Proposal: Always-shown "Purchased Units" panel

[LaFayette]

Maximized, must admit the purchase panel looks pretty good:

On smaller size, we may want to consider what should yield space, currently the scroller and panel yield space last:

The only other odd thing, is during the actual placement phase:

If the analogy is that you have your units lined up in the purchase panel, and you are placing those units, then one would expect for them to be subtracted when units are placed. IE: you're moving units from the 'units to place' area onto the board.

So, some suggestions:

1. add scrollbars to do scrolling if there are more than 3 rows of purchase, we should consider if that should be 2 rows. (some work should be done to make the unit scroller less tall, and perhaps we'll have the space we want)
2. units probably should be subtraced from the units to place panel as they are placed. If we do that, it's redundant to the 'units to place' displayed above in 'units left to place'. Perhaps we can remove the 'units left to place' and have units simply get subtracted from teh 'units to place' panel. This will keep with the analogy that those are units held to the side in a purchased pile and that they are being placed onto the board.

[Alexei Svitkine]

Thanks for the feedback, that's very useful.

Agree that removing units from the new panel as they're placed makes sense. We can also omit the showing the current "units left to place" view when this panel is shown as you suggest.

I'm also putting this panel be inside a split pane, so it can be minimized.

Sent PR with the above: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/5361

[LaFayette]

@Alexei-Svitkine pushed a pretty major update of the 'purchased-units-panel', it's worth giving a try in the latest pre-release.

I'm really wondering about the "units-to-place" terminology and wouldn't mind seeing us go back to "purchased units".

• "units-to-place" is really wordy, no player says, oh, let me review my 'Units-to-place'. They say, let me review my bid, my purchase.
• if units are granted for free, "purchase" is still fine, they just had a zero cost.
• not all placements are units, a 'bunker' or a 'factory' is not strictly a unit. Some placements could also be upgrades to existing units.

I'd like to suggest some alternatives for consideration:

• Purchase
• Placements
• Purchased Units

"Purchase" or "Placements" I think are perhaps my preferences.

[Cernel]

@LaFayette said in Proposal: Always-shown "Purchased Units" panel:

• if units are granted for free, "purchase" is still fine, they just had a zero cost.

Definitely disagree. That might apply to actual cost 0 units, you purchased without income related limits, or to units you held since the start of the game, you might argue were purchased before the game started, but not to units you got directly (in some limited numbers) during the course of the game. I don't think anybody would see such units as "purchased".

[LaFayette]

While they were not 'purchased', they were 'added to the purchase' and are part of the 'placements'. To another extent, the terminology just needs to work well enough so it's easily understood. Inventing brand new terminology is not a good way to go.

"Placements" I think is maybe the best contender. "Purchase" is a good alternative too, the current is worse than either of those as it's wordy and assumes that all purchases or placements are units (not the case, so it's even worse than the scenario where a unit is granted).

[Alexei Svitkine]

Here's the prerelease to try:
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases/tag/2.0.16278

The panel is now collapsible, so it should address the feedback about it taking too much space.
Other changes:

• It's shown for other players' moves.
• Units are removed from the panel as they're placed. There's no redundant "to be placed" section in the tab anymore.

Modulo the discussion on the best text to use, I'd like to propose to enable this by default (not behind beta features) since I believe all major points of feedback are addressed.

Please try it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

[Cernel]

@LaFayette said in Proposal: Always-shown "Purchased Units" panel:

While they were not 'purchased', they were 'added to the purchase' and are part of the 'placements'. To another extent, the terminology just needs to work well enough so it's easily understood. Inventing brand new terminology is not a good way to go.

"Placements" I think is maybe the best contender. "Purchase" is a good alternative too, the current is worse than either of those as it's wordy and assumes that all purchases or placements are units (not the case, so it's even worse than the scenario where a unit is granted).

Well, I already explained my point of view, but, if we talk about being true to existing terminology, in the moment we have a purchase phase (<delegate name="purchase" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.delegate.PurchaseDelegate" display="Purchase Units"/>), purchased units can obviously only mean units you got into your inventory by purchasing them in the course of a purchase phase. Since in TripleA you can even have games without any purchase phases at all, units you have in your inventory should not be called "purchased", as that would be wrongly assuming that you can have units in your inventory only if they have been put in there in the course of a purchase phase.

For example, if TripleA would have Risk, wouldn't it be wrong to see those units you got (without any purchase phases) identified as "Purchased Units"?

