My CIV4 Challenge to Everybody: Beat Ages of Man First!

[Ekmek]

I admit the UI is a bit of a drag on CtP2 and I wish I knew more about coding to fix it. We did have something drafted to fix the city screen but no one had the time to implement it into the UI. But the interface criticisms are noted and hopefully we get around to fixing it, or better yet some more programmers show up to help out on it.

Unfortunately I fear Civ4 and its moddability, if its what its advertised to be, may siphon off some of the few CtPers that we have left.

[HuangShang]

I don't see how any TBS games has better a UI than ctp2.

Honestly, when I started playing ctp2, i thought it just works.

Edited for proper english

Originally posted by Atahualpa
I can provide you with several reasons... The foremost and strongest reason is it's UI.

I have to say these are mostly just preferences, no matter how many civ3 players agree, and largely because of such, there are many points I disagree on.

This is stupid and makes me want to roar because I need to find the city tab and click on it, to see what the city produces.

No, you just click on the city again, and once the unit is actually fortified, it won't be selected again. This is best for when people change their minds or they placed a unit in the city tempoarily anyway. Of course, clicking twice can be annoying seeing as a doubleclick will open the army manager in the same situation.

Next thing: The empire manager is totally useless and micro to fiddle around with the settings... IMO, the empire manager needs to be replaced by an advisor... (e.g. in civ3 when you adjust the science/tax rate, you can see how much faster you can research the next advance). Ofc on top of that, mostly deterministic descisions should be automated more.

What decisions are there in automation? Is that not contradictatory?

Want to see how the tax slider affects science? On the bottom screen, select the empire tab, press F1 (or the top button on the wheel) and you can see the number of turns of research is required is right there at the bottom of the screen.

I don't like advisors, even the ones in ctp2, because I always seem to want to do something different.

Another one is that when you select the units tab in a city you just get presented by one unit and you have to click on that small arrow to see all of them. Why not see all of them right away?

Double click to go into the army manager, where you see all your units and the armies they are in. The units tab lets you know which unit is selected, which is very helpful since AoM has elites and heros, and gives you a list of possible commands, of which there are many.

You don't see on the main map which city is producing what and how many turns it needs to finish it.

Install the playtest. And BTW, with everything else, I am going on pre playtest ctp2 because I am just busy like that.

There is no sound/animation when you fortify a unit... all unit actions should provide at least a visual OR accustic feedback.

Visual feedback happens both when the command is give (but its hard to see that little F under the unit) and when the unit actually benefits from being fortified. If there was audio feedback, that would be annoying.

I don't like the message system at all, but cannot say why.

Me neither, but I know why: I don't want to move my mouse to the top of the screen, where it will never be unless i need to close a message.

Ctp2 is old and thats why they have this archaic message system. I would love the messaging system in an IM. RTS messages aren't bad either but would lead to too many missed messages.

[QUOTE]The sharp transitions on the main map between black, fow and visible are another thing that hurts my eyes. Civ3 has smoother transitions which are way more pleasent./[QUOTE]

no offense, that makes perfect sense, but civ3 has horrible graphics

This is why the CtP series is totally unsuitable for me (and for a lot of people as well).

True, but you were trying to answer why ctp2 sucks, but it doesn't suck just because more people have a preference civ3.

If you really want to improve the playability of CtP for everyone you have to identify for each view of the game (main map, city,...) what are the most common actions people do and then you have to present all the information that is necessary to complete the action in that screen. The less people have to look up or remember the more you can actually play and enjoy. This surely is a major reason for "why CtP2 sucks".

I think its just combining functions into less managers, and it'll be great if the national manager is this huge map to control and see information for cities based on where they are instead of when the player acquired the city, but there are still advantages to a simple list.

And how do you identify the common actions for each view/manager? Did civ3 do that? Can civ4 do that?

