*Share your opinions* Unit Card Concept Art

[Nick Thomadis]

We are in process of making the unit cards and we need some urgent help from you. 
Among the information panels that will be available to you while you play, there will be a place where you will see your unit's and its opponent's status.

We share with you a first concept art and would like to know your opinion.

• Disregard names and icons because they are not final/correct. 
• Please choose the numbers of images you like more, not necessarily to be final for the game.
• Your choices will play role in the final UI concept for the game.

Please feel free to tell openly your thoughts, good or bad.

 

PS.
A first closed beta testing starts soon with our first playable build. Announcement will follow with our latest news about our progress.

Please stay in touch. More juicy information will follow.

[KERA_AK]

Elo Nick this was bloody hard but something like 18,19, and 26, 28,29... But it´s great to see the NAME of what the icon stands for then Numbers and a health bar. Make its easier to predect and calculate the outcome how the challange figth would go betwin 2 units etc etc....

 

To only have one from each other would confuse and not be a fully well calculation it would been much harder for the player to lurk up the ballance betwin friendly units and enemy units FORCE, MORAL and CONDITION. 

 

So so i like the Names STATUS and % Numbers and BAR health conditions  Informations. (Thumbs up for those once) I hope more ppl will come and tell what they like as well

 

BR AN.

[Trig]

I'd say 18.

 

Numbers are a must. Not everyone can visualise does a point on a bar mean 68 or 75 %.

 

Names for categories are to me personally more welcome than icons.

 

And the bar/colour fill inside should not be tied to category, but to value imho, to emphasize the number and warn you when getting critical.

So 100-75 green, 75-25 yellow and below 25 red.

 

I'd also suggest, as the rebel flag is above general 1, so the yankee flag should be above general 2. Even better if both, nation and regiment flags were there. Good for immersion and attachment to specific units.

 

Kinda like this:

 

So that also each side is kinda grouped and it's clear what stats or info belongs to who.

Also added the regimental/brigade/unit flag idea...if it could possibly maybe fit somewhere...

 

I also like 29 for quickview. So another option would be one, like 29 appears first, then if you hover or click it turns into a full one like above.

[Lykas]

I'd personally prefer number 4 or 5.
Raw data over percentages, that's how I am that way.
Stats are misleading

[David Fair]

Very busy & difficult to read icons.  

 

I'd suggest using the commander picture, in items 10 through 13 with a red background for Confederates; blue for Union.  Alternatively the commander's name background could be in red/blue and you could use the pictures of the commander's with the cloud background as in 18 through 21.

 

The Moral, Cover, Cohesion/Condition, Firepower, and Melee bars on 20 & 21 look great; but organizing them in a vertical stack is difficult to grock quickly.  A horizontal orientation for the unit status would be is easier to read as pictured on item 16.  It would be better visually if all of the stats were on a single line; and grouped logically.  The grouping I'd suggest would be Moral with Cohesion/Condition.  Then Firepower with Melee.  If you were going to include ammo in the game I'd group it with Firepower.  I'd suggest removing the Flag from the stats line so you'd have room to get everything on a single line.  

 

The unit strength can be above the Commander's name or with the unit name.

 

Status bars as on 16 vs. status bars with numbers as on 18 & 19:  If the status is going to jump in 25% increments then the numbers on example 18 don't add much.  Given that a units cohesion (and even the strength of terrain) was subjective I'd prefer the status bars on 16 as it reduces the precision that a commander has for evaluating his unit.  My suggestion would be move the status bars up/down in 10% increments.  25% increments seem too big a jump.

 

I'd relegate kills to some kind of "intelligence report" that was only visible when you click on an icon that is tracking kills vs. losses.  Perhaps you could use the commander's picture, his name, the unit name, or the flag as the intelligence report icon to save space and make if functional as well as eye candy.

 

I'm not clear on the definition of Action or the benefit of the picture of the crossed swords?  It looks like it takes up space and adds clutter.

 

Cover is both a function of strength of the natural position and the time a unit is stationary on the terrain.  Devil's Den and Culp's Hill had a wealth of material for cover (fallen timber, rocks and soil).  Farmland offered less cover (Dan Sickles III Corps) as the surface area had been worked and debris had been removed to the stone walls surrounding the fields.  Rather than have a Cover icon I'd suggest you have a border like the one Trig has in his picture above.  As the unit occupies strong terrain the the border around the unit grows from grey to red for Confederates and white to blue for Union.  The longer a unit is stationary the more effectively the troops can dig in.  You get the idea and the implementation details are less important than de-cluttering the unit icons.  

 

I'm not a fan of the symbols used in 1 through 15 or 25 through 29.  Look too goofy (particularly the muscle arm).

[Nick Thomadis]

Thank you for your comments. Very helpful. We will upload a new more revised version of concept art as soon as possible.
Keep your thoughts coming.

[The Great Dane II]

Firstly: This is an absolutely fantastic way, that we're involved in this game!

Really, really impressed that you guys dare ask us.

 

Graphically

I really like the coloring of 18 (not the one below here) - gives a great impression of 'the old days' with the coloring style.

The flag style and background from 1 gives me some contrast when reading the stats.

 

Stats:

Sorry for this terrible mash-up. It's taken from 26 and is not completely finished.

 

BUT what I'm trying to show is this: Learning from CA's mistakes I really feel you should give us all three visual components.

 

Look at firepower as an example: You've got the icon / a graphic bar / A percentage. This gives us everything no matter what you prefer as your play style.

And as I said - some white underneath in order to make some contrast.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanx to Trig for help :-)

[Trig]

Ok, here's another concept suggestion. Please forgive me if I appear too keen.

 

 

The idea is, to gather as much critical info in as little time as possible.

 

- The frame and the arrow, to indicate who is who and who is attacking who.

- The flags... eyecandy, but the regimental flags also a first glance identifier.

- Number of men below the pis. Exact for own unit, estimated for enemy.

- Icons. Heart for morale, bugle for cohesion/command or exhaustion, rifle for firewpower, swords for melee, shield for cover.

