New Automation Features

[Saber Cherry]

New day, new suggestions - I'm doing MY part to delay the game, are you? At any rate, these are abilities that I suspect are present for the AI, and it would be nice if humans had access to them as well. If they are NOT present, it seems they would be useful AI subroutines, anyway.

1) Commander Go-To Command.

Click on a commander, change orders to "Go To Province", click on target province. The commander travels there along the shortest route, keeping the "Go To Province XXX" command until one of 4 things happen: a) you change his orders, b) he arrives and clears his orders, c) the path becomes blocked and he clears his orders, or d) he cannot progress farther without entering a province that has inadequate supply, so he clears his orders. I'd like this a lot, especially when the front is far from my homeland.

2) Auto-Search Command.

Issue to a mage or priest, who will keep the Auto-Search command until you change his orders, or he runs out of provinces to search. Each turn, the commander selects the closest province in which his magic levels would allow greater searching (from the new site-searching list). He goes there, searches it, and then selects the new closest valid province. When no more are valid, he clears his orders.

3) Auto-Site-Search Spell Command

Select a mage in a lab, choose a site-searching spell, and the mage will auto-target it at a new friendly province each turn, that has not been searched to level 4 in that element yet. When he runs out of provinces or gems, he'll clear orders. Ideally, if 2 mages are set to auto with the same spell, they should not target the same province on the same turn, but hey - I'm human, and I do that sometimes:)

4) Scout/Spy/Scry Results List

Not really an automation, per se, but it would be really useful if the most recent scouting results were saved in in a list so you don't have to write them down. Kind of like Stars!, looking at information about a province would say "This information is 3 turns old" or "...from turn 27".

And yes, I know none of these are perfect... but they would tend to reduce micromanagement for humans, and possibly make the AI more powerful / easier to program, depending on how it is designed. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome!

-Cherry

[licker]

I like all these suggestions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

One other thing I'd like to see is a way to queue orders for commanders, mostly to allow you to set up a mage or two to search provinces in the order you designate, rather than the auto feature as described below (ugg, usually its above...)

It would also be nice to somehow automate commanders picking up and dropping off troops from one (or many) province(s) to another. Seemingly these tasks will be easier than they were in Dom1 as one can use the Empire Screen, but a little more automation or scripting, or whatever wouldn't hurt http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Saber Cherry]

5) Commander Queue

One commander/turn/province is fine, but if you want to make a priest EVERY turn in a province, it is tedious to have to enqueue one every turn. A commander production queue (even a short one, of 5 units) that still only produced 1 commander per turn would be a godsend.

6) Multi-unit Enqueue

In Total Annihilation (the king of RTS anti-micromanagement features) you could shift-click to enque 5 units instead of 1. That would be REALLY useful when enqueueing militia, slingers, lobo guards, and other cheap units. A "Repeat" order would be nice, but would require modification of the game engine.

7) Enqueued Resources Counter

Want to know how many resources of units you have enqueued in a province? I always do. Why not add a counter, so people don't accidentally go over the max (and enque things that can't be produced that turn)?

8) Production Dequeue

Sometimes, when my buget is tight, I go one unit over the max that can be produced in a turn... and I have to clear the entire darn queue to get it just right. The ability to dequeue the Last unit would be very helpful to people who like to perfect their queueing.

-Cherry

[HJ]

Maybe Messages about construction completion could also be handy? I know that 2/3 of construction is done in next turn, but it would be helpful if I can click-snap to the province to give new orders to commander. Also, it would eliminate the need of constantly checking upon the castle construction.

[Daynarr]

5 and 6 look really good and easy to implement. 7 and 8, if I understand correctly are already in. Remind me - in Dom I you could not remove Last unit from queue but only delete entire queue?

[licker]

Originally posted by Daynarr:
5 and 6 look really good and easy to implement. 7 and 8, if I understand correctly are already in. Remind me - in Dom I you could not remove Last unit from queue but only delete entire queue?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Correct, which bugs me cuz it seems like you lose some resources when you delete at the start of a new turn with some resources already spent on the unit.

Its a pain when you want to make a correction to your build list anyway...

[Daynarr]

Well, your pain is gone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

You can delete Last unit in queue now just by clicking on units in queue.

[Saber Cherry]

Goody! 2 down, 6 to go http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[LordArioch]

I'd say both 5 and 6 sound good...especially 6. It always hurts the fun of a game when you want to queue up 50 *insert cheap unit name* and you have to click 50 times. Plus you mentioned total annihilation which gets you bonus points.

