Top Function Bar
The Top Function Bar is used to get to varying views (pages) in the game without having to us the main menu, especially the Civilization menu. The Top Function Bar is broken up into 9 sections, from left to right.
Map View
This is your primary playing surface. This is the map where you build your civilization. The button for this is shown in Fig. 42 below. Fig. 27, has a good example of the Map View.
Fig. 42 Map View Button
If you hover your mouse over the Map View button, a pop up widget will appear and give you information about your nation. The pop up widget shows: Nationality, Total Population, Year (Turn Number), Gold (Surplus/Deficit), and National Budget.
To move around the map canvas, you can right-click in the main map area and the canvas will move. The further from the center of the screen, the faster the map canvas will move per mouse click. You can also use two-finger gestures on your mouse/trackpad to swipe up, down, left, and right.
One other feature of the Map View is the ability to middle-click on a unit (via the Popup Tile Info Shortcut). After a middle-click a popup widget will appear giving you some information about the tile. Fig. 43, gives an example of a Howitzer on Plains. The popup information widget gives a great deal of information about the coordinates of the tile, terrain type, and infrastructure improvements made to the tile. If a unit is on the tile, as in our example, you are also given details about the unit.
Fig. 43 Map View - Unit Information
Tip
The client will give you some basic combat chances if you select one of your units and then use the middle-click popup tile info shortcut on the tile of an enemy unit.
Units View
The Units View is a separate page in a table format. When you click the button for it as shown in Fig. 44, the client will switch to a listing of your units.
Fig. 44 Units View Button
The Units View has two tables. For regular games without the unitwaittime server setting set,
you get something similar to Fig. 45 below. If you are playing a game with unitwaittime set,
then you will see a second table below the table shown in Fig. 45, such as
Fig. 46, that displays the amount of time until the unit can move.
Fig. 45 Units View
Fig. 46 Units View with unitwaittime
The Find Nearest button can be used to help you find a specific unit type. Select the row for the unit type you wish to find on the Map View and then click the button. The Units View page will close and the closest unit of that type will be selected and centered on the map. To quickly disband every one of a specific unit type, select the row for the unit type and then click Disband All. This feature is similar to the same button in the Economics View. Lastly, if you have sufficient funds in your national treasury, you can upgrade all units of a type that are inside your cities by selecting the row for the unit type you wish to upgrade and click the Upgrade button.
Nations and Diplomacy View
The Nations and Diplomacy View is actually two views accessed from the same place on the Top Function Bar. When you click the button for it as shown in Fig. 47, the client will switch to a list of nations that you are playing against in a table format.
Fig. 47 Nations and Diplomacy View Button
Fig. 48 gives a sample of the Nations View in the client with all available columns displayed. If you right-click on the table heading, you will be given a list of column names that you can enable or disable. If you change anything, then be sure to save the settings from the Game menu. If any players have been killed in the game, the table will show R.I.P. next to the name of the player that has been destroyed.
Fig. 48 Nations View
If you have an embassy with a nation you will be able to see much more in the table than if you do not have an embassy. If you select the row of a nation you have an embassy with, you will be given some interesting intelligence at the bottom of the page. Fig. 49 gives an example.
Fig. 49 Nations Intelligence
On the left you will see the name of the Nation, The name (username) of the Ruler, the current form of Government, the Capital city, how much gold they have in their national treasury, the national budget ratios, research target, and culture score.
Note
The Capital City will show as unknown if you have not seen the city on the Map View. If it is in the
unknown or has not been seen by one of your units, then you will not have knowledge of the Capital.
In the center you can see the relationship status of the nation across the game. If you see a half-moon icon next to a nation, then the nation selected has given shared vision to that nation. In Fig. 49 above, you can see that the Aztecs have an alliance with the Iroquois and the Arabs. The Aztecs also have shared vision with both of these nations.
On the right, you can see a comparison of technological research between your nation and the nation selected.
