M:C Main and City Screens

[Kailric]

I am moving this post here so it doesn't hijack the DA thread.

We are wanting a new interface for the Foreign/Domestic Imports/Exports and other Yield options so we can discuss options here to keep them together.

We have many options when it comes to what we can do for a better interface in the city screen. There is actually still room for extra buttons, some ideas to get us started...

• -The Resource Bar could be resized, the Fealty Bar moved (perhaps stretching down the left side, or even dropped and simply have a number somewhere, all this to allow for Buttons underneath each yield for options.
• -The Emphasis panel could be made to switch to a Yields panels that would replace the Popup menu. The new Yields Panel would be scrollable, and have button options for each yield. Perhaps even arrows so you can rearrange the order of Yields so that you can put the city's specialized yields towards the top so you don't need to scroll.
• -The extra Teacher list, etc buttons can be moved elsewhere, Steward buttons etc, resized to allow room to list Foreign/Domestic Imports/Exports. Schools Buildings could actually Popup the Teach List.
• -Garrison and Transport Panels could be made to switch out with New Yield Info options, and all that info put there.

New Features and Concepts

Feeder service:
Auto enable/disable import based on storage only. The player sets a threshold and the computer will import as needed to maintain this level.
Rules are that it will stop importing if storage goes over 100% of the requested level and it will start importing again if the storage drops to below 75% of that level. In between the current import state is kept. In other words it's a system with hysteresis.

The reason why it doesn't just trigger at 100%is that it would toggle on and off way too often. If the city is set to import and export something, it uses 3/turn and has a threshold of 100. It will fill to 100, wait until it drops below 75 (9 turns) and then fill up again.
If it triggered on 100% both ways, it would fill up to 100, next turn it has 97 and it will use a transport to obtain the missing 3 and stop importing. Next turn it uses a transport again to gain the missing 3 and so on. Moving between 75% and 100% is an attempt to use the transport more efficiently and not make them move tiny amount of yields.

Consumption multiplier:
This is an auto threshold setting. It calculates how many yields you need each turn to supply your buildings if they are all full of units with no modifiers. Consumption multiplier will then set a threshold of that number multiplied by the consumption multiplier setting. In other words it is a setting asking for how many turns you want to stockpile for. This number will go automatically up when you construct a new building with more worker slots.

Feeder service also has other sources of auto threshold. It will always try to import to meet the requirements for the buildings you have in the building queue. There is no GUI to modify this behavior. It's just always on if feeder service is on.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Those sound like some interesting ideas, I especially like the idea of potentially rearranging yield lists in each city to have faster access to the important yields of that city.

 

[Kailric]

Here is the first improvement. I may use Icons for the titles for Foreign/Domestic Import/Export, so we don't have to have different size texts. I like the idea of rearranging Yield Options on the screen to fit your City as well. I will be investigating that option next.

Also, since Foreign Trade either Costs or Makes you money (and thus is a bit more important to track than domestic) I am thinking it may also be good to have each city track what Units are currently working for that City especially with the Trade Screen part of DA being useless this would come in handy. Perhaps on the Map panel, as the map part is pretty small, we could have a panel for all units that have this City as its HomeCity. By shifting the Map over we would almost have just as much room as the Transports panel.

Well, that's all for now.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Maybe just change the text to D. Import and F. Import

if you have a hover text that is displayed when you mouse over the button that opens the screen that says 'Domestic and Foreign Import Export' people will know what the abbreviations are.

 

[Kailric]

Well, I could just make all the text the same size, its a small issue regardless.

 

[Nightinggale]

My first impression is "awesome", but then I started thinking. What if we are exporting 15 different yield types? I would prefer if it is possible to view all yields at the same time. I just don't know how to make that

 

[Kailric]

My first impression is "awesome", but then I started thinking. What if we are exporting 15 different yield types? I would prefer if it is possible to view all yields at the same time. I just don't know how to make that

Perhaps we could add a down arrow that will stretch the panel to the bottom of the screen or so, then when your mouse leaves the panel it goes back to normal. Yeah, with the existing panel placement there isn't much room. Keep your thinking hats on.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yeah I was tinking some kind of expand but or mouse over would be cool, if combined with that ordering idea, you could see your most important yields at a glance, then mouse over or click (click is probably better as it will stop it doing things when you don't want it to) to see everything.

 

[Kailric]

I wonder how it would look if we simply just put the Icons under the titles separated by commas like in many help texts and such. Like....

__Export__
,,
,,

I bet we could fit 15 icons that way

 

[Lib.Spi't]

and people would be constantly wondering which icon is which again!?

 

[Kailric]

Perhaps, we have an option that would be easy to switch to, so when you get use to the icons you can switch it to "simplified mode."

Anyway, I've been thinking about that other Yield Option panel with the adjustable buttons... we basically already have a Yield Option panel and this is the resource bar. With a right click you can adjust what ever settings you want and now we can start to see our changes in the Import/Export screen so that is a big help. So, perhaps that wont be that advanced of a concept.

I did discover one thing, Emphasize panel's yields, as we know, are click-able, you just click a yield and its state changes. This could also be setup for the Import/Export yields display. I am thinking with a right click the Yield is Removed or turned off. And a left click brings up the Yield Options for that yield (the menu is still popped up by the import/export buttons). All the Yields you deal with mostly will be right there at your finger tips.

That to me sounds like another big step. Another thing we can do is add all the spin buttons, I am not sure how to do that as I have never done it outside a popup menu. I may have to look at Civ4 as they had +/- buttons to increase/decrease values for taxes right? I bet it is simple.

