Wishlist: Possible User Interface Improvements

[AstralWanderer]

While managing small dominions is fairly painless, there are a few issues with larger ones that could be eased with some small but significant UI changes. While I understand that future updates to Dominions 3 may be in question, I feel that some discussion on this could still be of use.

Provide a Minimap
With very large maps and those containing distant neighbours (e.g. the Oeridia map with its gateways linking remote provinces and underground areas) large amounts of scrolling become necessary. Adding a minimap where players could click on it to be taken to the corresponding location on the main map would make it far quicker to move around.

Enhance the Nation Overview
This screen becomes increasing useful as empires expand. However it doesn't provide complete information on commanders or provinces (in particular the destination/target of orders or spells and the recruitment details of provinces).

I would suggest splitting this into 2 sections. First a commander overview which would include full details of orders given, including destination/target details and gems used for ritual spells.

Secondly, a province overview which could add further details like which units could be recruited and what has been recruited, along with temple/lab/fortress markers.

Thirdly, the columns should be sortable (one click on the appropriate header to sort in ascending order, a second for descending, etc). Need to find the best Astral mages? The richest provinces? Those with the lowest defence or highest unrest? This currently involves a good deal of manual checking which could be made much easier.

Anyone care to add to the above? (please keep suggestions limited to the UI since there seem to be plenty of other threads for game mechanics or general expansion).

[Sombre]

I don't think a minimap is necessary if you zoom all the way out and use the arrow keys for scrolling. It would be nice, but I think it goes beyond the scope of anything added in an update so far and is therefore highly unlikely to be added.

Also the issues caused by very large maps are fairly easily rectified by, er, not playing on such large maps. I find the UI becomes somewhat inadequate once you reach a certain size and that's a big part of why I don't play on the larger maps.

You might get somewhere with sortable columns in the F1 nation overview, but it's been asked for before.

[Gandalf Parker]

Id have to agree on both counts.

Sortable columns might be the best answer which ties up many different complaints.

As for mega maps (which I love) I would agree on a mini map if it wasnt for the mousewheel. Im addicted to zooming in and out with the wheel. But that might just be on the windows version? As an alternative, during late game I do find it handy to use an image viewing program to have an image of the map open in smaller form.

Or keep a low-overhead paint program open (like the ms-paint that came with winxp) and hit print-screen button once in awhile. Then I can switch to the paint and hit Ctrl-V to paste the image in. Not only is it useful as a minimap but its useful to remember things as they were. Kindof a visual notepad.

[Squirrelloid]

My biggest UI complaint is whenever i have to enter a numerical value. Even using the '+' key its really annoying to bid a substantial amount on a mercenary above what they normally ask, or other similar tasks. (Going from 200 to 500 is 300 button pushes). Why does the game not support just typing in the number you want? The lack of such a capability is really counterintuitive.

[AstralWanderer]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I don't think a minimap is necessary if you zoom all the way out and use the arrow keys for scrolling.

Doesn't work well. If you zoom out, select a province and zoom in again, the zoom won't centre on that province (resulting in it going off-screen most of the time). Yes, you can use arrow keys but it is a slow process.

Originally Posted by Sombre

Also the issues caused by very large maps are fairly easily rectified by, er, not playing on such large maps.

And what is the point of having a 1,500 province capacity if it is so frustrating to use it?

Another request is with commander names. Since there are a limited number, it doesn't take long for names to be re-used which makes things awkward if you have several Generic Joes in the same province. Adding a numeric identifier (e.g. Generic Joe-2) would help but for thematic reasons, a numbering system specific to each civilisation would seem best, e.g. for the Romanesque positions we could have Lucius Flavius Unus, Lucius Flavius Duo....Lucious Flavius Viginti-et-Unus (21) and so on.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by AstralWanderer

And what is the point of having a 1,500 province capacity if it is so frustrating to use it?

And the devs might agree. But the 1500 provinces were added much much later than the interface features. So now its either play with it or dont. Its too late to build around it now. Especially if you then have to port the result to Mac and Windows machines.

Another request is with commander names. Since there are a limited number, it doesn't take long for names to be re-used which makes things awkward if you have several Generic Joes in the same province. Adding a numeric identifier (e.g. Generic Joe-2) would help but for thematic reasons, a numbering system specific to each civilisation would seem best, e.g. for the Romanesque positions we could have Lucius Flavius Unus, Lucius Flavius Duo....Lucious Flavius Viginti-et-Unus (21) and so on.

