Hello Everyone,

I’m Blair Wolf of "FIRAXIS" and I will be doing Interface Design for "Civilization III". This note I’m posting is a call for suggestions of Screens/Features/Icons/Etc specifically for the Report Screens (not the City screens, Main game screen, Opening Interface, Etc). Anything "you" the player would like to see in regards to information displayed unto you in regards to "Report Screens".

What would enhance your enjoyment of playing the game?

I suspect I will be receiving quite a bit of email on the subject. So here’s how I would "like" submissions to be formatted.

1) Please be Brief and to the point…But if illustrating (in words) what you mean helps get your point across, by all means elaborate.

2) References to other games…Be specific in reference.

3) Use Constructive Criticism…If you don’t like something, tell me why. If you do like something also tell me why.

I suppose that this should be enough to start with. I look forward to your suggestions/comments.

To everyone out there, Be Well and Take care.

Blair Wolf

FIRAXIS

I suggest making the icons "soft". You can get a soft look if you add a "inner shadow" with the depth of 2, opacity at 50% and blur set at either 2 or 3, for a soft look - as an example of what I mean by soft (in photoshop of course). Use different colours to give identification. Try not to make it too complicated looking.
Turn the text into links. So say in the City Report view somewhere it says "Tax" Then that word "Tax" would be highlighted yellow and maybe underlined. so when you click on it you go straight to the tax window.

When you say screens I am guessing you mean the background screens of information on your civilization, Intelligence, city, foriegn advisor. I think instead of having just a background and written words on top of it, you should have a constructed image especially made for each subject.
So lets say in the stone ages, the information could be carved into stone, or something like that? something to represent the age. In the future you see it on computer. etc.
Another idea is to have the advisor stand there showing you his/hers report.

One major Civ example is Civilization CtP. Harsh bright colours, illogical controls etc.
(I haven't finished a game yet! yuck!). Improve on that and your halfway towards a winner

Next, city screens in both SMAC and Civ2 are very nice to work with. All three people who have replyed to this point have excellent points. Basically jof is saying build on Civ3 as SMAC built on Civ2 with respect to info in the city screen (shield, food, energy/gold usage). Yet caution is needed so that this additional info can be presented in an easy and understandable way so that it doesn't become cluttered.

Lastly, I like Icedan's ideas of making links going to a more in-depth breakdown of the information in question. This is adding upon SMAC's usage of links within the help. Maybe even have the game integrate more as a web game for those people who are connected 24 hours a day. Icedan also has a great idea of creating the complete look and feel of the civ's city screens, menus, displays, etc. more based on its science, religion, economy, etc.

Basically my ideas are to make sure the game is graphically pleasing (like Civ2 not SMAC), more info with links to detailed info yet not cluttered, and displays based upon social status.

Also like SC3K, certain words in each bulletin should be linked to the appropriate window/adviser as they scroll by.

Come on, its the most beautiful interface of them all! Nice soft graphics with a golden touch.

The problem with that interface was really that everyone was so into the civ2 interface that they didn't get the ctp interface.
I had problems with it the first time i played but the 2nd it was alot smoother and later on it was even faster than civ 2.
But then you had to really try the game to get it, which not alot did. I will not go into details why

And, just like a browser, I would like to be able not only to hide/shrink the interface but be able to customize the menu order or-- like Word 2000--the menus should shift thier hierarchy according to frequency of use, that way the things we do the most are always at the top.

That 'nice golden, soft interface' is all glare. And calling it soft is correct if you consider a pillow made out of the most expensive feathers, as hard.

I have nothing against the game, I unfortunately don't have hours and hours to get 'used' to the interface. And unfortunately that spoilt the game.

About the SMAC interface

I don't believe SMAC's interface is that complicated. There are no items that are more than two clicks away. It's just the case that there are a lot of them. Does it have a simple menus function? (I can't remember off-hand)

This could easily apply to a turn or multi-turn based report (which would be optional to view). The start of the report would show your current GNP (sub divided into categories: Military, Science, Health/Welfare, Public Construction, etc) and whether your GNP grew or shrank from the previous period and by how much. Next, the report would compare your spending in each of these categories vs. the previous period.

