The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[SurvivalistMerc]

Ok...one more...I hope I'm not putting up too many....

When the spell "Mind Hunt" is cast, please have the message state on what province it was cast. This will let you know when there are not more commanders there. It will also let you know what provinces have astra magi capable of severing your silver cord.

(I really like Arco and Mind Hunt...heal...:))

[nemo451]

I felt compelled to finally register on this forum to request that the developers consider tying unit building capability to different fortifications. For example, an expensive mountain fortress might allow you to build "capital-only" units whereas a wizard's tower would only allow you to build "cheap" troops. Just a thought that may or may not introduce a new, welcome element to game play.

[tinkthank]

Some more small stuff here:

In the rubrik "More", it could be nice to see more new "Special Dominion"s. Here's an example from me:

- New "Special Dominion" any nation may choose for 25 points, requires Death 1 and Magic 2: ELDRICH HAUNT. The lands of this dominion are eerie and unsettling, attracting spooks and unnatural fauna of all sorts, and filled with oddly shaped trees and bizarre vales. Horses become skittish from odd sounds, men imagine they feel the weight of unseen hands upon their necks. No living creature who does not believe in the dominion of the ruler god will set foot willingly in this land.
All enemy units experience -2 morale within this dominion; mounted units and animals take a -3 dominion penalty. (Mindless, lifeless, and undead beings are unaffected.)


More Small UI Tweaks which would be Worth their Money
- Currently, during "God Creation", one cannot exit without saving ("ready") once a Pretender is chosen. During "God Creation", let there be a button "Exit (without saving)", so that previous Newlords are not overwritten when experimenting.
- Make storing battle orders more user-friendly by letting us store also with shift-1 to 9 and/or alt-1- to 9, or perhaps let us map our own key settings with the (shift+ or alt+) f1-f12 buttons
- The Tactical Screen should also include, perhaps next to the "Give battle orders" buttons, a "Define Squad Form: Square, Phalanx, Line, Default" section, whereby "Default" can be defined by user

AI Improvement Continued:
I'd still like to see the SP Version of this game be more challenging.
The AI rarely forges items which help against starvatation. Why? If this is very difficult or impossible to change, then implement something similar to the following rule:
Easy AI: receives a 10% Supply Bonus per province (or: Net troop supply usage = -10%)
Impossible AI: receives an 85% Supply Bonus per province (or: Net troop supply usage = -85%)

[tinkthank]

Just wanted to concretize some of the ideas I had hastily sketched above with the various screens, this time concentrating on what I think could be a kick-butt GAME SETUP screen configuration. I think if the game were not set up this way, it would be difficult to implement a lot of the good ideas which the developers have hinted at. I envision something like this:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>


NATION STATUS HANDICAP AI TYPE
Abysia -- -- --
Arco Human +15 --
Atlantis Easy AI +150 Defensive
Babylonia Difficult AI +250 Aggressive
Caelum Human -40 --

Human Alliances Allowed Yes
AI Alliances Allowed No
Determine Preset Alliances (click here)

</pre><hr />

In setting up a game, one would first toggle the "Status" button -- default is probably "not playing", which I have represented by "--".
"Handicap" would, I think, be exceptionally easy to represent and be a great boon in both SP and MP. By "Handicap", I mean simply a bonus (or penalty) to starting Design Points. Left clicking subtracts, right clicking adds, as we are used to. In SP games, the idea should work without a problem; human or AI nations will get an additional bonus (or penalty) to their build over and above any bonuses or penalties which a "hard" AI would get.
In MP games, of course, the Host will not be able to start a game in which one or more of the participants has sent a "bad" build (used a bonus handicap where none was allowed); the game would have to send a message of the appropriate type. Any ideas on how this could be worked out smoothly?
Under "AI Type" I imagine (at least) 3 types: A turtler (defensive), who only attacks back if attacked first, a random type (similar to what we have now), and an aggressive type, who will try to pick out the weakest and/or most accessible nation and systematically try to destroy it without trying to harm the others unless attacked by them.
The Alliance section below should be used in stipulating the rules for being able to join forces as humans or AI (where both nations' armies can fight side by side in the same battle and move through the friendly provinces without penalty).

[Unknown_Enemy]

AI troop building :

The AI should follow 3 paths for troop building :

Early game (when all research path are between 1-3)
AI builds mostly cheap troops, and a few good ones.

Medium game (when 1 or 2 research path are between 4-6)
AI builds a mixt of cheap and medium troops.

Late game (when 1 or 2 research path are between 7-8)
AI builds mostly elite troops.

To achieve that, you would need to have race specific AI files, which would include unit ID and a building probability. A good idea would be to put these settings in text form.

An important parameter to code for a commander would also be :
Build a castle if the nearest one is more than xxx provinces away.

Anyway, it would be very important to have race specific AI in text files. Look at SE4 : all AIs have been re-writen and fine tuned by the community. No out of the box SE4 AI can stand its ground versus the community AIs.

[SurvivalistMerc]

One more wish...that no one's archers on default will have a mass of twenty or more archers firing at a single heavy infantry that isn't near anything else when there are "better" targets.

I think a "value" (perhaps recruitment cost? with an arbitrarily high number given to pretenders) could be assigned to units and Groups and archers could use this value to decide what to fire at.

[sushiboat]

I would like a way to mark the map with various symbols that would serve as reminders. For example, in the early game I might mark an independent province with knights and crossbowmen with a red circle to indicate that it is relatively well protected. If my scout discovers an enemy capital, I might mark it with a black diamond. What the symbols mean would be left up to the player (and might even change during a game as needs change), so the symbols should be abstract enough not to have any strong prior associations (or at least none close to the game concepts). Also, the symbols would have to be visually distinct from the ones already in use (e.g., sun for heat, clover leaf for luck, etc.). Each province should have room for at least a few player-marked symbols.

[SurvivalistMerc]

sushiboat,

That is a great idea. An alternative would be to have the game itself keep a record of where enemy capitals etc are so that they can be seen on the overhead map.

As things are now, you somehow forget exactly what magic sites are in a province when you lose control of that province. And you can't recall what was in the province your scout or spy just left. (I hope the devs think this change would fall under the "less micromanagement and paper notetaking" sort of change.)

[Taqwus]

Virtual Post-It notes would be nice and generic. Perhaps use color-coded thumbtacks to indicate their existence, and for MP use allow sharing them (individually).

For that matter, so would symbols dedicated to indicating the current (or, perhaps the Last known -- in a shaded form, that is) location of enemy pretenders and prophets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[tinkthank]

I also like sushiboat's suggestion very much, perhaps in the survivialistmerc Version too.

Here are some more UI suggestions:

- Some more UI functionality:
Hitting "H" while on the Tactical Screen selects all units which are hungry; hitting "h" selects all units in a highlighted squad which are hungry.
Hitting "W" while on the Tactical Screen selects all units which are wounded; hitting "w" selects all units in a highlighted squad which are wounded.
Hitting "E" while on the Tactical Screen selects all units which are experienced; hitting "e" selects all units in a highlighted squad which are experienced.
Hitting the "backspace" button lets you deselect such highlighted units without having to put them somewhere or manually reclick them (as is currently the case).

Perhaps the default arrangement of troops within one squad should be: The more afflictions, the further to the right; diseased counts as two; hungry counts as one-half. The more experience, the further to the left. Afflictions are weighted first. Thus afflicted units to the right, the left of these being those with fewer afflictions and more experience, to the left of these units are those unafflicted in ascending order of experience. (How is the squad ordered currently? I can see no plan.)

- Allow us please to determine how commanders are ordered, both in the map view and the tacitcal view (alphabetically by name, by type, by experience, by magic path, by number of units being led, by orders given, etc.), and allow us to set the default ourselves too.

[tinkthank]

Now on to AI -- this time concretely about AI thoughts when dealing with Mercs, with which the AI has great problems, and which also brings me to how Mercs are handled in MP too.

First, the idea for improving Merc fun both in MP *and* SP: Please include in each Merc bid a d6 OE.

- Additional idea for AI merc-handling Tweaking: Make Standard AI get a small bonus to Merc bids, Difficult AI an even higher one, and Impossible AI an even higher one. (The current AI bids too low.) That is, let the computer make its standard bid, but it should get a bonus to its d6 roll.

Additionally, an algorithm should be set up for AI merc bids, whereby the value of a non-mage merc band decreases dramatically in accordance with the band's current size compared to that when fully stocked. Mercs with magic abilities may retain slightly more value.
Perhaps as an additional function: Non-mage Mercs who have lost all of their troops have zero hire value by AIs.

- PLEASE make an option in Game Setup to turn Mercenaries OFF. (If simply a way to make SP more challenging if the above cannot be implemented).

[tinkthank]

This is totally minor, but still I would like to mention it:

If the blessing and path system is kept much as it is now in dom3, can the Blood-9 blessing please be changed to something more appealing? I think something like Blood Vengeance (-4) or such would be much more in theme.

[Chazar]

I wish for three simple things:
Simultaneous Victory Conditions: I want to play games which are won by either a number of provinces, victory points, domininon and research points. Probably not all at one time, but I imagine that having 2 or 3 such conditions simultaneously allows for much more diversity among the strategies employed by the players of a game.
Victory Margins:I'd like to specify a margin for the victory condition, i.e. a player has won when he has more than a 200 dominion score and more than 30 points more than any other player. I do not like it if someone wins by just one point (dominion, provinces, research, etc.)
Dominion Dependant Clerical Power:Spells like "falling frost" benefit from excess magical paths. Likewise, high-level priests are more powerful at banishing like their low-level fellows. I would like it if dominion would also affect the power of clerical spells (maybe just like having additional points in holy/unholy for the spell power. It should not affect the available spells, i.e. a 2-lvl priest in 10-dominino should still only be able to cast 2lvl spells (but at 10th level power).

[Boron]

I haven't checked the wishlist for a long time so my apologies if lots of my suggestions were made before already .

The UI is imo the only part where dominions really needs improvement . Here my current wishes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Make it possible to select a group of 5 , 10 and 25 troops at once in the armysetup screen .
This will make the building of guard squads and other squads much easier .
Atm if you want to build 2 squads each 50 devils e.g. you have to select manually 50 devils ... .
- Scripts for recruiting which a player can do and change , like the build orders in civilization games for recruiting .
They are saved for every turn until the player changes them , he just selects then build 1 black sorcerer , 2 sages , 6 spiders , 20 archers each turn .
The unit highest in the buildorder is built first , then the 2nd highest etc. until no money is left or until left money reaches xxx , which the player can select .

This would reduce a lot of micromanagement as well because i myself build e.g. 1 arch theurg and 5 theurgs every turn in midgame when i have the money .

- Include waypoints for traveling and allow setting the end destination to everywhere , this way you can then e.g. easily bring your soul contract generated devils to the front or your scouts to the domed hoard province .

- Include lots of selectable automanagement functions .
Especially a customizeable tax manager , where you just select a simple condition , e.g. if unrest is &gt;10 , reduce tax by that amount that without events in the next turn unrest = 0 again . If a player changes taxes in one province manually this overrides for this turn though the tax manager anyways ( the player would do that if he knows e.g. that there is a spy in this province instilling unrest ) .

Second i would wish for the following option : Autoassign hoard items to scouts/black servants by default , and the player can add other unit types that are considered hoarditem mules .
Do this by numbers too , example :
1. scouts
2. black servants
3. mage type a , e.g. theurgs
4. spectres

Then if you forge e.g. 10 clams , the game autoassigns the clams to free scouts etc. .
It just has to check a few conditions :
condition 1 : Free miscslot ?
If yes check condition 2 : is the unit already wearing a clam ?
If yes proceed with the next unit until a free unit is found .
Condition 3 : ( only for fetishes ) is the unit undead / demon ? If no proceed and find another unit for that item .

If you have e.g. only 5 scouts with free slots but forged 20 clams , then just give a msg. in the turn summary : Not enough horders found , 15 clams were not assigned by the hoarding automanager .

- Enable Montly forging and enable forging with a customizeable list , e.g. :
turn 1 : forge starshine skullcap
turn 2 : forge jade armour
turn 3 : forge blood thorn
turn 4 : research ( if you select research the unit just continues to research until you select something else for it )

- Change the summonspells this way , that they are customable . You have just to assign per unit costs , and then the player selects how many units he wants to summon .
Example : Devil , price 7 blood each .
The player can chose to summon e.g. 10 devils with his mage , then he has just to pay 70 blood .
Would reduce the micro also a lot because you wouldn't need to select dozens of mages in lategame for summoning .

- option to turn off random events + luckscale completely for competetive games , i.e. battlefield ladder games .

- An editor with good UI like the age of wonders or civilization editor , and make really everything( like themes , magic weapons etc. ) moddable and with a good UI .

- Make Modded Nations be addable as further nations , this way you wouldn't need to remove existing nations and if you are crazy enough could play a 40 nation game on a 800 province map .

General gameplay ideas :

- Make more individual scales for nations and make them editable also , like deathscale with abysia or income for Ctis Miasma .
My other idea would be that you have more choices for pretender design and pick special abilities ( skills , traits etc. ) from a construction kit . Basically like MoM but with many more options .
You can then e.g. also buy the skill great summoner for your pretender , and then you get x % discount on everything summoned out of the conjuration school .
Another trait could be e.g. kind god . This gives your troops + x morale and lessens your upkeep / recruiting costs by x % .
There are lots of possibilities .
So you could include about 50-100 different traits , some general available , some nation specific etc. .

- More province building options , some nation specific .
Better national creatures require stronger buildings .
Some buildings are capitol only .

The building speed for the buildings is no longer x turns , but xx resources , so in a high resource province a castle can e.g. be built within 1 turn while in a poor province you need 5 turns .

- Resources and admin :
I would prefer the following model :
1. Extra admin from a castle no longer leeches the resources out of a neighboring province .
2. Extra population gives also extra resources . Resources are to my understanding mainly work resources while raw materials are neglectable . 1000 men normally built at average 10 times more goods ( armours , swords etc. ) more then 100 men .

- National troops + supply :
They require a 3rd resource , manpower . But supply is completely removed .

1 population = 1 manpower .

A militia requires e.g. 3-5 manpower , while a knight requires 50 manpower and a giant or dragon 200 .

Manpower is abstract for the logistic organisation + workers that provide important goods for your army .
In an army normally 5 or 10 non combatatants are needed to supply 1 combatatant with the needed goods , especially ammo + fuel + repairing services .

This way the problem with starving AI would be solved , it would be more realistical and would make growth scale a bit more attractive as well .

- A new kind of upkeep for summoned creatures . This could be in gems or a new resource like divine mana is added .
This new resource is calculated out of e.g. :
(Sum of : Y x dominionstrength for all provinces) + a sum for all your magic gem income / blood income + a bonus by the might of your god ( impressive gods like a dragon get more ) + boni for impressive summons like Air queens , Arch devils

- Include a disband option .

- If you can't pay your upkeep for 5 turns nothing happens but after 5 turns of no upkeep as many units desert until you make a surplus again .
You can let the computer chose automatically or select the troops you wan't to disband manually .

[Boron]

I think it would be a good idea to do no printed manual but only include it as a PDF .

I e.g. always play dominions with opened MIQR , SCQR , Magiboost.xls , Unitattributes.xls and units.xls .
Sometimes a few more rarer needed additional documents http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .


So the PDF would serve 2 goals :
1. searchable documents , so you find the info you need easy . A book has just no searching options so a long printed manual is inferior to a PDF or similiar with good searching options .

2. This would decrease the costs for producing dominions 3 . I don't know how much the dominions 2 manual costed but my guess is that it costed at least 5 times more then the CD .

This way you could hopefully offer dominions 3 for 40€ and not for 50€ . Then more ppl will buy it and you will make a bigger profit as well .

While i e.g. bought RTW instantly for 40€ i considered much more if i should buy Battle for Middleearth as well which costed 55€ .

I think especially in the PC gaming market 40€ is a magical border and there is another , more eLastic aggregate demand formula for prices &gt;40€ then for prices &lt;40€ .

[Taqwus]

A way to set the deployment and battle orders of the province defense would be handy. I wonder if it would make more sense to restrict how it can be raised -- e.g. instead of allowing somebody to (probably foolishly!) plunk down a large chunk of change to raise PD from nothing to substantial in one turn, perhaps commanders could be ordered to train PD, with the rate of training based on Leadership ability with a bonus if any commander participating in the drill is native to the province.

For that matter, perhaps a high-leadership commander should be able to drill his troops in a way that grants slightly more experience than the normal per-turn allotment, up to some cap (e.g. 1 or 2 stars).

Should people be able to build unfortified supply depots/administrative centers, which would have admin supply/resource/recruitment effects but none of the defensive value of a castle?

Minor oddness: Gift of Reason perhaps should either also remove the Mindless flag, or be slightly renamed.

[sushiboat]

PDF manual would be good. Make the game downloadable too, at least after initial sales have peaked. Anything that saves shipping costs and time is good.

I would like to see a change to morale. It really irks me to see a winning army turn tail and run. There should be a "prospects of winning" variable based on obvious signs of the tide of battle: relative numbers, enemy routing, commanders killed, etc. If this prospects variable ranges from 0% to 100%, a very high value would bypass the morale check. A moderately high value would give a bonus for the morale check. Low values would give morale penalties.

For example:
76-100% = bypass morale check
61-75% = morale +1
41-60% = regular morale
25-40% = morale -1
11-24% = morale -2
1-10% = morale -3
0% = automatic rout

[tinkthank]

I still think that new features (such as full alliance building, improved AI) will truly make dom3 a *new game* (as oppossed to an expansion pack), but I think the UI suggestions will certainly help.

Here are some more good ones, I think, which I believe would be relatively easy to implement:

- The Ctrl-p (or some other hotkeyable key) cycles through all commanders set to "Preach".
- The Ctrl-m (or some other hotkeyable key) cycles through all commanders set to "Cast Monthly".
- The Ctrl-r (or some other hotkeyable key) cycles through all commanders set to "Research".
- The Ctrl-f (or some other hotkeyable key) cycles through all commanders set to "Forge Monthly".
- The Ctrl-u (or some other hotkeyable key) cycles through all commanders who have forged an item Last turn.
- The Ctrl-b (or some other hotkeyable key) cycles through all commanders with a forge bonus.

- The ctrl-f1 to ctrl-f12 and shift-ctrl-1 to shift-ctrl-12 keys can be set to these up to 24 selected commanders; the f1-f12 and shift-f1 to shift-12 keys can then be used to as hotkeys to jump-select these. (One could to imagine that the current Overview, Lab, etc. buttons are set to 1-8, and that the Map Filter flags are set to shift-1-8 (personally, I use these map filters almost never once they are set, I rarely change my settings, so I wouldnt even need these hotkey, dont know about you. I find I need commanders more frequently than filters.)

[Chazar]

Seeing thinktank's post, I forgot a fourth simple thing (and a fifth not-so-simple-not-so-complex thing) with respect to my previous post:
"Leave me alone"-order:This new order is essentially equal to "Defend Castle" or "Hide", except that hitting the "n" key will never bring up a commander with the "leave me alone"-order. I really hate it to cycle through all my scouts over and over again, after manually clicking at someone else! The "Leave me alone" order should revert to "Defend" or "Hide" after hosting.
A simple single non-magical research branch: At every level researched, the player gets some random immediate nation wide bonus, i.e.: +10 Defense Points to castles, +1 admin point, -1% production cost, -10GP to castle building, -10GP to temple building, ... , +3 archers per defense tower, +1 protection to national troops' armour, etc. So it should be something simple to spend excess research points on, with more than 10 levels. Most of these goodie should be allowed to stack a few (limited) times.
Another idea would be to allow these non-magical goodies also at pretender generation, but I am not so sure that this would be a good idea...I wonder if we could have the option for simultaneously active victory conditions like described in my previous post already in a patch for Dom2...

[tinkthank]

Hey Chazar, I really like your idea as well. I was thinking about that a lot too, since it has a lot of the flavor of "research" from other types of games, which are usually called *"technology"* or some such. This would certainly be a very interesting addition, and one which would require a lot of balance testing. I would hope, however, that this "technology" branch would not be available at pretender creation.

[Tuna]

Just figured a single mod/unit creation command that could make making some very cool effects easy.

#preferredscale [what scale] [what value -3...3] [penaltystat] [penaltyvalue]

All units such as niefel giants or abysians would be modeled as what they are on their best situation, say cold-3 for niefel giants, and then their stats would be modified by a set modifier for each point a scale in the province in which they reside differ from their preferred value.

So, for example, niefel giants would be something like:
#prefscale heat -3 prot -2
#prefscale cold -3 enc +1
etc etc, so niefel giants would get +6 enc when in heat 3...



What's so good with it is that with it many hardcodings can be removed and simplified into a single softcode command, everything from mage research ability in drain to units encumberance malus in wrong heat conditions and many more things that already are in the game, to many that are very thematic but aren't now and would be hard to implement otherwise. For example speed and strenght for Pan CW units in growth dominion, morale bonus for early ermorian and late pythian troops in order dominion (so also a quite substantial malus in turmoil...) and some more interesting things such as units whose stats differ much depending from the scales so that some stats go up and some down.

Just an idea, implementable?

[Phoenix-D]

-Please- included a printed manual. PDFs suck, plain and simple. You have to print them to get any use out of them; if you want a manual for reading on screen there are much better choices (like, oh, HTML..)

[sushiboat]

I like the concept of resources as a local constraint on troop recruiting. However, in addition to forts, there should be ways to upgrade a province's resources or decrease the resource costs of troops. I suggest three new buildings. A smithy would increase a province's resources. A barracks would decrease both the resource costs and the monetary costs of all kinds of foot soldiers. A stable would decrease resource costs and monetary costs of mounted troops.

[Turin]

Don´t know if this has been mentioned before, but here is a small ui suggestion:

it would be nice if you could set spells cast by items to cast monthly. Right now it´s possible to click on the spell, but you get the "this ritual is too complex for this mage" message, if he doesn´t have the necessary paths.

It´s most notable with stone spheres, it´s a major hassle to click on the same province turn after turn if you want to scry on it always.

[Zapmeister]

How about a simple, numeric limit on the number of castles you can have? If you have that number or more (you may have captured some) then you simply can't build any more. The exact number might be game parameter (like the number of HoF entries).

The idea, obviously, is to address the castling problem.

[sushiboat]

In Dom2, the map is the central screen of the game. For mid/late game management, however, the map is an inefficient way of moving from one task to another. I would like to see navigation be more free, so I can move from recruiting to research to nation overview without going back to the map every time. I would also like to have "previous" and "next" buttons to take me to my other provinces, in the order given in the nation overview.

Think of this new UI as becoming more similar to a web browser. You don't go back to your starting page before going to a new page. You just go straight to the new page. Perhaps there could be a fixed navigation pane across the top. It would have buttons for some key screens and some customizable buttons.

[Verjigorm]

I would like to see more specific Global counterspells like Fate of Oedipus to put less emphasis on the Dispel spell for getting rid of enemy enchantments. Perhaps certain globals could conflict with each other (e.g. Second Sun and Utterdark cancel each other's effects without dispelling either enchantment).

For map editing, I would like to see grouped random start locations--for instance, each group of start locations belongs to a single specific or non-specific nation. In this way a nation could be assigned to a specific map area without forcing them to be contained in a specific province. A structure something like this may help explain what I mean:

#Start_Group "North Forest"
#Number_of_Random_Nations_In_Group 1
#Start_Province 113
#Start_Province 114
#Start_Province 115
#Start_Province 116
.
.
.
#End_Start_Group

or

#Start_Group "North Forest"
#Nation_In_Group 17 //Machaka
#Nation_In_Group 11 //Pangaea
#Start_Province 113
#Start_Province 114
#Start_Province 115
#Start_Province 116
.
.
.
#End_Start_Group

[silhouette]

I would like an additional nation-global way to do Alchemy instead of just a commander action. Whenever I need a few extra gold, it is several extra mouse clicks to go back to a province with a lab, click a commander, do the alchemy, then scroll back where you were before and finish recruiting or buying defence or whatever. And then you forgot that you hired an alchemist 3 turns ago, or had the alch. stone in someone else's hands. Since alchemy doesn't take a turn, reducing the micromanagement to use it should be easy. Just have a national "slot" for designated alchemist that you can assign to a specific mage at a certain site, and then you can open the alchemy screen anywhere like the globals, and it defaults to that guy. Or maybe make it a national role like Prophet -- it takes a turn of training to become the national alchemist and then he gets a small gold bonus..

Sill

[tinkthank]

Perhaps one can label "good event" volunteers (and freely volunteering creatures, such as Ryleh Hybrids and Pan Manaeads) #noupkeep, so that they must be fed and hence require supplies but don't hold their hand out for a paycheck the entire time.

[Chazar]

The UI needs improvement! My conrecte wish:
Similar as assigning troops to commanders, commanders should be assingable to "task forces" - which are nothing more than named lists. The tactical setup screen should then be sortable by "task forces" and there should also be a tactical setup screen which just shows all commanders and their troops assigned to that particular "task force", regardless of where they are located.

Yesterday I gave up in confusion while making my turn. I had 3 castles with too many troops and wanted to attack now. Firstly, I divided my troops in each of the 3 castles into attack Groups, but distributing gems and scripting and positioning was immposssible, as I could not remember who was accompanying whom else from what other castle!

So it would have been nice, if I could invent a name and assing some commanders to that name, and then pull up a tactical screen exactly like the one we have now, which exclusively contains the units belonging to the task force to coordinate the troops. The "garrisson" field should combine all garrissoned troops available in all provinces where commanders of the task force are located, but its ok if one could only assign troops to commanders being in the same province at the time of assignment...

I assume that this would enhance the managbility of troops greatly, and I do not think that it would be too difficult to add named records of commanders...

[tinkthank]

Sounds good.

Here's another suggestion for the game setup / god creation screens. It comes from the desire to experiment and try out different God creations.

In additionn to letting us "cancel" a god creation (instead of accepting it as "ready"), it could be great if we could also "save" god creations to a folder, perhaps called "oldgods", or "savedgods". That way, we can have more than 1 active newgod for each race, and compare them or save models we particularly liked. Gods can be saved with any valid filename, such as Man_Earthbless_Cyclops_growthscale_2.
So the suggestion would also include a "load god" option from the game creation screen which would pull up a list from the othergods folder from which we could choose.

I think this suggestion belongs to the "nice to have" list, isnt really super-important, but I think it would be nice, especially for newbies.

[tinkthank]

A small one.

Someone mentioned mixed VCs in game setup. I would like to second that and suggest a way in which the default VCs could be conceived, since I think Dominion should play, as the name of the game implies, an even stronger component.

Winning X number of provinces (or VPs) should not be enough unless explicitly stated; standard VC should be X Provs (or VPs) *plus* Y dominion. I think this would be not only feel better than "control the whole world militarily", but also reduce frustration in end-game, and additionally allow for nail-biting and mixed-strategy/surprise tactics in dealing with the dominion VC component.

Anyhow, at least a way to stipulate VC-mixing involving provinces and dominion.

[Chazar]

Addenudm to my Taskforce-Mechanism-Proposal: Each "taskforce" record should have a custom name, a custom note field and a choosable color code. The color code is used to draw a frame around the commander icon box in the map view (or maybe a blob on top of the commander picture), so that one can easily see to what kind of taskforce a commander belongs to. The note incorporates the "sticky note" concept that has been proposed earlier by several people here. Assigning it to the taskforce might make it general enough rather than allowing for every commander already on its own...

[NTJedi]

Improving Province Defense

One or more of these ideas can be used for improving province defense:

A) Provinces adjacent to the main capital and including the main capital have very powerful defenders for its province defense. These units should have much higher morale, defense, magic resist, and protection.

B) More unique and stronger defenders as provinces defense increases. Province defense(1_thru_10) basic units, Province defense(11_thru_20)average units added with basic units, Province defense(21_thru_30)strong units added with basic and average units, and so on...

C) For province defense beyond 20... adding a commander with a standard(+8) and additional commanders with standards for every additional 10pts of province defense.

D) Some unique powerful unit(depending on the race) added for any location with province defense of 50 or more.

E) Increase resources in a province when the province defense goes beyond 25, yet doesn't work on capital. This would give province defense a second value. Province defense beyond 25 is an investment of over 350 gold.

[deccan]

I think the army setup screen needs some work:

1) In actual battles, the size of the battlefield appears to stretch to accomodate the forces involved, but the army positioning box in the army setup screen does not, which imposes an upper limit on the size of the army that can be positioned correctly.

