Schnorkde Schnorkde

Essential UI feature, show movement path

Essential UI feature, show movement path

HI,

it's been a while and I'm looking forward to FE. But seriously, in no video i saw what is IMHO really important.

 

Please show the path a unit/army will take. It is crucial for me to know e.g. how near i will pass a city or enemy. And also i would like to know how many turns it will take. 2, 4, 22? will I arrive in time?

 I wonder why such a common feature is missing. Shouldn't be much effort to program, the information is already there and even if it is somewhat (time)expensive it is worth it.

 

136,492 views 37 replies
Reply #26 Top

I strongly suggest putting it into Beta 1 unless you want the pushback from people who haven't followed these forums and wonder why it isn't there after a year and a half since WoM.

Reply #27 Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 20
It should be doable. I know in WOM it was an issue because a lot of this stuff was in a single thread.  But in FE, a lot of these calculations are done in the background so we've been able to indulge ourselves. I am pretty sure that in FE, the path is now stored as a linked list rather than brute forced during the move like in WOM. I'll look.

Quoting Frogboy, reply 25
Quoting Schnorkde, reply 23 Quoting Frogboy, reply 21Yep, there is: It's still a good day or two type feature so it probably won't make it in for Beta 1.  But it's clearly doable.

Looks like an example of the maturation process of your new game engine and why E:FE really won't resemble E:WOM when we get to play the Beta.  

Reply #28 Top

Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 26
I strongly suggest putting it into Beta 1 unless you want the pushback from people who haven't followed these forums and wonder why it isn't there after a year and a half since WoM.

It's very unlikely. I thnk more people would prefer to see it this month than to wait until that feature gets through the queue which could be an extra month.  

It's a judgment call of course and it's up to Derek but that's my 2 cents.

Reply #29 Top

Nice feature to add.

Reply #30 Top

Its a bit more to do actually:

It would be incomplete just to see it if a army has a path. It also changes the controls. If selected an army the 1st click (on a tile which is not the destination) will show the new rout. Second click on the tile will execute the walk order. Otherwise the army will show the path after walking the first round. This would be awkward.

And just to scare a little more. What to do if the terrain is changed. For example a new valley is created by a spell. Recalculate all routs? Only those of the AI? What if the way is blocked by an enemy or friend? Po-pup with attack order. But after walking to the enemy or before walking? I personalty do like to have the choice. Automatics will "always" do what you do not want.

Addressing all this it'll be more the two to x day feature. ;)

Reply #31 Top

Schnorkde, requiring two clicks for movement is not the way to go.

Other approaches include showing movement path all the time when moving the cursor around. Or showing the path on mouse button pressed down. Letting go would move the unit, pressing esc or the other mouse button would cancel the move. I would imagine something along the lines of the latter option. I seem to recall Civ 5 doing this well, but can't remember how.

Reply #32 Top

Quoting Vallu751, reply 31
Schnorkde, requiring two clicks for movement is not the way to go.

Other approaches include showing movement path all the time when moving the cursor around. Or showing the path on mouse button pressed down. Letting go would move the unit, pressing esc or the other mouse button would cancel the move.

Ok Vallu751 you are right, most designers favor less clicks over more. And it would be great to see the path on mouse over, but this can be cpu expensive. Imagine you have selected a unit, move do a distant location (searching for another unit or something else) and all the paths will be calculated while hovering over the terrain. Maybe this is too much cpu time and it has some art/style issues as well. If i could select I'll still go with the "two click" solution. The metaphor is similar to desktop environments and decently fast as well. And it has less probabilities of "mis clicking". "Whoops slided down the mouse button -> Commence deadly move!" ;)

My intention was to show that only a path view will not do. Its a control element and thats what we do all the time during playing and therefor it must be done right.

Reply #33 Top

I'd settle for a path view. It's 90% of the feature, the rest is just frosting on the cake.

Reply #34 Top

Quoting Schnorkde, reply 30
Otherwise the army will show the path after walking the first round. This would be awkward.

Disagree. It's what makes the difference between good and bad look n' feel.

 

 

Reply #35 Top

That sounds great. I think both (one or two click) options are great and if the problem with the cpu cost is not too expensive i would prefer Vallu751's idea.

Additionally I think it is most important to see the number of turns the unit will travel and the segments of each turn.

Reply #36 Top

Googled for a youtube video that demonstrates how Civ 5 handles the path showing. When right mouse button (if I recall correctly) is pressed down, path to target is shown.

Check the video at about 1:50 for a demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuYutWRstI4

I don't think I've ever made a mis-click. If two clicks were required, I probably would have made tens of thousands of extra clicks by now...

Reply #37 Top

Note that path calculation is very expensive - on some situations on larger maps I have had path calculation cancel itself before finding a path.

So I imagine this would be implemented using an optional two click system or a shift click or something like that?

It would also be nice if an estimate of time needed for the path were displayed.  (And, for that matter, the "multiple click" thing probably only makes sense for paths that take longer than one season to execute.)