(October 24th, 2016, 09:06)Yazilliclick Wrote: For civics though each one has a monochrome individual icon (look to the left for the actual civic). What you're looking at are the effect cards for policies which I don't think really need individual icons. What they have now works well enough I think.
I would still like them.
But the argument isn't that I want them and therefore they should have them. I'm pointing out that they had them in the previous games and now they don't.
Quote:Really icons are good only when they can clearly convey what they represent and when there aren't too many that they lose all meaning because you can't remember them all. I care more about clearly displaying the information and in that case a lot of time simple icons with proper color coding is a LOT more effective than individual distinct icons trying to represent what they are.
I actually like this argument, but I don't think it totally holds up. You're right that there are a huge number of policies and very few people would learn what each icon meant by heart. But there's more at stake than being able to remember the exact effects of policies by looking at their icons.
Take a look at this section of the tree (grabbed online, may not be 100% up-to-date):
See those policies on Political Philosophy? I know what they are! Why? Because they're the only two green policies you have for a while and because they're on one of the civics that I recognize because it has these giant government icons on it.
I know this because it looks distinct. There is something for my brain to grab onto. Military Training and Defensive Tactics on the other hand look exactly the same. They look like "Civic that has two red policies". That is all I know about them. There are so many red and yellow and purple policies, that I have no chance of guessing which one is on which tech. If I want to try to tech to a specific policy, I have to mouse over all the little symbols on all the civics to try to find it. I will learn it eventually if I keep playing and it's useful information, but it would go a whole lot faster if there was a visual thing to make associations through.
It's not even only about associations between policies and the civics that grant them. It's about just the civics on their own, too. When you look at civics, the pattern of shapes and colors of the whole block is the fastest channel of information - faster than the name, the boost text, or trying to zero in on just the civic's own icon itself. The whole picture of a rectangle with a black circle on the left and two red rectangles in the middle is what I see first - and there's not enough variation in what the civics look like at that level for your brain to use it. You have to go on to read the name, which is a lot slower.
If there weren't just four icons for policies, the civic tree would be easily readable, like the tech tree.