2) In the topmost row of troops in garrison, the units become ever smaller as you have more troops there. Normally this is okay, but in one current game, I have so many troops in garrison that even non-commander Tartarian Titans become non-viewable due to the unit compression and so non-selectable! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[tinkthank]

Like many of NT Jedi's suggestions there!

Just thought to add some more examples for Buffs and Debuffs to those above-mentioned examples:

Cure Paralysis: Alteration 3, Air2, Fatigue 30-; removes 1d6(oe) Paralysis from one friendly target, more powerful mages can remove +1 point for each level of air above 2.

Fluid Joints: Alteration 5, Water3, Fatigue 50-, removes 1d6(oe) Paralysis from a small group of friendly units, more powerful mages can remove +1 point for each level of water above 3.

Sunburst: Conjuration 6, Fire4 Astral1, Fatigue 200-, calls for the warm rays of the sun upon the battlefield, clearing the skies, and thus has a chance (mage casting strength + d6oe vs. opposing mage casting strength + d6oe) of eliminating any any storms, mists, or rain currently active; in addition, it automatically casts "fanaticsm" once upon coming into effect.

[Taqwus]

It would be nice if Vortex of Returning

(a) Was never cast without being specifically scripted, or at least
(b) Preserved orders and unit assignments (which units go with which leaders in what formation and orders).

It was irritating watching one of my Spectral Mages VoR a 800+-unit army that was easily stomping an indy force of ~50 light cav (trivial battle, especially with a vanguard of ~140 wights led by a wraithlord and a heavily-armed Ambicephalos...).

[Tricon]

tinkthank said:
In additionn to letting us "cancel" a god creation (instead of accepting it as "ready"), it could be great if we could also "save" god creations to a folder, perhaps called "oldgods", or "savedgods". That way, we can have more than 1 active newgod for each race, and compare them or save models we particularly liked. Gods can be saved with any valid filename, such as Man_Earthbless_Cyclops_growthscale_2.
So the suggestion would also include a "load god" option from the game creation screen which would pull up a list from the othergods folder from which we could choose.





I'ld really, really like it if I could save a number of pretenders from the same faction.
Maybe accompanied by the option of saving, like getting the prompt: Would you like to save this pretender?

[Wick]

I wish all unmounted, routing units with encumbering shields would drop them.

It's historical (except for Spartans! ;-), it makes sense in the game, it's implementable, and mercy is a virtue even if the cowards don't deserve it.

[tinkthank]

Something minor:

In the nation overview, please include a slot for Terrain Type (so we can find all mountains, swamps, etc.)
In the nation overview, please include a slot for Dominion strength. (This is also vital for finding those priests whom you have set to preach...)

[Normal]

All the data should be kept in txt files, like in Space Empires.
Amen. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Wyatt Hebert]

My own three suggestions for interface improvement.

1) Allow the targeting of site-searching spells on the F1 screen. That alone would make things much simpler for the magic site nut. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

2) Allow typing of numbers for transmutation. I was playing Soul Gate Ermor on the World War map and scenario, and when I wanted to transmute hundreds of gems at one time it got kind of ridiculous. If I could just press transmute and type in the number, it would have been more helpful.

3) Differentiate dominion. Afaict, only one pretender has dominion in any province, so color coding the candle based on the colors of the controller would be very useful. It would also be helpful if you could paint the overworld map with the dominion of all enemies that you knew. This would allow people to get a rough gauge of where each enemy was and roughly how large their sphere of influence is.

Just a few ideas. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Wyatt

[tinkthank]

Another UI suggestion:

A feature "search", much like any windows application text search feature: when you call it up, you can enter either a commander name or an item name (perhaps there are two separate hotkey functions: Find Name and Find Item). The game then searches, and hits could be either listed in a small screen with clickable search results and/or the game simply highlights that Commander with a name found on the map screen (much like the "n" key currently), while if an Item is found the game selects the commander with that item on his or her person in his or her Inventory screen or simply shows the laboratory screen. If there are more than 1 commander or item of that name the successful hits will scroll through them.

[tinkthank]

A strategic AI suggestion:

The AI does not seem to make items very well. It will construct things, but these are often squandered. (I have seen the AI stick a Blood Collar on a prophet and other useless ideas.)

If this cannot be fixed by giving concrete plans for an AI to follow (a long, but perhaps worthwhile project), perhaps the following could be done:
- For all nations except Ulm, do not allow the AI to research Construction above 3 (for legions of steel, which the AI likes).
- For all nations except Ulm, do not let the AI forge any items which do not increase the spell-casting effectiveness of the units or which are not armor.
- All weapons can only be equipped by commanders with no magic skills. (I know this is silly, but I think developing a really great algorithm is beyond me.) This would avoid wasting resources on mages who will only cast anyhow.

This would force the AI to spend more time researching other paths.

[Endoperez]

I think what AI needs is an SC-algorithm, which calculates SC-value of a commander from his hp, str/att/def, nbr of attacks, defences (buffs and those from items, prot, mr)... etc. Then these SCs could "order" an item that would boost them, and that item would be produced when possible.

I know this is far-reaching, but this would also let Dragons etc. without script to cast some buffs, decide they can handle the enemy and attack. Easily avoidable by setting them to Cast Spells/Stay Behind Troops.

[tinkthank]

A small modding wish:

#spelleffect /name/ /casterlevel/

This will apply that spell's effects to this unit as an attribute.
Thus one could have
# spelleffect mistform
which would give this unit a mistform effect for every battle, or a
#spelleffect mirrorimage 4

[tinkthank]

Could also be a helpful idea in dom3 to decouple capital-only recruitability of troops with sites, perhaps using a

#capitalonly 10

command (would make that unit capital only for Pan, for example). Only drawback would be for certain findable sites which let you recruit special troops (like that one that lets you get D. Sidhe), that site would have to let you recruit a different monster, e.g. a D.Sidhe without the #capitalonly command.
This would make it a lot easier to mod capital-only monsters without borking other nations' units.

[Endoperez]

tinkthank said:
Could also be a helpful idea in dom3 to decouple capital-only recruitability of troops with sites,



This would be very nice.



perhaps using a
#capitalonly 10
on unit




However, it wouldn't be done this way. It would be a command for nation modding, and would be #homeunit and #homecom. This wouldn't need making new, non-capital versions of existing units.

[biekert]

I'd suggest that higher level smiths can forge either 1) high level item per turn, or 2) several level 1 items. For example, an Ulm smith could forge 3 level 1 items a turn or 1 level 3 item. This would ease micromanagement, what I see as the key aspect to improving Dom3, and also make "loading up heroes" a more viable option.

[Edi]

tinkthank said:
Could also be a helpful idea in dom3 to decouple capital-only recruitability of troops with sites, perhaps using a

#capitalonly 10

command (would make that unit capital only for Pan, for example). Only drawback would be for certain findable sites which let you recruit special troops (like that one that lets you get D. Sidhe), that site would have to let you recruit a different monster, e.g. a D.Sidhe without the #capitalonly command.
This would make it a lot easier to mod capital-only monsters without borking other nations' units.


The only change that would require would be that the #capitalonly would be an additional command, so if you want them that way, it's #capitalonlyunit &lt;nbr&gt; and #capitalonlycom &lt;nbr&gt;, and that the nation's home province has some kind of capital flag. Then sites that give these units (like The Glowing Hill) would be supremely unaffected.

Edi

[tinkthank]

Ah ok thanks, that makes sense.

Well, here is a tad bit more:

Castle Selection Improvement:

Allow in God Creation for the selection of variable castle types.
For example, one could imagine that for
- X points, a player will receive a Type Q castle in his home province, and all further castles will be type Q.
- X+20 points, a player will receive a Type P castle in his home province, and all further castles will be either of type Q, Type P or Type R.
- For X+40 points, a player will receive a Type A castle in his home province, and all further castles will be type Q, X, B, or D.

If a player may choose between castle types when building, selecting the "Build Fort" option will show an additional screen: Build Fort A, Fort B, Fort C).


AI Improvement idea:

I have seen the Impossible AI (!) choose completely implausible builds, such as high turmoil with misfortune 3; the rest of its very many points are squandered on exceptionally high magic paths on pretenders, with which the AI tends to do nothing well. The Impossible AI may sometimes, however, choose instead of exceptionally idiotic scales some mediocre ones, but then tend to choose a pretender and give him or her Path-A-7 Path-B-5 Path-C-6 Path-D-3; although these are usually choices which tend not to be synergetic, the AI often cannot do anything interesting with them even if they were -- not even search properly.
So my suggestion would be to encourage the AI to take better scales:
- Forbid the AI &gt;easy to choose certain scale combinations (e.g. Turmoil + Misfortune); if it plays a theme such as TC S&amp;A with forced turmoil, it may not choose misfortune.
- Forbid the AI &gt;normal to choose any non-forced "bad" scales; that is, allow it to play themes which require death or turmoil etc., but then not to choose additional "bad" scales. (Exceptions could be: Drain with Ulm, Turmoil or Sloth with dead Ermor, etc.)
- Make some schematics or "kits" for god generation from which the AI could choose a few. That is, for each nation, give 3+ blueprints per God from which the AI can choose randomly and build up from these; that is, per theme and per choosable God, the devs must select each God and spend, say, half of the points available, the AI may distribute the rest randomly if that god gets selected during game creation. This would give the AI some "kits" from which to choose. This may require the devs to generate 100 new god half-builds per theme, but this is quickly done and fun anyhow.

An unrelated suggestion: Give the harder AI the following bonuses as well:
- research bonus
- ritual spell casting bonus (impossible AI *could* be, say, 50% reduction in cost)

[Edge]

At the server logon screen for network play, I would like to see a list of favorite IP's, with the most recently used at the top of the list. Ditto for port.

[FarAway Pretender]

Going along with tinktank's suggestions on better AI pretender design, I don't even think it would be that hard to create various "flavors" of spend.

You wouldn't need more than 8 or 10 different "combos" to get a good cross-section of dominion choices that the AI would be likely to benefit from. The random selections just aren't the kind of thing the AI can do well, and Pretender magic choices don't often have much impact. Flavors might include:

Order +3, Prod +1, Misfortune -1
Turmoil -1, Growth +2, Fortune +2
Prod +1, Death -1, Magic +3

If an AI doesn't have 120 points to spend, you just pick the most important ability and start rounding up/down one point, then go to the next, then the next. Just thinking out loud here, you get the idea.

[Azhur]

Someone might have said this suggestion before or then it was merely a dream I had.

All nations should have three different dominion types, which are all based on your effort. After numerous turns of "Cultural research", nations would evolve into the next age. E.g, Pangaea could have this kind of a system:

!! The following dominion types aren't equal to the ones in Dominions 2 !!

------------------------------------------------------------

(Weak) Early Age: Carrion Woods (The time when the forests grow wildly and the nature isn't under Dryads control.)

Requirements: None

------------------------------------------------------------

(Average) Middle Age: Pangaea (The time when the supplies are plenty and wealth can be found all over thick forests.)

Requirements: 500 CP (Cultural Points researched), 70 recources and 500 gold.

------------------------------------------------------------

(Stong) New Age: New Era (The time when Pangaea is civilized and thus learns the way of steel.)

Requirements: 2000 CP (Cultural Points researched), 200 recources and 1200 gold.

------------------------------------------------------------

This way you could decide between magic research and cultural studying, which certainly gives a nice twist to the game. While some might count on their precious spells, the others may try rampaging with their elite class forces. Of course you can again have better mages, with a newer dominion type...

[Endoperez]

Kristoffer wrote this to the FRAG! of January. I'm eagerly waiting for February just to see what they have come up with this time... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


All nations and themes have been reworked
and placed in one of three eras. Until a few days ago it was not meaningful to play games in the early or late era. The middle age is more or less the default themes and has not changed that much. So when I started to play a game of the early Version of Ermor I had a bLast.




also


Sauromatia? What?, you say. Before Christmas we begun a remaking of themes that will make things easier. Both changing stuff and modding at a later date. Each theme is now made as a separate nation. This makes it easy to add, remove and change nations. This also removes the need for a nation to exist in a given era. There was no Pythium before the break from Ermor, but another nation lived near the marshes of Pythium. There are hydras in Sauromatia, but the theurgs have not yet come. Witch kings, enaries and oiorpata rule the steppes.




This is decided before the game starts. Remember that even games of 100 turns last only 9 years game-time.

[Azhur]

Endoperez said:

This is decided before the game starts. Remember that even games of 100 turns last only 9 years game-time.



Good point.. well more nations means more options. Hopefully the balance is at least somewhat correct, when Dom 3 will be released.

[PvK]

I've mentioned before that I'd like to see magic clothing and armor require magic resources in proportion to the size of the wearer, and be required to be the same size. Looting Black Steel Plate from human-sized Ulmites won't let you protect your Titans with them, and forging full magic armor for giants would require giant amounts of magic resources. This not only makes sense and is an interesting detail that introduces more choices and restrictions, but would be a natural balancing force against huge supercombattants.

(Mounted units would be an exception, but hopefully this could be handled by another change, where riders and mounts were seperate units that were combined to make a mounted unit, and each would be tracked for damage and equipment individually.)

In addition, it could be extended to other spells as well. There is already a precedent for some of this in specific examples (Wind Ride resisted by size), but it could be an underlying system which again would tend to help balance against huge supercombattants. Teleporting, fireproofing, or making a dragon ethereal would be much harder than doing the same tricks to a dwarf. Too be fair, though, the fatigue scale would want to take this into account too. Net effect would be that a giant could buff himself as easily as a human, but a human trying to buff a giant would find it harder than buffing himself.

Another unrelated idea, which might already be part of the game that I've forgotten (?), would be a bonus to stealth ability for units in their native terrain types (perhaps as shown by survival skill).

Similarly, I think animal units should be stealthy in their own habitats at least. Bears and wolves in the desert won't be stealthy, but they would be in the woods.

PvK

[Sandman]

Better commanders:

Make commanders have more effect on the troops they lead, by creating more 'standard' type abilties. For example, an archer commander would increase the precision of troops under his command. To encourage realistic commander placement, the archer commander would also have to be near the troops he is commanding. It works pretty much like the 'auras' in Warcraft 3.

At the moment, most non-mage commanders are generally just a transport device for armies that are too big for a mage to 'carry'. With this system, choice and placement of individual commanders can make a difference to the outcome of battle.

[The_Tauren13]

More unholy nations. I love unholy nations. So much fun.

[Kristoffer O]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif What is an unholy nation?

If we go with the opinion of the average pretender its every nation but one.
If we go by consensus of pretenders its probably somewhat less than half of the nations.
If we go by modern majority its probably those who disturb the dead or kill people in the name of their god.
If we go by fantasy consensus its probably nations that uses 'unholy' priests or blood sacrifices.

You'll get more of the first kind. The second and third one as well. You will probably get less of the fourth one (the 'unholy', not the blood sacrificing ones). The distinction between unholy and holy priests is slowly dissolving. More grey zones so to speak.

BTW wich nations do you consider unholy in dom2?

[Boron]

Oh that's bad to hear . Tauren was considering mainly Ermor , Ctis dtombs and Pan CW , nations which i love also .

So in Dom 3 there is not a 3rd undead nation like Ermor ?
My favourite would be a vampire/lich based nation , something like Carthago (according to the Vampires Universe at least http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif) .

But Pan CW + Ermor will be hopefully at least still be present in Dom 3 ?


Maybe you could update your illwinter site revealing some of the plans into which direction Dom 3 goes also with a few screenshots from the (hopefully) plenty UI improvements and new features http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . I think this would help alot making Dom 3 even better and avoiding some not liked features by the community like e.g. the reduction of creatures from roughly 300 to roughly 70 from Heroes 3 to Heroes 4 .

[Kristoffer O]

Of course there is an Ermor. Undead as well as living.

Actually I do not consider desert tombs nor CW particulary unholy. I have a more sinister feeling about black forest Ulm than desert tombs. There will be more nations/themes with a holieness similar to that of the desert tombs I believe, so there is no need to worry.

Our plans are revealed in meagre portions in our dev diaries and the occasional slip here on the forum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I'm not worried about doing changes that the community won't like. So far we have done what we felt like and there haven't been any major complaints. If people complain it's mostly because we haven't made a change.

Screenshots will appear in due time.

[The_Tauren13]

Well, I was referring to nothing more or less than nations/themes with Unholy priests rather than Holy priests. Or both like DT http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. I love reanimating the dead... Nothing is more fun than spreading growth and order with hordes of zombies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[The_Tauren13]

Another wish: a very very difficult research setting that starts with 50 rp for level 1 and doubles each time. I just hope I could get anyone else to play it with me...

[Boron]

The_Tauren13 said:
Another wish: a very very difficult research setting that starts with 50 rp for level 1 and doubles each time. I just hope I could get anyone else to play it with me...


It could also made completely moddable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
Both a game with really haaaaard research or no research at all might be interesting every now and then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

Better way to report bugs and send wishes. Own forum, maybe, definitely something that can be searched. Maybe just new bug thread every month, and someone to combine a report and send it forward at the end of every month.

This isn't nearly as important for wishlist as it is for bug reports, but that would be nice too.

I think this is more of Shrapnel Games' than Illwinter's area, BTW.

[sushiboat]

I would like to see research management become more like spending money. All research points go into a pool. When you go into the research screen, you can "purchase" the next level of research in a school. You should also be able to create a queue so that future research is "purchased" in a certain order as the RP become available. I realize that the role playing aspect of assigning researchers specific topics in advance will be lost with a purchase system. However, it would be so much easier than messing with the RP bars.

[Chazar]

sushiboat said:
I would like to see research management become more like spending money...

That would also have the nice aspect of never researching a few points to far...BUTthere is more than roleplaying aspects to it. With the current system one must decide in advance what one wants to research. With the pool, I can do the research and then instant research if I know what my enemies do...in an ongoing game, I though I was pitted against BlackForest, but it turned out to be plain Ulm, so I ended up with useful spells like wither bones... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

So I am fine with the current system!

[sushiboat]

My idea wouldn't be completely "instant" in the sense that the research you buy still wouldn't be available until next turn -- just like recruited/summoned units. The issue of delaying commitment to a research path until you know more about the enemy is a concern. However, if you are hoarding RP, that also means those spells aren't available to you in the meantime. Perhaps there should be a constraint so that you can't purchase more than one level in a school per turn. Another possible constraint is that you can only spend a certain number of RP per turn, based on last turn's RP "income" plus, say, 20%.

Edit: There could also be more than one-turn waits for purchased research levels. For example, levels 1 and 2 would be available next turn when purchased, L3 and L4 would be available two turns after purchase, etc.

[PvK]

I'd want any "saving up research" system to be an option I could turn off, since it doesn't make sense to me.

The research option I would use, would be one which forced each mage to research their own spells as well, rather than one global national knowledge base which lets everyone know the same spells for their paths.

That is, discovering spells for the library would be one thing, but each mage would still need to learn each spell to be able to use it. This would also allow players to avoid having mages cast unwanted spells such as Breath of Winter freezing their own men. Of course, it would need some automation to avoid creating to much micromanagement. And like the other person's suggestion, it'd be good if it were an option.

PvK

[tinkthank]

Something minor:
If possible, could you make the missile animations in battles about twice as fast? Those arrows seem to fly incredibly slowly, and it would be both a real practical boon while watching replays if they moved a bit quicker as well as somehow satisfying to think that cavalry cannot outrun them.

[tinkthank]

1.
To encourage using "national troops" and to balance powerful SC-usage, I would love for one or more of the following features to be implemented:

- Make most summonable SCs more expensive in gem cost
- Make many summonable units more expensive in gem cost
- Flag appropriate rituals as "Summon", or even (if you want to) "Summon SC" and "Summon Unit" -- these flags can remain hidden; then, during Game Creation / Setup, let there be a setting for "Summon Unit Gem Cost": Very Cheap, Cheap, Normal, Somewhat Expensive, Expensive, Very Expensive, Exceptionally Expensive -- this switch will be *independent* of the "magic frequency" switch. (Hence one can play in a magically "normal" world, but use the gems for other purposes, such as intra-battle casting, forging, other types of rituals, etc.)

2. AI Troop-building help
- Make a (moddable!!) command of the following type
#unittype /"value"/
where /value/ can be something like: Elite, Tank, Fodder, Missile,
or something of that nature.
The AI could be told that when recruiting, it should either attempt to purchase a certain ratio of Elite to Fodder, or always as much Elite as possible, or whatever you think makes sense for creating nice armies. Conceivably, one could even make it so that the AI will react to human/other AI choices, e.g. by not buying #unittype /missile/ if running up against storm-users or going underwater, or buying a lot of these if they can cast windguide or FA and if the enemy has a lot of infantry only (like Ctis).
Of course, flagging the units with normative values like this will require a lot of interpretation from you, but I think that is not bad.

[Taqwus]

Regarding research...

* There's no real reason to put in any more RP past what's necessary for attaining level 9, so it should be capped at that without needing to fiddle precisely with scroll bars.

* Perhaps there should be an easier way to cap RP at what's necessary for completing even lower levels, such as a button for that ('finish this level', locking it in place) or 'resistance' in the scroll bar so it stops at level breakpoints.

[Boron]

There could be one really difficult research setting . Even with very hard research you can have researched everything on turn 65-75 with the right nation .

In my last Machaka game i had everything lvl 9 expect thaumaturgy and blood on turn 75 but i wasn't aiming at maxing research , had 50 mages forging and only normal magic scale . With my rather big extra gold income from my fetishes i could have recruited enough mages if i wanted to research everything on about turn 65 with very hard research .

[Huzurdaddi]

Please, please, please stop trusting the client.

Never, ever trust the client. The client should not be relied upon to do *any* validation.

When I'm putting in the insane hours that I put into this game it makes me more than a little upset that I have to trust that the guy on the other side is going to do "the right thing" and not cheat.

[Boron]

Huzurdaddi said:
Please, please, please stop trusting the client.

Never, ever trust the client. The client should not be relied upon to do *any* validation.

When I'm putting in the insane hours that I put into this game it makes me more than a little upset that I have to trust that the guy on the other side is going to do "the right thing" and not cheat.



Yeah this would be the most important new feature of all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
And getting an own server for MP http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

How much would this cost shrapnel per month if they would make a server which could host 50 or 100 dominiongames just like moses server but with even some more features ?

[Huzurdaddi]

I'm just right now bowing out of a game since I simply can not explain the resources of one guy I am going against.

Hey, maybe he's on the up and up. But I can't tell. And my turns literally take 2 hours+ to do. And that's not including the crazy amounts of diplomacy.

Never trust the client in multiplayer. In single player of course it is all good but the single player in this game is a little lacking due to AI which would be very difficult to write.

[Boron]

Huzurdaddi said:
I'm just right now bowing out of a game since I simply can not explain the resources of one guy I am going against.

Hey, maybe he's on the up and up. But I can't tell. And my turns literally take 2 hours+ to do. And that's not including the crazy amounts of diplomacy.

Never trust the client in multiplayer. In single player of course it is all good but the single player in this game is a little lacking due to AI which would be very difficult to write.


Hm 400-500 clams on turn 70 are easily possible if the guy had up FotA for a few turns .
If resources are far more then that then it is very strange though and you should ask the host of the game to check with master password or something like that .

[Huzurdaddi]

It's a modded game where hoarding is difficult to do ( 40 gems per gem generating item ).

One of the possabilities is that he has hoarded it's turn 60 and I suppose those investments would start to pay off right about now, maybe.

Not exactly sure.

Hey like I said it's possible the math works out. But it sure does not seem like it.

[Zapmeister]

Huzurdaddi said:
Please, please, please stop trusting the client.




Hear,hear. No more Norfleets!

[NTJedi]

Another idea to add... imagine 4 magic sites exist on this one province: Magic site A, B, C, D

Some magic sites should be consider outside and others inside. For example those sieging a province would gain control of magic site A &amp; C... and those inside the castle control magic site B &amp; D.

Gems coming from an outside magic site: forest of black magic=2death gems

Gems coming from an inside magic site: the great statue of fire=1 fire gem

[tinkthank]

MODDING
- A command under #selectspell called #nationspecific /number/ which allows all of the changes made until #end to be applied to that nation only: Thus one can mod national starting (making a spell a free national starting spell for a nation but leaving the spell unchanged for all other nations) or allow some nations easier access to some spells (for example: allowing Abysia to research King of Elemental Fire at Conj 6 instead of 7, or having it cost only 40 fire gems instead of 50 for one nation only).

[tinkthank]

TACTICAL AI

Two suggestions here:

- Allow a setting (perhaps in the Troop screen, if this is to be kept) where commanders can tell their troops what to do when their enemy routs. The default could be “normal”, which is as it is currently now in dom2 2.14: slaughter the routing enemy as you see fit (kind of distasteful to me, but who cares). There could be 4 options: Default, Ranged Only, Melee Only, Self Defence. The last option would leave the victorious attacking troops in a position to let all enemy troops rout except those who are either berserk, immortal in their own dominion, have no free path to rout (and hence attack the victorious survivor). One could also call this option “merciful” for RPG purposes, or whatever. The second option would have the melee troops return to their original positions and have only ranged firing units and spellcasters continue to cast spells; the third option will disable archer and spellcaster fire and let the melee troops mop up. The first option could also be called “slaughter” if you wanted. These options would, at least, help reduce friendly-fire casualties, as well as being halfway “realistic” and allow for RPG-immersion for those who care.

- *IF* there is to be no “spell selection” tac-AI improvement of the type “give this spell high priority” and/or “never cast this spell”, then flag each existing non-ritual spell with one of the following type of spelltypes:
#spelltype summon
#spelltype damage
#spelltype debuff (this could also include anti-haste spells which freeze, etc.)
#spelltype selfbuff
#spelltype otherbuff
(these could conceivably be differentiated more: buffarmor, buffresistance, buffother, etc.)
#spelltype heal
#spelltype whatever
Then, commanders could be given one “mentality” type to cast: summon, damage, buffarmor, heal, etc..., once their script runs out.

[tinkthank]

- MORE WAYS TO ENCOURAGE NATIONAL TROOP USAGE:
- In game setup or Map Setup, there should be a separate screen which one activates by clicking “Extra Parameters”:
- There is a setting there for “Cost of Independent Troops”, ranging from Very Inexpensive (perhaps –25% gold cost) to Exceptionally Expensive (+75% gold). Thus, if wanted, non-national independents can be made more difficult to come by, if this is wished.
- Flag all ritual spells with types, including these types: #spelltype summontroops and #spelltype summoncommander ; in Game Setup, under “Extra Parameters”, there is a setting for “Ritual Summon Cost”. You can set “Summoned Troops” and/or “Summon Commander” to any setting between Very Inexpensive (perhaps –25% gem cost), Inexpensive (-10%), Default (normal), Slightly Expensive (+10%), Somewhat Expensive (+20%), Very Expensive (+30%), Exceptionally Expensive (+50% gem cost), to Incredibly Expensive (+75%), while keeping research values and Magic Site Frequency independent of these choices.
(This can also be used for Items as well – there could be a column for “Set Forging Costs” with identical settings...)
- Make a setting in this screen for “Gem-Producing Items and Units”, ranging from Easy (produces 1 extra gem every turn) to Very Difficult (produces gems at ¼ rate, or thus 1 gem every 4 turns).
- Make SCs in general more expensive.
- Make extreme damage-dealing spells of one certain type (e.g. wrathful skies) either more expensive or allow more possibilities of countering.

[tinkthank]

GAME SETUP
- Handicapping: Would like to elaborate on the idea I posted earlier. In the game setup screen, let there be 1 column labeled “Handicap” – the default is set to “none”. This column and these settings are used independently of any AI strength and should have nothing to do whether a nation is AI (whatever strength) or human. There are two settings: None (default) and Set Handicap; this opens up a second screen in which the game creator can change via a slider the following parameters: Ritual Spell Cost (very cheap – very expensive), Unit HP, and Nation Design Points.

For this last feature (Nation Design Points), the game checks whether the pretender submitted for that nation has the right number of design points. If that nation is handicapped (for example: Has a -40 design point handicap, or a -125 point handicap, or even a +40 positive handicap), then the pretender chosen will be invalid if it has too many design points (e.g. the "normal" amount for a handicapped nation).
Handicapping in this way will allow fun 1on1 experimentations and will also allow viable 5 against 3 games, for example, as well as make playing against the AI possible. Also, this way, one can play against, for instance, a very rich Marignon, or a very magically powerful Tien Chi, or a very robust Atlantis, either as human or as AI.

