Lunatic Irish Woman Seeks Sensible Civvers for Productive Discussion.

[Gorey]

If you ask me, the UI is a work of art.

So you enjoy entering the city screen and opening a seperate build menu just to adjust what the city is doing?

In Civ IV you could do it straight from the main map. Hell you could select 10 cities and make them all build the same thing without ever going inside the city screen.

Function > Form. Just like Gameplay > Graphics.

 

[CaptainBinky]

So you enjoy entering the city screen and opening a seperate build menu just to adjust what the city is doing?

Yes I do. In Civ IV I completely over-relied on automation and never bothering to tweak around with citizen allocation because, well frankly, it was way too much like hard work.

In Civ V I am always dipping in and out of that city screen, switching my citizen allocation, changing specialists, all that stuff and as a result I now am a considerably better Civ player and I'm getting waaaaay more out of the game in terms of enjoyment than I ever have on any previous incarnation.

So yes, yes, and a million times yes.

 

[Kardinal]

One of the things that really annoys me is the interface. I'm not against streamlining.. but burying and hiding things is never good.

I tend to agree with this. I'm not saying that Civ4's interface was fabulous, but I do feel as if there's needless obscurity here. Many features are either buried 3-deep in clicks or unavailable entirely. The queue is far and away teh most obvious.

Has anyone yet figured out how to save and load queues? The lack of this feature makes taking over new cities just a PITA.

 

[lemmy101]

Has anyone yet figured out how to save and load queues? The lack of this feature makes taking over new cities just a PITA.

From personal experience having a cookie cutter build order for new cities is really really not what you should be doing in this game.

 

[crag]

Ok the UI needs work IMHO. All for reasons already stated. But I'll add one; what is the mini-map? I mean what is it suppose to display? Doesn't look like a map to me?

1. My biggest complaint is the stacking. I didn't like stacks of doom, by why can't a worker or settler stack with a combat unit for escort? Also, if I build a fort, why can't i stack all my until in a fort? It's a military base after all. And this "no-stacking" is also no pass through. So if I am attack a city that is surrounded by mountains - has 1 way in - good luck. This has already ahppened to me.

The "no-stacking" was taken to the extreme. The dev's should back up a bit and be reasonable.

2. The current map scrips are terrible. I mean, com'om - sheep grazing on a desert dune?

3. And just to add: there is way too much clicking in this game.

And frankly I can't see managing a huge empire of 15+ cities. Good luck with that.

 

[Gorey]

Yes I do. In Civ IV I completely over-relied on automation and never bothering to tweak around with citizen allocation because, well frankly, it was way too much like hard work.

I never used automation in Civ 4. And i prefer its citizen allocation much better.

 

[lemmy101]

1. My biggest complaint is the stacking. I didn't like stacks of doom, by why can't a worker or settler stack with a combat unit for escort?

Er. You can stack one military and one civilian per tile.

 

[Interslice]

Er. You can stack one military and one civilian per tile.

I assume he means no option moving them in a stack, which is another annoying inconvenience.

 

[Gorey]

For those who say the new interface is miles better.. I'd like to offer up some comparisons. (All pics at the same resolution)

Citizen Automation went from a small, unobtrusive, little panel:


To an enormous, in your face annoyance that you must have expanded to even manually move citizens:



Advisors, went from small easily reconginizable icons:


To giant colorless icons, and most of them are hidden in a submenu!!


Map options.. like the adivsors are easily recognizable.. and are all there for you to see:


Only 1 now.. the rest are hidden in a submenu:



Streamlined?

You bet, to the point of annoyance.

Now i ask.. which was better?

 

[CaptainBinky]

The new one. Some of us aren't blessed with 20/20 vision and any player new to Civ is unlikely to know what the hell a black blob with a yellow halo is supposed to mean.

Fair enough, you like it better before. I'm not telling you you're wrong, I'm just offering my opinion for counterbalance.

edit: Also, the new one is prettier.

edit2: Also also... didn't I see a "small interface" tickbox in the options? Anyone tried that? Maybe it would be more to your liking.

