Lots of this shouldn't be here. This is a post for the devs, so it needs to be as objective as possible. No insults, no whining, no emotion, no crying that the game is not civ IV.
I understand this is a copy paste job, but I reccomend you as the OP, edit all of this to be in your own words and as objective as possible. This post is a very good thing.
Anything not quoted, is good and does not need to be changed. Keep it here.
The title for this should be issues ONLY. Annoyances imply subjectivity and individual complaints.
* Too few possibilities for renaming stuff.
In Civ IV you where asked what the name of your new found city should be, now it's settled predefined.
Also unit naming was possible at anytime and with any unit.
Unit naming is certainly available after a unit gets 15xp. I think it works fine this way, but again that is subjective. There is probably no technical reason that this shouldn't be available right off the bat.
There should be a City Name Box OPTION... but since most people use the defaults, it needs to be defaulted to off.
* Trying to figure out what the exact numerical health is of enemies without estimating it from the health bar - am I missing something?
The numerical value can be seen on the Unit UI in the bottom left and by hovering over the unit.
* Right clicking off spammy message bubbles on the right side of the interface and accidentally queuing up movement for a unit across the screen doh!
Right click the button above the minimap. Danger gone.
Expand on this. What map buttons do you want?
* Saving the game and not having a default file name available. I have to click an existing file, click on the file name field, press End, press Delete, and then type the next number (Like Japan 06, Japan 07, etc.). It should come with a default name that is already highlighted in case you want to name it something more descriptive like, Just researched Gunpowder.
Make this example more clear and succinct. I needed to read it a couple times to get what it is saying.
* Incomplete Civilopedia; brief descriptions and no links. Sometimes only text with no graphics or symbols. Seems whenever I do a search for legitimate terms (raze, razing, cooperation, secrecy, etc.) it doesnt know what Im talking about.
Many many civlopedia entries are packed with info. It is wonderful. Still others give a tiny brief useless paragraph that gives no real info.
I would like someone to make a thread or a reply in this post where we go over the exact pages that need some expansion and real numbers... Hmmm maybe I will take such a task upon myself.
* Inability to change default XML files and save the game and reload it. You'll get a message saying: "Currently enabled mods are not compatible with this saved game"
Is this a problem? You should (IMO) be required to use the same XML for an entire game. But again, probably subjective.
* Civ4 had a ton of custom game options. I see hardly any such options here.
Which ones do you miss?
* The UI isn't streamlined. It's clunky and ugly.
Entirely subjective. Remove this. I like the UI, but I wish you could adjust the size of it...
* Why is there no load bar? While the load bar in Civ IV wasn't always exactly on point, it gave you an idea of what was going on. Instead, they allow you to read the bio about your civ again and again and even provide the ability to use the tooltip and find out about your special units. Probably useful when you start the game. Not when you are loading your game again and again. I personally miss the tips, which had character.
Load bar I agree with. Tips... not so much. Tips were no good, and I actually prefer the bio here. Remove subjective part.
* Where are the hard facts in the Civilopedia? How fast do railroads make my units? How much do Pacts of Secrecy/Cooperation help my standing with another leader?
Put all Civlopedia problems in one spot
* Where is the handy dandy Score List? I noticed that you can keep the diplomacy snapshot open permanently, but it is rather obtrusive compared to the old, transparent score list, that also included your current agreements and allowed for quick diplomacy. I suppose the addition of city-states would make the list too long, but maybe just a list for relations with major powers?
* The city screen is completely appalling. The expandable tabs for citizen focus, buildings, etc... are simply awful. And the worst part about it is that they clearly did this in order to save space and make it "less cluttered" yet everything else on the screen screams "clutter"! I mean, did we really need to have every single building represented by a stylized circular portrait in the building list?
Take out the subjective language. Appalling, awful, etc etc. Just say the city screen is cluttered, and building icons take up too much space. We like the look of it, but it should be smaller and more compact.
* Specialist control is similarly cluttered with the giant stylized icons. It also handily divides up your specialist slots into the buildings that grant them... while the buildings are placed in alphabetical order! they didn't intuitively group them by specialist type, so if you're assigning a lot of specs of one type for any purpose, you'll have to scroll the list.
Take out sarcasm and make this objective. Summarize the problem rather than complain about it.
* Someone at the Firaxis art department is very proud of their "citizen coin" graphic that they made. I recall them talking about it on the podcast as well. This is perhaps the most horrible piece of clutter that has been added to the city screen. It's used both for specs and for assigning citizens to work tiles. The problem is that unless you zoom in a lot, these "citizen coins" are gigantic and obscure most of the view, so you can't even see much in your city screen. Equally obnoxious is the "buy tile" coin. Making things worse, these icons are offset from the tile itself, so it can be difficult to take in in a quick glance. Is it that difficult to... I dunno, highlight or circle the yields in the tile to show that it is being worked? There was nothing wrong with how it was displayed in Civ4. It was much... cleaner...
