The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[Nerfix]

There aren't much of way to make the weapons without decimalization or damage types. There are only so much values the weapons can differ by plus some special effects which are more often than not magical. Maybe if there would be somekind of equipment durability or something... If you have ideas then please do tell us.

Most of the diffrent strategies of nations seem to come from magic.

[Endoperez]

Well, there are also strategies that work around cheap archers (Marignon's crossbowmen, Man's longbowmen, Machaka's dirt cheap archers...), especially if they can somehow be increased in power with spells (Flaming Arrows, Wind Guide).

As long as supercombatants can easily kill off hundreds of conventional non-undead units, and there is no easy way to get rid of them without more work than is needed to make one, buying national units is not good in the long run. IMO giving more choices to fight SCs is better than nerfing them (lifedrain is good, but only to regain hits/fatique - other items can give either one, not both, but work against undead etc). If there were more ways to overcome ridiculous stats, like cheapish armor-neg. weapon with moderately high attack, armies could have special anti-SC units and thugs.

IMHO, this would make national armies more useable until the lategame where artillery spells come into play, and if there were more armies to survive until that time then all of them couldn't be just blasted away.


What about giving normal units experience faster? Very few units benefit enough from Gift of Reason to make it reasonable to scum for lots of five-star units-made-commanders. This would also make mindless and undead units less useful.

[FrankTrollman]

Decimal Combat doesn't in any way help against powerful SCs, nor does it make the game any more or less random. The only thing it does is make it harder to evaluate the differences between items for the human players - especially the new ones.

Now that would make there be "more to discover", which in a way would make the game have more replayability for some people. But honestly, I can't understand how anyone could think that turning some equipment into being +1.1 could be a good thing.

It's exactly the same as multiplying the numbers by 10. That's a dreadful idea on every level.

If you want Ulm to have a chance, you should probably make their troops better (especially with better magic resistance, low MR troops just don't matter in the late game) and give Smiths a random pick.

If you want Lifedraining to be less of a concern, you should probably make it MR dependent. Then you should probably jack up the stats on Lamias and Ghosts, because you just heavily nerfed some standard sorcery-driven troops that weren't especially broken or over-powering.

-Frank

[ioticus]

As usual, I agree with Frank. Decimalization of combat would be a bad idea, IMHO. The game would merely become less intuitive, for little or no benefit. I like the "board game" feel the game already has.

[Molog]

I'd like it if units with healing/regeneration spells would use them outside of combat to heal accompagnying units.

[Endoperez]

Defining stats on decimal level would, in effect, add more possible values of stats to the game. It would allow units to have better stats and also allow smaller differences. The overall effect would be a difference of about two points in any and possibly all stats of any two items or units, in maximum. Looking at it from that direction, it is too little to have a big enough difference.

However, I can't think of anything else that would make Ulm better without making it magically more powerful/flexible, if we count over-human stats magical. Even reinvigoration would only make Ulmish soldiers last longer, as enemy gets less armor-piercing hits through. Any SCs/mages who can get through their armor (and there are many ways for that) would still kill them just as easily.

[The_Paladin]

I agree with a few of the comments from the anti-decimalization camp.

1) Yes it may make the learning curve for new / casual players a little steeper.

2) Yes I agree it will not help with SCs much, if any, but I would say that's an entirely different issue that could be solved with a minimum hit chance, capping resistances, a minimum fatigue of 1 a round that cannot be regained beyond that level a round no matter what (i.e. 30 fatigue on turn 30 is the minimum a unit can have), or many other reasonable approaches.

3) Also the unmentioned argument that is often forgotten with CPU speeds these days: floating point / decimal calculations are quite expensive compared to their integral counterparts. For older computers this may result in quite the performance hit... even the low graphics environment of Dominions should consider this when battles can take place with thousands of units (and thus require 100000+ floating point calculations)!

However that isn't to say decimal calculations do not have their merits. For example, standard morale for a unit is 10. Many players, however, consider a unit to have elite morale when they have merely 11 and further consider units with 9 morale are quite a bit worse than 10. The same is true for other stats. When dealing with small integers changing even by one step will result in large (in this case 10%) percentage change in overall ability, which often times is more than is desired. Allowing for smaller, more precise steps, would allow more variation amongst units, items, spells, etc.