[licker]

The only problem I see with queueing commanders is that the gold is deducted as soon as you queue them, making it difficult perhaps to do with more expensive commanders. I'd rather that the game didn't deduct that gold initially, but rather at the start of the next turn, of course that leads to other problems with running out of money between turns and what units get funded and which don't...

Still I think queues in general are a good idea, as would be the ability to transfer units from province to province without a commander, give them a 1 turn arrival delay or something or make it so that only newly built units can be vectored to new provinces, heck limiting it to only adjacent provinces would help out some.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by licker:
The only problem I see with queueing commanders is that the gold is deducted as soon as you queue them, making it difficult perhaps to do with more expensive commanders. I'd rather that the game didn't deduct that gold initially, but rather at the start of the next turn, of course that leads to other problems with running out of money between turns and what units get funded and which don't...<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I completely agree. But that would necessitate a complete production system overhaul. Again, I think that would be worthwhile in the interest of reducing micromanagement: Enqueue all you want for free. Then have the computer go from province to province, and in each province, produce as much from the queue as resources and gold allow. If you enqueue more than your gold income supports, higher-numbered provinces will not produce anything that turn.

-Cherry

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Not really an automated feature, but anyway one thing I'd REALLY like to see in Dom II: when a commander dies because of a Seeking Arrow or even worse, a global enchantment like "The Wrath of God" that anonymously kills leaders - please add a "show (dead) commander" control which, upon activation, displays the commander screen with her possessions, and if possible her orders for the turn. I don't want to have to load the previous turn just to check I actually lost my Staff of Storms bearer or that Sorceress I wanted to use to raise domes or whatnot. It's so easy to lose track of your leaders' roles when you have dozens of them. In Dom I you could use the "rename commanders" as a workaround to this problem, but if this feature has to go, I'd like to have something in exchange.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Daynarr:
Well, your pain is gone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

You can delete Last unit in queue now just by clicking on units in queue.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">thats good!

Daynarr, do you know if the devs have revised their opinions on absence of leaders renaming? It was an absolute 'no' from players, and the cheaters they talked about are perhaps not even existing in our blessed doms community http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ October 09, 2003, 07:23: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[Daynarr]

I think they like idea of name tags. Don't know about complete renaming.

[Jasper]

Nametags are a good solution, especially if they're only visible to the controller. Then you can store whatever information you like, but there's no sleazy renaming of leaders to trick one's opponent.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Pocus:
private tag : fine for me, if it makes its way some day. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Agree. And Yes I have hacked and abused things like the renaming. I often used it as a "notepad" but that was no good in human games where they could see it also. A tag would do the same but for me only? Great!

By the way, try hitting "esc" when naming a god. Or using the ^ character. Mine puts a graphic up-arrow. I have a god now named esc-esc-esc-esc which shows as 4 upward arrows. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Hope that the name lists will be externalized one day too (if a modding tool ever appears).<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I totally second that emotion. I would quickly write routines to modify such lists each time I play. Such a feature would go great with random maps.

[ October 09, 2003, 17:11: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Saber Cherry]

Topic Drift Detected

I like the suggestion that a killed commander can be viewed from the "Ulrich Sebastian got shot in the heart by a seeking arrow" message - that would be really useful. And I hope enough automation has been added so that renaming commanders is unneccesary. However, I hereby forbid any further discussion of nametags in this thread, unless you want to propose an automatic "rename every commander every turn" feature http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

By the way, would any betas/devs mind updating us on the current status of gem/slave overflow? Which is to say, if a slaver is catching blood slaves, and fills up his gembox completely, do the extra ones automatically get sent to the lab, or does he just stop working like in Dom I? Or - better yet - can you have a slaver send slaves directly to the lab, and not put them in his gembox at all? I find blood slaving is tedious, because unlike gem income (which is micromanagement free, after the sites are discovered), slave income requires constant shuttling and unloading. But I seem to recall that a change was made to the system...

