Interface Improvement Suggestions

[Lord_Drregron]

Firstly - thanks to all contributors to this and its predecessor mods. I've been enjoying them for years and your work is awesome - thank you!

My post here are some suggestions that, having had a look around the forum, I haven't seen these things posted elsewhere so hoping this isn't a repeat of any previously accepted/rejected suggestions.

Happy to break these out also for tracking purposes if useful.

Many of these may not be issues on smaller maps so to give context I've been playing WTP 4.0.2 on the largest map size, faire weather ex tweak, and with epic timeframe (I think - longer than standard anyway).
I think these suggestions would help on all map types and game speeds and are possibly things that would have helped ever with the original unmodded version of Civcol.

The suggestions below are really not about how the game plays but are rather about improving the playing experience by altering how easy it is to find/understand some things within the game.

1 - Tagging a location so you can find it again more easily...
Being able to drop a sign or tag of some kind. This could show up on the map or be accessed via a zoom hotkey (alt 1-0 or something).

This would allow you to find a location you've marked for a future city or just a location of some interest that you want to jump back to.


2 - Being able to / highlight known locations of Indian camps for a specific tribe.
When considering going to war with a particular tribe it would be great to be able to ping map locations (or again cycle through or something) the locations of all known villages of a selected tribe.
this would be helpful in decision-making (or even just war planning in general) and could be extended to known locations of European powers etc too.

3 - Review prior to an event decision
Guessing this one may be hard to implement but when some decisions pop up (e.g. pope asks you to DoW on an Indian tribe) you have to use what you already know and make a decision.
Some way of suspending the decision (similar to "examine city" when event a colonist graduates but allowing a wider exploration of your overall situation before coming back to then make the decision).

4 - Locate units...
Maybe I'm missing something on this but sometimes I lose a ship or a scout and I want to find them.
This can be a real pain on massive maps.
A way of locating units - map pings or cycle through or search ships by name even - would be really useful.

5 - Diplomacy view - getting almost impossible to click on the right leader
When playing with so many Indian tribes, European powers, each of their kings and the pope, the diplomacy web has so many portraits around the edge that it's getting very difficult to select the desired portrait.
I wonder if a filter could be added in some of the space on this screen to provide an option to filter this screen down to show - options check boxes would be ideal to allow various combinations...
Indians
European Powers
Kings
Others

The rendering of the screen would need to update on each selection so that the spacing was set correctly to resolve the issue.

This would have the added advantage of making it easier to assess some relationships too (e.g. relationships with Kings are often of relatively low importance and could be removed in most scenarios for improved clarity on the rest of the relationship web.

Hope these are useful and many thanks for all the continued improvements!!

Thanks, LD

 

[Mr. ZorG]

1. You can put a marker on the map using Alt+S
2. The proposal is interesting and I have already thought about it myself.
3. The possibility of postponing the decision is already in the plans. the question is when and by whom it will be implemented (for this you need to completely change all diplomacy)
4,5. Use the appropriate advisors. although the search for a unit will still not be as easy, but better than on the map.

summary: most of what we would like to implement in a mod (or really need it already yesterday) requires the work of a programmer. at the moment there are very few active programmers in the team. therefore, we do not know when even what has already been planned will be implemented.

 

[codiac]

4 - Locate units...
Maybe I'm missing something on this but sometimes I lose a ship or a scout and I want to find them.
This can be a real pain on massive maps.
A way of locating units - map pings or cycle through or search ships by name even - would be really useful.

You can do this on the military advisor screen.

Click crossed swords to get to the screen. Order by professions, find the type of unit you want, if it's easy to know which one it is click its image. The unit will flash on the map, if you click the map then you will go there.

If it's not easy to know which one it is, then click the profession title. This will select all of that type and they will all flash on the map. Un-select units and narrow it down to the area on the map you think it might be in.

I use this to find wagon trains that have decided to cross the continent to get that load of furs 476 turns away :-/