- Maybe selectable in options menu to have descriptive or numerical display. Different people prefer different ways of receiving information effectively.

- I think "action" can be dropped as it's indicated by frame's arrow or soe other such identifier of what's going on?

- Kills are also a statistic, not essential when planning strategy, so can be dropped.

 

- The colour of numbers or descriptions could vary from green through yellow to red according to the critical level. Though, for some that may again appear too busy.

[admin]

Wanted to shed a little bit more light on the UI concept and hear your feedback.. 

 

Foundation principles

• UI is minimalistic - no clutter, no noise. 
• Detailed information is 1 click away
• Even more detailed information is 2 clicks away
• Most information is already on the map and redundant information is dropped from the UI

How it might work

For example Action (Swords) button.. 

You already see who you are fighting against on the game screen. And in most cases it is enough. So you only see this on the top of the screen

 

Now if you want more information you click on the block of information in the left top corner and you will then see this

 

And further if you click on swords you will see more info on the enemy unit

 

 

This concept covers most elements on the UI.. minimal in the beginning, detailed after a click or two

Clicking on timer opens controls of speed

Clicking on options opens up more options

Clicking on the battle flow opens up more info 

 

 

Where we have differences in opinions inside the team is what information is important and which should be guessed from the visuals

 

• For example cover.. Cover is definitely visible on the screen. you see if your unit on the hill or in the forest. If this is true then it could be possible to drop cover from the UI because players sees them, And we have more space as a result. 
• Morale is similar. You see blinking flag on the map, or fully white flag when unit is running, If it is enough to understand, then we can free space on the UI for more important things. 
• Things you cannot judge from the visuals of course should be on the UI - for example Fatigue. 

[admin]

Internally our art team likes this concept, (disclaimer - Nick and programmers don't like it)

 

 

1) It is very innovative for strategy games

2) It is simple and uses a basic core object in the world (square)

3) Even a child can understand it

4) Yet it provides everything to immediately see what is a state of the unit (4 cubes lots of cover 1 cube not enough cover)

 

Hardcore players will know the mechanics are very deep and complex inside. Casual players will understand blocks as well. 

[David Fair]

Thanks for the honest disclaimer.  It helps understand some of the challenges you are grappling with.

 

My vote is with Nick and the programmers; it reduces the number things absorb to 5 columns to get a quick status.  It also reduces the unit status footprint.

 

The art team's version has 20 visual blocks with no value added for the clutter of the formatting preference.  

I'm not persuaded that:

  1) the blocks are innovative (I do agree it has not been done this way before; but let's not confuse novel presentation with innovation (e.g., is a parallelogram more innovative than a square?))

  2) 4 blocks are simpler than a single bar with a fill level

  3) a child is the right metric for the game's look/feel let alone the target market.  I suspect casual players can understand the difference between a single column highlighted 50% vs. 2 blocks

  4) 4 blocks provide more data immediacy than 1 column

 

It would assist if we could see the unit representation on the map for this discussion.  I can't identify the unit's frontage/flanks.  Will we be clicking on a unit to drill down into it's status?  Or are we clicking on the "X" on map when troops are in action?

 

A couple of observations:

First Observation - firepower is a function of armament and number of men in the ranks, and fatigue.  I'd suggest that you consider getting rid of this status bar as it is a subset of the other factors.  The rifled musket was standard infantry issue for both sides during the conflict.  The introduction of repeating rifles had an impact on firepower; but again Union Cavalry firepower was a function of armament and the number of troopers.  I don't know if you are planning to include sharpshooters as they also were not armed with rifled muskets.  You might consider highlighting specially armed troops with a silver lining around them - there just weren't that many units at Gettysburg that were armed with other than rifled muskets.

 

Second Observation - melee power is a function of number of men in the ranks, moral, unit cohesion, and fatigue.  A regiment's colonel was responsible to subjectively evaluate the will of his men to fight at close quarters.  I'd suggest that you consider getting rid of this status bar as it is a subset of other factors.

 

Third Observation - a unit's officers are responsible for the unit's disposition.  The game engine should micromanage the terrain selection by snapping troops to optimal cover.  I order my troops to take and hold Herr Ridge; my units select the optimal cover for the objective I've selected to occupy/hold.  I don't want to jockey units on the screen to take advantage of obvious terrain benefits.  Officers on both sides, by this point in the war, understood cover and how to optimize the terrain.  Additionally, the soldiers themselves had been trained to survive by taking cover.  My guess is that the snipers in Devils Den were not ordered to stack up stones for cover - it was a survival instinct.

 

By reducing the number of status fields you improve the ability to display a unit's critical information quickly.  This should aid in both play and game performance.  I'd suggest key status metrics are: number of effective men in the ranks, armament (only for non-rifled musket troops), unit moral, and cohesion (which is a function of training, experience, and fatigue).  The Iron Brigade is a good example of an elite veteran unit that exhibited pride in it's ability to stand and fight even after it had suffered casualties and fatigue.

[admin]

 

 

A couple of observations:

First Observation - firepower is a function of armament and number of men in the ranks.  I'd suggest that you consider getting rid of this status bar as it is a subset of the other factors.  The rifled musket was standard infantry issue for both sides during the conflict.  The introduction of repeating rifles had an impact on firepower; but again Union Cavalry firepower was a function of armament and the number of troopers.  I don't know if you are planning to include sharpshooters as they also were not armed with rifled muskets.  You might consider highlighting specially armed troops with a silver lining around them - there just weren't that many units at Gettysburg that were armed with other than rifled muskets.

 

Second Observation - melee power is a function of number of men in the ranks, moral, and unit cohesion.  A regiment's colonel was responsible to subjectively evaluate the will of his men to fight at close quarters.  I'd suggest that you consider getting rid of this status bar as it is a subset of other factors.