The Nations and Diplomacy View has a few buttons at the upper left. From left to right, they are: Meet, Cancel Treaty, Withdraw Vision, Toggle AI Mode, and Active Diplomacy. This is how you access the Diplomacy component of the Nations and Diplomacy View.
Let us talk about the buttons from right to left as Meet takes the longest to describe. If you have any active treaty negotiations occurring, you can click on the Active Diplomacy button to switch to that page. The Fig. 47 on the top function bar will change to a flag icon with a red dot to give you a visual reminder that there are open meetings to attend to.
Depending on the command line level you have in the game (default is hack for single player games), you
may be able to change a player from an AI to a human after a game has started to allow a human player to come
into the game. This is what the Toggle AI Mode button does. If the button is greyed out you cannot
change the AI mode in the game.
If you have previously shared vision via a treaty from the Diplomacy View, you can revoke it by clicking on the Withdraw Vision button. Sharing vision is similar to you allowing another player to see all of your territory.
If you have a relationship with a player other than War, you can cancel it with the Cancel Treaty button. Relationship pacts can be changed with the Diplomacy View. Most rulesets support Cease Fire, Peace, and Alliance.
Note
Some forms of government will not allow you to break a Peace or Alliance treaty without changing government to Anarchy.
Lastly, clicking Meet will bring up a diplomacy screen where you can interact with a player that you have an embassy with. Fig. 50, shows a sample screen where the parties are agreeing to a cease fire.
Fig. 50 Diplomacy
If you wish to give gold to a player, enter in the amount in the Gold box. You can also add clauses to the treaty by selecting from the Add Clause button. Depending on what is enabled in your game, you can swap sea and world maps, trade cities, give advances, share vision, give an embassy, or agree to peace or an alliance via a pact. If you are happy with the components of the treaty you can click the Accept Treaty button. The client will change the thumbs-down icon to the right of your nation to a thumbs-up showing agreement. If you do not want to do anything and definitely do not want to accept the treaty, then you can click on the Cancel Meeting button. This will close the Diplomacy View and return you to the Nations View.
Note
The ability to trade maps, cities, or advances is ruleset dependent and may not be enabled for all games. The other clauses such as share vision, give an embassy or change the relationship via a pact are enabled at all times.
Tip
You do not have to use the Diplomacy View to get an embassy with a player. You can always build a Diplomat unit and have that unit get an embassy by going to a player’s city and “walk” into the city. An action dialog will show and you can establish an embassy without asking via diplomacy. See in game help for more information on using units to conduct many gameplay features besides simply establishing an embassy.
Lastly, you can see in Fig. 50 above that there are more than one conversations occurring. Your foreign state department is busy! If you happen to click out of the Diplomacy View, for example by clicking on the button for the Map View, the button for the Nations and Diplomacy View will slowly pulse, giving you a reminder to come back.
To get back to the Diplomacy View, you can click on the Active Diplomacy button from the Nations View described earlier to bring it back up.
Cities View
The Cities View is a separate page in a table format. When you click the button for it as shown in Fig. 51, the client will switch to a listing of your cities.
Fig. 51 Cities View Button
Fig. 52 gives an example of the Cities View in the client with the default columns displayed. If you right-click on the table heading, you will be given a list of other columns you may want to show. If you change anything, then be sure to save the settings from the Game menu.
Fig. 52 Cities
If you double-click on a city row, the game will switch to the Map View and open the City Dialog for that city. When you close the City Dialog, the client will not bring you back to the Cities View. If you right-click on a city’s row, a pop-up menu will appear. From this menu you can change what the city is producing, set a citizen governor, sell a city improvement, conduct an advanced selection of cities, buy what is currently being produced, and center the city on the map. If you choose to center the city on the map, the client will close the Cities View and open the Map View and place the city in the center of the screen.
Economics View
The Economics View is a separate page set in a table format. When you click the button for it as shown in Fig. 53, the client will switch to a listing of your nation’s economy. A nation’s economy is mostly about city improvement, unit support, and maintenance.
Fig. 53 Economics View Button
If you hover your mouse over the button, a pop up widget will appear and give you information about your nation’s economy.
