Very small UI improvement

Tarrax · #1 January 3rd, 2007, 03:14 AM

I often feel the need to press 'T' just to see how many units my commanders have. Can we have the number of troops displayed in the commander squares on the left hand side? Even a single number showing the total units the commander commands would be fine (or multiple comma-separated numbers showing each squad's unit number). This very small UI improvement would save many 'T' key presses. What do you think?

Endoperez · #2 January 3rd, 2007, 05:09 AM

There's a small icon of crossed swords in the icon of a commander that leads few units (25 or less). For every 25 troops a commander has, he gets another pair of crossed swords.

Arralen · #3 January 3rd, 2007, 05:30 AM

Quote:

Tarrax said:
Can we have the number of troops displayed in the commander squares on the left hand side?

Actually, numbers would look bad, there isn't really any space left for them (especially on the left), and the information is already at hand:

HoneyBadger · #4 January 3rd, 2007, 05:58 AM

What if the swords were color-coded? a white sword means you've got 15 or less units in the "sword" while a red sword means that you have within 10 of the maximum units-per-sword? A gold sword means that "sword" is full.

Endoperez · #5 January 3rd, 2007, 06:02 AM

Quote:

HoneyBadger said:
What if the swords were color-coded? a white sword means you've got 15 or less units in the "sword" while a red sword means that you have within 10 of the maximum units-per-sword? A gold sword means that "sword" is full.

Too complicated IMO. It seems the swords aren't crossed as I thought, though. I think sometime in DomII it was suggested that crossed swords would be between 13 and 25 while a single sword would be under 13. Or perhaps that was in the Dom3 Wishlist thread.

PDF · #6 January 3rd, 2007, 09:35 AM

An even simpler and at least as much useful improvement would be to have "sqauds" appear as Type x Number in the army screen ..
For example, if I have leader L leading 10 units with icon "A" and 5 "B" in the same squad, currently we have :
L
AAABBAABBBAAAAA
(the order of A's and B's is one of the dominion mysteries, it's totally unpredictable...)
Imagine what it looks like with 100 units of 12 types

!
If we had :
L
A (x10) B (x5)
we'll have a much clearer view of the armies !

Loren · #7 January 3rd, 2007, 07:02 PM

I don't think it's unknowable.

Rather, I think there is a list and when units die the slot is freed up for another unit.

Tarrax · #8 January 3rd, 2007, 08:45 PM

Hmm I didn't even know about the swords (I never played Dominions before 3). So that gives you some indication. The thing is why not replace swords icon with a number? I don't think it would look bad and it would give you a much definitive answer instead of trying to indicate the number of units in a very limited way with sword icons. Two comma separated numbers like 3,80 or two numbers on top of each other (80 units in 3 squads) would be best but even just 80 would go a long way. Anyway, at least now I know about swords.

Gandalf Parker · #9 January 3rd, 2007, 09:42 PM

Obviously it could easily be done but I think its the RPG vs spread-sheet strategy. The developers were always leary of giving exact numbers and formulas in Dom1 and Dom2. Here, instead of numbers you get "he has a few, he has some, he has a lot" following your leader.

When you assign their actions you see hard numbers now.

Wick · #10 January 3rd, 2007, 10:56 PM

I wonder how the swords look when commanding 400+ units. (e.g. SuperiorUndeadLdr + 10 each path + items) Anybody with a screenshot, please?