I read in some thread about the strategy layer, and I tried it out.

I am hooked! I use it all the time. I use it to mark early cities. Then later when I get on the war path I use little tags to help me remember where all the good production cities are. The AI loves to put military academies everywhere, and it's sometimes rather deceptive to conquer a city that looks to be a production weakling, but has a military academy in it, or has a settled general or 2. I like to mark these with a little note on the side of the city "General" or "Academy" so I know to make units from there.

I also like to make where all the seafoods are. Once things get hectic and all my seafood gets pillaged, and there are worker boats all over the place, I forget or don't notice the fish until it's way to late. If I make a big billboard I always remember to fix the damage after the war, or after my navy catches up with the pillagers.

I have also started getting in the habit (well, only one game so far, but it will be a habit) of noting "CHANGE CIVICS!" right next to the city thats building the pyrimids. You guys know what I am talking about!

Anyone else have any good uses for the strategy layer?

P.S. The strategy layer is activated by pressing Alt+S for anyone else like me, who had no idea it existed!

If you pan back, you can also use the strategy layer to draw directly on the map. I find it kinda useful for marking in known borders on neighbouring countries quickly, sketching quick plans of attack, etc. Sometimes, a doodle is worth a thousand words, or at least more than the strategy labels can hold.

I read in some thread about the strategy layer, and I tried it out.

Do you remember where the thread was? I'd like to read it.

Oh it wasn't about the strategy layer at all. Someone asked what people use to draw dotmaps, and someone said "I just use the strategy layer (Alt+S) to mark my future city spots."

and I didn't know what he was talking about until I gave it a shot. But now, I don't remember anything about that thread so I don't have a link.

I haven't tried drawing doodles yet. I will today.

Remember, you need to pan RIGHT out to get the option to draw. It's the second button above the minimap, I believe - has the sign options same as Alt+S, but also has the sketching thing. You can only draw in your civ color, though.

The thing I use it most for is planning city sites, aka dotmapping, but I find it very annoying that I have to draw without being able to clearly see the terrain (due to being zoomed to above the cloud level) and without the resource bubbles.

Does anybody know of a mod that makes it easy to dotmap from within CIV? Ideally, some kind of view that allows me to drop in cities that will show borders in different colors, and maybe show max prod or commerce at different city sizes...

Thanks!

One thing that I so much miss is a function to dotmap properly in the strategy layer. I'm thinking of something like different coloured pices of jigsaw puzzle, shaped lika big fat crosses, that you could shuffle around the map for optimal placing. Having to screen dump the map an draw on it whit an external program is just silly. All you talented modders out there, get to work!

It is not the strategy layer.. Thats when you scroll out. Alt + s is just putting signs on the map. I do use signs quite a bit though... Mostly to mark city sites for dotmaps and specific paths for pitboss games that might not be intuitive(also mark what forests to keep and where to chain irrigate), ofc in team mp it is an invaluable tool to write messages as the ingame message system is everything but reliable...

The tile grids make dotmapping from the strategy layer a lot easier. Sometimes the colors don't help though - I'm playing a dark green civ right now which makes it particularly hard to see marks on forests.

I use the pseudo-dotmapping feature quite a bit for planning my early cities. I also wish you could change colors and would really like the idea of a fat-cross template like the one that appears around a settler. My other big objection is that lines don't stay when loading a saved game, though signs do.

I use the signs for marking changes in culture % of foreign tiles that I am interested in. Noting the current % on the sign allows me to check back in a few turns to see if my culture war is winning or losing. This is only useful in a few situations, but it does allow me to focus on other aspects of the game and only spam culture when it can be useful.

My other big objection is that lines don't stay when loading a saved game, though signs do.

In Warlords (and probably BtS too, but I can't confirm) lines on the strategy layer are saved along with the game. In your case, you're probably better off using signs for dotmapping instead.

I like writing nasty words on the ocean near my enemy's coast. Sometimes with arrows.