In fact this problem has been seen in another TBS game - Age of Wonders. In AOW 1, the stats varied as integers between 1 - 10. One of the big complaints was this limited stat range issue. When trying to make an elite defender, for example, a single point increase in the defence is quite significant - a unit with 5 defence is too good but with 4 that unit is no better than the rest of his comrades.

So what was their solution? In Age of Wonders 2 they allowed the stats to vary between 1 - 20 and, in a large way, this problem was resolved. This solution also has the merits of not increasing the computation requirements by not switching to decimal calculations.

With all due respect to Frank Trollman, I would argue that if an increased precision in stats is desirable (and in many cases I would say it is, IMHO) that the solution is in fact to multiply all stats in the game by some number - the easiest being 10. I don't quite understand how this would hurt the game. Say for example, Dom2, was released without any changes save that all stats were multiplied by 10 (and the dice rolls scaled appropriately as well). The game would still be the same, the units still have the same effectiveness, weaknesses, abilities, strengths, etc. The stats would just have a 0 at the end. Therefore it would still be the same great game it is now and would require nothing new be learned... yet it would allow for higher precision changes for the modders should they wish to use it. If you want an increase in morale of 10% go ahead but if you want 5% now, well with this change that's possible too!

Maybe I'm missing something (its quite possible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) but at the moment I can't see the drawback save for having to consider larger numbers in my head when thinking about a unit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Anyway just my 2 cents.

[ioticus]

I think there is enough variation in probabilities without expanding the scale. You are rolling two dice, in most cases the dice are open ended, so you can get vary large variation without going to a larger scale. I don't see how the present system is broken.

[Sandman]

Nerfix said:
There aren't much of way to make the weapons without decimalization or damage types. There are only so much values the weapons can differ by plus some special effects which are more often than not magical. Maybe if there would be somekind of equipment durability or something... If you have ideas then please do tell us.



I had one idea about making hammers and similar weapons derive more benefit from strength than standard weapons... sort of the inverse of non-strength added weapons.

As for decimalisation, I really don't get this idea that it makes things more 'precise' - the numbers are more or less arbitary anyway. Or is there a compelling argument as to why broadswords should be 5.7 damage, 0.2 attack, 1.1 defence and 1.8 length?

[kimmitt]

My three suggestions have to do with gameplay and micromanagement.

The first is the addition of a "skirmishing" command for Cavalry to make it more fun and useful in battle.

The second is a series of micromanagement helpers:
1) Allow us to sort our provinces by any measure on the Empire Overview screen.

2) Have a little icon on the map which shows up when a given province is currently in the process of constructing units (so I know I don't have to go back there and tell it what to do).

3) One of my hotkeys should bring up the spaces with Fortresses in them because that's where I do most of my work. Realistically, sorting my spaces by Resources would probably solve this one.

4) Give me a message when my mercenaries' contracts are about to come up so I remember to rebid.

5) When I'm in a hotkey screen, leave the hotkeys still active so I can switch around quickly and easily.

These little changes will help the micromanagement a lot.

My third suggestion is to have little vignettes, a la SMAC, which trigger when you do things. You don't have to have an overall plot, but if the vignettes would vary by Empire (or even have 4 or so sets, 1 Good, 2 Regular, and 1 Evil), that'd be really sweet. Also, the ending screen is tremendously lame. Gimme SOMETHING to celebrate my success.

To be honest, these really aren't all for Dominions III; the sorting mechanism could come out in a patch.

[The_Paladin]

Sandman said:
As for decimalisation, I really don't get this idea that it makes things more 'precise' - the numbers are more or less arbitary anyway. Or is there a compelling argument as to why broadswords should be 5.7 damage, 0.2 attack, 1.1 defence and 1.8 length?



Well with helmets - the basic helmet gives a protection of 1 and no defence change. The full helmet gives a protection of 2 with a -1 defence change. Say you want to create a helmet in between. At present there is no way - you can't give something a protection of 1.5 and a defence penalty of -0.5.