Again, summarize the problem rather than complain about it. This can be clearer, shorter and stronger. This is a problem, but the language you use comes across as whining.
* Moving away from the city screen, the rest of the easily accessible interface is generally way too large and obtrusive, the kicker being that it doesn't actually display any useful information. Most of it is, again, stylized icons.
A huge amount of information is shown along the top of the UI. This is the same problem that has been said earlier... the Interface is too large and nonadjustable. Don't need several repeated points like this.
* Take, for example, the unit panel. There is a big picture of the unit on the left side, and then there is GIANT text talking about movement and strength. They crammed in all the promotions onto a tiny strip at the top, most of which do not have unique art despite all this work the art department seems to have done. Unit experience is displayed nowhere, and you have to mouseover for a tooltip for it. The blue bar is very useless. Current HP is nowhere to be seen as well and you'll have to look with a mouseover on the main map. Finally, ranged units range is not listed. I guess this is not a huge deal, as we'll get to know the ranges, but for mods and changes, this seems like important information. (Also, I may have missed it, but how do you rename a unit if you don't have a waiting promotion?)
This is a good point, but again is TERRIBLY worded. Whoever you copy pasted this from is a whiner. Put all this info in a quick summary: Unit Info Panel: HP bar is easy to miss, Promotions are small, aren't unique and require tooltips to see. No XP bar, Range not listed, too large and nonadjustable size.
* Probably the worst feature of the UI (in my opinion) is the minimap, which is neither mini, nor is it a particularly good map. It shows you basically massed NOTHING, what with all land tiles looking the same, and just having mountains plastered on. It's totally featureless and unhelpful, unless you need help figuring out the general direction of the enemy.
I completely disagree with this. Again, it's size could be a factor with an adjustable size UI, but other than that, I actually like it. The map looks cool, and Strategic Mode makes up for any issues you may lose from the map, and more. The map doesn't need to be as detailed, but perhaps a few buttons to show specific info would be helpful. Take this out, as it is subjective and whiny
* Above the map is the mouseover information that we are all very used to. In Civ4, this used to display all information about a tile and units in it. In Civ5, they seem to have forgotten to put in the unit information, as all it does right now is tell you the tile and improvements. The popup tooltip is slightly more useful (I've since set it to be on at all times, because the field above the map is useless), but there is little to no information given about the enemy units. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, so I'll give Firaxis the benefit of the doubt here.
Tooltip needs more info, I agree, but take this whiny subjective, language out.
* Extremely irritating "notifications". Let's say England declares war on me. I've spent a lot of money and effort to "ally" myself with city states for those bonuses. War is declared, and I get a giant scrolling list of "notifications" that all my city state allies are declaring war on England, and their city state allies. There is a separate notification for each individual entity, and the list can be huge. The point is that I do not care about these city state declarations. Can they not just say "England and allies declare war on you and your allies"?
NO! This is subjective and just plain wrong IMO. Many times I have actually been surprised at what city states were allied with who, and this list has told me if a city state slipped by my radar. If you make it a single icon, you NEED a tooltip that shows you all the individual entities involved in this declaration.
Maybe these notification icons are too big, but again this is a simple UI size issue.
* Then you get big scrolling lists of "Such and such puppet city has grown to size 2 and is assigning their pop". That's nice, but they are a puppet city, so this notification is totally pointless as I cannot reassign that citizen without annexing the city. So don't tell me about it! The game seems to think that a citizen being born in a large city of yours is no big deal, I would argue otherwise; if I am actively managing a city (so not a puppet) then I have some interest in assigning the cities. It's much more important to notify about this stuff rather than random puppet cities.
Why wouldn't you want to know about a puppet city? I care about my cities, and my puppet cities, even if I can't place their citizens.
If this is ACTUALLY a complaint, summarize it, and get rid of the crying.
* Strategic mode. I can see myself using this during heavy fighting, because sometimes the terrain is ambiguous on the regular map. However, cities are very poorly represented in this mode for lack of one thing; the city combat strength. This seems like critical information, and it's not available unless you switch back into the regular map mode. It would also be nice if we could see the exact hit point total of a city. This information is mysteriously absent from all map modes, and even the city screen.
This is two points and long rambling that is mixed into one point.
1. Strategic mode shows the size of the city when it should show it's strength.
2. You can only guess City HP based on HP bar and there is no way to see the exact numerical value anywhere.
Two separate points. Cleanly written, objective and simple. Replace this.
