View Full Version : lib Some Micromanagement ideas - Game developers please read.
Arkatreides
09-06-2002, 15:30
I don't mind micromanaging my empire, in fact I really love it. The only problem I have is that you don't have the information you need to do it effectively. For example, I would like to be able to sort my provinces by income, loyalty, zeal, religion, etc. I would like to filter out sea regions, costal regions, landlocked regions etc.
I would also like to list the troops whose general has the higest dread, acumen, command etc. without going through every single unit by hand.
I also would like to look at my agents and sort them by valour, or filter them according to type, or the mission they are on, instead of having to painstakingly go through them all.
I don't think any of these things would take a lot to program (just a quicksort on data that obviously is stored somewhere anyway) and they would greatly improve the feedback you get.
On a slightly different note, I would also like to see the valour, armour, and weapon bonus a newly ceated unit would get BEFORE I train it. With 30 odd provinces I find it really difficult to remember what structures have been built where and I constantly have to check before I order new units.
Agreed. As it stands, particularly late at night/ on the wine, I just can't be bothered to pay close attention to these details, and new generals just get sent off to war, their amazing talents for admin etc, missed until the following day.......if they survive the night !!
Lists as suggested would greatly help.
Arkatreides
09-07-2002, 02:20
*now up to 50 provinces and it really starts to be a drag http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif*
*bump*
candidgamera
09-07-2002, 03:21
Arkatreides:
Agreed, noticed that was one of the complaints in the review posted here.
I like the Civ 3 method: click at the head of the column you want to see ranked. Of course the info screen might have to be bigger than it is now to fit all the attributes in.
Started my game as the Germans the other day the old fashioned way with pen and pad to make sure I governored with 4 acumen guys.
Arkatreides
09-07-2002, 14:35
Where is that review? (Link if possible)
Mount Suribachi
09-07-2002, 18:10
Totally agree with you 100%
All the information we need is in the game,somewhere - its just that finding it can be a real pain, having to jump backwards and forwards finding bits of data.
I also want to know which generals/heirs are married or of royal blood (obviously all heirs).
And which factions I am married into and which are married into me.
And which province a unit is in.
And the ability to stack SU's. Moving 20 bishops into the next province 1 at a time gets very tedious.
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We speak of deep night, deep autumn; when I think back to the year 1943 I feel like saying "deep war"
Ilya Ehrenburg
ToranagaSama
09-07-2002, 20:24
Quote Originally posted by Mount Suribachi:
I also want to know which generals/heirs are married or of royal blood (obviously all heirs).
And which factions I am married into and which are married into me.
[/QUOTE]
Right, I've been wanting to comment on this. Not only do we need to know who's married to who, but I wonder if they coded in predictable behaviours as a result of intermarriages.
For example, if the French King marries off his daughter to the German's King's heir, this should be the 2nd strongest type of alliance.
Once the German heir becomes King, this s/b the absolute strongest type of Alliant relationship.
A lot of gameplay can be had from these interrelationships, but it must be coded in; just not sure it has. I attempt to play the game as if it is, but too busy with other aspects to yet pay enough attention to notice to what degree that it's working.
Though, in one game as the English, I struck an alliance with the French immediately, and married several princesses into the French royal family. Probably as a result this alliance has been like a rock!
The French have approx. 2 1/2 stacks bottled up in Brittany (why the AI keeps building there is a mystery), and the British provence to its south has had varingly only its Govenor and/or 1 unit, 2 units or 0 units.
Obviously, the French could waltz right in and screw things up royally for me and there's nothing I can do about it. Fortunately, we're allied and they are at war with the Germans.
This situation highlights the keen need to know just how intermarried I am with the French. Which princesses are married to which princes; if the French King is married to a British princess; how the death of Kings and Princes has affected things, etc.
Question: What penality s/there be if the French King attacks the British while married to a British princess?? Also, to a lesser degrees: If the French King, not married to a British princess attacks and his "heir" is married to a British princess; and/or has other princes married to British princesses
Perhaps some of the above, particularly, the capability of monitoring "who is married to who" hasn't been coded, but much much information is presently available and simply needs to be collected and presented to use in a sortable fashion.
