two seemingly simple ideas

from Elemental Forums

Two unrelated ideas that on the surface seem pretty simple. I suspect both of these would be more difficult to implement but it can't hurt to put them out.

 

1. In game setup, create a toggle to disable AI designed troops - they create a bunch of clutter in the Train Units dialog and all I ever do is retire them. I only use use the troops that I've designed myself and I'm guessing a lot people do the same thing.

 

2. Another game setup option to get rid of crazy random city and offspring names. I would happily spend 30-45 minutes entering names into a file (one each for city and offspring names) that the game would use as the source instead of using the random name generator. To me that one time task would be preferable to having to change the name for everything in-game. 

 

3,654 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

#1 - is an option already. I don't have access to the game atm but it's there, I just turned off the AI units a couple of weeks ago. Works like a charm!

#2 - Would have to defer to a modder on that one. I manually rename all my cities to Capital1, Food1, Filler1, etc. to help remind me what are the primary resources for each city.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

OK well on one hand I feel like an idiot for requesting a feature that's already implemented. On the other hand, its nice to know that the idea was good enough to put into the game. 

 

 

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, you've got a rock solid point on #2. The random name generator is definitely more randomness-oriented than it is name-oriented. And a viable response to the 'city spam problem' would eliminate the need for equally ugly naming strategies like what Lan describes.

GalCiv II has a decently large list of star names. Here's hoping that at least FE might make the switch, and put the source in an XML file so folks like you could spend that scant hour or so to get the game to use names that didn't break immersion with their train-wreck unpronouncability.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Transport tycoon used to auto generate reasonably sensible names.  Even something lame like

"Honeyville North" - it has twighlight bees, and is north of the capital

"Southport" - has a beach and is south of the capital

"Fireside mines" - has both a mine and a fireshard

"East point" - has many sea tiles to the east

might be good to have as an option. Some form of table which sets the criteria for each name, from which the game picks the most appropriate unused name would be required, and we couls always fall back on the random generator when there is nothing special about the town.