* Totally ambiguous Civilopedia. How much faster is "faster embarked movement" given by Steam Power? For that matter, if I was totally new at Civ, I would have no idea by how much roads and rails actually speed movement. Then you have information which appears to be just plain wrong, like the "Siege" promotion appearing as a melee promotion, when I most often find myself giving archers this promotion early game. Where exactly is this information supposed to be documented if not in the Civilopedia?
Again, same complaint in 3 separate points. The way this post is flayed out, you would think that this game has a billion problems, but in reality, there are tons and tons of repeated points. Get rid of this.
* keyboard shortcuts should unquestionably be user-definable.
Remove the word "unquestionably". Make this more professional.
*No option for female / male leader
This is subjective. This was not in Civ IV either. The game doesn't seem to want Male/Female options, although it would be nice if they would add them for flavor. Other than that it doesn't matter. Civilizations have traits now, not leaders, so adding more leaders would be HUGE files of diplomacy screens, for no real difference.
Remove this point, because this is not a hard fast issue, but rather a debate.
* The map is ugly and not animated. You can't zoom far enough to admire your growing cities, which doesn't matter anyway, because they're poorly devised, uninspring polygons.
Subjective. I find the world beautiful how it is. Remove this, and if you TRULY consider this an issue, stop whining.
* Map Replay: When the game is over, I always loved going into the map replay and seeing how my empire and others grew. Not any more That was a really helpful feature, as well as interesting because you could see what was going on in those 2000 years in that other continent.
Summarize. The devs and almost everyone who reads this knows what they do.
Map Replay: There is no map replay upon completing a game.
Done.
* Wonder Movies, Victory Movies: Please bring them back. Sure, the domination movie in Civ IV wasn't great, but it was still something interesting to watch. Wonder movies were also really cool in Civ II and Civ IV, bring them back!
Subjective. I agree that a victory movie or cinematic should play, but I actually prefer the art and quote to the cheesy wonder movies in Civ IV that were all the same boring thing. Remove this point or put it up for debate.
* Add "No Unit Cycling" option
This option was in civ4, and for those who aren't familar with it it just means that when you give an order to a unit the focus doesn't immediately jump to another unit. It's especially critical in MP games (but I haven't played civ5 mp) but also for easier micromanaging of units in single player. Suppose I want to put 1 worker turn into building a road but next turn I want to start building a quarry (because I get the tech for it in one turn). What I would like to be able to do is give the order, then immediatley press the cancel button. As it is now, giving the order causes the screen to jump to who knows where, selecting another unit and I need to scroll back to that worker to tell him to stop.
I consider this game option to be absolutely critical to the interface and I never play civ4 without it. I don't think it would be difficult to implement either.
Remove the last two sentances at least, and the rambling language. Summarize Summarize Summarize! This is a huge list thread, you NEED everything to be quick, clear and concise. I am not going to quote any more sections that need to be summarized, but you should be able to identify them yourself. There are a LOT of them. Don't just copy paste anymore... this is YOUR thread.
* Allow/fix alt-tabbing
I feared this would happen with civ5 being a steamworks game, but I haven't found a way to alt-tab out of the (fullscreen) game. This is a major drag, but there may be technical reasons for this problem I'm not aware of.
I have no problems with this. In fact, this game alt-tabs and minimizes flawlessly for me, and I am on a rig that is significantly below recommended specs. Either this is a technical problem with the game and certain rigs, or it is your rig specifically. Again, this is a personal issue, not an issue with the game, so it should be removed from this list.
* When giving "Heal" order, show number of turns.
Pretty self-explanatory really. This should be a really simple change to make as well. The need for this would be slightly reduced if the hitpoints were shown as a number, but even with that fixed it'd still be nice to see how many turns anyway, so you don't even need to think about dividing (10 - hitpoints) by 2 if in friendly territory or 1 if in neutral territory.
This has already been mentioned. Remove this.
* When choosing production in a city, exiting city screen should close the production-choice window as well.
Some may disagree on this. In general it seems there is quite a lot of work that can be done on the production-choosing window anyway, including keyboard shortcuts for easier queueing and so on.
Remove the "some may disagree on this" part for sure. Be confident with your points or it isn't worth reading. Remove the part about keyboard shortcuts for queueing, because you mention that already.
* Remember last active strategic overlay on saving game.
Not a big issue, but it's nice if when you load a gamesave most of your interface settings are remembered. This includes the chosen overlay mode for strategic view, IMO. I think it already remembers your choices on hexgrid, tileyields, resource flags etc., but I may be mistaken.
Confidence. Remove the "But I may be mistaken".