-Cherry

[PDF]

Nametags should be neat IF readily viewable (and not only in a subwindow 3 clicks away from strat map) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Pocus:

Daynarr, do you know if the devs have revised their opinions on absence of leaders renaming? It was an absolute 'no' from players, and the cheaters they talked about are perhaps not even existing in our blessed doms community http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sunray and PDF both said that they thought renaming was a valid strategy to confuse opponents, Gandalf Parker has also confessed to similar activities in the newsgroup. I participated in a multi player game where George McGinn would change the names of his commanders on the hall of fame more or less every singel turn, while I do not know if he did this to confuse opponents the very fact that his hall of fame commanders couldn't keep their name for two turns in a row bugged the hell out of me. So not only is strategic renaming present in the dominions community, it might very well be rampant. Also while I see why people like to rename their commanders in order to sort them, I would find it annoying to come up against a commander in a battle named a string of numbers and letter. All in all I think that the name tag is prefferable in several ways, but neither renaming or nametag will be in the gold Version, there is not time to add either.

[ October 09, 2003, 13:24: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Pocus]

private tag : fine for me, if it makes its way some day.

Hope that the name lists will be externalized one day too (if a modding tool ever appears).

[Saber Cherry]

*bump*

Any more comments on the automation features, or additional suggestions?

I'll recap here, for convenience:

1) Commander Go-To Command.

Click on a commander, change orders to "Go To Province", click on target province. The commander travels there along the shortest route, keeping the "Go To Province XXX" command until one of 4 things happen: a) you change his orders, b) he arrives and clears his orders, c) the path becomes blocked and he clears his orders, or d) he cannot progress farther without entering a province that has inadequate supply, so he clears his orders. I'd like this a lot, especially when the front is far from my homeland.

2) Auto-Search Command.

Issue to a mage or priest, who will keep the Auto-Search command until you change his orders, or he runs out of provinces to search. Each turn, the commander selects the closest province in which his magic levels would allow greater searching (from the new site-searching list). He goes there, searches it, and then selects the new closest valid province. When no more are valid, he clears his orders.

3) Auto-Site-Search Spell Command

Select a mage in a lab, choose a site-searching spell, and the mage will auto-target it at a new friendly province each turn, that has not been searched to level 4 in that element yet. When he runs out of provinces or gems, he'll clear orders. Ideally, if 2 mages are set to auto with the same spell, they should not target the same province on the same turn, but hey - I'm human, and I do that sometimes:)

4) Scout/Spy/Scry Results List

Not really an automation, per se, but it would be really useful if the most recent scouting results were saved in in a list so you don't have to write them down. Kind of like Stars!, looking at information about a province would say "This information is 3 turns old" or "...from turn 27".

5) Commander Production Queue

One commander/turn/province is fine, but if you want to make a priest EVERY turn in a province, it is tedious to have to enqueue one every turn. A commander production queue (even a short one, of 5 units) that still only produced 1 commander per turn would be a godsend.

6) Multi-unit Production Enqueue

In Total Annihilation (the king of RTS anti-micromanagement features) you could shift-click to enque 5 units instead of 1. That would be REALLY useful when enqueueing militia, slingers, lobo guards, and other cheap units. A "Repeat" order would be nice, but would require modification of the game engine.

7) Enqueued Resources Counter (*Confirmed*)

Want to know how many resources of units you have enqueued in a province? I always do. Why not add a counter, so people don't accidentally go over the max (and enque things that can't be produced that turn)?

8) Production Dequeue (*Confirmed*)

Sometimes, when my buget is tight, I go one unit over the max that can be produced in a turn... and I have to clear the entire darn queue to get it just right. The ability to dequeue the Last unit would be very helpful to people who like to perfect their queueing.

9) Commander Strategic Instruction Queue (licker)

One other thing I'd like to see is a way to queue orders for commanders, mostly to allow you to set up a mage or two to search provinces in the order you designate, rather than the auto feature as described below (ugg, usually its above...)

It would also be nice to somehow automate commanders picking up and dropping off troops from one (or many) province(s) to another. Seemingly these tasks will be easier than they were in Dom1 as one can use the Empire Screen, but a little more automation or scripting, or whatever wouldn't hurt

10) Strategic Orders Completion Messages (HJ)

Maybe Messages about construction completion could also be handy? I know that 2/3 of construction is done in next turn, but it would be helpful if I can click-snap to the province to give new orders to commander. Also, it would eliminate the need of constantly checking upon the castle construction.

