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Re: [Xconq-general] Re: New Xconq Prerelease
Andreas Bringedal wrote:
PS is there any plans for improving the gameplay mechanisms for Xconq?
Yes, plenty of plans. And things are being done. See all the previous
discussion about the SDL interface in the 'xconq7' mailing list
archives, in the 'xconq.org' forums, etc....
What if the relatively large window on the right had of the screen(that
lists the unit types) were made into a city/transport view of occupied
units it would make it far easier to play I think. I don't have a need
for that window much and therefore it would be a much better use for it
the way I play(...).
You are talking about the Tcl/Tk interface here. This does not apply to
all the Xconq interfaces in general.
I am developing on the SDL interface so that we can phase out the Tcl/Tk
interface. I agree that the unit types panel on the right hand of the
Tcl/Tk map window is wasted space. This is one of my quite numerous
complaints about that interface. This panel is not present in the SDL
interface. (If you want to see the SDL interface, choose the "Xconq
(Experimental)" option when you use the Xconq installer program. After
installation, go to "Start Menu | All Programs | Xconq | Xconq
(Experimental)". Please remember that the SDL interface is still in
development. There are not setup screens yet; even saving games does not
work yet.)
Maybe when you're not viewing a unit then the
current display of produced units could be displayed?
I am not sure what you mean.
Also if you have
a special order to fire at a specific unit in a transport/city then it
would be easy if the transport/city content were displayed in that
window and allowed to to click on the units there.
This feature request has already been entered:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1069858&group_id=124062&atid=698375
Also, this discussion has occurred on the 'xconq7' mailing list before.
See, for example:
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/xconq7/2004/msg01126.html
A number in the corner of a city equal to the
number of units in it would be enough to show the player where his units
are, when he can click on the city and get the city overview in the
sidewindow.
Putting a number in the corner of a transport is something that was done
in other TBS games such as Empire Master and Strategic Conquest, and it
was useful. I thought it was superior to Xconq's attempts to display
scaled-down views of every member of a stack.
Although I did not explicitly mention the number display in my occupant
view proposal (see above email thread on 'xconq7'), I believe that
indicating the number of units in a stack would be a good idea.
Then there is the map movement. Maybe I'm not doing it right but when I
move the mouse around I get these tiny map moves each time the mouse
moves across the map border. Could that be removed and replaced with
around 8 arrow buttons(8 directions) which moves the map window half a
map window length per click? A ninth centre button could centre on the
unit and it could all be keyed to the keypad.
I agree that the tiny map movements (autoscrolling) is annoying. And so
do other people. Matthew Skala has proposed getting rid of this before.
The Tcl/Tk interface already has (disabled) support for scrollbars.
Since I am not interested in working on the Tcl/Tk interface, I will
leave that as an exercise for someone else to fix. However, in the SDL
interface, I plan on implementing map navigation via keyboard, i.e. what
you are suggesting.
It would also be nice to have the two pull down meny that's called
'Play' and 'More' to be called 'Unit Orders' or just 'Orders' instead.
It would be far more intuitive. I believe civ 1 was such a huge success
because the game was nearly entirely intuitive.
That is an idea. And, I think it is a simple enough fix to the Tcl/Tk
interface, that I might do it, __if you submit a feature request:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=124062&atid=698375
Click on the "Submit New" button near the top of the window, and fill
out the fields.
Eric