Gameplay suggestions

[foo]

hi,
First off, I'd like to thank you for a great game. I've played SR2010 for about a week now (about 50 hours) and noticed a few ways to improve the game, mostly via feedback to a player's actions.

• 1) add some email or news hints about how the world market views a player's actions. i.e. if bombarding enemy troops entrenched in a city affects world opinion, then say so! If the a region's poor DAR affects world opinion, then say so.
  
  2) I believe it's a bug that diplomatic successes count more than the content of a diplomatic offer. Offering $3,000 seems to have the same affect on diplomatic opinion as does offering $3,000,000. As long as the diplomatic effort is sucessful, the rating apears to go up. While this can be partially fixed by simply resetting the default starting $ amount each time the diplomatic screen is opened, a more ambitious fix would to somehow rate the diplomatic offer's contents. Offering coal to Newcastle shouldn't have the same effect as food to a starving region.
  
  3) In diplomatic negotiations, the slider bar system is much to limited an interface. For example, suppose I want to offer consumer goods to a neighboring region. Regardless of how much they are willing to buy (as evidenced in the displayed trades on the production>export menu) the only options are some fixed percentages of one's current supply (or capacity, I'm not sure which). There ought to be a way to offer a commodity at a certain price (perhaps percent markup of cost?) and available quantity and let the opposing side suggest an actual quantity to actually purchase. Basically, the units of trade are not readily described via a single slider. Perhaps if the "match $ amount" button were made a slider as % markup of cost, it might work better? Currently, the only "match $ amount" option appears to be offering goods at cost. Likewise, shouldn't the amount of subsidy (or discount below world market prices) affect the region's civilian opinion?
  
  4) After entrenching my artillery and then ordering them to fire on a nearby enemy (within range) the artillery for some reason wants to march up and engage the enemy directly. What's the point of indirect fire? The best I've encountered is to adjust their ROE to engage the enemy and then (sometimes) they fire when within range without moving up.
  
  5) Perhaps it's there, but I haven't found it yet, but how do I adjust the overall ROE? For example, where can I specify not to fire artillary into citys or industries. Otherwise, if my unit ROE is engage, how can I prevent them from destroying what (hopefully) will soon by my resources and worse, bringing down the wrath of world opinion?
  
  6) There's no "land at base" option for aircraft. If repair or reserve is selected, the unit heads for the nearest airbase and ignores the airstrip. Making incrementally shorter fly patrol mouse clicks until the aircraft lands is silly.
  
  7) Likewise, after firing a missle my planes make a beeline back to base, even if I later command them to fly patrol. They pause a bit, then head back to base. What I'd really like them to do, is fire a missle from range, and then engage the enemy aircraft. Is that possible?
  
  8 ) I like the manual's concept of "Intelligence Operations". Are they going to be implemented? i.e. it'd be nice if there were some way to directly affect another region's civilian opinion through psy-ops. Always add the risk of being discovered and having it backfire of course. Psy-ops could also be used to sway a region's loyalty. (afterall, what's Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken? )
  
  9) Transporting legged units via trucks appears to be broken. All my trucks are full of cargo and refuse to haul my units. It's difficult to catch the trucks as they return to base empty because before they pick up the units, they auto-load cargo and are no longer empty to load the units.
  
  10) please fix the rounding error when units are repaired. Being 1 shy of fully repaired is irksome. After many repair requests, sometimes the units manage to reach full strength.

