DESIGN: Graphics/Interface Requests Thread

[Maquiladora]

I truly hope that you can get all the AE interface additions to work with Cradle...

Hex, I've posted here how to use Cradle with the AE.

It's really just as simple as how you play Cradle now, except you install the AE rather than modswapper.

The main benefit is all the bug fixes in the AE, I've already added quick fixes for the science and hitpoints feats for example. Then there is all the new interface stuff too. And in the future if you want to add something to Cradle that can't be done with slic, we can either add more functionality to slic, or add new features directly to the game.

The only thing we need to do is test Cradle properly, mainly to make sure the AI is stacking and attacking as before. You could try with the Frenzy slic removed, as the AI is a lot better in that department now.

[hexagonian]

Thanks, I'll give this a go on my next game. I just started up a new game a few nights ago to play with the features I plan on adding for the next release, and it is starting to get interesting.

It probably will be a few weeks though...I'm leaving on vacation for 10 days in Colorado this weekend.

Hmmm...a game without Frenzy. Is the AI able to multiple attack in a single turn now? That would be worth the tradeoff of turning off Frenzy.

Getting the Feats HP to work. That feature alone will be worthwhile to make the switch to the AE.

[Maquiladora]

Hmmm...a game without Frenzy. Is the AI able to multiple attack in a single turn now? That would be worth the tradeoff of turning off Frenzy.

It's able to attack with size 12 armies quite regularly, and I would think it could improve a lot more with tweaking of it's goals and strategies (something which hasn't yet been done extensively with the AE).

Getting the Feats HP to work. That feature alone will be worthwhile to make the switch to the AE.

I also plan to fix the army manager and unit display, so the stupid hp bar doesn't go off the end. But that will have to wait a while.

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On to the new empire manager... I might run out of space in the science and gold columns. I still need to fit in trade, conversion gain (or some other name), feats, wonders, possibly the new bonuses E added, and maybe some I'm forgetting.

One option is to remove the "sub total" for commerce and move up the science and gold columns, but I think this figure helps when you have lots of buildings and wages. Another option is to combine rarely used items, like "feats & wonders", or "civ & citystyle/culture bonus".

The "enemy" is the same as CtP1, for franchise, bio infection, conversion, losses like that, so we don't need to waste a row on each type. It doesn't have a number yet as it's not hooked up to the data.

[Maquiladora]

Getting close to commit the first version of the new empire manager now.

A problem though. As you can see I've run out of space in the gold column, and there is no "conversion gain" row (conversion loss is "Enemy"). And neither is there room for trade income to be listed. Should I:

a) Squeeze the commerce rows to the left, and extend the gold column right to the top underneath the science tax spinner.

b) Combine some categories to make room for one or two more rows.

c) Move "Savings" right to the bottom (see where "Public Works" is) and move the separator down, but this will only provide one extra row.

d) Scrap the "Sub total" rows (IMO these are useful though).

Any other ideas?

Franchise gain is also yet to be added, but there's plenty of room for that.

[Maquiladora]

Besides that I've also changed how city maintenance and unit gold support works. I had to fix these anyway to put them into the right parts of the code (unit gold support was being added with gold from wonders for example) so I could display them in the empire manager.

City maintenance before was (number of cities * maximum allowable cities in your government). This could get very high, and actually slowed the game down almost to a stop because there was very little commerce available for science. It also didn't take into account the size of a city, which is what building maintenance does (more expensive buildings cost more maintenance).

So city maintenance is now the cost of the city's population in gold. If the entry "GoldPerCity 3" (I think) is used in diffDB.txt then the cost will be 3 * population of that city. If there's no entry in diffDB.txt but it's enabled in userprofile.txt (or enabled in the rules window), it will just be the population amount. diffDB.txt takes precedence if both are enabled. (This confusion with diffDB and the rules window is temporary, as I would like to fix all the rules to be permanent to a saved game, so they could only be found in a save file).

Unit gold support cost before was (units.txt goldhunger * wages per person * readiness modifier (this was maybe done twice) * government support coefficient). This was also very high, not just because of the huge goldhunger values in units.txt but because of the wages multiplying this. Even with very low goldhunger values you could not build enough units.

Unit gold support now uses the same method as unit production upkeep: (units.txt goldhunger * readiness cost * goverment support coefficient). I've set the goldhunger values to roughly 1/4 of the shieldhunger values, as this is roughly the amount of gold you have in a game compared to production. The result is a much more balanced game.

Right now unit gold support is deducted from gold savings. There is also no punishment for not having enough to pay, you just get 0 gold. In future this should force you to disband units like production upkeep. It may also be worth considering deducting this from commerce instead of savings, that way a bigger military will also impact science spending, and not just savings.

