Strategic or Normal View

[historix69]

Allthough I play only in normal view, I regularly use the strategic view for city-planning and for map-screenshots on which I draw locations for future cities.
I prefer to have both views and I would be happy to also get the function to place ingame-notes on the map as it was possible in Civ IV.

 

[JP1]

I've tried using only the Strategic View, but since it doesn't make any real difference in performance for me, and it doesn't reflect everything the normal view does (You can't tell the difference between roads and railroad) I play almost entirely in the normal view.

However, I do use the strategic view every once in a while to spot unimproved tiles, tile improvements which were left unfinished, and so on.

 

[atteSmythe]

I've tried using only the Strategic View, but since it doesn't make any real difference in performance for me, and it doesn't reflect everything the normal view does (You can't tell the difference between roads and railroad) I play almost entirely in the normal view.

Check your monitor's contrast and gamma - in the strategic view, roads are black, and railroads are brown.

Seem backwards? Yeah. Should probably be clearer? Yeah. Ahwell.

 

[JP1]

Didn't notice that, or it's just hard to spot. I'll take a look at it again.

 

[Mr Jib]

I'd like to use the strategic view more often, but something about it makes it practically unreadable to me. I can't put my finger on what it is, but it's really 'noisy' somehow.

If it could do any of the Civ IV strat view stuff (drawing on the map, signs...man, I miss signs), I'd be there much more often. It'd also be nice if it were easier to see resources that are within your cultural borders, but unimproved. That was always hard to see in Civ IV, too, and it's one thing that I'm really surprised wasn't made easier to notice in V.

Yes I agree with this. I can't really see what is going on in normal view because my computer is too old, but I find strategic view even worse. When I saw screenshots of it before release I thought it looked great, but when trying to actually use it I find it isn't that helpful at all.

Also when I zoom in or out the view doesn't scale well and I get noisy jagged lines as if the scaling algorithm isn't working properly. Does anyone else get this or is it just my setup?

The whole UI of CiV is pretty hard to use to me and is my main complaint with the game.

 

[LDiCesare]

Yeah, it would be cool if you could toggle the strat view display more. It's definitely too busy right now. At the very least, military mode (only shows cities, military units, and terrain types), civilian mode (shows yields and resources), and universal mode (shows everything) would be great.

?
You can already change the view so you display only military units or only resources etc.

The icons I find rather ugly and uninformative, though.

The main reason I use the strategic view is it's the only one that's not bugged and shows you the real terrain.
I can produce maps using a script or the worldbuilder that show wrong in the normal view, so I consider it is not usable as it gives false information like not showing mountains or showing them where they are not, and not showing some rivers.
Putting a mountain in the last x or in x=0 on the map means you're likely to get some bugs in normal views. Therefore: normal = bugged = not used.

 

[DivljaJagoda]

I played exclusively in strategic mode until I upgraded my computer. Now I play more in normal view than strategic view. Though the reason I don't use it more is probably that I forget about it existing

Still have crappy computer so I have to play in strategic view or my computer overheats and lags like crazy.

 

[AriochIV]

Strategic view tends to crash the game on my system.

 

[Creepy Old Man]

Strategic view tends to crash the game on my system.

Pre-patch, strategic view crashed every ten turns or so for me (so I didn't use it), but since the patch I haven't had a single crash (despite using it exclusively).

Except for one thing ... how do I annex a puppet from strategic view? Clicking a puppet city in normal view brings up the dialog asking if I want to annex it. Doing the same in strategic view just takes me into the city.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm about a 50:50 split between the two.

 

[DivljaJagoda]

Pre-patch, strategic view crashed every ten turns or so for me (so I didn't use it), but since the patch I haven't had a single crash (despite using it exclusively).

Except for one thing ... how do I annex a puppet from strategic view? Clicking a puppet city in normal view brings up the dialog asking if I want to annex it. Doing the same in strategic view just takes me into the city.

I am having the same problem and asked in a separate thread with no replies. For some reason though there will be a time when I try to do it again in strategic view and it lets me. I don't know why this is the situation.

 

[ChrisRoed]

My poor old laptop just can't handle the graphics in normal view. So, strategic all the way. Only problem is, during the computer's turn, it becomes even harder to tell where I'm getting attacked.

Is there something I'm missing? During the computer turn, I get text messages along the lines of "An enemy spearman (4 damage) attacked your swordsman (2 damage)." These messages last about one second, and as far as I can tell, there's no way to recall them later, or to see which which swordsman that was. Is there?

there is a notification log, you can click the leftmost button on the upper right corner to get a dropdown menu, there you will find the notification log, amongst other things.

also, OT, i play exclusively in strategic view, but mainly due to my crappy pc also, combat in normal view takes too long, and so far i havent found any option to turn off battle animations (the novelty of actually seeing your units fight gets old very fast imo, always had fast combat in civ4) where combat in strat view is almost instantaneous.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

I honestly find tremendous difference in FPS switching between the 2 views. I use strategic view exclusively and am pretty used to it. The only downside is the river graphics(so important in combat tactics). They are very thin and most of the time concealed by culture borders. Only in those case when am unsure, I switch to normal view.

 

[kaltorak]

I don't quite understand the options. I selected
"I play more in normal view than strategic view"

But if by playing you mean moving units and attacking and such, I on't use strategic at all. I use it to gather info, about traderoutes, improvements, resources and such. Just as an informative tool, not a moe to play the game on

 

[WeaselSlapper]

Pre-patch, strategic view crashed every ten turns or so for me (so I didn't use it), but since the patch I haven't had a single crash (despite using it exclusively).

Except for one thing ... how do I annex a puppet from strategic view? Clicking a puppet city in normal view brings up the dialog asking if I want to annex it. Doing the same in strategic view just takes me into the city.

If you zoom in to the point where you can see what the city is building you get the same city options as you do in normal view. I do think they need have the same city view zoom levels in strategic view as they do in normal view, this is my only complaint about strategic view anymore.

I do play exclusively in strategic view, but just for fun I tried playing a game in normal view over the weekend. After I got used to it again I had to switch back to strategic view for something and just couldn't bring myself to switch back. So it's strategic view till the end for me.

 

[kaltorak]

For me strategic also crashed only until last patch. It never crashed since then. If some of you haven't tried it since then, go ahead.