11-04-2003 16:09									#1
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links to relevent threads pending...

	11-04-2003 23:10									#2
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right, here's an old layout i dug up, there are other variations, this is the most simple, which i knocked up this aft, naturally it's abit rough - no photoshop or anything, just mspaint, but you get the jist.

each head funtions as an icon for each section of government.

the heads could change as characters in the govt. age and die etc...

the icons along the top.

left to right:


national flag, - doesn't have to do anything, but it could

news and reports,

time advance - a slider, rather than buttons. forget turns unless you want to fix the advanced amount of time.

map screaan - back to you CIV style map

files, - options preferences, whatever you want to call it


your thoughts please... i'll post some other screen ideas as we go, i'd appreciate some direction as to what kinds of screens are wanted, and what stuff is wanted shown on them, and any other thoughts - i'll stick up my attempts for "analysis".

ciao,

JAck

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	11-04-2003 23:43									#3
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09-04-2003 01:23 | profile | mail | pm | search | buddy edit | quote link | report | ip

Crime


I wondered how crime was going to be treated.

you could keep it simple, and just have a statistic for all crime, and generic pirates etc...

but the idea of characters, and characters with faces is kind of exciting...

two ideas have come t omind:

1. a black market or black market statistic
i don't know how deep you actually plan to go, whether your really interested in commodities, or just "trade".
whether there will be any scope for embargoes and laws and bribery stuff like that.

2. criminal organisations - this could be anything from a pirate gang - thinking of a great chinese pirate who had a huge fleet and ran Taiwan, and Captain Morgan, a Welsh pirate who worked for the British government.
not to mention Al Qaeda, the Mafia, various drug cartels the list goes on - they remind me of the "nomadic civ" idea mentioned - stateless, but with a similar structure.

i think the Iraq thing is stimulating more contemporary ideas which may not have been thought of.
i think there may be interest and demand for scope for contemporary scenarios though. a Gulf war scenario seems likely.

	13-04-2003 04:03									#4
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Hi Jack:

quote: Originally posted by yellowdaddy each head funtions as an icon for each section of government. the heads could change as characters in the govt. age and die etc...

I'd rather have an icon representing the area (Economy etc.) along with some info rather than filling all the space with a bunch of faces. Just my opinion, lets see what others think.

	13-04-2003 22:46									#5
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can you elaborate please Mark?
what kind of info? the idea was really to have a more "painting"-like de[piction of your nation, it's culture and point in history, so arabs, and chinese would have appropriate clothes - this is the very basic version... what kind of info? how to display it without being too cluttered? don't you want to see your Chancellor or other senior figures with a face and a name somewhere? any one of the m could become a leader, couldn't they?

Last edited by yellowdaddy on 13-04-2003 at 22:54

	14-04-2003 16:40									#6
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Hi Jack:

My thought had been for the character representing each area would be shown on the gui element for that area. The econ minister or whatever would be shown giving advice on the econ screen. To have a bunch of faces on a civ-overview screen seems meaningless to me. I as a player would ignore such a screen because it gives no important game info. I frankly don't care what kind of clothes or what skin color or age my ministers have. These are my personal preferences only. . . Lets see what others think.

The kind of info I would instead show on a civ-overview screen would have things like how big the treasury is, and the net growth rate. How big the army is, and how it compares to the neighbors. How overall tech level compares to the neighbors and the world. . . I think players would get vastly more use out of this sort of screen than the one you proposed. YMMV

	14-04-2003 21:29									#7
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When would you show this screen? To me it seems an intermediary screen between world map and f.e. military panel, thus it is one more click which doesn't provide much interesting info. I'd rather have images of characters as a background image during diplomatic talks and advisor talks. Alternately, they can do as icons but you have to be able to see from the face what the icon means (f.e. science would be an Ensteinesque face, with a cornuthaum or glasses, military a helmet, social an Elvis look).

	14-04-2003 23:09									#8
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Well, i only meant this as a direction indicator... i was thinking of drawing a throneroom or a presidential office scene - perhaps one which could change with the period and culture.
I had sketched out a scene with each minister - just as an alternative to the more tradition row of icons along the bottom and info box up the sied as i had posted before. The idea being to present an alternative to having the map as the total focus of the game.
In response to Marks comments, i've sketched out a design of the leader's office - not unlike an Encarta screen i remember with a highlightable set of items relevent to each sector:
- a globe for the map screen,
- a treasure chest for the economy screen,
- a cupboard for the resources screen,
- a bookcase for the society screen,
- a toolbox/pencil case [?!] for the construction/design/research screen,
- a set of display armour on the wall for the military screen,
- the centre being dominated by a desk on which is an open letter or document on which the latest reports could appear written.
- a clock or calendar on the wall in front between the cupboard and bookcase for the time advance
- below a portrait of the leader, which could have dynastic info
- perhaps a door on the right to exit the screen?
- a window on the left for something a view of the state of the nation?! or the graphs of which nations are dominant? i dunno

and perhaps there could be room for a few humourous anims of insects or something, a candle burning slowly down to give a very vague notion of how for through the game you are?