Wouldn't it be great, if the community could take care of simple yet significant things like this, leaving the developers to concentrate on bigger things.
candidgamera
09-07-2002, 21:08
A:
Link to what Shiro put up on the forum a while back: http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000999.html
Sidebar:
Points I agreed with devs on and the reviewer sounds inclined the wrong way:
*disorder of battles - hey guy when contact is made its going to be disorderly - IMHO that's one of the most brilliant things about TW battles, properly capturing the chaos and lack of control over your men
*minor hint of complaint on graphics - hey I'll take good concept over fixation on graphics anytime.
Mt. S, ToranagaSama: good points, how about:
*Per above a bigger screen arranged like a family tree - bigger version of the little cameo marriage/royal blood tree on each general/royalty now.
*Not too much predictibility, but some basic cultural rules of thumb we could go on. V&V should interact with all this too.
*I'd be for not knowing anything, until you've established an embassy or introduction with a faction. Embassy or introduction would be something short of alliance or war - new concept. You really have to go places to know stuff. An embassy puts your ear to the ground in another country. Maybe the emissary has to stay in the embassyed other country's capital province to keep the embassy going - its a new mission. This would be a bit like shown in Elizabeth, emmissaries hanging out at court.
*On the other hand some of the awkwardness of handling your affairs now maybe a good thing, a left-handed way of being true to period - remember you're writing by candlelight with a quill pen on parchment - "thinking by spreadsheet" is hundreds of years off.
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Soldier of Fortune
O Fortune, most contrary, Of changing never chary, Now small, now great, Appears your state; Just like the moon you vary.
The life your servants suffer Makes wits grow sharper, tougher, Through games of chance Which much enhance Both easy times and rougher.
Lo, penury or power May greet us any hour: Your wheel revolves And all dissolves Like ice beneath a shower.
O Lady Luck, alluring But faithless in securing The wealth we prize, From me likewise You hide, your face obscuring.
I've bet my shirt and lost, My hopes of bliss are crossed; And, lose or gain, I still remain Hard up - but hang the cost!
My pounding pulses crave One smile for me, your slave . . . Friends, keep with me And weep with me: She favors not the brave.
(From Carmina Burana: Tavern and Open Road)
Kraellin
09-07-2002, 21:20
along with the rest of what's been stated, i find that i'd like to see in the agents list WHERE they are also listed.
i also find that some of the message screens dont tell me the factions involved IN the message itself, like the marraige proposal screens. it shld say IN the message your princess X has proposed to prince/king Y.
and for those that like to keep track of things on paper, how about a logfile for the campaign game? i'm not talking about one for each battle played. that's already in the works. i'm talking about a hot key, similar to the F2 key for screenshots, that would print out ALL the various stats of the game as it exists currently. print out to a log file, that is. maybe again in excel format or .txt or as an option depending on which hot key you hit? this would print out all the vital data of agents, where they are, their valor ranks, ships and their stats, armies and their overall stats (not each individual man like the battle logfiles, though that might be nice too as a separate log file with a separate hot key after highlighting the unit), who owns what provinces and what is currently known about each (the fog of war would apply here so you couldnt 'cheat' for extra info) and so on down the line.
this sort of print-out could then be used for one's own edification or to upload for bragging rights or whatever. it might be a useful running archive or journal of your campaign.
i dunno the work involved in doing such a thing, so maybe it's not a patch item, but perhaps for the expansion pack?
one last thought on this...it would be optimum to be able to do this as a hot key item within a running game, but if that's too difficult, perhaps it be culled from the savegame files as an out of game option?
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
candidgamera
09-08-2002, 20:56
Kraelin:
Wonder if your idea might be better and easier than trying to make screen changes -
more plug and chug computerish - than fancy game.
Like it.
Maltzian war epics made easier.
"Counselors, let us consult the shyts uv spred".
Also:
Would be nice to see the display of intrigue units displayed in more nested, rank-ordered fashion, instead of all jumbled together.
Click on the dagger and then it gives you a choice of bishops, assassins, ect to go into, high ranks on top of each sub display.