All in all, it's a fun game, but rather frustrating as the results of your actions are often months (years?) away and once things go south, (economy, inflation, unemployment, etc) it's really difficult to return to normalcy. For example, if there were some indication of the projected costs of a build action, it'd make the decision process a bit easier. Having to memorize the current surplus capacity in industries in order to evaluate the impact of building a new industry or upgrading an existing one is a bit much. Why not mention the % capacity over current demand currently available (or even projected, if providing industries are also under construction. though admittedly that's harder) for the build ingredients as well as the after production impact. It's rather a pain to build an industry only to find out the electrical power isn't available, or the oil needed to build the industrial components needed for construction has to bought on the open market. That sort of assistance would be greatly appreciated (and is readily available in the current economic info) at build consideration time. Why force a user to bounce between multiple screens, writing numbers on paper as the decisions are juggled? Isn't that what computer's are for? The industrial parts component of a build decision verify popup is presented as a $ value. But the build decision is based more on a capacity measure. (It's not a one time charge, but a daily cost of contruction) Which if you look at the industry menu isn't readily listed in that supply industry as a dollar value, but a unit count. The $ value of industrial ingredients being produced has to be calculated. Why make it hard?

I run XP with a high res monitor, usually in 1600x1200 mode. When I alt-tab out of SR2010, the cursor won't extend down to the taskbar. I have to three-finger-salute to get the taskmanager up before I can reach the taskbar. I don't know what environment variable is being missed, but returning to the desktop isn't quite right yet.

I'd also suggest decoupling the email window from the info screen on the right side. Make the email screen re-sizeable so I can read the first sentence of most messages. Right now, it's tantalizingly close to enough, but not quite. Also in several of the scrolling menu subwindows, there's a problem with the visible text and line width. The trailing couple of characters on the bond menu aren't visible, they extend past the menu's frame. Either make the window bigger, or reword to reduce the chars of text. The most important part of the message is the year due date, and it's part occluded on the far end of each line.

Congrats on a great game, this's just my 2 cents on ways to improve the gaming experience.

[Balthagor]

Thanks for the feedback, it’s always nice to hear what ppl have to say about the game. Since you where kind enough to number you’re issues, I’ll respond in kind;

1. We have also noticed that we could use more indicator e-mails to provide feedbackon player actions and we hope to address this in future updates. Many of those types of e-mails we had not expected to need. Since you are supposed to be in control of a government we always looked at what advisors might say IRL. Things like you suggest of “shelling cities is not popular with the world market” had always seemed like unnecessary e-mails and with over 400 already, we simply never added some of these.

2. You are correct that it is a bug that diplomatic impact for one dollar or one million is the same. This has already been reported and we are working to resolve it.

3. This one I’ll need more info, you lost me somewhat;

…I want to offer consumer goods to a neighboring region. Regardless of how much they are willing to buy (as evidenced in the displayed trades on the production>export menu)…

I’m not sure what number you are looking at, but nowhere in the game are you shown what another region “wants to buy” as this is not a fixed value but is affected by the price of the good at that time and their demand vs. existing stock.

…only options are some fixed percentages of one's current supply (or capacity, I'm not sure which). …

The slider is based on your stock.

…There ought to be a way to offer a commodity at a certain price (perhaps percent markup of cost?) …

There sort of is… the way I do it is take a quantity that equals an even number, such as 10M in consumer goods (hold ALT while scrolling mouse wheel to fine tune the value) then ask for 11M in money, giving me 10%. Alternately, you can take any quantity of goods, use the “equalize values”, then slight increase the value. It is imprecise, but will give you some profit. This however does not really mean anything to the markup the other player sees since your offer is based on cost. If your cost on Consumer Goods is $10,000 but his cost is $5,000 then the markup you’ll be asking is much higher on his side. Cost of goods for other players is not shown, but can be guessed at based on GDP/c (lower GDP = lower cost of goods)

I know you’re looking for more controls here, but without over complicating the screen (we can’t make it any bigger, it fills the screen at 800x600) I don’t see any easy solutions and I personally am quite happy with how it works.

…Likewise, shouldn't the amount of subsidy (or discount below world market prices) affect the region's civilian opinion? …

So you’re suggesting that if I sell you food for half what you’d be buying it from the World Market, you’re ppl should like me more? I’m not opposed to it but we’ve got to look at many factors here; what if it is below my cost but above yours? Or above WM price but below your cost? There is another thread currently starting asking for all the things that should affect civilian and diplomatic ratings, you may want to pop into that thread to make the comment and get more discussion on that idea, it is worth exploring.

