19-10-1999 22:38									#31
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I think there should be some screens where you can do a lot of stuff quickly and where you get all the information you need to run your empire. Best would be to include batch operations, so that I can set options for multiple cities with a few clicks.

What I liked about CtP and what you HAVE to include is the maximize tab! When I want to boost production, I hit the production button, when I want to boost my treasury I hit the gold button! Wonderful thing! However, the feature was not perfectly implemented in Ctp, so that I had to select every single city and maximize it and now you see why I vote for batch operations. Wouldnt it be better (in one single screen) to sort all cities by size and then select the five best cities and maximize them for production in times of war!

I would make a single status screen where there are registers (or tabs) named cities, civ, units... .

In addition maybe you could make the windows resizeable. When maximized, the window shows all the information, when not, there are scrollbars, but then you can view parts of the map.

I really disliked the city screen of SMAC or SMACX. I only played the demo however, but everytime I open it, I get knocked down. It feels overloaded, there is no contrast! Blue on blue. Remember the civ2 screen had green regions and orange regions and blue regions. This helps orientating!

BUT: And I hope everyone agrees with me, if you make the game sluggish, nobody will care about the design! Design has to be fast to be (not) noticed!

Ata

	19-10-1999 22:47									#32
	Inflate your Upload Space

Btw, Yin, Heroes of Might and Magic III is great! I have played the game at my friends and I liked it the very first moment I played it!
There are now 8 different castles and all have 7 different creatures making 56 creatures, plus the 4 creatures that nobody (at least no player) has (earth, water, fire, air creatures). Making 60 unique creatures.
There are tons of hereos all unique. There are tons of spells. XL maps are sooo large, it will take hours to explore and conquer them completely.
There are 7 different resources (I believe 7).
But best are the 8 different castle types. This guarantees replayability!

All combined makes one of the greatest games!

So much for homm3,
Ata

	19-10-1999 23:09									#33
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I just picked up Test of Time and have been playing it off and on for a couple days, which is why my new top priority for the Civ III interface is:

SPEED

Moving a unit should be as fast as possible. No, make that faster than possible. Likewise, any pulldown menus should appear almost intantaneously, with as little ostentation as possible. In fact, I would even prefer Civ III to operate in a standard window rather than a full-screen jump that takes precious seconds and makes the monitor blip every time I want to multitask. Er.

For that matter, a standard Windows menu bar is infinitely more user friendly than some obscure customized interface what minimizes on the bottom or side of the screen somewhere, and besides, any interface you design will end up eating memory and wasting time, and very little is gained. Not to mention that designing a customized system of pop-up message windows has got to be a pain; why bother? We instinctively know how Windows works. Escape equals "cancel" and takes down a message box. Enter equals "okay" if there's no "cancel" box. You don't have to worry about training yourself to hit the space bar or alt-S or some other exotic key combination that way.

Another quick issue

KEYBOARDS

My sense is that simulation players, Civ players in particular, are happier with keyboard controls than the mouse. I understand designing a mouse-oriented system, but I also believe that every function of the game, no matter how obscure, should have a keyboard shortcut. I would also appreciate the ability to mark and number a unit or group of units, as in Age of Empires/Kings. (You know: select a group, hit control-{number} to mark, then you can select that group by hitting alt-{number} without having to hunt all over the map.)

	20-10-1999 15:11									#34
	Support Apolyton

EnochF: If you have played CtP you'll see that a mouse orientated design can be quite good to. The only keys in CtP I use are Strg+s and Strg+l and sometimes the 'n' key for next turn but only rarley. Most unit-options are shown as large buttons and can easily be reached. It needs some time to get used to, but when used to it, you'll like it!

Ata

	20-10-1999 16:07									#35
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Ata,

Thanks for the good word on HoMM3. I can't wait to get my copy once things slow down for me. By the way, how have they changed the interface?

	20-10-1999 20:31									#36
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Build To: feature for settlers
==============================

In master of magic, you can instruct your engineer to build a road from point a to point b. Usually that how I build all my roads in Master of Magic.

