Group and Sort Units onto Placements Logically

Cernel

@redrum This reminds me of the Axis & Allies Classic game, in which you had those box territories on the map for additional placements for a bunch of territories likely to get overcrowded. I actually thought about the opportunity of having something like that in a TripleA map too, to limit overflow, while not having to have all territories too huge (some you just can't, like little islands), but I discarded the idea, as the risk of overlooking and the cumbersomness of having to look at two territories is too much of a big deal, in the moment the territory is not telling you if there is more somewhere else. The @General_Zod idea would be somewhat the same concept as that, albeit definitely more playable; still, I'm not sure how much that may be worth more of the traditional overflows. I would have it as a menu option, off as default, except that, instead of requiring clicking, when that option is enabled, you would not see the overflows, but a circle with a plus, or something, telling that there are additional units, and you see them in a box by just hovering the cursor (no need to click). Also, then, a quick key to go back and forth from full overflow mode.
Anyways, myself I think I would just prefer having the overflow visible all time, and anyway I think a good mapmaker should take care to assure enough space for units (this is not helping for the existent many maps that don't, of course), but it's an interesting idea. Definitely would give the game a more polished look.

redrum

Updated to use the following as goal is really to have '0 movement' and 'can't combat move' units first not necessarily isInfra.

Here is the proposed grouping/sorting:

Unit owner: territory owner, territory owner allies, player order in XML
Unit type: 0 movement, can't combat move, land, sea, air
Within each of those groups sort the units by XML order in UnitList

redrum

This is merged and can be tested in this pre-release: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases/tag/1.9.0.0.9903

General_Zod

I always use the territory tab. Would be interesting to take a poll someday.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/684/polling-question-which-play-style-do-you-prefer
Players that primarily play by:

A. Zoomed way in and rarely use territory tab. Thus not much need for territory tab.

B. Zoomed out enough to see whole continents and nearby sea zones. Thus rely heavily on territory tab information.

Btw my idea involved a click on the special overflow unit, but hover would definitely be better.

General_Zod

Also @Cernel makes a very good point. This affects map design by highly influencing the size a of territories.

redrum

@general_zod Yeah, generally I see the vision of the engine to enhance the experience around having territories that are large enough to show most units on the map without overflow. But I do realize some of that is personal preference but I think it also makes the experience more cohesive and less back/forth between areas of the UI.

So focusing more around the territory size of the A&A maps and TWW instead of NWO/WaW/TRS/Civil War. One thing that would be nice is if zooming was easier and less clunky.

Hepps

@redrum You can zoom with your scroll wheel. I find it easy. Was Kinda why I was at a loss to answer the poll. I play with both depending on what I am trying to accomplish.

prastle

@hepps well it also depends on the size and number of screens they have

General_Zod

@hepps The scroll wheel doesn't allow for fine tuning. It seems to jump to intermediate zoom levels. Usually at a zoom not preferable to stay at for remainder of game, thus forcing me to go into menu and change it to exactly where I like it.

prastle

@general_zod or in my case being forced to run two mice so I now have a scroll wheel.... YES I KNOW! I'm stubborn and set in my ways

Hepps

@prastle I'm sure you still use a chisel and hammer to write your thoughts down on stone tablets as well.

Hepps

@general_zod Yah depends on what you are looking for... mine seems fine for me... but I'm sure it depends on your individual system.

Would be nice to have a couple of zoom hot keys.... say 8 for zoom up and 2 for zoom down that just give you a 10% change in zoom for each press.

General_Zod

@hepps Yeah that would help. Even the +/- keys incrementing one way or other with more precision. And 8/2 keys by 10% increments.

redrum

@hepps I know, it just tends to jump around too much for me. I also prefer mostly to pick the zoom level I like then just use the minimap rather than scroll in and out.

Hepps

@redrum Me as well. I find I only zoom out when I have tuned out of a game while playing. Otherwise I generally see enough to know what is going on within the range of units that can impact my moves.

Cernel

The scroll zooming is so bad, both because it is way too fast and because it takes too much time to reload the board image, that it is a virtually unusable feature; at least surely worthless for me, at its current state.

@redrum There is a reason why I said enemy last rather than allies second. This is a matter that also often confuses players in FFA games, since people tend to think in term of being allied, but the defender relationship matters nothing (your allies won't defend you if they are not hostile with the attacker, while your enemies will defend you if they are); players that are allied or neutral with you will defend just as well, depending only if they are hostile with the attackers. So, I think bundling all non hostile players together (allies plus not allies but not enemy) makes more sense than having the non-allied as a single group. Really, there is so much a slight difference between being Allied and Neutral (I'm talking about the Neutral archetype, not to be confused with the Neutral player, that is not actually Neutral, but hostile to anyone), on very borderline things, like being able to load allied transports or not, that most FFA making a difference add something on top of it, generally a bigger delay to go from Allied to War than Neutral to War, otherwise would be really almost no difference.
If you really want to, you could have "Own", then archetype "Allied", then archetype "Neutral", then enemies; but really little point in distinguishing the second and the third, while a lot of point in distinguishing the enemies from anything else; that's why I just said enemies last, instead of allies second.

Also, you should have sea before land. The only case they are both in the same territory is when you load land on sea, and it makes the most sense that you see them after the ships they are cargo of; really, tho, this is an actual issue, as the display should rather tell you what cargo is inside each ship (as well as the air should figure on top of the respective carriers), but I can immagine that would be a lot of work to find a way.

Cernel

@cernel Actually, without big changes like showing them loaded, probably land units on sea would be better listed last, also after the air. So maybe a last place for all those units that are strictly dependant, like cargo. We might go ahead and consider the reverse on land, in case a developer will add the ability to "beach" ships (there was some talking, like in Diplomacy).

redrum

@cernel Cargo doesn't work without major changes as it groups all the land units together right now so if you have multiple transport types, you'd have to split land units into groups.

I'll look to see what I can do for sea unit ordering and at least move sea units before land. I'll look at doing 'not hostile' vs 'allied' as well. I don't think that matters a ton for most maps but FFA/politic maps it could help a bit.

redrum

Made some slight adjustments.

Here is the proposed grouping/sorting:

Unit owner: territory owner, not at war with territory owner, player order in XML
Unit type: 0 movement, can't combat move, sea, air if sea territory, land, air if land territory
Within each of those groups sort the units by XML order in UnitList