End of Turn and "News" Report -> reduce boring MM-tasks

[Aussie_Lurker]

Once again you and I are on the same page, DH_Epic! If you had a % based system (NOT that I have ever proposed such a system before, mind you ) then you could impose more gradual effects AND remove the MM involved with 'population control'. After all, if each happiness step were colour coded, then their current mood could be featured on the map in the current colour of the city name! Is the city name red? Well this city is probably in danger of seceding AND is probably a hotbed of rebel production. Is the city name yellow? Well, the people here are probably unhappy, and the city is almost certainly less productive than it could be-better do something soon before they start vandalising the place and/or revolt ! Is the city name green? Well, the people of this city adore you, and will probably follow you in whatever you choose to do!
Now, this will be easy to see in the main map of them game. No need to go into each individual city and check what pop-heads are happy, content or unhappy-all the info will be there at your immediate disposal!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Thunderfall]

Good ideas, Longasc! Other things that might be included in the summary are treaties that are about to expire in a few turns, wonders built, cities captured, etc.

 

[Louis XXIV]

He said rioting was removed.

While I can understand how, as it is implamented now, rioting is a pain in the ass, but rioting was a very important part of history (unless they can expand upon it to include rebellions or something, rioting is just too important to remove completely). Gamewise, I suppose there is some more fun way to hurt people who build big cities without good improvements, so maybe Soren can figure something out.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Yes, and x was a very important part of history, with x being one of a billion different things. Only so much can get into the game. If what's in reduces micromanagement and lowers the "frustration factor" (e.g. losing a wonder race because a city goes into disorder because you forgot to check it... not because you're a bad player) then it's fine by me.

 

[searcheagle]

just so long as what is being elimanted does not include the fun!

and with elimanating rioting and pollution as they currently are would not do this. And its hard to imagine that anything will make those things worst, especially since that they are trying to make it easier and funnier.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yes, and x was a very important part of history, with x being one of a billion different things. Only so much can get into the game. If what's in reduces micromanagement and lowers the "frustration factor" (e.g. losing a wonder race because a city goes into disorder because you forgot to check it... not because you're a bad player) then it's fine by me.

On second thought, I suppose you are right. I had a game where I was loosing a war and, after pop-rushing and abandoning a few cities, my capital rioted. The problem was it rioted the turn I planned to pop-rush a defensive unit. It didn't riot because I had done anything to my capital, but because I abandoned the other cities and the unhappiness jumped to my capital. I ended up loosing the city because I couldn't get the defense in time.

 

[dh_epic]

Aussie,

There really are three "modes" right now. "We love the king", "neutral", and "civil disorder". A scale of 10 might be more practical. At level three or four, the nuisance would be significant, but not so bad that it totally screws up your plan. And if it reached level two or one, then it's your own damn fault for not checking in on your people.

That's the essence of why it's better than the "three mode" system.

 

[frekk]

The "simplify, simplify demand" is for me the reduction of boring tasks. I have an easy example what could make Civ4 easier, if the concept will be very similar to Civ3:

End of Turn and "News" Report at the beginning of every new turn.

-> tell me which Civ has new techs. No more need to check everytime the diplo screen.
-> list me what civs can possibly trade whatever ressource
-> show unit maintenance, building maintenance cost
-> list of disorderly cities

Furthermore, is it not unfun to check everytime which city might be rioting next turn?

Simply include an option that lists you cities that will riot next turn if you do not do anything against it and let me select and jump to the respective cities from this popup!

I like this idea.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I still think the best way to think about it is to just forget about popups and particular begin/end turn reports. As you can see from this short topic, everyone has different angles on what goes in.

Instead, develop all the adviser screens very carefully to make them useful--both in their current forms and as subsets in a smaller window. Probably add a few to cover some of the capabilities mentioned in this topic. Then, make a begin/end turn summary that simply consists of the subsets chosen by the user.

For example, suppose that the city list (F1) shows potential civil disorder cities. And also suppose that the list can be both sorted and filtered. So a user that wants to monitor civil disorder at the start of the turn adds the city list with a filter that gives a few basic pieces of info (maybe only city name) and limits the list to those that may go into disorder. If he also wants a couple of other pieces of info, he can get those as well.

