zoom out, city view

[Aritra]

I would like to see the capability to zoom out to be able to take in your own city from one view. Especially since the game already has a defined playing area (set/limited expansion pieces), it shouldn't be too hard to have a view range specified for seeing the whole city. If the playing area wasn't already defined to specific dimensions and players had the ability to expand "indefinitely" in any direction, this could get quite complicated, however, this isn't the case so would like to see this ability in the future. On the mobile version I can zoom out much further (see more area at max zoom) than I can on desktop, but neither can see my whole city at once.

 

[DeletedUser26692]

I would like to see the capability to zoom out to be able to take in your own city from one view. Especially since the game already has a defined playing area (set/limited expansion pieces), it shouldn't be too hard to have a view range specified for seeing the whole city. If the playing area wasn't already defined to specific dimensions and players had the ability to expand "indefinitely" in any direction, this could get quite complicated, however, this isn't the case so would like to see this ability in the future. On the mobile version I can zoom out much further (see more area at max zoom) than I can on desktop, but neither can see my whole city at once.

While I don't have any knowledge about how hard it would be to do such a thing, I must agree that it would be nice to be able to see our city's at different angles. When I go and look in on the top city's I can't really see how they keep track of what they have due to some buildings being taller and blocking out whole buildings. The art and animations on this game is amazing and it would be nice to see things a little clearer.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

If I remember correctly, it has been said before more zoom will not happen because you can already do this with the browser window by using control+ and control- to change the browser zoom.

 

[Iyapo1]

I must agree that it would be nice to be able to see our city's at different angles.

I agree this would be nice but think the cost would be prohibitive. If they let us change the viewing angle they would have to provide artwork for each building at that new angle.

 

[Aritra]

If I remember correctly, it has been said before more zoom will not happen because you can already do this with the browser window by using control+ and control- to change the browser zoom.

I was not aware of this and just tried it. Really too bad the resolution gets so poor. But, thanks, at least I can see it all on one screen when I want to check out the overall scheme.

 

[Aritra]

While I don't have any knowledge about how hard it would be to do such a thing, I must agree that it would be nice to be able to see our city's at different angles. When I go and look in on the top city's I can't really see how they keep track of what they have due to some buildings being taller and blocking out whole buildings. The art and animations on this game is amazing and it would be nice to see things a little clearer.

Curious, I looked into some player tools I had heard about and I found the city planner. Very cool tool. You can custom place stuff you haven't received yet and play around with arrangement, test your layout as you prepare for new stuff. I was a quarter of the way through recreating my city when I discovered that if you go to ElvenStats.com, you can import your current board at any time. It is color/symbol coded board, but you can clearly see the grid and see where your open spaces are, and test layout adjustments. If I play around a lot and want to reset, I just reimport current city. It won't give you cool graphics and animations from other angles, but it solves the problem of "what's back there?" and "is that square open or not?" and "how many squares are hiding back there, how much do I have to work with?" For this, very cool.
When I went there, there was no password or anything. I haven't tried viewing anyone else's city this way, but I encountered nothing that said it had to be mine. Appears you can import any (?) city. Obviously, you can't affect the real thing, but for a few clicks, you can see what's going on.

update: I have two city planner tabs open... one is my current city, and the other is that one modified for testing. Flipping back and forth to see some differences has been helpful.

 

[Iyapo1]

I discovered that if you go to ElvenStats.com, you can import your current board at any time.

You can import other peoples cities too.

 

[NightshadeCS]

@Aritra Have fun playing with ElvenArchitect! There are a lot of useful tools on there if you start poking around in the little menus to the right, top, and bottom. One I really like, especially once I got to chapters that require mana, is setting the buildings to show whether or not they require a road connection. This is so helpful when doing a big rearrange. And the macro to sell all streets is also a big time-saver.

You can also find master lists of all the buildings available in the game and which ones are more efficient per square based on the criteria you are looking for, such as population, culture, mana, seeds, etc.

 

[NightshadeCS]

You can import other peoples cities too.

Yep! Sometimes people on here or in my FS want help figuring out how to make their city more efficient, and it is great to be able to import their city and play around with it. You can even create links to the maps you create and them send to the people you are helping so that they can see what you mean.

 

[Aritra]

@Aritra Have fun playing with ElvenArchitect! There are a lot of useful tools on there if you start poking around in the little menus to the right, top, and bottom.

One of the tools I was excited to discover is that the item selection under build showed tile dimension, not just selecting the item (didn't require placement to learn that detail). To give an example, I had my eye on getting the Prosperity Towers and wanted to reserve a space on my board, but I couldn't tell what space was needed (I could guess, but I needed to save enough but not more than needed so the adjacent free space could be used for other stuff). Because that item hadn't been unlocked yet, it wouldn't tell me much, including that. I found a few cities who had it and I messaged them asking for the dimensions but no one took the time to answer. This was before I discovered this tool so when I found this planning aspect, I was delighted!