Most difficult civ for you

[TheCJ]

yea, but thats why i like vanillas system; you dont get the stats on your screen all the time, but you can hover over the icon and read them all if you want

[Dakara]

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

What is much more desireable is a short description of their role in combat (if there isnt one already? Would the encyclopedia contain smt like this? I dont know tbh).

Like "The Spearman is a versatile melee unit especially strong against cavalry, but weak against siege units.", "The pikeman is a heavily armoured melee unit with relatively low damage but long range.", "The Swordsman is an offensive melee unit with high damage but a short range. It excels at taking out siege."

Much more useful for new players.

Yes and no, It can give new players bad shackles with advice that is situational. Who will change these tips when the balance team decides to remake pikemen into tank unit?

It is better for the player to discover his own strengths and weaknesses by instinct (reading statistics) and experience.

----

To determine the opponent's improvement progress and avoid memes (which are only identifiable by experienced players), we could consider a system of colors.  stacked? Or a color system, for example, bronze, silver, and gold (this easily resonates with people).

Tech 0: Grayed Tech 1: Bronze Tech 2: Silver Tech 3: Gold Tech 4 (Iberian and Maurya): Diamond

To satisfy everyone, we have two display options accessible via a button: the arcade button with the bare minimum of vital information and the detailed button with the full list (stats and future idea like counter kill etc)

example just for bronze color, but keep the design of 0AD of course

 

Edited July 29, 2025 by Dakara

[Atrik]

21 minutes ago, Dakara said:

To determine the opponent's improvement progress and avoid memes (which are only identifiable by experienced players), we could consider a system of colors.  stacked? Or a color system, for example, bronze, silver, and gold (this easily resonates with people).

Tech 0: Grayed Tech 1: Bronze Tech 2: Silver Tech 3: Gold Tech 4 (Iberian and Maurya): Diamond

I love the idea, however the current stats are displayed agnostic of sources of the bonuses. I'm still going to try to see if a grayscale of the icon (proportional of the bonuses amount) can look good.

[Dakara]

7 minutes ago, Atrik said:

I love the idea, however the current stats are displayed agnostic of sources of the bonuses. I'm still going to try to see if a grayscale of the icon (proportional of the bonuses amount) can look good.

I'm not a designer... dozens of ideas could exist... Either change the color of the sword and shield, bow, etc.? Or highlight it with that color. It's up to you to have fun with what seems best to you.

[guerringuerrin]

3 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

On mouse hover:
Damage:
3.0 + 0.8  hack / 5.0 + 1.0 pierce

Yeah that's pretty much what we have been discussed with @Atrikin the previous messages. I do like more a vertical layout design rather than an horizontal you propose (as the vanilla is) because I think it's much more easy to read and identifies the different stats as can be seen here:

On 27/07/2025 at 2:44 PM, guerringuerrin said:

@Atrikmaybe you could share a screenshot of this same damage tooltip of a melee unit so we can see how is shown? ( I'm at the cellphone rn )

 

About DPS number shown next to the unit portrait. I rather put the final damage of the unit instead of the DPS calculation as I find it a bit confusing. I guess some would say it's better to compare different units damage per second as different units have different attack intervals.

Edited July 29, 2025 by guerringuerrin

[Atrik]

@guerringuerrin does inline rly make it better? I'm kinda neutral on this.

However I also wanted to wait to show the color scale idea depending on upgrades, inspired from @Dakara idea but trying to keep it agnostic of how upgrades currently works (tiers would also make limited sens if you have WTF for example). Above, p3 upgraded spear vs p3 + wtf. Below p1 upgraded camel + Cleo aura.

Thoughts?

Edit
For buildings. I don't know if colors are confusing or actually helps. I like them.

Edited July 29, 2025 by Atrik

[Deicide4u]

Perfection.

If anyone wonders, this is from Alpha 9 Ides of March. Yes, swordsmen had a charge attack.

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

It's something that is frustrating about some techs like the Mace Silver Shield. I shouldn't need to go into the directory to understand how different units differ from one another or how a tech impacts units.

Same feeling about the vague description of this tech...

[Obelix]

@Moderators: Would it be possible to split this thread?

[guerringuerrin]

4 hours ago, Atrik said:

 

@guerringuerrin does inline rly make it better? I'm kinda neutral on this.