[LDiCesare]

I have one gripe with AoM, which is why I stopped playing it without beating it.
It's just way too slow. Takes 10 minutes for the ai to make its moves (I am sometime after the Dark Ages). Otherwise it's a very interseting game with lots of nice concepts, but it suffers from the calamitous diplomacy CtP2 provides. Totally unrealistic, unchallenging and uninteresting aspect of the game. I widh CivIV has a diplomacy system like Galciv, where the ai behave quite sensibly for a change.

[HuangShang]

yea diplomacy's too limited (but i dont know wat its like in galciv)

they need to not disable the research treaty so i can have 10% science tax again lol

there was a time when it took a certain AI 3mins to finish his turn, but that ended...dont understand....and i havent got to the dark ages cuz i havent played aom that long

[LDiCesare]

In the early game, tipping huts takes lots of time so one turn sometimes takes several minutes. But once everything is settled and units abound, the ai takes time every turn.

[Atahualpa]

HuangShang: Please write in proper english

[HuangShang]

I really hope the AI is not tipping huts every turn, which it did for me and, I assume, for you.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
HuangShang: Please write in proper english

It is not that bad, but sure I will.

[Dinner]

He wants people to pay for his mod of CTP 2? WTF?

[Ekmek]

no its a freedownload now IFRC

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Oerdin
He wants people to pay for his mod of CTP 2? WTF?

That's burning-to-media and shipping costs. You can donate more if you want.
In fact, he'll even accept donations if you download it for free! He's approaching burnout on the mod, so it might help.

[Protra3211]

I know some of the mods for CtP2 have taken over year to put together. They are well thought out and shows what can be done if TIME is given to a project. Which if Activisin had done in the first place, even if only for 6 months, they would have had alot more sales at release.
But consider this modders are using a game 5 years old as a base and coming with concepts that were not part of the game when it was first put out.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Atahualpa
E.g. A city builds a unit, the unit is selected over the city. I fortify it and deselect it. The unit disappears. Ok, but now when I select the city again, not the city is selected but the unit. This is stupid and makes me want to roar because I need to find the city tab and click on it, to see what the city produces. So what does CtP2 does wrong: The same action (left-clicking on a city) results in different information. Correct would be that the same action always results in the same information. Everything else is frustrating.

Actually I could argument the way around: The same action in your scenario generates different effects, if I click on a unit in an open field then it is selected and if it is on a city then the city and not the unit. However this annoys me as well, double click on a city and I get the army manager instead of the city manager, I have to do another double click without closing the army manager. So I tried to add an option into the userprofile, select the city or select the unit. I got it working with the double click, but for some reason I cannot select the city with a single click anymore. Unfortunatly I don't have much time next week to look into that issure.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
Another example: I am in the city build queue manager. I want to build a unit and I think.... hmmm what units do I have in this city? I look around and around I cannot find it. So I have to click on City manager and then on the units tab, just to check and after I close it, the information is lost again and hopefully I remembered it!! So we can say: If you have to make y clicks and wait x time to get information needed to make a descision, you get dissatisifed sooner than when you get all the information right away.

At least I put buttons onto the city manager, the national manager and the build queue mamager to link all these magers. I also made the windows of all these managers non-modal, so that you can now use them all at the same time. One problem still exists, the if you change the city in one of them the info in the others isn't updated. And of course your screen needs a high resolution to have them all on one screen as I have.

Well that solution is not optimal, but a very cheap one (time and efforts). However there is a problem with merging the build queue and the city manager, the build queue is a multi-city-manager, the city manager just a single-city-manager, and there is no way to change this is the info it provides is city specific.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
Next thing: The empire manager is totally useless and micro to fiddle around with the settings. Normally I guess you'd want it that way that happiness is such that your cities just do not revolt and you either prefer if you lower their rations, wages or increase their working time depending on what you want to focus. IMO, the empire manager needs to be replaced by an advisor that you give one of the 3 preferences: expand/grow, produce, economy/research and the advisor decides on his own how to distribute rations, wages and working hours.
I visit that screen in the beginning, set everything to as low as possible and only come back when a city is revolting. Pointless. Choices that are not fun (not give me something positive) are bad. Making my citizen happy is only fun when I get something positive out of it and when I _immediately_ can see this effect. (e.g. in civ3 when you adjust the science/tax rate, you can see how much faster you can research the next advance).

