How do we improve Colopedia?

[Nightinggale]

After the release of We The People 4.0, a number of people have asked about how to use the new content. The answer to those questions are supposed to be "look inside colopedia". However it has some shortcomings and it's not good enough. It needs to be improved, but how? "Better" is a valid goal, but it gives no clue to what needs to be done.

I have come up with two ideas. One is to add more links/mouseover help and the other is to add a new list to goods, which lists what they are used for. However I wonder if we can do better than that.

Colopedia is a python screen where we can do pretty much what we can with any other 2D screen in the game, so think any screen other than the main 3D map. This includes anything you see in Civ4: beyond the sword as well, including modded screens. In other words we have a high degree of design freedom if we are creative enough and put enough effort into it. In fact we can do stuff not present on any existing page if needed.


The question is, how can we improve Colopedia?
What should the pages display and should we add new pages?
Don't think about how hard it would be to make anything. Sometimes major changes can be simple and sometimes tiny changes can be difficult so for now we just assume we can do whatever we come up with. For the same reason there is no promise that we will do anything proposed in this thread or when it will be made. After all it's not like we have people sitting idle with no other tasks.

Ok, let the brainstorming begin.

 

[Kendon]

I'll start by looking at three categories – Goods and Materials, Resources and Improvements – considered collectively as “things”.

Resources looks pretty good. Outside the boxes there's a word “Background” that's no longer needed, which is also there in Goods and Materials. “History” shows up instead in Improvements.

Within Improvements there's a small “improvements” box where entries appear vertically. It would free up page space if the entries were listed in a horizontal line, separated by commas. Alternatively this box might fit beside the left icon.

The animated graphic on the right is excellent and should have its space preserved.

It looks like the “effects” box has an unnecessary newline coded on top. If it has a smaller horizontal dimension, then the “Background and Strategy” box at the bottom might not need so much scrolling. Maybe “improvements” and “effects” could be side by side.

The name of the individual item within the category looks like “Headline 1” which is good because it helps players to see it fast. It has a lot of leading around it. I don't know if leading can be reduced.

As a writer of course I'm trying to make “Background and Strategy” as easy to read as possible, with minimal scrolling. Others may have different priorities.

 

[Guynemer]

My biggest concern with the Pedia at this point is that with all the new goods, it is very difficult to tell what is used with what.

What I'd like to see is on every goods and materials page, is what each good can be turned into, and by what profession, in what building. Ideally, I'd like the whole chain (if applicable): basic resource ---> intermediate good ---> finished good. For example, mention that chickens produce down, and then down can be used by the upholsterer. It took me several minutes to figure out what I could do with down, because it is not at all apparent anywhere on the colony UI, or on the down Pedia page. I had to go through all the professions pages until I saw it listed on the upholsterer page.

 

[Nightinggale]

Ideally, I'd like the whole chain (if applicable): basic resource ---> intermediate good ---> finished good.

So you essentially want me to rip off the BTS tech tree and that way allow boxes, which has arrows to connect them. I think that will be doable, but at the same time there might be some not insignificant workload involved, at least if we want to set it up automatically and not require modders to set up coordinates for every single box like in BTS.

 

[Guynemer]

Not necessarily, I'd be perfectly happy if it was just there in plain text.

 

[Kendon]

Not necessarily, I'd be perfectly happy if it was just there in plain text.

You're right. I looked at Goods and Materials. Some have the information you want but most don't. I'll go through them and write the sequence you describe as the beginning of Strategy.

 

[Bjornoid]

I would also add... that units that require resources (Missionary, Pioneer, Settler, Scout, Soldiers in general) should have required amount of resources to train them noted in their civilopedia entry.

 

[ArchdukeLiet]

Actually that is already the case: please look at the professions section of colopedia.
Please notice that there is a difference between a unit and a profession.
A unit is what they are, e.g. free colonist.
A profession is what the do, e.g. a free colonist that gets ready to found a new colony, thus requiring the equipment related to the settler.

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

Can more graphics be included in the colopedia?

The way trade routes are set up, is a bit confusing. I think a picture would tell 1000 words.

If you play Caesar or Pharaoh the mission briefing screens in that game are amazing.

 

[Nightinggale]

Can more graphics be included in the colopedia?

Colopedia is a python screen where we can do pretty much what we can with any other 2D screen in the game, so think any screen other than the main 3D map. This includes anything you see in Civ4: beyond the sword as well, including modded screens. In other words we have a high degree of design freedom if we are creative enough and put enough effort into it. In fact we can do stuff not present on any existing page if needed.

So yes, we can add more or less any 2D graphics to colopedia, including any amount. The question is how much effort it would be to make it rather than if we have the ability to do so. That's why I started out asking people what would be useful without considering the current restrains of the colopedia pages.

The way trade routes are set up, is a bit confusing. I think a picture would tell 1000 words.

So you are saying a screenshot would be useful
Yeah that might be doable. My main concern is the effort needed for the screenshot and then the risk of it being out of date and needing to be replaced. There would likely also be the issue of the screenshot likely being in English regardless of selected language. That doesn't mean the idea of screenshots is wrong. It's worth considering.