 

Third Observation - a unit's officers are responsible for the unit's disposition.  The game engine should micromanage the terrain selection.  I order my troops to take and hold Herr Ridge; my units select the optimal cover for the objective I've selected to occupy/hold.  I don't want to jockey units on the screen to take advantage of obvious terrain benefits.  Officers on both sides, by this point in the war, understood cover and how to optimize the terrain.  Additionally, the soldiers themselves had been trained to survive by taking cover.  My guess is that the snipers in Devils Den were not ordered to stack up stones for cover - it was a survival instinct.

 

 

 

Thanks

We will consider this.

And provide more information within next couple of days by reworking the concepts players liked and putting a voting up for runners up.

we will also post the individual UI elements and visualizations for discussions.

 

Also  we know that 80% of readers are unregistered   - those who are just reading this - please register and provide feedback if you have something to say.

[Trig]

+1 to what David Fair said.

[Ned Loe]

I like #3.

[David Fair]

Given this is an RTS game the faster I can get the status the more satisfying the game flow.  I don't want a click fest; but, I also don't want a bunch of grunt work while I'm under RTS time pressure.

 

I'd suggest you consider that "less quantitative detail = better game experience".  We don't need to see the game engine complexity to appreciate the game.

 

What I don't like about the status numbers is that it gives the illusion of precision on abstraction ideas.  Both Moral and Cohesion are subjective abstractions.  Real but intangible.

 

Officer's in combat don't have droopy flags to know when their men are at the end of their endurance.  Why should a game have these fantasy metrics?  

Status of troops in combat is usually not clear to the officer in command until he orders his command to do somthing.  The troops can either follow the order (charge, fallback...). stand their ground, skedaddle, or surrender.  

General Lee, attempting to rally his men asked a private, "why are you running?"  The man replied, "General Lee I'm running because I can't fly".

 

Commanders know how much experience units brought to the fight, when they've eaten, and how much sleep/rest they've had.  What they can't predict is how well a unit will fight on a given day.  During the civil war units (and commanders) sometimes fought above/below their reputations.

 

Rather than Moral and Cohesion I'd suggest Experience and Fatigue metrics.

Experience is a static unit state.  It could be represented as in 16 above with the top of the scale Elite and the bottom Militia.  Most units fall in the top third at this point in the war as the units were veteran or seasoned.  

 

Fatigue is dynamic based on how fast and far a unit moves, how long it is under fire, unit casualties, and melee.  Recovery from movement is rapid.  Battle fatigue is cumulative and more disruptive.

In 15 minutes seasoned troops recover from a 100 yard dash or a two hour march.  

In 15 minutes units in a fire fight with 30% casualties on open ground will be shattered for the day.

In 3 minutes of a melee units will be shaken for hours.

Obviously night contributed significantly to recovery from fatigue.

 

As a commander I decide how much experience to put on the firing line.  Examples:

I'll keep that Pennsylvania militia in reserve on the reverse slope to ensure they don't rout and carry more experienced troops on their flanks with them.

I'll put Howard's XI Corps on advantageous terrain because the Corps is suspect even before it comes under fire.  

 

Thus, the only metric I need to consider is my troop quality and their fatigue level.

 

Final thought on units icons.  Rather than follow the tw blinking white flags I'd suggest innovation.  Units in formed status are under command and represented on the map.  Shattered units appear as an unformed mob until they retreat to safety where they can recover fatigue and reorganize.  When units are sufficiently recovered they regain their formed status.  

 

Commanders worried about how to recover their shattered flank and how to protect a broken Corps from total destruction with the organized units still under their command.  I'd suggest focusing on formed units is an important differentiator from other games.

 

Rally points for broken units are frequently dictated by events, or the enemy, rather than orders.  Had Ewell pushed at Culp's Hill on Day 1 the Union XI Corps may not have been able to rally and hold the hill.

Those flashing white flags in tw are a useless distraction.  Let the shattered units fall back to safe positions; then when they reform the units retake the field as a formed unit.  This is much more historically accurate than tw.

[Trig]

I agree on the "white flag" issue. No need for it. We will see a routing unit anyway.

 

But since this is a debate about the graphical interpretation of unit stats/approximations, how do you, David, suggest this representation to actually look?

When one clicks or hovers mouse over a unit, what should come up and in which form... Numbers, bars, descriptions?

[Nick Thomadis]

Much information will be given from the flag itself in a very subtle way.

Up to now we have 3 basic states that help the player understand with a glimpse what is happening to his units.

Panic/Retreat: Fast White transparent flag blink (Like in Total War)
Low Morale/Wavering: Slight white transparency with delay

Melee/Charge: Black transparency blink

Additionaly unit cohesion will be visually described according to morale, for example low morale troops have more scattered formations.

PS. 
We intent to show in UI the crucial information about selected unit and its target (Morale, Condition(Fatigue), Cover, Elevation, Firepower, Melee strength, etc.) so that not only you get an insight on how the game works inside in real time, but also to understand that we have no cheats. AI is fully handicaps free and his units are having no statistical bonuses. So whatever challenge you notice will be according to the special AI commander you choose as opponent.... like in chess.

[templarteppo]

Looking great so far.  At this time I absolutely like #18 the most.  It has both a bar graph as well as a breakdown in percentages.  However it would be great to see casualties get broken down in to killed AND wounded or just simply casualties, as the ratio of killed to wounded was not what is shown in Hollywood.  At Gettysburg of the over 50,000 casualties, over 7,000 were killed in action the vast majority of the rest were wounded.  However this does not take into account the perhaps thousands of wounded who later succomed to their wounds.  IT LOOKS EXCELLENT SO FAR,  THANK YOU DARTH!

[David Fair]

Hey Trig,

 

My thoughts for the designers are contributed with the goal to make an innovative and great game.  I think there is a tremendous amount of implementation innovation space in games; and I'm try to help flesh out ideas.  My goal is to push the envelope on promoting the footprint for strategy games than to take a stand on implementation details.  I believe that the more folks that play strategy games the more money is available to improve the quality of historical simulation games.  

 

At this point I'm not certain I have enough information to answer your question.  