 

[Gorey]

edit2: Also also... didn't I see a "small interface" tickbox in the options? Anyone tried that? Maybe it would be more to your liking.

That IS the smaller interface. All those were taken from 1680x1050 resolution.

 

[Ayt]

I agree completely, Gorey. The amount of extra clicking you have to do is ridiculous.

 

[CaptainBinky]

Is it? I don't play with that tick box ticked and it looks about normal size. Well anyway, that doesn't change that I still prefer the new one.

It seems to me that the problem people are having is that the interface has been made less bewildering to new players - if we're not talking about features which have been remove or adapted like religion and sliders, then basically the only change is that you might have to go to a submenu.

That's not really that big a deal, personally (even as someone familiar with Civ) I prefer it like that, and you can't really argue with Firaxis trying to make the game a bit less of a nightmare for new players.

 

[Venereus]

I really think I can get used to the new UI eventually. But I think it will always boggle my mind. WHY!?

 

[Gorey]

Is it? I don't play with that tick box ticked and it looks about normal size.

Yeah i noticed that too. I guess at 1680x1050 it doesn't matter which box you check. Picking "Let the game choose" or "small interface" is the same thing at that res i guess.

go figure.

 

[lemmy101]

For those who say the new interface is miles better.. I'd like to offer up some comparisons. (All pics at the same resolution)

Citizen Automation went from a small, unobtrusive, little panel:


To an enormous, in your face annoyance that you must have expanded to even manually move citizens:



Advisors, went from small easily reconginizable icons:


To giant colorless icons, and most of them are hidden in a submenu!!


Map options.. like the adivsors are easily recognizable.. and are all there for you to see:


Only 1 now.. the rest are hidden in a submenu:



Streamlined?

You bet, to the point of annoyance.

Now i ask.. which was better?

I love it when people prove the opposing point while trying to prove their own point.

Civ 5 in each and every instance. But ESPECIALLY the citizen focus one.

 

[Gorey]

I love it when people prove the opposing point while trying to prove their own point.

Civ 5 in each and every instance. But ESPECIALLY the citizen focus one.

Agree to disagree it is then.

I guess some people prefer something big & shiny, instead of something that's not in the way and gives you more functionality.

 

[Kardinal]

From personal experience having a cookie cutter build order for new cities is really really not what you should be doing in this game.

That's your experience. I find it works very well, especially when I'm in a commanding position in the game, which, when I decide to conquer, is often the case. It saves DOZENS of clicks, especially in this iteration of the interface.

 

[CaptainBinky]

Agree to disagree it is then.
I guess some people prefer something big & shiny, instead of something that's not in the way and gives you more functionality.

Ummm, it's not "wooo, look at the shiny buttons". It might seem difficult to understand, but it is possible to prefer the uncluttered interface and not to mind clicking on a button to expand a menu. Expanding menus and submenus is something that I'm pretty used to.

I don't sit there in MS Office on go "WHY, Microsoft, why have you organised all these options into various submenus rather than giving me a massive load of icons that would either take up the entire screen, or be completely impossible to make out unless you squint or have perfect eyesight!!! Damn you!"

 

[Selous]

I brought it up here in the official steam-all-here cluster of a thread. Theres steam activity even in offline mode. If you read the next few pages, youll see that a moderator here in the forums conducted his own test a while back, and found the same findings.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=365614&page=54

Heres a recent person who bought civ5, authorized at home, took offline mode over to his dorm, where he has an internet connection, college blocks steam, but it still saw theres an update, he cant play until he updates.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381253


What more do i want? I'd like the dictionary definition of the word Offline.

i was recently away for 6 months in a 3rd world country without access to any internet ... set my steam up to offline mode and had no problems ... just dont get any steam achievment and can not install new steam games
i can not vouch for some random proxy that some random guy had setup, but imo the benifits of steam far outweigh and negitive points