"To Do" Lists

[Mr Blobby]

Ok, I originally posted this on the 'Sid Meier's Civilization IV -- Prerelease Information' thread, but now I realise that was probably the wrong place, so am posting as a new thread instead...

This bugs me so much about previous civ games that I'd thought I'd better join your forums and post my thoughts:

During end of turn processing, I often think of things I'd like to do in the next turn. The problem is that at the start of the next turn, I am often bombarded with pop-up windows telling me of completed production, etc that I have to deal with immediately. By the time I am finished, I can often end up forgetting what I was originally going to do.

Now you could accuse me of having limited brain capacity, but I think these dialogs would be much better presented as a 'to-do' list of issues that I can deal with at my leisure. Some of them may have to be 'completed' before I can start the next turn, and some I could just tick off as 'ignore' or 'done'. The main thing would be that I didn't have to deal with them immediately at the start of turn. This would allow me the chance to maybe do some research before I decided how to resolve an issue, resolve the issues in any order I see fit, or postpone dealing with them until I do the things that I had planned to do before I forget them.

If such a system were implemented in Civ IV, it would be great to also add my own 'to-dos' to the list. These could 'be there all the time', 'pop up in year yyyy' or maybe just return to bug me in 'x' turns time.

Do other people suffer from similar forgetfulness?

In my brief contact with these forums, I haven't seen anyone else suggest a similar idea - but even if they have, I really felt that I had to get that off my chest!

 

[woodelf9ca]

I think this is a great idea. I also find it annoying at times when I want to do something and you get all the popup the must be solved right away. I think this is a great way to solve this problem.

 

[sir_schwick]

information management really does need streamlining, good way to do it

 

[civzombie]

This is a very good idea!

Bumpity bump bump... please read firaxis...

 

[Bluetooth]

You said it all, a very good idea.

 

[sengfossil]

For me I can live with the pop up's like "production finished, what next" and so on.
But what me really hurts are the messages which occuring during the beginning of each turn like "Pollution", "Revolts", "cultural border expanding" and so on. They appearing over the cities and fading away.
In SMAC as well as in games like the MOO-series I have an advisor window which shows me the turn-messages. I really would see no big programming efforts in doing that.
And I always wonder, why Sid Meier in SMAC had so much innovation and improvements, and did it not use in Civ3. I mean, check that forum, a sentence like "this was already done in SMAC" ist fairly often used.

 

[sir_schwick]

Different developement team and a lack of Brian Reynolds. Look how many times people also mention RoN, another Brian Reynolds joint.

 

[brinko]

actually u can queue your building production, so that when one production is complete it automaticly goes to the next, i think u can have 10 in a row. i think u use shift or something, but in the city view there is an option to queue.

 

[sengfossil]

actually u can queue your building production...

well but that still doesn't solve the problem of the lost informations about pollution, border expanding and revolts. All those small messages schould be kept in a "messages of the turn" window.

Look how many times people also mention RoN,...

What is RoN?

 

[sir_schwick]

RoN, or Rise of Nations. If you are not familiar with Rise of Nations, I really cannot help you further.

 

[Pentium]

I absolutely agree. They becopme so annoying. A single window would be better. I think of something like in SimCity3.

 

[civzombie]

Yes sometimes I forget to fix civil disorder because a close the annoying pop-up to address a military problem. A to-do list would help me remember by the end of my turn.

 

[Admiral8Q]

This is an excellent idea! I'm all for it! An' me brain be too!

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Well, if all they do is stick with the current system of quick little text messages that appear by the city, often gone so quickly that you can't remember where they even were, then yes, some kind of log is needed.

I think maybe 2 things would be optimum: first, a turn log, empties out and refreshes with every turn, a simple window containing a detailed list of all pertinent events that occurred that turn, as suggested elsewhere.

Second, some kind of simple built in notepad that lets you enter in actual "to do" type stuff for reference later, say after you pick up on the game next day. In this little log you might enter notes like "build worker in Antium after aqueduct done" or "talk to Isabella about silks after we get Philosophy, for a trade". If this were accessible with the click of an icon it would be VERY handy (and please don't tell me about ALT-TAB, that does not work right on my winME system, and takes longer even if it does). A friend used to write stuff down on paper while playing CTP, if your pen/paper are right there in the game, it makes much more sense. Maybe the game could automatically pop a little date/turn header in there for you also when you open it up on a new turn.

 

[Rhymes]

Now you could accuse me of having limited brain capacity,

Indeed! jk

It never really bothered me, but A single "sumary of turn" window would be a great addition to the game.

 

[thescaryworker]

There could be a button that you pushed that showed production for that turn. All of the events could really be just a list:

--+ means 'just produced'
--> means 'what to produce next'
[
PRODUCTION:
Justacity --+ Settler --> Worker?
Justatown --+ Archer --> Archer?
Gigleheim --+ Swordsman --> Spearman?
Omlet --+ Worker --> Worker?
EXPANDED BORDERS
Kingstown's, Omlet's, and Cities of Bread's borders have expanded to level 2
Gagamentown's borders have expanded to level 4
POLLUTION
Gagamenwown is struck by pollution!
REVOLTS
Johnstownie has revolted!
WLTKD
Omlet is celebrating <insert something>
ect.
]

Or something like that.

 

[wakiki]

Yeah, that happens to me all the time. Great idea!

 

[bambuz]

How if you just had a button: "postpone" for all those popups coming up (or even a "postpone all") so you could for ex deal with the disorders first and then you could resume the popups again clicking a minimized icon that appeared when you clicked postpone. If you didn't click it, they would pop up at the end of turn anyway.

 

[Mr Blobby]

I think this would still be a bit of a pain - the sequential nature of the pop-ups is part of the problem. Having a task (or 'to-do') list seems a better solution because it allows the problems to be dealt with in any order. If they are grouped, it would also be possible to apply a group level 'done' to all similar tasks (should you so desire).

 

[Otterbear]

MR BLOBBY
You are completely right... It must be the most aggravating thing about the game. Ive gotten so used to ignoring it that Ive been to this forum many times to complain about it, but then (ironicly) forget what the problem was..lol I find my self saying "Dang it!!" almost every time I hit Enter because I was side-tracked by some stupid unit that was just built or whatever.
Another biggie somebody mentioned is the "What happened this turn" messages are too brief, obscure the city/cities they happened in and THEN DISAPPEAR before you can even read them...LOL. I would love to get into the MM of this game but without being able to see what actually took place that turn, I find it impossible. Man I hope they make this change. I don't care how just allow me to review whats been created and what happened in a drop down window of something...like civ 3...a blinking icon that lets you know what happened and then gives you the option of ignoring it or whatever. But a list of what occurred is a BIG MUST for me.