Have you ever been attacked surprisingly with 4 galleons full of units in a place where you could have seen easily the enemy? You were enjoying the music and overlooked these 4 galleons near your best city owned by that nation which hates you....
At this moment there is only an option (over the map in the interface) which shows you as a tool-tip with its icon where an enemy unit is placed within or near your cultural border. Useful for big maps
when you are arlready in war against a civ which could have units in remote places, it prevents unnecessary losses of workers for ex.
The idea, expanding this basic concept, is to show the player warnings in a striking way but to anticipate dangerous situations, not only when the bomb has already made "bang" .
The option I have mentioned only is applicable to units whose owner are in war with you but... what about these possible surprise attack which are pretty obvious? You could have 1 or 2 turns if you are sharp.
As a part of the Espionage and Military advisory, your intelligence should be able to tell you situations which could be dangerous for your nation.
The human can overlook these 5 transports in a remote tile, these 40 units in a stack adjacent to your cultural border which appeared the last turn, those nukes mysteriously near, .... but where are the advisors when that happens? They only seem to know how to tell you that you should build a library.
The game could have a screen which shows you exactly that sort of things which in fact will not "tell" you anything you can not know being ultra-careful and making the checks by yourself. The information is already visible on the map or other parts, but too mixed to be able to obtain the necessary info easily.
The method:
-Check the units which are in the line of sight of your cultural borders:
- "yellow" warnings are 2 or more transports near your borders owned by friendly nations.
- "red" warnings are " " " " " owned by neutral/hostile nations.
- "yellow" warnings are 4 or more military naval units near your borders owned by neutral/hostile nations.
- "yellow" warnings are 5 or more land units (only military units) adjacent to your borders owned by neutral nations. ( is enough checking stacks, not individual units)
- "red" warnings are 3 or more land units (only military units) adjacent to your borders owned by hostile nations. ( is enough checking stacks, not individual units)
- Transports include: any unit with cargo space (galleons, aircraft carrier, submarines, ...)
-Other customizations:
- The checks can be enabled/disabled according to open borders as an additional option. Usually these situations only lead to war for those civs that you don't have open borders with.
- In general the checks are only necessary out of the borders. Adjacent tiles in land and any tile in the line of sight in coastal zones.
- Disable/enable for specific civs. Disable/enable for specific zones or borders near "x" cities.
-Additional info that can be checked and showed:
- Visible nukes in the proximity which can be used within your borders. Check the range.
- Check the num of nukes a civ owns. (already in military advisor).
When that number exceeds a limit (imposed by the user), a civ becomes the nation which has more nuclear armament or a nation increase the number of these weapons in a significant way.
Just a warning telling you 'x' nation is becoming a world nuclear danger for the rest according to these type of dynamic changes.
- Real statistic of espionage. Number of spies you captured per nation, successful missions in your nation, unknown spies captured, .... just statistic of what the enemy is doing with its spies in your nation. To know against which nation you should increase your efforts.
It's not the same the relation between your percentage and the AI percentage showed in the espionage advisor and the "real" espionage between 2 nations. In general non connected nations will not use spies neither perform missions. At this moment the only way to see these things is revising the long, long log or memorizing every entry related with spies.
- Check changes in the relation of the nation's strength: the percentage showed in the scores. Just a check when the relation variates in a significant way (obviously only when the AI is stronger). In general: when you reaches the 1.0 ratio, as soon as you are below that ratio, etc..
-Type of warnings showed and how to manage the info:
- Messages in the log (like the warnings for starvation, etc.) which tells you the type of warning (color code), number of units, transport or land units, civ and location. Ex:. "Dangerous concentrations of troops have been spotted in our borders: 4 naval transports near the coastal zone of New York"
(same for "visible nukes possible activity" and the changes in the strength ratio)
- Tool-tips in the map as I mentioned for all the cases written.
- Only for "red warnings" and/or "yellow warnings", a message window as any other advisor message which requires user intervention.
- A new section in the espionage window, or just a new advisor window, which should include all the warnings in a comprehensible way, and if made, all the additional info that can be checked.