Additonally,

- Let us see under “View Game Settings” everything applicable: AI Strengths, if any, Handicaps, etc.

[Ranger]

Wish List for Domminions III

1. A new Ruler Class, each nation would have 4 or 5 units (Royal Family, etc) and one new way to win would be to capture or kill the other nations rulers. Each ruler unit would have special abilitys and when the unit is lost the whole nation would take a hit.

2. Ability to capture units.

3. Random Map.

4. More building types where some buildings would require research.

5. One cool idea from the game EFS fading suns was different relgious factions that were very powerful in the begining of the game and would ban different types of research. You could align yourself with one of these factions to receive some benifits or be attack by the faction.

6. Ability to make peace and build a allance with different factions.

7. Please keep the ability to re-name units.

[Endoperez]

Ranger said:
Wish List for Domminions III

1. A new Ruler Class, each nation would have 4 or 5 units (Royal Family, etc) and one new way to win would be to capture or kill the other nations rulers. Each ruler unit would have special abilitys and when the unit is lost the whole nation would take a hit.




I would also like to see this. C'tis has too many Lizard Kings for my test, as an example...



2. Ability to capture units.




Other than with spells (Enslave, Mass Enslave, Charm, Hellbind Heart and converting attacks), and when they retreat to your territory (=instant death)?

5. One cool idea from the game EFS fading suns was different relgious factions that were very powerful in the begining of the game and would ban different types of research. You could align yourself with one of these factions to receive some benifits or be attack by the faction.


[/quote]

Or put to Dominions terms: guiding your religion to certain direction by choosing a Theme will change the types of magic your nation has available, thus making certain paths of research unprofitable.
Encountering some rebellious, non-Serpent Cult Pythians when playing Pythium might be interesting... But I think the theme=nation change allows this anyway.

[Sandman]

A small idea: give priest commanders with sacred units under their command a bonus to their preaching ability. After all, you'd expect sacred units to be useful for spreading the faith.

[Chazar]

Ranger said:2. Ability to capture units.

...and sell them back to their owner for ransom? That would be pretty cool!

I imagine that fatigued and paralyzed units at the end of the battle should be found by the victor with a propability slimilar like items are found right now. Like items, they should be transferred to a dungeon (functions as the laboratory for items). You can then just kill them or send them to somebody else, just like items. Nothing else is possible. And the captives should have a small chance to catch a disease while being in the dungeon...!!! Cool!

PS: ...or maybe everybody who dies with something between -10 and 0 hitpoints gets a chance depending on his negative hitpoints to survive as a captive!

[tinkthank]

- Make events occur on a per-province, not per-nation basis. If a nation has 200 provinces, 100 events per turn would not be unthinkable under a Turmoil scale.
Of course this presupposes a type of UI overhaul as I suggested in previous posts on the Wishlist thread (mail window, events window, forge reports window, spell reports window, etc.) so that the "message" screen is not flooded.
- Then, increase the intensity of bad events, so that misfortune is truly something to fear if very high.
Then, greatly increase the number of special events which only happen if you have a certain type of scale (preferably: those which are currently considered underused as "no-brainers"). Such things could be, for example, to greatly increase the number and intensity of events which require Misfortune 1, Misfortune 2, and Misfortune 3 respectively. Ditto for Luck 1, 2 and 3. (Fun and interesting would be, for example, neat types of helpful units which join your cause: assassins and mages of various types, perhaps those which are not available anywhere else, as well as sages.) One could make many more certain events requiring Productivy 1, 2 or 3: new items are transported to your lab (perhaps those not forgable by ordinary means), perhaps a group of units get a boost to armor; perhaps a special event requiring Prod 3 will yield you a castle (or maybe: only if it occurs in a province with a castle already in it, although this would tend to encourage "mad castling") in which you can recruit your national units which all automatically have +1 protection or something, or adds a special Heavy-Infantry type unit to that castle. I think that would be neato. Of course, this last bit would require a different way of attributing units protection stats.
- Make quite a number of nation-specific events (or even better for modding: nation-type specific events, e.g. for tree-huggers, blood-worshippers, cold-lovers, underwater, etc.)

[tinkthank]

All spells are flagged according to a type. Ritual spells are broken down into those which summons commanders to the caster, those that summon troops to the caster, both, those that send attacks to far away provinces, those that do damage, those that protect, etc. etc.

Higher level Summon Troops and higher level Summon Commanders have a chance of backfiring. This chance of backfiring should be dependent on the level of the spell, the caster level, and luck: a level 1 summons will have a 0% chance of failure, +1% chance per level of misfortune -1% chance plus level of luck, -2% chance per path level above the required number. A level 2 summons may have a 2% chance, a lvl 3 summons a 3%, a level 4 a 5% chance, a level 5 a 7% chance, a lvl 6 a 9%, a lvl 7 a 12% chance, a lvl 8 a 15% chance, and a level 9 a 20% chance of backfiring. (Or something like that.)
"Backfiring" means that the summons will by no means be under the control of the casting mage. If backfired, there is a 50% chance that the mage simply loses his/her gems and nothing happens, and a 50% chance that the summons will run rampant in the laboratory -- treat as an attack on that province.

This could also be implemented for rituals which summon attackers on distant provinces, like Ghost Riders.

Some risk for high-gain spells (sort of like the way that Void Summoning is handled, or Manifestation, etc.).

This will then not "nerf" high level summons, but make things a bit more... interesting.

[Scott Hebert]

I'm sorry if people have already suggested this.

I had an idea about the Scales. Instead of good costing you points, and bad gaining you points, why not simply remove the point cost (or gain) from the Scales?

Naturally, you would have to balance each part of the scale to each other part of the scale. You simply can't let everyone take '3 good' in every scale. Instead, you would change the modifiers so that each choice is as good as any other choice.

Take, for example, the 'Order/Turmoil' scale. You can rename it to 'Centralization/Decentralization' or keep the name the same. The idea, though, is that the more you choose on one side of the scale, the more tilted you are towards that idea. Same as before. However, now 'Order' is not clearly better than 'Turmoil'. Let us think of some ways that Order/Centralization can be good:

Affect/determine Admin% of Fortification.
Affect/determine effectiveness of preaching.

There could be others, but this is enough to start on. Basically, the idea with this scale would be how 'inward-focused' your nation is. A high rating in this scale would give you a higher Admin% on your Forts, and possibly raise your priest level when preaching (a la that Order-specific 25pt. special in DomII). But what would be the drawbacks? Well, what are the drawbacks to an inward-focused nation? Perhaps worse scouting reports. Perhaps a reduction/elimination of the Supply moving outward from your fortifications. Perhaps a reduction of Dominion moving out of the provinces it's generated in.

You get the idea, however. It is a self-controlling thing. The 'Turmoil' part would get all of the opposite traits. Less/no Admin%, Less/no preaching ability, but better scouting reports, better Supply generation from Forts, and a bonus on moving Dominion out of generated Provinces.

The only concern I'd have for doing things this way is to make sure that you don't just have 'all Order, none, or all Turmoil'.

[YellowCactus]

Site Searching has always been one of my favorite suprizes. I'd like to see the elemental, astral, and nature sites work more like the death and blood sites. For instance. If your getting 4 air gems per turn out of a province....the elemental air presence should have some negative/positive effect on the province. Fire element should be just as negative on a province as blood. And Water may even heal afflictions...or have a high chance of flooding. There could be a constant 'beckoning' in strong nature provinces. It's a dangerous world out there. Your own provinces may be more deadly than the enemies. Think of quicksand and bogs. I'd hate to lost a unit of elite guards in the 'Fire-swamp'!
-yc

[DrPraetorious]

Covers posts before #316194

I'll edit the reply and add in the other stuff as I trawl through it.

This is intended as an aid to prevent duplication of posts, as well as to move on to more concrete suggestions - I made this up for my own benefit and then decided to post it. This thing is quite long, so be warned.

In a few cases I mis-read SC as spell-caster, I guess it always means super-combatant. Or Saber Cherry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

I'm not reporting what PRIORITY people give to these different questions.

My comments in response are included after accreditation.

-- ZEITGEIST / MODDING / OTHER --
Tinkthank suggests concentrating on the fun aspects of the game and minimizing tedium. Very good advice.
As many different viable strategies as you can manage (Tinkthank,) and he makes a persuasive argument for it.
Make it easier to figure out the underlying mechanics from inside the game - possibly with sound effects (Zooko). E.g. the level of boost to magic skills provided by Communion Master, the number of points of wall a unit rebuilds per turn, etc. I certainly agree with this.
Hasslmaster thinks the increased control over tactical combat we're asking for will make the game suck-like-Moo3. He views an inability to finely control tactical behavior as a game-balance tool to partially nerf super-combatants. He's also opposed to including more stuff just for the sake of having it - which makes him subhuman. For the record, Moo3 sucked because it was shipped in a pathetically unfinished state. It's true that if you guys are worried that you might not have time to finish Dom3, do whatever features you do decide to implement well, rather than taking all of these suggestions and doing a half-assed job.
Preserve weird error messages.
Peter Ebbesen has lots of armchair software engineering suggestions for your edification.
No need to add more stuff (Zooko, PhilD, Magnate). NO! NO NO NO NO NO! I want an order of magnitude (10x) as much of EVERYTHING. Whoever's job it is to write the config files, I want Kristoffer (is that his name?) to look at the design specs, fall on his knees and BEG FOR DEATH. See below.
But izaqyos redeems himself as human being by wanting more stuff. Zooko would like more stuff but rates it as low priority.
Better balance (Cohen). Sure, but not at the expense of adding more stuff for fear it won't be balanced.
Water magic is underpowered (Cainehill). I disagree, but okay. He's right about Thetis' blessing, although Pythium is heavily into water magic and can find it quite useful.
More themes (Taqwus), at least some for everybody. I think every nation should have at least six themes, and you should have half again as many nations (to get roughly ten times as many possible positions).
More data specified in text files for more comprehensive modding (Saber Cherry, tinkthank), checksum feature to make sure all players are using the same data files (Saber Cherry). Make sure to allow modders to exercise a lot of creativity (tinkthank).
Seemlessly use multiple mods at once (Tinkthank).
Make it easier to tweak the combat system (PvK).
Don't do anything that would add more micromanagement! (Yossar)
Extensive debate on: should the underlying mechanics be simpler, should the underlying mechanics be deterministic, and should the underlying mechanics be visisble or obscure (Zooko, Turin, Agrajag, Chazar etc.) Concrete suggestions: sound effects for missing in combat (Zooko), display communion-master bonuses (Zooko), startup-switch to reduce random elements, especially in tactical combat resolution (Gandalf Parker), more info on quick reference sheets (Chazar).


-- AI PLAYERS / POLITICS --
Should be smarter, should build forts (Vynd, Kelan, LDiCesare, tinkthank).
Should have some kind of diplomacy (Kelan, LDiCesare).
Should be available for easy customization as a separate module (Peter Ebbesen, splogger, NTJedi).
Different AI personalities randomly selected at start of game (NTJedi).
Option to enable the AI to ignore supplies (NTJedi).
AI more aggressive at higher difficult levels (NTJedi).
Better messaging interface (Cohen, tinkthank). Yeah, I find this annoying myself.
Diplomacy? You should have some (Ironhawk).
Optional system to have real meaningful alliances (PvK).

-- DEITY DESIGN / NATIONS --
No "gimme" scales (Cohen, Ironhawk, Blacksilver).
Ironhawk and Blacksilver are actually complaining specifically about population killing domains. Graeme Dice and Agrajag argue that this isn't really a problem. See also note on taxes, below.
No wasted points (Vynd.)
Pick theme before pretender type (Edi).
Save your pretender lists (izaqyos, silhouette). Silhouette also thinks that pretender design should be a separate standalone executable.
Another kind of magic (izaqyos). Personally, I like the symmetry.
More dragons types (The_Tauren13).
Less useless pretender types (Sandman).
Pretender selection should make more of a difference in your religion (Sandman).
New nations: dark elves (izaqyos,) conjuring-heavy astral variant with more angels to accompany it (izaqyos). Can't you just add them with a mod?
New species: catgirls, bunnyfolk (Saber Cherry, who is also SC).
New theme - unseelie for Man (Leif).

-- GAME SETUP / CONNECTIVITY --
Option to have a (random) gem production multiplier independent of site frequency (Sabery Cherry). On first glance this looks like a complete waste of time but actually I agree with Saber Cherry it's cool. For one thing it is actually less random - since your odds of finding no useful sites at all in your first N provinces are reduced.
Option to disable mercenaries (SurvivalistMerc).
Option to specify the number of pretender points available (Deccan).
Allow people to take over for computer players (deccan).
Ability to send a .2h file to the host without "finalizing" your turn so that quickhost doesn't go, or to have a "quit without saving" option that doesn't send the file (Chazar). Also send a message to all connected clients demanding the .2h file when a forced host occurs (Chazar).
LDiCesare wants to be sure the game stays viable as SP or hotseat, so hide any of this client/server stuff people want if you choose to do it.
Silhouette thinks pretender/nation design should be a separate executable.
More than one player of some nation (rylen).
More settings when you start an individual game (Boron.)

-- TACTICAL INTERFACE --
Show spells that are being scripted as I'm writing the script (RedRover, Rainbow). Yeah.
Edit spell scripts without starting over (RedRover).
View injuries on units when passing cursor over them (Zooko, SurvivalistMerc, kukimuki). That's a good start.
Single access inventory screen (Magnate).
Any solution that will make finding magic items on heroes easier (Ironhawk), presumably either a hero sort, or the single access inventory screen, or some indicator that tells you when a hero has items.
Interface to exchange equip between field commanders is clunky (silhouette).
Clean up garrisoned troops display (Rainbow, Taqwus?) I can't find Taqwus asking for this. Personally, I think it would be good enough if the troops were sorted by type instead of by build time.

-- STRATEGIC INTERFACE --
Individuals who are set to sacrifice should not be affected by the pool-blood slave order. (Zen, Peter Ebbesen) I don't like Mictlan anyway so I won't comment. Peter Ebbesen suggests that sacrificers should be able to pull slaves out of labs, which I think is a more elegant solution. Edi suggests that individual commanders should have a checkbox which exempts them from gem-pooling, Rainbow agrees.
Shrink Icons for commanders so that they don't cover so much of the map (LDiCesare).
Fixing the number of gems a Mage "should" carry and having them reload automatically when possible. (Zen) I've never found this to be that much of an issue but go nuts.
Add a disband command (Kaljarnaha, Cainehill, Chris Adams, jseppane, Agrajag). Jseppane suggests that disbanded troops should become province defense points somehow. Agrajag particularly complains about the events that give you militia.
Warn you when you're splitting up your army because only some of it can make the trip (Kaljarnaha, YellowCactus). YellowCactus asks for a "movement safeguard" but I don't know what he means. I've gotten used to it but it is annoying.
Waypoints for long-range army movement (Magnate, Sedna, Chazar, Ironhawk). Sedna's suggestion is actually slightly different.
Prevent commander name-bashing (Phoenix-D). Does he play with rename turned off? That should definitely be on by default.
Show more/less stuff when you hit F1 (Cainehill).
Sort commanders (Cainehill, deccan).
Key to scroll through units of various sorts (incl. Sneaking units, units with forge bonuses) (RedRover) I'd also add units currently assigned to defend, units currently assigned to research, and units in territories currently bordering on territories belonging to enemy players.
Put mages random picks on his icon (SurvivalistMerc, Gandalf Parker). Personally, what I do is I take each newly recruited mage and change his name to reflect the random pick(s) he got. I notice that Agrajag also does this. Still, it would be good if I didn't need to.
Alchemy should be handled via the lab screen rather than as an order for commanders (Rainbow, Zooko). Zooko actually says "use best alchemist automatically".
Gems displayed numerically (Rainbow).
Ability to define groups of Commanders regardless of their location. Such a group defines a common color, a common edit-able sticky note and allows a common tactical setup screen as if all commanders (and their troops) would be located in the same province. (Each commander's icon displays his groups' color code: a pixel somewhere or colored frame around the icon, etc.)
Graphical overlay on map screen showing which provinces have been searched to what level (rylen). Sorry I left this one out the first time, I accidentally consolidated it with something else that wasn't really the same.
Option to have people in provinces with labs auto-deposit their gems (Yossar).

-- ECONOMIC INTERFACE --
Incl. Some sort of province governor or auto-tax heuristic (Zen, Kel, Peter Ebbesen, LDiCesare, FarAway, SurvivalistMerc, Rainbow). YES! I hate spending time hunting down bandits and giving them tax breaks.
Boron (also FarAway) says governors should be able to manage - provincial taxes, items that you use to horde gems, building of units anywhere in the empire. Hasslmaster objects, says you should remove the gem hordeing exploit, rather than making it easier to manage. I think - EITHER make it easier to manage or remove it entirely.
Sort provinces, provinces list should show terrain types (Cainehill).
Pictorial/better/more accessible representations of province stats (Turin, Cainehill).

-- START-OF-TURN/OTHER/ALL INTERFACE --
Every screen should be accessible from every other screen without going back up and then back down again (Tinkthank).
Separate server and client applications (Esben Mose Hansen).
"General Overhaul" (Peter Ebbesen).
"Saved Games" folder to make directory structure more elegant (Peter Ebbesen).
Better control of battle playback, so you can pause, rewind and just quit instead of just FFing (Zooko). Oh, absolutely.
Custom keyboard shortcuts (PhilD, RedRover). RedRover suggests a bunch of specific kbd shorcuts.
More informative battle/siege reports (Kel, rylen). Definitely, perhaps four different battle reports (very brief, brief, extensive, watch the battle.)
Review reports from previous turns (Phoenix-D, slimemold). Slimemold (and LDiCesare) actually asks for an intelligence system with reports that age. I think you should provide both.
Reports of leader death should be more informative (Taqwus). Likewise reports from harmful spells e.g. Beckoning, Lure of the Deep, Burden of Time. (Edi, Kukimuki I think).
Ability to change pwd during play (Cainehill).
More pop-up information (RedRover).
"Find" dialogue to look for specific magic items, leaders by level or by skill level or whatever (RedRover).
Ability to go back and forth between tabs during pretender creation, "Save God" option (Endoperez).
Notification of how close you are to returning your god to life (silhouette)
Remember hotkey assignments between games (SurvivalistMerc). Remember them for each nation (Edi).
Chazar wants to be able to customize your own color-coding (Chazar).
In general, more information you can see without clicking the better (SurvivalistMerc.) I don't know, I think the game screen is going to become overcrowded fast...
Option to switch the two buttons on the mouse (kukimuki).
Pretender and nation should be in a single panel. (kukimuki).
Central management for item forging at each lab (kukimuki).

-- SHINY THINGS --
Better graphics (Zooko). (Saber Cherry) specifically wants double resolution and more poses for the little guys.
Ability to save battle replays (PhilD).
Links to flavor source material in manual (Horst F. Jens)
Replay entire games (izaqyos).
See dead bodies lying on battlefield (PvK).
Maps should be able to show pictures or play movies (Leif). Sure, as long as people with slow connections can turn this off.
Integrated mp3 player for music (Olive).
Background on intro screen should be softer (kukimuki).
2d Graphics might actually look better / be more informative (kukimuki).
Awesome graphics would be nice, but sounds difficult so don't bother (tinkthank).

-- TACTICAL - COMPLETELY NEW STUFF --
Make the battlefield bigger and allow more units (PvK). PvK claims this is partially a game-balance issue.
Entirely new combat engine (Saber Cherry), especially with non-integer weapon stats. Saber wants to make sure that a Kopesh can be incrementally different from a Wakizashi, but I don't think this is important.
Influence of terrain on battle (Cohen, Quantum Mechanic, Chazar, PvK, rylen). I have some concrete suggestions here.
Improved Siege (Cohen, Quantum Mechanic). Yes, I think things should always be improved.
Initiative System (Cohen, Zen). Zen thinks this system should be complicated, Cohen thinks it should have something to do with the leader of the squad.
More battle types, especially more assassination stuff (Cohen).
Battle simulator (PhilD, izaqyos). Rainbow wants to be able to see just the starting deployment of his army.
Hit location system with armor on different hit locations (PvK).
Champions-style speed resolution with 10 phases per round and you act on a number of phases equal to your Speed (Saber Cherry). You've all played Champions (aka Hero games) right? Post is 305118. Cainehill points out that this proposal would be difficult to balance, although Saber Cherry has a fairly complicated proposal that would work.
Two leadership values - one for number of guys, one for number of squads those guys are organized into (Leif).
Make tactical combat real-time (kukimuki).
Make tactical combat deterministic/non-random (Zooko).
No don't do that ().

-- TACTICAL - SCRIPTING/AI CHANGES GENERAL --
Longer order queues (Cohen). Absolutely, but see below.
Archers should fire at a squad until it routs and then select new targets (SurvivalistMerc). Units should retarget more often in general (SurvivalistMerc).
Units ordered to flee don't change provinces if you win the battle (Avocet, SurvivalistMerc, Kukimuki). Leif wants something similar - thinks that units set to "fire and flee" should hide behind the rest of the army rather than fleeing entirely. Many subtle variations on this request.
Store/create scripts, better scripting (PhilD, Magnate, Edi, Chris Adams, Edge, SurvivalistMerc, Rainbow). Oh god yes. Edi suggests that the scripts might be stored nation-specific, which is fine as long as you can copy them. Chris Adams wants "combined-arms" orders which allow different units to cooperate, which would be very useful but I think probably too complicated. Rainbow suggests script-level control of in-combat gem usage. Rainbow suggests that scripts should auto-warn you if you right a script that won't finish, and thinks it should give you an estimated fatigue cost. Given that I mostly play pythium and the scriper can't know how many communicants I'll have I think this would be bloody useless.
But don't make it harder to use! (Nagot Gick Fel, Zooko, FarAway). Yes, true.

-- TACTICAL - MAGIC CHANGES INCL. SCRIPTING/AI --
More different, useful, combat spells (Agrajag).
Ability to specify spells that will not be cast (Argitoth, Edge, SurvivalistMerc, tinkthank.) A real scripting system should definitely address this.
Add "rest" command for mages (Rainbow). AI should manage fatigue so that mages don't pass out, unless it would be a good idea for them to do so (Rainbow).
AI should make more intelligent spell selections (Rainbow).
Touch spells should always be usable in melee if the mage "wants" (Rainbow).

-- TACTICAL - NEW ORDERS --
More unit orders (Agrajag).
Multiple formations (Agrajag).
Flanking Maneuvers (Cohen). How exactly would this work?
"Skirmish" orders (Avocet, Rainbow). The feeling is that horse archers and other skirmisher-type units suck right now. Valid point.
More squad arrangement flexibility (Magnate.)
New Order: Wait and Fire. (Edi).
(Chris Adams) wants to target commanders. Graeme Dice points out why this is a bad idea. Chris Adams points out that is an inelegant fix, suggests instead maybe - bodyguards take damage in the commander's stead, or maybe commanders have a "disguise chance" which while it works they can't successfully be picked out.
New hero order to stay coherent with own units (Leif). Personally, I'd like an order that told my entire friggin army to say coherent.
"Dig in" strategic order that provides defensive bonuses but makes you worse at patrolling (rylen).
Command to make units rout under certain condition (kukimuki).

-- TACTICAL - BALANCE AND COMPLAINTS --
Eliminating repeling and morale?!?!?! (Zooko) A bunch of people jumped down his throat for suggesting this. Personally, I think you should go the reverse route and introduce trip attacks, grappling, etc.
Change in hero routing AI (Vynd, Argitoth, Magnate, Phoenix-D, Peter Ebbesen, Kukimuki?) The current rules especially nerf people with autosummon.
Troops should never rout if all enemies have routed (kukimuki). Actually, this has happened historically, but it does happen too often in this game.
More ways to stop SCs (izaqyos, PvK) PvK suggests bigger penalties for being ganged-up on. PvK also suggests that each SC might have to research all the spells he knows - please kill me, instead.
Friendly fire has too much impact (Phoenix-D, Kukimuki), units run into poison clouds (Phoenix-D). The scripting system should definitely address this stuff. FarAway just wants more settings available for archers.
Simultaneous blows on first round of melee engagement (PvK).
Minimum squad sizes by unit type (Cohen).
Faster units can start in more different places on the battlefield (rylen) or enter from the sides ala flankers in 40K (rylen).
Don't auto-cast spells that make units vulnerable to an attack form as a side-effect (Taqwus.) Alternatively, fix it so that the de-buffing side effects don't hurt you if you are 100% immune. (Taqwus)

-- WORLD MAP - GENERAL --
Allow maps to start with independent global enchantments (Endoperez).
Save and modify randomly generated maps (Endoperez).
Pick random map generator color scheme (Edi).
Option for stronger seasonal effects (PvK).
Option to exclude pretenders from hall of fame (rylen), option to make all members visible (rylen).

-- INDEPENDENTS --
More indigenous/independent population types (Saber Cherry, tka, Aetius).
Indigenous/independent populations are different in an economic sense (Saber Cherry, tka).
Independents grow in strength, defend forts, etc. (Endoperez, tka, PvK).
Option on Defensive units not representative of indigenous population (Endoperez, tka).
Option to include more complicated rules for independents, presumably meant for random map generator (Endoperez, PvK). In particular, they'd like independents to form "nations" that may even try to oppose player positions in some kind of coordinated way.

-- ECONOMICS --
More production in more populated provinces (Aetius, Kukimuki), especially provinces that make Knights. Kukimuki suggests a system for moving resources around.
More buildings, more kinds of forts, more types of Fort defenses (Cohen, Boron, Vynd, Silhouette, izaqyos, Graeme Dice, Sandman). Boron would like "wonders" ala Civ you can build - I don't see how these would be different from global enchantments, myself. Sandman wants fortresses to vary by terrain or by nation (or vary more), and he wants forts to have extra abilities. Castle types fixed by nation, more than one castle per nation. (Aetius)
Marketplace (rylen), for magic items that go up for auction. Rylen expresses reservations. I don't know where to classify this suggestion.
Lowering taxes should cause population growth (Blacksilver.) This has also been suggested as a counter-weight the population killing domains.
High province defense should lower Turmoil (Blacksilver.) Does he mean turmoil or unrest?
More ways to recover population (Blacksilver, others.) I agree completely, both for game balance and thematic reasons. It ought to be possible to be a more beneficient sort of deity, I think.

-- PROVINCES / TERRAIN --
Dominion changes terrain type (Aetius).
More terrain types (Cohen, Sedna, Edi). Sedna only asks for more water types. How many terrain types? Well, we have about seven now, so.... seventy!
Chazar suggests perhaps we should have terrain scales, or maybe multiple sorts of tags (Chazar, Endoperez).
Option to make underwater areas all or mostly barren (PvK, LDiCesare).
Scale settings past +3/-3 (Saber Cherry), even if you can't select them for your domain. So, if you're +3 Heat in a desert the province is +4 Heat.

-- SITES --
More sites that do different stuff (FarAway).
Sites that you can fight when you find them ala MoM nodes or Warlords ruins (Kelan, FarAway). But Chazar wants to make sure those are optional (Chazar).

-- EVENTS --
Superstition event should raise probability of other events in that province (Kukimeki).
More events, events depend on more other factors (Cohen, Endoperez, PrinceofLowLight, Oelfwine). How many more different events should there be? Perhaps there should be ten times as many?
Ability to turn off events entirely (Boron).
Events/prizes that alter deity picks or unit stats (Magnate).
Deathmatches should have different name - possibly mage-only and warrior-only death matches (PvK), computer AI should not send pretender gods into deathmatch (PvK, NTJedi).
Better rewards for deathmatches (Leif, LDiCesare).

-- STRATEGIC - GENERAL --
"Revise" supplies and disease question (PvK). PvK claims that fasting for a month doesn't cause disease. Personally, I think your system is excellent in it's accurate yet simple reflection of historical warfare.
Allow eliminated-retreating units to become "refugees" (PvK).
Survival allowing attacks deep in enemy territory (Chazar). Maybe survival = stealth but only in chosen territory?
Looting of labs (Cohen). I agree.
More ways to bring supplies with you (Boron).
Change the way intercepting enemy forces works (Vynd, Deccan, Chazar, Ironhawk, possibly Graem Dice also post #304838 is hard to follow.) I don't know what SEIV stands for but Deccan's idea is clearly good.
"Attack and Pillage" order for cavalry (Taqwus, LDiCesare), Raiding should be viable (izaqyos). Taqwus offers an elegant solution to izaqyos' legitimate desire. Graem Dice says "raiding is too strong" (post #304838) but I don't think this is what he means. LDiCesare actually suggests "Attack, Pillage and Return".
Cohen would like to be able to coordinate the order in which certain global actions occur, especially spell casting (he gives two examples where this is strategically desirable.) Graeme Dice also wants to do this on the tactical board.
Better sailing mechanics (PvK).
Message warning when a merc contract is about to expire (rylen).
Make province defense better, especially against spells (NTJedi).