Finally, such "custom reports" should be available by menu/hot key, same as existing adviser screens. In that sense, there are no begin/end turn reports, merely custom reports that may have "show at beginning of turn" or similar flags checked.

Who wouldn't want to mix certain elements from certain advisers into a single screen?

 

[searcheagle]

There is one problem with that:

end of the year reports in Civ 3 are designed to show urgent items that should be dealt with this turn.

Were this to be implemented, it would force users to check all the advisor screens every turn. I am not in favor of this change.

I would like to see reports/advisor screen become more usable in addition to improvements of the end of turn reports.

 

[sengfossil]

hallo,
I just want to add my support for this idea by Longasc

 

[Crazy Jerome]

searcheagle, I must not have been very clear, because you seemed to have completely missed what I was saying.

The idea is not to force every screen as the summary. Rather, the idea is to let each player pick from a few things that they care about and put those on the summary. You could even change it during the game. (You might care more about, say, cities that were about to complete something, during the early turns when it mattered more.)

Every time this discussion comes up, everyone says, "put the important stuff on the end of turn summary". Only, someone wants beginning of turn. Or someone else wants both. And "important" is different for everyone. And it seems to ignore that one of the big problems with the current popups is that if you ignore them, you can't easily get that information again.

So the way to fix it is to have good "reports" that the user can access during the turn (as with F1, et. al.) AND provide a way to grab specific types of information off of those reports and present it to the user at specific times (e.g. end of turn).

This would be almost trivial to code, IF the normal reports were designed with maximum flexibility from the beginning. It would be somewhat more difficult to retrofit it into something like Civ3.

Of course, the best thing would be to improve in play information and activities to the point that the player didn't need many reports. But that's probably a pipe dream.

 

[searcheagle]

If I understand, you want customizable end of turn reports?

I'd before for that.

 

[Pook]

Great idea, Longasc. This is similar to the ideas explored in the "More manageable micromanagement" thread, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85462 and I'm all for it.

Once again you and I are on the same page, DH_Epic! If you had a % based system (NOT that I have ever proposed such a system before, mind you ) then you could impose more gradual effects AND remove the MM involved with 'population control'. After all, if each happiness step were colour coded, then their current mood could be featured on the map in the current colour of the city name! Is the city name red? Well this city is probably in danger of seceding AND is probably a hotbed of rebel production. Is the city name yellow? Well, the people here are probably unhappy, and the city is almost certainly less productive than it could be-better do something soon before they start vandalising the place and/or revolt ! Is the city name green? Well, the people of this city adore you, and will probably follow you in whatever you choose to do!
Now, this will be easy to see in the main map of them game. No need to go into each individual city and check what pop-heads are happy, content or unhappy-all the info will be there at your immediate disposal!

I totally agree. Both the "beginning of turn event summary" and "% based production" were present in Birth Of The Federation. In BOTF, each world (planet, corresponding to a city in Civ) had an attitude rating where over 100 was good, 100 was neutral, and less than 100 was bad. Newly conquered worlds would often start with attitudes in the 60s or 70s. Production from that world would be in terms of (base production) x (attitude/100). Lower attitude could also spark rioting, and could end up in the world seceding from your empire.

 

[searcheagle]

Also in the Report:
Resources needed, either cause a new tech necessitates it for new units or supply was cut off somehow by running out a treaty or interference by another party.

 

[frekk]

Fully customizable reports. Excellent idea.

Another thing I might add is to have a log of reports from previous rounds available, going back a defined number of rounds (default might be, say, 10).

 

[Captain]

This is a wonderful concept. I back it all the way.

 

[Turtleneck]

Well as for preventing riots, just contact your city GUBERNATOR)), and manage city moods. This also ensures you don't waste shields by instead collecting food for a city that can't grow due to sanitation. But they still could improve this system itself.

 

[arkammler]

There should be a few turn delay to get news from other civs base on dist. form you. Also to get news for that civ you have to a emasy in it. Also only after print press is found. News comes faster with better techs.