C2C Pedia

[ls612]

Crazy idea time here. Would it be possible (or desirable) to implement a search function for the pedia?

 

[AIAndy]

Crazy idea time here. Would it be possible (or desirable) to implement a search function for the pedia?

There is the index but I guess you mean searching for more than the entry for a specific type?

 

[ls612]

There is the index but I guess you mean searching for more than the entry for a specific type?

Yes. You could index (as in search indexing, with a b+ tree or something) the pedia entries and add a bar to search for a specific object in the pedia.

 

[AIAndy]

Yes. You could index (as in search indexing, with a b+ tree or something) the pedia entries and add a bar to search for a specific object in the pedia.

I don't see a significant advantage over the existing Pedia Index.

 

[ls612]

I don't see a significant advantage over the existing Pedia Index.

I suppose, except that it is huge and finding one thing can take a fair bit of fiddling, and you can't say sometimes what type of object something is from the index alone.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

That's what I was planning to do but I got the impression that DH wouldn't have any good examples in Python to work with these methods to generate a list. If he feels he can work with these, or if he can't, you could step in and offer some guidance or help, then yes, that would probably be optimal. And then from there it would stand as an example for future python modding on similar tasks.

Meh, my suggestion would have had combat classes treated, in python, the same way promotions are. The other option is to treat the the same way requirements are. It makes no difference really, whatever is easier on your side. Both ways are the same complexity/simplicity on the Python side.

Yeah, I'm on the fence with this.

I guess it all depends on the purpose in which the player is referring to this page. If you see in game, for example, the Canine Promotion that reads +X vs Criminals and wonder, 'what all units comprise the units that this promotion would give my dogs a bonus against?' and then go into the pedia to look up that page to find out, only to confusingly find none there because all the Criminals are sub-combats rather than primary combats... then in THAT application, the page was useless and perceivably bugged.

BUT if you're looking at it for another reason... examples of other reasons that would fit this case are eluding me... then its possible that its best to keep that to a primary combat class application only. Or maybe we should actually have two of these pages for this reason. Actually, at the moment, with primary and sub combats being pretty much equal in all ways on a unit, then there would not be much reason to want to only know what units have what primary combat class (though this may not ALWAYS be true. As we playtest we may find we want to vary the way a primary and sub combat interact with the unit in some ways. I know you've suggested handling them differently in some cases and in those cases I'm just waiting to see if playtesting confirms the need to do so somehow.)

I agree that the primary Combat Class should be respected in our designs as the primary grouping mechanism. I just wonder if this would matter to the player who would refer to this screen? There are other CATEGORIES of groupings that are emerging and I've been thinking of actually giving CCs a category and limiting units to only 1 CC of any given category. Maybe at that point, pages like these would benefit from showing units by Combat Class within given categories of Combat Classes huh?

The question should then be what is the better way of presenting the information. The units will be showing all combat classes the unit is in. Perhaps the Combat Class page now needs a descriptive section explaining the purpose of the class as well as a list of all units in that class.

Perhaps the Combat Class page lists its sub classes and units in the Class and similar page for the sub combat classes. Sort f similar to the way buildings are currently split by building, National Wonder and World Wonder.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I don't see a significant advantage over the existing Pedia Index.

Something probably should be done about the index, "de Witt" for example comes after "Z" in the index. Also the entries for some letters go over one page in size. One user did lament the inability to type the first x letters to get to where they wanted faster.

 

[AIAndy]

Something probably should be done about the index, "de Witt" for example comes after "Z" in the index. Also the entries for some letters go over one page in size. One user did lament the inability to type the first x letters to get to where they wanted faster.

Probably some missing upper case for the sorting in that category.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The unit upgrades page is a mess because in C2C every unit can upgrade to every other unit. Does anyone have any suggestions on how this could be fixed?

I was trying to find out what the upgrade lines were to get to the Highwayman but the units page does not tell you and the icon for the Highwayman looks like 20 other unit icons (exaggeration).

OK I admit it I got side tracked into doing a Bandits mod when I rediscovered some cool bandit hideout graphics that I can use for tile improvements. I was looking for a tar pit improvement.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Meh, my suggestion would have had combat classes treated, in python, the same way promotions are. The other option is to treat the the same way requirements are. It makes no difference really, whatever is easier on your side. Both ways are the same complexity/simplicity on the Python side.

I'm not sure requirements would be treated the same way in the manner AIAndy is suggesting. AIAndy... can you comment further on this as I'm not sure how requirements are treated in python.