Good idea. I have the same complaint but with the provinces. I did fix it with the provinces. I went with two-word names. Such as the script for the forest provinces tacks one of these:
data "Forest", "Woods", "Copse", "Grove", "Woodlands", "Timber"
data "Timberland", "Woodlot", "Wildwood", "Thicket", "Growth"
data "Trees", "Canopy", "Maze", "Woodland", "Wood", "Forestry"
data "Wilderness", "Willows", "Oaks", "Saplings"

onto one of these:
data "Dark", "Greening", "Darkening", "Forbidden", "Gracious"
data "Elven", "Elder", "Mythical", "Growth", "Feeding", "Blue"
data "Carpenters", "Neutral", "Deep", "Nesting", "Golden"

To get names like Golden Grove, Dark Forest, Deep Thicket.

[LDiCesare]

I think commander and province names can b eimproved by just adding more to the lists.
I think a minimap would actually clutter the interface and be harmful. There's already lots of space eaten by your commanders (if you move 20 mages and their troops from one place to the next, you can't see half the screen). I also think mouse wheel + arrow keys do a fine job, and for the record dislike big maps, but I think a minimap would be harmful if it took any screen space. If you put it behinf a button, it would be ok but probably not that useful.

[lch]

Originally Posted by AstralWanderer

Doesn't work well. If you zoom out, select a province and zoom in again, the zoom won't centre on that province (resulting in it going off-screen most of the time). Yes, you can use arrow keys but it is a slow process.

If you use the # key to select a province, it will center the window around the province. You can then zoom in and out of it in any way that you want.

Originally Posted by AstralWanderer

And what is the point of having a 1,500 province capacity if it is so frustrating to use it?

I agree to that, the limit should be lower. There just isn't much of a point in playing such large games. The AI will be less dangerous, not more successful, the hosting times will become unbearably long very soon, and you'll eventually hit at least one of the other limits that are in the game. The game isn't designed to be played at those extremes. The minimap suggestion is good, though there are more important things that should have to change first, IMHO.

[AstralWanderer]

Originally Posted by lch

If you use the # key to select a province, it will center the window around the province. You can then zoom in and out of it in any way that you want.

Thanks for the info - but while a little easier, you still need to note the selected province number, then type it before zooming.

Just having a command to centre the map on a selected province (the C key isn't being used at the moment...) would be of benefit here.

Originally Posted by Sombre

I don't know much about nametype limitations, but you can probably just mod the basegame nametypes to include more names (I doubt they are currently at the limit, whatever it is). I wouldn't consider this hard at all to fix and maybe some others would appreciate the mod, so why not do it? I can even show you how if you'd like.

Expanding the nametypes would delay rather than fix the problem. There would really need to be a code change (not a large one hopefully) to identify when name re-use occurs and to alter subsequent ones to make them unique. Gandalf's suggestion of combining words could achieve this without having excessively long names ("Generic Joe One Hundred and Eighty Four").

A quicker fix would be to just append a numeric ID when multiple commanders with the same name are in the same province. That would suffice to avoid confusion.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by AstralWanderer

And what is the point of having a 1,500 province capacity if it is so frustrating to use it?

Well since I would personally never play on anything anywhere near that large (my absolute max would be around 400, with my preferred being about 70 provinces) I'm not about to defend it. I suppose because people requested that feature and it wasn't too difficult to raise the limit. People who play with even 750+ are a definite minority and are arguably being a bit silly, so I'm not sure why any gui changes should be made with them in mind.

Another request is with commander names. Since there are a limited number, it doesn't take long for names to be re-used which makes things awkward if you have several Generic Joes in the same province. Adding a numeric identifier (e.g. Generic Joe-2) would help but for thematic reasons, a numbering system specific to each civilisation would seem best, e.g. for the Romanesque positions we could have Lucius Flavius Unus, Lucius Flavius Duo....Lucious Flavius Viginti-et-Unus (21) and so on.

I don't know much about nametype limitations, but you can probably just mod the basegame nametypes to include more names (I doubt they are currently at the limit, whatever it is). I wouldn't consider this hard at all to fix and maybe some others would appreciate the mod, so why not do it? I can even show you how if you'd like.