I already did some modifications that improve the effects to the stuff that can be seen on the empire manager. And I added an optimize sliders button, and so we come to your next point:

Originally posted by Atahualpa
Ofc on top of that, mostly deterministic descisions should be automated more.

This goes into AI programming and that is not a one-day-one-night-job. Mainly I added this button for debug purposes to see how the AI routines optimize the sliders, so far it can optimize the sliders and the specialists, that your cities are happy and have enough to eat, of course this is a minimum, but the original algorithms where horrible.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
Another one is that when you select the units tab in a city you just get presented by one unit and you have to click on that small arrow to see all of them. Why not see all of them right away? The question is, what do you want to achieve when click on the unit tab and the answer (for me) is seeing all present units.

I don't quite get this. In the city manager there is no arrow on the unit tab it shows you all units, wich you can disband from there or activiate. I must admit this is not much, just the big icons. An arrow you have on the main controll panel. At first the top unit is shows, with its stats and available orders. In the playtest version you can select whether you want to have displayed all available orders in the stack or only the common orders. If you want to see more you can click on the arrow. Maybe we should make the tab bigger, but only for the higher resolutions.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
You don't see on the main map which city is producing what and how many turns it needs to finish it.

That's true for Civ2 as well, it even does not show if the city builds nothing IIRC. However this is a nice addition. And by the
HuangShang the number in the playtest version means turns to next pop.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
There is no sound/animation when you fortify a unit... all unit actions should provide at least a visual OR accustic feedback.

So this little something is supposed to be an f, well we need something more obvious there.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
I don't like the message system at all, but cannot say why.

That would be a good idea to find out. In fact I don't like the message system in Civ2: For every thing you get a popup message that needs some seconds to pop up and some more seconds to get closed. In CTP2 I just can right click on the messages that aren't important to delete them. The only problem with this is that you don't find it in the manual. Then only a few messages are left, that need to be read like wonder measseges, riot meassages and empty build queue messages. And that aren't much, they can be clicked away in a few seconds, instead in minutes like in Civ2. And from some reading in the Civ3 forum mothing has changed, one more reason not to buy Civ3. Fact is in Civ2 I disabled all the messages and checked my cities manually, whether they don't build anything. In CTP2 I can get rid of the junk very easily.

However one issure in the original version are these alpha-kinda message icons, I did some new.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
I tried for a few turns and was reminded why one cannot seriously play the game. Even if the mechanics behind it are great, the interface is such a horror i don't want to touch it.

You mean you can't play this game not one including myself.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
The sharp transitions on the main map between black, fow and visible are another thing that hurts my eyes. Civ3 has smoother transitions which are way more pleasent.

Preferences.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
And don't get me started about all the managers. They are crap. E.g. I think I can check what each city builds in the national manager or something like that. But there I don't see where the city is placed on the map and this information IS important to what the city is producing.

Well the national manager is a list, so alone it cannot provide that piece of information, but maybe one way, could be to mark the city on the main minimap.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
I also forgot to mention that you not only need to present all the information you need to make a descisions that result in an action, but also that you JUST need all the information you need.

This is the really hard part, because ofc you could pack everything on one screen and then let the user get frustrated.

Indeed you hit it, that's not so easy.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

Martin is there a way in the code that when you clock on a city it pops up all the windows like you did in the last post but just change how they are centered (everythingis in the center of the scren currently)

[Atahualpa]

[Q=Martin Gühmann]Actually I could argument the way around: The same action in your scenario generates different effects, if I click on a unit in an open field then it is selected and if it is on a city then the city and not the unit.[/Q]

Okay, so let me rephrase: You select what you see and thus its consistent again

However this annoys me as well, double click on a city and I get the army manager instead of the city manager, I have to do another double click without closing the army manager. So I tried to add an option into the userprofile, select the city or select the unit. I got it working with the double click, but for some reason I cannot select the city with a single click anymore. Unfortunatly I don't have much time next week to look into that issure.

