noob 3rd impression after climbing the starting curve

[Lagi]

I was having few approach to Master of Magic before, but i always drop this masterpiece, because the controls of units on the main map was confusing to me, and the map was not readable.

Here are my impressions with suggestions:

1. Its is not clear which tile are under influence of the city.

a thin, semi transparent border line may do the trick. A highlight like in Implodes MoM looks very nice, however will be confused with FoW.

2.
 fog of war could have shattered edges like an unexplored darkness now.
It looks nice in Implodes version.

3.
auto explore button

I am not interested in giving each turn my scouts order to move in any direction.
I care about 2x things: explore dark areas, or scout around nearest town for enemies - which way each unit go I dont care as long as it follow this general direction (nearest black tile OR nearest FoW close to my town).

suggestion:
there is big grey NONE button, that could become Explore (for unit that dont have special skills as Settle).

4.
I cannot use arrows to scroll the map, when I have selected unit, nor when im in F1 mode (surveyor).

5.
when i press F1, would be handy which available for town tile have what max population. It could be a number similar like Geomancer F12.

6.
Hill, forest and grassland tiles are melding in the eyes together.

i think its because the grassland tiles have too many dark green pixels.
have a look here:
https://fessicsfavorites.files.wordpress...evo_06.jpg
you see at a glance where is forest, because there is clear contrast between light grassland and dark forest.

hills should have more brown color (like the coast line) at the top.

7.
control scheme is awkward and you need to get used to it. i tried to inverted mouse buttons options but it doesnt help. navigation in city and other menus become troublesome and unintuitive.

basically it is standard that:
you select unit with left mouse button - it feels natural i click the main mouse button to start interaction with some object.

then you issue order with right mouse button, but the unit keep being selected, till you not click something else with LMB or press ESC. this allow me to see the red movement arrow and be sure of my unit destination.

the red movement arrow should appear as soon as unit get out of movement points, and dont disappear until you have click something that is not an unit.
even other unit movement red arrow should be simultaneously display, so i can plan my whole army movement.

[Slingers]

6.
Hill, forest and grassland tiles are melding in the eyes together.

i think its because the grassland tiles have too many dark green pixels.
have a look here:
https://fessicsfavorites.files.wordpress...evo_06.jpg
you see at a glance where is forest, because there is clear contrast between light grassland and dark forest.

hills should have more brown color (like the coast line) at the top.

You could click "Legacy Tileset" in the settings and also change these tile graphics which are in the corresponding folder to your liking.

[Lagi]

when i select engineers and want to build road, i can press E on keyboard for shortcut,

but then monit appear to confirm it with OK CANCEL and i cannot click neither from my keyboard, so i need to hover mouse to right bottom corner.

it wouldn't be so annoying if building roads was not so frequent task/order to give.

Suggestion:
build road E, ok E (again, so i press EE to quickly build roads), cancel (esc)

[Lagi]

6.
Hill, forest and grassland tiles are melding in the eyes together.

i think its because the grassland tiles have too many dark green pixels.
have a look here:
https://fessicsfavorites.files.wordpress...evo_06.jpg
you see at a glance where is forest, because there is clear contrast between light grassland and dark forest.

hills should have more brown color (like the coast line) at the top.

You could click "Legacy Tileset" in the settings and also change these tile graphics which are in the corresponding folder to your liking.

vanilla tiles are inferior, except mountains and hills that I guess looks better (however im not sure, because they dont fit to 2nd perspective of the rest of the icons on map)

[Slingers]

- vanilla tiles are inferior, except mountains and hills that I guess looks better (however im not sure, because they dont fit to 2nd perspective of the rest of the icons on map)

- when i select engineers and want to build road, i can press E on keyboard for shortcut,

but then monit appear to confirm it with OK CANCEL  and i cannot click neither from my keyboard, so i need to hover mouse to right bottom corner.

it wouldn't be so annoying if building roads was not so frequent task/order to give.

