Bird's eye view to re-arrange the city?

[sam767]

Well, apparently this has not been proposed before.
Proposal: Make a top down and simplified view (like Elven-Architect) available by placing the city in re-arrange mode.
The player would also be able to perform other actions like productions or upgrades
Pros:
1. Time: the spire introduced a large new time sink in the game. Numerous other enhancements have reduced the time require to perform other mundane tasks. The time required to summit the spire is a real stress than can be reduced by other time saving innovations.
2. Errors: the current frequently obscured selection logic results in selection errors by not hitting the correct item.
3. Managing the Orc mushroom farm would not be such a miserable experience. (do your turn, go to mobile to do the shrooms, back to PC).
4. It will be possible to consistently and unambiguously select L1 plank and marble factories.
Note: Sometimes, I find an L1 marble factory cannot be selected on one device and I have to go to the other and mess with it. I think marble is the worst for this for some reason.
5. It will be easier to re-arrange the moonstone footprint. Also find and manage other 1x1 and 1x2 buildings.
6. Setting up the T farms for the events will be faster and easier.
7. This view will be always be available. ElvenStats and ElvenArchitect have outages.
Cons:
1. Reduce traffic to a huge friend of the Elvenar community: Elven Architect. This is not trivial.
2. It's a non-trivial change - even if Elven Architect donated the rendering tool.
3. There are a lot of other changes that I would like to see before this one. I'm sure that they have been discussed and probably approved.
a. The simplified terrain layout view before selecting troops. This is another huge time saver for those who manually fight
b. Click through productions like in the app on the PC
c. Select all (as for workshops) in production for both.

 

[Kekune]

I do wish for this. Just today I realized I need to move a little cluster of spire mini- buildings. Then realized I didn't have the energy to try to do that on mobile, with itty bitty buildings hiding behind giant ones at sideways angles, guessing at where the edge of the building ACTUALLY is, and the open space completely hidden.

This feels like it would make a basic game mechanic - rearranging buildings - a lot more intuitive and straightforward.

 

[ajqtrz]

I export my city via elvenstats.com to elvenarchitect.com and then rearrange it. I keep the elvenarchitech open with my city and do the arranging by using the ALT+TAB to switch between screens.

Once I think I have my city finished I go to elvenstats, re-export the city and let it open elvenarchitech again. Now I can compare the desired city with what I actually got. This allows me to spot and correct anything in the "real" city that differs from the target one.

The only things, I think, a good overview in the game would achieve over this procedure is it would be simpler to get to the overview if it were incorporated in the game and thus help you find those hidden spaces more easily.

Still, it would nice to have.

AJ

 

[Pheryll]

The image here is when you select a road and hover it over a portion of your city. Is this grid-like display close to what you are looking for?

 

[Yogi Dave]

The image here is when you select a road and hover it over a portion of your city. Is this grid-like display close to what you are looking for?

I do that in two cases. The simple one is when I can't find something behind a big building that I want to move or have lost. The other is when my ElvenArch, EA, plan isn't lining up right. That helps me find where I've left a gap between buildings. I'll also pick up a building an look behind it.

I do wish for this. Just today I realized I need to move a little cluster of spire mini- buildings.

What a pain that is. @Pheryll 's idea doesn't help much with that. So, I usually only touch those when I'm doing a major reorg and live with it until then.

I have a trick I use in EA with the Mana Bush and Gum Tree which are both 1x1, but help each other with links. I place them to the side of the board and create a Palm Tree for each Gum Tree and build the city using the Palm Trees. Since they don't look the same it's easier to build the plan and when it comes time to build the real virtual city, it also helps

However, these are just a work around for what @sam767 is suggesting. Personally, I'd love and dislike your idea. While frustrating as is, it's also part of the challenge. But maybe that's the "By golly I had to go through it, so now you do too."

At the moment, this seems like a topic more for the Discussion section as opposed to Ideas and Suggestions. Let people talk about it for a while. Once that has occurred, it might be possible to present it here in the format laid out in Ideas and Suggestions Forum Guide.

 

[Pheryll]

I do that in two cases. The simple one is when I can't find something behind a big building that I want to move or have lost. The other is when my ElvenArch, EA, plan isn't lining up right. That helps me find where I've left a gap between buildings. I'll also pick up a building an look behind it.

