Aha. Everything fits. White letters are symbols for overland enchantments in this version. More info is gained by rightclicks on symbols - like: "Peace-treaty is over in 5 turns."
The posted image was 960*600, triple resolution. Each 3x3 area on that is a single pixel. If you want to see the real amount of space available when editing, shrink it to 1/3 resolution. Each letter representing an icon there is like 5x5 real pixels.
Something else. With larger maps and more players, comes the question, how should the AI handle various diplomacy features.
-Should the AI declare war regardless of distance, or have a limitation? If yes, which types of war declaration should it apply to (out of the 5-6 different kinds that exist)?
-Same for making treaties between two AIs
-Same for hostility rolls
-What about the player's offers? Isn't it unfair if the player can make treaties regardless of distance but cannot get into a war unless they start it and the AIs cannot make treaties with each other? If we disallow it by making the AI refuse, isn't that a problem as well?
-How do we define the distance if we do add a restriction?
-What about spell trading, wouldn't having this many trading partners break the system? Or is it safe because the player can't trade upwards and for later, more powerful spells, the player count is lower as they get eliminated?
I didn't think it'll be so much fun to try to come up with new quality insults the AI can throw at the players. I'll try to make it so that all texts in diplomacy will match the personality of the wizard talking so I need to add quite a lot of it.
Quote:DipTextOption('You must be mad to pay the price I asked for this spell, but that is of no concern to me.');
DipTextOption('You incompetent fool cannot learn any of my superior magicks? What a waste of time!');
DipTextOption('Spell Blast is terrifying! What kind of monster would employ such otherworldly forces???');
The plan is to make Maniacal wizards sounds slightly paranoid while Ruthless are sadists, Aggressive are just plain rude and Chaotic are crazy. Lawful and Peaceful will be mostly normal.
Treaty icons seem to fit well. (positioning is automatic so when there are more, they are displayed closer to each other, but they are recognizable even with some overlap.
I think this works, I'll just need to come up with some better background with proper textboxes and stuff.
IMO, it's a little bit cramped, why not split the diplomacy art and the global enchantments into two separate screens? Or potentially a third hybrid screen where it shows only diplomacy until you right click on a wizard which then brings up his list of global enchantments as well as his mirror? Potentially also you could make it so the global spells only screen when you left click a spell that isn't yours it calls the casting wizard on his mirror, as if you'd clicked his portrait on the main diplomacy screen?
In other words, you could split them into two screens, but still find a way to click in the right location on either screen to bring up the added details you want (more spell info on the diplomacy, and more diplomacy on the spell screen).
Another improvement you might be able to make if you were willing to add another screen would be to instead of showing the list of global spells on the diplomacy screen simply show a single number, that number would be how many global spells that wizard has in effect, clicking the number could either move to the global spells screen, or instead the hybrid screen I mentioned before that would somehow be both the mirror for that wizard and his list of global spells? I mention this because in master of magic slash caster of magic 1 the mirror screen is one of the few screens that doesn't take up the full viewing area, meaning it's one of the few screens with room for more information.
Slingers version looks a lot better to me, and I realize that his idea isn't possible, because it literally won't fit. However, it might be possible to achieve a similar level of presentation if half the information could be offloaded elsewhere. Having two screens also opens the possibility of the spiderweb and circle of wizards design being potentially possible, although it seemed like you weren't in favor of that.
edit: Now that I think about it, even if you don't want to make a second screen, and you want to leave that exactly as it is. I still love my idea of upgrading the enemy wizard's mirrors with added functionality, either showing their global spells there, or potentially also showing their treaty status there. Then the treaty icons would be less cramped because the enemy wizard's personal mirror only has to show his treaty status. The great thing about making the treaty icons easier to see and not overlapping them is that you could make it so that clicking on a treaty icon calls the other wizard on their mirror. So, if ssra's has 5 treaty icons for war, you could click those icons to call his enemies on the phone to chat with them. With 4 enemies comparing colors and clicking on each wizard is easy. If there are 12 colors and ssra is in 5 wars, it could get confusing, and it might be nice to have these extra click phone call shortcuts, but if the icons overlap, it won't really work then. Although like I said they could overlap on the main diplomacy screen, but then right clicking the wizard's portrait could pull up his mirror which could duplicate the treaty icons there, slightly more spaciously. Again, the only menu in master of magic 1 that IMO has actual spare space for more details is the mirror screen.
edit2: On the subject of improving strategic diplomatic overview by improving the enemy mirror screen, maybe display their exact numerical skill power value there? It's shown in master of magic as a bar graph, implying we're supposed to know, but the vague bar graph doesn't help me know things like, if he casts prayer is he out of skill for raise dead?
I want at least the treaty status and global enchantments visible on the diplomacy screen. Both are critically important information that must not be hidden on a separate screen or behind clicking something.
Improving the Mirror screen is something I will consider later, I want the basic functionalities of the game working first.
Adding the textbox and getting rid of the unnecessary outline and colors made this look much more acceptable. It's pointless to color the spell names when they appear grouped by the wizards anyway.
This is the same thing but with an added frame for the textbox.
Finally, with treaty status included.
I think this is usable.
The only downside is the shortened spell names but that's probably unavoidable, especially because we'll also need to display the spell name for Detect Magic above the wizard.
@Seravy “The posted image was 960*600, triple resolution.”
Upsie ! – And I had so much fun copy & pasting ...
This time I did not change sizes and only recycled the original graphics 1:1 into a 2-screen-solution. This would work like the Cartograph-screen – switching with a hotkey (p) or pushing a button that can be inactive if there is nothing to see on the second screen and flashing red otherwise.
If it is intended to reduce the maximum number of wizards starting on one plane to 8 one screen could be for Arcanus and one for Myrror. Alternatively the wizards could appear first after contact and disappear if defeated. This way most of the time only one active screen is needed.
The treaties shown to the left of the portrait belong to Wizards from Myrror, the treaties to the right to Wizards from Arcanus. This detail only would work with not more than 8 Wizards starting on one plane.
In this example the human player has enough books to potentially cast all the overland enchantments. I counted wrong this time also it looks like … but it would be space for 32.
Oberic is Chaos/Nature with one Lifebook. Even without further information by right-clicking something or scrolling scroll-bars or additional specialised screens it is already possible to see which overland enchantments he already cast and which ones he potentially might cast in the future.
