Thalatta

It could be different to the point of changing the outcome of the next battle, for example: if he needs half his CS to fight, and the other half to collect resources, and they are all of the same rank, but have different experience, then choosing the half with more experience to fight would be the better option, expecting a higher proportion to rank up during the next battle. It's a detail, but in theory having sliders to filter those with HP, experience, etc, higher or lower than the chosen value from a selection could be a thing (I know there's the "injured" selection, but this could replace that, being clearer and more flexibly customisable).

Flags are anachronical in plenty of situations given the time period, but I wonder up to where historical accuracy is wanted. It’s interesting that one can see if fortifications are garrisoned, but not if ships are… which is usually the exact opposite of reality.

It would be nice if there was some indicator on how much they like you or not (Sins of a Solar Empire had this for example). This could influence not only diplomacy and aggression, but also the market, which right now is a copy of AoE and I'd totally change for something more interesting.

I really like that UI concept: the minimap on the extreme left, actions on the extreme right, and unit cards in the middle, not subject to a panel that would inevitably end with lots of dead space most of the time. Now I remember that, in 0 A.D., having all buildable structures always on view just because someone who could build them was selected seemed weird to me, unnecessarily too much. Maybe there should be a Common Structures and a Unique Structures build buttons, like it is in many games. This would also make the use of (eventual?) hotkeys more streamlined. While some here complain about reducing the size of trees and ships, they are even bigger in that game, which looks better to me (although some transparency effect might be lacking). I like the irrigation being part of the fields (which in 0 A.D. seems the blandest of all structures, almost as it would be better off by being spawned by Farmsteads instead). The personalisation of warriors and seeing them training during production is quite interesting, as is showing how ships are built, and how troops are shown on them and on elephants. And still, "most critics felt the game was unoriginal, bringing nothing new to the genre", which seems a really hard thing to do, impossible to reach if constrained by that "people don't want to learn new build orders" .

You are not considering Field overlapping?

Is it? I can remember proper tunnels one could make only in Earth 2150, and an underground level in Heroes of Might and Magic… but then barely anything else, the Zerg tunnels in StarCraft, which I don’t think 0 A.D. should aim for (to avoid a teleporting effect).

For a few days now I've had the issue that some old topics appear under my Unread Content, and they don't go away even after reading them. It started with one, then two, and more and more random ones appeared until now it's sitting at 22. I thought it could be some cookie issue, but I cleaned everything now and nothing changed:

And sidebars or overflow arrows? Which could be hidden but work by scrolling. But I have the feeling these are avoided, even when they could help reduce space used.

All true! I don't know why at least one of those possibilities didn't work for me before, and I can't even reproduce the message I was getting... What about having 3 columns showing all possible slots always, with the non-functional for the given selection being greyed out? After all, that's what happens with the other actions (the construction panel). This would also show the player all that is possible. The possibility I like less is not showing buttons for actions that can be performed, it's not about knowing the hotkeys, it's about clearly showing new players what can be done. I think it's good to have the option to hide certain things. Well it had mostly vanilla in mind, and the row ordering criteria I defined was quite generic (mostly economic, civic, military, and special), but yes, those new classes would be needed for it to work.

@Atrik considering your four points, and using the Construction Panel layout I proposed long ago, I end up with this, which has the same height as your panels, and the additional width is less than the width of a small button:

1) Yes, I realised I might be occupying too much horizontal space, but instead width can be reduced and height increased, after all I proposed this redistribution of the construction panel some time ago: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/143192-construction-panel-layout/ 2) I'm not sure what you mean by this, but some panels could be reordered. 3) Yes, I realised that and I almost swapped the 2nd and 3rd panel because of it. In any case, actions are divided in what structures to build, and the rest, which seemed a bit different to me. 4) Yes, I thought about the single selection case, but considered that the username could be placed somewhere else, like in the upper panel. After all, why does that appear for single selection, but not for multiple selection? That doesn't make much sense to me. I proposed plenty of things in my preceding posts: first said "maybe "stations" would be a better word", that "a more generic "Occupy" button could be used, which could also act as a Capture button", and later said that, in case one wants "to have structures that can be both garrisoned and posted (this should be the term, instead of "turreted"), the Occupy Turret button could be renamed to Post", and that "Capture could still be achieved with the Garrison and/or Post buttons". Since on the latest layouts there seems to be plenty of space for extra buttons, that last thing doesn't seem necessary (could still be an option). In conclusion, right now the simplest thing would be to rename "Occupy Turret" to "Post", or "Take Post", and to change its description from "Order the selected units to occupy a turret point" to "Order the selected units to take a post", and with the present icon I think things would be clearer. Or "Order the selected units to take a post on the battlements", if all these external points are going to be behind parapets with crenellations.

It seems to me that those buttons are placed on a panel dedicated to something else… What about something like this instead? (I also changed their ordering to something a bit more thematic): There would still be the issue I mentioned that many turret points have nothing to do with turrets, which was confusing me from the beginning.

