Viewing unit promotions

[CaptainPatch]

I'm sure this has been answered... somewhere. Doing a Search produced about a million posts, but none of the thread titles seemed to fit.

When a unit has a LOT of promotions, if it doesn't overflow the viewable area on the promotion bar, there will still be a few that are obscured by the portrait of the unit. I didn't see any way to scroll the bar left or right. I ask because I need to see which units already have the Kilimanjaro Altitude Training. No sense in marching a unit clear across the board, only to find it already had that promotion.

 

[Rakshasa72]

You can always check by running them across some hills and noting their speed. Other then that I'm not sure if there is a way to see the hidden promotions. It seems like some thing that should of and could have been easily fixed in the game but, never the less probably at this point never will.

 

[Barghaest]

I know some mods (CIVUP/VEM for one) add most promotions to be visible under the icon of the unit on the map so there's a quicker reference there, but no I'd complained about that back shortly after launch and they still haven't fixed the UI to address it (making multiple rows instead of them scrolling off under the icon would help)...

Nor have they addressed my other major gripe - population notifications stopping at Pop 5. I mean if a mod can do it, why can't Firaxis after TWO friggin xpacs?!

After I finish all my achievement hunting it'll be moot since I can always just play mods....

 

[CaptainPatch]

You can always check by running them across some hills and noting their speed. Other then that I'm not sure if there is a way to see the hidden promotions. It seems like some thing that should of and could have been easily fixed in the game but, never the less probably at this point never will.

Unfortunately, the Hillman promotion has the same movement effect (but also adds a combat bonus). So you can't tell which of the two -- or possibly both of those promotions may be hidden by the unit portrait.

As Barghaest said, this should be a relatively simple fix. Just take the graphic layers and lay the promotions bar over the unit portrait layer instead of the way it is now. The promo bar's info is actually useful while the portrait is simply decorative.

 

[Syailendra]

another question, how can i see what promotion an enemy units have?

 

[Barghaest]

another question, how can i see what promotion an enemy units have?

When you're mousing over them to attack, it'll show their promos in the combat preview just above the modifiers, but it's also truncated and you can't mouse over them because moving the mouse will lose the combat preview... so you'll have to be familiar with what icons mean and unit starting abilities and can't see their full list if they got a lot (vs AI it is extremely rare they've got more than display since they'll use Instaheal frequently).

 

[CaptainPatch]

I think that in the pre-combat mouse-over it only shows combat-related promotions. That is, it won't be showing if the unit has any movement bonuses, healing bonuses, sighting bonuses, etc.

 

[Barghaest]

I think that in the pre-combat mouse-over it only shows combat-related promotions. That is, it won't be showing if the unit has any movement bonuses, healing bonuses, sighting bonuses, etc.

It only shows combat bonuses down in the text box (+15% Combat Bonus, +25% Terrain Bonus, etc) but if you look ABOVE the combat strength, you'll see the little promotion icons listed along the top just below and to the left of their picture - perfectly lined up with the row of promotions on your units.

You can't mouse over them to see what they are, because moving the mouse makes the combat preview vanish, but if you know the icons you know what they have.

Most AI units have diddly cause they waste all their promos on heals, but core promos (May Not Melee, Bonus vs Mounted, etc) will be there for archers/spearmen/etc. And they'll have a token few extra when they start building barracks, but AI has a habit of not prioritizing where its units are built and will often churn out units at cities that don't have Barracks or fail to make ANY use of Heroic Epic's Morale promo.

 

[CaptainPatch]

You can't mouse over them to see what they are, because moving the mouse makes the combat preview vanish, but if you know the icons you know what they have.

Hadn't noticed that; good to know. There's still a "however", however: Several of the promos use the same icon. Several examples of the yellow triangle are
50% vs. mounted units
Can move after combat
Discipline
Himeji Castle
Ignore terrain
Morale
Nationalism
Oligarchy
Statue of Zeus
War Canoes
and a whole bunch of other attributes

There are also a bunch of negative attributes that use the inverted red triangle.

 

[Barghaest]

Hadn't noticed that; good to know. There's still a "however", however: Several of the promos use the same icon. Several examples of the yellow triangle are
50% vs. mounted units
Can move after combat
Discipline
Himeji Castle
Ignore terrain
Morale
Nationalism
Oligarchy
Statue of Zeus
War Canoes
and a whole bunch of other attributes

There are also a bunch of negative attributes that use the inverted red triangle.

And none of these can be chosen with an upgrade, most unit attributes and you can know which ones a unit has of those by looking up that unit in the Civilopedia. On rare occasions, you'd need to know the UU/upgrade path of the civ to know what it has gotten from previous incarnations; however, negative attributes are lost with upgrade and a few positive ones don't carry over (Extra Sight from Caravel is lost as is Bonus vs Mounted for Lancer for example).

As for knowing the Wonder granted ones, you'd see the modifier for most that matter in the combat window (+15% Combat Strength is Morale for example) or you can look up on the Diplomacy screen's third tab to see which World Wonders that civilization owns and know if they'll have Statue of Zeus. Others are exclusive to civilizations (War Canoes/Defensive Embarkation belong to Songhai) and this can be discovered by looking up that Leader (Askia) in the Civilopedia.

