User Interface Improvements to quick help

[ayvinul]

these days, most people just help their neighbors through the "quick help" window which only displays the builders hut, the townhall, and one culture building.

to the best of my knowledge, it always displays the building with the most culture points, but that's not actually the best choice.
Specifically, event buildings can't be the recipients ofspells... if you are using Gifts, you very often will like the +5% much better than a measly 6000 culture points that doesn't even get you to the next level.

My suggestion would be either to display an extra culture building (or two) or to make it possible to use the gift on event buildings.

(there's also a wonder which is more or less unusable, which will boost the mana production of buildings which have been spelled AND have received neighborly help, which is more or less impossible to achieve on purpose unless you specifically ask your neighbors to help the exact right buildings)

 

[Karvest]

Buildings which are under the EE spell just should be moved to the top of the list.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I can't find the Mod quote, but we've been told that EE spelled buildings are first on the options. so if you're seeing spelled buildings that are not buffed while others are it should be because the visit buff ran out.

 

[Karvest]

That's easy to check. Just applied EE to the building that never get NH in my city (the only EE active now here), will take a look in a few hours, if there would be NH buff on it or all NH would go somewhere else.

 

[FieryArien]

I can't find the Mod quote, but we've been told that EE spelled buildings are first on the options. so if you're seeing spelled buildings that are not buffed while others are it should be because the visit buff ran out.

If it’s the same quote as I remember, than it said that from a group of buildings with the same culture value, the ones with EE are selected first. It didn’t say that buildings with EE have general precedence.

That's easy to check. Just applied EE to the building that never get NH in my city (the only EE active now here), will take a look in a few hours, if there would be NH buff on it or all NH would go somewhere else.

For the reason I stated above, this will, in my opinion, not work.

EDIT: I would really loved it, if I were wrong! Please keep us posted, Karvest.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I'll test this in 5 minutes.
Simple enough, I'll EE a crappy building and the wife will visit me

Edit: Nope, my crappy building with EE spell active does NOT show up when she tries to visit me.
Disappointing.

 

[Karvest]

yeah, already got one NH not in EE...
Active EE should be top priority, higher than pure culture. Hope one day we'll get that.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Specifically, event buildings can't be the recipients of spells...

Just pointing this is only true for Pet buildings because two enchantments cannot be active at the same time, so Inno simply made it so you cannot accidentally EE a Phoenix and then not be able to feed it for the next 48+ hours. All other Evolving buildings can be enchanted with the EE.

 

[little bee]

I agree they should move enchanted buildings to the top. In addition to the reasons given above there is also the lighthouse to consider. It increases the mana production of the enchanted building. However, builings with high mana production tend to have less culture in return meaning they don't get polished. So in the end, this effect of the lighthouse is almost imposible to use.

 

[ayvinul]

I agree they should move enchanted buildings to the top. In addition to the reasons given above there is also the lighthouse to consider. It increases the mana production of the enchanted building. However, builings with high mana production tend to have less culture in return meaning they don't get polished. So in the end, this effect of the lighthouse is almost imposible to use.

maybe, like we got for wonders, we should be able to distribute Hearts to buildings we really want to get people's help on ? and then they would show first in the list of help (with usual sort parameters applying afterwards... just sort heart buildings first, and if we run out of that, sort through other buildings).

(should not be incredibly hard to implement visually, just need a heart on the info window of said building, and an extra boolean in the database... so something to consider next time the schema is upgraded)

 

[little bee]

maybe, like we got for wonders, we should be able to distribute Hearts to buildings we really want to get people's help on ?

If enchanted buildings were moved to the top of the stack that would be a form of marking those buildings. And there is no reason, why you would not want unenchanted buildings ordered by the culture they give. So the hearts would only indicate MH, builder or culture. This would be nice, but you can already write it into the city name.

So just moving the enchanted buildings to the top, would probably do the trick. No need to make everything more complicated.

 

[ayvinul]

If enchanted buildings were moved to the top of the stack that would be a form of marking those buildings. And there is no reason, why you would not want unenchanted buildings ordered by the culture they give. So the hearts would only indicate MH, builder or culture. This would be nice, but you can already write it into the city name.

So just moving the enchanted buildings to the top, would probably do the trick. No need to make everything more complicated.

nope, you don't always have enchantments going on. so you would have a bootstrap issue.
Also, with your idea, if I have an enchantment that still has 30 hours left and another one which is in its last hour,I may choose the wrong building.

Yeah, the hearts ARE a bit of micro-management. But they give you waaay more possibility.

As for the "city name indicates culture/builders/townhall", I positively hate that hack. I like my city to have a name (I'm not a big fan of putting RECRUITS into fellowship names either)

 

[SoggyShorts]

Yeah, the hearts ARE a bit of micro-management. But they give you waaay more possibility.

Let us open our BH/MH and click a little heart-thingy to designate them as favorite targets and then that's all that shows up.

• MH "hearted" = Only MH shows up in choices to buff
• BH "hearted" = Only BH shows up until full, then only Culture shows up in choices to buff
• MH&BH "hearted" = Only BH shows up until full, then only MH shows up in choices to buff
• Nothing "hearted" = Only Culture shows up until all are buffed, then defaults to BH then MH

Combine that with EE culture>everything and you're all set.

The city name hack sucks and event the developers have said they hated it in an interview.

 

[Quercus]

maybe, like we got for wonders, we should be able to distribute Hearts to buildings we really want to get people's help on ? and then they would show first in the list of help (with usual sort parameters applying afterwards... just sort heart buildings first, and if we run out of that, sort through other buildings).

(should not be incredibly hard to implement visually, just need a heart on the info window of said building, and an extra boolean in the database... so something to consider next time the schema is upgraded)

I made such an application to the RU forum a year ago. It was handed over to the developers (as the moderators write), but so far no reaction has been seen.