I love lists in games, by that I mean in-game spreadsheets where your assets and statistics are entered. While a game that was only lists probably wouldn't be fun, in many games I find myself playing from the spreadsheet over 50% of the time, after the beginning stages of a game.
If I remember correctly I don't think Elemental has any list screens yet, though all 4x games end up with list somewhere, be it city lists, unit lists, or something else (magic, items, quest, ect), so I'm sure they will end up in eventually. This, however, is not a call to include lists in Elemental, rather, a few suggestions on what I think would make lists better in a 4x game and hopefully take some of the tedium out of the genre.
- Multiple sort list, I really don't know why this is not a genre staple. On a large map lists tend to get huge, most noticeably troop lists. Thankfully most developers give us the ability to sort these list in ascending or descending order based upon some statistic. But why not give us multiple sorts with different priorities. Maybe I want to sort out all of my city guardsmen and separate those with spears from those with bows so I could specifically update the armor of those with spears, or really any other of a million examples of why this makes perfect sense.
- Save the list the way I've sorted it. At times you just can't accomplish the task at hand from inside the list and you have to leave the list UI to interact with another screen (usually a map or city screen). It should go without saying that as much should be done within a list screen as possible, but when I have to click out of the list screen, why does that have to destroy the ordering of the list I was looking at. I can't count how many hours (days? weeks?) of my life have been lost sorting lists in games over the last 15 years. If the list could only be 'minimized' or in some way saved when I click out, it would save so much tedium.
- Flag items on lists. This can be used with or in place of the previous suggestion. Sometimes when working in a list I can lose my places, or I have to wait so many turns to gather resources till I can finish a task, and during that time things can change the ordering of a list. A simple flag next to items on a list could remind me where I left off, or tell me what I have left to do. They don't even have to be fancy flags, just a simple star next to an item (or better yet multiple stars) that simply serve as reminders to whatever you are doing. Of course, it would help if this also came with a quick way to unflag everything.
- The ability to change columns. I don't feel this one is so important, but thought I would include it in the list. It would be nice if we could chose which stats we look at or rearrange how they are ordered in the list. This could help simplify list and allow the player to quickly glance at the list and get a feel for what is going on in their empire.
