- Joined
- Mar 26, 2007
- Messages
- 7,920
Motivation for the proposed change:
The current Rule Selection has a "Rule Category" and "Rule Selection" plus the Min and Max numbers that determines whether the rule matches based on the number of tested Tiles that match.
The simple "Rule Category" and "Rule Selection" is a bit cumbersome and not very flexible, especially for matches that must test several different attributes of a Tile. These attributes include whether the Tile has a particular Base Terrain (Ocean, Coast, Lake, Ice, Snow, Tundra, Plains, Grassland, Desert), a Hill, a Forest, a Jungle, a Floodplain, a Riverside, a Lakeside, a particular Resource, a Hut and even the presence of the Settler.
The current Rule selection process becomes cumbersome because it enumerates many combinations of these attributes, but can't possibly list them all without becoming so cumbersome that Rule selection becomes tedious to use. Also, the combinations provided are so limited that it can take dozens of rule groupings to define a search that should take as little as two rule groupings. Furthermore, the vast majority of all non-trivial searches that should be definable are impossible due to severe limits on what a Rule can currently specify.
Here is an example of a Tile that should be easy to specify, but is currently impossible to do: A simple Riverside, Gold Resource on a Plains Hill. The solution is not adding this combination as a new "Combo Types", because there are hundreds of other such combinations that should also be added and MapFinder will still be missing combinations that Players want to use when the 123rd release of MapFinder is due out.
Proposal for Rule drop-down menu redesign:
Instead of two complicated Rule drop-down menus, there will be seven simple drop-down menus:
Note that the first item is each drop-down menu is Anything, which is always the default item for any drop-down menu. Also, note that except for the Terrain drop-down menu, the second item is always None (or Flat = No Hill). These two items are essential for making the seven drop-down menus work well together in minimizing the number of needed Rule Groupings (Rule file size and complexity). Each drop-down menu contains orthogonal (independent) items that can be freely combined to define the exact Tile attributes desired, especially the "don't care" item Anything which greatly reduces the number of Rule Groupings (avoids the enumeration of every item under Anything as required under the current MapFinder Rule selection process and the resultant explosion of Rule Groupings that results).
Note that there may be reasonable of ways of combining the five menus Hill, Feature, Water, Hut and Settler drop-down menus into 2-3 menus of combination items, but that would detract form the simplicity of having seven drop-down menus.
Please respond to this with your questions, comments and criticisms of the above MapFinder Rule drop-down menu redesign proposal.
Sun Tzu Wu
The current Rule Selection has a "Rule Category" and "Rule Selection" plus the Min and Max numbers that determines whether the rule matches based on the number of tested Tiles that match.
The simple "Rule Category" and "Rule Selection" is a bit cumbersome and not very flexible, especially for matches that must test several different attributes of a Tile. These attributes include whether the Tile has a particular Base Terrain (Ocean, Coast, Lake, Ice, Snow, Tundra, Plains, Grassland, Desert), a Hill, a Forest, a Jungle, a Floodplain, a Riverside, a Lakeside, a particular Resource, a Hut and even the presence of the Settler.
The current Rule selection process becomes cumbersome because it enumerates many combinations of these attributes, but can't possibly list them all without becoming so cumbersome that Rule selection becomes tedious to use. Also, the combinations provided are so limited that it can take dozens of rule groupings to define a search that should take as little as two rule groupings. Furthermore, the vast majority of all non-trivial searches that should be definable are impossible due to severe limits on what a Rule can currently specify.
Here is an example of a Tile that should be easy to specify, but is currently impossible to do: A simple Riverside, Gold Resource on a Plains Hill. The solution is not adding this combination as a new "Combo Types", because there are hundreds of other such combinations that should also be added and MapFinder will still be missing combinations that Players want to use when the 123rd release of MapFinder is due out.
Proposal for Rule drop-down menu redesign:
Instead of two complicated Rule drop-down menus, there will be seven simple drop-down menus:
- Terrain.....Hill...........Feature...... Water........Resource....Hut...........Settler
- ------......---..........-------....... -----.........--------.....---...........------
- Anything...Anything...Anything..... Anything....Anything....Anything....Anything
- Ocean......Flat..........None.......... None/Dry....None.........None.........None
- Coast.......Hill...........Forest......... Lakeside....Aluminum....Hut...........Settler
- Lake.......................Jungle......... Riverside....Coal
- Ice.........................Floodplains... ...............Copper
- Snow....................................... ................Horse
- Tundra..................................... ................Iron
- Plains....................................... ................Marble
- Grassland.................................. ................Oil
- Desert...................................... ................Etc.
Note that the first item is each drop-down menu is Anything, which is always the default item for any drop-down menu. Also, note that except for the Terrain drop-down menu, the second item is always None (or Flat = No Hill). These two items are essential for making the seven drop-down menus work well together in minimizing the number of needed Rule Groupings (Rule file size and complexity). Each drop-down menu contains orthogonal (independent) items that can be freely combined to define the exact Tile attributes desired, especially the "don't care" item Anything which greatly reduces the number of Rule Groupings (avoids the enumeration of every item under Anything as required under the current MapFinder Rule selection process and the resultant explosion of Rule Groupings that results).
Note that there may be reasonable of ways of combining the five menus Hill, Feature, Water, Hut and Settler drop-down menus into 2-3 menus of combination items, but that would detract form the simplicity of having seven drop-down menus.
Please respond to this with your questions, comments and criticisms of the above MapFinder Rule drop-down menu redesign proposal.
Sun Tzu Wu