[EPW]

Getting close to commit the first version of the new empire manager now.

A problem though. As you can see I've run out of space in the gold column, and there is no "conversion gain" row (conversion loss is "Enemy"). And neither is there room for trade income to be listed. Should I:

a) Squeeze the commerce rows to the left, and extend the gold column right to the top underneath the science tax spinner.

b) Combine some categories to make room for one or two more rows.

c) Move "Savings" right to the bottom (see where "Public Works" is) and move the separator down, but this will only provide one extra row.

d) Scrap the "Sub total" rows (IMO these are useful though).

Any other ideas?

Franchise gain is also yet to be added, but there's plenty of room for that.

What about moving the PW and Science tax spinner somewhere else, say to the left and right of the empire happiness bar respectively? That should give you a couple more rows.

[EPW]

Besides that I've also changed how city maintenance and unit gold support works. I had to fix these anyway to put them into the right parts of the code (unit gold support was being added with gold from wonders for example) so I could display them in the empire manager.

City maintenance before was (number of cities * maximum allowable cities in your government). This could get very high, and actually slowed the game down almost to a stop because there was very little commerce available for science. It also didn't take into account the size of a city, which is what building maintenance does (more expensive buildings cost more maintenance).

So city maintenance is now the cost of the city's population in gold. If the entry "GoldPerCity 3" (I think) is used in diffDB.txt then the cost will be 3 * population of that city. If there's no entry in diffDB.txt but it's enabled in userprofile.txt (or enabled in the rules window), it will just be the population amount. diffDB.txt takes precedence if both are enabled. (This confusion with diffDB and the rules window is temporary, as I would like to fix all the rules to be permanent to a saved game, so they could only be found in a save file).

Unit gold support cost before was (units.txt goldhunger * wages per person * readiness modifier (this was maybe done twice) * government support coefficient). This was also very high, not just because of the huge goldhunger values in units.txt but because of the wages multiplying this. Even with very low goldhunger values you could not build enough units.

Unit gold support now uses the same method as unit production upkeep: (units.txt goldhunger * readiness cost * goverment support coefficient). I've set the goldhunger values to roughly 1/4 of the shieldhunger values, as this is roughly the amount of gold you have in a game compared to production. The result is a much more balanced game.

Right now unit gold support is deducted from gold savings. There is also no punishment for not having enough to pay, you just get 0 gold. In future this should force you to disband units like production upkeep. It may also be worth considering deducting this from commerce instead of savings, that way a bigger military will also impact science spending, and not just savings.

I like your changes. Now add trade income directly to city commerce and all will be well.

[Maquiladora]

What about moving the PW and Science tax spinner somewhere else, say to the left and right of the empire happiness bar respectively? That should give you a couple more rows.

That would be a pain, but it's a good suggestion. I'll wait a couple of days to see if anyone has a better idea.

I like your changes. Now add trade income directly to city commerce and all will be well.

Back in an old thread someone suggested making national trade go to savings and international trade to commerce.

[EPW]

Back in an old thread someone suggested making national trade go to savings and international trade to commerce.

Naw, too complicated. Reducing trade yields may be necessary though.

[Matthew Hayden]

Concerning the mini-map; is it possible to delete the minimize button and make it so clicking or double clicking on the border of the map is what minimizes and enlarges it, or some variant thereof?

[Maquiladora]

I forgot to post a picture of the new empire manager I uploaded yesterday.

It still needs some improvement, in layout and functionality, but you should find it's far more useful now.

The numbers are perfect most of the time, but you may still find some errors. If you find anything bigger than a 5-10% margin of error then let me know. The way resources are calculated is quite messy and worse each resource is calculated using a different method. If/when Martin implements the new resource process he's been working on the figures should be much more accurate.

I didn't put franchise gain in as that is deducted from your unit upkeep, and the remaining added to your PW. Perhaps it can be added to those rows at some point.

And one final thing. The gold bonus wonder (Pyramids in vanilla game) adds gold savings directly to your balance, and is not modified by government coefficient, even though that row is above the government row (see screen shot of the "100" gold for Pyramids). IIRC in all other cases the "government" figure is the government gain/loss from all the rows above.

[EPW]

The details button is kind of silly now.

[Maquiladora]

The details button is kind of silly now.

You reminded me I forgot to fix the label on that button. It's supposed to say "summary" when the details are shown, and vice versa.

[EPW]

Its very blank when details aren't shown.

[Maquiladora]

Isn't that the point?