tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2208890564265615027.post6519846916471031717..comments2024-03-08T19:47:41.485+11:00Comments on Ascii Dreams: Hard Core Spore: Civilisation PhaseAndrew Doullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11099404183952971291noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2208890564265615027.post-19658651645700402012008-09-18T01:37:00.000+10:002008-09-18T01:37:00.000+10:00It seemed relatively random whether or not I could...<I>It seemed relatively random whether or not I could replace turrets when I opened the City Planner - sometimes I could pick them up and dispose of them, other times I could not.</I><BR/><BR/>All of the times I noticed this, they appeared to be pointing down as far as they could go. I think there might be some sort of glitch where if they're up against their virtual traverse stop, they don't select properly. It's also not clear why they would be pointing down like that; perhaps the "lead the target" part of the targeting ends up jamming them against the stops when a unit falls after being shot down?<BR/><BR/>Incidentally, the main reason sea units are weak against air units seems to be the slow speed of their projectile combined with an insufficient target lead. I'm not sure how much this was deliberate design intent. <BR/><BR/><I>In which case, why does it appear to be impossible to pan rotate the view while you are in the City Planner. This makes it painful to try to decommission vehicle units, as this is the only screen you can do it on.</I><BR/><BR/>The City Planner view is best thought of in polar coordinates, with the origin at the city center. You can rotate the camera around the origin in azimuth or elevation by dragging with the right mouse button, and zoom in and out. (I'm not actually sure whether the zoom is set up to match a zoom lens or a camera moving in and out, which are slightly different technically but give similar effects.) This makes a certain sort of design sense, as the screen logically focused on a single city is also literally focused on it. Operationally, I find that adjusting the elevation seems to be a bit flaky, but it is manageable. <BR/><BR/>I decommission units from the main screen icons on the right side; if you have a unit selected, you can click the little red X in the upper-right of the unit's icon box to decommission it. This wasn't covered in the tutorial or immediately obvious, but works pretty well once you know it. Most of my first game I thought there wasn't a way to decommission units, which is a problem if you have too much of your limited force count tied up in now-useless ground units once you have conquered your starting continent. I consider this a flaw in the tutorial / documentation rather than the interface itself. <BR/><BR/><I>Selecting units, particular when units are separated on the z-axis such as a mix of air and ground units, is also painful. </I><BR/><BR/>I agree that this could be handled better, but I have found acceptable options. If I'm trying to select everything, moving the camera up to near-vertical and drawing a large box seems to work reasonably well. If I'm trying to select most of a set, selecting all of them and then control-unselecting units from the right side icons is usually workable. If I'm trying to select only ground or only air units, moving the camera down nearer ground level, and drawing an appropriate horizontal rectangular box can select either the near-ground or high-altitude units; I think of it as drawing a perspective square around the units if I was in a more vertical view. <BR/><BR/>In practice, I mostly select from the right side icons, since they have the status indicators. For example, once you've bought out a city with an economic civ, you'll have a variety of vehicles suddenly idle as the trade route cancels that you want to redirect to the next city. They can be all over the map physically, but by control-clicking the icons which aren't shown as in progress to an explicit destination or actively trading already, they can easily be sent to the next city no matter where they happen to be. The main exception is when I've just bought a new set of vehicles, in which case the camera is already near the city I'm buying them from, and it's faster to just draw a box.jdunsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08181555529038735373noreply@blogger.com