Plot List Enhancement (PLE)

BtS Unaltered Gameplay Mod

von 12Monkeys (für BUG angepasst von turlute, stark modifiziert von EmperorFool)

Über Plot List Enhancement

The motivation for this mod was born when I tried to fiddle a unit stack with a large number of units. It was a frustrating experience, due to the strange behavior of the plot list and some bothering bugs in Civ4. So I started this mod, which is a more or less complete reprogrammed plot list with a bunch of new features. Not all of the features may be used at one time, but I think everybody will find something he's looking for.

Enhanced Unit Buttons

Each unit button provides you now with some additional information. This makes it easier to determine what status a single unit has, without selecting it first.

Health Bar (an horizontal bar placed over the unit icons)
- This bar indicates the remaining health points of the unit in percent; the default colors for 'Healthy' and 'Wounded' units are green and red, but they can be changed.
Movement Bar (an horizontal bar placed over the unit icons, below the Health Bar)
- This bar indicates the remaining movement points of the unit in percent; the default colors for 'Available movement points' and 'Used movement points' portions of the bar are blue and yellow, but they can be changed; the default color for the bar of units which can't move is black.
Health & Movement Indicator (a dot or star placed in the upper-left corner of unit icons)
- The color changes depending on how many movement points are left:
- the spot is displayed in a darker color when the unit is wounded (this allows to clearly distinguish a wounded unit from an healthy one even when the Health Bar is almost full;
- the dot becomes a star if the unit is led by a Great General.
Mission Indicator (an icon placed in the lower-right corner of unit icons)
- the background color shows the mission or action group:
- the icon shows the specific mission:
Promotion Indicator (a light blue frame around unit icons)
- It shows that the unit can be promoted.
Upgrade Indicator (an orange up-arrow in the lower-left corner of unit icons)
- It shows that the unit can be upgraded; it is displayed regardless whether the player has the money for the upgrade or not.

Unit Mouseover Changes

When you move the mouse over any unit button in the plot list, an info pane is displayed on the left side of the screen; this Info pane has been been modified.

Strength %amp; Turns-To-Heal
- The current unit strength is displayed as a floating value with 1 decimal.
- In case the unit is wounded a third value is displayed in brackets: this number indicates the number of rounds the units need to heal completely under the current circumstances; this circumstances takes consideration of the territory the unit is on, city buildings (like Hospital), the unit's promotion (Medic, or any other self-heal ability) and the promotions of units on the same or adjacent tiles.
Remaining Movement Points
- The remaining movement points of the unit are displayed as a floating value with 1 decimal.
Experience
- The unit's experience points are displayed in the following format: <curr-exp>/<needed-exp>, where <curr-exp> is the units current experience points and <needed-exp> is the units needed experience points to get the next higher level; both values are only displayed if the unit has an experience value > 0.
Level
- The unit's level is displayed in the following format: <curr-lev>/<possible-lev>, where <curr-lev> is the unit's actual level and <possible-lev> is the level the unit could have due to its experience points (in other words, the first value shows the number of promotions the unit already has, the second value shows the number of promotion the unit could have); both values are displayed as soon as one of the values is > 0.
Special Abilities
- The special abilities a unit gains due to a promotion are displayed in a different color than the specials it gains due to its unit type (the default color are light gray and white, but they can be modified).

Plot List Selection

The selection in the plot list has also been improved by eliminating some bugs of the Civ4 standard version:

when selecting a unit on the very right the plot list is rebuilt so that the selected unit is at position 10 in the plot list: fixed;
under some special circumstances the scroll arrows did disappear: fixed;
when selecting a unit with Alt-key pressed, all units should be selected, but because it is not possible to put units with different domain type into one group, always the first domain in the plot list is selected: fixed (all units with the same domain type as the selected unit will now be put together into a group).

The rest of the selection method is pretty much the same as before:

Selection Keys (keys that can be used to select unit icons)
- Shift to add a single unit or a group to the selected group
- Ctrl to select all units of the same type
- Alt to select all units of the same domain

Plot List Display Modes

To improve the display of a large amount of units on one plot, some display modes have been added; each time you click on the first button on the left (the one with blue dots) it switches to a different view.