This is a contrived example but still does show what I was talking about. The other example I already gave with AOW is perhaps a better example.

'Precise' I suppose is a bit of a poor choice of words though.

[ioticus]

Well with helmets - the basic helmet gives a protection of 1 and no defence change. The full helmet gives a protection of 2 with a -1 defence change. Say you want to create a helmet in between. At present there is no way - you can't give something a protection of 1.5 and a defence penalty of -0.5.

This is a contrived example but still does show what I was talking about. The other example I already gave with AOW is perhaps a better example.

'Precise' I suppose is a bit of a poor choice of words though.



No, but you could have a helmet with protection of 2 and no defense change, or a helmet with a protection of 2 or 3 and -2 defense, etc. See what I'm getting at? The change you're suggesting to the system to achieve what you want is simply not worth it at the cost of the elegance and intuitive nature of the basic system.

[Cainehill]

Either way, the helmet is a fairly minor part of the overall armor protection of the unit. Arguably the way to improve things would be having hit locations - a helmet is only looked at when the head is hit, thus you could then have helmets with protection 1 all the way to 10 or more. Of course, this would require a total rework of combat, thus a total rehash of armor protection values, weapon damages, etc.

And even as a sometime grognard, I would hate to wind up having to do indepth analysis of things with decimal values.

Furthermore : decimalization of things like weapon damage and armor protection would add little to the game. What difference does it really make if that short sword is 4 or 4.2 damage when the amount of damage it'll do can be quantified in the range of 0 to 30 most of the time, and against many armors it'll do 0 80% of the time?

[The_Paladin]

Indeed the helmet is a pretty insignificant issue on the whole - it was merely an example. I originally just commented on the subject as I believe that scaling the stats is superior computationally than decimalization and that scaling is also easier to understand / more intuitive. Where in decimalization you would have numbers like 2.5 and 3.5, in scaling you would have 25 and 35 which are easier on the eyes for many http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif and not harder to work with really.

A lot of people have asked what is the difference between a short sword having damage 4 to 4.2, or having a broadsword having attack bonus of 0 versus 0.1. This got me curious so I did some calculating. There's a problem with the question being asked: You should not ask what's the difference between 0 and 0.1 but instead ask what's the difference between 0 and 1, as those are the limits imposed by the current system.

To avoid bogging down the thread with too much math I won't go into heavy calculation details (others like alexti and Saber Cherry already have on this forum anyway). Consider changing a short sword with damage 4 to damage 5. When that sword successfully hits, how much more damage, on average, will it do now? 25.6% by my calculations, averaged over reasonable values of protection and strength (0 - 30) of the units in question.

And if you increase broadsword attack bonus from 0 to 1, how much more often are your attacks going to be successful? 20.7% more often.

Both these calculations are rough numbers thrown together in a quick program but I believe them to be reasonably accurate barring any stupid mistakes on my part.

So the questions are: Do I really want my spearman to be 20% more effective at striking when I increase his attack by 1? And do I really want every unit to be 25% less effective against my knight because I gave him a helmet with 1 extra protection?

Ultimately I'll play Dom3 irregardless of whether these changes are implemented. There are other issues that are more pressing (like improving national troops, getting rid of the easy to obtain SCs and stuff like that).

Remember these numbers are on average - your SC's with 30 protection will not be affected much at all by a 1 point increase either way - but a unit with 12 will. So I feel that if national troops did play a more important role, these presently minor issues in a SC / magic dominant world would amplify significantly as more low-level troops would be involved.

Again just my two cents http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Argitoth]

Any news on Dom3? Anyone?

[Endoperez]

There are things no mere man were meant to know. I weren't damned, when from the depths of history I managed to find secrets that tell of the future... But I can't forward that information, for the Contract binds me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

The development continues, and changes and progress has happened rather recently.

