Battle UI

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Forgive me if a thread has already been started on this. I looked through the first three pages, but it easily could have gone back further.


Anyway, the battle UI is... Well, really bad. Maybe I am missing something here, but it appears that there is no minimized UI option as there was in other games, but that is just the tip of the ice burg.

The unit cards are horrible and uninformative. I haven't really had any trouble determining which units are which, though they do look quite similar, but other than that, they hardly tell you anything. No unit numbers, vague flashes for apparently ever action a unit makes, etc. Not only that, but if you fight with a full army of 20 men, then the unit cards no longer shrink to account for the extra units, so you end up with two rows of giant cards taking up almost the entire bottom half of your screen, which means I have to play battles without unit cards, or not see the battle.

On top of that, you have to hover over a unit for a few seconds before you can find out information like, it's moral status and if it is winning in it's current combat or not. There are a series of colored icons when you glance at them, which, over time, I am sure we will all memorize and be able to tell at a glance the status of our units. But exactly what was wrong with the way Shogun 2 did it? If you hovered your mouse over a unit in Shogun 2, then it told you everything you needed to know.

The first battle I ever fought, I had a unit of slingers rout without even noticing it. I didn't know they had routed until I saw an enemy unit chasing them across the battlefield.


Apart from that however, Rome 2 is everything I expected it to be! It's fantastic and immersive and the campaign is quite an improvement over previous entries.

[Boicote]

I agree with you. This is probably the worst UI I have ever seen in a game (not only in TW games). The UI is not only ugly (the transparency ruins immersion) but also uninformative. Besides, the UI is also so huge that I cannot see my soldiers on the battlefield .
I don't understand why CA decided to implement this UI, especially after the great work they made in Shogun 2. Moreover, in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KB7kt1SFSo you can see that in a previous version of this game the player has 23 units on his army and the unit cards don't occupy half of the screen.



I also don't understand what's the point of having faces speaking to you whenever you click a unit when you can't see them and the unit’s stats at the same time. If I have to choose between one of them, I prefer the unit stats. But both menus are so huge that most of the times I simply minimize them to see my units on the battlefield. In Shogun 2 we were able to see the facial expression of our general AND the unit stats at the same time AND both information didn’t occupy a significant part of the screen.

[Mansen]

I also miss the "adjustment" interface that Shogun had. You know, advance, retreat, increase/decrease file and rank. I know these are possible through the arrow keys (I think? - figured that one out by accident), but it feels much more precise with the interface.

Yes - I think the cards could use more information. I was a little shocked to find out that I had to keep hovering over a unit to get an explanation of what the symbols meant. (Thankfully this can be changed in the options)

[TheRomanRuler]

I also hate unit cards, and i deteste UI.
But at least on 1920x1080 screen unit cards don`t cover too much, but it might be just me, i still prefer look of Rome TW UI over never warscape UIs.

[kambiz]

But exactly what was wrong with the way Shogun 2 did it?

That's what I always asked here of CA but gave no answer
After over 15 years experience of making total war games and with Shogun2 UI being the most perfect one , I don't know how they designed Rome 2 UIs like this??!!? Sometimes I think maybe the team worked on Rome 2 is totally different from the one worked on previous games

I also don't understand what's the point of having faces speaking to you

Do you really don't know??? They are called eye candies and very stupid ones because as you said :

whenever you click a unit when you can't see them and the unit’s stats at the same time. If I have to choose between one of them, I prefer the unit stats. But both menus are so huge that most of the times I simply minimize them to see my units on the battlefield. In Shogun 2 we were able to see the facial expression of our general AND the unit stats at the same time AND both information didn’t occupy a significant part of the screen.

You are correct. Both are huge and the facial ones is totally useless.

unfortunately these are the things that even the modders can't fix them

[kambiz]

But exactly what was wrong with the way Shogun 2 did it?

That's what I always asked here of CA but gave no answer
After over 15 years experience of making total war games and with Shogun2 UI being the most perfect one , I don't know how they designed Rome 2 UIs like this??!!? Sometimes I think maybe the team worked on Rome 2 is totally different from the one worked on previous games

I also don't understand what's the point of having faces speaking to you

Do you really don't know??? They are called eye candies and very stupid ones because as you said :

whenever you click a unit when you can't see them and the unit’s stats at the same time. If I have to choose between one of them, I prefer the unit stats. But both menus are so huge that most of the times I simply minimize them to see my units on the battlefield. In Shogun 2 we were able to see the facial expression of our general AND the unit stats at the same time AND both information didn’t occupy a significant part of the screen.

You are correct. Both are huge and the facial ones is totally useless.

unfortunately these are the things that even the modders can't fix them