-- UNITS - GENERAL --
Hydras should have head slots and recuperation (Kukimeki).
Include an icon for every unit property (tinkthank, others). They made a list of all the properties that lack icons.
Summons (esp. Uniques) get semi-random stats (Turin).
Differential experience benefits for different troop types (Cohen, Endoperez)
More independent units (Cohen, Saber Cherry) - how many more? Pick the smallest two digit number you can think of.
More skills and special abilities (Cohen, Endoperez, PrinceofLowLight). I say - TEN TIMES AS MANY.
More sacred units, bigger effect from blessing (Zen).
Mercenary squads should replenish (rylen).
Option of using spells to revive enemy commanders from the dead in addition to your own (rylen). Again, he's dubious about this, but there's already a spell that lets you pull famous people back from the dead, just make it work on anybody.
Hand off default equipment to other models (rylen).
Some units have magic path ratings that vary from season to season (Endoperez).
Some units have a magic path determined by the season/month recruited (Endoperez).
Flyers should have limited ability to cross water (RedRover). Zen suggests that if Fly-&gt;Sailing the problem is solved. RedRover doesn't like that.

-- HEROIC UNITS / SKILLS --
Units with prophetic powers should actually provide prophecy of some kind (Kukimeki).
Experience points should make non-combat abilities of units (Preaching, Stealth) better. (tinkthank).
Strength of hall of fame benefits should be indicated (Kukimeki).
Awe/fear should have an impact on unrest reduction while patrolling (Kukimeki).
Heroic abilities that alter entire province's economy (FarAway).
Heroic skills relate to unit purpose, or you get to choose between two skills for each unit like in HoMM (Cohen, Zooko, Magnate, FarAway),
Heroes show up with more types of goodies (Endoperez.)
National Hero Generator (Cohen).
Addition of "Royalty" (Ranger). These are national heroes that figure into victory somehow.
More multiple-unit actions (Endoperez).
More stuff for priests to cast (Cohen).
Suggested hero ability "Thief". Lets hero perform thief actions while hiding in enemy territory. I think this is definitely a good idea. (Endoperez, Silhouette).
Add artillery (Argitoth, Leif). Leif actually said "siege engines".
Seduction should be a more generally available tactic and not just available to Succubi, nor should it require teleportation (PvK).
Units gain new skills as they rise in level (Leif).
Defeated enemies sometimes turn into magic items (rylen.) He's dubious about this but I think it's an awesome idea - if I got the "Hand of Ortalgor" after killing Ortalgor I'd totally wear it.
Hall of Fame units and prophets can sometimes survive and be taken prisoner when "killed" (Chazar)
Unassigned commanders generate production points in their province (Blacksilver).
"Prayer" (he means preaching) giving Fortune bonuses when domain limit for that priest is reached (Blacksilver). I think this is a bad idea from a game balance perspective.
Unoccupied mages reduce Drain in province (Fortune). "Unoccupied" mages already make research so I don't quite see what he's on about.

-- UNITS AND COMBAT SPELLS - BALANCE --
De-buffing spells (tinkthank).
Nerf supercombatants (Saber Cherry).
Force players to recruit a balanced mix of forces by making heavily recruited troops more expensive (Nagot Gick Fel, Saber Cherry, Zooko) The_Tauren13 thinks this should apply to summoned troops as well. Zooko regards the process of carefully examining different, fluctuating unit prices as "fun".
PrinceofLowLight (possibly Saber Cherry, can't tell) disagrees with this, thinks that the units should just be better balanced, admits that perfect balance it not possible but maintains that other changes in the game can make light cavalry and light infantry desirable for other reasons. I have my own solution to this. Personally, I agree about light cav, but not about militia. Militia should be cheap and worthless, raised only as an emergency, because this is the real history of medieval warfare.
LDiCesare thinks you should just get rid of the inferior units.
Force players to make more diverse forces by nerfing over specialized heroes somehow? (Foom).
Flying is too powerful (Zen, Graeme Dice I think - 304848 hard to parse). I remember when Magic (the card game) nerfed flyers and it was a major mistake. (Chris Adams) wants flying units to be even better, specifically more able to avoid enemies.
Lifedrain is overpowered, nerf it (The_Tauren13, Ironhawk, Hasslmaster).
No, don't nerf lifedrain, overhaul fatigue instead (Graeme Dice).
National Units should be better later into the game (Ironhawk, LDiCesare). Perhaps higher-level castles allow higher-level troops. Personally I find that I never have enough total forces, so the fact that my magic troops and wizards are better as a group than my pikeneers just doesn't come up. LDCisare + Splooger suggests a late-game building (or research) that costs big piles and unlocks more national troops.
Super-combatants should lust after fuzzy animals (Zen). If you laughed at this joke, you've been reading this document way too closely.

-- MY WISHLIST --

[Kristoffer O]

Ahh, thanks!

I made a sum up once, but it is hopelessly outdated (several months ago).

[Chazar]

Very nice job DrPraetorious! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif However, my most wanted wish ever is after #308873 (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=308873), http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif hence I must try to repeat it as a one-liner for management/interface:

Ability to define groups of Commanders regardless of their location. Such a group defines a common color, a common edit-able sticky note and allows a common tactical setup screen as if all commanders (and their troops) would be located in the same province. (Each commander's icon displays his groups' color code: a pixel somewhere or colored frame around the icon, etc.).(Origin:#324656 (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=324656))

(I think this would solve a lot, not only easy attacking from different locations: grouping fasciliates finding/assigning/mutual assignment for forgers, researchers, site-searchers, summoners, etc.)

[Zen]

DrPraetorious said:
Super-combatants should lust after fuzzy animals (Zen). If you laughed at this joke, you’ve been reading this document way too closely.



Damn your black heart Barabara Streisand. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

15 - Love, Dr. Praetorius, I salute you.

[Amos]

New kind of spells: Casters casting spells that exist as a field at a certain radius from the caster for the length of the entire battle (ex.: "fire shield" will protect troops 3 spaces from the caster 75% of the time; "arrow shield" will protect troops 5 spaces from the caster 50% of the time for entire battle). If the solder exits the area of effect he looses the protection as the field moves with the caster.

[Gandalf Parker]

EXCELLENT work! That is a major benefit, especially at this stage. Thanks.

[Nerfix]

My simple wish is that it will be a good game.

[Agrajag]

Nerfix said:
My simple wish is that it will be a good game.


How about improving that wish?
I wish for it to be the best game ever. =P

[FrankTrollman]

Here are some basic nation write-ups I'd like to see. I hope this is a reasonable format for potential new teams. I agree with Praetorious that we should have ten times as many teams as we do now. As such, I'm going to give an example of a pile of alternate teams for two different new nations: Halflings and Rat Men. I am assuming that the following will be implemented:

Independents:
Different species of population will be implemented, each with different economic profiles. Including some inherent Heat/Cold preferences.

Empires:
You empire will have a Heat/Cold Preference that will add to the Heat/Cold preference of every province you control.

The net result of this is that Caelumites will now have a +2 Cold Empire preference, and all Caelumites will have a +1 Cold Preference. Thus, their home province will have a +3 Cold Preference, but if they conquer Ctis it will probably only have a Cold Preference of +1.

Battle:
I assume that units will be able to arrive flanking in much the same manner as when you cast Howl. There can just be three boxes that you place your flankers in when you set them in a starting position – these correspond to above, below, or behind the enemy.

Hoburglings!
I rather liked the Hoburg SE army list and would like to see that come back as the default Hoburg army. Hoburgling populated provinces should have extra unrest from Death and have extra increased taxes from Growth. Hoburg provinces should produce extra supplies for their population. However, Hoburg should really get Sacred Eagle Riders. Seriously. It's a

Special Gods:
In addition to the Rainmaker, the god of Hoburg should be allowed to be the Flaming Glyph, an the Golden Eagle (who flies, has Awe, and starts with a little Air and Nature).

Special Hoburg themes follow:

Last Dawn: The greatest Hoburg Heroes have failed and the nation of Hoburg has fallen into darkness. Wraiths stalk the land under the guidance of their new dark god.

Troops: Hoburg Elites are no longer available as the advanced troops are now incorporeal undead. Hoburglings are limited to Your Specters have glamor and a patrol bonus. Undead cost money, which means that they cost upkeep as well. You get Ghoul Hoburg who don't have to eat and still wear the Hoburg Platemail. You can buy ghost guard (incorporeal burgermeister guards), death riders (incorporeal skeleton riders), and living hoburg militia. You get no archers. Your leaders include Dark Prophets (Hoburgs with Unholy 2), Spectral Riders (full size cavalry with Astral 1, Death 1, and 1 Random), and Specter Knights (Size 2, Astral 2, Death 2), and Wraith Kings (size 4, ride a flying beast, Astral 3, Death 1, Random 1).

Starting Sites: Astral 3, Death 3

Starting Spells: Nether Bolt, Astral Window.

Special Rules: You must have Magic and Death.

Province Defense: A Spectral Rider comes out with a small pile of

Commentary: Based loosely on the Ring Wraiths conquering Hoburg. It's a money-based death army, so you can horde your death gems until late in the game when you can turn them into Tartarians. The magic requirement makes it unfortunately vulnerable to enemy priests, but at least you have access to large numbers of soulless hoburgers.

The Scouring: The old order of Hoburg has fallen with the passing of the age. Now the citizens of Hoburg follow a new order. Hoburg children have turned their minds to metal and wheels. They do not care about growing things anymore. Once used experimentally for agriculture, the clockwork creature has been transformed into a weapon of war.

Troops: All of the standard Hoburg troops and spellcasters are gone except the crossbowman. There is also now an Arbalester who costs slightly more and carries an arbalest. Most importantly, you have a variety of Clockwork Monsters that cost no gold and do not eat. They cost only resources, but they cost a lot of resources. There are Clockwork Hounds (Size 1), Clockwork Soldiers (Size 2), Clockwork Beasts (Size 3), Clockwork Wyverns (Size 4), Clockwork Spiders (Size 5), and Clockwork Dragons (Size 6). The Clockwork Dragons can only be built in the home province. You also have some war machines, which again cost only resources and do weird stuff. I'd like to see a scatterpult launcher that is armed with like 10 slings and has a siege defense bonus. I'd like to see a Ballista (technically it has a strength of 30 and a Javelin). The spellcasters are now the Engineer (2 Earth, Forge Bonus, Drain Immune), the Priest (a Hoburgling with Holy 2), and in the Capitol the Master Engineer (3 Earth, 1 Random, Forge Bonus, Drain Immune). Even their priests have magic leadership.

Starting Spells: Clockwork Horrors

Starting Sites: 5 Earth, Can build Master Engineer and Clockwork Dragon.

Special Rules: This theme requires Order, Productivity, and Drain.

Province Defense: Crossbowmen and Clockwork Hounds. 20+ gives Arbalesters and Clockwork Beasts.

Commentary: The Scouring is based loosely on Saruman's Scouring of the Shire and Industrial-Hell Isengard setup. It is also based on the backstory of the Clockwork Horrors already present in Dominions 2. These guys are going to be the Mad Castlers of all Mad Castlers. Every Castle they make generates free troops forever. They have every reason to max out their income because both Order and Productivity give them extra money as a side effect of granting them access to more resources, which are what they are actually after – and let's face it, there's not much they even can spend money on. The late game is going to have a Wizard's Tower every twenty feet in the empire of Scoured Hoburg. Expect all late strategies to include casting the Riches – as this will give them enough resources to actually produce a Clockwork Dragon every turn.

The Blood Works: Gears held insufficient stamina for long battles, as the engineers of Hoburg quickly discovered. But the souls of children had no such problem. The Engineers turned to the wholesale sacrifice of their fellows in order to attempt to make the perfect engine of military might. The populace was outraged and attempted to destroy the Blood Works when they learned of it. But the dark god of Hoburg intervened and turned the people to work themselves to death as lubrication for the bloody gears of Hoburg.

Troops: Similar to the Scouring, you have crossbowmen and units that don't actually cost any money or eat food. These units cost an amount of blood slaves, and are sacred. You've got an Iron Maiden that takes 1 slave, a Blood Golem that takes 5 slaves. Your home province only can make the Blood Engine for 10 slaves. Your leaders include an Engineer's Apprentice (Blood 1/ Earth 1), a Soul Engineer (Blood 2/ Earth 2, Random Elemental 1, Random Sorcery 1), and a priest (Holy 3), the priest has a magic leadership.

Starting Spells: Bleed.

Starting Sites: 2 Earth, 3 Blood. Can make Blood Engines.

Special Rules: You must have Productivity and Magic to play this theme.

Province Defense: You get some Hoburg Militia (despite the fact that you can't build them) and some Iron Maidens.

Commentary: This is a continuation of the Scouring plotline and uses robots which are powered by blood magic. This is a blood/earth power, so you will see it throwing around a lot of Earthblood Stones. Since it is allowed to use Productivity and Magic, it's going to be Golem Cult if nations are allowed to have a special theme and a standard domain effect at the same time.

Speakers for the Dead: After the god of Hoburg helped liberate them from the spectral occupiers, peace was made between the living and the dead in Hoburg. New places were found for the Hoburglings who had been enslaved in death to the shadow. But there is no rest for Hoburg. For even as Hoburg rebuilds itself, god itself has come and proclaimed that their message of peace must be brought across the world with fire and sword.

Troops: You get the Hoburg Milita, the Hoburg Crossbowman, the Hoburg Warrior, the Spectral versions of all three (which cost half again as much gold). You also get foresters (stealthy, forest survival, stick and sling). Your capitol makes Hog Knights. Your spellcasters are the Healer of the Sick (Nature 3, Water 1, Random Elemental 1, Holy 3), the Speaker for the Dead (Death 2, Unholy 4), the Healer of the Waters (Water 2, Unholy 2), and the Healer of the Land (Earth 1, Death 1, Random Elemental 1, Unholy 3). You now get spectral hoburg scouts, and Eagle Knights in your capitol.

Starting Spells: Unholy Magic that grants bonuses to living and undead troops (like the Pangea list, but affects living subjects as well). Healing Cloud, Summon Spirits.

Starting Sites: Nature 3, Death 2, makes Hog Knights and Eagle Knight heroes.

Special Rules: You must have Growth and Misfortune to play this theme. Unholy Priests Call Spirits: Spectral Hoburg Militia, Spectral Hoburg Warriors, Spectral Hoburg Crossbowmen, Spectral Hog Knights, Spectral Eagle Riders (which are otherwise unavailable).

Province Defense: Spectral Hoburg Warriors and Hoburg Militia. At 20+ that turns into Hoburg Warriors and Ghost Crossbowmen.

Commentary: This is set after the Last Dawn and is a rebuilding phase for Hoburg. Living and Undead troops fght side by side, which puts a severe damper on standard “prayer spam” anti-undead tactics used against most undead nations. Because of the mandatory growth, the Speakers posiion will probably be shooting for a long-term economic package which features hoarding those death gems for late game projects. Since they have a cash economy and a bunch of death, they will almost certainly put up the Well of Misery. I'm expecting a line of Tartarians to march out of the Speaker lands in the late game.

Rat Men!
There's a lot of fantasy rat men in a variety of settings. Cycling through the themes should set you to different literary references.

Special Gods: The Verminmen can have the Font of Vermin (a bunch of Rats in a pile) that generates a rat-based howl effect every combat, and it gives you 1-3 crappy little rats every turn, and it has a siege bonus and some Astral magic.
You also get to choose a wererat who is like the ***** queen except that he's an assassin.

Warrens of Memory: The swarms have gained a collective consciousness. Vermin pour in from every corner of the globe to lend their memories to the hive minds.

Troops: Your basic unit is the Giant Rat, which is size 1 and completely terrible. Fortunately, it's free. Your basic spellcaster is the Hive Mind, which is also size 1 and has only 1 pick of Astral Magic. It's free to. You also have a basic leader which is also a Rat, and free. Your Hive Minds begin every battle as a Communion Master, your other Rat Leaders start every battle as Comunion slaves – both rat leaders are stealthy (but most of the freespawn rats are not). At castles you can produce Wererats, who are stealthy (similar to Werewolves except that they do not go berserk or drop their swords when they change). Moon Mages (2 Astral, 1 Death) and Wererat Assassins (who are stealthy, regenerate, have the assasinate ability and use poison weapons). You can produce a Mother Rat that is just as physically incapable as the rest of your army, is not stealthy, starts each battle as a Communion Master, and has 1 Astral, 1 Holy, and 1 Random Magic pick (costs 120 gold and is sacred).

Starting Spells: Mind Burn. Summon Rat Swarm (like the Summon Dragonfly Swarm, only it summons Rats and costs 1 Astral Pearl).

Starting Sites: Home Province makes 3 Astral Pearls, 1 Death, and 1 Nature. Home Province produces Moon Mages and Wererat Assassins.

Special Rules: Unrest increases in areas where your domain is strong. 1 for 1. So every province where you have a dominion of 5 is like having an extra Brigand Lair in it. Rats freespawn all over our empire. Hive Minds Freespawn in places where you have Labs or Temples. Castles increase freespawn rates by their administration value. Most mercenaries cost extra for you. You get a spy report on everywhere you have dominion. This theme requires Magic and Turmoil.

Province Defense: A huge unruly mob of different flavors of rats swarm out from all directions to defend your provinces like they had originated from the casting of howl.

Commentary: The Warrens of Memory are based on Planescape's Cranium Rats and Moon Rats. Actually playing this faction would be similar to being Ermor except that you'd need supplies and could avoid killing your population. Your combat magic is devastating because of all the Communion Slaves, but your preaching and noncombat spellcasting is beyond awful. Areas that are near you become terrible for you and your enemies both, since they accumulate unrest at a ferocious rate.

The Black Book: The Black Book has been recovered! New magic and science have been discovered by the Ratling sages. New Horrors the likes of which had not been yet imagined are unleashed upon the world in the name of regaining the knowledge lost during the fall of the Dark Coven. The discoverer of the great book is surely a god and the vermin lords are mustering their forces...

Troops: You have verminmen of basic militia (really crappy), light infantry, and heavy infantry varieties. Your basic archer is the slinger. Your basic troops are all Morale 9. Your advanced troops are the poison slingers, who are a step over the Ctisian variety because they wear masks and are poison immune, and Rat Monsters (size 3 verminmen with huge claws and are Sacred). Advanced Troops are capitol only. Your leaders include Engineers (who have Air 2, Death 1, Random 1 and a bonus to producing Corpse Men), Breeders (who have Blood 2, Nature 1 and a Random, they freespawn a rat every turn), Packmasters (who freespawn a rat every turn and have a Dousing Bonus despite not actually having any magic – armed with a Whip and a Mancatcher), and Heralds (who have 1 Blood and 3 Holy). The Home Province can produce Master Engineers (air 3, Death 2, Random 1, Corpseman Bonus, Forge Bonus).

Staring Spells: Crossbreeding, Lightning Bolt.

Starting Sites: 3 Air Gems, 2 Death Gems, 1 Blood Slave.

Special Rules: Can perform blood sacrifices.

Province Defense: Verminmen Militia and Slingers. At high levels this becomes Light Infantry and Heavy Infantry as well. This is crappy, so it should be numerous.

Commentary: The Black Book is based on the Warhammer Skaven primarily. I see most human players telling their national troops to take a long walk except for the elites, which are capitol only. It's a blood power, and a Forging Power, so expect lots of Supercombatant action late in the game. Most of the army is going to be Corpsemen and Crossbred troops.

The Lost Tribes: The tribes of Nezumi have been lost in the wastes for generations since the great calamity. Now a new god has arisen and the time to regain what is theirs has come. The scattered tribes have joined paw once again and are on the march.

Troops: You have six different flavors of sacred troops, and six different flavors of normal spearmen, each of which represent the input from one of the tribes. The Firewalkers are fire resistant (sacred variety is Fire Immune); the Tattered Ear fight with dagger and spear (the Sacred Variety fight with two swords and have berserking), the longstriders are faster and more lightly armored (the sacred version fly when blessed), the stone clingers have an increased strength (the sacred version become size 3 and fight with claws when blessed), the bloody paw are equipped with quasi-decent armor and shields (the sacred version are martial artists who fight with chi kicks), the serpent hunters are poison resistant (the sacred version become hasted when blessed), and the storm feather tribesmen are cold resistant and use heavier armor (the sacred version are also shock resistant and use bows). There are also generic spearmen in leather that don't do anything cool and generic bowmen who have shortbows and spears. The leaders include several different flavors of scout: a sacred scout who can preach, a scout who can lead troops, and a scout who uses a short bow. Shamans have Astral 1, Earth 1, Holy 2. Keepers of the Story are 2 Random 1s and +3 research – Keepers of the Story can only be recruited at home. Tellers of the Story are Holy 4. The Great Shamans are Astral 2, Earth 2 Holy 2 and are home province only.

Starting Spells: Stoneskin and Summon Earthpower.

Starting Sites: Home Province produces 4 Earth and 1 Astral.

Special Rules: Provinces with Death do not have their population fall while in your dominion.

Province Defense: They get a pile of Spearmen. At high levels, they also get archers.

Commentary: The Lost Tribes is based on the Nezumi of Rokugan. From the standpoint of actually playing them, they are in the uniquely good position to make all that cool Crystal Swag as well as Golems. Unfortunately, they clam very poorly. In general, it is going to be a long time before they get a decent magic army together and a very long time before Scs come online. But in the meantime, good starting researchers and good priests are going to get them to their late game goals quicker than you might think.

The Dark Compact: Stormclouds are brewing over the decadent human cities of the world. The prophesized time has come. The god of the sewers has arisen, and the Verminmen and the Wererats have made an alliance to rise from the sewers and take over the surface world.

Troops: Most of your units are stealthy. You get verminmen, and wererats as warriors (verminmen wear leather, wererats wear ringmail). Your only archer is the poison slinger (which is again immune to poison). You have storm troops of both flavors who wear gas masks and are poison immune. You have three different assassins, the Verminman Assassin has effectively three arms and uses 3 poison daggers. The Wererat Assassin wears ringmail and has a duskdagger. One of your spellcasters is also an assassin, the Nightmaster (Fire 3, Death 1, Glamor, Assassin). All of your leaders are spies. You have a basic researcher in the Patient One (a pale little rat guy who costs 50 gold and has Fire 1). You have a Priest in the Plague Harbinger (Holy 3, Poison Immune, Poison Cloud like a Hydra). You also have a Scrollbearer, who has 1 Fire, 1 Nature, and 2 Random.

Starting Spells: Ash Rats: for 4 Fire Gems you can summon 5 size one magic beings with a flame burst attack. You also get Falling Fires.

Starting Sites: You get 4 Fire, 1 Death, and 1 Nature.

Special Rules: No special rules.

Province Defense: You get a Patient One leading some Verminmen and Ash Rats. At 20+ you get an Assassin, some wererat storm troops and some poison slingers.

Commentary: In general, I think most people are going to decide to fight with Wererats or Verminmen and not both (except as leaders). Players are going to just figure an amount of resources they are willing to spend per unit, and go for the lower-resource verminmen or better armored wererats. Literarily, this team is of course lifted whole cloth from D&amp;D. These guys are going to clam with Fever Fetishes as they have all the necessary pieces of that puzzle and a very deep need for Fire Gems.

[tinkthank]

Here a couple of Balance Suggestions:

- Mechanical Men should be "Never Healing"

- Perhaps there should also be a flag: Susceptible to Afflictions; this doubles the chance of getting a battle affliction when hit by an applicable blow; Mechanical Men should have this as well

(I think most powerful constructs and high level summons could use a tiny nerfage such as this.)


- Many units with 100% resistances to things should have 75-85% resistances. This would increase the need for buffs for making WrathSky combatants, or make for at least a small amount of risk.

[tinkthank]

Some Things which Could Be Neat:

New Item:
- Levered Platform: Greater Magic Item, req. 40 earth, 20 nature, uses Misc. Slot: This huge and costly mechanical construct will allow any immobile creature to be pulled by slaves from province to province. Provides Map Move 1, Prot 3, Def -3, and uses 20 supplies (for the slaves).

Tactical Battlefield Scripting Improvement:
Next to each commander, make a little slider which lets one determine the maximum number of gems castable per combat = x. The default is set to /no limit/.

A New Spell:
- Hellish Protection: Requires B2F2, Research Blood 3 -- this grants ALL blood slaves on the battlefield (friendly and enemy) 75% fire resistance
- Protection of the Fiend: Requires B2W2, Research Blood 3 -- this grants ALL blood slaves on the battlefield (friendly and enemy) 75% cold resistance

[Alneyan]

A few posts ago (well, a few pages ago I guess), something was mentioned about being able to dispel battle enchantments, mainly by using spells.

However, now that I am thinking of it, I believe it would make more sense if battle enchantments could be automatically dispelled if your mages are much better in the path of magic used to cast the enchantment. For example, if you have 50 air levels in your army, and the enemy has cast a Storm without having a single air pick, your mages should be able to master the winds and dispel the storm fairly easily.

While spells would be nice, how would you know when to script for them? Spells dispelling battle enchantments would have to be scripted before seeing the enemy army, so it would be guess work. Being able to fully block *any* enchantment would also be a very powerful ability, and one without any counter.

At least, enchantments should be automatically dispelled when the caster is no longer here (because of death, retreat or feeblemindedness), giving the other side a chance of getting rid of that enchantment.

[tinkthank]

I think this would be a great one:

GAME SETUP: MASSIVE PARAMETER VARIABILITY

Illwinter could remain both true to their vision and simultaneously get rid of a lot of balancing worries / balancing gripes by making the way a game is created / the "game setup" screens work (with emphasis, I suppose I would like to suggest, on the plural) radically dynamic.

I have already suggested a few things in this direction (such as "Handicap" settings, etc.), but I would like to elaborate on a few new ideas and addendi:

All of the following could be made adjustable without too much UI overhaul directly in a game setup screen similar to the one which exists now:

- Blood Hunting Affects Unrest: From Exceptionally Much, Very Much, to Default and Hardly. (Alternatively: A slider with numeric values reflecting the Blood Hunt &lt;-&gt; Unrest algorithm.)
- Maximum Number of Events per Turn: /Numeric Slider/ set to Default.
- Blood Hunting Ease: Very Easy - Easy - Default - Difficult - Very Difficult
- Ritual Summons: Very Easy - Easy - Default - Difficult - Very Difficult (makes casting ritual summons cost more gems / cost less gems)

But it would probably be more useful to split the process up with an idea like the following:

In the SELECT NATIONS screen, have FOUR Columns:
1. Nation listings
2. Nation Choices: from these, you can select from Human to Impossible AI
3. Set National Handicaps for this Nation (Default: None): Clicking this button will open the Handicap Screen, at which you can change the following settings:
Gold Income (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%),
Resource Availability (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%),
Ritual Summons Bonus/Penalty (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%),
Unit Hit Point Bonus (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%),
National Forge Bonus/Penalty (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%)
National Gem Income Bonus/Penalty (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%)
4. Set Pretender Handicaps for this Nation: The default is /none/, but clicking this button will allow you to change the number of points which can be spent during God Creation; if this value is positive and the nation is set for computer AI, the computer gets additional bonuses over and above the allowed amount; if the value is used for a Human nation, it will allow a pretender to be chosen with more than the allowed Creation Points and/or disallow a currently loaded pretender as cheating

Quite obviously, this will mean that "view settings" during the game MUST be able to show all of these.
This also presupposes a God Creation Screen with some of the following features:

In the GOD CREATION screens, which you can quit at any time without having to save your god, there is an option for
- Saving God under a particular name in a folder SavedGods
- Load God (which will put up choices from the SavedGods folder
- Set Creation Handicap: The default is Off, but you can create and save Handicapped Gods: there can be +/- anywhere from 5 to 120 points. Gods saved as Handicapped with bonuses or penalties will be flagged as such and can be used in MP games which require handicaps for certain nations


In the GAME SETUP Screen, have FIVE MAIN CHOICES:
1. Set Basic Game Parameters
2. Set Nation and Victory Parameters
3. Set Advanced Parameters
4. Set Alliance Parameters
5. OK (Create Game)

1. Under Basic Parameters, one would find a screen in which we could change
Independent Strength
Magical Site Frequency
Number of Global Enchantments Allowed (0-24, default: 6)
Similar Settings etc.

