Clickomania! Learn the lesson, Firaxis!

[Ralf]

In CTP/CTP-2 everything is fractionized into multiple manager-screens, and most of these manager-screens is fractionized even further into many tabs. CTP-2 have right-click shortcuts, but still; pretty much clicking is obviously needed. Check out below quotes from the CTP-2 section:

Dyzee400:

"Too much clicking...too many menus. For example: to change production: click on city, click on city tab, click on the production, click on units/improv/wonders, click on what you want, click add to queue...etc etc. Do they want us to get carpal-tunnel syndrome (or however the heck you spell it) in a week of playing this game? Just too many menus and clicking. My hand is hurting."

The Viceroy:

"Simply right click on city and select build manager ... and then select what you want !"

Dyzee400:

"Alright, well forget the first 3 clicks. Whatever, I still think there is too much clicking in the game."

ElitePersian:

"I agree with whoever says there is too much clicking, when you click the eye, it should go directly into the build manager, or there should even be a way to go straight to the build manager from the Msg Box at the bottom. By the time I have 30+ cities, it becomes a huge hassle managing all those cities ONLY because i have to click so many times, and no, i dont want to use mayors, i just want to click LESS."

Comment:

Well, any comments? Any ideas and suggestions how to make Civ-3 as anti-clickomania as reasonably possible?

[DarkCloud]

A 'Touchscreen' perhaps?

To elliminate the 'clickfest' you would have to make the game simple, and that won't happen so it will remain a 'clickfest'

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by DarkCloud on 12-19-2000 04:47 PM A 'Touchscreen' perhaps? To elliminate the 'clickfest' you would have to make the game simple, and that won't happen so it will remain a 'clickfest'

Try to be a little imaginative. It doesnt hurt.

[yin26]

I think a customizable menu would be very, very cool (in addition to just outright making smart menus to begin with).

[OreoFuchi]

In Civ2, I hate clicking ok everytime there's a WLTCD. That's incredibly annoying.

now that yin mentioned the word "customizable", firaxis should take a look at the ldl files of ctp1/2 and go a step further

the ldl(editable via notepad) files are layout files and describe all the interface elements in ctp1/2. so, in some screens you can give more space to everything(like someone did in ctp1 with the city list screen), and stuff like that. for example, for ctp2, someone got rid of the "wheel" with the various buttons to the managers in the "control panel"

in ctp2 though, with all these tabs, it seems that you can not move things from one tab of a manager screen to another. if you could do that, someone could easily change the city manager screen(for example) to have a bigger window with more stuff in one tab

obviously Imran will say that there is no need for it cause "sid will make it perfect", but i say "do it this way, and we'll surely find some ways to use it"
[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited December 20, 2000).]

[Imran Siddiqui]

But Mark, Sid will make it perfect

[Ralf]

Both Yin26:s and MarkG:s idea could (and should) be implemented.

About making the Civ-3 interface LESS of a "clickfest".

- Avoid multiple manager-screens. Strive to make one HUGE all-in-one manager-screen, instead.
- Avoid tab-mania. Strive to reduce the number of tabs, but with much bigger tab-screens, instead.

As a general interface design-rule: Strive to put in as much vital information as possible - in as few - and as large screens as possible. In order to avoid clutter:

- Use (if necessary) discrete screen-background colour-coding. Alternatively:
- Use (if necessary) partial fade-screen toggle-buttons to include/exclude related screen-manager info.
- Avoid numbers-output ala CTP. All output should be displayed graphically.

Also; manager-screens and messages should pop up automatically, just as in Civ-2 and SMAC:

- Automatic dragable popup-messages.
- Automatic popup city/empire-manager, with automatic city map-recentering included.
- Automatic unit map-recentering.
- Dont be discrete when it comes to inform what unit/city, next in line, needs attention: Let them flash!

With "automatic" i DONT meant "half-automatic". The player shouldnt have to click anything at all, in order to get above information.

Important: In conjunction with the ability to toggle away some message-types. Also add a global time-input, there the player can define how many seconds it should take before this or that message-type should disappear automatically.

Dont forget to add context-sensitive right-click menus!!

Finally: Use familiar MS Window-based interface (with several game-atmospheric skins to choose from), with standard Windows controls.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited December 21, 2000).]

[Dauphin]

"Clickomania!".

I thought this thread was going to have a reference to the very addictive but simple game Clickomania.

I feel disappointed.

Of course now this thread has reference to it.

The game is lots of fun and is very simple - proof that game play is more important than fancy options and go faster stripes.

The moral - don't add complications.