Single-Line Mode (standard mode for Civ4)
- The units are displayed in one vertical line (with scroll buttons, if needed, on the right side).
Multi-Line Mode (standard mode for Civ4:BtS)
- The units are displayed in several lines, starting from the lower left corner; no scroll buttons are needed, except you have so much units on one plot that the screen height is not enough to display them: in this unusual case, vertical scroll buttons are displayed.
Vertical Stacks Mode (new)
- The units are displayed in vertical stacks, dependent on the grouping mode: in the 'unit type' grouping mode, units of the same type are displayed in a vertical stack, while in the 'selection group' grouping mode selection groups are displayed in a vertical stack.
Horizontal Stacks Mode (new)
- The units are displayed in horizontal stacks, dependent on the grouping mode: in the 'unit type' grouping mode, units of the same type are displayed in a horizontal stack, while in the 'selection group' grouping mode selection groups are displayed in a horizontal stack.

Plot List Grouping Modes

There are two grouping modes implemented; each time you click on the second button on the left (the one with blue shapes) it toggles between them. The grouping modes have influence on the order the units are displayed (if a standard (Single-Line or Multi-Line) display mode is selected) or also on what is displayed in a stack (if a stack display mode (Vertical Stacks or Horizontal Stacks) is selected.

Unit Type Grouping (overlapping squares)
- In standard (Single-Line or Multi-Line) display modes, the unit icons are sorted according to the following criteria (decreasing priority):
  - Player player units first, then all other players units (in the order of their Player Id)
  - Domain Sea Units first, then Air Units, Land Units last
  - Combat Strength strongest units first
  - Unit Type units are ordered (descending) by Unit Type Id
  - Unit Level units are ordered (descending) by Unit Level
  - Unit Experience units are ordered (descending) by Unit Experience
  - Unit ID units are ordered (ascending) by Unit ID (this is just added to get a reproducible sorting in case anything else isn't unique)
  There is one exception for the cargoed units (this is as in Civ4 standard): as soon as a unit is cargo of another unit, the cargo unit is always displayed behind its transporting unit (within the cargo units, the sorting order is as mentioned above).
- In stack (Vertical Stacks or Horizontal Stacks) display modes, the units of the same Unit Type are put into the same stack; the stack sorting order follows the above criteria.
  There is one exception for the cargoed units: cargo units are displayed together with their transport unit in the same stack, where the cargoed units are on top of their transport unit.
Selection Group Grouping (square and triangle)
- In standard (Single-Line or Multi-Line) display modes, the unit icons are sorted according to the following criteria (decreasing priority):
  - Player player units first, then all other players units (in the order of their Player Id)
  - Domain Sea Units first, then Air Units, Land Units last
  - Selection Group units are ordered (ascending) by Selection Group ID
  - Combat Strength strongest units first
  - Unit Type units are ordered (descending) by Unit Type Id
  - Unit Level units are ordered (descending) by Unit Level
  - Unit Experience units are ordered (descending) by Unit Experience
  - Unit ID units are ordered (ascending) by Unit ID
  There is one exception for the sorting: cargoed units (this is as in Civ4 standard): as soon as a unit is cargo of another unit, the cargo unit is always displayed behind its transporting unit (within the cargo units, the sorting order is as mentioned above).
- In stack (Vertical Stacks or Horizontal Stacks) display modes, the units of the same Selection Group are put into the same stack; the stack sorting order follows the above criteria.

Unit Filters

There are several unit filters added; they can be toggled with the corresponding buttons (when a filter is active, its button has a yellow ring; by default all filters are inactive).
You can activate different filters together, but only if they are in different filter groups (filters inside the same filter group are mutually exclusive): only the units meeting all the requisites will be displayed.
There is also a button to remove all the filters (the one with the ban sign, the fifth on the left).