However I also wanted to wait to show the color scale idea depending on upgrades, inspired from @Dakara idea but trying to keep it agnostic of how upgrades currently works (tiers would also make limited sens if you have WTF for example). Above, p3 upgraded spear vs p3 + wtf. Below p1 upgraded camel + Cleo aura.

Thoughts?

I prefer this version with 1 stat (hack, pierce) per line

I think this version is more difficult to read and to identify the different stats

Also, the green color greatly improved its legibility, as it allows you to identify different types of values within the same block of text (just like the orange used for the stat name), and I think it helps associate the bonus % with the actual bonus value. I love it, @Atrik!

4 hours ago, Atrik said:

For buildings. I don't know if colors are confusing or actually helps. I like them.

Yeah, I'm not sure about this either
 

2 hours ago, Obelix said:

@Moderators: Would it be possible to split this thread?

@Dunedan

Edited July 29, 2025 by guerringuerrin

[Atrik]

21 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

Also, the green color greatly improved its legibility, as it allows you to identify different types of values within the same block of text (just like the orange used for the stat name), and I think it helps associate the bonus % with the actual bonus value. I love it, @Atrik!

Nice! I wasn't sure the colors made sens to me only because I made it or if they did indeed add that little touch that makes the tooltip easy to read!

I find colors codes often easy to understand even when never specified, like in 0ad, Blue for CS, Green for Merc, Red for Champs in unit icons, one can spot the pattern very fast and it never needs to be specified.

So for buildings, I use blue for garrison bonus and green for techs, and it (should be?) easy to understand. Right? 

Worse cases if you don't get it, it doesn't diminish much the readability. 

21 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

I prefer this version with 1 stat (hack, pierce) per line

y ok I was very slightly preferring this too.

Edited July 29, 2025 by Atrik

[guerringuerrin]

50 minutes ago, Atrik said:

I find colors codes often easy to understand even when never specified, like in 0ad, Blue for CS, Green for Merc, Red for Champs in unit icons, one can spot the pattern very fast and it never needs to be specified.

+1

50 minutes ago, Atrik said:

So for buildings, I use blue for garrison bonus and green for techs, and it (should be?) easy to understand. Right? 
Worse cases if you don't get it, it doesn't diminish much the readability. 

Yes but, please, get rid of that slash and put the attack interval on a new line. This is heresy against the sacred grid 


btw: where the 49 DPS comes from? my maths are not working there

Edited July 29, 2025 by guerringuerrin

[Atrik]

31 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

Yes but, please, get rid of that slash and put the attack interval on a new line. This is heresy against the sacred grid 

Yes done lol

 

31 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

btw: where the 49 DPS comes from? my maths are not working there

 

How did you make your calculations? (Is there something that seems intuitive but actually means something else entirely for you )
Should be :
Add all arrows * Arrow damage / Interval
(5+(3)+(7))*(8+(3.5)) / 3.5
= 15 * 11.5 / 3.5
= 48.xx

Edited July 29, 2025 by Atrik

[guerringuerrin]

12 minutes ago, Atrik said:

How did you make your calculations? (Is there something that seems intuitive but actually means something else entirely for you )

Ohh lol ok I went to an art high school, does that sound like a good excuse? 
I was doing (5+(3)*7) + (8+(3.5)) / 3.5
Why? there is no why

 

Edited July 29, 2025 by guerringuerrin

[Atrik]

Playing with stats it seems the "Bonus acceleration" for garrisoning rams doesn't actually applies  Movement and turn rate does thoughts. @real_tabasco_sauce
Edit: ah someone already noticed actually 

Edited July 30, 2025 by Atrik

[Deicide4u]

Good enough for me. Add range and speed below them, and it's perfect.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Perhaps I'm necro-posting here, but I've always preferred cleaner in-game UIs without numbers everywhere. I'm a vibe player and don't drill down on numbers too much, especially when the game is real-time and fast-paced like 0 A.D. is. In single player, one can read read read to one's heart's content, but in the heat of battle I really don't want numbers bogging me down--only the performance and abilities of my troops matters. What they are good at. Who they counter. What they don't counter. What counters them. In the Unit Viewer we can pack as much information as possible, but in-game, I'd personally prefer minimal, which is what the current layout, more or less, provides. I have my own quibbles with the current UI layout, but those are mostly with the popups -- the unit viewer, the tooltips, the diplomacy screen, etc, which can all be vastly improved. 