 

[CaptainPatch]

And none of these can be chosen with an upgrade, most unit attributes and you can know which ones a unit has of those by looking up that unit in the Civilopedia. On rare occasions, you'd need to know the UU/upgrade path of the civ to know what it has gotten from previous incarnations; however, negative attributes are lost with upgrade and a few positive ones don't carry over (Extra Sight from Caravel is lost as is Bonus vs Mounted for Lancer for example).

As for knowing the Wonder granted ones, you'd see the modifier for most that matter in the combat window (+15% Combat Strength is Morale for example) or you can look up on the Diplomacy screen's third tab to see which World Wonders that civilization owns and know if they'll have Statue of Zeus. Others are exclusive to civilizations (War Canoes/Defensive Embarkation belong to Songhai) and this can be discovered by looking up that Leader (Askia) in the Civilopedia.

All this is telling me is that until such time as you have memorized the Civilopedia, EVERY time a player wants to know just what an enemy unit has going for it, he'd have to research, research, research to gather that info. Not very user-friendly. Multiply by however many players that could benefit from that knowledge if it was instead an at-a-glance format.

Sure would be nice if the game was somewhat more informative with that rollover tooltip.

 

[MKDELTA3]

...the yellow triangle

I hate it when they used that icon for umphteen different abilities. It's so uninformative and some units have an arms length of yellow and red triangles on them even before you start putting regular promotions on...

 

[Barghaest]

All this is telling me is that until such time as you have memorized the Civilopedia, EVERY time a player wants to know just what an enemy unit has going for it, he'd have to research, research, research to gather that info. Not very user-friendly. Multiply by however many players that could benefit from that knowledge if it was instead an at-a-glance format.

Sure would be nice if the game was somewhat more informative with that rollover tooltip.

Valid point, but I don't consider it to be massive research, if I run into a unit/civ I don't know (like Impi/Zulu) I just hit F1, go to units and look at them real quick. doesn't take more than 20 sec. That's why the pedia is such an easy interface in the game - to be used as a reference when and as often as you need it. Just like the Tech Tree.

That's probably why they didn't bother putting in even more tooltips because you can reference the pedia just as easily for even more detailed info.

Now I do tend to have good memory retention for things so I don't have to keep looking them up every game, if I've seen a unit before I can usually recall exactly what all it's got without having to re-visit Civilopedia.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Any time that a user has to step out of what he is doing to look something up, it detracts from user-friendliness. And not everyone has a good enough memory to keep what amounts to bits -- note the "bits", indicating only a few lines of info at most -- from several hundred pages of data fresh in their mind.

There is a mod for showing ALL of one of your unit's promotions in a popup window tooltip. That indicates that to make such an informative tooltip is eminently doable. And it would have the user-friendliness of placing the sought for info right where you want it, in-game.

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

I hate it when they used that icon for umphteen different abilities. It's so uninformative and some units have an arms length of yellow and red triangles on them even before you start putting regular promotions on...

Civ 4 BtS had soo many promotions, and every single one had a unique icon. I don't understand why they limited the number of promotions, and more so why they used the same handful of symbols to represent totally different promotions. Civ Rev didn't have as many promotions, but it still had unique icons.

 

[Barghaest]

Any time that a user has to step out of he is doing to look something up, it detracts from user-friendliness.

This is where we disagree, it appears. I feel the Civilopedia interface adds to user friendliness. I don't see accessing it as "stepping out". I've always considered using it akin to using advisors/spies. I encounter something new, I look it up to gather important intel about it... I need to refresh my memory on something like technology, social policies, religious beliefs, I look it up to assist in my decision-making just as I would bring up an advisor screen (or look at the icons for recommendation).

I've become so accustomed to its integration into the game I guess I've rationalized it as part of my empire management.

 

[El Caballerion]

I've suggested that SCOUTS within 3 tiles of a unit should be able to decipher EXACTLY what promos the unit has.... but NOOOO, Firaxis never listens to me! lol

 

[CaptainPatch]

I've suggested that SCOUTS within 3 tiles of a unit should be able to decipher EXACTLY what promos the unit has.... but NOOOO, Firaxis never listens to me! lol

To be honest, I really believe that info on enemy units should be VERY limited. Scouts and spies my be able to ascertain _some_ things about enemy units. Things like approximate number of men, trained as a certain military type, led by so-and-so, etc., yeah. But to KNOW that this particular unit had Altitude Training, Amphibious training, particularly effective against mounted units, etc.... Things like that would require a spy to have been embedded with that particular unit for years. Most scouting reports through the eons have been merely an estimate of numbers, deployment, and types.

So, I guess that I'm really suggesting there should be less info on enemy units presented: Estimated odds, terrain modifiers, and that's about it. But for MY units, I want to know everything there is to know, and that means a detailed list of EVERY promotion and attribute that applies. (With definitions and explanations would be nice to cut down on checking the Civilopedia to see "What does that promotion mean again?")