DESIGN: Graphics/Interface Requests Thread

[Solver]

I fear then that the graphically able coders will have to work to snap the new interface to resolution...

[J Bytheway]

I assumed that at higher resolutions the two chunks would just recede into the top/bottom corners, so you'd end up with a gap below/above.

[Gilgamensch]

IIRC we already assumed to have it only for 1024*768.

So shall not be as bad as with 800*600 (who is still using it?????????)

[MrBaggins]

Just checked running the game in 800x600. The tabbed control panel in the bottom right hand corner is HUGE... the ldl files are statically sized... they don't resize... which means we'd need to do different layouts for different resolutions... (or perhaps do dynamic resizing... which is not an inconsiderable task.)

800x600 should just stick to how we have it now.

1024x768 is pretty tight still...

1152x864 (irc) 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 should be a doddle to do though.

[child of Thor]

I like it too He

Having all that info on one screen will solve the complaint that some had with not being sure what was going on in CTP and CTP2 - too many seperate menu screens.
I just spent the time to get used to the default layout and have no problem with it as it is, but can see your screens advantages

Ref the different screen resolutions issue - would it be possible to have a slightly differnt layout depending on the resolution you play at?[maybe not a good idea really] So at lower resolutions you would have less information in one screen(maybe spread it over two)?

But i guess i'm with Dale when he says he is concerned about the AI first and formost, although we can polish just about every aspect of the game to make it better

[MrBaggins]

My thoughts are that since we'll need to be spending a significant amount of time in play testing... pretty much whatever feature we significantly change, one of the most productive things we can do is improve the environment of the playtest.

I loaded Civ2 a little while ago, to refresh my memory on what made it so "one-more-turn"y. Its hard to place, but there are small things that make it this way:

The interface is very intuitive and useful by default

The default action for a mouse click on a city is to open the city screen, if their aren't active units. Its the most intuitive way...

The city screen presents all of the necessary control and information in one glance. You can select different panels, for the less necessary, or "color" information.

Numbers are pictographically displayed.. boxes display icons for values (with 'bunches' and units) and waste. I'd like to see this too (in addition to actual numbers, not instead of)... although obviously we don't have a granary that gets full the same way... but a bar would be nice. There is something satisfying in the city screen with high "values". I get that feeling less in CtP, and I think this has something to do with it.

Improving gives you something active to do in early game

I'm not a fan of removing the public works system. Its hugely important to reduce late game tedium. There would however, be a point to having both in the game... two points actually:

We would KEEP the public work system... thats the first thing to make clear.

The player has something extra to do, to feel like he's actively improving his nation (even though PW amounts to the same thing,) and gain some small advantage by doing so:

Workers should have a "store" of PW equal to the cost of their construction. When they build something, then the pool is used up, when it comes from the PW pool instead.

An "army" of workers would have a combined pool of PW to work with, and could finish tasks x times quicker, based on the number of workers.

We could include a setting to have PW be diverted to your workers, to regenerate their PW pools. They shouldn't cost population, but should have food based upkeep.

Workers could perform terraforming outside of your area of influence (this has been mentioned by hexagonian in Civ Games General/Future.) Which would solve the PITA that roads between distance cities currently are (where you have to build a city inbetween to extend your area of influence.)

This system would allow players who don't fudamentally "like" PW to use workers instead, without changing the essential balance of TI's.

The discovery and advance interface is much smoother and more intuitive

The system seemed more "rewarding" and it was easy to get to more information. There were less techs so each one was more significant.

[drulius]

I would love to see a new button (somewhere near the fortify and sentinal buttons) so that you can discharge any remaining movement allotment available to a unit/stack for a given turn. I absolutely hate clicking past the same stack seven times in a turn to get to all the other units that haven't moved yet just because I made the stack stop after only moving two tiles along a road.

I like the new city screen idea too. I wonder if it would be useful for the display of the city under investigation to show how productive the rings of the city are, the percentages they are each contributuing to the city's overall economic health. For example, you could empty the third ring and make all the former third ring workers into scientists, and instantly see the contributions of the third ring to the city's economy drop to zero. You could easily test whether specialists or workers were more desirable as cities grow.

This is probably moot with a new city screen, but I always got confused because opening a city screen, then a build screen, then incrementing through a few cities, then closing the build screen, leaves you on the original city screen instead of the latest city the build screen was on. You can always get to the city screen from the build screen by pressing the city manager button, but I always think of the build as a sub of the city, so when I close it I expect to be on the city screen of the same city the build screen was just showing.

For the national manager, I wonder if we could get a national database that a player could search and query? Which cities have tanks in the build list? What cities are missing a Publishing House? What are my top five science cities? (what cities have the most good terrain for science/production/gold?) My larger National Manager request though would be a "find and replace" option for the build lists, so that on a National level I could chose to find all Infantry in any city's build list and replace them with Machine Gunners (or settlers, etc)

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by drulius
I would love to see a new button (somewhere near the fortify and sentinal buttons) so that you can discharge any remaining movement allotment available to a unit/stack for a given turn. I absolutely hate clicking past the same stack seven times in a turn to get to all the other units that haven't moved yet just because I made the stack stop after only moving two tiles along a road.

I believe that the space bar does that...

[Maquiladora]

Well it doesnt exhaust the movement points as such, it just tells the game "dont select this unit on this turn again".

[drulius]

I guess that's my just desserts for losing track of the manual during my hiatus from playing. I've played the game 100% with the mouse since I started playing again. Thanks for letting me know gentlely. It took me over an hour to find the gold reserves display in my first game back.

Also,
There should be a way to customize city and mayor names on the city screen, am I missing another keyboard shortcut?

[Tamerlin]

Right click on the city and select "Rename the City"...

[Martin Gühmann]

For the movement points, an explicit wait order on the Command Pannel and the constext menue would be a very good idea to make the interface more user friendly.

Also an explicit city rename button the city screen would be a very good idea.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

resurrecting this thread because there was discussion on the interface elsewhere...

[rsewar2]

Turns to production completion

Could some text be added below each city on the main map showing what is being built and how many turns to completion, in the same way it now shows the number of turns until a size increase?
This would allow players to look at the status of their cities / civ at a glance without leaving the main map screen. If we can justify showing turns until pop there why not this? I know it would really help me and other people I play with and speed up the game, as this information is what we're looking for most of the time when we we check city status or use the national manager.

What do people think of this idea?

[Ekmek]

I like it but i think it was avoided because of the city tab in the right corner that you can cycle through. but your right, the less buried in tabs and the more easily visible is more user friendly. perhaps a toggle for it would work.