Then, we need the check box for Feeder Service. Perhaps I can add that to the Resource Bar with a Shift-Click or something like that and have help text that says Shift-Click for Feeder.

Click here for your peanut

 

[Nightinggale]

I did discover one thing, Emphasize panel's yields, as we know, are click-able, you just click a yield and its state changes.

Now that you mention it. Why is the Emphasize table clickable when you scroll down, but not DA

I have had my eyes on that one btw. Well not the GUI, but the XML. I have been thinking of removing most of the XML content and then generate it when the game starts. That way we don't have to mess with emphasize XML when adding yields.

The same goes for yield units. If we add graphics info to YieldInfo, then we can generate the yield units automatically during XML reading (or just after it).

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click ClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClick!!!!!!!!!

Where is my damn peanut!!!!!!!!!

and yes, Bts has +/- taxation rate button on the main screen.

 

[Kailric]

Now that you mention it. Why is the Emphasize table clickable when you scroll down, but not DA

Well like I mentioned in that other thread, I think the Buildings tab works for the links to pedia in DA and you can still click on cities, its just the Citizens and Trade Routes.

Well, Civ4 uses setButtonGFC() for its +/- options, it has predefined button types as well, so perhaps we can incorporate that into the GUI somehow, not sure. But we can't add these buttons to the Import/Export's individual panels I'm pretty sure.

Ok, we are only able to "click" the Import/Export Icon Rows, it won't differ between right or left clicks. So, I am thinking we can make that click bring up the Yield Options for that yield. Oh wait, I bet we can register shift-clicks and such so...

Shift-Click increase Threshold by 10
Ctrl-Click Turn on Feeder
Alt-Click Turn Import/Export off

Also, I would like to change the Color of Feeder from Red to maybe Yellow. Red is Col is the WARNING color, when you see red you're dead, so it is kinda miss leading for me. I'm thinking, uh, why is my Wool red? Did I do something wrong? Well, Yellow means Caution, so hmm, am I about to do something wrong? Anyway, some other color besides red.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yeah I still need to figure out what the colour changes mean, I think there is a red and green, but I don't know specifically what those colours are supposed to represent.

Red does usually mean 'panic and do something NOW!!' Where as feeder means something more like 'Relax man... I am your friendly neighbourhood AI..... I got this!"

 

[Kailric]

Yeah I still need to figure out what the colour changes mean, I think there is a red and green, but I don't know specifically what those colours are supposed to represent.

Red does usually mean 'panic and do something NOW!!' Where as feeder means something more like 'Relax man... I am your friendly neighbourhood AI..... I got this!"

Ah, I see, it is red perhaps when feeder is stopped, to let you know you are full. I'll have to play around with it a bit more, haven't really used it yet much.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yeah I am kind of the same, I keep thinking I should be using it all the time, but then I think... is there a circumstance that I shouldn't be using this?

Then things start changing colour and you feel strangely uneasy.... change is bad.....bad change.....

It's also made by night, so you know it is using some kind of dark and mysterious code sorcery....

 

[Nightinggale]

Well like I mentioned in that other thread, I think the Buildings tab works for the links to pedia in DA and you can still click on cities, its just the Citizens and Trade Routes.

All the more reason to scrap the trade screen and start over. However it would be nice to figure out why it goes wrong or we could be repeating the problem.

Shift-Click increase Threshold by 10
Ctrl-Click Turn on Feeder
Alt-Click Turn Import/Export off

Nice, but people (read: me) tend to forget about hotkeys for options like that and they will remain hidden forever

Ah, I see, it is red perhaps when feeder is stopped, to let you know you are full. I'll have to play around with it a bit more, haven't really used it yet much.

White = Manually on (no feeder service)
Green = Feeder service is importing
Red = Feeder service is enabled, but imports are disabled due to content in the warehouse.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Hopefully if Kail can implement a hover text for the click options, it will help to avoid the forgetter problem. (I am very much the same when I don't play a game for a while)

Maybe yellow/amber would be a better colour over red then, amber has the feeling of 'wait' where as Red says "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH STOP! OR WE ARE ALL DEAD!!! AAAARGH!!!!"

........ahem...... maybe that is just me.....

 

[Kailric]

Nice, but people (read: me) tend to forget about hotkeys for options like that and they will remain hidden forever

"Read" all of us, yeah, like Lib says, I'll add extra text to the hover text. Perhaps we can add a new option that is on by default, or add it to sid's tips, where when its on you have extra help text to remind you of these things.

I'm going to investigate as I mentioned previously of being able to expand the Import/Export (I/E) panel so you can see all the Yields listed. I just checked, the Box the I/E is in is a .dds file, but its one of the files that can be resized pretty easy without to much distortion, still I may have to create a larger one. Regardless, the Panel the I/E is attached to can be resized no problems (I hope). So, I will attempt to add a new button that will expand this panel, then if your mouse leaves the panel it will revert back to normal size.(Hmm, perhaps this won't work if you can click a popup window).

At the moment when you have a Trader in your Transport window, you can also see what Foreign Imports/Exports the city has turned on. You can very quickly adjust those, then right click your Trader (assign him to that city if need be) and commission him to Buy or Sell and he will leave the screen.

Also as mentioned, I am thinking it will be helpful to know if you have Units and which ones are assigned to this city. That will prevent you from accidentally sending multiple units to fulfill the same need. I am hoping to use the Map panel for this. We can list the units there and also perhaps add the units to the mini map. The City you are viewing flashes on the map so I am hoping you can also have the units flash on the maps. I did this with the Immigration screen, when you view that screen Units that are on the map and immigrating to your realm have flashing dots. When you click he dots the screen closes and you are taken to that unit's location.