No idea if maybe "held" or "to be placed" may sound better than "to place", as English is not my native language.

Also, from the name of the property "Unplaced units live when not placed" I understand that all units you have in your inventory are considered "unplaced units", not only those you already retained in it during the course of a placement phase, otherwise the property should have been named simply "Unplaced units live" (instead of "live", I would actually say something like "are kept in inventory").

[LaFayette]

Good point on the different contexts, in light of that suggestion I would lean towards the "placements" suggestion I made earlier. What are "units-to-place" other than "placements?" I think it's a more direct name for the same.

At this particular moment though we probably should put a pin in the naming and agree if the feature is ready to move beyond beta-testing, or if there any problems with the latest that must be fixed first.

On a larger scale, the next set of fixes/problems I think are probably with the unit scroller, for now we should focus on this new feature to be sure it's ready.

[Cernel]

@LaFayette I think "Placements" would be very unclear, and actually makes me think you are referring to your placement actions.

Strict pos2 terminology for what at this feature would be "Units held in the inventory".

[Alexei Svitkine]

Other ideas:

"Reinforcements"
"Produced"

[prastle]

@Alexei-Svitkine Produced Units or maybe Produced Reinforcements. Both terms help explain the other but perhaps to long? Either way if two words can be used Produced Units is probably the most correct. Any thoughts here @redrum ?

[redrum]

@prastle honestly most of the suggestions are fine IMO. "Units to place" is pretty accurate and covers all the various situations. Purchases or purchases units is probably fine as well even though you can have triggered or free units to place as well.

[Cernel]

@redrum said in Proposal: Always-shown "Purchased Units" panel:

Purchases or purchases units is probably fine as well even though you can have triggered or free units to place as well.

I already said it, but (even if all units to be placed would be always purchased) the other wrong item for any such terms is the fact that now that panel has also taken over what was called the "Units left to place:" insert, listed before any "Placements", in the "Actions" panel, during placement. If you would call this new panel something like "Purchased Units", that would make no sense with the fact that, during placement, you would see those units progressively decreasing in number, the more you place them. During placement, you would, then, see in the action tab that you have, for example, 5 placed units and 5 purchased units, and what you should understand, from that, is that you placed all your purchased units, not only half of them!

The problem of wrongly assuming all units in the inventory must have been purchased can be circumvented by calling those units, for example, "Produced Units", instead of "Purchased Units", or whatever that is at least not clearly referring to some specific actions or phases, but this would not address this second problem I mentioned.

[Cernel]

@redrum said in Proposal: Always-shown "Purchased Units" panel:

@prastle honestly most of the suggestions are fine IMO. "Units to place" is pretty accurate and covers all the various situations.

To be clearer, it should be "Units to place" when you are not in the placement phase and "Units left to place" or "Remaining units to place" when you are.

[Cernel]

Some decent options, from my point of view, with what is in between parentheses meant to be present during placement, but not otherwise:
"Units (left) to place"
"Units waiting for placement"
"Units in inventory"
"Held units"
"Units held in inventory"
"Units (left) to mobilize"
"Unplaced units"
"Units under production"

[Cernel]

@Cernel A visual example of what I said:

What would you understand, if that panel called "Units to Place" would be, instead, called "Purchased Units"? What I would understand is that I purchased 4 units and placed all of them, while, instead, I purchased 8 units, and placed half of them.

[prastle]

@Cernel gd point cer

[LaFayette]

Let's put a hold on the naming discussion, there are more important elements to consider for right now. Keep the big picture in mind guys.

[LaFayette]

We need feedback if this feature is ready to go out from behind the 'beta' testing flag and if there are any other mechanical problems that should be fixed. I suspect this is ready for prime time and then we can discuss the finer details.

[Cernel]

I'm playing with the new stuff, and, sorry, but, maybe it's the abit, but I'm so irritated by the fact that the "Units to Place" during placement now is at the bottom. Previously, you would have seen the units left to place right at the top, and this felt much better. Now, each time I go to placement I feel like I have no units to place (and sometimes for a moment I wonder I didn't purchase anything), then I recall that now I have to look at the bottom, and then again upwards as the actions are made.

Though the fact that I have been used to see them there may be the main reason why I feel I need them there. Not sure if I can get eventually used to this new disposition and I'm curious if anybody else is bothered.

Also, I have to say I virtually never look at this panel, but, right now, I'm playtesting a 270BC mod against myself, so it's not a very busy game.