In Civ2 you have to manually instruct your settler to build a road in every spot. This build to feature would eleviate much of the micromanagement that a settler would require.

If one were to expand this further, you could highlight an area and tell your settler to BLAH this area, where blah is irrigate, or pilage, or mine. This would also help trim down micromanagement.

Micromanaging settlers is the one thing that really makes me batty about CIV2. Please fix it in civ3.

	20-10-1999 20:52									#37
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

3 Scenario builder Enhancemencements.
1 New feature.

#1 Named Heroes/Villains joining or opposing players.

Let Random Named Heroes enter the game under random conditions.

Example: When player 'x' achieves amassing xx dollars or hits tech level yy, or something then unleash demon type BLAH.

Or, Darkvine the evil lord (hero unit) joins in a pact against player 'y'.

#2 Reserves coming over the hill...

Example: In the Scenario Builder, allow the programmed entrance of xx units on to the map on turn yy, at location zz.

What does this mean? A good hearty scenario with reserve units entering the board. This is good because you can do scenarios that dont depend on cities being on the board. It also means you can do good classic wargame scenarios with reserves, just like the old SPI type of wargames.

#3 An Item builder like in Master of Magic.
This item can be used to actually pump up a unit on the board.

Example: Unit A finds a ring of invisibility (unit is no longer affected by zone of control. Unit B finds boots of springing (plus 3 to move)


#4 Introduce named abilities that units can aquire during the game.

Example: Spells!!! Unit A finds a scroll that instills water walking(can move on water with out a boat) or stone skin(defense +2), or fear(causes enemy units to retreat).

	21-10-1999 00:37									#38
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Yin: Sorry, I dont know Homm2, so I cant speak of any changes. Homm3 is the only one of the 3 I posess. But, the interface is quite easy, as I (newbie) got used to quite quickly.

ATa

	21-10-1999 01:10									#39
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Check out the MISCELLANEOUS summary. The last several posts were stolen from the PLAYER INTERFACE threads, and IMHO should be considered. On the whole, I must agree fully with EnochF about speed, using a standard Window, and mandatory keyboard shortcuts.

yin, Ata:

The upgrade from HOMM2 to HOMM3 is mostly an upgrade in graphics, with a few new monsters, spells, and structures on the land. Oh, and the underground map. The campaigns, unfortunately, are a lot worse.

	21-10-1999 03:25									#40
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I suggest including a sidebar that scrolls vertically through all of the cities you have. They should be organized chronologically with (in very small letters) the name of the city and the population. And put that info over a little icon that looks like the city does on the game. I suggest keeping it very small (about 20x20 pixels or so) so not to take up too much space, but go all the way from the top to the bottom. When you click on the city once, it will center on it on the map, click it again and it will enter the city. It can be compared to the way the castles are organized in Heroes of Might and Magic 1, 2, and 3.

	21-10-1999 06:15									#41
	Got spare money?

Some proper Automation of Constructing units would be good. The Automation of units in "Test of time" is really Bad. Being able to order a unit to improve a cities roads should have it build roads for every possible square for the city. Being able to shift click squares and then order the same improvement for all would be great. The best bit would be the MOM feature of building roads from here to here and having the unit do so.

After completing its assigned task it should come back and be available again.

Paul Krenske

	21-10-1999 08:03									#42
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I say the interface should be something between the too-dark SMAC and the too-bright CTP.

	21-10-1999 19:52									#43
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Hey,
Remember the original screen in CIV 1 where at the end of the game you got to see a history of your world? The world map was seen and the borders and cities of the various empires was updated as a timeline was moved along, also the first civ to discover a tech was announced. This was a very cool feature, one that I would love to see includded with CIV III. It was something I looked forward to much more than seeing some "movie" at the end of a game.

	22-10-1999 03:21									#44
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Civ CTP's graphics were good -- colorful and high-resolution with plenty of detail. SMAC missed out with low-resolution graphics. But it did beat CTP in interface. In CTP you were supposed to move units with the mouse which is VERY UNCOMFORTABLE for those accustomed to the numeric pad arrows. I would like to see a cross between RTS games and TBS. Have the option to highlight unit groups with an on-screen box for "go to" like Total Annihilation, but still be able to use the arrow keys for individual units.