2. Under Nation and Victory Parameters, we would find a screen in which we could change
Number of Starting Provinces
Type of Victory Conditions: Opens a new screen in which you can set any combination of VCs (including mixing, for instance, Dominion of X and Victory Points of Y)
Victory Conditions under Alliances: Default is "There Can Only Be One", in which only 1 nation can ascend to Godhood; this can be changed to allow two or more nations to ascend as a Pantheonic Alliance if their Alliance meets the victory Conditions.

3. Under Set Advanced Parameters, we find a screen in which global changes can be set for all nations:
- Blood Hunting Affects Unrest: From Exceptionally Much, Very Much, to Default and Hardly. (Alternatively: A slider with numeric values reflecting the Blood Hunt &lt;-&gt; Unrest algorithm.)
- Maximum Number of Events per Turn: /Numeric Slider/ set to Default.
- Blood Hunting Ease: Very Easy - Easy - Default - Difficult - Very Difficult
- Ritual Summons: Very Easy - Easy - Default - Difficult - Very Difficult (makes casting ritual summons cost more gems / cost less gems)
- Global Forge Bonus/Penalty (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%)
- Global Gem Income Bonus/Penalty (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%)
- Global Ritual Spell Bonus/Penalty (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%) -- this sets an additional bonus/penalty for casting ritual spells cumulative with that for Summons
- Global Enchantment Bonus/Penalty (from +/- 0% to +/- 100%)

4. Under Alliance Settings, we find a screen in which we can decide:
- Whether alliances can be allowed at all (default: Off). Clicking the "off" button opens up a new screen from which we can select Alliances Allowed from Start and Alliances Allowed During Game
- Whether AIs can be pre-allied with one another or not (Default: Off). Clicking the "off" button opens a screen in which we can see all of the AI nations in the game on the left hand of the screen. On the right, there are 8 "team" pull-down menus; we can add any nation from the pull-down menu to any one of the teams, thus creating 1-8 pre-allied "sides" of AI alliances pre-set and unchangable for the course of the game.
- Whether Humans can be allied with AIs: Similar to the above screen, this default is Off, but one can make pre-allied Human and AI "teams".
- Whether Humans can be pre-allied with Humans: Default is Off. Clicking "On" will set up "teams" which are unchangeable for the course of the game. Options here include: Any one team member who wins the victory conditions will win the victory conditions for the whole team, or Cumulative Victory (all VPs, Provinces, Research, Dominion, etc. is counted together)
- Whether Humans can ally with Humans during the course of a game via the Alliance Interface: Default is Off. Clicking this will open up a screen in which you can stipulate
the minimum number of turns you must remain allied before you can select "Break Alliance" from the Alliance Interface in-game (default: 2)
the maximum number of other human players that can be allied with one another at one time (default: 2). Any players that have agreed to an alliance can move through the others' provinces unharmed and are treated as one nation for combat purposes (Nation 1's troops in Nation 2's province will fight together with Nation 2's troops and PD on the right side of the battlefield against any non-allied attacks; all buffs work for both sides.)

This presupposes an Alliance or Alliance Interface screen in-game. Using this would allow players to form Alliances within 2 turns time in-game. E.g.: Opening this screen would allow you to send a (binding in contractual sense) offer to another human nation for an Alliance for X number of turns, whereas X is a number between /minimum stipulated/ (see above) and "indefinate". The human player to which this offer is sent will receive notification in his Alliance screen next month, and she can choose to accept or deny. If players accept, the Alliance takes force on the start of the next thereafter as the very first event. If more than one Alliance is sent per month (e.g., if both nation 1 and 2 send an offer to the other at the same time), and both are accepted, the offer with the highest number of minimum turns of alliance is considered valid. Conflicting Alliances cannot be made -- the computer checks at the beginning of each turn whether an alliance can be legal or not, and if Alliances are accepted, making other offers sent in the meantime invalid, then these will be returned with the appropriate message (e.g. "Your offer for Alliance has been deemed invalid.", such as would be the case if Nation 1 allies with Nation 2, and Nation 2 offers an alliance to Nation 3, which is an enemy of Nation 1 -- in such a case, BOTH nations 1 and 2 must send an identical Alliance Offer to nation 3 simultaneously to have a valid contract.)

[FrankTrollman]

OK, here are some more extra civilizations that need to be around. Rather, this is a single civilization that needs to be around which in turn can have abunch of themes that allow it to be cultures that really don't see the light of day in Dominions right now:

Baharatta: Baharatta is a heavily rainforested nation with an ancient civilization. Baharattans people prefer a Hot Climate (move preferred scales towards heat +1 for whatever empire their provinces are in).

Special Gods: You get the Nagaraja of course, but you also get:
The Efreet, about the equivalent of a Queen of Air, except that he's got a Fire Aura and has Fire and Astral to start. Fire and Poison Immunity, Incorporeal. No Foot Slot.
The Djinn, exactly the same as the Efreet except that he has an Astral Shield instead of the Fire Aura. Shock and Poison Immunity, Incorporeal. No shoes. Has some Air and Water Magic to begin with.
The Great Hydra. It gets Nature and Water Magic, it's kind of slow, but it has several head slots (can we get more than two? I was hoping for like 5). It Regenerates and Recuperates.

Rise of the Maharajahs: Baharatta is a rising nation under the guidance of the Sorcerer Kings known as the Maharajahs. A caste system is introduced which enforces specific careers on classes of people. With the life path of each of their subject plotted at birth, the Maharajahs can create an empire to last a thousand lifetimes.

Troops: Your basic militia is high morale, though naked and given a long spear. Your archers have composite bows. You have Gurkha troopers who are stealthy flankers. You have Brahmin Warriors who are sacred and have Awe in addition to having falchions. You get Elephants just like Arco, and you also have Tiger Riders which are capitol only. Your Gurkha Assassin is an Assassin who fights with kukris. Your priest is a Brahmin who has 2 Fire and a Random Sorcery 2 to go with his Holy 3. You also have Smiths who have 2 Earth and 1 Water and a Forge Bonus. There is also a Gurkha Shaman, who has 1 Nature and 1 Death and is Sacred (but has no Holy Magic).

Starting Spells: Fireball, Resist Fire

Starting Sites: Fire 2, Water 1, Earth 1, Nature 1, Death 1, Astral 1. Tiger Riders can be recruited.

Special Rules: None.

Province Defense: You get Militia and Composite Bowmen, led by a Gurkha Shaman.

Commentary: Based primarily upon India, basic Baharatta is supposed to dabble in various magic. You can guaranty getting Fire any time you want it, and you'll probably be able to pick up some fire bonus items if you want (you could, for example, make a Flaming Skull and Flaming Hat with relatively little fuss). You can also Fever Fetsh hoard if you want. Only 1 in 4 Brahmins is a Blood Mage, but it comes in on the ground floor at level 2, so you can do a credible Blood Minor if you want. They can come up with a variety of SC types, and they do have some guys with forge bonuses – so seeing their way to making a bunch of equipment for a Nataraja god is quite conceivable. Their starting gem income is large, but not focused anywhere, which means the for a long time it isn't going to be good. They have a good shot at a powerful late game.

Wanderers of the Desert: The power of Baharatta was awesome to behold, but the Maharajahs became decadent and descended into blood magic. When the prohibition of Blood Magic was enforced by the Great Sealing, those who could escape the doomed capitol have done so. After generations of wandering in the desert, the Baharattans have found a new god, one who promises to return them to the glory they once knew...

Troops: All your troops have Waste Survival. You have Nomads who are unarmored and come in spear and scimitar using varieties. They are high morale for the price, but are otherwise unexceptional. You also have Camel Riders who have scimitars and have a long overland move but an unexceptional battle speed (3/18). You get Scorpion Riders, who turn into a scorpion beast when they die – the scorpion rider is sacred, but the scorpion beast is not. In the capitol only you can purchase some very expensive Rocs, which are huge flying trampling birds. You have cheap Scouts that only cost 10 gold and have wasteland survival (and a short bow). You have Keepers of the Flame who have Fire 2, Earth 1, and a random. You have Fire Dancers who have Fire 1, Holy 2, and constitutive haste. You have Dowsers who have a Random elemental pick at 2 and another 2 random elemental picks at 1. You have a Scorpion Lord, who is sacred and rides around on a Scorpion Beast, is sacred, and comes into every battle with 1-10 little scorpions who have about 1 hit point and a stinger with strong poison.

Starting Spells: Bind Scorpion Beast, Magma Bolts.

Starting Sites: Fire 3, Air 2.

Special Rules: The Empire Prefers Heat Scale +2 (for a total of Heat Preference +3 in the home province). You must have Heat +3 to take this theme. Heat spreads from this dominion like it was Desert Sun.

Province Defense: Nomads with Scimitars. Nomads with Scimitars and Shields.

Commentary: Baharatta as Arabians. The heat thing is actually something of an economic penalty, since most places that aren't your capitol are going to be suffering heat penalties when all the way inside your dominion. And that's the way most heat/cold empires should be working.

Merchants of the Sea: The Maharajahs have become increasingly unimportant in society as they turned more and more towards the mysteries of the past rather than the day to day running of the nation. While rumors abound that the Maharajahs are going to rise up and take back the empire or perhaps sell everyone out to darkness, the fact is that the people never really see the Maharajahs anymore. It is gold that runs Baharatta now. Still, it is strange that the Maharajahs do so little to intervene while the merchants chip away at their power. It is as if they are under some sort of spell...

Troops: You get to hire the black-clad heavy infantry mercenaries as your normal troops. So you get the Crossbowmen, swordsmen, and even heavy cavalry that normally comes with mercenary units. Your leaders are primarily include the Merchant, who is a total dweeb but has a huge leadership value and has sailing. You have an Explorer, who is a scout with a small leadership and also has sailing. You also have a Pirate Captain and a Mercenary Captain who both have Sailing. You have a Court Wizard who has a Random 2 in an elemental path and 2 Random 1s in Sorcery paths, and a Research Bonus – he doesn't Sail and is Capitol only. You have a Windmaster (Air 2, Water 2, Sailing), and a capitol only Maharajah's Assistant, who has Blood 1, a Research bonus, and

Starting Spells: Wind Guide, Summon Storm.

Starting Sites: Air 3, Water 1, Earth 1. Hire Court Wizards and Maharajah's Assistants.

Special Rules: You hire mercenaries for half price. You must have Luck to take this theme.

Province Defense: Mercenaries with hammers, mercenaries with crossbows. Led by a Merchant.

Commentary: The intention is make people who have sailing and actually give a damn because they don't cost like 280 gold or anything. Practically speaking, this is probably going to end up as a blood position where your god has a lot of Blood Magic and the Maharajah's Assistants collect slaves for you to summon devils with.

Keepers of the Seal: The Maharajahs had gone insane and sold the entire kingdom to devils. The priests knew they had no choice but to put a stop to them once and for all. The priests of death and the priests of life knew that they would be unable to battle the the devils alone and joined forces. An uneasy peace between the previously warring priest factions

Troops: The basic troops of Baharatta are here, but you get no Gurkhas and no Tiger Knights. You have seven different flavors of Priest, each of which is a Keeper of the Nth Seal. They all wear different outfits. The Keeper of the 1st Seal has Astral 3, Holy 4, and Random Elemental 1; The Keeper of the 2nd Seal has Nature 2, Holy 2, and Random Elemental 1; The Keeper of the 3rd Seal has Death 2, Unholy 3, and is an Inquisitor; The keeper of the 4th Seal has 3 Random Elemental and Holy 3; The Keeper of the 5th Seal has Fire 3 and Holy 2 and has a Patrol Bonus; The Keeper of the 6th Seal has 2 Earth, Unholy 2, Doesn't Eat, and is Stealthy; The Keeper of the 7th Seal has Holy 5 and has Awe.

Starting Spells: Smite Demon as a Holy 1 spell (meaning that a Holy 3 caster gets +2 Spell Penetration), Opposition.

Starting Sites: Astral 2, Death 2, Nature 2.

Special Rules: Your home province damages demons (but not undead) like Marignon's capitol. Your home province also is constantly preaching at a level equal to your dominion strength.

Province Defense: Baharattans with spears and Baharattans with composite bows. All led by a Keeper of the 4th Seal.

Commentary: While superficially (and actually) extremely complicated, these guys are practically little different from any faction that has 2 random picks. The functional implication is that they are going to end up with some people who do all kinds of weird crap but absolutely none of them have any blood magic. So while it seems like an advantage to have these crazy priests, and it sort of is – it comes with a big disadvantage which is that unlike other people with random picks you just can't get all 8 schools of magic no matter how hard you try. The big priests is a big advantage, and the demon smiting power of a level 4 priest is pretty big. That and a water blessing and you are seriously going to mess up even SC Ice Devils, which is kind of the point. From a literary standpoint, they are mostly drawn up as Persians of the Zoroastrian flavor.

The Last of their Kind: The Great Sealing went disastrously wrong, leaving the capitol of Baharatta in ruins. Those who saw the final moments have been marked with madness, and their children are born into madness. Cannibalism has flourished among the survivors and the warriors have taken to filing their teeth into points. Out of madness comes chaos, for a new god has arisen from the ashes of Baharatta and promises to level the world with depravity and madness. The warriors of the fallen tribes of Baharatta have been granted the protection of the mad god, and fight without armor to prove their devotion and lack of survival instincts.

Troops: The Cannibals are going to be your mainstay troop. They have no armor but benefit from a natural protection of 15 because they get stoneskinned at the start of each battle for free. They are armed with kukris. You also get tribal archers (like the machakan unit of the same name), and some alternately armed naked tribesmen. You get a cave bear at home only. You can recruit tiger riders (like tiger knights but without armor and a free stoneskin spell at the start of each battle). Your Leaders include a capitol-only assassin called the Sniper who is armed with a Black Bow; a Shaman (1 Death, 1 Nature, free stoneskin each battle, sacred); a tiger warrior; and a Defiler of the Dead (Unholy 2). More uniquely, you have the Fevered Berserker (who has berserking, and also has an emanation that causes feeblemind; and the Demon Pawn (Blood 2 and a random).

Starting Spells: Panic, Frighten.

Starting Sites: Death 3, Nature 2., Snipers, cave bears.

Special Rules: You must take Turmoil and Sloth to take this theme. Province Defense happens to you spontaneously if your dominion is strong.

Province Defense: The pile of tribal archers is large, the pile of cannibals is small.

Commentary: Largely an exercise in getting Tiger Warriors, the Last of their Kind Baharatta has little in the way of a late game that I can see. There's some SC potential in the Tiger Warrior leader in that they can still wear armor on top of their Stone Skin and benefit from a blessing. At least it's a litle hard for people to take your stuff, what with free PD popping up.

The Power of Steel: The Priest Kings were unable to retain power in Baharatta. The spells and sigils proved insufficient to protect the populace from the demon spawned madness. It was with cold steel that the demons were dispatched and the nation saved. Now the smiths have become masters of the empire, and god has blessed them for their crafts.

Troops: All of your infantry troops have blue steel weapons and armor. Blue Steel armors have one more protection than normal, and have reduced movement penalty and defense penalties - Blue Steel weapons inflict one more damage, and provide an increased defense vis a vis ”normal” steel weaponry. Your archers are Crossbowmen in bluesteel ringmail. The levied troops use bluesteel kukris, but are naked. You get You get Elephants. Your leaders include several different flavors of guy with armor and weapons, some of whom are sacred. You also get a Smith (2 Earth, 2 Water, Forge Bonus, Sacred), a Blade Singer (Earth 1, Holy 2, 2 bluesteel falchions), and a Holy Fool (Random Elemental 3, Random Sorcery 2, Random 1, Holy 4, but starts Feeble Minded, so they don't actually get to use any of that).

Starting Spells: Rust Mist, Earthmeld

Starting Sites: Earth 3, Water 2.

Special Rules: You must have Drain and Order to take this theme.

Province Defense: Soldiers with bluesteel ringmail in swordsman and crossbowman flavors.

Commentary: The basic concept is much like standard Ulm, only not *** in the late game. The ability to start uncorking the Holy Fools with Fairy Queens or Gift of Health makes a Nature God a practical necessity, and provides some much needed umph in the later stages of warfare when having “pretty decent infantry” no longer means a thing.

The Company of Strangers: While lost in the desert, the Baharattans are befriended by the powerful Djinnis of the wastes. The use of mundane tools have been all but lost as the use of magic has become so rampant that knowledge, let alone use of ordinary techniques has been all but lost. Some Baharattans have even married into the tribes of the Djinn, and now a new breed has arisen – the half-Djinn Marid.

Troops: Everything you can ever build has Wasteland Survival. You have Nomads who are unarmored and come in spear and scimitar using varieties. They are high morale for the price, but are otherwise unexceptional. You also have Camel Riders who have scimitars and have a long overland move but an unexceptional battle speed (3/18). You have sacred troops who are Dervishes (fast and use two scimitars) and Marid (half-Djinn people who use a scimitar, don't need to eat, and fly when blessed). Your leaders include a Mumbling Pilgrim (Scout with Holy 2), an Elementalist (Random Elemental Path at 2 and another Random Elemental Path at 2), and a Marid Sheriff (Sacred, Holy 3, Need Not Eat, Random Elemental Path at 2).

Starting Spells: Summon Djinni of the Storm: 20 Air Gems gets you a Genie with Air 3 and a random pick. Summon Genie of the Waves: 20 Water Gems gets you a Genie with Water 3 and a random pick. Summon Genie of the Flame: 20 Fire Gems gets you a Genie with Fire 3 and a random pick. Summon Genie of the Sand: 20 Earth Gems gets you a Genie with Earth 3 and a random pick. You also know Lightning Bolt and Combustion. All of your Djinn produce 25 supplies and fly.

Starting Sites: Air 2, Earth 1, Fire 2, Water 1.

Special Rules: The Empire Prefers Heat Scale +2 (for a total of Heat Preference +3 in the home province). You must take at least Magic +2 to take this theme.

Province Defense: You get a pile of nomads with spears and another pile of nomads with scimitars. They are led by an Elementalist.

Commentary: The Elementalist can potentially have up to 4 picks in a single elemental path if he rolls snake eyes on the random picks. The Djinn are no big deal, honestly, but they can fly and allow the Baharattan player to generate supplies (however expensively), out of elemental gems. It's like having Dusk Elders, except not.

-Frank

[Orlanth]

The only thing I'd really like to see added is an option for the player to select the orders during turn-based tactical combat when playing a single-player game. Shouldn't be too hard to add this for single-player if you just let the user select "attack" "fire" "hold" or a specific spell for each combat turn when the AI commander would normally generate that.

The scripted battles of course are needed for PBEM/multiplayer and for the most part work out well for those purposes. In fact it can be quite appealing to avoid micromanaging in tactical battles. Inevitably though, relying on commander AI and having to develop multi-step command scripts can lead troops/mages to behave in pretty irrational ways, and can't allow for any reaction to changing situation on the battlefield. I think it's this aspect of the game that most discourages casual gamers from playing DomII - they're just not familiar with that kind of combat, and esp with the huge number of spells available, it gets daunting to find ways to make use of them properly. Adding at least an option for tactical combat control in 1P (a la Masters of Magic) could get a lot more ppl interested. Well, let me know what you think!

[Gandalf Parker]

Orlanth said:
The only thing I'd really like to see added is an option for the player to select the orders during turn-based tactical combat when playing a single-player game. Shouldn't be too hard to add this for single-player if you just let the user select "attack" "fire" "hold" or a specific spell for each combat turn when the AI commander would normally generate that.



Actually that would be very hard. And basically that would be their first game (called Conquest of Ellysium and still available from their site)

MAYBE if it were started as a turn-by-turn single player game and then formulas were added for decisions by the AI players, but that would make the hosting run a real long time making it not very desireable as a solo-play game. And maybe if you only played against one race but I would hate to see a game with 15 or more races where each move was decided one at a time. (I know thats not what you asked but you cant have a game where all the AIs moves are made and only yours are asked)

MAYBE it could be done if there were no AI players at all, only human players doing their turns, but that would still be awfully slow.

As for gaining more players, Im not sure that being one of the best possible in a smaller field (PBEM games) is worth messing with to try to gain some people who play games in such a large field. Maybe they will try something like that for Dom3 but Im not eager to ask for it even though I do prefer solo play.
Gandalf Parker

[Chazar]

Has anyone wished for relative map commands?

Predefining everything in a mapfile reduces the replay value. E.g. I would like a map command which increases/decreseas the independent strength of a province relatively to the choosen setting (capping at min/max).

Of course, one may predefine the poptype or add some commanders to boost the strength, but that leaves no surprises and does not scale with the independent strength setting choosen by the game creator...

[Gandalf Parker]

Check out some of whats on www.dom2minions.com (http://www.dom2minions.com)

I ran into the same problem. I have a couple of maps there where I rewrite the .map file just to randomize much of it. It definately adds much to replay.

Since so much of it can be done by assigning a number ts not really that hard to whip out something that will choose a random number for the commander with random troops in random provinces. It can be done in basic, or word, or excell, or whatever.

I was going to offer a few up as executables but there never seemed to be much interest.

Gandalf Parker
-- People complain that free things arent done on the net anymore.
Thats because so many have forgotten how to pay for free things.

[Chazar]

Rewriting the mapfile does not really help if I want to post my map here and give it away though... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[NTJedi]

HUGE IMPROVEMENT OPTION

Before Hosting a game I highly recommend an Advanced Options Tab where the Host can disable specific spells, building of forts, and/or artifacts.
This will solve many concerns and issues such as people who complain about clam hoarding, mass-castling, ghost rider spell etc... .
And if someone doesn't want to be part of a game where one of these are disabled then they can go host their own game or find another game being hosted.

[Endoperez]

When one wishes for very powerful creatures (like Maker of Ruins the Doom Horror), he should not automatically be FRIENDLY! He would still arrive, of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Same should work for uniques that already exist, but they would come with their items and scripts intact.

It is probably fairer to make the battles not Assasinations, but I would still like it to happen inside forts.

[Zooko]

In general: the state should be visible to the user.

In specific of game control, e.g. whether the battle is paused or not paused should be indicated, e.g. with a "paused" string in place of the "fast forward" string. Currently I have to toggle it and wait and see if things start happening...

In specific of strategic state: how many Calls to God have I accumulated so far? I shouldn't have to remember state from previous turns -- the state should be displayed.

In specific of turn events: if some troops and/or commanders die, for example due to a lost battle or an artillery spell or some other magic, the game should display exactly who died. I shouldn't have to try to remember who was where and then discover who isn't there any more.

In specific of tactical events: all tactical state of units should be visible by right-clicking on the unit. For example, whose side is this unit currently fighting for, or it is enRaged, or what?

[Gandalf Parker]

Chazar said:
Rewriting the mapfile does not really help if I want to post my map here and give it away though... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif



True. Thats what I ran into also. I can set it up like mine are where my server rewrites the .map once a day and makes it available for download. They download fast. Ive been tempted to do the same for some slightly-randomized mods.

OR the randomizer can be made available as an executable that they can run whenever they want just before starting a new game.

[sushiboat]

Many of the higher level magic items are not used often. Although some have cool effects, there is a small set of almost-must-have effects: life drain, quickness, luck, magic resistance, reinvigoration, being ethereal, flying, elemental/poison resistance. A supercombatant or thug without a few out of this set of effects is unheard of. Isn't it strange that every SC/thug has a starshine skullcap? Every SC/thug has either a lucky coin shield or a luck pendant. Unless the SC/thug can cast quickness, it is very likely to have either boots of quickness or jade armor.

I would like to see these effects become more common (with the possible exception of life drain, depending on how much Dom 3 scales it back). If there are more items that give quickness, we won't see jade armor and boots of quickness as much. And so on. The rarely forged unique items should definitely have one of these effects added.

[Edi]

tinkthank said:
I think this would be a great one:

GAME SETUP: MASSIVE PARAMETER VARIABILITY

&lt;snip&gt;

4. Under Alliance Settings, we find a screen in which we can decide:
- Whether alliances can be allowed at all (default: Off). Clicking the "off" button opens up a new screen from which we can select Alliances Allowed from Start and Alliances Allowed During Game
- Whether AIs can be pre-allied with one another or not (Default: Off). Clicking the "off" button opens a screen in which we can see all of the AI nations in the game on the left hand of the screen. On the right, there are 8 "team" pull-down menus; we can add any nation from the pull-down menu to any one of the teams, thus creating 1-8 pre-allied "sides" of AI alliances pre-set and unchangable for the course of the game.
- Whether Humans can be allied with AIs: Similar to the above screen, this default is Off, but one can make pre-allied Human and AI "teams".
- Whether Humans can be pre-allied with Humans: Default is Off. Clicking "On" will set up "teams" which are unchangeable for the course of the game. Options here include: Any one team member who wins the victory conditions will win the victory conditions for the whole team, or Cumulative Victory (all VPs, Provinces, Research, Dominion, etc. is counted together)
- Whether Humans can ally with Humans during the course of a game via the Alliance Interface: Default is Off. Clicking this will open up a screen in which you can stipulate
the minimum number of turns you must remain allied before you can select "Break Alliance" from the Alliance Interface in-game (default: 2)
the maximum number of other human players that can be allied with one another at one time (default: 2). Any players that have agreed to an alliance can move through the others' provinces unharmed and are treated as one nation for combat purposes (Nation 1's troops in Nation 2's province will fight together with Nation 2's troops and PD on the right side of the battlefield against any non-allied attacks; all buffs work for both sides.)

This presupposes an Alliance or Alliance Interface screen in-game. Using this would allow players to form Alliances within 2 turns time in-game. E.g.: Opening this screen would allow you to send a (binding in contractual sense) offer to another human nation for an Alliance for X number of turns, whereas X is a number between /minimum stipulated/ (see above) and "indefinate". The human player to which this offer is sent will receive notification in his Alliance screen next month, and she can choose to accept or deny. If players accept, the Alliance takes force on the start of the next thereafter as the very first event. If more than one Alliance is sent per month (e.g., if both nation 1 and 2 send an offer to the other at the same time), and both are accepted, the offer with the highest number of minimum turns of alliance is considered valid. Conflicting Alliances cannot be made -- the computer checks at the beginning of each turn whether an alliance can be legal or not, and if Alliances are accepted, making other offers sent in the meantime invalid, then these will be returned with the appropriate message (e.g. "Your offer for Alliance has been deemed invalid.", such as would be the case if Nation 1 allies with Nation 2, and Nation 2 offers an alliance to Nation 3, which is an enemy of Nation 1 -- in such a case, BOTH nations 1 and 2 must send an identical Alliance Offer to nation 3 simultaneously to have a valid contract.)


Easier to have a table similar to the Warlords games which has all nation banners on rows and columns and the intersection indicates the status between the nations: neutral (default), war or alliance. Making an alliance with someone at war with your allies would be impossible, but somebody in an alliance declaring war on his own would not automatically break alliances if you are already allied to both sides of the conflict.

Obviously one would have to choose sides at such a point, but it should happen through negotiation about which alliance to break and which not to, or if one can remain neutral in the conflict.

If such a grid system was used, sending proposals would also be easy, just bring up the grid, click on the intersection you want to change status, which would bring up the meny to send the proposal/declaration you want to that particular nation.

Edi

[Endoperez]

sushiboat said:
Many of the higher level magic items are not used often. Although some have cool effects, there is a small set of almost-must-have effects: life drain, quickness, luck, magic resistance, reinvigoration, being ethereal, flying, elemental/poison resistance. A supercombatant or thug without a few out of this set of effects is unheard of. Isn't it strange that every SC/thug has a starshine skullcap? Every SC/thug has either a lucky coin shield or a luck pendant. Unless the SC/thug can cast quickness, it is very likely to have either boots of quickness or jade armor.

I would like to see these effects become more common (with the possible exception of life drain, depending on how much Dom 3 scales it back). If there are more items that give quickness, we won't see jade armor and boots of quickness as much. And so on. The rarely forged unique items should definitely have one of these effects added.



I don't think the solution is to make it easier to have these effects AND something else. Illwinter should make other items more viable, so that having neither Boots of Quickness and Jade Armor would be viable because the boots and the armor used in their place are worth using even if it means lack of quickness.

