Ultima Ratio Regum now comes complete with an improved UI. I’ve been thinking about what was needed, and two things came to mind. Firstly, a clear delineation between the parts of the screen; secondly, a sidebar. Here’s a current in-game screenshot:
The left sidebar shows a variety of things. The top minimap displays the terrain of the region you are in; the middle minimap displays who owns the territory of the terrain you are in; and the bottom minimap displays the height of the terrain you are in. The latter is particularly important for staging battles, moving your army (it is naturally harder to cross high-altitude, rugged terrain) and will also have a small effect on some creatures you might have recruited – some don’t like the cold, and it gets very cold the higher you go.
Below that are the two categories of units you might have under your command. If you are serving in the army of another, these will only show those you command – say, if you rise to the rank of sergeant, you might be put in charge of a small unit. In the first box, the categories are all creatures of the human/dwarf/elf variety, are: Those with Slashing weapons, Heavy weapons, Long weapons, Short weapons; Mounted units; Archers; Siege weapons; and Warlocks. Below that are the lists of mercenary creatures you have under your command – Cyclopes, Fiends (demonic creatures), Lizardmen, Minotaurs, Nagas, Ogres, Orcs, and Undead. If any of these are there, the ’000′ will be replaced by a white number. Otherwise, it is left in dark grey.
Secondly – though this is harder to find an image for – each segment of the map is now connected, which means you can walk, on foot, from one side to the other, without having to go off the edge of the screen and come back on again. The map simply scrolls away beneath you, though there are still loading zones every now and then. Realistically, these should not prove much of an issue; an area will load when you travel into it, but it will be uncommon for you to walk out of the confines of that grid area and into another. Even the largest battles are unlikely to spill outside a single grid square; towns and monster villages will be contained within one square; and, currently, cities will too (though there is a chance some might be split over two). By this time next week, world generation will be concluded; a new screenshot or two will appear; and I’ll be back onto combat. As for the sidebar, I think it gives as much essential information as you need, is pretty small/unobtrusive, and appropriate for the strategy focus, but let me know what you all think!
These minimaps look pretty good, although, for strategy games, it’s become more of a standard to house them in the bottom left or right.
You can probably combine some of the information, such as terrain and area of control as foreground ASCII for the former and background color for the latter; if the colors get too mixed up, you can try a monochromatic treatment on the foreground, after all, the color is just for flavor in that case.
I would have the height map also folded into that one multi-minimap, with the ability to toggle between 1) terrain/control and 2) altitude/control with a hot key. This way you can reduce eye tracking, reduce skin clutter, and display information [potentially] more concisely.
Is it absolutely necessary to give away the names of all of the mercenaries that are available to me from the get-go? I am not convinced that displaying 000 is of too much use, plus it takes away from the magic of discovering you can hire Minotaurs!
Looking forward to a playable demo!
Ebyan “Nolithius” Alvarez-Buylla
http://www.nolithius.com
Neat! Altough what happens if you decide to include more hireable mythological creatures? Or if you magically control another creature? I think simply adding a “creatures” count below human/dwarf/elf would be enough and maybe a hot key to show what exactly you control.
I hope we will only see what the player is doing and what other creatures are doing to the player in the log. We could see everything that was going on in Dwarf Fortress and a page of information about all your companions and enemies (which you don’t care about) popped up every turn. That really caused some clutter.
Also, I agree with Ebyan Alvarez-Buylla about the toggleable height map feature.
Keep it going!
@ Ebyan – all interesting points. I considered having a toggle function for the map, but in the end decided to go with this version. I see what you mean, though – I’d have to decide on something else to take up that bit of the sidebar if I changed it, though! Even so, I’ll give it some thought. I guess I’d use Tab to change the view… (I actually tried the foreground/background idea, and it was much too crowded).
Agreed on mercenaries – I’ll have them blacked out until you find them each game.
@ Leatra – heh. That’s a good question. I suppose I would have to amend the sidebar, though I’m pretty certain that is the full selection. Then again, if I did… I’m not sure what solution I’d go with. I’ll have to think about that one, though I think keeping separate creature counters is important, especially since I’m not sure what – if any – control you’ll be able to gain over truly wild creatures.
We do indeed; you can toggle on/off messages about other creatures you can *see* – friendly or otherwise – but by default you are only given information you directly experience. Unlike DF, you aren’t omniscient! If you choose to have it display messages on visible combat, it will, but otherwise, it will only tell you who you hit and who hits you : ). Hugely reduces clutter, and makes you have to act to find out about the rest of the battle, rather than the information being magically delivered to you.