OK! Something I'd like to add, because maybe there's a case (or plan), to have structures that can be both garrisoned and posted (this should be the term, instead of "turreted"), the Occupy Turret button could be renamed to Post (in contraposition of Garrison, for external vs internal discrimination, and ignoring for now a more radical possibility of rearranging units from the structure itself). Capture could still be achieved with the Garrison and/or Post buttons on enemy structures, and if in the future (or some mod) units will be able to capture fortifications by storming gates or ramparts, this distinction would already be supported.

It seems to me that not having a button for something as important as Capture is bad design, a manual should not be needed, nor should newbies be expected to read it, for something like that. A place for a button can be made. Ok, that's confusing as hell. That Wall Turret icon appears beside the Gate in the Structure Tree, but not in-game, it's not something that can be built/upgraded, but that appears automatically. Then, the Turret button doesn't work on a Wall Turret, but on the Wall itself (nice to see that units can appear in its walkway!). It says "current turrets 16/16", but that has nothing to do with turrets, the gaps in the battlement are called crenels, although since there are 2 people per crenel, maybe "stations" would be a better word. It seems to me that this button is unnecessary, the garrison button should have this function when applied to Walls, after all it's really confusing that to man the Wall that button must be used, but to man the Wall Towers the Garrison button must be used. Maybe a more generic "Occupy" button could be used, which could also act as a Capture button if an enemy building is selected, with the description "Order the selected units to garrison a building, staff a station, crew a unit, board a ship, or capture a structure." There's no need for different buttons if the functions are similar and, if I'm not wrong, there's no overlap between them.

Well, actually, it would be nice that, if the terrain is clicked, units would go there after dropping resources, but instead, if the button is used nothing happens, and if the hotkey is used, the message "some unit(s) can't go back to work" appears, and nothing happens.

@Nicolaus_von_Kues where are those images from? Things you are testing? I really like many ideas there.

Jesus Fricking Christ... you are totally right. Just tested it and it works perfectly. In part it's our fault for not reading the tooltip, but it's not intuitive to give it such a simple name which, I think, in most games means something else, more so when most people talk about "Call to Arms" (the button should be called like that). Btw, what does Occupy Turret do? The tooltip is not clear enough, and I can't find any specific info. Maybe I just haven't come across "turret points". Also, as per one of my previous suggestions, a "Capture" button should be added.

Where? I see only six buttons: Self-Destruct, Abort, Attack, Garrison, Occupy Turret (which I don't know yet what it does) and Repair.

Some have complained about the very existence of CS. Others say that it's an intrinsic characteristic of the game. Of course they historically make sense, but given what you say, and to find a middle ground, maybe they could "upgrade" between roles (it's actually, and should be called, a "switch", since it's reversible, similarly as how the Immortals "upgrade" between spear and bow). To reduce micro, and considering that it's not good to fight while carrying resources (because of loot, and I don't remember if it also penalises stats), there could be a "Call to Arms" button (instead of just some unassigned hotkey, as I think it is now) to make the selected CS leave resources at their closest dropsite and upgrade to soldier role, which could then be queued with whatever order. @Emacz, that would look a bit like what you were proposing of having CS gather their weapons, although from dropsites, and those who are not carrying resources wouldn't even need to go there, since it just tries to solve the actual problem @Nicolaus_von_Kues mentioned. As previously discussed, one could make them go to the Barracks or CC to actually take or leave weapons, but maybe this would be too much, and it's just an alternative to do things, not that one makes more sense than the other from a game point of view.

That's why I've started to review each civilisation (although maybe I'll give up before going through all of them), pointing out mistakes and proposing relevant additions concerning the time period of the game (with preceding important characteristics taken as Civilisation Bonuses), while quoting authoritative sources, not with the idea to use necessarily everything, but to take from there. For now I've only done it for the Spartans, and the Athenians are coming soon, but it's a very slow and consuming process: I think for the Athenians I've gone through 3000 to 4000 pages of books and papers over the last few weeks, and all that has to be translated to what can be used in a game. One of the reasons historical RTS like AoE were so successful is that they actually taught something.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone does a great job adapting many historical details, and that's a lot to say from a insufferable perfectionist like me

I was thinking that because it seems you'll need way more stats for some units (for kinds of damage, range, spread, etc), then icons would give you space for a 4th column, if not also a 5th one.

@Nicolaus_von_Kues I agree, although regarding "Imagine an RTS where you add physiological needs; it would be realistic but not logical or believable", I don't see why it wouldn't be believable, maybe what you mean convincing as something viable. Regarding the rest, what you say is key to understand well written fiction and fantasy: many tend to dismiss critiques on believability of those shows because there's magic, dragons or whatever in it already anyway, completely missing the point of internal consistency. But we have gone quite off-topic

Very nice, clear, and useful. I hope something like this is eventually implemented in the base game. I guess it's also a mock-up because there are a very few small issues. But my questions are: does hovering over classes give some info regarding them? If so, maybe showing them as tags would be nice. Are those base stats (which I'd state with small icons, their names shown if hovering over them), or already include the applied techs effects? If so, it would be nice to have some break down of that anyway, maybe by hovering over them. Finally, when I see that aura, I wonder if it's "passive" or "active" (if there are active auras at all), and if that wouldn't be better as a Formation effect or similar.