4. This bug has already been reported.

5. All RoE options are find in either the Operations department RoE section or in the unit’s own RoE section (in the popup or advanced orders). There is no order to tell artillery not to fire into cities or avoid damaging buildings you hope to capture but I think that is realistic. If you hope to capture a facility undamaged, drop special forces on it or take it with direct attack units, only indirect damage will hit facilities (NOTE: facilities take some damage when captured if not loyal to you). If you field artillery, they will fire wherever they find enemies. If you’re still concerned about this issue, perhaps start a new thread in the military section and it can be discussed further.

6. Units cannot “repair” or “reserve” at an airstrip. Any aircraft not moving is landed. The order you’re looking for is redundant. All units repair while in supply, but the order to repair sends them into reserve to repair since units in reserve repair faster. Also, how aircraft “rebase” was changed from release to update #2 and has been changed for update #3 as well.

7. This has been reported already, we are looking into the issue.

8. There certainly is an intention to create a new Covert/Intel Ops section but it won’t be as described in the manual. There are a number of threads already talking about this so I won’t go into details, search of “Covert” and you should find them without much trouble.

9. Transporting leg units works fine, I’ve tested it again. Supplies are pushed out when units load in. If you are unable to load the units it is a different issue. Check the Sticky thread in Military for information on transporting units.

10. This bug has already been reported and is fixed on our side (fix will be in update #3).

…Why not mention the % capacity over current demand currently available…for the build ingredients as well as the after production impact…

To project this would require knowing not only the final size (assuming the player does not activate it early) but also what the supply levels will be when completed. There are just too many factors constantly changing.

…It's rather a pain to build an industry only to find out the electrical power isn't available…The industrial parts component of a build decision verify popup is presented as a $ value…Which if you look at the industry menu isn't readily listed in that supply industry as a dollar value, but a unit count. The $ value of industrial ingredients being produced has to be calculated.

Some of these elements you begin to loose me (George, our programmer, would have a better sense of the relations of some of these elements) but I see what you’re saying. I do know that there are two ways to design elements like the build confirmation popup, one is to make the popup large and full of details, the other is to keep it as small as possible with only the most crucial details. Right or wrong, we chose the second option. I will review some of the associated screens in light of your suggestion but I do know for the build confirmation I’ll get resistance from the rest of the team to add to it without removing something else and I agree since it already ended up bigger than we had designed it. But these are good points and I’ll consider them.

…When I alt-tab out of SR2010, the cursor won't extend down to the taskbar.

This has nothing to do with us, blame Microsoft. The fact that my MSN flashes through the game sometimes is the same thing. George followed all the guidelines provided to not conflict with other core apps. Now if we can get Microsoft to do the same, everything should work fine.

…I'd also suggest decoupling the email window from the info screen on the right side. Make the email screen re-sizeable so I can read the first sentence of most messages.

Allowing moving/resizing of windows was considered during the design and still is on our “wishlist” but is not likely anytime soon.

… Also in several of the scrolling menu subwindows, there's a problem with the visible text and line width. The trailing couple of characters on the bond menu aren't visible...

You’re actually the first to report this one, I’ve made note of the problem. We’ll see what we can do about it.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback. Since we are committed to further improving the game, comments like these are invaluable.

[Trepanated]

Some of these elements you begin to loose me (George, our programmer, would have a better sense of the relations of some of these elements) but I see what you’re saying. I do know that there are two ways to design elements like the build confirmation popup, one is to make the popup large and full of details, the other is to keep it as small as possible with only the most crucial details. Right or wrong, we chose the second option. I will review some of the associated screens in light of your suggestion but I do know for the build confirmation I’ll get resistance from the rest of the team to add to it without removing something else and I agree since it already ended up bigger than we had designed it. But these are good points and I’ll consider them.

This is an issue for me as well, so I thought I'd throw in my $.02.

