An elaboration
I will try to be as concrete and specific as possible in detailing what I mean by the nation
management screens I sketched in my previous post (addendi), because I think this would
particularly useful while not costing terribly high amounts of resources.
Basically, the "inbox" and "outbox" scheme can have the same form throughout all screens and
represents information coming in from Last turn (inbox) and going out this turn (outbox).
I will use the Lab and the Magic screen as examples here:
"LAB SCREEN" (shift-f3):
PREVIOUS TURN
Code:
Mage Action Bonus Type Place
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bob* forged Crystal Coin* 25% hammer Snofonia*
Jim* forged Magic Lamp* -- Dogville*
Art* forged Rainbow Armor* 50% hammer + M. Oggville*
Code:
CURRENT TURN
Mage Action Bonus Type Place
----------------------------------------------------------------
Stan* forge Skull Staff* -- Snofonia*
Jim* forge Staff of Elem* -- Dogville*
Bob* forge Slave Matrix* 25% hammer Snofonia*
Ted* forge Lightless Lanter* 25% Master S. Ulm*
The fields marked with an asterisk (*) should be "hyperlinked"; that is, for example,
clicking on Bob will send you right to him, highlighted; clicking on Snofonia will send you
to that province; clicking on the object forged (Crystal Coin) will send you right to that
item in what is now the f8 screen.
The "trick" is the order screen for the current turn. As soon as you set a mage to perform a
task, he or she is automatically and instantly put into the "outbox"; that is, her orders
are set up in the Lab screen. No more must you search forever for that hammer you were sure
you had, nor must you keep track of who is casting what. You want Stan to forge a Crown of
the Ivy King instead of casting Summon Vine Ogres -- no problem finding the appropriate
people now. You want to make sure that someone is casting Summon King of Elemental Fire, but
you want the mage who is doing that now to cast Flaming Arrows in a battle somewhere else --
now you can exchange places easily. This way, mages can be easily found and their orders
changed.
I envision the Lab Screen to be one tab in a national overview, and the Last Turn and
Current turn to be next to one another side-by-side on one screen. If this proves to be too
much of a nuisance, perhaps this suggestion would be better: Have "Current Turn" and
"Previous Turn" be two "tab registers" on the "same" screen.
The setup sketched above can be used not only for the Lab -- and analogously, the Magic
screen, where casting rituals are documented -- but also for receiving and sending Messages
and items:
"TRADE SCREEN"
PREVIOUS TURN
Code:
Sent to Items Sent Quant. Received From Items Received Quant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mictlan Lightless Lantern 1 Mictlan Fire Gems 5
Mictlan Astral Pearls 19 T'ien Starshine Skul. 2
T'ien Lightless Lantern 1
Code:
CURRENT TURN
Sending to Items to Send Quant. EDIT
Marignon Staff of Storms 1 edit/delete this transaction
T'ien Chi Astral Pearls 11 edit/delete this transaction
*SEND NEW ITEM* *SEND NEW GEMS*
On this screen, the "SEND NEW" fields highlighted here with asterisks indicate buttons which
allow you to send resources.
Code:
"MESSAGE SCREEN"
Incoming Messages
Received From Topic
Mictlan Our trade
T’ien Want to kill Mictlan?
Marignon Why are you bothering me? 1
Code:
CURRENT TURN
Sending to Topic EDIT
Marignon Misunderstanding edit/delete this message
T'ien Chi Bloodlust edit/delete this message
I think this would make my gaming experience, especially dealing with late-game micromanagement, exponentially more fun. Thanks for listening.
Re: Addendi
Linear Mode