------------------
Soldier of Fortune
O Fortune, most contrary, Of changing never chary, Now small, now great, Appears your state; Just like the moon you vary.
The life your servants suffer Makes wits grow sharper, tougher, Through games of chance Which much enhance Both easy times and rougher.
Lo, penury or power May greet us any hour: Your wheel revolves And all dissolves Like ice beneath a shower.
O Lady Luck, alluring But faithless in securing The wealth we prize, From me likewise You hide, your face obscuring.
I've bet my shirt and lost, My hopes of bliss are crossed; And, lose or gain, I still remain Hard up - but hang the cost!
My pounding pulses crave One smile for me, your slave . . . Friends, keep with me And weep with me: She favors not the brave.
(From Carmina Burana: Tavern and Open Road)
youssof_Toda
09-08-2002, 22:22
I'd like to see an automange function for assasinating strategic units. Esp if ur a non-catholic faction all those damn bisshops start to annoy the hell out of you. I'd like to see a screen in which i can select for which factions and for which units you want to be assasinated and/or only in ur own regions or also aboad.
I’ll really appreciate if for my assassins I have a command “stay in THIS province and kill everyone from particular fraction” and have a list of check boxes to choose which fractions to kill. It is frustrating when my assassins disappear and I have to search the whole bloody map to find and reassign them and then I get the message that they are killed far away.
el_slapper
09-09-2002, 15:05
Well I remember the Business Tycoon system, where you could choose the color set of the map. For example, if you clicked on the "$" button, the richer the country, the lighter the color. Same thing for market penetration(loyalty in MTW) & so on. Would be sooooooo sweet...
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War is not about who is right, only about who is left
Arkatreides
09-10-2002, 03:56
Yes that would be great and again, the code for it should be easily implementable since the coloured overlay already exists for happiness.
Arkatreides
09-12-2002, 15:42
Just bumping this again ... in the hope that it is noticed by the right people http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
candidgamera
09-12-2002, 22:44
Quote Originally posted by Arkatreides:
Just bumping this again ... in the hope that it is noticed by the right people http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif[/QUOTE]
will help you.
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Soldier of Fortune
O Fortune, most contrary, Of changing never chary, Now small, now great, Appears your state; Just like the moon you vary.
The life your servants suffer Makes wits grow sharper, tougher, Through games of chance Which much enhance Both easy times and rougher.
Lo, penury or power May greet us any hour: Your wheel revolves And all dissolves Like ice beneath a shower.
O Lady Luck, alluring But faithless in securing The wealth we prize, From me likewise You hide, your face obscuring.
I've bet my shirt and lost, My hopes of bliss are crossed; And, lose or gain, I still remain Hard up - but hang the cost!
My pounding pulses crave One smile for me, your slave . . . Friends, keep with me And weep with me: She favors not the brave.
(From Carmina Burana: Tavern and Open Road)
Arkatreides
09-16-2002, 16:06
*bump*
More information is always nice, so.... bump...
Not a new idea, but just to lend my support to the groundswell: for me the single most valuable addition would be if the location of each agent was given in the list besides the fact that he/she exists. It's a real drag having to go through the list each time to make sure they've not gone awol.
Arkatreides
09-16-2002, 23:36
Unfortunately it's not going to happen ...
insolent1
09-17-2002, 01:53
Stacking strategic agents would be very handy as it is really annoying having to move them by themselves especially when near the end of game as I have 100's of spys & 100's of bishops
moldndecay
09-17-2002, 03:39
Id really like to see rally points for units when they are created. Moving alot of units across the board one at a time is a huge pain.
Literally, my fingers start to cramp.
LittleGrizzly
09-22-2002, 04:50
i agree with the ideas here especially rally point as that annoyed the hell outta me!
Bump.
Great thread. The game really gets to be micromanage hell in the later stages, especially when trying to make good use of your strategic agents.
olaf
candidgamera
10-08-2002, 02:55
Here's one:
Having a dynamic projected build/train expenditures on the money screen. I'm writing down on a sheet of paper now to keep track.
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