Discussion: Unit Interface

[unmerged(8632)]

Pub Poll: Unit Interface (+)

We started several threads on the Russian forum to discuss AI. They are fine, but a bit too theoretic... What I thought we could discuss here was unit interface, not as in "wish" mode but as in "EU2 experience" mode -- what was confusing and what was lacking desperately?

To start with, let's say that each Army is displayed as one Unit.

When you set Unit to move someplace, you see a Travel Progress Bar. TGB is not like in EU, but a set of straight lines connecting the waypoints. Each line between the WP is broken down into as many segments as many days it would take to complete the travel.

Does this ring a bell? Any other suggestions?

BTW Supply Level in Province is shown beneath the Road/Weather Icon.

 

[unmerged(4679)]

What I thought we could discuss here was unit interface, not as in "wish" mode but as in "EU2 experience" mode -- what was confusing and what was lacking desperately?

To start with, let's say that each Army is displayed as one Unit. When you set Unit to move someplace, you see a Travel Progress Bar. TGB is not like in EU, but a set of straight lines connecting the waypoints. Each line between the WP is broken down into as many segments as many days it would take to complete the travel. Does this ring a bell?

Sorry for my bad english, but what is the question you like us to answer or discuss? A screenshot would help.

 

[Jos Theelen]

Originally posted by sergei
To start with, let's say that each Army is displayed as one Unit. When you set Unit to move someplace, you see a Travel Progress Bar. TGB is not like in EU, but a set of straight lines connecting the waypoints. Each line between the WP is broken down into as many segments as many days it would take to complete the travel. Does this ring a bell?

Sounds good. But in EU different armies had different speed. If this would be shown with a more then one unit, wouldn't it be to busy on the screen ?
And if the speed is low (lets say more then 20 days between 2 waypoints) it could be difficult to see. Wouldn't be a segment for each week instead of day better ?

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by Galadriel

Sorry for my bad english, but what is the question you like us to answer or discuss? A screenshot would help.

Lol

Well, since provinces are smaller-i think it would be helpful. Though i haven't got that much trouble with EU 2 movement bar, i remember i often coordinated armies so they would arrive at the same day-i'm not sure if it's good or bad you can coordinate it better now, but if it's your intention, it's step in good direction (a big one).

one question. What do you mean one unit=one army. IIRC, province supply regiment. Does it means regiment=unit=one army?And you only can move one regiment at once? That wouldn't be good...
Or that unit/army is all regiments in one province?

oh, and regiments do have different speed? (well, i hope mongols are much faster)


On a side note, i hope you added nice screenies/tables which allow you to see all your provinces at once? (forts in your vassals provinces, or burgher power in your demesne provicnes)

 

[unmerged(8632)]

AFAIK 20 days for travel between 2 provinces is hardly realistic . If beta-T shows the other way, we would probably switch to showing a figure (in days) next to unit's TPB.

When there are several units in one province, you see only one. At least this is our current idea. We are having this implemented in a matter of days, after that would be easy to judge if this suits best.

What I wanted to know was mostly if the control scheme -- right clicks, left clicks, etc. was convenient enough in EU2.

 

[unmerged(8632)]

At once... Are you talking about some kind of Realm Overview screen that would list province names and province data? What data would be useful there?

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by sergei
AFAIK 20 days for travel between 2 provinces is hardly realistic . If beta-T shows the other way, we would probably switch to showing a figure (in days) next to unit's TPB.

When there are several units in one province, you see only one. At least this is our current idea. We are having this implemented in a matter of days, after that would be easy to judge if this suits best.

What I wanted to know was mostly if the control scheme -- right clicks, left clicks, etc. was convenient enough in EU2.

20 days is too short or too fast? (don't look at me, i have vague idea. And provinces in EU II varied in size wildly-and CK ones will be different, too)

Number under unit would be nice too. Although don't drop approximate graphic representation, it's much easier and faster for human eye to see it.

Ok, when you have multiple units, you move them as one army. Which means you they will move at the speed of slowest one, right? Please do tell me you can send faster unit ahead of your army? And that units do have different movement speeds.

 

[Norgesvenn]

Wouldn't an "ETA" for units be sort of... unlikely... for the period?

I mean, it'd be exciting having the edge-of-the-seat feeling, chewing your nails hoping that a unit might arrive in time to relieve your forces in a battle or help your siege before reinforcements from "the others" arrive...

That aside, I think the EU II method was fair enough, although I may feel that left clicking is a more intuitive method of moving a unit than right clicking. But that's a minor niggle.

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by sergei
At once... Are you talking about some kind of Realm Overview screen that would list province names and province data? What data would be useful there?

Yes. Hard to say which data would be useful, as we don't know which will be in CK (if you would send me a screenshot, you know..)

