More Efficient Interface and Gameplay

[Beloyar]

I'd like AI players to make all their moves without my having to click 'OK' on pop-up windows every time some civ starts building a wonder or declares war on another civ. All this information should be logged into a list and presented to me when my turn comes, so I can look at all things at the same time.

The main improvement in this would be better time management. While the computer is making its moves (this usually takes 10 times longer than me making my moves), I can leave my computer to go and make myself a sandwich, or go to the bathroom, or talk on the phone, or watch a show, etc.

Currently, I find it extremely boring to stare at the monitor and haphazardly respond to overwhelming pop-ups during the computer's turns.


● Other ideas along these lines are welcome here.

 

[Denarr]

Yeah, I remember playing a game with 30 something civs...took so long for the AI to take their turns, I could go outside, have a smoke, check to see if anyone wanted to negotiate with me during their turn, then go to the store for a soda and still be back before the AI was done. I timed it once, it went down to 25 minutes after I took one of the nations out.
I ended up quitting that game.
There should be some way to speed up the Unseen Negotiations and other AI decision trees...Civ 2 AI didn't take much time, at all. Sure they were stupider, but this...just doesn't make sense.

 

[Jon Shafer]

You can turn off some popups, like the wonders one.

Though a log of things that happened would be very nice. Would also be very helpful for PBEM games, so you wouldn't have to code in a playback mode.

 

[Karsinogeeni]

On other words hyperthreading should be in heavy use. I truly hope dev team takes everything out of it.

The idea that there should be a log of all events instead of computer letting you know every time when something happens.

 

[Myzenium]

Great idea, Beloyar. A log of events to be updated when your turn begins would be very, very useful.

Other ideas for "more efficient interface and gameplay", hmmmm. I once made a post (#4) in Make it less time consuming, which was started by Offa.

[Myzenium edits the text of his old post for clarity.]

Done. Here's the general idea:

Civ2 had detailed reports on other nations in the advisor windows. In Civ3, checking each nation's negotiation screen to get simple facts is a ridiculously unnecessary clickfest. To reduce time spent there, I suggest that some functionality be added to the Trade and Foreign advisors:

• Whenever a rival Civ has an unused luxury or strategic resource connected to your trade network, the Trade Advisor should report that fact to you (in the log of events, as Beloyar suggested) so you can immediately barter for it.
• On the Foreign Advisor screen, right-clicking on a leaderhead will make a window appear, listing important facts about that leader's Civ; like his gold in the treasury, technologies that his Civ knows (but yours doesn't), technologies that your Civ knows (but his doesn't), and his quantity of cities. All this information is available through the negotiation screen; it should be displayed with one key press and a mouse click.