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Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 4:53 am
by the_iron_duke
I think this game would benefit from some toggleable overlays. These would each have a button on the game screen - I'd put them vertically going down, in the top right between the End Turn button and the buttons in the bottom-right. They could each be toggled on or off, so all could be off, all on, or any combination in between.

These toggles would be, in no particular order:

1) Show Grid

As I've mentioned elsewhere, this would be good for seeing topography and also for counting squares. Currently one has to use the white unit movement square to try and count squares, meaning zooming in and moving the mouse to reveal each square individually. Knowing distances in squares is important for executing the finer details of strategy.

2) Show Terrain

This overlay would show a clear indication of the terrain of each tile. Obviously, it's crucially important to know exactly which squares are which terrain, and it's not always currently easy to do at a glance.

Only needing to be indicated in this layer would be tiles that had an in-game effect, so decorative tiles, such as fields, would be blank (in the manner of open terrain tiles).

Here's a screenshot from Unity of Command with such an overlay toggled on, which uses simple stylized terrain indicators:

Image

3) Show Unit Bases

I'd like an option to show unit bases. This could potentially be semi-transparent red and blue bases, representing each side, similar to the "in combat" boxes the game currently uses. However, they'd not use the full square, and would instead be rectangles, the size of which would depend on the number of ranks of men (and they'd also not touch the sides of the square, so a line of men would appear as rectangles). Or they could be more like miniature bases, perhaps two neutral colours like beige vs grey-brown.

Here's a rough mocked-up example using red/blue transparent bases. Off:

Image

On:

Image

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 5:06 am
by 76mm
I like all three ideas, hopefully they'll go on the wishlist!

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 8:02 am
by keyth
Nice ideas, all would be really useful.

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 8:55 am
by lapdog666
looks like a good idea, only thing i dislike is how the colors are not strictly under the feet of models

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 8:58 am
by Cumandante
I like this.

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:53 pm
by roguedjack
Would be nice, especially the unit bases and the grid.

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 4:41 pm
by Cheimison
TBH I wish the units were static models with bases and all the terrain looked like it was built up by a hobby nerd - (<3 Tin Soldiers).
I'm weird like that, though - I also like strategy games that look like board games.

I like the idea of overlays, though!

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:31 am
by jomni
Cheimison wrote:TBH I wish the units were static models with bases and all the terrain looked like it was built up by a hobby nerd - (<3 Tin Soldiers).
I'm weird like that, though - I also like strategy games that look like board games.

I like the idea of overlays, though!
Hmm static figures. I think that may be modded but you need to touch each unit’s config file.

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:11 am
by peter01
Unit bases and grid are great ideas.

Re: Suggestion: Toggleable Overlays

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:03 pm
by randy44
overlays nice. i also would like an option for static models/figures.