I don't know about you guys, but I'm quite forgetful. Particularly if I'm having fun exploring/fighting monsters, I may even forget for a moment that I own towns. The problem? When a building queue runs out, I may not even notice, despite the notification on the right, and the ZZZ's flashing on the left. This is particularly an issue because very rarely do I not want to build something at all.
The system works just fine for inactive units, zooming to center on them and making you do something with them. However, unlike Civ, it does NOT do this for cities!
What I want? Basically, when a city becomes inactive, make the game go to the city and bring up the build menu. After I select an item to build/unit to train, advance me t the next city. If I really wish to build nothing, I'll select the "build nothing" option for that city, until I decide later on I do want to build something. Also list that I've toggled the "build nothing" option on the left side menu.
Perhaps not all player find themselves forgetting to build something that commonly. But even if this a just toggled option, more forgetful/easily distracted players like me would appreciate it. It's particularly annoying when you have auto advance-turn enabled, and you don't even have a chance to build something.
I vote bringing this in. You'd only need it the turn the building is completed, after that there really is no reason for it. The zzz's are too easy to miss. Obviously there should be an ability to toggle the notification on or off based on preferences. At that point there really is no downside.
They had this feature for E:wom and the general consensus was that it sucked, because if you had 22 cities being idle you would get 22 pop ups telling you that.
I don't see how that's a problem! If I have 22 cities idle, it means it's time to build 22 things! I also don't see why a feature which is slightly annoying to a small minority of users, but would be tremendously helpful to the majority, should be removed, particularly if there is a disable option. And, just like in Civ4, if I really want to build nothing in a city (which is almost never true), I set it to producing extra research/gold instead, and now that city no longer gives me a pop-up each round.
I think having the ability to toggle this on and off eliminates this concern. At that point it would be at the discretion of the player. Also, only having the popup go up the first turn the city goes idle helps to alleviate this concern. Additionally, rather then having 22 different popups, there could just be a single list popup that shows which cities have completed production and what are idle. (I'm thinking similar to MOO2's beginning turn status report that shows what's changed in your cities).
I'm on my first game that has lasted long enough to have to srcoll down the cities, and I strongly agree with Lord Cobol. If the city has just finished building something and is now idle, give me a popup. If the city was idle the turn before, no popup. That would nicely handle the situation I'm in now, where all of the cities at the top of my list are fully built up, and the ones that I want to continue building I have to scroll down to see.
Unless you only have 8 cities with things that can be built, and with the ability to queue up build orders a lot of the time cities are idle because there is nothing to build.
When you want to keep track of activity in a certain area, having the screen zip over to the far side of the map every time you hit end-turn to inform you that a city isn't building anything (precisely because you don't want it to build any of the options available) is just annoying.
I'm not opposed to it being an option, but if it is the default I will just be turning it off personally.
+1 to this idea. It should be implemented like how it is in Civ4.
Two main issues here:
1. ZZzzz is too subtle. Whether it's pop-ups, sounds, or something else, it needs to be given more prominence.
2. There either needs to be a strategic advantage to not building (generating gildar and/or research like other games), or the building queue empty notices need to be required.
Forgive me. Changed my mind. Popups might be ok, but the first thing I would do is add a line saying the queue is empty to the building notification we already get. Next, implement some keys that go forward/backward thru all the idle cities we have.
Either way, think carefully about long games on large maps where Zzzzs will be hidden and most cities will run out of buildings to build, and you won't need them all building troops.
I could live with this. As long as (1) when you click on the notification it takes you to the city so that you can then issue new build orders, and (2) city level up notifications also allow you to click on them and take you to the city, since new building types might have become available due to the level up. Currently, clicking on the city event takes you to the city except for the level up notice, which doesn't.
Even a few more notifications would be nice. I also like the idea of having hotkeys to scroll between inactive cities.
Running out of buildings to build is a game design issue, however. This should not be happening! It didn't happen in WOM. Or, as was mentioned above, there should be real benefits to not building anything. For example, Civ4 lets you produce more culture, more research, or more gold with your excess production points. This would also fix the issue somewhat, though I should still get a popup giving me the choice to do so, and then no popups until I turn this off.
My take:
Play a distinctive sound (fanfare) and flash a notification icon depicting the number of inactive cities upon a city becoming inactive at the start of the turn.
Upon clicking the icon a notification list (similar to iOS/Android) pops up showing all Cities sorted by the turn that they went inactive.
Clicking on a city takes you there and deletes the notification from the list.
I like the way CIV 5 does it as well. Don't let me end my turn until I issue orders as I will surely forget. There needs to be a continual use when there is nothing to build such as the housing choice in MOM, etc..
Zzzz's are certainly too subtle. You basically have to spend a few seconds checking whether it has a Zzzz this turn or not. Also, If you have 20+ cities, I'm not sure that you can scroll down to see all possible Cities for all possible Zzzzs
Please at least let us have the option to leave it the way it is. I like it and don't want to be frustrated ending my turn by some additional popup I have to clear before proceeding.
Just an update, this is still frustrating in the current version. I still miss so many turns of empty city build queues. The small pop-up on the right is too small and not noticeable.
I agree.
Pop-ups are so 1999...do what Civ 5 did and have a dynamic end-of-turn button.
I would prefer a popup on any turn in which there are one or more cities whose queues have become empty at the start of your turn, with a particular fanfare sound as an acceptable compromise.
Certainly create an opt-out for people who prefer it, but I already kinda dislike how turns can slide into one another without warning, as it has made me miss the opportunity to use literally thousands of production over the course of FE's Beta. As a player, my preference is to resolve all unit actions, and then move on to city management before ending the turn so I can better react to the state of things.
I want more notification of events in game, and for significant things like wasting production (a volatile resource for which you get no legitimate benefit for wasting) not being made aware that I am wasting it is extremely irritating.
The dynamic end turn button would also be fantastic, assuming we get the option to not have slithery turns that just kinda happen.
More notifications for meee. (I forgot about everything the game will not help me remember due to taking breaks between turns, etc.
Also a simple sound when its your turn would be enough for me, although I would wish if the game would notify me of my research being idle too!
Sincerely~ Kongdej
On board with better notifications. Very frustrating to see something idle and you don't even know how long it's been that way...
THe Zzzzs are enough.
Not close to enough, seeing as I miss cities with Zzzzz's all the time. If I'm off exploring/fighting, a city may go attended for 3-4 rounds. If that happens in all cities several times in a game, it's enough to give another faction an advantage over you.
"Having to remember" to check notification areas makes Elemental feel like work, not a game. I don't want to have to make a to-do list for each turn in order not to miss anything, and yet I feel I almost have to right now.
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