Any ways around various interface annoyances?

[Mad Dog]

As an old skool civ 1 all the way through civ 5 (ok, so I only played civ 3 a few times before deciding I disliked it) I'm finding a few interface issues with civ 5 enough to put me off getting into it. I was wondering if anyone had workarounds or if I'm missing better ways of doing things etc.

1) Opening animation can't be interrupted. Escape, return, mouse keys, nothing stops it. By the time it's finished I could have played a game of starcraft (this is generally what happens, except I don't bother returning to civ 5 once loaded ).

2) More animations that can't be turned off for battles. Civ 4 has the "quick moves" option and options to turn off any/all animations. These things just slow the game down for me.

3) Overviews and navigation. With the military advisor, I can't see where my units are on the map. With the city overview it doesn't seem to go to city screen then back allowing you to easily manage cities from there.

Overall the interface feels very dumbed down to me, focussing on prettiness and cuteness over practical tools for administrating a worldwide empire and planning global domination. I quite like the strategic view, but it's only a view. If you could move your units on the strategic view with no animations I'd be back in a happy civ2-esque world (and you could throw away the other view) but this also doesn't seem possible.

As for the gameplay, the interface issues are putting me off for now, so I can't really comment

I remember when civ 4 came out the interface was not amazing - check out vanilla civ vs with HoF mod - so hopefully something will get sorted out - but I'm not sure mods can easily do things like get rid of the battle animations.

 

[Dozmonic]

Too much has been removed and hidden in submenus, not accessible via keyboard shortcuts etc. Not having options there for quick moves and so on does irk ;-/

 

[Wolle68]

You can press "Return" to skip the intro. It just won't react right away. I think the game is still loading in the background. If you press the key right at the 2K logo, it will usually stop the cut scene before the old man starts talking.

Personally, I would like an option to stop the game from automatically centering on the "next" unit. Please wait until I press the button to take focus away from what I'm doing, thank you very much. (19 years and they still haven't gotten this one right.)

 

[Fredric Drum]

There's a line in the .ini file (forgot exactly where it is, either in your c:/Users/You/Something/Civ V or in your Steamapps folder) where you can disable the intro.

I also saw an option when you create a game to disable animation. You'd expect this to be under video options, not hidden in the detailed game setup...

 

[Flek]

Yeah, some of this has already been covered, but what I've worked out so far is:

1) Opening animation can't be interrupted. Escape, return, mouse keys, nothing stops it.

Wait until the video starts (not the logos that whizz around first). Move your mouse around until the cursor appears, then click. Can take a few secs, but then you get the spinny globe pointer that tells you its doing something, and into the game.

Didn't know about hitting enter, will try that next time, thanks.
The trick with the ini file sounds even better, thanks for the tip.

2) More animations that can't be turned off for battles. Civ 4 has the "quick moves" option and options to turn off any/all animations. These things just slow the game down for me.

From very first screen:

Set up game -> Advanced Setup -> Quick Combat (need to scroll down to see it).

Not sure if it can be changed after a game has been started.

3) Overviews and navigation. With the military advisor, I can't see where my units are on the map. With the city overview it doesn't seem to go to city screen then back allowing you to easily manage cities from there.

Use button bottom left of minimap to enter strategic view. then use the button above it while in strategic view to apply Active Overlay: Unit Owner (and play with the other settings there too).

If you could move your units on the strategic view with no animations I'd be back in a happy civ2-esque world (and you could throw away the other view) but this also doesn't seem possible.

You can. Select the unit by clicking the hex. Right click to move it.
This is another way to lose the battle animations as well.

 

[Mad Dog]

Many thanks for the helpful replies guys. I'll give it another pop...off to play now