this scene could be modified from a stone age one, dark ages, through classical, mediaeval, renaissance, revolutionary, victorian/industrial age, 20th century/communications age, and 21st century/nano-age? and perhaps with a range of north and south european, oriental , middle eastern, african, mesoamerican, hindu/buddhist, oceanian, and american indian/siberian nomad themes?

i haven't drawn any computer gfx for that yet.


i do agree with Mark's thoughts, i think more info is good, and another layer of screen will get annoying
but also with di Cesare, that seeing pics of the world leaders that exist in your world whislt you negotiate is interesting - especially when they are noty limited to the same 16 as in Civ3.

what i'm thinking now is that this should be a "view government" screen, so each sector has a brief overview on this screen, and then you can click on each section to go into more detail.

yes, it could be all smalll management screens on top of the map, i'm just exploring the idea of the increased screenspace you'll have if the map is not the main screen, but just one of the main screens which comes off an overall screen like this.

now, what to display as a briewf overview for each sector? and how many sectors? is this number good enough?

...........................

what does YMMV mean?!

	15-04-2003 04:46									#9
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Hi Jack:

quote: Originally posted by yellowdaddy Well, i only meant this as a direction indicator... i was thinking of drawing a throneroom or a presidential office scene - perhaps one which could change with the period and culture.

Might work, but seems it could be rather opaque for new players, and hard to get much info across. But I'm certainly interested in looking an example over if you're willing to put the work into it!

quote: now, what to display as a briewf overview for each sector? and how many sectors? is this number good enough?

Have as many "sectors" as game models, roughly. We can tweak it from playtester feedback.

quote: what does YMMV mean?!

YMMV = "Your Mileage May Vary", meaning that you may or may not agree.

	21-04-2003 00:12									#10
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well i sense that the first one with buttons along the bottom and an info box on the right hand side turned you on the most... i was just thinking about how other games represent this sort of stuff... i'm not entirely keen on the constant map view - i'd like to see a bit more variety - a sense of being inside a nation rather than just manageing units and resources on a glorified chessboard.

i' imagining nice pics of government buildings like Big Ben, the Whithouse, Kremlin all that stuff... but it clearly can't be like that if we want to reflect the cultural/stylistic diversity -and the level of technology... it's a tricky one, but i think you're political and characters ideas demand some kind of rpg/graphic adventure style screens... this returns me to the idea of city managemtn...

without getting into that rhgit here, i think to have your own unique representation of your capital - your seat of governement, the symbols of your nation and a reflection of what kind of place it is would be nice - it's really not much more than evolving the old Palace view.

so we could have a set of terrains (with optional water features!):
actic nation
alpine
black forest
green and pleasant land
oklahoma
mediterranian
desert mountain
dunes
jungle

etc..

then building stylesets

graeco-roman
castles
babylon
pyramids/ziggurats
tenochtitlan
plinky-plonky oriental
taj mahal
angkor wat
zimbabwe

etc...

then building types:

palace
national assembly
civil service
national library
docklands
high courts
victory monuments
museum
gallery

that srt of thing

the name and details could pop up as your mouse rolls across and highlight them.

the the period:

stone age
metal age
dark age
mediaeval
renaissance
revolutioary
victorian
communications age
nano age

so, it's a fair number of graphics set, but it gives it a touch of the "Tropico" feel

729 building types, on 54 different backgrounds - but as they're all Lego-style it won't mean that there'll actually have to be that many drawn or stored.

	28-04-2003 18:42									#11
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I think this is worth trying. You can put quite a lot of information into such a screen. Information that the player doesn't have to read or decipher. And it would function like an overview, good for players who tend to forget things. Besides, there will be shortcut keys for the economy, military, etc. screen. So it will not be not annoying.
Ethnicity, characters and cultural characteristics could actually mean something this way. That way a player might choose a culture for reasons of personal affinity or interest, rather than for their superior game bonuses.
I actually feel interested too in designing such a screen.

	28-04-2003 19:46									#12
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hi,

yes, perhaps visual representations of things as opposed to only having text in the form of numbers and letters is arguably A.easier to process in your head when having a quick look, and B.more user friendly for a multilingual audience.

it'd be great to create a set of idiot proof icons and graphic representations that could eliminate the necessity for a lot of the text. just have text for names in general, any dialogue, and the game options in major languages for users. it can be a nuisance constantly switching from mouse to keyboard.

	04-05-2003 16:27									#13
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any ideas as to the structure of the screens anyone?
i won't have them done in a hurry as i've got stuff coming up in late may and early june