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AT Hexes - 5/4/2008 10:04:20 AM

DeadInThrench

Posts: 318
Joined: 12/27/2006
From: NE Pennsylvania, USA
Status: offline

I recently did a bit of a survey, and found that in AT, there are 165 hexes displayed in the hex display area, while in PT (People's Tactics, AT's predesessor), there are 330 hexes in the hex display area, and in TOAW, 294.

Uh, a matter of bigger artwork and bigger hexes than in PT, and what this means is a signficant decrease in visibility as to what is going on.

Anyways, what they COULD have done is...

1. Offer multiple levels of hex size. This is what they do in TOAW, in fact offerring four levels of bird's eye view and two 3D views. If PT sized hexes were offerred in AT, I would bet that 99% of the players would be using those rather than the hex size that is there now.

2. Make the right and bottom panels dropable (dropping the command bar to the bottom). I would think you might be able to do half of what you do without these panels, mainly using the bottom one for production and the right one for combat. In any case, this might in fact double the number of hexes seen and thus a signficant increase in visibility.

DiT

Post #: 1

RE: AT Hexes - 5/4/2008 12:33:10 PM

Vic

Posts: 8262
Joined: 5/17/2004
Status: offline

Hi there,

Zoom levels is something i am considering for the next game, but as a workaround you can always increase your screen resolution. You'll see about 4 times more map with 1600x1200 then with 1024x768.

Of the games you mentioned i think AT is the only one that scales the interface to the current screen resolution (on startup).

kind regards,
Vic

< Message edited by Vic -- 5/4/2008 12:34:25 PM >

(in reply to DeadInThrench)

Post #: 2

RE: AT Hexes - 5/4/2008 7:39:16 PM

JAMiAM

Posts: 6165
Joined: 2/8/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vic
Of the games you mentioned i think AT is the only one that scales the interface to the current screen resolution (on startup).

TOAW III does this, as well.

(in reply to Vic)

Post #: 3

RE: AT Hexes - 5/5/2008 2:18:19 AM

DeadInThrench

Posts: 318
Joined: 12/27/2006
From: NE Pennsylvania, USA
Status: offline

As far as PT is concerned.... you should know, you wrote it <g>.

As far as TOAW is concerned.... big difference. Been around a long time and I imagine every developer that has had his hands on it has made an improvement.

It comes up in a true windowed mode.... with title bar and the tasks bar is still there. You can maximize it and it will scale to whatever resolution you are on (and if you ended in maximized mode it will come up in maximized mode). But, if you go in a normal window, you can scale the window continuously to whatever hex by hex size you want (that fits). On top of this, there are 4 bird's eye hex scales and the game can be played with 3 of them (the tiniest is like a strategic map). I rarely use the biggest hexes but if you are going with a high screen resolution, then this mode would become significant.

I don't believe continuously scalable hexes in a game of this nature would work. In a game like, say, Horse and Musket: Prussian War Machine, they have a continuously zoomable interface... and it works but even there they had to leave the figurines faceless because the zooming wrecked havoc with the face details. Now, this is a game with figurines. In a game with counters and numbers and letters on the counters, a continuously zoomable interface would wreck total havoc and, IMO, would simply not work.

You could probably do 2x or 4x or .5x but... probably need touchup to make it work. I really don't know what TOAW does but it has a lot of sizes.

IMO, you should really consider making the right and bottom panels droppable. I do program app development and this is essentially what the user interfaces in the IDE do there. Would give you a much bigger display area for replay, movement, and a lot of other things. Would give you a leg up on the competition IMO.

DiT

(in reply to Vic)

Post #: 4

RE: AT Hexes - 5/5/2008 11:47:29 AM

Vic

Posts: 8262
Joined: 5/17/2004
Status: offline

I hear you dead. And i love a lot of the feedback players. Naturellement i will not use all feedback in the next games, but i might defenitly use some. Not doing any promises however :)

thanks for the interesting ideas.

kind regards
Vic

(in reply to DeadInThrench)

Post #: 5

RE: AT Hexes - 5/6/2008 2:21:29 AM

DeadInThrench

Posts: 318
Joined: 12/27/2006
From: NE Pennsylvania, USA
Status: offline

One thing I gotta change.... is my forum name. You are the second designer now that has referred me as 'dead'..... and I had to to a double take on that before I realized you were talking to me.

I have to change my ISP account soon so guess I will change my forum name at that time also.

Soon not to be..... DiT

(in reply to Vic)

Post #: 6