I wish that there were more items, mainly for boots and helmets but for other item types too. As an example, there are only two non-artifact helmets with protection more than 2: Black Steel Helmet and Flame Helmet. Flame Helmet is only usable with way to quickly recover lots of fatique, and that means life drain.

If there were more options, there would be more diversity. I would like to have items that have great story and that add new mechanics, new little things to consider, new possibilities.

e.g.: Full Helmet.
It grants protection 4, defence 3, precision -5.
Gives 'blind' affliction and #blind ability, so that the loss of eyes/blindness and eyes of aiming do not affect the wearer of the helmet.
E3S2, needs Construction 6

This closed helmet was first made for mage Oedipus, who was blinded when an Abysian mage punished him for casting a powerful enchantment. With the aid of mighty spells casted on the inside of the helmet, its wearer can sense the world around him even without the help of his eyes. With this magical sense, it is difficult to precisely target anything far away, but the mage is overnaturally aware of everything moving near him, being able to evade most attacks.

[Sandman]

Some generic theme ideas;

Hostile Forests: The growth scale is inverted for the purposes of calculating eney supplies. In other words, a strong growth dominion will cause enemies to starve like a strong death dominion, a bit like Mirkwood in the Hobbit. Carrion Woods should have this ability as standard.

Warrior Cult: All frienly units in your dominion gain experience faster. You also start with an Academy of War in your capital.

Mercenary Kingdom: All mercenaries cost 25% less to hire. Mercenaries will join your cause permanently if you hire them for nine turns in a row. This theme allows access to some special mercenary bands, and also has a chance of attracting unique mercenary heroes.

Engineering Feats: All fortresses under this dominion have a defensive bonus, as well as a look-out tower (better patrolling) and escape tunnel (units can leave or enter a beseiged fortress from neighbouring provinces).

[Zapmeister]

I don't know enough about Windows to know how hard this would be, but ...

Mosehansen's server, including the web-based interface that manages registration and remote administration of each game, has been a tremendous asset to the Dom2 community. But it can only run on Linux.

If this kind of system were integrated with the game, or if hooks were provided so a similar server could be developed for Windows (or are they there already?) then we might see more public servers appear. Which would be great.

[Gandalf Parker]

Zapmeister said:
Mosehansen's server, including the web-based interface that manages registration and remote administration of each game, has been a tremendous asset to the Dom2 community. But it can only run on Linux.

If this kind of system were integrated with the game, or if hooks were provided so a similar server could be developed for Windows (or are they there already?) then we might see more public servers appear. Which would be great.



The switches to the game which Mosehansens server uses are stasndard to the linux and the windows version of Dom2 so it does already support windows servers (and Unix and Mac by the way). The reason that Mosehansen is a Linux web-based server is that such things are much MUCH easier to do on Linux. And much much cheaper to do on linux.

Im probably biased but I think I can safely say that as far as server things go, providing for Windows does not greatly increase the number of servers. For the playing of a game, Windows is an obvious boost if you support if for the player side. For server/hosting sites Linux holds that same position. A few if you only support Windows and a major boost if you support Linux.

[Come_Get_Some]

My initial inclintation was to offer to this list my wish that absolutely nothing be changed - this is just that good a game. However, there is one thing I would *really* like to see above all others - the ability for any race to more easily acquire or create heroes with assassination abilities. None of my favourite races have assassins. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Chazar]

Pretenders have different path costs. Why does empowerment always cost the same for all kinds of units? (It might make balancing easier, if some units had a higher or lower empowerment cost or were prhobited from empowerment at all...)

[tinkthank]

OK I tried to sum up here all of the posts regarding UI -- but I had to visualize it a bit, so I ended up making a word.doc with colors and some diagramms, which I just have not been able to look right at all on this forum. So I am posting the word.doc with the UI optimization summary here, attaching it as a zip file (about 30 kb zipped). Sorry. But maybe it is better this way, as it is easily readable and, I think, somewhat comprehensive?

[Taqwus]

Better handling of undead. I'd like to see processes where a unit retains many of its characteristics including shape when being reanimated rather than becoming a Soulless, Mummy or Wight Mage. Add the Undead flag, add weak Fear, hm. Perhaps horror mark depending on the process... or ethereal for those bringing back a shade rather than a corporeal form. Oh, and with insanity being supported, it might not be unheard of for the beneficiary to be insane. The Outer Gods act however they choose...

Given the horror of necromancy possessed by many societies, I'd wonder whether reanimation and the presence of undead (except perhaps those hidden inside a fortress?) should be grounds for unrest for numerous nations.

One might wonder about necromantic divination, but unless the dead are tracked by previous owner, this would be tricky to implement well (e.g. reanimate and interrogate the dead belonging to another faction to learn about the extent of their empire, etc).

Perhaps different classes of immortality: e.g. several flags about it. Flag types might cover where respawning happens (capital, place of death), restrictions (died in own dominion, faction won battle, not killed by fire, not disintegrated), and speed (minimum number of turns of delay before resurrection, probability of resurrection every turn thereafter).

I could see a 'dark cultic' theme for R'lyeh: necromancers, alchemists, Dagon cultists, dreamers, the occasional inhuman assistant, perhaps even an avatar of Nyarlothep as a pretender type, and maybe Joseph Curwen or Abdul Alhazred (astral, death, blood, unholy... and insane) as the, er, "heroes". Less direct involvement of tentacles, perhaps chancy unholy prayers used for propitiating the somewhat unpredictable Outer Gods, and a fairly high rate of insanity.

[Olive]

Hi,

I've read that there will be a random terrain generator. Does that mean that with some parameters (random at the beginning), a map will be drawn ? If yes, a change in the parameters would change the way the map looks.

It woul be nice that the maps look change while parameters change. For example, if the climate of some provinces turns colder, those may become whiter on the map. Or green when temperate, or yellow/brown when hot. Other provinces parameters may be also displayed their way (ie : animals sprites for life, bones for death, stars popping for magic, etc...).

It would be nice that the map looking represents the real aspect of the world, much better than to look the provinces one by one to see if they are hot or cold. It permits to "feel" the world you're dealing with.

That would also permit terraforming spells (ie : suppressing/adding sprites for mountains, trees, volcanoes,etc...).

Do you think it is possible ?

[Endoperez]

That happened in Dominions 1, but it was all pixel-based. Green was forest, blue was sea, white was cold, and in cold province pixels turned to white. It looked ugly.

Illwinter has mentioned that that is one of the features, or even the feature, they miss from Dom1. I don't know if it is even possible to do for the pieces of art that are maps of Dominions II and III.

It is very hard to do, as even simple "snow in winter" should be per-province, and the program doesn't in fact know the province borders.

[Olive]

Endoperez said:
That happened in Dominions 1, but it was all pixel-based. Green was forest, blue was sea, white was cold, and in cold province pixels turned to white. It looked ugly.

Illwinter has mentioned that that is one of the features, or even the feature, they miss from Dom1.



Haven't played dom1 , but I have seen screenshots. It's not beautiful, but, well, it only can be improved http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif . I'm happy they miss that feature http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .


Endoperez said:
I don't know if it is even possible to do for the pieces of art that are maps of Dominions II and III.

It is very hard to do, as even simple "snow in winter" should be per-province, and the program doesn't in fact know the province borders.



As far as I've understood, provinces are only points. There can be some frontier types that will be dispatched to give the province it's general aspect, but the result will be only graphical, and won't interfere with the province characteristics ( don't know if it's clear, I'm not fluent in english http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ). For forests or mountains, an arrangement of trees/mountains sprites would be looking great (most of domII maps have lot of sprites copied/pasted. For snow/desert provinces, yes, it seems a bit tougher. Maybe with textures http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif .

Anyway, I'm happy to see that this feature is one of their concern http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif .

[Endoperez]

Here is an old post where one of the devs discusses this. It is as an answer to a thread about improving Water Magic and to a proposed idea about a spell that would change a coastal province to underwater province.

Kristoffer O

The curse of atlantis spell is unlikely to appear in dom3. Not because it is a bad idea, but because it would probably be too powerful. Also because it wouldn't be possible to graphically represent it on the map the way it should be.

When we worked on dominions 1 we intended to have spells that would change the map. The pixelated maps of dom1 changed with temperature and growth. Initially we intended spells to change the map as well. Mountain ranges, forests etc. We also intended the atlantian dominion to flood coastal provinces by slowly replacing pixels into blue ones. The problem with this (one of them) was that the trn files would become huge as they would have to include changes to the maps.

This is actually the part I miss the most from dom1. The changing terrain. On the other hand there were not many effects of terrains on the game.

[Olive]

I've searched and, well, if it looks like that, It's better that what I remembered and not ugly imho.

http://www.illwinter.com/dom/ss_dom5.jpg

But yes, it should be improved http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

[Olive]

Crosspost http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif . Thanks for your message http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

[Taqwus]

Another possible reworking that comes to mind would be permitting finer-grained research where a nation might know a proper subset of the spells of a given school and level. This might permit or complement certain possibilities, such as...

...allowing specific units to have personal knowledge of specific spells. Some might be able and willing to teach these spells to their summoning nations, while others may have certain spells as largely inherent abilities or be unwilling to reveal their secrets. Some commanders might even get bonuses on particular spells.

...allowing fine-grained nondeterminism in research. For instance, if researchers are studying a certain school, the likelihood of learning spells in that school might be based on RP, the knowledge of easier spells in that school, and the paths of the researcher (e.g. Seithkona researching death- and astral- related spells more easily as they're proficient in these).

...allowing events in which objects are recovered that provide awareness of specific spells.

...possibly even the association of consequences with researching different types of spells, and allowing a greater degree of choice in these. Most notably, death and blood research might be problematic in terms of both public acceptance or lack thereof, and in the potential for intensely unfortunate discoveries.


Along those lines, one might suggest a unique 'Library of the Damned' site that a researcher could Enter for significant research bonuses, but at varying risks of insanity, horror marking, cursing, feeblemind, meeting Horrors or a Vastness... and maybe a more research-oriented (rather than plain power boost) unique tome with similar properties.

[tinkthank]

Those are some really interesting ideas, Taqwus. I like them. I wonder if the folk at Illwinter do? It could be too complicated....

[tinkthank]

An Addendi to Forts:

This is PS to the notes on Flexible Fort Systems(tm) for dom3 discussed above (decoupling build time from gold price, for more design points the option of building butch tough castles AND/OR wimpy quick castles in-game):

Some forts of the more Butch/Expensive/LongerBuildTime type could have interesting defensive bonuses, such as:
- Moats over which storming enemies must cross
- vastly improved tower fire
- "Burning Oil": Anyone running the gauntlet between the truncheon of the outer castle gate and the courtyard (e.g. anyone who cannot fly to the back without passing through or anyone too slow to stay in for too long) will suffer from sulfer haze or falling fires 1x turn
- Traps: Enemies have the chance of getting hit by a random Vine Arrow attack anywhere beteween the outer gate and the courtyard
- Nation-specific defenses: Abysia with a tough fort-type could have more fire-based defense, possible flare-volleys, or something of that type, while Caelum might have cold bolts, Ctis might have bog beasts lurking in the moat, etc.
- Some forts come with built-in "castle defense" PD-like troops, anywhere from 5-25 elite (such as Guardians for Ulm, City Guard for Ctis, etc.), who wait like PD in the courtyard, set to "guard commander".
This would, of course, require lots of work, but it could be worth it.

[tinkthank]

Oh, see that "Beta Testing" has been announced -- does that mean we should stop bombarding you with suggestions now?

[Kristoffer O]

Is betatesting announced? I wonder what they will test http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Don't stop suggesting things. Suggestions are always welcome. Even after beta has started. Even after the game is finished in fact.

[Olive]

Don't stop ? OK, here's a noob suggestion :
In an unit datasheet (the one you have by rightclicking the unit and where you see it's characteristics like str, def etc...), show also the upkeep cost and the supplies it eats. Same thing on an army screen, it would be nice to know the global gold/supplies upkeep of that army.

Also on the province information screen, It would be nice ro see how many supplies that province can prodice per turn.

That's of course if the interface is similar to dom2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

[Edi]

I would like to see sorting options for the Nation Overview display, and please implement the magic site display portion of the NO so that it does not freeze up and grind to a halt with large numbers of provinces (this problem is verifiably linked to the number of sites displayed as those small icons, at 4 sites per province, problems start appearing at around 80 provinces and the display chokes by around 200 provinces).

Edi

[Saber Cherry]

New event suggestion:

"Your castle sank into the swamp, killing everyone inside except the wily local baron."

Swamp terrain only. It should create a new magic site, "Sunken Castle," which generates 1 death gem per turn and makes future castles on the province 150g cheaper (minimum 150g).

[Agrajag]

Should require Luck -3 and Order -3 and be quite rare, an event like that is very dangerous. You should also make sure it can't happen on your capital if it is on a swamp =O
You should also notice the effect of an event like this on the whole blanket casteling issue.

[finnegan]

Hello!
Where can I get the latest information about the game and release date? Is it true that beta-test was announsed?
With best regards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[liga]

Some easy (I hope) improvement in the interface:

1. list of all the commanders with the possibility of different ordering (name, type, location, gems ...)

2. list of all the magic items (also the one in commanders hands) with the possibility of different ordering

3. full report of the battles (which units are dead and which are survived for both side)

4. possibility of changing the order of the F1 list and also of the spell list

... anyway, thank you for any improvement in the game!
good play

Liga

[tinkthank]

Liga, these suggestions you made were in my UI summary (see above), or at least they better be!

These weren't:

- Common Battle Orders per Hotkey (e.g. "1" or "a" for Hold And Attack: None, "2" or "g" for Guard Commander, "3" or "f" for Fire Closest, etc.)
- When Score Graphs are Disabled ("No Information on Others"), you should still be able to get graphical information on your own nation (currently not the case).
- Suggestion with Handicaps: In the Players Overview Screen (currently f4), we can right-click on any nation at any time during the game to see what handicaps this nation started with. This screen should never be disabled (even with Scoregraphs Off).
- I forgot to include the Sacrificing Bloodslaves and "put all bloodslaves in lab" suggestions some people made earlier: There must be a command "Put All Bloodslaves in Lab EXCEPT those on persons set for Sacrifice"
- Forgot to include Shortcut: Ctrl-S (or whatever), cycles through all commanders set to Sacrifice

[Endoperez]

finnegan said:
Hello!
Where can I get the latest information about the game and release date? Is it true that beta-test was announsed?
With best regards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif



Yes!

I sent you private message with more information, there should be a flashing symbol up near the text "Welcome, finnegan. [Logout]". If you didn't get that, I can send it to you in e-mail.

[PvK]

I would like a confirmation dialog (Are you sure? Y/N) before executing the "Throw it away" magic item option. I had never used it before, and just clicked on it by accident, and then decided to re-do my turn rather than actually throw away my dwarven hammer. Kind of nonplussed at having to re-do the turn. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

PvK

[DrPraetorious]

Actually, I haven't seen the beta-test announcement either. Could I have an e-mail also?

samuelBACON.handelmanHAM@gmailCHOPS.com

(minus pork products)

[Endoperez]

I think the beta-test announcement was taken from the Shrapnel Blog. They announced need for betatesters some time ago, and later told that they have enough. I hadnät thought of the possibility of it being beta of DomIII... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Kristoffer O]

The shrapnel beta announcment was not a dom3 beta announcement. They are increasing the group of beta testers for all of their games, current and upcoming.

[Strider]

Were http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Mindi closed the call for beta testers at the end of Feb. It's in the Blog section. The "call" was announced in the Shrapnel General forum and was not for any specific betas...just adding to the current beta tester pool, as Kristoffer O says.

[Gandalf Parker]

Since the beta-test group from Dom2 still exists Im not sure if there will be any mass additions for a Dom3 test group. Most of the new beta-testers will probably be needed for brand new games that have no test-group at all and need many new minds to examine it well. They do have a nice list of upcoming games and if you figure alpha-test at 10-20 and beta-test at adding another 20-30 fresh looks then thats a lot of beta-testers needed for a brand new game. They are trying to increase that pool to offer it to new developers.

Although.... Im not sure if the "speaks Swedish" bonus still applies. On Dom1 it was like a +50 luck item for addition to alpha and beta-test.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Edi]

I'm not in the beta test pool and wouldn't probably do much good there anyway, but if you guys (IW) want to tap me for producing documentation (both manuals and the type of stuff I've done on my own) or proofreading stuff you are doing for Dom3, I'm available. And you won't even have to pay me anything, I'll do it for free. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Edi

[Saber Cherry]

Problem: Dominions II stats are too granular (not adjustable to a fine enough degree to make every unit, weapon, and armor distinct).

Solution: Below.

I suggest you read the preface first, unless you are just scanning rapidly for brilliant ideas (like I imagine developers do - in which case, skip to the bottom).



~ Preface ~

Last night, after I thought (incorrectly) that I had finished and correctly posted files to be used in the Rebalance test mod, I went to bed. And I had this Brilliant Idea. So brilliant, I almost got up to write it down, but I thought "It's so brilliant, how could I forget it?" And I went to sleep and forgot it. Then, I just remembered it now, 5 hours after waking up... and here it is!

When examining weapon stats and unit stats, and trying to mod them... I always run into the same problems. How do you make a longspear slightly worse than a spear, without making it worthless? How do you make Full Scale Mail less bad without making it identical to a Chain Mail Hauberk? How do you give units Leather or Chain cowls or Bronze helmets that are beneficial, but not quite as good as a steel helmet? How do you give a unit stats slightly above normal (hp 10, mor 10, att 10, def 10)... but below elite (hp 11, mor 11, att 11, def 11)? How do you differentiate a Ring Mail Hauberk (7, -1, 1, 6 res) from a Scale Mail Cuirass (7, -1, 1, 7 res) without making one worse than the other in any possible situation? How do you make Drain 1 (with its .5 MR bonus) useful in any way?

Answer: YOU CAN'T! Dominions' combat mechanics, based on 2d6 (open ended) and low integers, do not allow such things.

The solution: If you want those things to be possible...









Solution:

Modify the 2d6* (shorthand for "two 6-sided, open-ended dice") to 2d6.0* (shorthand for "two 6-sided, open-ended dice plus a 10-sided, decimal die").

Implementation:

Dominions II dice rolls are usually competing sets of 2d6*, which generate an integer in the range (98% of the time) of about -14 to +15 (see the Dice Roll Chart (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=UBB74&amp;Number=243925&amp;Forum= All_Forums&amp;Words=dice&amp;Searchpage=0&amp;Limit=25&amp;Main=2 43917&amp;Search=true&amp;where=sub&amp;Name=&amp;daterange=1&amp;newe rval=5&amp;newertype=y&amp;olderval=&amp;oldertype=&amp;bodyprev=# Post243925) for details). To get accuracy in the .1 region (allowing rolls of 6.1 or 14.7) is quite simple. Change (2d6*) to ((2d6*) + (1d10)/10). As long as each side gets an additional ((1d10)/10) on all rolls, nothing in Dominions II will change much! Also, make unit stats (and hit points, during combat) floating point numbers with 1 decimal place instead of integers.

With rolls providing sub-integer precision, equipment can be modded much more precisely. A ringmail cuirass can give -.3 defense and +.5 encumbrance, instead of the (unrealistic) 0 defense penalty and 0 encumbrance that it currently gives. A helmet can give +.1 encumbrance and -.3 precision. Longspears can give -.2 attack and -.2 defense, becoming slightly worse - but not vastly worse worse - than normal spears. Ulm could get +1.5 MR from drain 3, instead of the current 1 MR. Elites could get 11 strength / 11 attack, heavy infantry could get 10.7 strength / 10 attack, medium infantry 10.4 strength / 10.2 attack, light infantry 10 strength / 10.5 attack, trained militia 9.5 strength / 9 attack, and peasants 9 strength / 8 attack... and it would all matter!

Maybe nobody else cares about this degree of arcane number-crunching complexity. But I DO! And I hope there are others out there who feel the same way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Saber Cherry]

I think I mentioned this once before, but... if Dominions III allows magic sites to have text descriptions, I (and probably other people in the forum) would be more than happy to fill them out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Oversway]

Please make castle attributes (point cost, admin, defense, supply, build time, gold cost) modable. There is a hidden request here to allow for build time to not have to equal gold cost/150.

[Scott Hebert]

My brother and I the other day were commenting on the increase in national spells announced in Dominions III. We agreed this was a 'good thing'(tm).

My brother then made the suggestion of pretender-specific spells. As an example (this is not part of the request), Nagas have all of these bonuses with Lamias. Why not let the Naga start with Call Lamia? (I can think of quite a few reasons, off the top of my head, but it was a brainstorming session.)

In a similar vein, the Vampire Queen could start with the Vampire-summoning spell.

Then, another thought that crossed our minds was to have pretender-specific Sacred units.

Again, using the Naga as the example. If you choose the Naga as your Pretender, Lamias (and Lamia Queens) are Sacred for you. Vampires could be Sacred for VQs, Ghosts for Ghost Kings, Astral mages for Oracles (;)), etc.

Anyway, just a suggestion.

1) Pretender-specific spells.
2) Pretender-specific Sacred troops.

[Endoperez]

Scott's idea could be worked through |&gt; themes &lt;| that are only available for certain pretenders. That would open up some other interesting possibilities, too.

I like the pretender-spesific ideas, and would like to add nation-/pretender-/mage-spesific items only forgeable by a spesific nation, nation under the rule of a spesific pretender or a spesific mage-type commander.

EDIT: I meant pretender-spesific themes, not mods. Both would be nice, but I think themes would be easier to make.

[Scott Hebert]

Yes, just giving us the ability to mod this in would be great.

[silhouette]

Seems like a good idea to define a half dozen "empty" nations who's only purpose is to be modded (maybe with a set of some empty pretender, hero, weapons, units). Having a set of empty nations would allow nation mods to not have to replace existing nations, so you could have Loren vs Pangea vs Oglala vs TC easier. New nation mods could all be written for Empty1 and could easily be adjusted to play as Empty2 or 3... since they would all have the same template (Empty1 weapons are 730-739, Empty2 weapons are 740-749, etc). Even if the game itself didn't support loading these nation mods directly, it would be easy to make scripts to combine them and make combo mods with multiple new nations in selected empty slots. Resolving mod overlaps is no fun now.

Sill

[Kristoffer O]

Adding a couple of empty slots is no big problem. Nation modding will be a lot easier in dom3. Themes are made as different nations and most stats can be modded or enabled for a given theme (province defence, production bonus, blood sacrifice etc).

[Molog]

When casting site searching spells I would like to be able to see whether a province has already been searched and the type of terrain of a province when selecting the target of the spell.

A backpack item slot in which units could store any item. Possible for cursed items found on the battlefield.

Immunity to disease for certain magical beings like angels and elemental royalty.

All dominions 2 bugs fixed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Kristoffer O]

&gt; When casting site searching spells I would like to be able to see whether a province has already been searched and the type of terrain of a province when selecting the target of the spell.

Good point.

&gt; A backpack item slot in which units could store any item. Possible for cursed items found on the battlefield.

Cursed items don't let themselves be put in bags. They invariably end up in the possession of their finder and corrupts him. The finder will never part from his precious once he gets his fingers on it.

&gt; Immunity to disease for certain magical beings like angels and elemental royalty.

Hmm. In some part a good idea. But I really like diseased angels. Sort of losing their divinity when they come to our world.

&gt;All dominions 2 bugs fixed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

We wouldn't want that would we? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Scott Hebert]

Kristoffer O said:
&gt; When casting site searching spells I would like to be able to see whether a province has already been searched and the type of terrain of a province when selecting the target of the spell.

Good point.



A point regarding this. May I suggest a palette shift on provinces that have been already searched? That seems the easiest way to know whether a given site has been searched with a given spell. Alternatively, being able to bring up the F1 screen to select a province that way would work just as well.

Along these same lines, could we please have 'sticky-note' capability? I'd dearly like to be able to put notes directly on the map that tell me certain things about the provinces in question.

'Knights - avoid' or 'Library here' and stuff. It would work best if it were completely configurable (i.e., I type in what the note says), but even a color-configured push-pin system would work, too.

[sushiboat]

In the screen for casting ritual spells, a player's gem inventory is shown at the top. When going down a long list of spells, however, the gem inventory scrolls off. If the gem inventory could be locked at the top so it doesn't scroll, that would be great.

The unit info cards in the battle movies should have the nation's flag. Sometimes a unit will switch sides during a battle, and it's not always easy to tell.

Most suggestions are for the programming side, so I wil make a couple of game art suggestions. First, a splash screen or animation for major events -- especially final victory -- would be nice. Second, the event messages are very plain. I'd like to see some small pictures or icons added. For example, any province disaster could show a dark sky and people weeping over dead bodies. Tarot card art or CCG art might be good places to get ideas. I know that creating new art for every possible spell effect would be a lot of work, but using themes that cover several spells or kinds of events should be manageable. In some cases, you could even use existing Dom2 art -- e.g., the icon of the magic site found. A good luck event could have the four-leaf clover.

[sushiboat]

How about a magic shop that sells magic items and summoned creatures? Every turn, some of the unsold items and creatures would drop off the inventory, and new ones would be added. Most RPG games have a magic shop, though I don't think it is common in war/strategy games. In addition to adding an element of random fun, the magic shop might also collect information about the relative demand for different items and units.

Here is a possible game description:

The Mage Guild

The Mage Guild is devoted solely to advancing the study and practice of magic. It is an independent international organization, with a branch in every nation's capital. Although each nation is suspicious of an organization not under its control, the Mage Guild is tolerated because its scholarly activities benefit the training of new mages. The Guild sells magic items and summoned creatures at reasonable prices.

[Chazar]

Three unrelated things: I've come to think about Taqwus "Forced March" proposal again. I really like the idea to be able to trade battle force for mobility, but I think it should not be generic and available to everyone:

So a forced march should give ordinary living non-flyers, non-swimmers an additional movement point at the cost of a temporary moral loss and initial fatigue.

I think that the fatigue obtained by forced marching should be based on the encumberance score and that 0 encumberance units should be excluded. A soulless is already marching at his top speed, so there is no way to force it to move faster. So maybe the lifeless and mindless tags should prohibit forced marching too.

Maybe "forced march" could allow to move one single step behind enemy lines, like flyers are able to do.


It's ok that the world population will eventually drop to zero in a war of gods and raw magical forces, but I would really like to see more immigration effects due to bad/good scales, high/low taxes, natural disasters and good/bad scales.


The map editor should allow the deletion and adding of white dots while preserving the semantics of the map file. Have you ever added or removed one or two provinces in a map? The renumbering throughout the file is a pretty dull and error-prone task.

Idea: All province numbers should have a unique syntax, e.g. like adding braces to distinguish pronvice number [32] from the terrain modifier 32 or for the unit type number 32. It would make manual editing much more simpler (search and replace) or allow lazy bats like me to come up with an external tool for renumbering map files, as one would not need to care for the semantics of all those numbers inside the mapfile...

[Oversway]

I think its been mentioned but I'm not sure. I'd like mages in hand to hand to be able to cast the touch only spells. Either automatically or (better yet) as another option in the tactical combat screen.

The best I can do now is script something like "buff buff buff attack attack spells" which sort of works, but that has lots of problems.

[Cainehill]

I'd really like to see the game announce when turns aren't given for a nation - this would really help to know when some @*#$ decides to start staling for 5, 10, 20 turns, and he could be set AI, or at least everyone knows that it's time to start clawing out a piece of those territories.

[Azhur]

Armor and weapon breaking would be a nice add to bring that one bit more realism. The breaking would show up on the unit sheet similarly to a battle affliction (broken sword&amp;shield icon) pointing which equipment is broken. There would be two possible break-downs: 'halving' and 'complete'. Halving would halve the power/protection/defence of the equipment, while complete destroys it entirely. Magic equipment is much more resistant to the breaking effect.

This naturally brings up 'repair'-skill, (compare to 'heal) which repairs X amount of equipment depending on how good repairer you're using (More uses for Master Dwarf).

[Endoperez]

Armor can already break down. They need to be weakened first (with Acid spells or Rust Mist/similar spells), and even then it takes a strong hit to actually break the armor, but it does happen. The armors are repaired when the units spend some time in province with spare resource points.

Magical armors (magic items) are immune to this, and there might be a flail/morning star having this effect in the magic item lists.

[Azhur]

Endoperez said:
Armor can already break down. They need to be weakened first (with Acid spells or Rust Mist/similar spells), and even then it takes a strong hit to actually break the armor, but it does happen. The armors are repaired when the units spend some time in province with spare resource points.

