[.85 UI] Notification when city stops production

from Elemental Forums

I must have mis-read the changes for this beta with the Govern button being placed near the end-turn button. But this is still the most annoying aspect of the game and should be easy to fix. Please have a way of INTRUSIVELY letting the player know that a city has stopped production before autoing to the next turn. The dialogues in the upper right are easily missed as is the sleep symbol.

Perhaps if there are any new notices in the top right, the game prompts you before ending a turn.

This sounds like a small deal but it really pisses the player off when they realise that they could have been building for a number of turns and missed out on that opportunity.

3,452 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I disagree, you need to pay attention to these things.  Thats why it is a strategy game.  If I got a popup at the end of every autoturn becuase I hadn't set something in my build queue - now that would piss me off.  Particularly if I don't want to build something.  Strategy gaming is about paying attention to details, not holding your hand through every aspect of the game.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I disagree. Strategy games are about making decisions, not about going through a mental checklist 1000 times during the course of a game. I think you should have an option to be notified when the building queue is finished. Any 4x game without this option is broken IMO.

 

I also think auto-progressing turns is a bad idea, I suggest turning it off.  

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Its not a mental check list, there is a notification on the side that tells you the production queue is empty. 

 

Anyway, I'm fine with having options for this, but I don't want it mandatory that annoying pop ups occur every end turn.  There were enough annoying pop ups in .77.  We need less of this.  If people want to to tick something in their configuration settings that says give me lots of annoying popups, then fine.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree, as do numerous other users. Please refer to the lengthy thread I've had going for quote some time here.

 

Quoting Ausland, reply 3
Its not a mental check list, there is a notification on the side that tells you the production queue is empty. 

 

Anyway, I'm fine with having options for this, but I don't want it mandatory that annoying pop ups occur every end turn.  There were enough annoying pop ups in .77.  We need less of this.  If people want to to tick something in their configuration settings that says give me lots of annoying popups, then fine.
End of Ausland's quote

 

Having this should be the default. Not having it should be an option. Civ does it, and it couldn't be any better. But seriously, read the thread I referenced before rehashing the same arguments.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

The problem is that there are buildings in FE that give you bonuses if your cities aren't producing anything.  Frogboy has said that he would like to have more of these as well:

 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/418154

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for posting about this. I hope the team understands that the average gamer needs this kind of information.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Ausland, reply 5
The problem is that there are buildings in FE that give you bonuses if your cities aren't producing anything.  Frogboy has said that he would like to have more of these as well:

 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/418154

 
End of Ausland's quote

 

Civ also has these bonuses. Guess what? When the window pops up you switch it to producing extra gold/research/etc. That's the only time you see the prompt until you turn the extra production off.

 

When a town finishes building something, you're always going to want to build something else. Making the town menu pop up eliminates user frustration without changing anything you'd normally do.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

While I don't necessarily want another pop-up, the idea here is that there needs to be more prominence given to cities that aren't producing anything. The current notification is too understated and easily missed. Even in .85 I find myself forgetting/missing making something, which puts me at a big disadvantage with the AI. I know it's my job to check my cities, but right now the ZZZZZ.... is easy to gloss over.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I think it might be useful to have an "Allow idle production" checkbox available on each city's detail window. So when this check box is cleared and that city has nothing in the build queue, you would be prevented from going to the next turn until you filled the queue.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Couldn't they at least add 1 line like "this city is now idle" to the message we already get on the right-side of the screen when a city completes something. 

The ZZZZzzz on the left side doesn't cut it in large maps & long campaigns where they are mostly down off the screen.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Besides, in large maps you will have a lot of cities on idle a lot of the time. If you miss one of the cities that you DO want to build in going into idle mode, you will probably forget about it for quite a lot of turns which might cripple your game easily.

It hasn't been just once or twice when I have forgotten a city for 20+ turns just because I missed the notification that the city has become idle. It just doesn't make any sense NOT having a popup that asks you once whether you want to keep the city in idle or build something. It's not like you're not going check out the city anyway after a building is completed to see if you want to build more or not. The popup wouldn't slow the game at all, in fact it would speed it up at least in my case.

The lack of a popup leads to tedious micromanagement of the cities. Give us the popup!