Can't see unit names

XGX_Stealth · December 25, 2003, 13:51

I'm new to foruming here and this may have been mentioned before, but I have a bug that whenever there is a stack of enemy units on the screen and I hover my mouse over them to see what units are there, I can usually only see one unit name and the rest run off the screen owing to the fact that it uses precious space to tell me info on the tile that I can plainly see. Such as Tile: Land Incan - Grassland, Farm, Mounted Archer, Catap......... And that's all that I can see.

There might be nine units on that tile but I can only tell what two of them are. At least the computer doesn't bother to tell me the name of the unit that I can see standing there, that would be even worse. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, or better yet, how to fix it, then that would be marvelous.

BTW my screen res is 1024 X 1280 so I don't think that is the problem, or it shouldn't be.

Martin Gühmann · December 25, 2003, 14:54

I think it is design that you can't see the full information about stacks. Maybe it can be solved by modifieing the infobar in the *.ldl files, or maybe we should remove that unit info entirely. As it is a quite huge stack so that you can't deterimine its single components.

-Martin

Maquiladora · December 25, 2003, 15:36

I think it should be removed altogether, its a trick to help the human so no need for it really.

XGX_Stealth · December 25, 2003, 23:01

I know that in civ three, if you right click an nme unit stack, you get a list telling you not only what every unit is, but how many and even if they are conscripts, regulars, veterans, or elite.

Now, I realize that may be too much info, particularly with the diferentiation between unit classes (conscript, veteran, etc..) but I do beleive that if your city or units can see one enemy unit that it is safe to say you should be able to see them all, especially since they are in the same geographic location. Since the only reason you cannot tell what units are present is simply due to the graphic layout of the game board, then you should have some nature of list to tell you what is there. Doesn't that seem logical?

Tamerlin · December 26, 2003, 05:43

Quote:

Originally posted by XGX_Stealth
... but I do believe that if your city or units can see one enemy unit that it is safe to say you should be able to see them all, especially since they are in the same geographic location.

I am not sure of the answer, as Martin wrote it earlier I think this is a feature of the game and that it is close to the limited intelligence concept. We can assume that every army has recon units and this is why our stacks can spot other armies from a distance. Spotting an enemy army and gathering some details are entirely different matters and it is also one of the tasks of the recon units, but it is certainly the most difficult task as the recon units must not be spotted themselves.

In many paper wargames the limited intelligence concept is represented by a rule saying that you can only look at the first counter of a stack. It means that you will only see the first counter and know the number of counters in the stack... as in CtP2

Quote:

Doesn't that seem logical?

I have just read an article about the battle of Meggido and I can assure you that the generals only had rough ideas about each other's armies... Read some reports about WWII engagements and you will also see that each side has been surprised many times by the number or the quality of the troops in front of them.

But when we reach the modern times it is true that the armies have the means to gather much more informations with satellites and electronic equipments. But once again, if you face a modern army, the units are supposed to be equiped with Electronic Counter Measure equipments that would partly negate the advantage. As far as I am concerned, simulating this is not the purpose of CtP2.

We must also keep in mind that a turn lasts between 1 and 20 years and that an information become quickly obsolete during a war. I would add that CtP2 is a grand strategy game and that a "square" is several tens of miles, if not one hundred, miles large. We can consider that the units of an army are deployed into the square and partly into the adjacent ones (zone of control) and are gathering themselves together before the battle. The CtP2 combat is an abstraction, if you wanted to simulate it adequately each battle in an square should be a single wargame in itself with its own map generated from the square. Though I would appreciate such a system I must admit it would take several weeks to end a game as each battle would last between 1 to 4 hours (provided it is a simple game system).

There is only one problem that I can see, it is that you would enjoy the game more if you would know the details of the ennemy armies spotted by your troops. As this is your game and as you are playing it to have some fun you are right and thus perfectly entitled to ask how you could have these informations displayed.

Unfortunately I can't help you on this ground...

child of Thor · December 27, 2003, 14:39

I think you can use a 'spy' unit to reveal the full information of a stacks composition, in the same way you can use a spy to get city info. So if you deploy a spy unit as part of your army you can use it on the battlefield by having it move around and find out any enemy stacks exact compositions. This seems a fair way to handle it to me.

Maquiladora · December 27, 2003, 14:50

I was watching the Christmas armistice thing they had in no-mans land in France in WW1, they tried to spy on each others bunkers even when they were aparently playing a friendly game of football together

Tamerlin · December 27, 2003, 15:24

I have already heard about a soccer game played between the Germans and the Allies but I don't know any detail about the story.