Keyboard shortcuts for movement?

[Grotius]

The manual lists a number of useful keyboard shortcuts, but I don't see anything indicating that we can use keys to move units from one tile to the next. I see there's a "move mode" shortcut, but in earlier Civ games there's usually been the option to move a unit with the Numpad keys. Is that gone now?

Also, can we move among cities using the arrow keys, or do we have to click?

I ask because I tend to be more prone to RSI from mousing than keyboarding.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The problems are:
1. Hexagons, which don't fit the numeric keyboard that good.
2. Notebooks, most of which don't have the numeric keyboard.

 

[Horserush]

I seem to remember them saying that there were still keyboard shortcuts for movement.

 

[Indibil]

The way hexes are in the game it'd have to be something like:

-89
4-6
12

Which would be a tad confusing at first.

I, for one, might restrict myself to mouse movement being a non-numerical laptop user.

 

[migkillertwo]

The problems are:
1. Hexagons, which don't fit the numeric keyboard that good.
2. Notebooks, most of which don't have the numeric keyboard.

Pretty much every strategy game has had keyboard movement short cuts of some sort. I think there will be one of two shortcuts

1: Either there will be directional movements with the keys "w", 'e', 'a', 's', 'z', and 'x'.

2: This seems more likely, there will be one easily accessible key (Maybe 'F') that brings up the movement option, and then you use the mouse to choose where you want him to move.

I think the latter is much more likely because units have 2 movement points, that means that there are 30 possible movement combinations, and that's just foot units. Mechanized units have 1296 possible movement combinations.

 

[PieceOfMind]

One of the problems with move-shortcuts is an effect of the 1upt system. You cannot have a unit stop on the same tile as another unit. So if you moved one tile onto another unit, and then stopped, you wouldn't be able to deselect the unit until you moved it off that tile. Moving through another unit is often going to be necessary, so the mouse is the easiest solution to get around this problem. Only moves that are legal will be possible with the mouse, and using the keyboard for moves of distance 2 would be clumsy.

I am fairly sure there aren't going to be keyboard shortcuts for movement. At least not yet.

Doesn't bother me greatly, as I used the mouse exclusively (for movement) in civ4 anyway.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Well, it could work this way:
1. You choose movement mode.
2. You move the destination cursor using 6 keys.
3. You order unit to move here.

Ah, good old days. 286 computer, no mouse, DOS, PC Speaker music

 

[PieceOfMind]

Jee, you might as well be playing on gameboy if you did that. Your description there reminded me exactly of Advance Wars.

 

[Zhahz]

I don't usually use the keyboard to move my units unless I'm playing one handed (eating or something) - so, no biggie to me. I usually use the mouse and during the exploration phase where there's lots of movement and next turns, I just hit ENTER on the numpad, which is right next to the mouse - less movement.

I'm more distressed by the previous/next unit hotkeys (period and comma) and hope there are alterates or customizeable keybindings. I much prefer to keep my hand on my mouse and would rather use TAB and SHIFT+TAB to cycle/reverse cycle or anything that's nearer my left hand. Period and comma are hideous choices for those hotkeys (to me).

 

[Grotius]

Hmm, sounds like no one knows for sure. Maybe I should ask over at 2K Games?

It's not *that* big a deal to me; if I'm doing something important, I usually use the mouse in Civ anyway. But for routine moves, I like to use the keyboard to give my mouse-hand a break.

I can understand the problem with laptop keyboards. I'd still hope we get some option for keyboard movement, though. Any combination of six keys, perhaps in two rows of three, would satisfy me.

Failing that, I hope we get left-right arrows for scrolling through cities.

 

[Lancor]

Technically there shouldn't be a problem assigning 6 numpad keys to the 6 directions one can move. It will be a bit confusing because of the perspective at first...
If it's not in the game by default, perhaps by demand there will be a patch.

 

[Oberon Blade]

Think the keyboard shortcut for movement could be.

7 9
4 6
1 3

5 can be to center on the unit or something. Will know in a few days

 

[Lancor]

Official statement at 2k Forums:

Originally Posted by 2K Greg:
Yep, you can use the numpad to move units like you have been able to do since Civilization 1.

It uses 741 963.

 

[ButSam]

741 963 makes some sense...but let me just point out that the keyboard layout on the QWERTY keyboard is somewhat "hexagonal" (the keys are square of course, but look closely). For example, if S is the center "hex", the keys touching "S" to any degree (at least on my keyboard) are W, E, A, D, Z, and X. (I suspect the reasoning for this is to make typing reach distances more equitable as well.)