improved multiple production

[Folket]

At the moment it seems like you need to queue building in the city view to be able to build more then one item.

Would it be possible to add so that if you use the popup to choose what to build it will show 0 turns for items where you have enough overflow hammers to complete. And then you get to choose new items as long as you have enough overflow hammers.

This would really help casual gamers like me and my wife to use the multiple production option.

As it is now, we often build one 20 hammers building in a 300 hammer city.

 

[Snofru1]

I like this idea !

 

[JosEPh_II]

Have you tried using the Production screen that AIAndy added. It's a Hammer icon in the upper right corner next to the Bug Options (Lady bug icon).

JosEPh

 

[Folket]

I will have a look at the production screen. But I still would like to see my suggestion implemented. The immediate feedback are important for players that are playing casually.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sadly, what your asking for is nearly impossible to pull off, albeit a good idea and one I'm sure we'd like to do but have found it a dead end project.

Unfortunately, what you need to get comfortable doing is selecting view city on the production popup then using the queue. To streamline your efforts, as stated above, the new Production screen should be able to help significantly so you don't mess yourself up with underselecting your builds.

 

[Folket]

Any chance you want to tell me why it is "nearly impossible"?

 

[Samin]

Any chance you want to tell me why it is "nearly impossible"?

Limitations in the game engine. That's what it almost always comes down to in those cases.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

In this case it is probably "just" lack of programming skill in the required areas. It would require that the current pop-up be changed if multiple production is on to keep asking for more buildings or units, adding them to the queue in back ground, until the total cost of the selected things in is more than what the city can build in one turn. Further complicating the problem is that the actual cost may be less that the expected cost due to other things in the city or wonders built and so on.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Actually DH makes a point as to how it could be done, though ... ew...

I was thinking it was a matter of the way popups are hard programmed to work beyond our ability to manipulate them in the dll. They don't allow for multiple selection returns.

But DH brings up that it COULD be set to keep popping up a new popup until the production is spent. Honestly, that'd take a player longer to go through than using the build queue in the city though. So for all the pain in the arse it'd represent I don't think it'd be as helpful for players as it may initially seem since it might be a bit clunky. On multi-player games with any kind of simultaneous turns, that'd be terribly undesireable to have such a behavior unless you had it coming up at the end of the round (which I think might be a bit buggy still but I'm not sure if that option has been repaired...)

IF the popup could simply be a build list that functioned like the queue, that had the alt, ctrl and shift capabilities (which I've often wished it would) or put you directly into the city build panel rather than pulling up a popup at all (which I think AIAndy once suggested and although I didn't like the idea at the time, as I recall, I now think would be a good concept), either of these would be a much more efficient solution all around.

 

[Folket]

I'm not agreeing with you. In multiplayer you may always disable the popups if they are in the way.

The thing is that in the queue I have to manually calculate how many things I'm able to afford. My wife never even opens the city screen. This functionality would be immensely helpful for players like me and my wife.

I guess what you are referencing to is that you have to scroll for each click. I would not have a problem with that. If this could come as an option I would play with it every time.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Um...

Ok, so what I'm trying to say is that one given popup call (a popup, just to be clear, is sending up a window with options, the city build being one example) can only ask for one selection of data at a time. It means, if you set it so that you keep making selections until you're build queue has just enough to fill one round's worth of production, you'd have the same city come up with a new popup over and over until you filled its production for the round, which would be terribly slow as there'd be roughly the same delay between selections (waiting for the popup to close after one selection, only to re-open to ask for another) as you have between cities in the cycle as it is now. With enough cities in play, I tend to fall asleep during a round as it has a hypnotic effect to go through so many popups as it is!

The second thing to consider is that in the build queue you don't have to only select for one round! If I tried to do that I'd drive myself crazy! Even trying to calculate out everything you can do in just one round would be anything less than casual for sure. I think you're making things harder on yourself than necessary. I often have my own build queues set to up to ten or more rounds out at a time so I don't have to make selections for every city every round. IF I get a tech that unlocks something that needs to be built at the beginning of the queue, I simply use ctrl - select to place that item at the beginning of the build. If its something I want all cities on one continent to select, then ctrl - select any city bar on that continent and you're now setting build queue for all those cities, shift - select a city bar will select ALL cities so you can select something in the queue for ALL cities.

Without using these tools like this I'd be overly frustrated too.

In short, what you're asking for would, nevertheless, be extremely difficult to set up as well.

 

[Koshling]

You could entirely replace the production popup (which is launched from the DLL) with a new Python screen that could do whatever you want. However, that really amounts to the city screen anyway, and would be a LOT of work.

Alternatively how about a mode that automatically brings up the city screen INSTEAD of the popup??

 

[AIAndy]

You could entirely replace the production popup (which is launched from the DLL) with a new Python screen that could do whatever you want. However, that really amounts to the city screen anyway, and would be a LOT of work.

Alternatively how about a mode that automatically brings up the city screen INSTEAD of the popup??

That mode already exists. I added it quite some time ago. It is a BUG option and I like combining it with the minimize popup feature. That way nothing pops up at turn start but icons for all the popups are displayed at the right side of the screen and when you click on one you are taking right away to the city screen.

 

[makotech222]

While we're on this topic, i would add a suggestion. Allow multiple production for AI-governed cities. Currently when i play, ill keep my capital city on manual, while the rest of my cities are ai-governed. Those cities take forever to get through buildings on higher game speeds without multiple production.

 

[Koshling]

While we're on this topic, i would add a suggestion. Allow multiple production for AI-governed cities. Currently when i play, ill keep my capital city on manual, while the rest of my cities are ai-governed. Those cities take forever to get through buildings on higher game speeds without multiple production.

That strikes me quite simply as a bug! The AI itself handles multiple production, but it sounds like the AI applied to player cities via governors doesn't. I'll fix it when I get time. Not at the top of my list though, so poke me every few weeks if I forget!