practicable. There is none in the choose civilization dialog, because by the the scenario is loaded. Although the scenario can be scrubbed, Mark has insisted that there be global technology, military and social files. These cannot readily be removed once read and are likely to screw up the next scenario when it is read in.

f147. (Axi) I feel that it would be ergonomically better if we could have a merged window for both civ, province and square orders, where we could give orders side by side. Also an option to clear all orders on each level would be swell. [Hmm, not sure what I think about this, but it’s a long way off anyway]

In my view this is the most critical improvement required after D7. The present system gives a horrendous amount of micromanagement, since the panels must be checked and modified every turn.

f148 (Richard) I think that issuing a new move order should cancel the previous one and not get stacked on the end. [stacking seems to work fairly well, this idea would need large
support to change it]

This idea is wrong and will not be implemented. It is the only way to get a TF to go around an enemy force, for example.

F152 (Blakis) Why can't I just use the arrow keys to move a unit one tile at a time? [low D7.1?]

Arrow keys are supposed to do just that. Maybe they don't work - I haven't tried them for quite a while.

F156 (Axi) There should be an option to make visible all friendy TF paths on the map. It would also be nice to have a preview of where each unit should be next turn, if nothing intervenes. This is in anticipation of future major wars. [med D8]

Nuts.

F160 Put in a method where I could check if a tech has changed "Significantly"? Say we define significantly as the first time the tech reaches every step of 0.1. During that turn it would say its changed significantly, and then reset so it doesn't come up again till the next step level is achieved. Then I could show the player the info only when those changes occur. What are your thoughts on such a thing? I think it would be useful longer-term also, though with an adjustable step size. [Gary]

There is a tech button which lists the current status and levels.

X M3 When in move mode, if you right-click on the target square, movement path shows as normal, but moves are not executed. It's a feature allowing you to see path before locking in move that we should explain it in tutorial.

Now removed.

Cheers