The normal view is very clean, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell which tiles may be improved, which are being worked, and--most importantly--when your city is working unimproved tiles.
You can turn on Show Yields to help with this, but it makes the map look cluttered and detracts from the feel of the game. And it still can be tough to tell if you're working unimproved tiles.
Hopefully this new BULL feature will help. It's actually two related features. The first feature shades the tiles controlled by the first selected city, similar to how all cities' controlled tiles are shaded when you select a Settler.
The second feature operates on every selected city. It places a colored circle over each workable tile to indicate its working and improvability status:
- None: City tile, unworkable tile, or unimprovable tile not being worked
- Black: Improved tile being worked
- Green: Improved tile not being worked
- Yellow: Unimprovable tile being worked
- Red: Improvable tile being worked
- Cyan: Improvable tile not being worked
Unimprovable tiles are those bare tiles on which no available improvement can be built at this time. For example, any Hill before Mining, a Forest before Replaceable Parts, etc.
Now, this still needs a little adjusting. First, the black circles are a bit too hard to see. Since you don't need to take action for improved tiles the city is working, they shouldn't stand out, but they fade into the roads and get lost. I'm thinking a shade of median gray. I started with white to match the look of the City Screen, but they stood out too much and were hard to distinguish from the cyan (improvable) circles.
Second, Forests are not handled consistently. I determine if a tile is improvable by checking the AI's best selected build which varies depending on circumstances. A Forest on a Hill will have a Mine as the best improvement while a Forest on a non-riverside Plains Flatland will have none. My thinking is to never consider improvements that would clear a Forest.
Third, what about Jungle? Should they be highlighted as improvable via clearing?
Please follow up in the
Development thread.