Make pop max more visible to users

[Krinkle]

I noticed in watching beginners and moderately experienced users play, they often forget to grow, or don't grow as far as their opponent.

This isn't about how fast or how well they grow, but more about when they seem to settle down and focus on other things. (The right answer is of course, never stop growing...)

One of the main indicators I seem to keep looking at as a player is the pop cap. This is somewhat "the cat chases their own tail", but I found that as a beginner I tend to grow to until the pop cap, and then eventually get forced to build houses, but it's a bit stabbing in the dark and only as-needed.

Hovering the pop/cap indicator does show the pop max, but I don't think there is a pre-existing need or curiosity for players to open that menu.

Perhaps it would make sense to show the third number (pop max) in the indicator by default, like:

9/20/200

That might gives players the push they need to be creative, and imagine how much further they can grow given the space they're allotted.

[elexis]

If the underlying issue to be solved is to make players more aware, it's not self-evident that this should happen in the UI this way, or in a tutorial. It's sufficient to lose matches against the opponent to figure out that one has to be improve, and watching the replay to see what the enemies did differently is one of the means to achieve that. Another option would be to follow the population summary thing.

Pro 9/20/200 format:

• Even for players who are well familiar with the population limit being displayed before and during the game may benefit from this number being always visible.

• The Wonder can change the limit dynamically during the match.

Contra:

• Verbose
• It would have to fit with 1024*768, especially for very large numbers such as 300 / 300 / 300 or 1000 / 1000 / 1000.

Perhaps one can link it to the "detailedtooltip" setting thing, albeit it not being a tooltip (the option could be rebranded).

[Freagarach]

Fixed in r25470. Patch by Langbart.