The question should then be what is the better way of presenting the information. The units will be showing all combat classes the unit is in. Perhaps the Combat Class page now needs a descriptive section explaining the purpose of the class as well as a list of all units in that class.

Didn't realize we didn't have that already but YES that would be an awesome improvement too. I would not mind the writing of these descriptions as a task to go on my list of things to do in the near future. SilentConfusion was going to help me with the SubCombat project too... maybe he and I can split that up. To set this up, however, I presume you'll need a little further programming from me to add the right text references to Combat Class infos right? What tag is that commonly known as? If I'm not mistaken, it's <Description> or <Strategy> but I can't recall off the top of my head which. (I've got some work to do for traits along those lines too but I haven't gone to address it quite yet so I'm still a little unfamiliar with this...)

Perhaps the Combat Class page lists its sub classes and units in the Class and similar page for the sub combat classes. Sort f similar to the way buildings are currently split by building, National Wonder and World Wonder.

Combat Classes don't inherently have any tree hierarchic relationship at this time. However, I've been considering categorizing them and I can see how establishing such a structure there would not only be possible but desireable. Already in the planning of what Combat Classes to add, we've been 'categorizing' them, and the fact that many such categories could be placed 'within' or as a 'sub' of another category is becoming increasingly observable.

Again, SubCombats are technically no different to Combat Classes as we've always had them... they're only dubbed as such to indicate 'additional' CCs on the unit definition and they can be added or removed by promotions as well. Otherwise they're just Combat Classes by definition, the same as any other.

It's probably a really good idea, though, to have the Combat Class page denote all the units within that combat class.

And, thanks to this conversation and a growing awareness of the need, I'll soon add a CombatClassCategory class object and a tag to the CombatClass infos so that they're 'layers' of categorization can be tracked and shown properly in the pedia.

Both new projects that have been mentioned here have now been officially added to my list.

 

[ls612]

Something probably should be done about the index, "de Witt" for example comes after "Z" in the index. Also the entries for some letters go over one page in size. One user did lament the inability to type the first x letters to get to where they wanted faster.

It would also allow filters (search for only buildings, units, etc).

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It would also allow filters (search for only buildings, units, etc).

That is what the buildings/units page is for .

No one has mentioned that it would be nice for the Manufactured resources to have the building(s) that produce the resource shown on the page.

 

[ls612]

That is what the buildings/units page is for .

No one has mentioned that it would be nice for the Manufactured resources to have the building(s) that produce the resource shown on the page.

Yes, but finding things there can be hard, even though it is alphabetized, because there are thousands of buildings and almost a thousand units. It isn't such a big deal for other categories, but for some that would be useful.

 

[Sgtslick]

For some people they maybe unsure which category things fall into and a search function would be helpful in this case.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I have updated the SVN and first post of this thread.

Culture buildings and culture bonuses now appear on separate pages. I was planning on merging the two but I am not sure this is a good idea any more.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I am not sure how much good merging the 2 would do. In fact it might confuse players n that they might think you need the Wonder rather than the culture for units/heroes/buildings. However I do think Cultures resources should be in a 3rd category like you split up map vs manufactured.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I am not sure how much good merging the 2 would do. In fact it might confuse players n that they might think you need the Wonder rather than the culture for units/heroes/buildings. However I do think Cultures resources should be in a 3rd category like you split up map vs manufactured.

1) You haven't looked at the latest one have you. There are three bonuses pages, map, manufactured (called Other so it fits on one line) and culture.

2) Why would they think it was a wonder? And you do need the wonder to build the units as it produces the bonus.

 

[Hydromancerx]

1. Not yet. BTW I did the code you asked in the SVN thread.

2.What I mean is the culture resource enables the unit/hero/buildings and not the Culture Wonder. In the very early stage of the project we had them enabled by the culture wonder. And then pseudo-resouces. Remember the "goods system" that used "free" building system to give a building to every city? And then later every connected on the trade route? Man I am so glad we finally broke the resource limit. It was crazy trying to make a system that worked around the limit.

 

[ls612]

I am not sure how much good merging the 2 would do. In fact it might confuse players n that they might think you need the Wonder rather than the culture for units/heroes/buildings. However I do think Cultures resources should be in a 3rd category like you split up map vs manufactured.

I think merging the bonuses and the buildings is a good idea because the buildings are really only vehicles to provide the bonuses. Having them separate leads to clutter and can possible confuse new players.

 

[strategyonly]

Just had a chance finally to look at the new pedia stuff, nice, i mean REALLY nice