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 thought this was standard for any 4X game. When I get a sprawling empire it is really nice to know when city 17 and 1 are finished building their barracks so I can set up another queue.
I actually find the Zzz next to inactive cities to be an effective but subtle reminder.
I can certainly see that it would be nice to have a pop-to-inactive-city option, I wouldn't want it to be the default behavior. I hate it when games pop me around.
In Civ, it's possible to disable through the menu, or to control how it sends you around. However, as there's almost no reason you wouldn't want to build something in a city, I can't for the life of me understand why this isn't in the game.
Like this option. Opt out gets my endorsement. Not sure about mandatory if opt-out is indeed an option. Not high priority though thanks to the city idle notification on the left.
Opt out is requirement. Game does not need more popups between turns.
Which I still miss time and time again.
Opt out. Pop-ups are annoying.
Some nice sound effect would help to notice the "Zzzz" on the left, maybe a short fanfare or strings. No need to repeat it for every empty queue or every turn though, just once per turn if one or more queues became empty right before.
Agreed.
This would actually be a fair compromise.
Any more ideas? Do people find this to be an issue?
I like this idea of a fanfare sound effect for any turn a city queue becomes empty.
I think this is a great idea as i smoke alot of pot, and my memories shot half the time to, i do miss alot of turns of building when i forget about my idle citys, i think ur idea sounds good, and if people dont like having the cities zoomed on for builds maybe just add a on/off option.
Certianly there should be an opt-out but I am not against pop-ups if they help you manage things. This is after all a strategy game not an FPS. A pop-up now and then telling you you need to build something I don't think is an immersion breaker.
Alternatively at least have a distinctive audio alert so we can know to check the city list on the left for the zzz's.
Or I think Civ 5 did it best where you can't even end your turn unless you issue a command to every idle city and unit.
I disagree that there's almost no reason you wouldn't want to build something. In late game most of my cities are idle as I've built almost everything. I would hate to have pop ups for all my cities that I want idle. I wouldn't mind a pop up the first time a city is idle, and only one pop for multiple cities. Also, an option to put the city in "idle non-notification mode" would be nice.
agreed what should happen though is you should be able to select a project that never ends (like income bonus, research bonus, etc) or be able to click a "sleep" mode for the city so it doesn't create a pop up.
I'm OK with the ZZZs.
Agree strongly that there should be pop-ups on the turn you finish building and have an empty queue.
There's no need to play the Be-Different-From-Civ game when it actually hurts gameplay and UI friendliness..A simple popup "City has finished xxxxx, what do you want to build now?" is an absolute neccessity in 4x games.
This makes me think of Galciv though, where the notifications to the right of the screen are far easier to spot.. Perhaps because they are at the bottom right above the minimap?
Yeah, LOL... I think that's it actually! Move the notifications down to the minimap, and they'll be far quicker to spot.Your eyes almost never hover over the top right corner anyway, just like in Galciv2 your eyes are focused at the center and bottom left / right.
Keep the notifications there, where the player already has their attention directed. Worked for Galciv2, would work here too.
As for the zzz in the top left empire tree.. I must be honest, i've never ever used the empire tree in any game it has been in, not in Sins, not in WoM, and probably won't in this either. I always just zoom out to have an overview over the entire world. Feels, more natural somehow.
I would very much like the option of having this pop-up as well.
I like the ZZZ, but to be honest I have missed it several times.
Some kind of sound effect would be neat indeed, and alternatively the ZZZ could blink. Blinking would probably draw our attention more effectively as opposed to being a ZZZ that is idle and is harder to notice because our eyes get used to it.
It seems like the general consensus is: the ZZZ is not enough. I like the point about GalCiv2 - you tended to still notice it even though it didn't force you to build. But I don't see why a Civ4-like system is unreasonable. It works, people don't tend to complain about it, and it's tweakable if they do.
IMO there is no point in "no pausing" the game when a city (or unit) is idle. I like the solutuion from CIV 5 - no orders, no end of turn. It's simple and works perfect.
I'm continuously missing the "Zzz..." as well, even in the early game (where it is more annoying/damaging). I like CivV model of not letting me continue until everything has an order, even if that order is "Sleep until I tell you otherwise.
In mid game, especially when I'm waging a war, I have more units active than I can easily manage. I'd like to be able to quickly and easily find the next idle unit so that I can make sure nobody is sitting around do nothing useful. Again, the CivV model works for me, but if that really bothers people then, a "Zzz..." next to the army icon would really be required.
Late-game with large maps, most of the Zzzzs will be down below the screen. Gimme popup.
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