11) Dead Commander View on Notification (Nagot Gick Fel)

Not really an automated feature, but anyway one thing I'd REALLY like to see in Dom II: when a commander dies because of a Seeking Arrow or even worse, a global enchantment like "The Wrath of God" that anonymously kills leaders - please add a "show (dead) commander" control which, upon activation, displays the commander screen with her possessions, and if possible her orders for the turn. I don't want to have to load the previous turn just to check I actually lost my Staff of Storms bearer or that Sorceress I wanted to use to raise domes or whatnot. It's so easy to lose track of your leaders' roles when you have dozens of them. In Dom I you could use the "rename commanders" as a workaround to this problem, but if this feature has to go, I'd like to have something in exchange.

12) Gem/Slave Overflow-to-Lab

Would any betas/devs mind updating us on the current status of gem/slave overflow? Which is to say, if a slaver is catching blood slaves, and fills up his gembox completely, do the extra ones automatically get sent to the lab, or does he just stop working like in Dom I? Or - better yet - can you have a slaver send slaves directly to the lab, and not put them in his gembox at all? I find blood slaving is tedious, because unlike gem income (which is micromanagement free, after the sites are discovered), slave income requires constant shuttling and unloading. But I seem to recall that a change was made to the system...

That's it!

-Cherry

[ October 15, 2003, 18:48: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Nerfix]

Those are very good ideas.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I can do without, but they would make my life easier.

[Daynarr]

7 is confirmed, not maybe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[st.patrik]

Some comments...

1 - I like this idea. it would cut down on needless micro considerably.

2 - This is ok, but I'm also ok with things as they are, now that you can tell what level a province has been searched to.

3 - Like the above, it would be ok - a nice addition IMO, but again, more a refinement than an urgent need

4 - It seems to me that scout reports from even a turn or two ago aren't very useful - armies move around a lot, so out of date info isn't very good. Maybe I'm not understanding what you're suggesting?

5 - This is a good idea, but the cost element would get in the way some (if you have to pre-pay). A nice addition.

6 - I absolutely agree with this. holding down ctrl could give you 5, holding down alt could give you 10, holding down both could give you 50. much easier than multiple clickings. Another way would be for ctrl click to bring up a mini dialogue box in which you can type how many you want to make.

7,8 - confirmed already

9 - This sounds a little complex to implement. I would like to trace a searching 'path' by holding down shift or something like this. I'd like this more than option #2

10 - good idea - a message to remind you that a castle was just completed would be nice. Either that or a blinking castle on the map so as it stands out, or something.

11 - Yes - this is a really desirable feature. especially when you have a lot of commanders, and can't figure out which one bit the dust. I hate looking through replays to try to figure this out.

12 - I don't use blood magic myself much, so I don't have much in the way of complaint here.

All in all I think the suggestions are good. I would like to hear what the devs think about some of this stuff. (although I think they'll probably reply much as they did to a couple of suggestions I made: "that's nice but it's not a priority so it may not happen."

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
*bump*

Any more comments on the automation features, or additional suggestions?

I'll recap here, for convenience:

1) Commander Go-To Command.

Click on a commander, change orders to "Go To Province", click on target province. The commander travels there along the shortest route, keeping the "Go To Province XXX" command until one of 4 things happen: a) you change his orders, b) he arrives and clears his orders, c) the path becomes blocked and he clears his orders, or d) he cannot progress farther without entering a province that has inadequate supply, so he clears his orders. I'd like this a lot, especially when the front is far from my homeland.

2) Auto-Search Command.

Issue to a mage or priest, who will keep the Auto-Search command until you change his orders, or he runs out of provinces to search. Each turn, the commander selects the closest province in which his magic levels would allow greater searching (from the new site-searching list). He goes there, searches it, and then selects the new closest valid province. When no more are valid, he clears his orders.

3) Auto-Site-Search Spell Command

Select a mage in a lab, choose a site-searching spell, and the mage will auto-target it at a new friendly province each turn, that has not been searched to level 4 in that element yet. When he runs out of provinces or gems, he'll clear orders. Ideally, if 2 mages are set to auto with the same spell, they should not target the same province on the same turn, but hey - I'm human, and I do that sometimes:)

4) Scout/Spy/Scry Results List

Not really an automation, per se, but it would be really useful if the most recent scouting results were saved in in a list so you don't have to write them down. Kind of like Stars!, looking at information about a province would say "This information is 3 turns old" or "...from turn 27".

5) Commander Production Queue

One commander/turn/province is fine, but if you want to make a priest EVERY turn in a province, it is tedious to have to enqueue one every turn. A commander production queue (even a short one, of 5 units) that still only produced 1 commander per turn would be a godsend.