Here's a try; if we presume that units will appear on the battlefield in something like the Sid Meyer format:

 

1) Miniatures represent units.  Each unit is designated by, at a minimum, the national flag.  It would be really cool if the units carried both the national flag and a state flag representing the regimental color guard (per your suggestion above).

 

2) Units with high experience and cohesion are high and tight formations. As cohesion deteriorates the unit battle line on the screen decays and the units spreads out.  Thus elite units would usually appear differently on the map than militia (militia are spread 25% wider/deeper with the same number of figures).  Historically militia on the march tended to elongate and straggle on roads.  Militia in linear formations, even at rest, had lines that waver a bit.  Veterans understand their survival depends on their ability to stay with the colors and tended to hold tighter formations much longer under stress (on the move & in battle).  Historically, when militia routed they were off to the races.  Veteran units tended to hang together, stay with their colors, rally much closer to the battle lines, and much rally faster.  While it would be possible to confuse a veteran unit with a militia unit under some conditions; commanders with experience learn to tell the difference in experienced troops at great distances very quickly.  Civil War commanders could frequently recognize elite enemy formations from newly formed units through their binoculars.

 

3) Routed units lack any linear form as they stream toward the rear.  This gets rid of the flashing white flag.  It would also be interesting if routed or captured unit could lose their colors; making them hors de combat for the duration of the battle.

 

Let me know if this description of the unit appearance on the map is adequate to answer your question.  I'm happy to try again.  Please note that I have a bias in that I've worked in the supercomputing .mil & IC community professionally for more than 20 years.  The folks I talk with say that they know a unit is beyond it's stress level when the commander sees him men's backsides disappearing over the next county line.  That's why I'm not a fan of the panic/retreat white flashing tw approach; and in my opinion the low moral/wavering is a cheesy unrealistic stale innovation from tw games that interferes with the satisfaction of historical game play.  My view is make the game better than tw and build a fan base that enjoys an experience different from tw.

 

When I hover the cursor over a unit on the map I get the Name of the Unit, Commander, and Number of Men.  The statistics for the unit, are represented as two status bars with appropriate levels of fill (see example 16 above).  

 

Bar #1 is the experience level of unit (Elite = 100%, Veteran = 80%, Seasoned = 70%, Trained = 50% Militia = 30% for example)

 

Bar #2 is the fatigue/cohesion/condition (Fresh = 100%, routed = 0%)

 

The experience bar is specific to each unit and static for the battle.  (Implementation thought - unit status might be modified if they had very high casualties or a surprising victory; the unit would step up or down a level.)  

 

The fatigue/cohesion/condition bar moves up/down based on events (movement, long-range casualties, time on the firing line, or melee). 

 

(In my opinion pictures of commander below the Corps level are just eye candy.  I can do with 'em or without 'em.  I'm more interested in quality of play than seeing what Colonel X look like).

 

If this is going to be a NATO symbol unit representation then I'd need to think more about how to represent the unit experience levels.  Possibly shades of red for confederate and blue for union?

[StefGr80]

Hello all!

 

You guys are progressing prety fast here hehe!!!

 

Ok, this was a very tough decision, I'm 4, 5, and 29 something like those.

I always hated percentages in games, it always ended up with misleading stats, very hard to manipulate.

I'm with bars and stats (raw numbers).

I also loved the first concept idea in post #9. This would fit just nice on top of the screen giving most of the detail without cutting stuff from the background.

 

Regards!

[David Fair]

Nick,

Hopefully your statement that, "Much information will be given from the flag itself in a very subtle way" is not a euphemism for we are copying the Sid Meyer "crumpled flag" implementation.  In Sid Meyer as unit moral sagged their flag drooped and eventually the troops routed.  The Sid Meyer series was all about micromanaging which units to take off the line.  Battleground was fun to play a couple of times; but way too much micromanagement.  Strategy game micromanagement has driven scores of people away from this genre of game.  Battleground's implementation detracted from the tactics of maneuver to pin enemy units in place, then flank, and shatter the enemy.  

 

I'm hoping to see an implementation that breaks new new ground with strategy games; a game where you actually need to devise a plan and follow that strategy to win the battle.  

 

Fog of war is a key component on the battlefield.  If commanders always know which units are going to run then you artificially level all commanders.  Great commanders know where to have reserves and when to use them.  What set Napoleon and Lee apart from other commanders was their ability to understand the pulse of a battle.  Both of these commanders knew how to find an open flank and smash it.  They managed their battles with a gut sense of timing; not by micromanaging the statistics floating around their commands.  

 

Droopy flag games; been there done that.  

 

Fog of war - I've been playing strategy games for years and never seen a satisfying strategy game implementation.  Once the innovation of moral was introduced into strategy games then game developers wanted to quantify and track "the level" of statistics.  Devising new statistics to display that players were to monitor was mistaken for innovation.  Strategy games were displaced by first person shooters; with good reason.  Too many geeky details,statistics, and graphics that detract from a great gaming experience.  The unpredictability of first person shooters is a large part what brings people back to a game (along with flashing lights and sounds - a bit too Las Vegas for my taste; but you get the point).

 

You have the ability to implement a strategy game that breaks new ground with a new concept.  Moral is critical to how units behave; but it is intangible.  I'd urge you to ditch the legacy "quantify and expose every statistic" mentality. Attract new blood to the strategy game genre.   Reduce the statistics, increase the pace of play.  Embrace the chaos of the battlefield.  I'm not looking to play a deterministic game of chess when I play a strategy game.  I'm looking for the thrill of not knowing precisely how my units will react to the decisions I've made.  The right level of battlefield chaos/excitement is what will return players to a strategy game genre.

 

One of the problems with the old board games was they were completely deterministic and the odds were well known (roll of a dice).  Most miniatures rules were quantified to the point that it took 10 hours to simulate 2 hours of combat.  Computers offered the potential for great strategy games; but game designers got so caught up in the UI statistic tracking that they've destroyed the strategy game experience and alienated the customer base to the die hard. 

 

My suggestions/observations:

Hide the complexity and statistics that makes your game great and unique.