Then the report could break down you public spending and effectiveness. For example:

You have invested ##### money units into construction of Science Buildings and your production of Science has increased 15% (##### units) due to this investment,
You have invested ##### money units into construction of Economic Buildings and your tax revenue has increased 10% (###### units), Science has increased 4% (####### units), happiness 5% (###### citizens), production 2% (##### units) due to this investment.

This way it is not only very easy to make sure that we are not over emphasizing one area of the economy or neglecting the military, but to make sure that we are investing our financial resources most effectively.

You could even make these reports more sparse in higher difficulty levels, so it is harder to determine if you are making the correct decisions.

Colour is important for identifying the relations between subjects.
So I think when I open the intelligence report window, the background will have a slight green tint in it. And if I open the foriegn advisor window it will have a slight red tint in the background and so on.
So to the user, you are reminded that you are at the intelligence window when you see the green. And that works when you have to draw up a graph, the green bar will relate to the intelligence window. The mind remembers that naturally.

I still like the idea of the interface changing to reflect the progress of your civilization so that you are interacting with the technology aswell and not just your civilization. This would give off a feeling of satisfaction and pride.

In CTP a goldish yellow was used for the main colour in their interface, to me this is a bad move because it guides the eye away from the main window (game window) and to the toolbar too much. The interfaces main colour should be dark, but not too dark. Artists should know that gray is the best base colour to use for most other colours.
Which is to your advantage if you decide to make the interface reflect your progress because stone and computers are a grayish colour.

Most of my friends hate my strategy of build and defend. In many games I'll end out having two to three times as many cities as the next best civ. The reason they don't like me is that my turns take long (at least longer than their's do). For this reason I think there should be a screen for mass management, such as, a common queue for all cities to use as a building guideline. Each city can override this queue if need be. I realize you can set this up in a text file but it isn't dynamic for game play.

I must say, there are some really solid ideas floating around here. I especially like Yin26's idea of a menu 'disappearing' or docking when no longer needed. The game should be cutomizable to allow you to choose what is displayed and what becomes docked.

Another point I mentioned when suggestions were being asked way back when, was that, in CivNet, you could have the top 5 cities window up plus the city status window, etc and between turns they would stay up AND update themselves. Civ2-MGE didn't do this and I was very disappointed.

Wait, a shot in the dark. What if you could have sensors like Norton System Doctor that dock on the side of the screen and keep themselves updated between turns about critical information?

One last thought. Another bonus to Civ2 was that I could switch to other applications (including the desktop) between/during turns.

Key points; mass [city] management, customizable display with docking, and flexibity to switch to the OS.

While I was playing it I heard an "uh oh!". I realized I had left my ICQ running. To get to it I had to push Alt-Tab, but it took a wee while for me to get out then back in again. How about a cool little Icq flower being embedded to the bar within the game, this way I can stay in contact with people while playing the game. Think of the advantages of multiplayer with that? And just think, you would be the first to come up with the idea. (we'll let that be our little secret, cause we know who really came up with the idea hehehe). I can just see how many games out there that would use the same idea. Be the first! Make history. Yes this is a sign of making you do it.
Man, I can just imagine how cool that little flower would be. pillowed into the interface..

I'm going to try hard to make this possible!

I vote first so nga nga :Ž~~

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Seig heil DOS! :)

probbka@yahoo.com

As for a city status interface, PLEASE look at Master of Orion 2, which was already the basis for much of SMAC: You could easily sort your cities by production, population, money, etc. You could also move populations between planets in the same system without leaving that screen. If Civ3 ends up using regions, for example, the exact same thing could be applied here--or units could just be told to move between cities all from the city status screen (imagine moving 37 units just from the city status screen!). Of course, encounters with the enemy would still have to be dealt with on the main screen, unlike in MOO2 where population transfers in the same system were basically invisible (which was nice, actually). A "sort by unit" function coupled with a slide bar "send units to X city" would make this aspect much easier.