Generally, the more data the better-especially that i suppose game won't have that much micromanagement in it-it can be allieiated by having it modular, anyway-that you can hide&show various columns at will (for example, show only possible regiments in demesne provinces. Or loyalty of vassals)

Issuing command from this screen could be useful, if you are really big-don't know what commands, of course.


Let me speak of EU II, then. What it lacked, it was of course possibility of upgrading collectors/stuff from ledger screen. The total number of manufactories/types could be here (it could be computed from budget screen, but was unwieldy). Revoltrisk. Religion. Culture. Customize all this (for example, you only want to see Culture/Religion/Revoltrisk/Collectors, to decide where upgrade them)

 

[unmerged(547)]

Originally posted by Norgesvenn
Wouldn't an "ETA" for units be sort of... unlikely... for the period?

I mean, it'd be exciting having the edge-of-the-seat feeling, chewing your nails hoping that a unit might arrive in time to relieve your forces in a battle or help your siege before reinforcements from "the others" arrive...

That aside, I think the EU II method was fair enough, although I may feel that left clicking is a more intuitive method of moving a unit than right clicking. But that's a minor niggle.

Hmm, I think the general could make an approximate guess. "Well your Grace, I think we can get from Caux to Paris in about X days time." However IMHO, these times should not be exact; your travel time will be close to the ETA projected time

 

[unmerged(255)]

Will weather conditions affect the movement rate of troops through provinces? I'd imagine that an army moving across several provinces in blizzard would have one hell of a time (not to mention attrition)

 

[Jos Theelen]

Originally posted by sergei
What I wanted to know was mostly if the control scheme -- right clicks, left clicks, etc. was convenient enough in EU2.

I have no problems with that scheme. I only would like the mousepointer to change shape. If I leftclick on an army, I would like another shape then if I leftclick on a province.

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by Jos Theelen


I have no problems with that scheme. I only would like the mousepointer to change shape. If I leftclick on an army, I would like another shape then if I leftclick on a province.

I actually think left/right click was better, not two leftclicks...

 

[Jos Theelen]

Originally posted by DarthMaur
I actually think left/right click was better, not two leftclicks...

I agree with that. It is not what I meant. I would like the mousepointer to change in a little armyfigure, when I leftclick a unit, or change in a little boat, when I leftclick a ship, or change in another symbol, when I leftclick a province, etc.

 

[unmerged(485)]

Several things bothered me about the movement in EU I & II.

1) The provinces were of different sizes but the movement took the same time going from small province to small province as it did going from large province to large province (providing the terrain etc. was the same in both cases). O.K. for game purposes it was an abstraction and not a big deal (but it still bothered me).

2) The calculation of move times to avoid attrition. An exploit which gave the player an advantage over the AI. Having exact number of days shown to get from one province to another, as someone in a previous post said, leaves out the element of chance and may also be an exploit (don't know about this 'til I play the game).

3) Inability to reorg armies during sieges. Since units raised from counties are indivisible my guess is there won't be a necessity/ability to reorg since individual units will probably be able to enter and leave sieges as needed.

4) Some small provinces got too crowded with icons when the AI (and sometimes the player) would send a ton of small units to a battle or siege. Don't know what to do about his one though.

As far as the mechanics of clicking and moving and pointing to places on the map and moving the map by putting the curson at the edge, well, at first some of it was hard to get used to but turned out to be o.k. One problem in this area was at the botom of the screen when you tried to click on something and you were not precise the map would scroll down instead.

 

[Norgesvenn]

4) Some small provinces got too crowded with icons when the AI (and sometimes the player) would send a ton of small units to a battle or siege. Don't know what to do about his one though.

Or it was nigh-on impossible to select the unit you wanted... see Rhodes if you don't believe me.

So, although I hope for a "pretty" map, having a lot of improvements showing, could be very damaging to playability (see "other medieval game" for examples)

 

[unmerged(5664)]

In general I like the EU2 system of moving troops:the left click-right click combo works very well once you are used to it.

I do rather like the additions / refinements that Hearts of Iron has added to that movement system with respect to combat.

 

[kurtbrian]

which some of us don't know an awfull lot about....

 

[HisMajestyBOB]

In general I like the EU2 system of moving troops:the left click-right click combo works very well once you are used to it.

I agree, when you've played the EU games for about 2 years, you tend to get used to the clicks needed to move armies about. Switching it might cause undue confusion and annoyances.

 

[Damocles]

Sergei,

When working out unit movement, please remember, that for most great ventures, such as Barbarossa's campaigns, the Sicillian invasion of Byzantium, and the crusades...It took at least a year to even gather the forces, and another year to even get moving in the general direction and reach the destination. Armies moved VERY slow. Not to mention, 90 percent of the time, the attacker suffered failure. (Go on and count how many times a massive offensive succeded...) Without a very strong personality at the head of the army, it is almost assured that three months after initial contact with the enemy, everyone will be wanting to go back and deserting en masse.