For everything else, the interface of SMAC should be replicated using CTP's better graphics style.

	22-10-1999 20:27									#45
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Moving with the mouse is not so bad IMO. I like it!

Ata

	23-10-1999 12:29									#46
	Get a bigger avatar today!

1/ Custom graphics interface elements, preferably 2-4 different styles. (in editable graphic format .gfx .jpg etc.)
2/ Menu/interface editor with underlying scripting language.
3/ User defined shortcuts/hot keys.
4/ Full screen mode (ala Yin).
5/ User defined/modified scripts can change ANYTHING dinamically on the interface. (i.e. in year 1500AD the interface look alike change from style 1 to style 3, etc.)
6/ The complete interface/menu/graphics system are saveable/loadable (like a scenario )

Blade

	23-10-1999 18:12									#47
	Remove this text

Thanks Blade, now you're gonna have me redesigning the interface more than actually playing the game. Anyone find themselves creating units more than actually playing with it in the game? I did, and how pathetic that was.

	24-10-1999 13:11									#48
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I would argue strongly for a return to the civ2 style of showing a city's current status on food, production, an science GRAPHICALLY, both on the little resource map and in the cities screen. Civ2 was superb. SMAC and CTP and TOT all moved to a numerical system, a backwards step IMHO. Why is beyond me. Numbers are not nearly as intuitive when you have to review many cities quickly. Why not offer both?

	25-10-1999 03:22									#49
	Increase Your PM Length

The ONLY thing that I ask of Civ III's interface is that it be easy to figure out and fast. One of the things that made Civs I and II such addictive games was the fact that you could figure out how to play the game right out of the box without reading the manual/playing the tutorial. Unfortunetly, CTP came out with a new "improved" interface which did nothing but turn users off. I personally do not have tons of free time to "get used" to a total overhaul of the graphical interface system, so playability is tops in my book.
One more thing: I love the ticker idea, and also the history book at the end of the game.

	26-10-1999 01:06									#50
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Thumbs up on the ticker idea. That always added a fun element to SimCity. Make sure the ticker doesn't slow down an average speed computer system, though. Don't make the ticker access the CD, for example.

Thumbs up to historical summaries. Half the reason I play Civ is to write a new history. It would even help keep me interested in the late game if I could take a break and look at the major events of the year I just played, like an almanac, showing the various statistics of my empire, discoveries I made this year, attacks and battles, new trade routes, environmental damage... sometimes I get tired of moving units around. Let me look at what I've accomplished.

	27-10-1999 10:51									#51
	Support Apolyton

Hey, I've got your specifics right here!

Keyboard control is a must. SMAC limited keyboard control to one or two things at any given time: Base Control Screen steps through bases in alpha order with left/right keys, but you can't switch Resource/Support/Psych display, open the build orders or build queue or hurry, scroll through garrison or unit support list. One should at least be able to tab between the MFD, Build, Base names areas for arrow key manipulation.

As implemented Labs & Energy Banks Reports don't allow keyboard scrolling. Base Ops Report can't switch between production, citizens, and garrison views, while scrolling doesn't work after clicking on a base. Returning to Base Ops from a Base Control Screen repostions you to the beginning of the list instead of wherever you were when you entered the Base Control Screen.

Datalinks: should be able to tab between the data screen and the list of topics, and scroll/page through the topics.

SORTING! Can't sort or manually rearrange presentations in any way. Should be able to sort tech by category, bases by size or location or manual arrangement.

I feel better now

	29-10-1999 02:44									#52
	Full PM-box? Change here!

As mentioned summary pages are great especially if you can sort like MOO2. I also like keyboard shortcuts F1 for city status for example. If you are going to display stats like the Civ 2 demographics can they mean something or have their calculation method available. I never could figure out why my space faring CIV had an average income of $600.