6) Multi-unit Production Enqueue

In Total Annihilation (the king of RTS anti-micromanagement features) you could shift-click to enque 5 units instead of 1. That would be REALLY useful when enqueueing militia, slingers, lobo guards, and other cheap units. A "Repeat" order would be nice, but would require modification of the game engine.

7) Enqueued Resources Counter (*Confirmed*)

Want to know how many resources of units you have enqueued in a province? I always do. Why not add a counter, so people don't accidentally go over the max (and enque things that can't be produced that turn)?

8) Production Dequeue (*Confirmed*)

Sometimes, when my buget is tight, I go one unit over the max that can be produced in a turn... and I have to clear the entire darn queue to get it just right. The ability to dequeue the Last unit would be very helpful to people who like to perfect their queueing.

9) Commander Strategic Instruction Queue (licker)

One other thing I'd like to see is a way to queue orders for commanders, mostly to allow you to set up a mage or two to search provinces in the order you designate, rather than the auto feature as described below (ugg, usually its above...)

It would also be nice to somehow automate commanders picking up and dropping off troops from one (or many) province(s) to another. Seemingly these tasks will be easier than they were in Dom1 as one can use the Empire Screen, but a little more automation or scripting, or whatever wouldn't hurt

10) Strategic Orders Completion Messages (HJ)

Maybe Messages about construction completion could also be handy? I know that 2/3 of construction is done in next turn, but it would be helpful if I can click-snap to the province to give new orders to commander. Also, it would eliminate the need of constantly checking upon the castle construction.

11) Dead Commander View on Notification (Nagot Gick Fel)

Not really an automated feature, but anyway one thing I'd REALLY like to see in Dom II: when a commander dies because of a Seeking Arrow or even worse, a global enchantment like "The Wrath of God" that anonymously kills leaders - please add a "show (dead) commander" control which, upon activation, displays the commander screen with her possessions, and if possible her orders for the turn. I don't want to have to load the previous turn just to check I actually lost my Staff of Storms bearer or that Sorceress I wanted to use to raise domes or whatnot. It's so easy to lose track of your leaders' roles when you have dozens of them. In Dom I you could use the "rename commanders" as a workaround to this problem, but if this feature has to go, I'd like to have something in exchange.

12) Gem/Slave Overflow-to-Lab

Would any betas/devs mind updating us on the current status of gem/slave overflow? Which is to say, if a slaver is catching blood slaves, and fills up his gembox completely, do the extra ones automatically get sent to the lab, or does he just stop working like in Dom I? Or - better yet - can you have a slaver send slaves directly to the lab, and not put them in his gembox at all? I find blood slaving is tedious, because unlike gem income (which is micromanagement free, after the sites are discovered), slave income requires constant shuttling and unloading. But I seem to recall that a change was made to the system...

That's it!

-Cherry<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by st.patrik:
4 - It seems to me that scout reports from even a turn or two ago aren't very useful - armies move around a lot, so out of date info isn't very good. Maybe I'm not understanding what you're suggesting? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The other information, like militia level, tax rate, unrest, magic sites, population, resources, and revenue don't change as fast (or at all). In DomI, this information just disappears when you move the scout away, when it is acually still relevant.

-Cherry

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by st.patrik:
11 - Yes - this is a really desirable feature. especially when you have a lot of commanders, and can't figure out which one bit the dust. I hate looking through replays to try to figure this out. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's even worse than you may think - you may lose a leader to Burden of Time or The Wrath of God, and not figure it out until you need this leader a couple turns later. Once I realized I had lost my Crone to The Wrath of God only when I noticed the [edit: Call God] option on my priests... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ October 15, 2003, 19:45: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

[Saber Cherry]

*bump*

[Arralen]

... uuuhh this got a loooong beard !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

Since you bring up auto- stuff. Am I the only person who has wished that the Shft-M for spell casting was available for forging? There are times when I have decided that Im going to start needing rings of poison protection and I want to assign some minor mage to make them until I run out of gems the same way I can with telling them to call vinemen.

[thejeff]

Yes to auto forging.

More often with research boosters or gem producers if I'm hoarding. Bags of Wine. Earth boots as Ulm.

It would be really nice

[Saber Cherry]

I'd like auto-forging as well. Mainly for Earth / Messenger boots, Ivy Crowns, and Owl Quills.

[Cainehill]

Or at least something that says "Mage X forged such-and-such", with "Goto this commander" so you're reminded of what they were forging and can redo it.