What it boils down to is, if I the build screen can have either the quantity of Industrial Goods required or the dollar value of Industrial Goods required, but not both (due to not wanting to clutter the screen), then I would prefer to have quantity and not dollar value. I can see the arguments for dollar value, but I still don't prefer it.

Here's why. Quantity of Industrial Goods means something to me in the context of all the other screens. When I go check my production capacity, it's denominated in units, so I can tell what the impact is. I can see if the project will have me importing Industrial Goods (pricey!) or not, and if so I can mess around with efficiency investments to see if that turns out to be a better deal for me than importing.

The reason I don't like seeing the dollar value on the build confirmation screen is, I don't know how that number was derived. What this means is, the displayed dollar value is necessarily an *estimate* of the total cost, which may change as other factors do (such as my cost to produce Industrial Goods, or the market price for them). The number of units is fixed: it will never change based on my cost to produce or WM's price. Maybe the formula for deriving the dollar value only looks at the number of goods and multiplies by my current cost to produce, but what if I actually end up having to import a lot of the IGoods? Then the displayed cost may vastly underestimate the true cost, assuming my cost to produce is lower than the market price. Or, the formula may try to figure out how much I'll have to import based on my current production, but what if that number changes based on (for example) efficiency changes or on another factory coming online.

Bottom line: I can't trust the dollar value on the build confirmation screen, because I don't know how it was derived, and even if I did it may not be accurate. I could trust the number of IGoods if that were displayed instead, because it is fixed. Therefore, if I can't have both, I'd rather see the number instead of the currently displayed dollar figure for IGoods.

[foo]

1. We have also noticed that we could use more indicator e-mails to provide feedbackon player actions and we hope to address this in future updates. Many of those types of e-mails we had not expected to need. Since you are supposed to be in control of a government we always looked at what advisors might say IRL. Things like you suggest of “shelling cities is not popular with the world market” had always seemed like unnecessary e-mails and with over 400 already, we simply never added some of these.

If the news headlines read, "International community outraged at high civilian deaths in XYZ conflict", it might give a clue that the world market opinion was actually changing as a result of my actions. There's got to be a section of code that detects this and affects world opinion. Just add a % chance that an headline will be created each time it occurs. The headline could come from a list, or it could even escalate in severity as civilian deaths mount. "Human rights group sent to investigate", "Church denounces shelling in XYZ conflict", etc. Such news items help to create the atmosphere for the game. Otherwise, I had to read the forums to learn that shelling cities affected world opinion.

3. This one I’ll need more info, you lost me somewhat;

…I want to offer consumer goods to a neighboring region. Regardless of how much they are willing to buy (as evidenced in the displayed trades on the production>export menu)…

I’m not sure what number you are looking at, but nowhere in the game are you shown what another region “wants to buy” as this is not a fixed value but is affected by the price of the good at that time and their demand vs. existing stock.

Actually, you are shown. In the production screen under imports and exports, a scrollable menu (painfully small, btw) lists various regions transactions for the goods on the world market. (what's the difference between the imports screen's list and the export screen's list? Are they the same?) From that notice, you can infer that a country might want to buy similar items if you were to offer them at a lower price. (I'm assuming that countries listed as red are purchasing goods and those in yellow are selling items) In any event, once you've noticed a regions proclivity to buy goods, you can then set up a diplomatic transaction for a similar deal. The only problem is adjusting the quantities to fall within the range you'd like. Since I've been stockpiling food since Cain planted the first turnip, my slider is waaaay out of proportion from the amounts my poor neighbor can afford to purchase. I much rather be able to type in a quantity and be done with it.

The % markup I'd like to offer is based on my production costs. I can note how much the prospective buyer has been paying from the production exports screen and adjust my markup to be at or lower than that price. The current way I've found to accomplish it is to initially set the buyer's offer at a smaller number of days with the set equal button. Then I scale up the number of daily payments to get my markup. If I want 150% markup, I first set it at 10 days, equalize the price, then up the count 15 more days to get the 150% markup. Not the most intuitive interface.