If there is going to be a design screen like SMAC's workshop it would be nice if when you deleted design number 30 you weren't sent back to item #1 all the time. This would be nice for any menu like that, for example you are looking at a city status report and you click on a city to go that detailed screen when you exit the detailed screen you should go back to the status report screen in the same place you left it, not the top.

	30-10-1999 04:59									#53
	Support Apolyton

another idea borrowed from simcity (and a few other sim type games) is that i want to see trends. . as in, i want to know how much money i have now, but how much did i have a year ago? 10 years ago? am i getting it faster now than i did then, or slower? these things could be represented by a graph of some sort. . and not just about money, but about anything. . popularity, population, whatever you want. . i'd imagine that it wouldn't be too hard to implement, so the more information you can find out from these types of graphs. . , the better.

	31-10-1999 10:41									#54
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

City windows: like civ II. No bar graphs nor only numbers. I liked the different pictures (one for food, one for science, etc) that are spacious when there are few and crunched when there are many, these would be acompanied by numbers. And soft colors that complement, each other.
- Think Civ II -

Allow an option to hide the general information toolbar, and let us be able to choose what side of the screen it can be on (top, bottom, left, right). Allow resizing of that little world map, maybe even allow the space bar to maximize the map window (like in Homeworld - but 2D).
---
OT? Window sizing of the game: If you allow it to be a window (most older games) which people have mentioned, rather than full screen (like newer games) please put a screen resolution option in it. I *hate* having to change my desktop resolution just to play a game.

	31-10-1999 18:37									#55
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Filters would be nice.

Like when looking at a the unit totals summaries, being able to filter out units that have no existing copies and none under production...Usually the AI lists are 3 - 5 pages by the end of the game, and most don't exist anymore...

Give more fileds in teh summary windows available than you display, and allow the user to determine with filds are important to them. Personally i would use a net production field more than raw production.

	01-11-1999 08:52									#56
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I want a screen where I can "talk" (literally) with my advisors. The High Consul in Civ2 is nice, but it feels like a one way dialogue. I also want the interface to be interactive.Like when i want to talk with one of my advisors, i don't click the Advisors Menu, but instead i "pick up a phone" and summon all of my advisors for a meeting. In this "meeting", i can ask some questions and also ANSWER some question (for example, the Senate wants my explanation for sending my nuclear subs to another nation's territory).
Another example is when i want to change the tax rate. I summon my economy advisor, and discuss this matter, and the outcome would be the new tax setting.
The coolest implementation of this interactive-interface, i think, would be in the battlefield. I'd rather shouted "CHAAARGE, and fight to the death!!!!!", than simply move a unit to an enemy city.

	03-11-1999 21:57									#57
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Garth, that's 600 constant 4000 BC dollars, which is $263,592.31 after adjusting for inflation

	04-11-1999 21:07									#58
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Have a hotkey that will overlay trade routes on the map, allowing players to see where to intercept/pirate trade routes.

A toggle for messages. Allow the player to set the message time on screen from 2-20 seconds + one more that lasts until the player clicks it off. Have 2 different settings: One for regular message windows & one for combat message windows separately.

	04-11-1999 21:38									#59
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

The one thing I liked the most in SMAC was the way you could customize your troops. I like parashuting col.pods. They take a few more rounds to build, but saves shitloads of time on movement.

The second most loved thing in SMAC was the ease of uppgrading obsolete units. In CivII nothing anoyed me more than having twenty phalanks lying around during the space-age.

Both of these options should IMO be included in CivIII.

As for interface, I like the SMAC interface, but I'd go for a more "windowish" one. Like CivII, so I can play it on work and still be able to alt-tab myself back to photoshop when the boss comes in the door.

Interface is one area whre Microsoft really shines. Learn from them. But make CivIII more stable. A blue screen is fun for no-one.

------------------
mail: bondetamp@yahoo.com

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by bondetamp (edited November 17, 1999).]</font>

	11-11-1999 18:01									#60
	Suffering from ads?

Absolutely everything that can be hyperlinked should be, as in Championship Manager 3 (football(soccer) management sim). It can be frustrating at first but very quickly makes you curse every other interface ever. Even my kettle's seems overly complicated now.