My immediate UI wishlist

[thecrazyscot]

After watching several reviews, it's clear that the UI needs work. Overall I actually like the clean look, but there's some glaring omissions in terms of providing information to the player.

These listed here are all low-hanging fruit. I'm hopeful that many or most of these issues will be addressed quickly by Firaxis, but if not I will be looking at the feasibility of modding them in ASAP. I might try to add Ageless indicators to buildings in the map tooltips before my first game, lol.

This is not exhaustive, and there are lots of things I'd like to see improve in the Civilopedia as well. The Resource Management screen requires a large overhaul as well, imo.

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• Happiness should show how many turns until the next celebration. For example: +21 (3) OR +21 (60/100)
• Settlement Limit should dynamically change color based on whether you are under (green), at (white), or over (red) the limit.

Civic/Tech Trees

• We need unique icons for things unlocked by the Tech/Civic trees instead of one or more generic "+" icons.
• The white unit icons on the Tech/Civic trees (and in the Production panel) should include pips to show what tier they are.

Towns & Cities

• Town names should indicate what kind of town they are (Growing, Mining, Trading, etc) at a glance

• Food cost for next growth should be indicated in the city view
• Production cost for items should indicated next to the turn length to produce (this same idea should be applied to Civic/Tech tree costs)
• Maintenance should be included in the Production/Purchase list
• Building Breakdown screen should include important keywords (Ageless, etc)
• Right click on item should open Civilopedia entry

Tooltips

• Buildings should indicate whether they are Ageless in the tooltip. For example: Brickyard (A) or some nice icon.

Miscellaneous

• Building descriptions should condense adjacency bonus lists.

 

[Krikkit1]

After watching several reviews, it's clear that the UI needs work. Overall I actually like the clean look, but there's some glaring omissions in terms of providing information to the player.

These listed here are all low-hanging fruit. I'm hopeful that many or most of these issues will be addressed quickly by Firaxis, but if not I will be looking at the feasibility of modding them in ASAP. I might try to add Ageless indicators to buildings in the map tooltips before my first game, lol.

This is not exhaustive, and there are lots of things I'd like to see improve in the Civilopedia as well. The Resource Management screen requires a large overhaul as well, imo.

Top Banner
View attachment 718084

• Happiness should show how many turns until the next celebration. For example: +21 (3) OR +21 (60/100)

That should be applied to both Science (tech) and Culture (civic) as well

 

[ombak]

I will say, with settlement limit being a soft cap that you can choose to go over and try to manage, I would find red rather annoying for any number over the cap. If I had happiness under control, I'd keep looking at a red number and thinking "I have to do something" and then a half-second later realize "Oh, it's just settlement limit, I know what is going on there, we're fine."

 

[Leyrann]

• Settlement Limit should dynamically change color based on whether you are under (green), at (white), or over (red) the limit.

May I suggest blue instead for being under? This is far more convenient for color-blind people (like me), and while it's a bit less common, it's common enough to have the same associations. Alternatively, green with a bit of a blue tint already does a lot (idk about other countries but where I live this is actually standard for traffic lights and it works really well).

Here's a suggestion of my own: Hovering over the yields in the city screen should show a tooltip with a breakdown of where they originate.

 

[pokiehl]

Excellent ideas all around.

 

[Zaarin]

I agree with everything except the colored settlement limit. I get where you're coming from, but being over the settlement limit is not a major penalty from what I've seen.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I still like the idea of color coding the settlement limit. I get that it is a soft cap and being over it by a 1-2 is not a major problem. But it might still be nice visually to let players know so that they can plan if it is a problem. After all, you might be in a game where going over the settlement cap by 3 or 4 does produce major problems because you don't have enough happiness buildings. I might suggest something like green, blue, white, orange, red to differentiate how much you are under or over. So if you are say 1-3 over the limit, it would be orange. If you are 3 or more over the limit, it would be red. This way if you are just a little over, it would be orange as an early warning that you might have issues if you continue to go over. If you get a lot over the limit, it would be red to indicate a potential serious problem.

 

[Krikkit1]

I still like the idea of color coding the settlement limit. I get that it is a soft cap and being over it by a 1-2 is not a major problem. But it might still be nice visually to let players know so that they can plan if it is a problem. After all, you might be in a game where going over the settlement cap by 3 or 4 does produce major problems because you don't have enough happiness buildings. I might suggest something like green, blue, white, orange, red to differentiate how much you are under or over. So if you are say 1-3 over the limit, it would be orange. If you are 3 or more over the limit, it would be red. This way if you are just a little over, it would be orange to warn you that you might have issues if you continue to go over. If you get a lot over the limit, it would be red to indicate a potential serious problem.

Well no difference in the “less than” so
blue/green (less)
white (equal)
orange (over)
red (over and one or more of your settlements are unhappy)….or less than 5 net happiness

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Well no difference in the “less than” so
blue/green (less)
white (equal)
orange (over)
red (over and one or more of your settlements are unhappy)

I like this. This captures what I was trying to say.

 

[Ornen]

I can’t believe the game doesn’t come with a ‘next action’ key binding, or the ability to add one. to me, that’s fundamental

 

[Seek]

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Mousing over the icons should give at least a basic breakdown tooltip like in every other civ game.
There should be something to indicate when in a Celebration - Happiness icon should at least glow or something.

 

[tagomago1979]

I wish for them to start the UI from scratch.

 

[GeneralZift]

I'd add for them to at least align the symbols with the text. This is unnerving

 

[lbchaos]

UI have the proportions for console, horrendous. A day one MOD to this issue needed.

 

[evonannoredars]

View attachment 718089

I don't get the logic behind showing yields in cities or on tiles to one decimal place if they're then whole numbers on the top bar. I'd much prefer no decimal places for readability and consistency. '57 45 6 29 23 34 4' would much more readable imo than the current '57.0 47.0 6.0 29.0 23.0 34.5 4.0'.

 

[Krikkit1]

I don't get the logic behind showing yields in cities or on tiles to one decimal place if they're then whole numbers on the top bar. I'd much prefer no decimal places for readability and consistency. '57 45 6 29 23 34 4' would much more readable imo than the current '57.0 47.0 6.0 29.0 23.0 34.5 4.0'.

that’s good if it shows the breakdown with exact numbers when you mouse over.

 

[uppi]

Well no difference in the “less than” so
blue/green (less)
white (equal)
orange (over)
red (over and one or more of your settlements are unhappy)….or less than 5 net happiness

I don't think being under should be green. Green is usually (or maybe I have played to many PDX games?) used to indicate an effect which is good for you. But being under your settlement limit is not a good thing as you get no advantage of it and you are missing yields those settlements could generate.

 

[Ornen]

I don't think being under should be green. Green is usually (or maybe I have played to many PDX games?) used to indicate an effect which is good for you. But being under your settlement limit is not a good thing as you get no advantage of it and you are missing yields those settlements could generate.

color coding text is unnecessary imo in general. it’s just distracting, there’s nothing wrong with white on black (or black on white)

 

[Zaarin]

Well no difference in the “less than” so
blue/green (less)
white (equal)
orange (over)
red (over and one or more of your settlements are unhappy)….or less than 5 net happiness

I'd be relatively okay with this. I just don't want the numbers turning red when being over the settlement limit seems to be playing optimally. But overall it seems like some unnecessary distracting color on an already colorful menu.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

If people don't like color coding the settlement cap, maybe instead, there could be a red fist next to the settlement cap if you have at least one city in revolt. This way you are not drawing attention to being over the settlement cap since it is a soft cap that may not be bad per se but there is a warning icon to let the player know that cities are in revolt which is a bad thing.