"Troops" adjustment on Dynamic Map

[Chenier]

Title: "Troops" adjustment on Dynamic Map

Summary: The dynamic map presently has a "troops" option to check. When you click it, army icons appear on the map for your realm's troops. They sometimes have a frame, at least two different colors exist. It isn't explained anywhere what that means. It would be nice to improve this feature.

Details: I have no idea how hard it would be to code, but it would be nice to have this feature represent fairly accurately army positions. Would make it so much more user friendly for marshals and generals. Maybe the frames are already supposed to indicate how much CS there is... but that's not explained, and that's not very intuitive. Having a greater number of flags (1 per 2500 cs?) display or, even better, a number next to it would be so very nice. For example, if region A has 1337 CS of army B, then there could be the army flag followed by 1.3 (base 1000 CS, 1 decimal).

There'd also need to display the non-army troops. Perhaps the general should get to pick a flag for the realm's unassigned troops. Then give it a frame for the militia version.

Potentially adding all foreign troops as well from all of the realm's shared scout reports?

With the potency of this info, though, it should be reserved to marshals, vice-marshals, and generals. Perhaps marshals should only see their own army, militia, and their own army's scout report results, and only the general should get the whole picture. Way too easy, otherwise, for a spy to just grab a print screen, and send it to his buddies on their private discord.

Benefits: Makes it so much more user friendly for marshals and generals. Also, would be so very cool to look at.

Possible Downsides/Exploits: If restrictions aren't made on who gets the info, it would make spying so much easier via print screens and private discord channels.

[Anaris]

Details: I have no idea how hard it would be to code, but it would be nice to have this feature represent fairly accurately army positions. Would make it so much more user friendly for marshals and generals. Maybe the frames are already supposed to indicate how much CS there is... but that's not explained, and that's not very intuitive. Having a greater number of flags (1 per 2500 cs?) display or, even better, a number next to it would be so very nice. For example, if region A has 1337 CS of army B, then there could be the army flag followed by 1.3 (base 1000 CS, 1 decimal).

The major problem is space. There are many places in the game where regions are close enough together that trying to cram any useful amount of information in is just going to overlap and become illegible. That's why I built this feature that way in the first place.

There'd also need to display the non-army troops. Perhaps the general should get to pick a flag for the realm's unassigned troops. Then give it a frame for the militia version.

Hm. I think there's already a display of those, but I don't remember what it uses for a banner.

Potentially adding all foreign troops as well from all of the realm's shared scout reports?

This is a dream of mine (specifically using all the scout reports you yourself possess, whether you or someone else took them originally), but it's currently quite impossible. Scout reports contain no information the game can readily accessâ€"they're purely HTML copies of the RegionDetails page at the time the scout report was taken, stored in the DB verbatim.

One of my medium-term projects is to have the game actually store the troop information you see in scout reports in a separate table, so it understands what it's remembering for you and can aggregate it in precisely this form.

With the potency of this info, though, it should be reserved to marshals, vice-marshals, and generals. Perhaps marshals should only see their own army, militia, and their own army's scout report results, and only the general should get the whole picture. Way too easy, otherwise, for a spy to just grab a print screen, and send it to his buddies on their private discord.

As with most such features, the intent is that anyone who has access to the information in other forms can see it here, too. So if you can see the locations and CS of your armies in table form, you'll be able to see them on the dynamic map. (I don't remember offhand who has what level of that information currently.)

[Chenier]

Yea, I could see text clutter when zoomed out. But on max zoom, I think it should fit nearly every time. It's rare that you have 20 armies in the same region. Though granted, it does happen now and then, when big alliances clash.

Perhaps it could be split into two options one can check. Like realms and duchies, which are two overlapping layers if different hierarchies... Well one option could only show totals by realm, and the other, more precise, by army. Possibly with a frame that depicts your realm's diplomatic relations with that realm.

Regarding access to information, ease of access is a double-edged sword. Right now, any noble in a realm can click through region details, and compile a list of all of the militia and mobile forces in every single region that realm possesses. But the time this would take, and how utterly tedious it would be, dissuades people from doing it. If any random schmuck could join a realm and get access to detailed compilations in an easy-to-share screen capture format... then the likeliness of people doing it for spying dramatically increases. As it is, I think everyone has access to the "troops" layer? But it's not very intuitive or informative, which means spies don't bother to share it (if they even know it exists, I just discovered it today). On the other hand, since it's not very intuitive or information, it also makes it completely useless, and thus nobody at all uses it.

I'd rather it be informative and useful, with checks to prevent abuse.

Also, the way I see such things, is that it applies to everyone equally, thus self-balances. It's just a utility for every side of any given war to use, and helps realms that have a hard time recruiting able and active people by making the job slightly less demanding, while just easing the burden on those players who do take the time and effort to be active marshals and generals.

[JeVondair]

Could we solve the issue of limited space by creating a "Known/Additional Information" subpage that pops up when you click on the troop icon? In fact, with regards to the two colors of the frames, maybe have them indicate an over/under where one color is under 10k and one number is over 10k so that way marshals can still assimilate important information at a glance? Perhaps we could even add tiny army flags beneath the icon to indicate which armies are present? It would be nice to get some additional use out of the army banner system anyway. This way Marshals and military-minded characters can live on the map page and better plan their moves.


While we're at it, adding the hours it would take to travel through a region and putting that on the map would be lovely.

[Vita`]

Over 100 CS, green thin border
Over 250 CS, green medium border
Over 500 CS, green thick border
Over 1k CS, gold thin border
Over 2k CS, gold medium border
Over 5k CS, gold thick border
Over 7.5k CS, red thin border
Over 10k CS, red medium border
Over 15k CS, red thick border

[Chenier]

Over 100 CS, green thin border
Over 250 CS, green medium border
Over 500 CS, green thick border
Over 1k CS, gold thin border
Over 2k CS, gold medium border
Over 5k CS, gold thick border
Over 7.5k CS, red thin border
Over 10k CS, red medium border
Over 15k CS, red thick border

Good to have this here for reference, but unless (or even if?) this chart is shown somewhere on the page, it's not really intuitive. How thick is thick? I thought I saw some flags without any border, were they just really thin?