| Ftoomsh | Date: Thursday, 29/August/2013, 1:46 AM | Message # 1 |
 Count
Group: Modders
Messages: 124
Status: Offline
| Modders might be interested in this trial of a new Peasant Build Menu for Bavaria in OC Mod Balanced and my reasons for trialling it. It is always my belief that the user interface should assist the player as much possible. These games are challenging enough without the user interface inducing mistakes and confusion. I refer to the holes in the peasant build menu and the chances of mistakes like making two mills early on by a misclick. I also refer to putting the build menu as much as possible in the same order that players are actually permitted (by building dependencies) and/or required (by good build order practices) to build in the game. If the trial is successful, I will amend the peasant build menus for all nations in OC Mod Balanced. This idea is mainly of technical interest as OC Mod Balanced is not publically distributed.
Bavaria – Trial of New Build Menu.
Bavaria is getting a new build menu. What this means is that when you select peasants to build, the buildings appear in a different layout in their build menu box. It is very easy to adapt to. There are also some very slight changes to building requirements; meaning what buildings you need to get your next buildings. The idea behind this change is to eliminate, as far as possible, the blank holes in the build menu (especially early on) that can cause people to make mis-click mistakes like “double mills”. Making the shed possible after the mill, which I have done, helps recover from this mistake but it’s better to remove the build menu gaps that lead to the mistake in the first place. The new requirements are as below (other requirements remainthe same)
· - Shed enabled after mill.
· - Mines require a Town Centre first. (We naturallyget an early TC anyway.)
· - Market requires a mill and a shed. (Again anatural build order anyway.)
· - Towers now require a blacksmith and an artillery depot (to make cannonfor the towers).
· - Church now requires a blacksmith and house(s). (You need a villageto support a church and will naturally have houses by this time anyway.)
· - Shipyard now requires a market and a blacksmith and house(s). (You need a villageto support a shipyard and will naturally have houses by this time. Not that we build shipyards anyway for our exclusively land battles.)
The change in order of the menu attempts to be logical and to progress logically. It tends to go down by columns (in build order) rather than along in rows. It attempts to eliminate gaps in the menu. The menu box expands naturally. It puts rows in a kind of logical order too. The second row has all the buildings (except diplo) that support population and/or actually make units (peasants or troops) and they too are in the order you get them. Because the diplo, shipyard, log-cabin, fence, wall and tower icons disappear after you build to the allowed limits, they are at the right of the menu box. Thus they will, in some cases, by disappearing, allow the menu box to shrink again rather than leave holes or gaps.
Message edited by Ftoomsh - Thursday, 29/August/2013, 1:51 AM |
| |
| |
