Info Addict

[robk]

Hey.

I was on Sins of a Solar Empire, a space real-time stratergy, earlier today, and it gave me an idea that you might consider adding to your to-do list. They have these graphs that display at the end, they have it for all but a few aspects of the game, from your current currency levels, your extraction rates, your fleet capacity, fleet used, capital ship levels.

Anyway, when you hover over any part of the graph, a kind of mouse-over pop up that displays the figures to each player in order from best to worse on any part of the graph. I thought it was a little handy as there was less guess-work involved in the figures you're dealing with.

I was considering against it, though, as I don't know how Civ coding really 5 works and that it might take up alot of memory in adding this feature...

Your thoughts?

-Kris

Earlier, I had given thought to adding tooltips to each of the graph segments but two things held me back: the lines are really teenie and those tooltips would be constantly changing with the slightest movement as you move the mouse around and I don't know how the civ5 engine, as you said, would handle a thousand or so of those things in the same space.

What you're talking about is a little more simple. It sounds like there would be one tooltip for each x-axis point listing all the values at that time. It sounds pretty cool and, I think, fairly simple to execute. I'll give it a try in development to see how well it turns out and, if it looks good, I'll add it in.

Thanks for the idea

 

[alpaca]

Nice mod, I like what I'm seeing so far. From a power-gamer perspective, the amount of info makes the game quite a bit easier, though. Having detailed ranks for each stat means you can make much more informed decisions about who's dangerous, etc.

Not that I mind, I actually think that info should be available to some extent, but it would be even more fun if you added some uncertainty to the data like a 20% of the total value random number added or subtracted from each civ (of course continuous in each turn). To go completely mad, you could even increase this accuracy as tech level increases with Computers making it 0.

A more useful suggestion: Could you store the highlightpid state when changing the graph type? Nice feature, by the way. Code below should store the state and make it unhighlight when you click the empire button again (if I'm not mistaken, didn't test it).

local storedPID

function EmpireKeyButtonHandler( pid )
  if pid == storedPID then
    storedPID = nil
    pid = nil
  else
    pid = pid or storedPID  
  end

  DrawGraph(lastGraphType, pid);
end

In fact, even better would be making each empire button an on/off toggle for the corresponding graph.

A y-axis would also be good. If you implement the tooltip for the x-axis, be sure to make it display the turn number and time in letters for me

 

[robk]

... but it would be even more fun if you added some uncertainty to the data like a 20% of the total value random number added or subtracted from each civ (of course continuous in each turn). To go completely mad, you could even increase this accuracy as tech level increases with Computers making it 0.

Funny you mention that because I had the exact same thoughts when I started. In fact, the first name for the mod was "Implied Espionage" because I was going to make the data more accurate as better technologies were discovered, just as you suggested. I ultimately rejected the idea because presenting incorrect data would, essentially, make the mod useless and for those who don't want to know, the option exists to just not use the mod. I had more fleshed out thoughts on it beyond that but that's the basic conclusion I came to. I also justify it in game terms by thinking: once a civ has been met, diplomatic and trade relations open and it's pretty easy for general information like what's presented in the graphs and factbook to make it back to the civ leaders. The numbers are probably a little more precise than what was available to an ancient civ but even then, knowing if the other civilizations were "really big and strong" vs "really tiny and poor" was common knowledge.

A more useful suggestion: Could you store the highlightpid state when changing the graph type? Nice feature, by the way. Code below should store the state and make it unhighlight when you click the empire button again (if I'm not mistaken, didn't test it) ... In fact, even better would be making each empire button an on/off toggle for the corresponding graph.

I actually coded that last part in today since it was sorta in the back of my mind anyways. So, in the next version, you will be able to highlight multiple civs and the highlighting follows you around as you click through the different graphs. To turn off highlighting, you just toggle the civs off and you're back to normal. The only thing I'm not happy with is how I'm highlighting the currently selected civs in the left rail but I'll figure that out eventually.

A y-axis would also be good. If you implement the tooltip for the x-axis, be sure to make it display the turn number and time in letters for me

I hope you don't mean displaying the time as " .. turn number three-hundred eighty-four, the year nineteen-hundred sixty-three Anno Domini .. ". That might be a bit cumbersome

 

[Madeiner]

I wanted to report a bug:
Starting in any era other than ancient makes the graph display "no data yet". I don't know if this is resolved after a number of turns or not.

 

[kris159]

A y-axis would also be good. If you implement the tooltip for the x-axis, be sure to make it display the turn number and time in letters for me

Sins of a Solar Empire does that. However, I don't think you'de need the time and the turn number... It's a turn based stratergy, there's no concept of "time" (so to speak).

Anyway, maybe you could average the values of the tooltip when it gets overcrowded so that it can only displays, say, 400 tooltips with different values at once even when the game has been 600 turns... If you get me...

 

[robk]

I wanted to report a bug:
Starting in any era other than ancient makes the graph display "no data yet". I don't know if this is resolved after a number of turns or not.