Suggestion:
build road E, ok E (again, so i press EE to quickly build roads), cancel (esc)

- Hm. If these things bother you, you could modify existing tile graphics or create entirely new ones ... and post in this forum. 

- You're right! There is no key to confirm in the Keys.ini for overland. Most people give the command to build a long road with the mouse I think.

[Seravy]

1,2 : Good ideas but low priority.
3 : I dislike the idea of the game "playing itself" and doing too many things for the player. It's also not trivial to implement which is bad for a feature I already consider to be of questionable value.
4 : I will definitely fix when the next update comes for Surveyor mode. When units are selected, arrow keys are more intuitive to be used for the movement of the units - they should already do so on the numpad.
5 : Convenient but I'm worried it might make the game less fun like auto-explore. Discovering the best tile yourself is an enjoyable part of the game for many.
6 : Noted and will look at pixel colors but can't promise anything.
7 : This goes both ways. I can't play most other games because of this "standard" control scheme as it's not intuitive for me.
MoM has the control scheme of
Right click = open help, select unit, scroll map - basically the "inaction" or "information" button
Left click = the "action" button - move unit, activate menus and buttons, etc.

(Edit : maybe a mouse.ini similar to keys.ini where each thing can be assigned to a mouse button could help with this, I'll consider that possibility)

+1 : I'll also check for hotkeys for engineer buttons, maybe I forgot to add them.

Other games break this by using this control for menus and most of the game but the opposite for units where you use left to select and right to use. Using that would also cause right click to be unavailable to see the stats of the units as it's being used for movement, leading to units being the only one thing where left opens the information page in the entire game.

[Lagi]

7:

There is something else except Left or Right mouse click.



When I issue an order to the unit out of MP. Nothing happen. I am not sure if the unit received the order or not.

if the unit move immediately then its ok (as in MoM now), but if unit is out of MovePoints, then display of red arrows would be handy.



also unit is immediately deselect after issuing order. Which force me to scroll and select same unit again, to correct order.



check here; I know where each stack of unit is moving and i can change it before they spend Action.



edit:
suggestion:


3. you hover mouse pointer over Stag Beetle and mouse-click to select this unit

4. a transparent red arrows appear for every units (not only Stag Beetle) that will move this turn
5. your klackon Stag Beetle icon start blinking - so you know you have selected him, not Engineer

6. you decide you want to move Stag Beetle somewhere else, you click-mouse (LEFT MOUSE current) map tile.

7. Stag Beetle is still selected, his icon is still blinking, and his red arrow change position.

8. you are finally satisfied with your decision, the correlation to other armies movement is acceptable.

9. you click (LEFT CLICK) the red arrow head again, AND IF Stag Beetle has any more MovePoints he will move as far as possible along the arrow.

10. you can SELECT-Click another Klackon unit, and give him order. And the Red ArrowS will not disappear.

11. when you press DONE or press ESC == DESELECT unit. Then all red arrows will disappear.





6. I will try to manipulate with tiles graphic, will post my results.

[Lagi]

+1 : I'll also check for hotkeys for engineer buttons, maybe I forgot to add them.

i think there should be no monit of building road at all. I absolutely don't care how long will it take to build the road 1 or 3 turns, its insignificant detail.
Just press E and engineers start building in the current tile (same like Settlers, you dont see a monit that the settlment will take X turns to become a city).

[Lagi]

here is my attempt to improve the grassland
i reduce the darkest and lightest grassland color.

what you suppose to perceive from this screen is the reduction of "colour noise", that should be more pleasant for the eye.

still the contrast to forest and hills is not sufficient, but its a step in good direction.

also roads looks "paint"-like because its just 1x brown color. i think it would look better if we add another shade of brown

[Lagi]

Correct me if I am wrong, but there are only "legacy tiles" ? I mean, i cannot change (mod) the default graphic tiles, because they all are procedurally generated by a code?

F.ex. changing grassland tiles only change them in game, if i select LeagcyTIles in settings. Also there is nowhere this 2nd perspective mountains/ hills/ or trees used for random pattern on tiles.