Movement Filters
- White Foot selects only Units that can move
- Red Foot selects only Units that can't move
Health Filters
- Green Cross selects only Healthy Units
- Red Cross selects only Wounded Units
Domain Filters
- Tank selects only Land Units
- Anchor selects only Sea Units
- Plane selects only Air Units
Unit Type Filter
- Crossed Swords selects only Combat Units
- Peace Symbol selects only Domestic Units
Owner Filter
- Green Flag selects only Player Units
- Red Flag selects only Foreign Units

Promotion Mode and Upgrade Mode

Two special display and filter modes have also been introduced: Promotion Mode (third button on the left, with a white star) and Upgrade Mode (forth button on the left, with an orange up-arrow). These modes are alternative each other and alternative to the standard mode, so their buttons and the grouping button (second button on the left, with blue shapes) are mutually exclusive.

If a standard (Single-Line or Multi-Line) display mode is in place, these buttons simply act as filters, showing only the units that can be promoted or upgraded (respectively).
Note that if some other filter is active, it will remain so even after selecting the Promotion or Upgrade Mode, so only the units that meet all the requirements (that is, the filter(s) requirement(s) and the mode requirement) will be shown; also note that the 'remove filters' button (the fifth on the left, with the ban sign) has no effect on the Promotion or Upgrade Mode.
If a stack (Vertical Stacks or Horizontal Stacks) display mode is in place, these buttons don't only act as filters (showing only the units that can be respectively promoted or upgraded), but they also generate a stack for each unit, where the unit icon itself is followed (on the right or on the top) by special icons showing available promotions or upgrades.
- In the Promotion Mode, the additional icons show the available promotions for the unit. By pressing one of these promotion buttons, the unit get that promotion and the display is refreshed. This could result in that the unit disappears from list because there are no more promotions possible, or even that new promotions are displayed if the experience points of the units does allow that.
- In the Upgrade Mode, the additional icons show the available upgrades for the unit. By pressing one of these upgrade buttons, the unit is upgraded to that type (if some or all of the upgrade buttons are disabled (that is, they are displayed, but you can't push them), it means that you don't have enough money to perform those upgrades). Usually that results in that the unit disappearing from the view, because in most cases only one upgrade is possible.
  By moving the mouse over an upgrade button, a special info pane is displayed on the left side of the screen: it provides you with the unit type related info of the upgrade and with 3 values in brackets, separated by a slash, showing respectively cost to upgrade that specific unit (you can do it simply by clicking on the upgrade icon), cost to upgrade all player's units of that type on the plot (you can do it by clicking on the upgrade icon while pressing the Alt-key) and cost to upgrade all of the player's units of that type wherever they are (you can do it by clicking on the upgrade icon while pressing the Ctrl-key). If one of the values exceeds your current budget, it is displayed in red, otherwise in green (these colors can be modified); if you run out of money during those multi-upgrades, it simply stops doing it (as in normal Civ4).
In this case also, if some other filter is active, it will remain so even after selecting the Promotion or Upgrade Mode, and the 'remove filters' button has no effect on the Promotion or Upgrade Mode.

Move Highlighter

Finally, A Move Highlighter has been added.

When you hold down the Alt-key, hover the mouse over a plot list button, the plots the unit can reach with its remaining movement points are highlighted with a white frame.

Anleitung

Alle Einstellungen für diese Mod können im Optionsbildschirm der BUG Mod unter "Einheitenliste" vorgenommen werden.

Credits

Forum: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=149572

Autor: 12Monkeys, EmperorFool

Danksagungen des Autors

The Great Apple and Belizan , for the inital idea and motivation of the implemented Move Highlighter

Dr. Elmar Jiggle, for the used INI Parser (modders: use it!)

Firaxis and the Civ4-Team, for making this game so moddable. Although I havn't played it since months, I still have a lot of fun to mod it. I never had so much fun with a game over such a long time.

Civ4 community at civfanatics, especially in the C&D subforum, for all the inspiration, help and ideas.

Turlute , for adapting this mod for its inclusion in the BUG Mod.

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