Yep, you're right, starting in the later eras breaks the graphs. It turns out the data is saving correctly but I messed up the graphing part for late start games. I'm working on a fix now and it will be included in the next version. If it turns out to be simple enough, I'll post a workaround too.

 

[Madeiner]

Turns out the graphs do get drawn later in the game.
I suppose, but i'm not sure, they become visible once a number of turns equal to the starting turn number has passed.

For example, if i start in classical era (game start at 75 turns), graphs become visible after 75 turns. Not really sure though.

 

[alpaca]

I hope you don't mean displaying the time as " .. turn number three-hundred eighty-four, the year nineteen-hundred sixty-three Anno Domini .. ". That might be a bit cumbersome

Aww... crap.

Well the uncertain data might be more interesting for a gameplay-related mod than a UI mod. For highlighting the buttons, some kind of "pressed button" bevel would work I think.

Sins of a Solar Empire does that. However, I don't think you'de need the time and the turn number... It's a turn based stratergy, there's no concept of "time" (so to speak).

Anyway, maybe you could average the values of the tooltip when it gets overcrowded so that it can only displays, say, 400 tooltips with different values at once even when the game has been 600 turns... If you get me...

Yeah but the timeline is for flavor. The graphs display the time but for me the number of turns is more relevant.

 

[robk]

I've got a fix commited in my dev copy for the advanced era start games but, if you want to take stab at sorta fixing it now in v3, give this a try ....

Open up the file InfoAddict/Lua/InfoAddictHistoricalData.lua and look for two lines that look like this:

local currentTurn = Game.GetElapsedGameTurns();

They should be at line #105 and #248. Change those lines to:

local currentTurn = Game.GetGameTurn();

That should work for now though it might throw some errors in the LUA console when loading the initial set of data (if you happen to have the console open). Also, it still scales the x-axis back to 4000BC so you get a huge long line of nuthin' starting from the left.

This is completely fixed in the new version, though, which I hope to have ready later this week.

 

[kris159]

A y-axis would also be good. If you implement the tooltip for the x-axis, be sure to make it display the turn number and time in letters for me

Interpretation fail on my side! I thought you meant the time the turn ended (as in what time it was on your computer when you pressed the "end turn" button). I see where you're coming from now. That would be relatively handy.

 

[alpaca]

Interpretation fail on my side! I thought you meant the time the turn ended (as in what time it was on your computer when you pressed the "end turn" button). I see where you're coming from now. That would be relatively handy.

Nah, what do we have the perfectly fine clock mod for

 

[PieceOfMind]

Very nice.

 

[robk]

I just uploaded v4 of Info Addict a few minutes ago with these changes to the mod:

• Added a zoom button to view the last several turns without the graph resolution being lowered. Useful for seeing immediate effects of recent actions.
• Removed the initial vertical bar that always sat on the left. It indicated an initial value of zero for every line, even when the first value wasn't zero.
• Highlights are persistent through graph changes now.
• Multiple civs can be highlighted at once.
• Added light buttons (pips) next to each civ to indicate which one's are selected.
• Fix for advanced starting era games.
• Cheat mode is indicated in the main Info Addict title bar now.
• The last graph drawn, current highlights and zoom state persist through turns now.
• General code improvements.

All changes should be compatible with saved games and previously broken advanced starting era games should have working and fully populated graphs now.

Spoiler mod integrators: file changes and additions to v4 :

M     /InfoAddict/InfoAddictReadMe.txt
M     /InfoAddict/XML/InfoAddictHistoricalData.xml
M     /InfoAddict/Lua/InfoAddictHistoricalData.lua
M     /InfoAddict/Lua/InfoAddictScreen.lua
M     /InfoAddict/Lua/InfoAddictCollector.lua
M     /InfoAddict/Lua/InfoAddictLib.lua
M     /InfoAddict/Lua/InfoAddictFactBook.lua
A     /InfoAddict/Art/selectedpip60.dds
A     /InfoAddict/Art/notselectedpip60.dds
A     /InfoAddict/Art/selectedpip70.dds
A     /InfoAddict/Art/notselectedpip70.dds
A     /InfoAddict/Art/selectedpip.dds
A     /InfoAddict/Art/notselectedpip.dds

Edit: Screenshots are updated in the OP. I've uploaded the zip file to the civ file database and linked to it from the OP, as well.

 

[robk]

Thanks to everyone who's complimented the mod. I appreciate it!

 

[gnosisQ]

Great stuff robk, I've also been enjoying the mod from Santa Monica

Appreciate the new version, so many goodies, now go enjoy some of this sunshine!

 

[Pouakai]

Awesome, I'm loving this.

Will this work with the increased demographics mod?

 

[kris159]

Awesome, I'm loving this.

Will this work with the increased demographics mod?

The improved demographics mod adds to the demographics tab, InfoAddict adds a new item to the dropdown menu.

The two will work fine together.

 

[Pouakai]

Awesome, downloading now.

 

[robk]

Here are some teaser images for the next version of Info Addict

 

[Valkrionn]

Looks awesome.

The 231 connections is oddly interesting looking...