I use the minimap. Agreed that the button icons are not helpful, so I need to wait for the tooltip to come up to know which does what.
But I find it helpful. Without the minimap I would never have found the deep gnome at the mill for instance. In my current patch 5 play he was not tied to the mill but standing motionless inside the structure. I only found him because of the yellow lozenge on the minimap.
So seeing the living things from a distance (escpecially the red ones) is quite useful.