 

[Balshazemoon]

Hey, longtime lurker and we the people enjoyer. You guys did an amazing work with the mod! Here's my suggestion to improve colopedia, as this is information that would really help people wanting to dabble in the domestic market:

This information would help decide which specialists to purchase/school/learn by doing if one wanted to maximize the domestic profits from a specific good. Furthermore, I believe that it would add more visibility for the domestic market section of the game. Whether that is something that is in line with the mod design, I don't know. Anyway, that was the suggestion! Have fun and thanks for all the hard work <3

 

[Nightinggale]

This information would help decide which specialists to purchase/school/learn by doing if one wanted to maximize the domestic profits from a specific good.

I don't have the code in front of me right now, but for colopedia changes this sounds like it could be surprisingly doable within reasonable time. Naturally no promises, particularly not prior to examining the code in question.

 

[PPanda0421]

Actually that is already the case: please look at the professions section of colopedia.
Please notice that there is a difference between a unit and a profession.
A unit is what they are, e.g. free colonist.
A profession is what the do, e.g. a free colonist that gets ready to found a new colony, thus requiring the equipment related to the settler.

I returned to WTP after the new release (great job team btw). When I looked at how to create scouts I was confused. It showed the new bread icon (Mousing over the icon didn't show the name and there was nothing indicating what it was). Since there are quite a few new resources I had no idea what it was because the bread picture was new. So it would be helpful if the icon showed the NAME of the resource and/or linked to it in the colopedia. Also (not in game atm so I'm trying to remember from a few days ago) in Europe I didn't see bread, just baked goods.

Thanks.

 

[canexpthat]

I also couldn't tell what the baked goods icon was from the Scout entry and it took me a while to find the info elsewhere.

Hey, longtime lurker and we the people enjoyer. You guys did an amazing work with the mod! Here's my suggestion to improve colopedia, as this is information that would really help people wanting to dabble in the domestic market:

View attachment 660085
This information would help decide which specialists to purchase/school/learn by doing if one wanted to maximize the domestic profits from a specific good. Furthermore, I believe that it would add more visibility for the domestic market section of the game. Whether that is something that is in line with the mod design, I don't know. Anyway, that was the suggestion! Have fun and thanks for all the hard work <3

Speaking of the domestic economy, can more numerical info about it be given to the player through the Colopedia? Like how much demand is created by colonists and what the price of the goods will be sold at? The player gets very specific numerical information about the prices of goods in Europe, Africa, and Port Royale before the player even decides to sell anything at those places, so it feels odd that goods sold on the domestic market just get sold as if the mechanics of it are behind the scenes. (I also recall a thread discussing the domestic economy about how for some players they saw that their goods were being sold at prices below that of Europe while for other players they saw them being sold at prices higher than that of Europe and thus it doesn't seem to be clear especially for the casual to average WTP player.)

(Just gonna add that the mod is amazing, including WTP's present Colopedia, which is already way better than what I remember vanilla Col's Colopedia being.)

 

[Guynemer]

You can hover over a good in the city screen, and it will state what the domestic demand is (if any), as well as the price paid on the domestic market, in addition to the price paid in Europe, Africa, and Port Royal.

 

[canexpthat]

You can hover over a good in the city screen, and it will state what the domestic demand is (if any), as well as the price paid on the domestic market, in addition to the price paid in Europe, Africa, and Port Royal.

Thank you!

I still think it would be helpful if in the Domestic Economy page of the Game Concepts section there was a comprehensive explanation including numbers (and even some math IMHO) of how the domestic economy works.
More numerical information on how the tavern generates money would be nice, too.

 

[Nightinggale]

I also couldn't tell what the baked goods icon was from the Scout entry and it took me a while to find the info elsewhere.

Known issue. In fact there are two known issues here:
1: Colopedia for professions shows icons of requirements, but doesn't tell what it is
2: When you can't use a profession, the game won't tell you why

1 is something I intentionally skipped fixing for 4.0 because it will take a while. The text in question is generated using C++. We would need to rewrite that text generator from scratch in python in order to add links to it like I added links to a bunch of other Colopedia pages. The links will also add mouseover help. Since there are hundreds of "it would be good to have this fixed", we had to accept not fixing all of them prior to release or we would never release.

2 would be good to add, but it would require a significant amount of code changes as the existing code is not really designed to report failures. When the code ask if you can make a certain profession like scout or settler, all the code is given is a failure, but not why.

 

[canexpthat]

The entry for green vanilla pods says that they are picked in jungles or shrublands, but I don't think that's quite right, I think.

Spoiler :

The Vanilla resource seems to have more correct information, where a tile needs to have both hills and shrubland for green vanilla pods.

Spoiler :

However, while the Vanilla resource may have as valid features a bunch of different types of forests (you can't see it in my screenshot, but just need to scroll down to see the Valid Features), this doesn't seem to be the case for green vanilla pods. From my scanning of the map I'm playing, the only tiles I'm seeing with green vanilla pods (that don't have a Vanilla resource) are hills + shrubland without any additional features. So the information on the Vanilla resource entry isn't completely applicable to green vanilla pods.

I know there's a project to organize goods and their production lines and units and ships in another thread, but I wonder if a similar thing might help for terrain --> raw goods as well?

 

[Guynemer]

I know there's a project to organize goods and their production lines and units and ships in another thread, but I wonder if a similar thing might help for terrain --> raw goods as well?

This is a hell of a good idea

 

[Jabojoggins]

Hi, longtime lurker, excited for new release!

I would suggest adding a Production Chain as a root element (like terrains, goods). in Colopedia. The production chain could nicely show all possible inputs, intermediate, and finished goods from the chain. Then link from each resource page to its production chains.