Don't do a hybrid tw - dump the white flashing flags; broken units are the least important to a commander's options

Just because you don't display a bunch of statistics doesn't mean your users will think the game is simple 

We will learn to trust the game engine as we play.

Give players a fast to learn; easy to play game without a bunch of fantasy statistics (moral, firepower, melee...)

Focus on the important (number and quality of men and current state of fatigue)

Make a game that is brutally challenging to master (not micromanage)  

Give the player the same qualify of information that leaders had historically (simplify)

Focus on the tempo of the game to make it fast paced (I don't want to study a unit's statistics to decide if I should attack an enemy's position.  Leaders I trust are in positions of responsibility; I know my troops are veterans, and they are fresh - Charge!)

Statistics (especially the illusion of precision for intangibles like moral) drive people away from strategy games; keep the statistics you expose to the game player to an absolutely critical minimum

Focus on the quality of the battle experience; not the number of statistics.

 

 

 

 

 

[admin]

We will definitely focus test this a lot and try to find a perfect balance.

[Xeenos]

I suppose its to much to have the option to pick which one or type or grouping of effects we want to see?

 

Looking forward to the game!

[Nick Thomadis]

Thank you again for the ongoing comments and opinions. I would like to reply specifically to the below:
 

Firstly: This is an absolutely fantastic way, that we're involved in this game!

Really, really impressed that you guys dare ask us.

 

Graphically

I really like the coloring of 18 (not the one below here) - gives a great impression of 'the old days' with the coloring style.

The flag style and background from 1 gives me some contrast when reading the stats.

 

Stats:

Sorry for this terrible mash-up. It's taken from 26 and is not completely finished.

 

BUT what I'm trying to show is this: Learning from CA's mistakes I really feel you should give us all three visual components.

 

Look at firepower as an example: You've got the icon / a graphic bar / A percentage. This gives us everything no matter what you prefer as your play style.

And as I said - some white underneath in order to make some contrast.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanx to Trig for help :-)

 

Thank you the Great Dane for your feedback (off the record, I had 2 Great Danes once, lovely dogs). The problems with too many indications are two, space and localization.
We cannot add all necessary info with string sets and occupy less space (we need more space to play, especially in devices). Furthermore, the indication can take more space in some specific languages that make things even more complicated. This is why we intent to keep things as minimal as possibly by using icons, bars, squares, whatever the human brain can easily understand without much fuss. 
I have strong opinion that we can offer multiple UI to please all types of players and in the end, maybe this can be the best solution.

 

Ok, here's another concept suggestion. Please forgive me if I appear too keen.

 

 

The idea is, to gather as much critical info in as little time as possible.

 

- The frame and the arrow, to indicate who is who and who is attacking who.

- The flags... eyecandy, but the regimental flags also a first glance identifier.

- Number of men below the pis. Exact for own unit, estimated for enemy.

- Icons. Heart for morale, bugle for cohesion/command or exhaustion, rifle for firewpower, swords for melee, shield for cover.

- Maybe selectable in options menu to have descriptive or numerical display. Different people prefer different ways of receiving information effectively.

- I think "action" can be dropped as it's indicated by frame's arrow or soe other such identifier of what's going on?

- Kills are also a statistic, not essential when planning strategy, so can be dropped.

 

- The colour of numbers or descriptions could vary from green through yellow to red according to the critical level. Though, for some that may again appear too busy.

Thank you Trig for the nice idea. To tell you the truth it does not differ much to this we aim to provide. Although the visual representation is still on research.
Specifically for:
Regimental flags
Because the minimum level of unit is a brigade, regimental flags can be shown in the unit not in UI as we see here, but this will need some additional graphics work from our side that can delay other things. We would like to offer this but not sure if we can do at release date.

 

Action
We may need to know when our unit is fully reloaded, it can help a lot in gameplay but certainly we may need to remove completely as the unit itslef will visually represent what is it doing if we zoom in to see it.
 

Kills
I strongly disagree here. Kills play big role in gameplay as they affect the morale of the unit and you get idea how well is your unit doing in real time. After battle reports will of course include kills but to also see live the kills rising (as well as for your opponent) you basically understand in a glimpse what is going on with the units on the battle. We must not forget that in real war we could understand as Generals if our brigade is at good state and does well in battle because of our eye sensors that capture everything in the battlefield. In a game we need some basic things like this to get as Data the info we require.

 

 

Thanks for the honest disclaimer.  It helps understand some of the challenges you are grappling with.

 

My vote is with Nick and the programmers; it reduces the number things absorb to 5 columns to get a quick status.  It also reduces the unit status footprint.

 

The art team's version has 20 visual blocks with no value added for the clutter of the formatting preference.  

I'm not persuaded that:

  1) the blocks are innovative (I do agree it has not been done this way before; but let's not confuse novel presentation with innovation (e.g., is a parallelogram more innovative than a square?))

  2) 4 blocks are simpler than a single bar with a fill level

  3) a child is the right metric for the game's look/feel let alone the target market.  I suspect casual players can understand the difference between a single column highlighted 50% vs. 2 blocks

  4) 4 blocks provide more data immediacy than 1 column

 

It would assist if we could see the unit representation on the map for this discussion.  I can't identify the unit's frontage/flanks.  Will we be clicking on a unit to drill down into it's status?  Or are we clicking on the "X" on map when troops are in action?

 

A couple of observations:

First Observation - firepower is a function of armament and number of men in the ranks, and fatigue.  I'd suggest that you consider getting rid of this status bar as it is a subset of the other factors.  The rifled musket was standard infantry issue for both sides during the conflict.  The introduction of repeating rifles had an impact on firepower; but again Union Cavalry firepower was a function of armament and the number of troopers.  I don't know if you are planning to include sharpshooters as they also were not armed with rifled muskets.  You might consider highlighting specially armed troops with a silver lining around them - there just weren't that many units at Gettysburg that were armed with other than rifled muskets.