The slider is based on your stock.

Great! nice to know.

…There ought to be a way to offer a commodity at a certain price (perhaps percent markup of cost?) …

There sort of is… the way I do it is take a quantity that equals an even number, such as 10M in consumer goods (hold ALT while scrolling mouse wheel to fine tune the value) then ask for 11M in money, giving me 10%. Alternately, you can take any quantity of goods, use the “equalize values”, then slight increase the value. It is imprecise, but will give you some profit. This however does not really mean anything to the markup the other player sees since your offer is based on cost. If your cost on Consumer Goods is $10,000 but his cost is $5,000 then the markup you’ll be asking is much higher on his side. Cost of goods for other players is not shown, but can be guessed at based on GDP/c (lower GDP = lower cost of goods)

I know you’re looking for more controls here, but without over complicating the screen (we can’t make it any bigger, it fills the screen at 800x600) I don’t see any easy solutions and I personally am quite happy with how it works.

Ah.... I missed the mouse-wheel comment. I thought the alt-key affected when I *moused* the sliders. I don't have a wheely mouse. The wheel always got in my way and rolled at the wrong times. Is there a way to fine control without a mouse wheel? Otherwise, all I get is fairly large granularity fractions of my total stock. Not something that's really useful when I want to set up a daily trade for six months. But if there's a way to fine control the slider (without a mouse wheel), maybe that'd work...

All RoE options are find in either the Operations department RoE section or in the unit’s own RoE section (in the popup or advanced orders). There is no order to tell artillery not to fire into cities or avoid damaging buildings you hope to capture but I think that is realistic. If you hope to capture a facility undamaged, drop special forces on it or take it with direct attack units, only indirect damage will hit facilities (NOTE: facilities take some damage when captured if not loyal to you). If you field artillery, they will fire wherever they find enemies. If you’re still concerned about this issue, perhaps start a new thread in the military section and it can be discussed further.

I guess I'd like to limit my artillery to fire only at enemies that are not within cities or facilities. I can leave the ROE on "don't engage enemy", and always directly order artillery to fire a specific targets, but that's really hitting the pause button a lot! Just a suggestion that it be added as an option for artillery ROE.

6. Units cannot “repair” or “reserve” at an airstrip. Any aircraft not moving is landed. The order you’re looking for is redundant. All units repair while in supply, but the order to repair sends them into reserve to repair since units in reserve repair faster. Also, how aircraft “rebase” was changed from release to update #2 and has been changed for update #3 as well.

How do I get my airplanes to fly to a base and land? The only option I currently see, is "fly patrol" option which appears to start an indefinite mission of flying from the current position to the destination and back. Repeat until you burn all your petroleum reserves in useless flights. My method of getting a plane to land at a base, has been to send it on a "fly patrol" flight to the base. Then when it's ready to takeoff from there and return to where it was when I ordered it, I quickly re-order it to "fly patrol" back to the same base. If I've caught it quick enough and it's close enough to the base, it appears to land. How else do I get my planes to rebase?

…Why not mention the % capacity over current demand currently available…for the build ingredients as well as the after production impact…

To project this would require knowing not only the final size (assuming the player does not activate it early) but also what the supply levels will be when completed. There are just too many factors constantly changing.

What I'm looking for is an immediate feedback on whether I can afford to build the proposed improvement with my current capacities. Something like a warning that I'd have to buy Igoods to satisfy the construction needs, since my stock and/or Igoods production capacity isn't currently up to it, would be nice. Or even a warning that if the facility is built, the current (pun not intended) electricity capacity or raw material supply would be insufficient to run it. Why force me to look that stuff up, when the computer can do it for me? It doesn't have to prevent the action, just warn me that current levels of production would be insufficient to build/run the proposed facility.

…It's rather a pain to build an industry only to find out the electrical power isn't available…The industrial parts component of a build decision verify popup is presented as a $ value…Which if you look at the industry menu isn't readily listed in that supply industry as a dollar value, but a unit count. The $ value of industrial ingredients being produced has to be calculated.