Magical armors (magic items) are immune to this, and there might be a flail/morning star having this effect in the magic item lists.



Strange that I haven't noticed this effect before.. well anyway I hope that equipment breaking will be more visible in Dom 3.

[Endoperez]

It is marked by a "Broken Sword" icon, but I haven't seen it either. It is quite rare. 'Desctrucion', Alter 4 and E3, destroys armor on AoE 6, no magic resistance roll. However, Ulm won't use it, Pangaea's mages can be used for more interesting things and they are very expensive (although this would work nicely with Maenad hordes), and Vanheim's Dwarves are limited by their capital-onlyness.

[Zen]

Any acid casting will show you the icon fairly quickly. Try playing TC and using a few battlemages with a few levels in evocation. You should see a goodly amount of Acid flying around causing havok with armor.

[FrankTrollman]

I was playing through Master of Orion 2 again recently and that is what we need. We need each province to have a separate population of every kind of basic humanoid in it. In the game so far, that's:

Ex-Imperial Humans (Marignon, Ulm, Arco, Pythium, Man, Ermor)
Norse Humans (Vanheim, Jotunheim - Utgard)
African Humans (Machaka)
Central American Humans (Mictlan)
East Asian Humans (Tien Chi)
Demons (Abyssia)
Caelumites (Caelum)
Hoburglings (Hoburg Alliance)
Jotun (Jotunheim)
Vaetti (Jotunheim - Iron Woods)
Tritons (Oceania)
Shamblers/Atlantians (Atlantis, Rlyeh)
Amazons (Themaskyra)
Barbarians (none)
Satyrs (Pangea)
Undead Hordes (Ermor)
Icthyds (none)
Woodsmen (none)

These should matter, and grow at different rates depending upon scales. Furthermore, these races should be required in a province to make specific troop types.

Thus, Caelum should go ape trying to grab Raptor provinces, because they are populated with Caelumites and allow the Caelum player to make troops they can otherwise only make in the capitol.

---

And like MOO2, provinces should have a basic carrying capacity that should engender a certain level of growth until populations reach it. Growth scales should increase populations faster and increase the carrying capacity over time. Death scales should just kill population and do nothing to the carrying capacity (but even death 1 should kill people faster than base replacement rate).

You could have a little house diagram that was partially filled out in various colors on the main screen that would give your a proportional idea of how full the province was of various types of creatures, and then when you went to the hire troops screen it could give you an exact breakdown of how many people of various races are in the province.

---

Finally, every race should put forward at least two nations that can use them, and every race should be represented on the world map with occassional provinces. Sometimes a waste should just have a bunch of Abyssians in it. Sometimes a province should be defended by vaetti. The Revenge of the Raptors should be a separate nation from Caelum so that the Seraphs and the Harab can do battle over the all important Caelumite populated provinces.

And even so, that's not enough population types! I want to be able to play a "Rise of the Vine Nation" nation, and that means that there should be Vinemen populated provinces. I want to play with Willard as my god, and that means that there need to be Rat infested provinces.

And there should be a few troop types that are set by population type, to the extent that when I conquer Abyssia, I should be able to recruit humanbred soldiers from the Smouldercone.

Finally, I want either a MOO2 or AoW style population "management" system, where I can purposefully genocide peoples whose religions aren't mine or settle desirable population around so where I want it. It's OK if it's time consuming, or even just not very good, in a game like this I think it's important that you be able to have sub-goals like "kill all the Abyssians" or "populate the entire planet with Van".

-Frank

[Molog]

Perhaps spells that help defend a certain province in battle.
A wall of fire that does firedamage to any enemy army trying to attack the province.
A flying fortress spell making a castle inaccesable to ground troops.
A Cloud of Shadow spell making all battles in that province under the influence of a darkness spell.


A way to sort commanders on magic paths or items would be handy.

[ioticus]

How about a toggle that lets you specify the maximum number of gems a mage will use in any given combat? The AI may decide to use less, but at least this way you can be sure you won't use your full inventory of gems in one battle.

[Endoperez]

FrankTrollman said:
Ex-Imperial Humans (Marignon, Ulm, Arco, Pythium, Man, Ermor)
Norse Humans (Vanheim, Jotunheim - Utgard)
African Humans (Machaka)
Central American Humans (Mictlan)
East Asian Humans (Tien Chi)
Demons (Abyssia)
Caelumites (Caelum)
Hoburglings (Hoburg Alliance)
Jotun (Jotunheim)
Vaetti (Jotunheim - Iron Woods)
Tritons (Oceania)
Shamblers/Atlantians (Atlantis, Rlyeh)
Amazons (Themaskyra)
Barbarians (none)
Satyrs (Pangea)
Undead Hordes (Ermor)
Icthyds (none)
Woodsmen (none)



Ex-imperial humans is a bad category. There are just generic people, and there could be Ulmish, Marignon etc. populated-provinces.

There are Tribal Cavalry, who could belong to the "barbarians" category, and personally I would put Woodsmen to Pangaean/Vine Men/treehuggers category.

Did you read that thread of mine (reading maps from .map files) about map-inhabiting program that could handle areas of few provinces that would contain units with similar themes? A list like this would be of great help if I ever get the program to work. Would you be interested in doing your own list of themed province defender types (barbarians, tribal cavalry, tribal archers+warriors or HI, x-bow and shield-spear-leather LI or even vine men, satyrs, woodsmen), I would be very grateful.



These should matter, and grow at different rates depending upon scales. Furthermore, these races should be required in a province to make specific troop types.




I don't like the "required to make special units" part, but that might just be me. I don't have experience from this kind of population effect.

[FrankTrollman]

Ex-imperial humans is a bad category. There are just generic people, and there could be Ulmish, Marignon etc. populated-provinces.



I'm actually with you here. Unfortunately, right now "humans" are mostly interchangeable. I want that to change, but even in the backstory the people of Pythium and Marignon and Ermor are all the same people.

I agree that I'd rather see provinces populated by Ulmites, who all had extra hit points, strength, and reduced encumberance. That would be cool. I would also like it if the "Knight" provinces were all in the Maignon or Man style and had occassional Chalice Knights or Avalon Knights to back things up.


Did you read that thread of mine (reading maps from .map files) about map-inhabiting program that could handle areas of few provinces that would contain units with similar themes?



Yes. That's a really good idea, but I don't actually program except in html and bbcode, so I felt that I had nothing useful to add.


Would you be interested in doing your own list of themed province defender types (barbarians, tribal cavalry, tribal archers+warriors or HI, x-bow and shield-spear-leather LI or even vine men, satyrs, woodsmen), I would be very grateful.




No problem.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=346553

I don't like the "required to make special units" part, but that might just be me. I don't have experience from this kind of population effect.



The idea is that this would supplement the "capitol only" properties, allowing for an intermediate range of elite troops that are only available in limited amounts, but which with proper management and economic investment or luck you could find elsewhere.

It would be kind of like the AoW deal where you needed cities of a certain size to make more powerful units. Or the Warlords III deal where you could buy the ability to build your home units in distant cities.

-Frank

[Chazar]

I disable/enable a "Staff of Storms" by transfering it to/from an accompanying sneaking scout. This is somewhat messy...

Commanders should have some servants at their disposal to carry unused items (enable checkbox?). Furthermore they should be able to ship magical items to laboratories without carrying themselves. Of course, there should be time penalty and maybe some gold cost, but requiring explicit scouts is a bit troublesome.

On the other hand, this would preclude the interception of enemy carriers, which might be desireable. Maybe some scouts could be turned into instant recruitable units: Pay some gold (maybe deduct resources) and you get a crappy (maybe non-sneaking) 0-command commander just to carry things, which can be disbanded as easily?

(It should not alter much of the game, but I think predicting the need for carrier-scouts is just micromanaging...)

[ioticus]

Here's another wish: Please run all text through an English spell checker! But you're not through yet; didn't think I'd let you off that easy did you? Have all text proof read by an English professor. I'm sure many would do it for free even!

[Gandalf Parker]

ioticus said:
Here's another wish: Please run all text through an English spell checker! But you're not through yet; didn't think I'd let you off that easy did you? Have all text proof read by an English professor. I'm sure many would do it for free even!



Actually any of us could do that and turn in the results. Maybe I will remember to sometime

[Saber Cherry]

ioticus said:
How about a toggle that lets you specify the maximum number of gems a mage will use in any given combat? The AI may decide to use less, but at least this way you can be sure you won't use your full inventory of gems in one battle.



Everybody seems to want this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But keeping a scout stocked with slaves and gems (and maybe a winebag) works just as well, especially because he's hidden and cannot die in combat. Just transfer the number of gems you want to be usable from the scout to the mage. It seems like a clutzy solution, but actually I prefer it to additional interface complexity.

For me, there are a couple aspects of commander control that cannot be solved without interface changes, which take higher priority.

1) Forcing / disabling spells beyond the script, as there is no way to keep a commander from casting "Breath of Winter" and killing all of your other mages and commanders, or to force him to cast "Lightning / Thunder Strike" instead of useless phantasmal warriors.

A simple "Repeat last spell" option might solve this.

2) Ordering a commander to never retreat, unless he personally has a morale failure. This problem makes Molochs and some other pretenders that auto-summon allies very weak, and exacerbates the supercombattant problem, since SCs cannot be grouped with normal units - so they must be used solo, thus they can't be deployed unless they can take on an entire army alone, forcing people to use a few insane SCs rather than lots of medium SCs, narrowing choices and making the game less interesting. It also weakens thugs - very strong combat commanders that can take out an army, if you have maybe 5 of them. If one gets killed, the rest rout and you lose. So why bother? Just save your gems for a single powerful SC. Also, the slave collar is rendered useless. Has it ever had a function in any version of Dominions?

A "Never Retreat, Never Surrender (R)" toggle per commander, defaulting to "off", would solve this.

[Psitticine]

ioticus said:
Here's another wish: Please run all text through an English spell checker! But you're not through yet; didn't think I'd let you off that easy did you? Have all text proof read by an English professor. I'm sure many would do it for free even!



As much as possible was gone over before release, but unfortunately too much was embedded in the code. Hopefully, all the text in Dom3 will be in a form that can be handed to an editor.

[Olive]

Molog said:
Perhaps spells that help defend a certain province in battle.
A wall of fire that does firedamage to any enemy army trying to attack the province.
A flying fortress spell making a castle inaccesable to ground troops.
A Cloud of Shadow spell making all battles in that province under the influence of a darkness spell.



Reminds me another game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

Anyway, provincial spell would be nice, but then should wehave a provincial dispell spell too (cheaper) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

[ioticus]

Another suggestion: have all scouts default to "retreat" orders instead of "attack" orders.

[NTJedi]

RECOMMENDED NEW MAGIC SITES
Here are some ideas for new magic sites for Dominions3.


HotSprings = Any commander and units under him may enter and receive +1 STR this effect works only once for those units.

Active Volcano = +2 Fire Gems per turn... 20% chance each turn any units within the province take 1-25pts of fire damage.

Arena of Gods = Any commander in the province may enter to fight a random monster... if victorious the reward will be 3 random gems. Also all other pretenders are able to watch this battle.

Temple of Ancient Air Spirits = Any commander and units under him may enter and receive temporary flying only for the next turn. very very rare mostly useful for map editors.


Altar of Fire or Poison or Cold or Shock = A commander may enter and one unit under his control is randomly sacrified. All units under the commander matching the type sacrified will receive 25% resistance for the type of Altar. Example= Altar of Fire would be 25% resistance for Fire.

Hyperbolic Time Chamber = A commander may enter which causes him and the Chamber to vanish for 3 to 7 turns. The commander returns as ethereal yet the Chamber is destroyed. +1 Astral Gem and Pretenders cannot enter.


Dimensional Vortex = Province is cursed causing independent supernatural attacks such as Horrors, Phantasmal Warriors and other supernatural beings.

Brigands Kingdom = Unrest increase by 5, 5% chance of independent brigands/thieves/rogues attack, 5% chance one random commander has an assassination attempt by an independent assassin.

Great Fault = The province is seriously unstable with frequent earthquakes and 10% of the time causing a Major Earthquake each turn... any units here during a Major Earthquake will take 1-12 damage. No structures/buildings can be built here.

Oracle of Faith = Any commander may enter and units under his command temporarily gain +3 morale for the next two turns.

ArchDemons Blood Pit = A commander may enter causing the sacrifice of 12 blood slaves in exchange the commander will receive +2 permanent hit points.

[Sandman]

What I'd like is for each magic site to have a little bit of text description. Who made the White Man hill? What's the story behind the Shrouded Lands?

[Oversway]

I have this idea for 'spell slots'. Basically every unit gets a number of spell slots, and various spells take up slots when they are cast. Mostly buff type spells but perhaps other battlefield wide spells (wrathful skies, darkness, etc.) could take up slots

There are lots of things you can do with this:

- limits the number of buffs a mage can cast so you could allow more than 5 orders per commander
- stronger (or lower reasearch level) spells could take up more slots
- more tough strategic choices if other battlefield wide spells take up spell slots - you can have wrathful skies but its harder to protect the casting unit
- different units (especially pretenders) could have different number of spell slots
- some items could give (or use) extraspell slots

A way to do the UI would be to have another line of icons with the slots and what is occupying them. It would look similar to the icons for the various buffs now, but with boxes for the slots.

[Oversway]

It would be wish for some missle weapon buff spells that do not cost gems and are not battlefield wide. For example, an 1 aoe spell that makes missile weapons have some amount of extra cold damage. Right now aim is the only spell that I can think of in this category.

[Sandman]

National unit upgrades

It would be nice if national units recieved certain improvements based on your current research. For example, Ulmish armour would get better stats if you researched construction. At con-0, full plate of Ulm would have the same stats it has now; 18 protection, -5 defence and 5 encumbrance. At con-5, the armour would have improved to (say) 20 protection, -3 defence and 4 encumbrance. At con-10, it would be very good indeed.

Another example would be Man's Avalon units. For each level of enchantment reached, they could gain +1 strength, hitpoints or morale. Their discription says they're enchanted by the witches - so shouldn't that enchantment get better with research?

I don't intend for these upgrades to become the norm; they're primarily a way to enhance (in a thematic way) some units, giving them more of a chance against powerful magic.

Similar possibilities:

Weapons upgrades for Ulm.
Spider Armor upgrades for Machaka.
Martial arts abilities (alteration?) for Tien Chi.
Coral upgrades for Atlantis (enchantment?)

[Zooko]

I was noticing again today how Dom2 doesn't tell me which specific commanders died during a battle. I don't want to watch the whole battle over and over, keeping my eye on the commanders and hoping to notice when each one bites the dust. Maybe the "units killed" part of the battle report could be clicked on, and when you click it shows you the display of the commander (full stats and everything, just like dead heroes in Hall of Fame).

The related issue of having to write down everything that your scouts tell you could be solved by having a general purpose rewind feature. We already do this sometimes, especially in multi-player -- we save all the .trn files so that we can watch the whole game again afterward. If that kind of functionality were made part of the standard interface then whenever I wonder what a scout told me about this province I could just rewind until I find the turn where the scout reported and read his original report.

[Molog]

How about an ingame battlelog in which players can write down their plans and in which all scouting and other information is automatically added.

Units shapeshifting into different units after a certain time or reaching a certain experience.

[sushiboat]

For the tactical order screen, I would like to have presets for field positions. When you hold the cursor over the green position square and press a number, it would change the position of that squad or commander. There could be 9 presets corresponding to the edges and the center:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

5 would be what is currently the default position, the center. 3, 6, and 9 would be the front; 1, 4, and 7 would be the back. These presets could be customizable with the same control-# used with tactical commands.

[Chazar]

Molog said:
How about an ingame battlelog in which players can write down their plans and in which all scouting and other information is automatically added.

That is essentially what I wanted with my suggestion of sticky notes on commanders or more refined with assigning commanders to non-local groups having sticky notes:

A log is fine, but then you need to describe or name the units used for that plan. So why not attaching a players plan for each (group of) commanders directly to that commander?! It should also help to cycle through a group, eg. assigning all forger to a group, where I write down my forging need...

[Olive]

In the same way, why not keeping informations on provinces you once visited ? I.E. you had a scout in a province, but now he as moved elsewhere and you have no more info. It seems that you have forgotten the name of the province (there's a ???).

Why not having the name of the province and the infos you had last time you knew something about that province ? I.E. : 'last time you visited that province, there was 40 hostile independant units, mainly militias, that was 5 turns ago'. Or something like that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

[Sandman]

The astral bless is fairly redundant on the R'lyeh void summons, given that they have high magic resistance already and aren't really built to make good use of twist fate.

The death bless has different effects on undead units, so why not give the astral bless different effects on void summons? Improved regeneration, perhaps?

[Cainehill]

I'd love to see a new style of victory condition, a cumulative victory point win.

That is to say : currently, if 5 VPs are enough to win the game, as soon as someone gets them all, game over, allowing stealth victories, surprise victories, and even accidental victories. Not that this is a bad thing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

But Alneyan's King of the Hill games are essentially a cumulative VP condition : One key province (the Hill), and whoever holds it for a total of 20 turns wins, with everyone knowing each turn who holds the Hill and how many turns everyone has held it.

This really inspires the fighting - no one wants to let someone else come close to holding the Hill for 20 turns, and as anyone starts to get close, epic attempts to wrest control of the Hill take place.

But it takes the person hosting it to make this work.

So, what I'd like to see is a way to have fixed victory point locations on a map, and the game keep track of how many turns each player has held those VPs, along with a mandatory score graph displaying the gradual accumulation of those victory points. (This particular score graph would be on, even if graphs were turned off.)

This would promote conflict, and keep games from running on too long - once the victory provinces are taken, the scores start accumulating. I can imagine new maps being created with places of power, holy sites / cities, etc, that serve as the victory provinces, as well as old maps which already depict such places being modified for this style of game.

I think it would also make for more intense games, with hot spots of interest and conflict surrounding all the victory provinces. Do people expand in all directions aiming to build up enough strength for the victory sites, or head straight towards them? Given that there's a definate time constraint, people can't just meander about building clams and gobbling independents, not once someone starts accumulating the victory points.

[astrapol]

I'm a total newbie to this great game, so I won't suggest precise rule changes.

Many interesting things have been suggested in this thread, but I think developers should focus on making things simpler and nicer rather than deeper (which does not prevent them from adding new features).
Don't forget many suggestions on that forum come from experienced gamers.
Think about new users : try to stay simple and accessible without loosing the depth of this game.

I'msurprised few people talk about the graphics, while it's obviously the main weakness in Dom2. I 100% agree that the interest of this game is not in its graphics, but anyway, it would be relatively easy improve them, without making it a burdensome task.

Not necessarily by making tedious 3-D graphics but by giving more atmosphere to the game. Nice illustrations for units in their description, nicer (and more distinct) units in army setup screen ; illustrations accompanying messages such as magic site discovery, etc...
Why not try to have some different kind of graphics for each nation ? Chinese style paintings, medieval enluminure or renaissance frescoes...
Battle could be improved of course but not necessarily with realist 3-d graphics. I liked the 2-D, semirealistic approach of Heros of Might and M%agic II.
Dominions 2 cannot, and should not try to, compete on the visual aspect with big commercial games. But it could be much nicer and maybe more "poetic" than it is, and then attract many people who otherwise will not even try it.

The same with the instruction manual. It should include a tutorial and a few tips, and easier to use spell, unit and object lists.

[Endoperez]

astrapol said:

[about improving graphics]
Not necessarily by making tedious 3-D graphics but by giving more atmosphere to the game. Nice illustrations for units in their description, nicer (and more distinct) units in army setup screen ; illustrations accompanying messages such as magic site discovery, etc...
Why not try to have some different kind of graphics for each nation ? Chinese style paintings, medieval enluminure or renaissance frescoes...




Most older units (unit number under 600 or so) were made for Dom:PPP, and were drwan only 16 pixels high. The unit resolutions were doubled for DomII, but all old units weren't redrawn. The work is still on its way, and although the "graphics department" of Illwinter has mentioned he enjoyed redrawing Slinger, he also said that he got depressed with all the other old units he still would have to drawn. This was from old FRAG! review, so things might have progressed.


Also, if by different kind of paintings you mean the GUI (menu) backgrounds, the ability to customize those has been added in the newest DomII patch. I suppose we will see national GUI themes in DomIII, but this is just a supposement. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



The same with the instruction manual. It should include a tutorial and a few tips, and easier to use spell, unit and object lists.



I also think that the manual should be reworked. Having the manual should be the reason to buy the game, explaining game mechanics better that the current one.


Also, whenever given order cannot be accomplished, it should always be noted with a message. E.g. for magic items with insufficient gem availability, a message among the lines of "It seems you don't have enough Fire gems.

3 more Fire gems needed."

[FrankTrollman]

One thing to remember about better graphics is that a modder making new units will have to keep the newly required graphics up to par.

A text only game is easy to add units to, you just write a description of a new unit. A 16 pixel-high unit requires a 16 pixel-high piece of art. A 3d wireframe with attached cellshading requires... and so on.

So the higher tech the art gets, the harder it is going to be to add a new team. And since we are still missing:

Klackons (or Abeil, or Formians)
Arabians
Vietnamese
Tibetans
Incans
Vaettiheim (or swamp goblins, or the Unseelie Court)
Beastmen

etc. etc. etc.

...that remains something to worry about. The Dominions meta-setting is one which could potentially incorporate virtually any group from virtually any fantasy or historical setting, and therefore should. So it must remain easy to create a new group.

-Frank

[astrapol]

IMO graphics in the unit description should not be based on the battle graphics. They should be 2D illustrations.
People creating mods could draw them or scan history books, fantasy comics or movie pictures to add to their unit description.

[Chazar]

astrapol said:IMO graphics in the unit description should not be based on the battle graphics.

So a new player must then learn to recognize and identify two different pics for each and every unit? :-/ I think that the battlefield view is already difficult enough to understand for my taste: There are some creatures one might encounter as enemies pretty rarely. So if I see something new on the battlefield (you have to be watchful for those too!) I right-click them. Now I do not want to write down or memorize everything about each unit, but seeing the battefield picture displayed with the description actually helps to recall a unit's quailities if I encounter them again later on...

My wish: Include the Battlefield Spell-Animation within the Spell Description for each battlefield spell!

It is sometimes difficult to identify the spells cast for less frequently used spells without looking closely inspecting the written info on the upper left of the battlefield view. However, this written info is not very comfortable in battles with a lot of spellcasters of the same type doing different things or when combined with 'f'ast forward. Or spells cast by items in the beginning of a battle do not even have such a description (In fact, it puzzled me for quite some time until I understood the animations displayed by bearers of StaffOfStorm or wearers of CopperPlate Armor were caused by the items, since I rarely cast ChargeBody or Storm manually).


So I would like it if the right-click spell information window would feature a sage casting the the spell over and over again. Or maybe the missile icon for evocations...

[Argitoth]

NTJedi said:
Active Volcano = +2 Fire Gems per turn... 20% chance each turn any units within the province take 1-25pts of fire damage.



If you are going to come up with new ideas the least you can do is keep them as realistic as possible. A commander would keep his army away from a volcano. The most realistic effect of an active volcano is to have it have a chance in reducing population in the province or lowering the resources and supplies; creating unrest...

Edit: With the restrictions of realism you have freedom: There could be a spell/special event to create volcanos in a province having good and bad effects. Fire gem production but destroying the province (or maybe even NO fire gem production). Super massive volcano spell could be a global enchantment to reduce supplies, create unrest, and lower population. This is realistic for a volcano.

[NTJedi]

Argitoth said:

NTJedi said:
Active Volcano = +2 Fire Gems per turn... 20% chance each turn any units within the province take 1-25pts of fire damage.



If you are going to come up with new ideas the least you can do is keep them as realistic as possible. A commander would keep his army away from a volcano.



DUH !
The point of this magic site is the income of FIRE GEMS which is realistic with a source like a volcano. And it's obviously realistic for units risk being damaged in the same province as an active volcano.
My example of a volcano adds a magic site which brings danger as well as valuable gems the same as a few other magic sites which spread disease yet give gems.


Argitoth said:
The most realistic effect of an active volcano is to have it have a chance in reducing population in the province or lowering the resources and supplies; creating unrest...



This could also be added as part of the volcano magic site... but the more details for a magic site the more difficult it will be for the developers. Thus I left my description more simple.

[Agrajag]

How about giving one nation the ability to take over enemy temples?
Just like the 100 gold temples, you could have a nation that can use enemy temples as well as ordinary temples, that could be quite interesting for a little flavor.

[Chazar]

Searching commanders should have an extra chance (maybe modified by the current luck scale) to uncover a magical trinket in addition to the searched sites:

I do like magical trinkets, but it is hardly worth the gems and mage time to forge them! Furthermore, I love it to find magical items after a battle! Anything that I can get is fine - it just appeals to my primordial greed to seize something as my prize for winning a painful, bloody battle! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif However, my enemies rarely field any item-wielding commanders besides SCs. So why not making low-level items more abundant by such a mechanism? Adding such a mechanism would also increase the luck scale's usefulness (especially if there would be more cursed magical trinket to be found besides the odd slave collar, hehe!).

However, I would oppose the idea that a search and a high luck scale could produce anything better than a lesser magical item or even extra gold/gems in order to avoid an exploit of the luck scale by heavily searching and re-searching...

[FrankTrollman]

The Slave Collar should reduce your normal leadership to zero. AFAICT, that would make your leader keep fighting after the rest of the troops ran off.

-Frank

[Taqwus]

It might be amusing to add a few more "end of the world"-type globals... for instance,

Rain of Jaguars; as in jaguars falling from the sky. Mictlan. Stat bonuses to Jaguar Warriors, werejaguars; unrest increasing worldwide; tiny chance of jaguars attacking commanders and their bodyguards.

Fate's Fury; all new units, either summoned or recruited, have a chance of being cursed and/or horror-marked. Global 1-pt shift towards Misfortune and Turmoil would be thematic, but probably overdoing it...

[ioticus]

How about a new spell that can be used in combat that dispels all enemy enchantments?

[Molog]

I'd like to be able to see the upkeep cost for units. Instead of hunting down their purchase price and dividing by 16 or 32.

On the subject of upkeep. How about allowing certain units to have more or less upkeep than the standards rules.

As example a king midas national hero who contributes 10 gold a turn and has midas touch attack, resist or be turned into gold.

[Stossel]

A few things on my wishlist, some of which I'd bet would be ridiculously unpopular but, of course, they're my wishes.

Nation-based items

These would come in two flavors. Items that can be produced in great numbers but only available to one nation (gainable through trade and battle by others) and items that every nation can make but can only make 1. This way, you can gain more than 1 of these items but only through trade or battle.

Items of the first type would be like "abysian longswords" or "Ulmian necklace" which provides element resistences.

Items of the second type would be gem-producing items. My wish (and I'm sure that's all it will remain) is that gem-producing items be more expensive but produce more. I think that it'd be better for something like a clam to cost 100 pearls and produce 20-40 a turn and be semi-unique (1 per nation) than making commanders for sole purpose of producing gems. If all a commander is doing is being an item wearer it seems to me he's not really much of a commander, but that's really fore a whole different thread. Anyways, I think these big items would add to gameplay considerably without gem-producing getting out of hand.

The return of aim/target mage

This was mentioned much earlier in this thread and I wanted to come at it again. I think that this could be implemented a lot more safely. Perhaps the bodyguard could be increased in size for battle purposes, or perhaps the bodyguard could share in the effects of protection spells the caster casts initially.

To my mind, spellcasters should be powerful but troops should be a major checking force. If you want your mage to get off those nasty spells, they need to cast some protective spells and be guarded. Weakness of body has classically been a mage's balancing factor and I think that it needs to be maintained. It doesn't seem right that I can't target directly the beings which are completely destroying my forces. If protective spells need to be increased in effectiveness to compensate, then fine by me, but spellcasters in battle need this check IMO.

Make trinkets and lesser magic items cheaper and/or produced in numbers

Make the cheap weapon + armor items something like 1-2 gems or be able to make 3-5 of the item if it costs 5 gems. This way you can outfit mediocre commanders with mediocre eq to make them decent commanders, but for minimal gem cost.
I'd actually prefer the second system of being able to produce several of the trinket in one turn, else the cost of wasting a forgers time for a 1-2 gem trinket would be too costly.

