The UI and You
The Road to 1.2
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Ah, the UI of a turn based strategy game…so much info to convey, so little time to get it all 100% perfect.
As players have invested hours and hours on our little space game, they’re finding many little UI issues that hamper the gamplay experience and can quickly turn a joyful galaxy-wide extermination into a click-fest nightmare. Well…perhaps not a nightmare, but certainly not as enjoyable.
After the memory issues of 1.1 that went hand-in-hand with playing on a Gigantic galaxy, the whole team set out to play-test the hell out of that size game. Taking notes on what annoyed us, as well as using issues brought up on the forums, we came up with a list of UI tweaks that should make gameplay considerably less ‘clicky’, mostly on those large galaxies.
** Ship Details **
OK, so perhaps the screen didn’t have ALL the details a regular player would need. We’ve since added the Construct and Upgrade buttons to this screen, listed the number of Troops or Colonists on the selected vessel, and have a text field to display the vessels current destination.
** Quick Build Screen **
Just a little thing, but we’ve added a cancel button here. This way, if you click through the available ships and can’t find one you want to change production to, you can simply cancel without having to re-locate the last design you were building. Dunno if this annoyed other players, but it annoyed me.
** Auto-Focus on next availabe Ship with Moves **
OMG!
Perhaps I never payed attention…perhaps it’s worse playing on a large Galaxy…I don’t know, but I wanted to KILL auto-focus half-way through my last game. Cari’s currently turning this into an option…one that I will promptly disable.
** Colony Management List **
Added shield so you know what planets are defended. Tweaked income display to now display Net Income instead of plain ol’ income…should be more useful. Also tweaked the list so it shouldn’t reset to the top when returning from the Planet Screen.
** Planet Screen **
Improvement list wont reset to top when placing improvements. Will be able to destroy an improvement even if it’s being upgrade (1.1 had LOTS of clicking here if you needed to destroy an upgrading improvement).
Lots of other little additions as well. A tool-tip that shows your empire income stats when you mouse-over your money on the main game screen. Number of troops on the Fleet Context Window. Adding of the aforementioned Upgrade and Constructor buttons to the Fleet Manager Window.
Unfortunatly, I don’t know when these improvements will make their way into your hands. Brad returns next Monday, at which time I’m sure we’ll be discussing other things, but we’ll definatly try to pin down a date for 1.2.
Along with mod support, 1.2 will be filled with these long overdue tweaks will ease everyones UI related pain...including my own.
As players have invested hours and hours on our little space game, they’re finding many little UI issues that hamper the gamplay experience and can quickly turn a joyful galaxy-wide extermination into a click-fest nightmare. Well…perhaps not a nightmare, but certainly not as enjoyable.
After the memory issues of 1.1 that went hand-in-hand with playing on a Gigantic galaxy, the whole team set out to play-test the hell out of that size game. Taking notes on what annoyed us, as well as using issues brought up on the forums, we came up with a list of UI tweaks that should make gameplay considerably less ‘clicky’, mostly on those large galaxies.
** Ship Details **
OK, so perhaps the screen didn’t have ALL the details a regular player would need. We’ve since added the Construct and Upgrade buttons to this screen, listed the number of Troops or Colonists on the selected vessel, and have a text field to display the vessels current destination.
** Quick Build Screen **
Just a little thing, but we’ve added a cancel button here. This way, if you click through the available ships and can’t find one you want to change production to, you can simply cancel without having to re-locate the last design you were building. Dunno if this annoyed other players, but it annoyed me.
** Auto-Focus on next availabe Ship with Moves **
OMG!
Perhaps I never payed attention…perhaps it’s worse playing on a large Galaxy…I don’t know, but I wanted to KILL auto-focus half-way through my last game. Cari’s currently turning this into an option…one that I will promptly disable.
** Colony Management List **
Added shield so you know what planets are defended. Tweaked income display to now display Net Income instead of plain ol’ income…should be more useful. Also tweaked the list so it shouldn’t reset to the top when returning from the Planet Screen.
** Planet Screen **
Improvement list wont reset to top when placing improvements. Will be able to destroy an improvement even if it’s being upgrade (1.1 had LOTS of clicking here if you needed to destroy an upgrading improvement).
Lots of other little additions as well. A tool-tip that shows your empire income stats when you mouse-over your money on the main game screen. Number of troops on the Fleet Context Window. Adding of the aforementioned Upgrade and Constructor buttons to the Fleet Manager Window.
Unfortunatly, I don’t know when these improvements will make their way into your hands. Brad returns next Monday, at which time I’m sure we’ll be discussing other things, but we’ll definatly try to pin down a date for 1.2.
Along with mod support, 1.2 will be filled with these long overdue tweaks will ease everyones UI related pain...including my own.
GalCiv2 Forums
). One that I would really like to see is the glow of "relation status" around each of the civ logos on the relations screen, relative to the currently selected civ. An alternative, maybe easier fix could be to add the civ name to the logo - I still have a hard time picking up which civ is which just from its logo.
). I found it illogical that the "break alliance" was a checkbox that takes over "trade embargo". I can't remember, but was there any confirmation for selecting this dramatic action?
