Feature to care about overlooked units

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Adamant14
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Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Adamant14 »

While playing it sometimes happens that I miss to move a unit, for example when the unit is alone on the other side of the map.
I just overlook units sometimes. :roll:
And that is annoying, because it often happens that I loose the unit then. :(

What I miss is a message, displayed to the player in the case he fails to notice one of his units, and hits the [end turn] button?
There is already something similar for the case the player hits [end turn] without moving any of his units.
The engine displays this message, and asks the player if he wants to end his turn or not.
Question.PNG
It would be really cool to have such a feature for single forgotten units. :D

Sure, I can also avoid that problem with hitting the [N] key before hitting [end turn], but that's not satisfying. :?
The engine should check if there is still a unit on the map with max_moves ( maybe max_attacks too ) left.
And if yes then the engine should select the unit and ask the player if he may have overlooked the unit, or not.
One possible problem is that this will also trigger when a unit heals on a village, or next to a healer. :hmm:
For that reason it is maybe necessary to ignore units on villages, and next to healers.

And the player should have the choice to enable and disable this feature via preferences.

Now I am very curious about what you think?
Do yo think this could be a useful feature, or am I the only one who overlooks units while playing?
Maybe I should write a feature request on GNA, what do you think? :hmm:
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Paulomat4
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Paulomat4 »

What you are describing is happening to me too sometimes, and i think it's annoying too. You'd have to be able to mark units you really don't want to move. Just imagine holding a line and having healers, units with leadership behind them, Or defening a narrow passage...
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Adamant14
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Adamant14 »

Yes, there are some situations where this feature may annoy, but for such cases you should be able to turn off this feature. :hmm:
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Paulomat4
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Paulomat4 »

how about a right click menu, (it's only there if you have activated the feature) which tells the engine to ignore these units at the end of this turn. Of course you should be able to turn it off. I think this would be a nice thing to have.
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Crow_T
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Crow_T »

How about a counter somewhere, say if you have 20 units and move 8 it reads 8/20. This would have to count even 1 hex movement as a valid move. I am very much against a pop up or active user solution.

*yet if you must mark units as moved when they haven't that's a cool option too.
Last edited by Crow_T on October 16th, 2013, 11:34 pm, edited 3 times in total.
gnombat
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by gnombat »

Paulomat4 wrote:how about a right click menu, (it's only there if you have activated the feature) which tells the engine to ignore these units at the end of this turn. Of course you should be able to turn it off. I think this would be a nice thing to have.
Actually, I think the space key could be used for marking a unit like this (it basically does this already - if you select a unit and hit the space key, then that unit will be ignored when you use the "n" key).
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GunChleoc
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by GunChleoc »

I like this idea. I use n and space for this, but this could be an option that is on by default.
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SFault
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by SFault »

This kind of tool could be useful, but it could be annoying in small maps where you have plenty of units waiting (for HPs in a village or access to a narrow cave entry).

Maybe the game could keep track of units that have been selected. Those that have been selected but didn't do any action could be ignored by the overlook checkout and only those who are totally ignored would raise the alert. :hmm:

edit: There could also be different kind of versions for n-key. E.g. while holding ctrl only those with all moves left would be browsed and with alt only the ones with any amount of moves left could be shown.
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fabi
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by fabi »

Crow_T wrote:How about a counter somewhere, say if you have 20 units and move 8 it reads 8/20. This would have to count even 1 hex movement as a valid move. I am very much against a pop up or active user solution.

*yet if you must mark units as moved when they haven't that's a cool option too.
This kind of display is planed as part of the gui overhaul I work on with LordBob.

As to the OP's proposal:

I guess you always have at least one unit you do not want to move being it at a village for healing purposes or not.
Thus a popup is pretty much obsolete.

Current trunk allows to switch the color coding of the minimap.
The current coding displays the units in the color of their sides.
The alternative displays the unit in the same coding you are used from the movement information orbs.
Green == not moved
Yellow == moved but still movement left
Red == No movement left
Blue == allied unit
Black == Enemy unit

This gives you the opportunity to spot forgotten units at a glance on the minimap.
I hope this helps to solve the issue.
At least I had this use case in mind when I came up with the idea.
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Adamant14
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Adamant14 »

gnombat wrote:Actually, I think the space key could be used for marking a unit like this (it basically does this already - if you select a unit and hit the space key, then that unit will be ignored when you use the "n" key).
Oh, I didn't knew that. Thank you. :)
fabi wrote:
Crow_T wrote:How about a counter somewhere, say if you have 20 units and move 8 it reads 8/20. This would have to count even 1 hex movement as a valid move. I am very much against a pop up or active user solution.
This kind of display is planed as part of the gui overhaul I work on with LordBob.
This sounds very good to me, and I think this solution is much better than my proposal. :)
fabi wrote:Current trunk allows to switch the color coding of the minimap..
Really?
How can I do this?
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by fabi »

fabi wrote:Current trunk allows to switch the color coding of the minimap..
Really?
How can I do this?
"Current trunk" means the source code in the git repository that needs to get compiled before it can used. (I guess that is not new to you.)

Then go into the hotkey preferences dialog. Search for "minimap color coding" or similar. (Yeah, I don't really remember how I named it exactly)
Bind a keyboard or mouse key to it.

Then you can use the key to toggle between the two different color codings.

Enjoy :-)
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Adamant14
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Adamant14 »

fabi wrote:... go into the hotkey preferences dialog. Search for "minimap color coding" or similar. (Yeah, I don't really remember how I named it exactly)
Bind a keyboard or mouse key to it.

Then you can use the key to toggle between the two different color codings.

Enjoy :-)
That is really a cool feature.
I tested it with BfW 1.11.6, and I guess it will be very helpful for me in future. :)
At least until the new tool you mentioned above will be released.
Thank you. :)
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JaMiT
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by JaMiT »

Do you know where your preferences file is? (It varies by operating system.) Open that up and see if it has a line starting with
confirm_end_turn=
It probably ends with a pair of double quotes. (If it's not there, you can add it.)

If you want a warning when you try to end your turn while you have a unit with a green orb -- one that has not moved at all yet and has not been told to end turn (space) or hold position (shift+space) -- then change that line to
confirm_end_turn="green"
If you want a warning when you try to end your turn while you have a unit with a green or yellow orb -- one that can still move and has not been told to end turn (space) or hold position (shift+space) -- then change that line to
confirm_end_turn="yellow"
I don't know why this particular preference cannot be set in the game.
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Crow_T
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Crow_T »

Fabi = Awesome :geek: :eng:
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Adamant14
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Re: Feature to care about overlooked units

Post by Adamant14 »

JaMiT wrote:If you want a warning when you try to end your turn while you have a unit with a green orb -- one that has not moved at all yet and has not been told to end turn (space) or hold position (shift+space) -- then change that line to
confirm_end_turn="green"
Wow that seems to be exactly that what I am looking for. :D
JaMiT wrote:I don't know why this particular preference cannot be set in the game.
Yes, that should be definitely be available for all players. :)
JaMiT wrote:Do you know where your preferences file is?
I found a folder named
advanced_preferences.cfg
Is that the one you mean?
It contains no folder named
confirm_end_turn=
Maybe it is not the folder you have meant? :hmm:
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