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 12-20-2000 02:39 PM Also; manager-screens and messages should pop up automatically, just as in Civ-2 and SMAC:

HELL NO!
imho the best system was the ctp1 one. you could easily see if you had any important messages(unlike ctp2), and read only the ones you wanted. above all, you could ignore them(and not click a hundred times like in civ2)

[Shadowstrike]

Learn the keyboard shortcuts!

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 12-20-2000 06:46 PM HELL NO! imho the best system was the ctp1 one. you could easily see if you had any important messages(unlike ctp2), and read only the ones you wanted. above all, you could ignore them(and not click a hundred times like in civ2)

Considering that a massive amount of both game-magazine reviewers and Civ-fan reviewers have put that horrific interface on their "most criticized" list of bad CTP-features - i would be very careful borrowing ANY interface-solutions from the old CTP-game, whatsoever.

Besides:

- If the popup-messages is dragable to some corner of the monitor-screen (and if it stayes there).
- If different messages-types are all toggle-able, so the player can tailor-cut the feedback - like in SMAC.
- If theres a countdown time-input for automatic message-closure (can be stopped by clicking on message).
- If the city-screen popup itself can be toggled either on/off (off = only map-recentering and flashing cities).

Then, what the heck is the problem?

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited December 21, 2000).]

[hHydro]

I'm still a fan of the SMAC interface. Everything in one big window (but make sure they're resizeable and moveable.)

And give me keyboard shortcuts! Again, using SMAC as a reference, using the <- and -> keys to cycle through cities was great. And partly becuase there was it was a crisp quick switch. If there was a half second lag everytime I hotkeyed over to the next city, it would have killed it.

Lastly, As far as build manager, it would be great if you could cycle through cities based on 'search terms'.. ie: Let's say you've got 40 or 50 cities. if you had a pulldown menu for 'filters', you could quickly filter for "all cities with unhappiness", or "all cities building military units", or "all cities under size 5", etc.. and then the <- and -> would cycle through the filtered cities.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by hHydro on 12-21-2000 03:31 PM Lastly, As far as build manager, it would be great if you could cycle through cities based on 'search terms'.. ie: Let's say you've got 40 or 50 cities. if you had a pulldown menu for 'filters', you could quickly filter for "all cities with unhappiness", or "all cities building military units", or "all cities under size 5", etc.. and then the <- and -> would cycle through the filtered cities.

Thumbs up! I hope they add this one

[hHydro]

Heh.. I just use Filemaker too much. I love filters.

...That and by late game in SMAC, I often go to build manager and hold the arrow keys down to quickly 'scan' for empty build queues, unhappiness, etc. A filter would be so much easier.

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 12-21-2000 02:05 PM Considering that a massive amount of both game-magazine reviewers and Civ-fan reviewers have put that horrific interface on their "most criticized" list of bad CTP-features - i would be very careful borrowing ANY interface-solutions from the old CTP-game, whatsoever.

dont trigger me to say my opinion (again) for a large part of the reviewers...

beyond that, even IF the whole ctp1 interface is horrible, does that mean that one part of it, cant be an improvment

quote: - If the popup-messages is dragable to some corner of the monitor-screen (and if it stayes there). - If different messages-types are all toggle-able, so the player can tailor-cut the feedback - like in SMAC. - If theres a countdown time-input for automatic message-closure (can be stopped by clicking on message). - If the city-screen popup itself can be toggled either on/off (off = only map-recentering and flashing cities).

yes, if all that "IF"'s where in the game, i would probably have little problems. still, even in that case i still think the ctp1(not the ctp2) system to diplay messages is the best. you dont have to toggle any options, you just ignore them. and you can always choose to see all messages at any time
there are of course many improvements that can be made, like the ones made in the PowerSlics mod, but it's still better from the pop-up thing (IMHO)

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 12-21-2000 05:22 PM dont trigger me to say my opinion (again) for a large part of the reviewers...

I was wondering if that comment would be enough for you to go ballistic

quote: beyond that, even IF the whole ctp1 interface is horrible, does that mean that one part of it, cant be an improvment

OK, then - im not entirely unreasonable.

quote: yes, if all that "IF"'s where in the game, i would probably have little problems.

I keep my thumbs crossed for all four of them.

quote: still, even in that case i still think the ctp1(not the ctp2) system to diplay messages is the best. you dont have to toggle any options, you just ignore them. and you can always choose to see all messages at any time.

Well, ultimately its up to Firaxis, of course. Lets just hope they come up with something very configurable, that most of us (including you) can accept and be happy with.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited December 21, 2000).]