Some of these elements you begin to loose me (George, our programmer, would have a better sense of the relations of some of these elements) but I see what you’re saying. I do know that there are two ways to design elements like the build confirmation popup, one is to make the popup large and full of details, the other is to keep it as small as possible with only the most crucial details. Right or wrong, we chose the second option. I will review some of the associated screens in light of your suggestion but I do know for the build confirmation I’ll get resistance from the rest of the team to add to it without removing something else and I agree since it already ended up bigger than we had designed it. But these are good points and I’ll consider them.

Small is good. What I'm trying to convey is the information is presented in several different forms. Sometimes it's units, sometimes it's $ value, and sometimes it's % capacity or production. It's not always obvious how to compare these disparate units. If the # units were consistently displayed, I'd have an easier time. The $ value and % capacity are useful for some things, but not universal. # units would work every time. When it's left out, it makes the value of the other two descriptions less useful. On the build confirmation screen, when the IGoods $ value is listed, that's not very useful. (Well, it might be for a banker, but I'm trying to decide if I have the ability to build the facility or not) IGoods are consumed not as a lump sum, but as an ongoing expense until the construction is complete. IGoods are listed in production screens as # units. I have to divide the number listed in the build confirmation screen by my production cost to determine the # units required each day of contruction. Then I have to see if the current capacity exists or would that imply I'd have to consume stock or buy on the open market. Listing the $ IGoods cost of construction (I'm assuming daily) just isn't as useful a format as I would wish.

At minimum, I'd rather see the IGoods cost of construction appear as # units instead of $ value. At most, I'd like a helpful hint about the sanity of performing a build action. If it's going to bankrupt me, I'd like to know.

Speaking of controls. could you please make the "none" button on diplomatic offers, larger? It's quite tiny in big screen mode. Better yet, leave it sticky from the previous offer. (though I can see the safety feature of having to explicitly click "none" if that's intended) You can keep the icon small, just increase the click region to the entire area and even the word "none", for us mouse challenged fumblers.

…When I alt-tab out of SR2010, the cursor won't extend down to the taskbar.

This has nothing to do with us, blame Microsoft. The fact that my MSN flashes through the game sometimes is the same thing. George followed all the guidelines provided to not conflict with other core apps. Now if we can get Microsoft to do the same, everything should work fine.

Sigh... That's like pushing a rope. Thanks anyways.

Back to South Africa and my attempt at conquering the heart of darkness.

[Balthagor]

...then I would prefer to have quantity and not dollar value...

As I read through the comments I noticed that this was something we may be able to address. As promised, we will look into possible changes to this.

[The_Blind_One]

...then I would prefer to have quantity and not dollar value...

As I read through the comments I noticed that this was something we may be able to address. As promised, we will look into possible changes to this.

What you guys should do is create your OWN currency sign. This way you won't get bullshit from europeans wanting the euro sign or americans wanting the dollar sign or chinese wanting whatever the hell they are using and etc. Besides having a world market currency sign makes alot of sense too I mean seriously if the world would turn to euro's (as ur plot goes) then shouldn't the sign either be euro's or world market dollars? so the best thing I see and most easy for you guys aswell is to simply change the dollar sign u guys use now into something more well original and nobody can bitch about it then

Including me I WANT EURO'S!!! (j/k, just give me world market sign)

[Balthagor]

If the news headlines read, "International community outraged at high civilian deaths in XYZ conflict", it might give a clue that the world market opinion was actually changing as a result of my actions…

This is a good example, I’ll pass it along. We do already know where to set these up, as I mentioned, we simply had not expected ppl to want them and are constantly trying not to overfill the inbox or headlines.

