I like where the faction info is right now, but the fleets I am unsure about. Perhaps put them opposite the faction info? I'm not a big a fan of the above idea but it depends on how much space you need. There is definitely more space with the above idea
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It would be an improvement, but the problem would remain, I think
You see the original version (to be found
here) had the great advantage of being able to convey all information needed to play with without having to look at it more than twice (once to look at the faction info on the right and another to focus on the map). An added advantage was that it conveyed
all open information at once.
But with the addition of the fleet info [
here, things got a bit less elegant:
For one you had to look at least three points on the map to get all the relevant information to play (1 - faction info on the right; 2 - your faction's fleet info; 3 - focus on map) and if you wanted all all open information you needed to focus on 5 sources of information.
Your approach would reduce the sources of information back to three, which is good. But their positioning is less than optional as you would have first look to both the far right and the far left (having to go the futherest distance between either) before you had all the information you needed to just acertain the status of your faction on the map in the centre. It would however still convoy all open information with these 3 looks which is a point in its favor.
My suggested approach would sacrifice conveying all open information for putting minimum of information required to play into just two sources (1 - your faction bar; 2 - the map); which also does a good job at guiding players' awareness towards their faction info, focusing them on it and (hopefully) incentifying using it to as primary source of decision making.
The downside of course is that looking up all open information now takes up between 5 and 8 looks ( either 1 to each faction bar then at the map, or 1 to one faction bar, then to the map and then to next faction bar and back at the map, repeat until you run out of factions) and that guiding the players to pay less attention to all the information may not be what Spoon wants.
Of course, all this before there will be non-player fleets on the map... which is a problem I had not considered previously either...