If the view that is being asked for is close to what the engine produces in certain circumstances, then that could be a baseline from which to request an extension of what the engine already accomplishes.

What a pain that is. @Pheryll 's idea doesn't help much with that. So, I usually only touch those when I'm doing a major reorg and live with it until then.

If there was a grid mode, similar in display to what is seen hovering a road, but not requiring a road to be selected and applying to the whole city rather than just a region, would that be beneficial?

At the moment, this seems like a topic more for the Discussion section as opposed to Ideas and Suggestions. Let people talk about it for a while. Once that has occurred, it might be possible to present it here in the format laid out in Ideas and Suggestions Forum Guide.

While this is true, it is not like a major change to idea needs to occur.

 

[Yogi Dave]

@Pheryll to quote the post just above this might become too disjointed. You make good points. Putting the entire city in a 'translucent move' mode instead of just a 'move' mode would be good and perhaps solve the entire problem. The reason I mentioned moving it to discussion was I think more people look and comment there so would get a wider range of feedback. Also @sam767 presented it more as a discussion than as an idea and suggestion according to the guide. I, admittedly, was also thinking of the 16 pages of discussion about the spell fragments.

 

[sam767]

Thanks for all of the comments. I'm surprised it has not been proposed before. So I turned it into a proposal. For me, the challenge in the game is managing the city, fighting the battles, and coordinating my FS. I do not need the challenge of trying to click on a specific spot on the display to perform mundane tasks.

 

[Constant]

Would it be possible to have a "reconstruction" button like in Forge of Empires? That opens a new screen showing the city as is, and you can either store buildings one at a time in a separate build window, or click one button to remove all of your buildings and roads except your main hall. In the build window, they are divided by category, so you can start with whichever buildings you want to rebuild your city to your liking. When you have placed everything, you click a checkmark button, and it takes you back to your real city screen which now shows the rebuilt version. You can also cancel and no changes will be made to your city. This is one of the features I really like. It's much faster and easier, since you don't have to wait for an expansion to be able to move things around one item at a time.

 

[Sandstorm173]

Would it be possible to have a "reconstruction" button like in Forge of Empires? That opens a new screen showing the city as is, and you can either store buildings one at a time in a separate build window, or click one button to remove all of your buildings and roads except your main hall. In the build window, they are divided by category, so you can start with whichever buildings you want to rebuild your city to your liking. When you have placed everything, you click a checkmark button, and it takes you back to your real city screen which now shows the rebuilt version. You can also cancel and no changes will be made to your city. This is one of the features I really like. It's much faster and easier, since you don't have to wait for an expansion to be able to move things around one item at a time.

That's never going to happen because it takes away from the challenge of the game.

 

[samidodamage]

Welcome to the Ideas/Suggestions forum @Constant !
You can read up on submitting ideas as well as some ideas that will never be considered (those are in the 2nd post in the thread) at this link:
Forum Guide: Ideas/Suggestions
There is real resistance from the developers to any sort of storage other than the teleport spells available in the Spire.
There is also real resistance from many forum participants to comparisons to FOE, what I call 'that game that shall not be named'
In all fairness, they are different games with different development teams, different visions, and different market focus. Differences make for more interesting (if sometimes frustrating) options, no?

 

[sam767]

Well, I spent a couple of hours re-arranging my largish Moonstone footprint. Moonstone and Orcs are the biggest justifications for this change, but as I re-arranged my city, I saw a lot of other cases where it would be nice. I was able to get two updates out of ElvenStats but the third came up real time updates not available. The re-arrange project is on hold for now.

 

[Sidera]

thumbs up

 

[Ashrem]

Well, apparently this has not been proposed before.

Not in the last few months, anyway.
January of this year.

Palavyn never advocated very hard, so maybe your level of interest and energy will get you further.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

Not in the last few months, anyway.
January of this year.

Palavyn never advocated very hard, so maybe your level of interest and energy will get you further.

I don't think Xelenia was forwarding any idea's at that time though either, so very few were posting on idea's much then.
I like the idea of being able to manually bring a grid mode up with the buildings faded like when you are holding a road or building I would vote for something like that. But as for a top down mode I don't think they would do it or even think I would like that as much! As long as you have an expansion to move the bigger building out of the way it isn't to hard to work around it.