Here I've been (for the 70th time) working through some tooltip layouts:

 We could definitely post more threads on the various UI topics and I'm more than willing to mock things up. It would be nice @Atrik if with your skills you'd be willing to mock up some working examples from what we discuss. It's something I think we could start to transition to Gitea with @Vantha and others. I think it's high time we actually, truly improve the UI in these areas. Add some real polish if we're ever to put this game out to the wider world on a platform like Steam. 

[Atrik]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 We could definitely post more threads on the various UI topics and I'm more than willing to mock things up. It would be nice @Atrik if with your skills you'd be willing to mock up some working examples from what we discuss. It's something I think we could start to transition to Gitea with @Vantha and others. I think it's high time we actually, truly improve the UI in these areas. Add some real polish if we're ever to put this game out to the wider world on a platform like Steam. 

My absolute focus on Gitea is to get what I would think of features for the game to feel great. We should get formations actually useful, add some effects like knockbacks, charges, and other discrete unit abilities. It's almost sad to have a game with elephants that anything can get in it's way, when it actually should be the battle line breaker for example.

I have my own preferences about how tooltips should be, I like them to be here for you to get any piece of info about how the game works a player would want to know. Each element can provide important insights for decision making. For example here is a tooltip I like for building capture bar:

I don't count neither how many tooltips (there are literally hundreds) that I reworked over... multiple times...

I don't want to exhaust scarce reviewer time and own on it at the moment, because it's often very subjective as for what's best, so easily a time sink. And the UI can anyway be modded anyway, like you do in DE too. So for the time being that would be a pass for me.

[Thalatta]

On 29/07/2025 at 7:36 PM, Obelix said:

@Moderators: Would it be possible to split this thread?

And is it possible to merge it with the other simultaneous thread? (Maybe not).

 

5 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I've always preferred cleaner in-game UIs without numbers everywhere. I'm a vibe player and don't drill down on numbers too much, especially when the game is real-time and fast-paced like 0 A.D. is. In single player, one can read read read to one's heart's content, but in the heat of battle I really don't want numbers bogging me down--only the performance and abilities of my troops matters.

The opposite happens to me... icons and numbers give me the vibe, a bunch of text boggs me down. Besides, in the text the numbers are written down also.

 

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

We should get formations actually useful, add some effects like knockbacks, charges, and other discrete unit abilities.

Yes please. And simple ship ramming animations

[Thalatta]

Also, if some people prefer text and others icons, it would be great if both are menu options. This way @wowgetoffyourcellphone's improvements can stay under the text option, and if some day someone wants to do the icon variant, then that's added under the icons option, nothing is wasted and everyone is happy, I guess.

Edited 3 hours ago by Thalatta

[Grautvornix]

If we cannot decide leave the dicsion to the user! I like it. 

[Thalatta]

1 minute ago, Grautvornix said:

If we cannot decide leave the dicsion to the user! I like it. 

And, I forgot to say, doesn't give unfair advantages, quite the contrary, unfair would be to force a group of people use an UI scheme that makes things harder for them.

[Vantha]

I'm with @wowgetoffyourcellphone on this one. I find the current tooltips show way too much information. Along time ago I even locally made some mockups revamping them, but I'm afraid those have been lost to time. In fact, I thought about using bars to visualize numbers like attack damage and resource gathering speed, which is still an idea I like.

It would be cool to work on this, but for me it's a matter of time, I have so many things I'd love to implement, but they take time and I can't work on too many things at once. I genuinely hope, though, that I'll get to it eventually and I'd also be happy to review PRs for it. @wowgetoffyourcellphone, same for your viewer mockup. https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/6860

(I personally prefer icons, by the way, and it would also be nice to add an option to choose between reduced vs extended tooltips)

 

[Atrik]

33 minutes ago, Vantha said:

I'm with @wowgetoffyourcellphone on this one. I find the current tooltips show way too much information. Along time ago I even locally made some mockups revamping them, but I'm afraid those have been lost to time. In fact, I thought about using bars to visualize numbers like attack damage and resource gathering speed, which is still an idea I like.

Sounds nice! But just side note nobody disagreed here we could make improvements , the issues has more to do with priorities, time limitations, and the fact everybody has own view on what would be best.

33 minutes ago, Vantha said:

(I personally prefer icons, by the way, and it would also be nice to add an option to choose between reduced vs extended tooltips)

This option exist but not sure to what extend it's used/customized by players. Maybe ideally we would have support for expanding tooltips to help make it easy to have both summarizing and exhaustive tooltips at once.

[Stan`]

I love options as much as next person but that's more dev time too.