 

Second Observation - melee power is a function of number of men in the ranks, moral, unit cohesion, and fatigue.  A regiment's colonel was responsible to subjectively evaluate the will of his men to fight at close quarters.  I'd suggest that you consider getting rid of this status bar as it is a subset of other factors.

 

Third Observation - a unit's officers are responsible for the unit's disposition.  The game engine should micromanage the terrain selection by snapping troops to optimal cover.  I order my troops to take and hold Herr Ridge; my units select the optimal cover for the objective I've selected to occupy/hold.  I don't want to jockey units on the screen to take advantage of obvious terrain benefits.  Officers on both sides, by this point in the war, understood cover and how to optimize the terrain.  Additionally, the soldiers themselves had been trained to survive by taking cover.  My guess is that the snipers in Devils Den were not ordered to stack up stones for cover - it was a survival instinct.

 

By reducing the number of status fields you improve the ability to display a unit's critical information quickly.  This should aid in both play and game performance.  I'd suggest key status metrics are: number of effective men in the ranks, armament (only for non-rifled musket troops), unit moral, and cohesion (which is a function of training, experience, and fatigue).  The Iron Brigade is a good example of an elite veteran unit that exhibited pride in it's ability to stand and fight even after it had suffered casualties and fatigue.

David again many thanks for the very valid points and constructive feedback. I would like to comment on the below:

Firepower
It is derived by number of men and a sum of factors that are dynamic in our game, such as efficiency and projectile types, which on their own have modifiers that are affected by various conditions during the battle. So this firepower indication will show to you how good your unit will do in case of ranged combat vs its opponent. Of course these nbrs will not be exact calculations as some parameters will not be evaluated for simplicity such as the accuracy which is very much affected by terrain and heights. So in a few words, firepower is a very good basic parameter to understand with a glimpse if your selected unit is good to use for prolonged musket fire in comparison with another one, but of course not an essential one, as you will be able to understand in action which units are best fits for the job. 

Melee Power
The same with firepower but it evaluates strength of unit on hand to hand combat. You will see Confederates and Cavalry to have big melee values. It is good to know this as a player while you are trying to understand the basics of the game. More over you will see these values to become lower as the units lose men and they get too much fatigued for example.

 

Self Awareness
That is one of the main selling points of Ultimate General: Gettysburg that soon we will be able to describe in details with images and videos. So just trust that your units will have enough "brains" to do what is required if you leave them alone, defend, make lines, withdraw to safety and so on.

 

Given this is an RTS game the faster I can get the status the more satisfying the game flow.  I don't want a click fest; but, I also don't want a bunch of grunt work while I'm under RTS time pressure.

 

I'd suggest you consider that "less quantitative detail = better game experience".  We don't need to see the game engine complexity to appreciate the game.

 

What I don't like about the status numbers is that it gives the illusion of precision on abstraction ideas.  Both Moral and Cohesion are subjective abstractions.  Real but intangible.

 

Officer's in combat don't have droopy flags to know when their men are at the end of their endurance.  Why should a game have these fantasy metrics?  

Status of troops in combat is usually not clear to the officer in command until he orders his command to do somthing.  The troops can either follow the order (charge, fallback...). stand their ground, skedaddle, or surrender.  

General Lee, attempting to rally his men asked a private, "why are you running?"  The man replied, "General Lee I'm running because I can't fly".

 

Commanders know how much experience units brought to the fight, when they've eaten, and how much sleep/rest they've had.  What they can't predict is how well a unit will fight on a given day.  During the civil war units (and commanders) sometimes fought above/below their reputations.

 

Rather than Moral and Cohesion I'd suggest Experience and Fatigue metrics.

Experience is a static unit state.  It could be represented as in 16 above with the top of the scale Elite and the bottom Militia.  Most units fall in the top third at this point in the war as the units were veteran or seasoned.  

 

Fatigue is dynamic based on how fast and far a unit moves, how long it is under fire, unit casualties, and melee.  Recovery from movement is rapid.  Battle fatigue is cumulative and more disruptive.

In 15 minutes seasoned troops recover from a 100 yard dash or a two hour march.  

In 15 minutes units in a fire fight with 30% casualties on open ground will be shattered for the day.

In 3 minutes of a melee units will be shaken for hours.

Obviously night contributed significantly to recovery from fatigue.

 

As a commander I decide how much experience to put on the firing line.  Examples:

I'll keep that Pennsylvania militia in reserve on the reverse slope to ensure they don't rout and carry more experienced troops on their flanks with them.

I'll put Howard's XI Corps on advantageous terrain because the Corps is suspect even before it comes under fire.  

 

Thus, the only metric I need to consider is my troop quality and their fatigue level.

 

Final thought on units icons.  Rather than follow the tw blinking white flags I'd suggest innovation.  Units in formed status are under command and represented on the map.  Shattered units appear as an unformed mob until they retreat to safety where they can recover fatigue and reorganize.  When units are sufficiently recovered they regain their formed status.  

 

Commanders worried about how to recover their shattered flank and how to protect a broken Corps from total destruction with the organized units still under their command.  I'd suggest focusing on formed units is an important differentiator from other games.

 

Rally points for broken units are frequently dictated by events, or the enemy, rather than orders.  Had Ewell pushed at Culp's Hill on Day 1 the Union XI Corps may not have been able to rally and hold the hill.

Those flashing white flags in tw are a useless distraction.  Let the shattered units fall back to safe positions; then when they reform the units retake the field as a formed unit.  This is much more historically accurate than tw.

 

I sense your concern but please trust that we are aiming in very subtle UI. No flushy, over done flags and indications, we do not want that. But a simple clear flag that can hold basic info for your units is I believe basic functionality. The ideal would be, as I would personally desire, to have ultra-realism, ultra small flags, to see all of soldiers in battle like in real circumstances. But we cannot forget the technical limitations and the respect to all players, not only our personal desires so that many actually are able to enjoy this specific strategy game that will have very unique features and will require some basic UI to help to understand it, such as simple flags.

You will have to see how it works to understand the necessity of these flags, as you zoom in/out the map to see your army, of more that 40 units.

All other points are already implemented in game more or less as you say .