Fig. 54 below shows a sample Economics View. Notice that you can see city improvements and units in a table format giving you the number produced, how much gold in upkeep per turn each consumes, total gold upkeep per turn for all of them, and if any are redundant. A redundant improvement is one that has been overcome by events; typically by a new technological advancement. You want to sell redundant items as they are costing you gold and giving nothing back in return. The Economics View will not tell you what city the item is redundant in, you will have to go find that yourself. This is a good use case for the advanced select option in the Cities View.
The Economics View has a few buttons in the upper left: Disband, Sell All, and Sell Redundant. The Disband button will disband all the units of a type that has been selected in the view. The Sell All button does the same for a city improvement that has been selected in the view. Lastly, the Sell Redundant button will only sell redundant city improvements in those cities for the city improvement that has been selected in the view. The Messages view will tell you what was sold where.
Fig. 54 Economics View
Note
You can only sell one city improvement at at time per turn, so you might not be able to do all the things you want every turn.
Research View
The Research View is a separate page showing the technology research tree. This is the page where you instruct your scientists which technologies to research. When you click the button for it as shown in Fig. 55, the client will switch to your research tree.
Fig. 55 Research View Button
Fig. 56 below shows a sample of a Research Tree. In this picture the player is researching Code of Laws.
Fig. 56 Research Tree
If nothing is being researched, the Research View button will pulse to bring attention to it.
On the Research Tree, the top left drop down box is where you can pick from a menu of what technology advance you want your scientists to concentrate (Current Research). The bottom left drop down box is where you can set a future target (Research Target). The game will work through the list of technologies as turns progress in order of dependency.
To the right of the Current Research and Research Target drop down boxes, you will find a small button with a crosshair icon. Pressing one of these buttons will scroll the corresponding technology in the Research Tree into view.
To the right of the Current Research drop down box, you will find a Refresh button. In some circumstances a player can find that the current researched bulbs is greater than the bulbs needed to complete the task. The Refresh button will be enabled in this situation and the player can press to refresh the research on the current advance to complete the task.
The progress bar on the right will show you how many bulbs you are producing each turn, how many more bulbs you have left to finish the research target and, if enabled, how many bulbs are being used for technology upkeep.
If you do not want to use the drop down boxes to pick current and target technologies, you can left-click on the box for the technology in the Research Tree view.
If you hover your mouse over the icons in the Research Tree, a pop-up widget will appear giving you information pulled from the in game help. Only so much information is displayed, so you may be prompted to go to the in game help for more information.
National Budget View
The National Budget View on the Top Function Bar shows what percentage of gold, science, and luxury goods your nation is set at. Fig. 57 shows an example of the National Budget View button.
Fig. 57 National Budget View Button
Clicking on the National Budget View will bring up the National Budget dialog as shown in Fig. 37 in the Civilization Menu section.
National Status View
The National Status View on the Top Function Bar shows various information about your nation and the world via icons. The four icons from left to right are: Research Progress, Global Warming Chance, Nuclear Winter Chance, and Government. The Research Progress, Global Warming Chance, Nuclear Winter Chance icons will change depending on the rate and current status.
Fig. 58 National Status View
If you hover your mouse over the National Status View, a pop up widget will appear and give you information about your nation’s status. The pop up widget shows: Population, Year, Turn Number, Total Gold, Net Income, National Budget, Research along with progress, Bulbs per Turn, Culture Score, Global Warming Change, Nuclear Winter Chance, Current form of Government. Some of this information is a duplicate of what is shown on the Map View, National Budget View, and Research View. The values for Nuclear Winter and Global Warming chance give a good indication of what the icon looks like.
Messages
The Messages button on the Top Function Bar is used to toggle the message log widget. Fig. 59 below shows an example of the Messages button.
Fig. 59 Messages Button
Fig. 60 below shows an example of the Messages widget. If you double-click on a message for unit movement, city production and a few other message types the client will take you to the city or the unit on the Map View.
Fig. 60 Messages Widget