Spells that take multiple turns to cast

Whether you add spells of this nature in or make some existing spells like this, I think this would be a good addition. If you have a spy in the province with a mage who's doing this, you get a chance to see if he begins, and then you can take action with spells or assassinations. Of course, assassination would be easier on a mage who's using all his energies on a large spell...

Chance for scouts to not reveal nation or reveal faulty nation

This is one of my favorite wishes. Give scouts a chance to not reveal their nation if they're found out. Then perhaps special national scout units can reveal faulty allegience, or another variety of scout would be one with only a mediocre stealth but NEVER reveals his nation. Looking at the unit in battle would help the player somewhat, but it wouldn't be a sure bet. I think it would add to the political flare to the game in MP.

More items and spells that strengthen troops

Heading says it all, though more healer mages would be cool as well.

Famous Troop Bonuses

This one is pretty far-fetched and would seem hard to implement. If you could get the ability to lock a group units so that they could not be separated from each other, then they could gain notoriety as a group, leading to these bonuses. You wouldn't be able add units to this squad but if the squad got famous they'd have a chance (maybe an order?) to attract followers (of a similar make and model of the units inside) to replenish the units numbers. Pretty far-fetched idea, but would be very neat to my mind.

[NTJedi]

A game feature which always seems in great demand for TBS games is smart computer opponents. Very often we see computer opponents develop predictable patterns and/or little strategy. I've listed some suggestions below to make the Artificial Intelligence more challenging for Dominions_3. I've listed some of the more important ones below.

1) Don't make computer opponents send their pretenders into the death match. Any human player knows this is never a good idea.

2) Allow some type of alteration/adjustments for AI via scripts or editor. Then 6 months after the release there's bound to be two or three challenging/different AI.

3) Don't make computer opponents suffer from starvation when they're not even aware of the danger. It's sad to see their huge armies quickly flee because of starving units.

4) Don't have computer opponents purchase the super weak "militia". Anyone who has played more than 3 games would not purchase these units in mass numbers... so please adjust the choices it makes for purchasing units.

5) Verify the computer opponents will consider casting all types of spells which become available via research. Currently they don't cast some of the more powerful spells such as Flames_from_the_Sky, Elemental Kings/Queens, DemonLords, GhostRiders, etc,.

6) Guide them to use mages in searching for magic sites and researching. Even with an Impossible setting within Dominions_2 I always toast the computer opponents on researching and magic sites. Perhaps some on/off option for allowing all computer opponents to start with research finished for all paths at X level... then the player could move the X variable from 1 to 9 accordingly for a different game experience.

7) Provide the computer opponents some long-term wisdom by focusing on human players when one or more human players become the overall strongest on the map. It's sad watching two dying computer opponents kick and spit at each other while the powerful human player swallows them.

[Chazar]

FM_Surrigon said:
Nation-based items
My wish (and I'm sure that's all it will remain) is that gem-producing items be more expensive but produce more. I think that it'd be better for something like a clam to cost 100 pearls and produce 20-40 a turn and be semi-unique (1 per nation) than making commanders for sole purpose of producing gems.



I like most of your ideas, but I dislike the above cited suggestion of yours as much as I dislike clamming. I've found EarthBloodStones and Clams to be very helpful to equip on my battle mages in order to reduce micromanaging their supplies via scout ferries. Taking them away would make things awakward again!

The mechanism to limit the number of times certain powerful spells can be cast by a mage with gems in addition to fatigue is pretty convincing to me!

My suggestion against Micromanagement(tm):
However, maybe one could allow mages to order their gems automatically by mail or magic pigeons: You choose a standard gem pouch for each mage and a priority (a two digit number). As soon as a mage's gem pouch is depleted, he orders new gems from the nearest laboratory, provided that there are gems available after higher-priority mages have been served first. The pigeons delivering the gems might take a turn or two depending on research levels - or preferably depending on the distance to the nearest lab (instant if colocated).

To avoid total gem depletion, the lab gem overview screen should show a second column (like the gem transfer column showing two commanders in the existing game), and only one of the columns is used to serving mages via magic pigeon mail order. Maybe adding a priority number for each type saying that only mages with high enough priority are getting served would suffice as well to prevent the gem stock being depleted by greedy mage tramps...

[Agrajag]

My idea would be a special forgeable pouch that is eqipped at the same slot clams occupy and is refilled with magic gems at the rate of one/turn (or more, for more powerful pouches).
The thing is, you can't take the gems out of the pouch and into the lab, so it can only be used as a way to increase a mage's power in combat with gems.

[Taqwus]

Chazar --

Definitely agree. I'd like to see some form of memory wrt gem expenditure / replenishment.

I'd also like to see less micro involving blood slave harvesting -- e.g. any blood slaves harvested go into the pool, unless the harvester has actually expended them and still neds replacement or there's no lab.

[Graeme Dice]

FM_Surrigon said:
It doesn't seem right that I can't target directly the beings which are completely destroying my forces.



The problem with this order is that what it actually accomplishes is to make a staff of storms required for any group of mages.

[Stossel]

Graeme Dice said:
The problem with this order is that what it actually accomplishes is to make a staff of storms required for any group of mages.



While this may be true in Dom2, this need not be true in Dom3. A buffing of anti-arrow spells mages have access to might help, as well as other changes, perhaps allowing bodyguards to soak up arrow damage.

The removal of this order removes a valuable check on powerful units like mages. This is one reason I think national and "mundane" troops are at such a disadvantage (and why you often see armies with little or no mundane units at all). They can't be ordered to be effective, and thus can't be effective.

I lost my taste for Dom2 multiplayer because games were ALL about mages and summons and whatnot. There was no focus at all on mundane units, which I think is a shame. It's an aspect of the game I'd love to see get played up a bit more in Dom3, so I think that in order for mundane units to be worthwhile, the user needs more control over them than they currently have.

[Cainehill]

FM_Surrigon said:
I lost my taste for Dom2 multiplayer because games were ALL about mages and summons and whatnot. There was no focus at all on mundane units, which I think is a shame. It's an aspect of the game I'd love to see get played up a bit more in Dom3, so I think that in order for mundane units to be worthwhile, the user needs more control over them than they currently have.



That's why I'd love to see an option to limit magical research, a la the demo : If you limit research to 2 or 3, national troops are pretty much the main focus of the game. Limit it to 4-6, the troops are important but not necessarily the only option. Best of all, it'd require minimal coding effort ( especially since it's already been done for the demo) and doesn't get into the complication of mods.

( Such as players not having the right version, mods not being uploadable to mosehansen, mod vs mod conflicts, etc. ) I believe someone actually did a mod that facilitated removing all the spells and constructed items, but I think it had to be editted to get the exact level of magicality desired, and then distributed to all players.

[Molog]

This is an issue with money giving sites.

Currently money giving sites(like gold mines) are affected by taxes, unrest and population.

The problem is most noticeable with carrion woods where you have a low population killing dominion. You get the situation where you get no money from money giving sites when a couple of hundred people are still living in the province, but when you pillage to kill those last people off you can suddenly put taxes to 200% without a problem and get 100% of income from money giving sites. It's kinda unlogical.

I'd prefer it if money giving sites worked independently of other factors.

[Alneyan]

Cainehill said:
I believe someone actually did a mod that facilitated removing all the spells and constructed items, but I think it had to be editted to get the exact level of magicality desired, and then distributed to all players.



Actually, these are two mods to do that, but you can merge them without any problem. They are SC's Null Spell mod and my own Null Item mod; paste all the contents of one of these mods into the other, and remove everything with a research value higher than what you need (Find and Replace all in a text editor). It will, of course, conflict with any other mod changing spells and items, most notably Zen's Balance mods... unless you feel like converting Zen mods in the Null mods format.

On another note about money sites and no population: maximal unrest from taxes is equal to population/10 or 500, whichever is lower, so you can set the taxes to 200% if you only have 200 population or so. That will kill them faster, and will not lower your income. However, 200% taxes does not mean 200% of the site income, oddly enough: the actual figure seems to vary, but I don't know why it is so.

[Molog]

200% taxes will give around the listed income on the site. 100% will give around half.

[Alneyan]

Silly me, the differences I had noticed were simply linked to the scales (Ermor doesn't exactly have scales that increase gold production).

[magnate]

CJN said:

Use .dominions3 instead of dominion3 as the name of the savefile directory under Unix/Linux systems. It is convention to create all top-level computer generated files in the user's home directory as dotfiles.


Please do NOT implement this.

1. It's incredibly annoying. The save directory should be visible, and should be in the same directory as the game. If you are on a genuine multi-user system, you could specify "personal savegame dirs" as an installation option.

2. It's inconsistent with the behaviour of the MS-Windows version. Both should behave the same way. (It could be possible for the MS version to put savegames in /My Documents/Dom3saves or similar, if personal save dirs is chosen.)

CC

[magnate]

Gandalf Parker said:
Since the beta-test group from Dom2 still exists Im not sure if there will be any mass additions for a Dom3 test group.


I'm not at all sure that having Dom3 beta tested by exactly the same people who tested Dom2 is a good idea. Yes, you want some of the same people, who have expert and in-depth knowledge of Dom2, who can really try to break it and find its weak points. You also, I would think, want some total newbies who have NOT played Dom2 (or hardly at all), but who are otherwise gamers and who can give you a fresh view of the product.

Sadly I don't fall into either category. Ho hum.

CC

[magnate]

Well, it's about 27 pages since I first contributed my wishes to this thread, and reading everybody else's has given me a pretty good idea of what's important to me. I'll try not to go on too long - it seems to me that there are only three really important principles here:

1. Information, in as few clicks as possible. So make the main map screen show terrain types, site search status, age of latest intel etc., with no more than one click. Ditto for wounds, experience, items, food status, waypoints on units. Battle reports should name dead commanders and list exact numbers of unit types killed. Basically, my view is that if you need to implement the "post-it" note system that some have suggested, then you haven't provided enough paths to information. I shouldn't have to make a manual note on the map that there is a library here or a bunch of indie knights there, I should be able to see this in a pop-up or with a single click. Perhaps map overlays are the answer.

2. Flexibility - never underestimate the diversity of the user population. Some love randomness, some hate it. Some love precision/exposure of formulae, some hate it, etc. Try to make as many settings as possible configurable and/or moddable, yet without cluttering the setup screens. A single master config screen (the current Game Settings) is enough, with some possible additions in this thread (turning off mercs etc.) and the rest configurable in text files, for AI modding or themed games etc. For example, I would like to be able to specify which theme the AI plays when it plays a certain nation. I'd also like better scripting features - I accept the argument for limiting the amount of scripting, but stuff like spells not to cast, gems not to use, conditional retreats etc. Also more variety in victory conditions - multiple VCs, cumulative VCs etc.

3. Micromanagement, reduction of. In a game of such vast possibilities you can never get this exactly right, but lots of the suggestions here are helpful - shortcuts for cycling through types of commanders, tax management, gem management, research, forging, group movement etc. Someone's idea of virtual taskforces (ie. a user-chosen set of commanders who need not be in the same province and can be given orders as a group) would be really helpful in long games.

The combination of these means reworking the F1 display and the army screen to show items/wounds/etc. without having to click down into individual units. Some people will want to see provinces listed by income, others by garrison size or army size, others by type of castle., others by spells paths or holy levels etc. etc. This is what I mean about the combination of info and flexibility - every info screen must have plenty of different ways of being formatted/presented. User-programmable tax heuristics are a must - please DON'T create an auto-tax function that follows an unchangeable formula. Ditto forging orders, ritual spells and other repeatables.

Anyway, all this is effectively about improving the Dom2 interface and assumes that Dom3 will be at least similar. I've not said much about actual content changes, largely because I think Dom2 is so fantastically rich that I will repeat my plea not to have yet more of everything just for the hell of it. I particularly and vehemently disagree with Dr Wotsit who did the big summary a while back and wanted 10x as much of everything or Kristoffer's head on a plate ... as any experience of roguelikes will tell you, more stuff leads inexorably to more junk, and the debates about light cavalry and other national units will tell you we don't want more junk. Some more types of helms &amp; boots would be good though, there are so few compared with weapons &amp; miscs.

In spite of that, there are some content suggestions I really like: more building options, specifically taking castles out of pretender design and having them race- and terrain-related - hey, and how about path-related - buildings only buildable by a mage with specific paths ...
er, where was I ... balancing SCs by changing the routing rules so that they can use troops and not have to go in alone, introducing more anti-buffs etc. I also really like the suggestion of moving from whole-race-knows-all-researched-spells to individual spell learning, so you can focus mages on specific suites of spells for different types of battles or for other purposes (blood hunting, forging, castling, etc.). There would obviously need to be some interplay between the two, for global enchantments etc. This would need quite a lot of thought. As would Saber Cherry's decimalisation suggestion, but I like that too.

Finally, one big and potentially quite simple improvement for the AI: basic diplomacy. Currently you can specify alliances for the AI in the map file at the start of the game, but you can't change them, right? Well, if the AI could be coded to make simple strategic decisions on war/non-aggression/alliance with other races it would make SP immediately a lot more interesting. In an MP game people naturally ally against a leading player (esp. if graphs are on), but the AIs never do, even when there are two of them left and I control 90% of the map. I know it would be quite a lot more hassle to introduce human-AI diplomacy, but surely it wouldn't be too much to have the AI make (and break) alliances with each other. It would be particularly neat if your scouts could find this out ...

Ho hum. Back to work. Well, back to thinking about my next turn ...

CC

[Nerfix]

I remember wanting these to Dom II and I'd be thrilled to see them in Dom III:

- Map that changes with the dominions. I really loved the "ugly pixel" maps of Dom I. It was thrilling to see small white-blue and green dots appear in provinces under my dominion...

- Dominion displayed in diffrent shades of white if you want to ala Dom I. I have hard time paying attention to those candles in Dom II.

- Populations ala MOM and MOO 2...

- Diplomacy!

- Magic sites displayed on the map (like in some current maps) if known.

- Neat special effects popping on provinces when they are hit by a spell. Magic sites on map and huge bursts of energy when some bigger spell was cast were the two best things in AOW 2... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

- I also wish that IW doesn't ignore the changes done in some of the popular mods (Conceptual Balance, Recruitable Rebalance). From the time I spent with HOI I learned that the very popular mods (CORE, SR) we're somekind of a vox populis, a less hinting suggestion about what is wrong in the game...

[Cainehill]

One thing I think would add a lot to Dominions 3, and yes, it's greater variety. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif A few more terrain types, special terrains if you will, to allow greater diversity and tactical/strategic nuances in maps.

True "Port" provinces, which would allow sailing to other ports but would not be usable by fliers. (This might also be done via a new type of neighbor command.) Reason for this : currently maps which attempt to implement ports are abusable via flyers, a la Cradle of Dominion. In addition, I think strategic movement should both begin and end in a port - ie, cavalry can't move across a sea and extra provinces beyond.

Chokepoint provinces : land provinces that can't be bypassed / flown over.

Portals : to allow movement to another portal, but without the provinces being considered neighbors for purposes of scouting, dominion, castle admin, etc. These could be two-way or one-way, and require a troop to at least begin movement on the portal province.

Another variation on "neighbors", to indicate provinces which aquatic / amphibian troops can cross between, but which non-amphibians can not. This would solve some issues with maps using rivers/bays/lakes as barriers between provinces, where logically amphibians should be able to go across. (Also possibly for flyers to cross - a half-mile wide river might be a near-complete barrier to infantry and ground troops, but not to flying troops.)

I'm sure there are other possibilities others can think of, but these would really add a lot to facilitate the ingenuity of the Dominions community's mapmakers.

[Truper]

Graeme Dice said:

FM_Surrigon said:
It doesn't seem right that I can't target directly the beings which are completely destroying my forces.



The problem with this order is that what it actually accomplishes is to make a staff of storms required for any group of mages.



I agree with FM here. I think what it actually accomplishes is having to put some thought into protecting mages. You might need to provide bodyguards. You might need to forge them some basic armor. You might need a force of archers set to attack flyers. A Staff of Storms is an all-purpose solution, but its not the only solution, and it must be remembered that the Staff cuts both ways.

As it stands now, mages can cast until they pass out in perfect security, knowing that they will never be targeted by anything. Ever.

[Endoperez]

Would Fire Rear be enough? That can't be interecepted by simple units, and most battle spells' range is low enough to put the mages to danger of atleast some conventional missiles...

I think there should be more possibilities of actually attack enemy armies' back/rear, but don't think Attack Magic Users or Fire Magic Users commands need to come back.

[Nerfix]

I would also fancy seeing stuff from Conquest of Elysium, namely the Dopplegangers and out of player control summonables/crusades.

[Olive]

Some ideas :
- Introducing basic diplomacy would be nice (OK, It has certainly already been said, but this is how I see it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ). Peace, alliances (maybe allied victories), the possibility to offer units to another pretender (same way as gold and crystals- of course it's possible to refuse). And the possibility to cross allied provinces.

- Possibility to move the capitol city to recruit capitol only units nearer to the front (for example). Of course, it shouldn't be free, it should have a high gold cost, and maybe require the presence of the pretender working at it for some turns in the new capitol (or the prophet).

- Heat/cold should modify units characteristics instead of being an economic factor. Or maybe both. A bit like cold blooded units, units from a race liking cold should be very disadvantaged in hot provinces. Temperate units should have smaller characteristics reductions in cold/hot provinces. Don't know if morale, strength, hps or something else should be affected, but you get the idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

And I like magnate's idea to have magically summoned buildings. It should replace the non-existing city improvements and province enchantments and be managed in the magic sites lists. One commander could destroy them. I.E. : death magic would allow an assassins guild (permitting to recruit assassins), fire should permit a volcano (increasing hotness), etc...

[Sandman]

Magically summoned buildings are kinda against the spirit of the game, since they reward ultra-defensive play. Mind you, so do gem-generating items, which the developers seem to tolerate.

A small wish: Change the way libraries work. They're just too useful at the present.

[NTJedi]

I completely agree with Sandman... libraries are way too powerful.

An ideal fix for this and many many other issues would be an advanced options menu where the host could enable/disable specific game features.

EXAMPLE:

Advanced Options Menu:

Enable/Disable Items/Artifacts
Enable/Disable Magic Spells
Enable/Disable Magic Sites
Enable/Disable Building Types (labs, temples, forts, etc.)
Enable/Disable Commanders/Units
Enable/Disable Province Population Types

Here gamers can enable/disable one or more from each category.

** THUS far fewer complaints/issues about some spell or item or mass castle building because the gamers and host can decide before they start **

--- another idea is maybe making these options available as commands within the .map file so map makers will be able to create more unique worlds and different experiences. ---

[Grallon]

1) A full fledged (as in I-don't-want-to-type-page-loads-of-code-&amp;-commands), graphic interfaced editor...

- for units (sprite libraries topick from)
- for items (same + all properties)
- for nations (sprite lib. again - symbols/colors/shiels)
- for the map (the actual way of modding maps is extremely clumsy)

2) Diplomatic options (competing pretenders need to form stratgic alliances at times - even if only temporarily)

3) Management options (more specialized building with various funtions)

4) More control on the advancement/upgrading options of units/leaders (now they just increase without the player having any control over the process)

5) Built-in save/load command !


Basically check out other games on the market and don't be shy about borrowing whatever neat options those others have. It would only improve an already very addictive game.



G.

[Olive]

Sandman said:
Magically summoned buildings are kinda against the spirit of the game, since they reward ultra-defensive play.



I know, but I'm a camper who has always played the few strat games he got ultra-defensively. I just tried http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif .

[Sandman]

Some new afflictions:

Parasite: Causes -2 strength, +2 encumbrance and 10% less hit-points. Strongly associated with ocean and swamp provinces.

Disfigurement: 50% leadership penalty, and -2 precision. Nasty on commanders, not so much on soldiers.

Frostbite: -1 attack, defense, move and strength. Similar to limp, but it can stack with it for extra misery. Strongly associated with cold provinces and frost spells.

Horrific burns: -3 protection, -1 attack. Caused by fire and acid spells.

[GriffinOfBuerrig]

What about "dynamic" magic sites:

e.g. when you make construction spells in one prov all the time, you get there a construction 20 bonus - Site after a timr...

or after a big fight(something like battlefield), or when a pretender dies.

[Johan K]

I like the fire/cold dependent afflictions! Disfigurement might not be as serious in Dominions where a blck hawk or a super intelligent hydra might be their commander the next day.

[Nerfix]

Magic site descriptions, or at least possibility to make them, would be pretty neat. Magic sites generating random gems would be kinda nice too.

I would also like to see some summons that are double-edged like the demon lords. Perhaps some new demon lords. I'd also like to see more advanced spell modding, ability to alter the summoning spells that summon unique/random creatures and the ability to change spell names. Perhaps a way to make spells, combat or ritual, with random effects defined by the modder. Ability to add new spells would be pretty neat too.

[Cainehill]

Alneyan said:

Cainehill said:
I believe someone actually did a mod that facilitated removing all the spells and constructed items, but I think it had to be editted to get the exact level of magicality desired, and then distributed to all players.



Actually, these are two mods to do that, but you can merge them without any problem. They are SC's Null Spell mod and my own Null Item mod; paste all the contents of one of these mods into the other, and remove everything with a research value higher than what you need (Find and Replace all in a text editor). It will, of course, conflict with any other mod changing spells and items, most notably Zen's Balance mods... unless you feel like converting Zen mods in the Null mods format.



That's why I think it would be wonderful if it were a command line (or other) option : it could be used with any set of mods to quickly and easily cap the research levels, without the likelihood of introducing errors into the mod files (or winding up with scads of copies of modified mods : one for research 2, one for 4, one for 6, one for 7, etc). Much easier to programmatically cap the research (vis a vis the demo) then to manually edit complex mod files time and again.

[Nerfix]

Saber Cherry said:
Hi everyone! Been a while.

As for Dom III, I'd love to see a few things:

First, a new combat engine would be nice, though kind of a major change. But for example... putting all stats in the form of low integer numbers has numerous drawbacks. To make a helmet with better protection than 1, you have to have protection 2... which is twice as good! Thus, there are only 3 standard helmet types: none, normal, and super-heavy. Many weapons come out very similar as well, because there are not many variations of small integer combinations (attack, defense, and damage).

An entirely new combat system that used floating point calculations could retain most of the existing numbers, and simply allow greater variation for new items or old ones that need tweaking (like giving a dagger 1.7 damage, a coral knife 1.2 damage, and a copper cap 0.6 protection and .1 encumbrance). Alternately, extant numbers could be reprocessed and multiplied by a fixed value of 2 or 10 (giving normal humans 20 or 100 HP rather than 10, and increasing strengths and weapon damages by a similar ratio) and altering the dice.

Would this be worth the trouble? Yes, in my opinion. Due to the use of small integers, many units and items in the game are (statistically) nearly identical, and some are exactly identical. Others, like the series of armor types, may not be numerical duplicates, but leave no room for new additions without cloning current stats and simply renaming them. Furthermore, changing or modifying the combat engine would allow the perfect opportunity for a more advanced system, with (for example) locational protection and damage (for example, wearing a helmet would not protect you from taking an arrow in the leg, which would slow down a unit for the remainder of combat in addition to causing damage), damage type modifiers (like chain mail providing a bonus versus slashing damage, and an axe doing slash/blunt type damage, and skeletons being pierce resistant), and so forth.

-Cherry



I double those suggestions.

I would like to also see some more variety in weapons, like anti-airshield missiles (a 10 Anti-Airshield missile weapon would reduce the airshield effect by 10), weapons that have serious bonuses against riders (Guisarmes, Pikes) or some specific type of creatures. If damage types don't get in then it would be nice to see more armor piercing weapons like the Longbows, Rondels or Mauls.

It would be nice if weapons could have the damage types and perhaps even going so far that you could define if the weapon always does mixed damage or if it does damage type x for x% of the time and the other type for x% of time (An Axe could be 70% Slash and 30% Crush and a Spetum could do Pierce 75% of time and Slash 25% of the time), perhaps even separate damage values for the diffrent attack types like 6 piercing and 2 slashing for the Spetum...

And how about diffrent versions of weapons going by the Eras? In the early era Halberds wouldn't differ all that much from big axes but in later eras they would have the spear-head (piercing damage) and the hook (bonus against riders).

There could also be weapons that would disappear or appear by the eras: Spetums, Partisans, Copper and Stone weapons in the early era while the later era could have things like Ahlspiess or Brandistocks.

Repeling could be improved too and it could use the various modifiers of the weapon like Poisoned or Magical in the attack. Some weapons like Pikes could have a repel bonus. Also, didn't pikeneers often historically carry short swords with them because the pike was next to useless in close combat? Perhaps making pikes and some similar weapons an infantry version of lances?

[Zooko]

"putting all stats in the form of low integer numbers has numerous drawbacks. To make a helmet with better protection than 1, you have to have protection 2... which is twice as good! Thus, there are only 3 standard helmet types: none, normal, and super-heavy."

I consider this a feature, not a bug.

[Nerfix]

Zooko said:
"putting all stats in the form of low integer numbers has numerous drawbacks. To make a helmet with better protection than 1, you have to have protection 2... which is twice as good! Thus, there are only 3 standard helmet types: none, normal, and super-heavy."

I consider this a feature, not a bug.



Well yeah, it's a feature but it could be improved.

[Sandman]

I say NO to decimal combat stats and damage types. Going percentage-crazy and introducing explicit scissors-stone-paper arrangements does not make a game more strategic or accurate, it just makes it more random and fiddly.

[Nerfix]

Yeah, making diffrences other than whether piece of equipment is life draining or not matter and thus getting comments like "Dominions III has the most detailed combat system fantasy game has ever had" from reviewers, making some not-so-used units used and creating a counterweight against magic-strong nations with not very varying troops has always been a bad thing. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v50/Nerfix/ja.gif

[StellarRat]

I'd like to have a way to grab all the "will heal" wounded or "permanently crippled" units and move them as a group to another line on the troop screen. I hate picking through all those troops and trying to figure who's worth saving.

[Sandman]

Yeah, making diffrences other than whether piece of equipment is life draining or not matter and thus getting comments like "Dominions III has the most detailed combat system fantasy game has ever had" from reviewers, making some not-so-used units used and creating a counterweight against magic-strong nations with not very varying troops has always been a bad thing.



I prefer things like troop placement, logistics, terrain, scouting, flexibility and initiative to matter more than having the right 'counter' for something.

[Endoperez]

Sandman said:

Yeah, making diffrences other than whether piece of equipment is life draining or not matter and thus getting comments like "Dominions III has the most detailed combat system fantasy game has ever had" from reviewers, making some not-so-used units used and creating a counterweight against magic-strong nations with not very varying troops has always been a bad thing.



I prefer things like troop placement, logistics, terrain, scouting, flexibility and initiative to matter more than having the right 'counter' for something.



I understood the "counterweight against magic-strong nations" as something to give Ulm a better chance of winning, if the player is able to utilize the things you mentioned well enough. How can Ulm win against, say, Arcoscephale, when Ulmish Heavy Infantry can be stopped by Hoplites and Astrologers and Mystics easily overpower Smiths. Even worse, Vine Ogres or even Vinemen can stop those units!

An adequate "counterweight" would, IMHO, be increased number of troop-enchancing spells. AoE Iron Will would help Ulm against magic. Currently, I can only think of Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants, Weapons of Sharpness and Astral/Nature spell granting luck, etherealness, magic resistance, regeneration and more protection+fire suspectibility. Fire spell with AoE 3 Range 10 that gives weak Flaming Weapons (4 ap Fire) would help against anything Ethereal, reinvigoration from Earth (Earth Power) or Nature/Earth combination (Strength of Gaia) with AoE would help living units against undead and construcs, etc.

Some, like that reinvigoration, would also help mages to decimate units more quickly, but these exceptions are not balanced, just ideas.

[Nerfix]

Sandman said:

Yeah, making diffrences other than whether piece of equipment is life draining or not matter and thus getting comments like "Dominions III has the most detailed combat system fantasy game has ever had" from reviewers, making some not-so-used units used and creating a counterweight against magic-strong nations with not very varying troops has always been a bad thing.



I prefer things like troop placement, logistics, terrain, scouting, flexibility and initiative to matter more than having the right 'counter' for something.



Yes, it's not like players have to plan any counters now, not especially against magic or supercombatants.

[Sandman]

Just for the record, I support making weapons more unique; just not with decimalisation or damage types.

As far as Ulm goes, I'd rather they had a range of different strategies up their sleeve for fighting magically powerful nations, rather than a single counterweight.