 

I agree on the "white flag" issue. No need for it. We will see a routing unit anyway.

 

But since this is a debate about the graphical interpretation of unit stats/approximations, how do you, David, suggest this representation to actually look?

When one clicks or hovers mouse over a unit, what should come up and in which form... Numbers, bars, descriptions?

How will you see it to rout, I would like to know as well. Because it is really hard to control thousands of soldiers that merge to each other if you cannot understand WITH A GLIMPSE what is going on.

 

Looking great so far.  At this time I absolutely like #18 the most.  It has both a bar graph as well as a breakdown in percentages.  However it would be great to see casualties get broken down in to killed AND wounded or just simply casualties, as the ratio of killed to wounded was not what is shown in Hollywood.  At Gettysburg of the over 50,000 casualties, over 7,000 were killed in action the vast majority of the rest were wounded.  However this does not take into account the perhaps thousands of wounded who later succomed to their wounds.  IT LOOKS EXCELLENT SO FAR,  THANK YOU DARTH!

Hello Templar thanks for your opinion. Yes! We want to do this, separate casualties to Killed, Wounded, Missing. It can be done. Hope we manage at release or else it will be done in a patch.

 

 

Hey Trig,

 

My thoughts for the designers are contributed with the goal to make an innovative and great game.  I think there is a tremendous amount of implementation innovation space in games; and I'm try to help flesh out ideas.  My goal is to push the envelope on promoting the footprint for strategy games than to take a stand on implementation details.  I believe that the more folks that play strategy games the more money is available to improve the quality of historical simulation games.  

 

At this point I'm not certain I have enough information to answer your question.  

Here's a try; if we presume that units will appear on the battlefield in something like the Sid Meyer format:

 

1) Miniatures represent units.  Each unit is designated by, at a minimum, the national flag.  It would be really cool if the units carried both the national flag and a state flag representing the regimental color guard (per your suggestion above).

 

2) Units with high experience and cohesion are high and tight formations. As cohesion deteriorates the unit battle line on the screen decays and the units spreads out.  Thus elite units would usually appear differently on the map than militia (militia are spread 25% wider/deeper with the same number of figures).  Historically militia on the march tended to elongate and straggle on roads.  Militia in linear formations, even at rest, had lines that waver a bit.  Veterans understand their survival depends on their ability to stay with the colors and tended to hold tighter formations much longer under stress (on the move & in battle).  Historically, when militia routed they were off to the races.  Veteran units tended to hang together, stay with their colors, rally much closer to the battle lines, and much rally faster.  While it would be possible to confuse a veteran unit with a militia unit under some conditions; commanders with experience learn to tell the difference in experienced troops at great distances very quickly.  Civil War commanders could frequently recognize elite enemy formations from newly formed units through their binoculars.

 

3) Routed units lack any linear form as they stream toward the rear.  This gets rid of the flashing white flag.  It would also be interesting if routed or captured unit could lose their colors; making them hors de combat for the duration of the battle.

 

Let me know if this description of the unit appearance on the map is adequate to answer your question.  I'm happy to try again.  Please note that I have a bias in that I've worked in the supercomputing .mil & IC community professionally for more than 20 years.  The folks I talk with say that they know a unit is beyond it's stress level when the commander sees him men's backsides disappearing over the next county line.  That's why I'm not a fan of the panic/retreat white flashing tw approach; and in my opinion the low moral/wavering is a cheesy unrealistic stale innovation from tw games that interferes with the satisfaction of historical game play.  My view is make the game better than tw and build a fan base that enjoys an experience different from tw.

 

When I hover the cursor over a unit on the map I get the Name of the Unit, Commander, and Number of Men.  The statistics for the unit, are represented as two status bars with appropriate levels of fill (see example 16 above).  

 

Bar #1 is the experience level of unit (Elite = 100%, Veteran = 80%, Seasoned = 70%, Trained = 50% Militia = 30% for example)

 

Bar #2 is the fatigue/cohesion/condition (Fresh = 100%, routed = 0%)

 

The experience bar is specific to each unit and static for the battle.  (Implementation thought - unit status might be modified if they had very high casualties or a surprising victory; the unit would step up or down a level.)  

 

The fatigue/cohesion/condition bar moves up/down based on events (movement, long-range casualties, time on the firing line, or melee). 

 

(In my opinion pictures of commander below the Corps level are just eye candy.  I can do with 'em or without 'em.  I'm more interested in quality of play than seeing what Colonel X look like).

 

If this is going to be a NATO symbol unit representation then I'd need to think more about how to represent the unit experience levels.  Possibly shades of red for confederate and blue for union?

 

David I think you can participate in a focus testing procedure and there you can see the necessity or not of our GUI. Most things you say are implemented or are WIP. I agree fully with your main scope. How to represent perfectly is something we are still working on and we are very close to achieve it. Keep your sincere constructive feedback coming.

 

Hello all!

 

You guys are progressing prety fast here hehe!!!

 

Ok, this was a very tough decision, I'm 4, 5, and 29 something like those.

I always hated percentages in games, it always ended up with misleading stats, very hard to manipulate.

I'm with bars and stats (raw numbers).

I also loved the first concept idea in post #9. This would fit just nice on top of the screen giving most of the detail without cutting stuff from the background.

 

Regards!

I think your choices belong to the median of all opinions we have got so far. I tend to agree. We shall provide new concept art asap with less choices you can help us with.

 

Nick,

Hopefully your statement that, "Much information will be given from the flag itself in a very subtle way" is not a euphemism for we are copying the Sid Meyer "crumpled flag" implementation.  In Sid Meyer as unit moral sagged their flag drooped and eventually the troops routed.  The Sid Meyer series was all about micromanaging which units to take off the line.  Battleground was fun to play a couple of times; but way too much micromanagement.  Strategy game micromanagement has driven scores of people away from this genre of game.  Battleground's implementation detracted from the tactics of maneuver to pin enemy units in place, then flank, and shatter the enemy.  