Oh, and before I forget, the Diplomacy screen in SMAC doesn't allow you to see the map while negotiating over which cities to trade, attack, etc. (Well, you could kind of cheeze your way to the map...) Obviously if such diplomatic options will come with Civ3, we'll need to be able to drop down to the map and be able to examine information before making trades or deciding where to attack.

you're just whining. it's barely feasible anyway (firaxis and icq would have to reach some sort of agreement), and i prefer games in which i can access windows (as i usually am on aim, icq, apolyton and playing civ2). you have yet to make a strong argument. don't proclaim victory till the battle is over, my friend.

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Seig heil DOS! :)

probbka@yahoo.com

What I liked about CtP and what you HAVE to include is the maximize tab! When I want to boost production, I hit the production button, when I want to boost my treasury I hit the gold button! Wonderful thing! However, the feature was not perfectly implemented in Ctp, so that I had to select every single city and maximize it and now you see why I vote for batch operations. Wouldnt it be better (in one single screen) to sort all cities by size and then select the five best cities and maximize them for production in times of war!

I would make a single status screen where there are registers (or tabs) named cities, civ, units... .

In addition maybe you could make the windows resizeable. When maximized, the window shows all the information, when not, there are scrollbars, but then you can view parts of the map.

I really disliked the city screen of SMAC or SMACX. I only played the demo however, but everytime I open it, I get knocked down. It feels overloaded, there is no contrast! Blue on blue. Remember the civ2 screen had green regions and orange regions and blue regions. This helps orientating!

BUT: And I hope everyone agrees with me, if you make the game sluggish, nobody will care about the design! Design has to be fast to be (not) noticed!

All combined makes one of the greatest games!

SPEED

Moving a unit should be as fast as possible. No, make that faster than possible. Likewise, any pulldown menus should appear almost intantaneously, with as little ostentation as possible. In fact, I would even prefer Civ III to operate in a standard window rather than a full-screen jump that takes precious seconds and makes the monitor blip every time I want to multitask. Er.

For that matter, a standard Windows menu bar is infinitely more user friendly than some obscure customized interface what minimizes on the bottom or side of the screen somewhere, and besides, any interface you design will end up eating memory and wasting time, and very little is gained. Not to mention that designing a customized system of pop-up message windows has got to be a pain; why bother? We instinctively know how Windows works. Escape equals "cancel" and takes down a message box. Enter equals "okay" if there's no "cancel" box. You don't have to worry about training yourself to hit the space bar or alt-S or some other exotic key combination that way.

Another quick issue

KEYBOARDS

In master of magic, you can instruct your engineer to build a road from point a to point b. Usually that how I build all my roads in Master of Magic.

In Civ2 you have to manually instruct your settler to build a road in every spot. This build to feature would eleviate much of the micromanagement that a settler would require.

If one were to expand this further, you could highlight an area and tell your settler to BLAH this area, where blah is irrigate, or pilage, or mine. This would also help trim down micromanagement.

#1 Named Heroes/Villains joining or opposing players.

Let Random Named Heroes enter the game under random conditions.

Example: When player 'x' achieves amassing xx dollars or hits tech level yy, or something then unleash demon type BLAH.

Or, Darkvine the evil lord (hero unit) joins in a pact against player 'y'.

#2 Reserves coming over the hill...

Example: In the Scenario Builder, allow the programmed entrance of xx units on to the map on turn yy, at location zz.

What does this mean? A good hearty scenario with reserve units entering the board. This is good because you can do scenarios that dont depend on cities being on the board. It also means you can do good classic wargame scenarios with reserves, just like the old SPI type of wargames.

#3 An Item builder like in Master of Magic.
This item can be used to actually pump up a unit on the board.

Example: Unit A finds a ring of invisibility (unit is no longer affected by zone of control. Unit B finds boots of springing (plus 3 to move)

#4 Introduce named abilities that units can aquire during the game.

yin, Ata:

After completing its assigned task it should come back and be available again.