… Actually, you are shown. In the production screen under imports and exports… From that notice, you can infer that a country might want to buy similar items if you were to offer them at a lower price. (I'm assuming that countries listed as red are purchasing goods and those in yellow are selling items)…

Unfortunately, I am correct, you are not shown…the list you are looking at is the current market prices, same in both the import and export section, which is showing the qty of that good being sold on the market by specific regions. Regions listed in red are boycotting your region. This list only shows what regions are exporting and shows nothing of what they are importing. You also don’t know if the qty they are selling is just sitting on the market or is being sold and a new qty added each day. It’s just a shopping list.

… Is there a way to fine control without a mouse wheel?

I don’t think so, If there is it would be listed on the hotkeys list <F1>.

How do I get my airplanes to fly to a base and land?

Select unit, left click base.

When aircraft are in the same hex as an airport/airstrip they land. If there are 7 or more units there already, other units will take off to make room for the newly arriving units.

As for what they see as being their “home base”, where they go back to when an order is completed/cancelled, the way that works has changed so many times (and is currently different on the dev version I’m using) I only know the way my copy currently works which is different than what you’re seeing (when update #3 is out we’ll be in sync again).

What I'm looking for is an immediate feedback on whether I can afford to build the proposed improvement with my current capacities…

But “afford to build” is an arbitrary term. Do you mean “have enough money/IGoods to complete”? Or to you mean “Will be able to meant the demand for raw mats when completed”? The second requires a knowledge of what other facilities are being built. You could be building the powerplant required for the IGoods plant at the same time… It’s just not a simple equation. We already have problems that the “raw materials shortage” message comes up at times that it should not. There are just too many factors that can affect it; further facility construction, loyalty, supply, efficiency investment…

…What I'm trying to convey is the information is presented in several different forms. Sometimes it's units, sometimes it's $ value, and sometimes it's % capacity or production. It's not always obvious how to compare these disparate units…
At minimum, I'd rather see the IGoods cost of construction appear as # units instead of $ value.

As promised, I will be examining this area further.

…Speaking of controls. could you please make the "none" button on diplomatic offers, larger? It's quite tiny in big screen mode. Better yet, leave it sticky from the previous offer.

You are correct that this was not made sticky for the danger of giving away something that was not intended. We had not anticipated so much use of one-way trades. If you’d like it made bigger, please make a comment in the Wishlist threads about that.

Thanks again for the good feedback, good luck in Africa

[foo]

… Actually, you are shown. In the production screen under imports and exports… From that notice, you can infer that a country might want to buy similar items if you were to offer them at a lower price. (I'm assuming that countries listed as red are purchasing goods and those in yellow are selling items)…

Unfortunately, I am correct, you are not shown…the list you are looking at is the current market prices, same in both the import and export section, which is showing the qty of that good being sold on the market by specific regions. Regions listed in red are boycotting your region. This list only shows what regions are exporting and shows nothing of what they are importing. You also don’t know if the qty they are selling is just sitting on the market or is being sold and a new qty added each day. It’s just a shopping list.

Thanks! The production import/export list of regions are all what those countries are offering to sell on the open world market. Good to know.

But it's odd that the two countries that appeared to be boycotting me, were also the two that I was successful in setting up diplomatic comodity trades with. The countries shown in yellow on the production import/export screens rejected my offers. Is there a bug there, or was it simple coincidence that the boycotters were also the most hungry? Since they agreed to the diplomatic comodity trades, I didn't perceive them to be boycotting. Perhaps my offer was too good to refuse?

But at least with this new bit of knowledge, I can begin trying regions not listed in the production import/export lists as therefore potentially not having that particular comodity for sale, and hence maybe having some desire to accept my trade offer.

… Is there a way to fine control without a mouse wheel?

I don’t think so, If there is it would be listed on the hotkeys list <F1>.

Then you'd agree that without the wheelie mouse, some of the controls become too unwieldy for effective gameplay? I guess I should scrounge up a wheelie mouse and see how the diplomatic trade settings change.

Though I have found a effective method by under setting the range of days before equalizing payments and then extending the number of days to cover the actual trade duration. With that method, I can vary the effective markup over my production costs.

Thanks again,