Good efforts!

Overall, I am a big fan of Civ1's, Civ2's, Civ3's and Civ4's single window approach. But hey you can mimick this by spawning the build queue manager along with the city manager when you make a double click.
Ofc, you'll have to set some special variable so that a closure of the city manager also closes the build queue manager (with the opposite not necessarily needing to hold the same, if this suggests to be somewhat useful)

I see you're already making good approaches, automate specialization is surely badly needed and making the windows non-modal is another great idea! Actually that is a superb idea.

So this little something is supposed to be an f, well we need something more obvious there.

I fear I may be misunderstood here. So I clarify: A unit is in a city, I select to fortify and all that happens is that the selection circle goes from green to yellow. Shouldn't the unit disappear and the next to get selected or none selected if the turn is over?
And because there is no visual animation as in civ3, I think a small sound should be played to know your action resulted in success. IIRC, colonization had something like this as well.
And then comes what is mentioned already, that when I select the city again, the unit I just fortified is displayed. This makes me wonder if the fortification order was successful at all and I can remember in the first view games, I fortified the unit over and over.

That would be a good idea to find out. In fact I don't like the message system in Civ2: For every thing you get a popup message that needs some seconds to pop up and some more seconds to get closed. In CTP2 I just can right click on the messages that aren't important to delete them. The only problem with this is that you don't find it in the manual. Then only a few messages are left, that need to be read like wonder measseges, riot meassages and empty build queue messages. And that aren't much, they can be clicked away in a few seconds, instead in minutes like in Civ2. And from some reading in the Civ3 forum mothing has changed, one more reason not to buy Civ3. Fact is in Civ2 I disabled all the messages and checked my cities manually, whether they don't build anything. In CTP2 I can get rid of the junk very easily.

However one issure in the original version are these alpha-kinda message icons, I did some new.

You're right that Civ2's and Civ3's system is not perfect, but there are some issues that you just have to adress and others which are not so important. An empty build queue for example is something you'll always want to fix.

But well, I know at least a lesser important reason why I don't like the message system that much and maybe you've already solved it with the introduction of non-modal windows.
I don't like to open a message, because I have to close it, I've to move the mouse up north and hit the small x and move down again - boring.
It would be perfect if I could close the message with another click on it in the message tab. That way I don't need to move the mouse. So to say:
unopened message: right-click: deletes it, left-click: opens it.
opened message: right-click: closes and delets it, left-click: closes it. right-click on other message: deletes other, let's this one opened, left-click on other message: closes current one and opens other one.

Also I don't really know why messages are kept over turns. IMO, you could flush all of them every new turn.

Well the national manager is a list, so alone it cannot provide that piece of information, but maybe one way, could be to mark the city on the main minimap.

I think it's better to have it on the map. Thus I can quickly check how many units are produced in the region I currently view. Opening every city to do that and remembering that information is really very tedious.

What you could also do is make a button on the national manager that only displays cities that are currently visible on the map. Could be an interesting idea, that probably doesn't need so much coding as implementing it on the map, while providing a similar effect.

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by E
Martin is there a way in the code that when you clock on a city it pops up all the windows like you did in the last post but just change how they are centered (everythingis in the center of the scren currently)

We had the same idea, it seems:

[Q=Atahualpa]Overall, I am a big fan of Civ1's, Civ2's, Civ3's and Civ4's single window approach. But hey you can mimick this by spawning the build queue manager along with the city manager when you make a double click.
Ofc, you'll have to set some special variable so that a closure of the city manager also closes the build queue manager (with the opposite not necessarily needing to hold the same, if this suggests to be somewhat useful)[/Q]