 

I'm hoping to see an implementation that breaks new new ground with strategy games; a game where you actually need to devise a plan and follow that strategy to win the battle.  

 

Fog of war is a key component on the battlefield.  If commanders always know which units are going to run then you artificially level all commanders.  Great commanders know where to have reserves and when to use them.  What set Napoleon and Lee apart from other commanders was their ability to understand the pulse of a battle.  Both of these commanders knew how to find an open flank and smash it.  They managed their battles with a gut sense of timing; not by micromanaging the statistics floating around their commands.  

 

Droopy flag games; been there done that.  

 

Fog of war - I've been playing strategy games for years and never seen a satisfying strategy game implementation.  Once the innovation of moral was introduced into strategy games then game developers wanted to quantify and track "the level" of statistics.  Devising new statistics to display that players were to monitor was mistaken for innovation.  Strategy games were displaced by first person shooters; with good reason.  Too many geeky details,statistics, and graphics that detract from a great gaming experience.  The unpredictability of first person shooters is a large part what brings people back to a game (along with flashing lights and sounds - a bit too Las Vegas for my taste; but you get the point).

 

You have the ability to implement a strategy game that breaks new ground with a new concept.  Moral is critical to how units behave; but it is intangible.  I'd urge you to ditch the legacy "quantify and expose every statistic" mentality. Attract new blood to the strategy game genre.   Reduce the statistics, increase the pace of play.  Embrace the chaos of the battlefield.  I'm not looking to play a deterministic game of chess when I play a strategy game.  I'm looking for the thrill of not knowing precisely how my units will react to the decisions I've made.  The right level of battlefield chaos/excitement is what will return players to a strategy game genre.

 

One of the problems with the old board games was they were completely deterministic and the odds were well known (roll of a dice).  Most miniatures rules were quantified to the point that it took 10 hours to simulate 2 hours of combat.  Computers offered the potential for great strategy games; but game designers got so caught up in the UI statistic tracking that they've destroyed the strategy game experience and alienated the customer base to the die hard. 

 

My suggestions/observations:

Hide the complexity and statistics that makes your game great and unique.

Don't do a hybrid tw - dump the white flashing flags; broken units are the least important to a commander's options

Just because you don't display a bunch of statistics doesn't mean your users will think the game is simple 

We will learn to trust the game engine as we play.

Give players a fast to learn; easy to play game without a bunch of fantasy statistics (moral, firepower, melee...)

Focus on the important (number and quality of men and current state of fatigue)

Make a game that is brutally challenging to master (not micromanage)  

Give the player the same qualify of information that leaders had historically (simplify)

Focus on the tempo of the game to make it fast paced (I don't want to study a unit's statistics to decide if I should attack an enemy's position.  Leaders I trust are in positions of responsibility; I know my troops are veterans, and they are fresh - Charge!)

Statistics (especially the illusion of precision for intangibles like moral) drive people away from strategy games; keep the statistics you expose to the game player to an absolutely critical minimum

Focus on the quality of the battle experience; not the number of statistics.

 

 

 

 

 

We can definitely try alternative GUI options to provide to all type of players. Customizing the experience of the player will be available as much as possible. However, I think you should first see how it will work and then on this base you can offer better or not alternatives. Before you are able to do this, with actual play testing or by observing a video or screenshot, I would like to repeat that your main ideas are good, but in practice it can lead to utter confusion and disappointment a large amount of players who will not have the patience to adapt to a so hard core level of visual feedback = not able to clearly understand what is the status of your units. And in realistic situation you can more easily understand what is happening (as you use all your sensors) than in game where you have limited data based on graphics and sounds that replicate realism.

Compromise between realism & strategic depth vs fun and ease of use is, in my opinion, a big challenge that demands careful decisions and respect to players not stubborn strive for hard core to all levels.

 

I suppose its to much to have the option to pick which one or type or grouping of effects we want to see?

 

Looking forward to the game!

This is our aim, yes, we want to customize UI dynamically for all play tastes

[David Fair]

Nick,

 

I agree.  Satisfying users for an optimal experience in software development is a tremendous challenge.  It is staggering how often software is developed to give a user exactly what they ask for; only to discover that the user didn't really know what they wanted and aren't satisfied with what thought they wanted.  Very tough learning curve to develop products that give people UI results that makes their DNA buzz.  Those of us in the profession of translating user requirements to software implementation understand the complexity and scope of the task.

 

It will be great to see your implementation!  Your responsiveness in this forum has been a learning experience for me.  You've done a fantastic job of opening the development kimono enough to allow the community to peek at ideas.  Hopefully you are seeing the benefit from the feedback for your design.  I'm really looking forward to more.

 

BTW - 

One of my favorite pictures of the Civil War is Grant on the first day of Shilo.  Grant is sitting on a stump all alone, whittling with his knife.  What is astounding about that picture is at the time it was taken he had 10,000 routed and demoralized troops milling around Pittsburg Landing and didn't know if his army would survive the day.  Grant's focus was on the state of his army; not individual units.   When Sherman saw Grant in the evening Sherman said, "We've had the devils own day of it."  Grant simply replied, "Yep, but we'll whip 'em tomorrow."  Sherman says in his autobiography he was stunned by Gran't resolute response and determination.  Two of the primary leaders had the same facts, on the same day, at the same time and came to very different conclusions on the state of the army.  

 

 

You may be right that most players couldn't deal with this level of realism in a game.  

 

But how would we know?  I can't think of a game that can replicate the confusion that pervaded the first hand Civil War accounts of battle.  Note that Carl von Clausewitz states that both regimental and division commanders under fire had a command perimeter of about 100 meters.  Gen. Joe Hooker was so confused at Chancellorsville that his staff described him walking around, "like a stunned duck".  Computer games provide vastly more information than is available about unit status than and commander up through and including WWII.  

 

 

PS - Just letting you know I emphatically and respectfully disagree with your statement, "And in realistic situation you can more easily understand what is happening (as you use all your sensors) than in game where you have limited data based on graphics and sounds that replicate realism."  I'm from a military family.