display centering

display centering

[Peter Garrone]

Hi,
 When the turn is finished, the AI player does its thing off-screen so
 to speak, which is all a bit boring. I have tried the following simple
 patch a bit which re-centers the screen whenever the ai player does
 any combat. It may not be the best fix to the problem, as sometimes
 the display is disconcertingly re-centered when doing combat with
 your own units. Anyway, i thought i would post it to stimulate
 anyone interested.

diff -r -U 5 -p tcltk_old/tkmap.c tcltk/tkmap.c
--- tcltk_old/tkmap.c	Sun Oct  5 16:40:33 2003
+++ tcltk/tkmap.c	Mon Oct  6 00:47:15 2003
@@ -3531,10 +3531,11 @@ void
 draw_unit_blast(Map *map, Unit *unit, int blasttype, int duration)
 {
     int sx, sy, sw, sh;
     MapW *mapw = (MapW *) map->widget;
     VP *vp = mapw->vp;
+    put_on_screen(map,unit->x,unit->y);
 
     if (between(0, blasttype, 2)) {
 	if (vp->hw > 10 && !vp->isometric) {
 	    x_xform_unit(mapw, unit, &sx, &sy, &sw, &sh);
 	} else {
@@ -3557,10 +3558,11 @@ draw_unit_blast(Map *map, Unit *unit, in
 void
 draw_cell_blast(Map *map, int x, int y, int blasttype, int duration)
 {
     int sx, sy, sw, sh;
     MapW *mapw = (MapW *) map->widget;
+    put_on_screen(map,x,y);
 
     if (blasttype == 3) {
 	xform(mapw, x, y, &sx, &sy);
 	sw = mapw->vp->hw;  sh = mapw->vp->hh;
 	mapw->blastsx = sx;  mapw->blastsy = sy;

Re: display centering

[Eric McDonald]

Hi again,

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003, Peter Garrone wrote:

>  When the turn is finished, the AI player does its thing off-screen so
>  to speak, which is all a bit boring. I have tried the following simple
>  patch a bit which re-centers the screen whenever the ai player does
>  any combat.

I haven't tried your patch yet, but one of my concerns would be 
that things would get re-centered twice if you have follow-action 
on, and are viewing an attack on one of your own units. Another 
concern would be: how annoying is it if the turns are progressing 
simultaneously rather than sequentially?

I certainly agree that things can get a bit boring waiting for 
the AI to finish its turns. One idea would be to make the 
interface more responsive to the user during that phase, perhaps 
by putting in some "DoEvents" or whatever hooks into the AI code. 
That way a user could review his/her strategic posture, tactical 
situations, and force stats while the AI turns are progressing.

  Regards,
    Eric

Re: display centering

[Hans Ronne]

>Hi again,
>
>On Sat, 11 Oct 2003, Peter Garrone wrote:
>
>>  When the turn is finished, the AI player does its thing off-screen so
>>  to speak, which is all a bit boring. I have tried the following simple
>>  patch a bit which re-centers the screen whenever the ai player does
>>  any combat.
>
>I haven't tried your patch yet, but one of my concerns would be
>that things would get re-centered twice if you have follow-action
>on, and are viewing an attack on one of your own units. Another
>concern would be: how annoying is it if the turns are progressing
>simultaneously rather than sequentially?

Yes. There is another consideration, too. In games with several sides and
many units, the game slows down to a crawl if everything the AI does
offscreen is shown. This is because the hit-unit-animations are the by far
the most time-consuming parts of the game (somehting like 95% of the total
time). I posted some profiling data on this about one year ago.

Hans

Re: display centering

[Peter Garrone]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2003 at 11:07:40AM -0400, Eric McDonald wrote:
> Hi again,
> 
> On Sat, 11 Oct 2003, Peter Garrone wrote:
> 
> >  When the turn is finished, the AI player does its thing off-screen so
> >  to speak, which is all a bit boring. I have tried the following simple
> >  patch a bit which re-centers the screen whenever the ai player does
> >  any combat.
> 
> I haven't tried your patch yet, but one of my concerns would be 
> that things would get re-centered twice if you have follow-action 
> on, and are viewing an attack on one of your own units. Another 
> concern would be: how annoying is it if the turns are progressing 
> simultaneously rather than sequentially?

Yes, this patch is totally unnecessary because "follow-action" does
exactly what I want to achieve, thanks. Perhaps it should be the default
for newbies such as myself.

Cheers,
 Peter

Re: display centering

[Eric McDonald]

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Peter Garrone wrote:

> Yes, this patch is totally unnecessary because "follow-action" does
> exactly what I want to achieve, thanks. Perhaps it should be the default

That has my vote.

Eric