Readability of the map: Village or not?

[Squig]

I have reinstalled Wesnoth recently (mostly to check the gorgeous new unit pics), and went through a MP game, to see how much I had forgotten.

What bothered me during that game was the addition of village-like tiles to the map, aka mills and ruins. While they sure look nice and all, I find it quite disturbing for the newbish player. In fact, it is even more disturbing due to the fact that ruined castle still counts as a castle, so there is some kind of a logical inconsistency here.

Could there be any solution provided that shows what brings gold and what does not? I know one can already check on the information area top-right of the screen, but it does not seem like an intuitive solution to me.

Maybe there should be some ground markers on the villages (especially neutrals, since flags kinda cover the issue for controlled villages), like the color rings currently under units?

[Lizard]

At least there is already a mousover you can use

E-cookies for the first one to guess the map :-)

isntthereonealready.png (40.85 KiB) Viewed 4659 times

I don't think it would look good to add Village overlays

[Turuk]

It also tells you in the upper right, where it does not give the mills a designation other than the terrain underneath. So you can tell whether a terrain has the village or castle properties.

Some examples:
Village (Village, Swamp)
Village (Village, Hills)
Swamp Ruin (Castle, Swamp)

[randomdragoon]

I know one can already check on the information area top-right of the screen, but it does not seem like an intuitive solution to me.

I for one have tried to capture a windmill when I was first starting out.
I also once tried to capture the rock in the second HttT scenario.

[Simons Mith]

Perhaps a grey flag or an empty flagpole (or a pair of union jack bloomers blowing in the breeze ) to denote uncaptured villages? I see these guys' points, but I'm against additional screen clutter.

[Gambit]

some people who aren't new sometimes forget that in normal wesnoth windmills arent used to grind food into grain and try to take them for income


on top of the grey flag idea for uncaptured villages, I'd also like to see a version of the windmill that actually does work as a village...

[Devrailis Colandore]

I think windmills are fine as they are. The first time I saw a windmill, I tried charging it with my lancer, I mean, I checked the upper-right hand corner of the UI and noticed it said Plains, rather than Village. In addition to that, I also noticed that unit defences on the surrounding plains were identical to unit defences on the windmill, which was another tip off that this was not a village. Plus, it's one of those little things that you would rarely repeat more than once.

I agree with Simons Mith. I like the "cleaness" of Wesnoth's interface. I don't feel it would be a good idea to add any more clutter.

[Simons Mith]

Oh, I always try to check out windmills, temples and other notable pieces of terrain. Usually they're just fluff, but you never know when there'll be something interesting there. However, I'm deeply ashamed I never thought to use a lancer for the job.

[scienceguy8]

The first time I saw a windmill, I tried charging it with my lancer...

Thought it was a giant?

[Gambit]

on the other hand though once you "learn" to ignore things like this. What about in campaigns and addons where they actually DO something.

I guess the context of the scenario in question would be responsible for letting you know?

[Devrailis Colandore]

I think you're correct that the context of the scenario should let the player know.

In all of the campaigns and add-ons I've played where items like windmills or altars and such have had unusual properties, it's usually been made very clear that they can be interacted with and that they actually DO something. If this isn't made clear to the player, then I think the problem wouldn't lie so much with Wesnoth's UI as it would with the particular campaign's design. It could be an issue as trivial as (and not limited to) making a quick notice at the beginning of the campaign or scenario.

[Squig]

I guess a neutral flag or flagpole on neutral villages would fix the problem well enough, or make the village icon overlay show as soon as an unit is selected?

A more drastic change would be to make it a new terrain type, but I'm pretty sure this will not happen.

[zookeeper]

Having neutral villages feature a neutral flag or pole sounds like the best idea.

It'd probably be a bit of an artistic challenge to make the neutral flag or pole really look both recognizable and intuitive enough as well as neutral, though. Just a pole isn't very visible and it's not immediately clear what it is, but a flag could easily make the villages look like they already belong to someone.

[Sorrow]

Windmills were villages in at least one version... I think the first one where they were added.

[Suukorak]

There was a scenario in TROW where a pillar was a village... so why not windmills?