Truncate Movement Point Display

[QuintillusCFC]

Right now a unit that has moved on a road displays its movement like this:

I actually kind of like that it shows the fractional part, versus in Civ3 where it would show 1/1 even though it had already used 1/3 of its movement points. But it's a little silly that it shows that many digits.

I propose we default to two digits, truncated. So with default road speeds, it would be 1/1, 0.66/1, 0.33/1, and 0. With 4-movement roads, it would be 1, 0.75, 0.5, 0.25. It reminds the player of how much movement they have left if they jump back and forth between units a bit, but it's as overkill as 0.6666666.

[benskywalker]

I'll take this one. I'm just working on finding out which branch I need to base it off of, and then I'll fork this repo and have a PR. I've already got the changes working locally. For consideration: would it be better to have (2/3)/1 instead of 0.67/1 ?

[WildWeazel]

I was just thinking fractions would be great if you can get it to work with any numbers. There's probably a function somewhere in .NET to produce that.

[benskywalker]

I was just thinking fractions would be great if you can get it to work with any numbers. There's probably a function somewhere in .NET to produce that.

Hmm, ok so I've given this some more thought. Irregular fractions might pose an issue. For example, (15/4)/4 is probably less clear than 3.75/4

We could fix that by making it a mixed number like (3+3/4)/4 or (3 3/4)/4 That would induce some ui clutter though, and I'm not sure if this is worth it. The fractions would probably be pretty useful if the movements costs on roads / railroads are more irregular (eg: roads cost 1/6 and railroads cost 1/12). In that case it would pay dividends, and I'm happy to go forward with that route if that's what we prefer

[QuintillusCFC]

The other UI consideration is that some units will have defensive bombard, e.g. an archer would display like:

2.1(1) 0.5/1

If Civ3 conventions were followed and it had traveled one tile on a road that cost half a movement point.

So if we had fractions, it would be:

2.1(1) (1/2)/1

Or for a catapult-type unit:

0.0(4) (3/4)/1 or 0.0(4) 0.75/1

If roads cost 1/4 of a movement point.

With cannons/catapults/ships that can bombard, being able to see their bombard power is somewhat useful (I'm not sure it provides as much value for defensive-bombard-only units; I suppose it's a reminder that they provide some bonus in a defensive stack).

That, along with the possibly-large denominators, is why I'm less convinced fractional display makes sense as a default (I also agree with benskywalker about (15/4)/4 not aiding clarity). If a mod sets the roads to cost 1/3, and railroads to cost 1/20, and a unit has moved over one road and three railroads, it has used 29/60ths of a movement point, so the display if its total movement is two would be something like:

4.4 (1 29/60)/2 or 4.4 (89/60)/2

Which seems a bit silly to me compared to:

4.4 1.48/2

Though fractions as a configurable option could be nice, especially in scenarios where the fractions will divide nicely into sixths or ninths or something of that sort.

I'm also open to re-ordering this display in general; the Civ3 style isn't the most intuitive if you're new to the game. What do those numbers mean? They aren't labeled.

But in short, I would encourage opening a PR and we can improve the UI incrementally as we figure out better ways of presenting it.

[benskywalker]

I've got a working mixed number version now. I took the algorithm from https://stackoverflow.com/a/32903747. I think I like this look, but is this good from other's perspective? It's a bit of a deviation from the civ 3 style. @pcen @WildWeazel If so I'll go ahead and fork the repo and open a pull request

[QuintillusCFC]

First thought is it looks better than the old 0.666666/1 version. Still ruminating on whether it's going to be clear to a new player with the multiple slashes (but that's also a concern about the whole inherited format for that line).

[benskywalker]

The other UI consideration is that some units will have defensive bombard, e.g. an archer would display like:

2.1(1) 0.5/1

If Civ3 conventions were followed and it had traveled one tile on a road that cost half a movement point.

So if we had fractions, it would be:

2.1(1) (1/2)/1

Or for a catapult-type unit:

0.0(4) (3/4)/1 or 0.0(4) 0.75/1

If roads cost 1/4 of a movement point.

With cannons/catapults/ships that can bombard, being able to see their bombard power is somewhat useful (I'm not sure it provides as much value for defensive-bombard-only units; I suppose it's a reminder that they provide some bonus in a defensive stack).

That, along with the possibly-large denominators, is why I'm less convinced fractional display makes sense as a default (I also agree with benskywalker about (15/4)/4 not aiding clarity). If a mod sets the roads to cost 1/3, and railroads to cost 1/20, and a unit has moved over one road and three railroads, it has used 29/60ths of a movement point, so the display if its total movement is two would be something like:

4.4 (1 29/60)/2 or 4.4 (89/60)/2

Which seems a bit silly to me compared to:

4.4 1.48/2

Though fractions as a configurable option could be nice, especially in scenarios where the fractions will divide nicely into sixths or ninths or something of that sort.

I'm also open to re-ordering this display in general; the Civ3 style isn't the most intuitive if you're new to the game. What do those numbers mean? They aren't labeled.

But in short, I would encourage opening a PR and we can improve the UI incrementally as we figure out better ways of presenting it.

Those are good points. I really like the point about labelling and configuring it as fraction / mixed number / decimal. That would be great. Alright, since I don't have permission yet do I need to fork the repo, make changes, and then open a PR? I haven't done that before but I'll give it a try

[pcen]

can we close this? @benskywalker

[benskywalker]

can we close this? @benskywalker

Yes! Woohoo!

[QuintillusCFC]

Congratulations on your first merged issue! I've moved it to the Carthage milestone and "Done" status.

[WildWeazel]

Congrats and thank you @benskywalker