[Chazar]

Any (stealthy?) commander could be issued a "questing" command: The commander simply disappears for at least two turns. Then, each subsequent turn thereafter, there is a small percentage chance that this commander pops up in an assassination attempt with some enemy holding that item. If successful, the commander remerges at his owners captial with the item being transferred to the lab. Otherwise, the proud hero never returns from his quest, his fate unknown to its former lord... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Easy implementation: All that needs to be stored is the commander, the target item-class, the basic percentage chance and maybe the total number of turns the commander has been questing. The program should not keep track of actual province locations. The initial chance should be based on things like distance to closest enemy bearing the quested item at the time of command issue and movement rate of the commander. Each subsequent turn, this basic chance is slightly increased by a fixed value and maybe decreased by smaller value if the artifact is moved (in case of artifacts). Maybe any item above level 4 shoud be targetable amd maybe there should be a fixed chance for the commander to get lost...

FUN: I think it would be real fun to hunt for specially needed items, without hazardous micromanagement! This also might make SCs a bit more vulnerable by sending SC-Killers targeted to the enemy SC's items. There is a delay for balance and they might end up with the entirely wrong person and you never know when they will hit, but artefacts might then be really battled for! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[FrankTrollman]

Personally, I think people would send Jotun Scouts to go find Skull Mentors.

-Frank

[Sandman]

Yet another idea for improving Ulm: A mining bonus. Basically, for each Ulmish province with a fort or a lab, you get free earth gems for unused resources. Say, 80 unused resources would net an earth gem. The player would receive a message each turn saying something like: 'Our mining operations have generated 4 earth gems this turn, my lord.'

It would be nice if resources could be translated into something other than heavy troops.

[Argitoth]

Sandman said:
Yet another idea for improving Ulm: A mining bonus. Basically, for each Ulmish province with a fort or a lab, you get free earth gems for unused resources. Say, 80 unused resources would net an earth gem. The player would receive a message each turn saying something like: 'Our mining operations have generated 4 earth gems this turn, my lord.'

It would be nice if resources could be translated into something other than heavy troops.



Sit and Grow is not a strategy that Illwinter will ever agree with. No.

[Sandman]

They tolerate clamming, though.

[Endoperez]

Oceania is known to change Clams to W2N1, and as Oceania is a preview of DomIII clamming is at least limited. Possibly Fever Fetishes and undead stop working together.

[silhouette]

This is 1 big idea for fort variety which I will recommend stealing from other games like Majesty and Sim-${var}. Instead of having just a single all-or-nothing fortification plan for each nation, have an expandable design plan of forts available. Put them in lines of development, so if you buy a certain fort plan, you build type A, then you can later upgrade a fort type A to a type B by spending time/gold again, and then maybe to type C later. The nation design can still be important if you create different specialized lines of development (with A -> B-> C), which is what you buy at nation creation, instead of one fixed design.

I imagine it like this as an example: suppose there are 3 levels of each fort design, the initial level-1 and 2 levels of "upgrade". One nation wants to focus on high Defence, and buys a category of forts which has a lvl-1 Tower (admin10,def150), lvl-2 Fortress (admin15, def250), lvl-3 Citadel (admin20, def350). When you build a fort you get a Tower, then you can expand the Tower later into a Fortess (pay time/gold again, get +5admin,+100def), and if you want, then later expand to Citadel (pay time/gold again, ++ again). You can't upgrade to any other fort types, because these are the only ways you can evolve an existing design into a bigger one.

Another buys the "High Admin" design line which has these 3: lvl-1 Pallisade (admin30,def50), lvl-2 Walled City (admin40,def100), lvl-3 Fortified City (admin50,def200). Even if this nation expands a fort as big as possible, it will never have as good a defense as the first nations lvl-2 forts, but the admin is always way better.

Another nation (all you MP players) wants a fast-building fort, so they choose the Hasty-build line of designs which has lvl-1 Outpost (admin15, def0), lvl-2 Hold (admin20,def75), lvl-3 Stronghold (admin30, def150). This line of designs builds faster at each level, and is in between the first two in admin/def. As an additional penalty, the lvl-1 design has 0 defense (Ghost Rider vulnerable, insta-breach), so although it builds in only 2 turns it doesn't provide any protection until upgraded to a Hold.

Then there is the default line which costs the least design points and is in between the Citadel and Fortified city lines also (like the Stronghold), but builds in 3 turns instead of 2: lvl-1 Watchtower (admin20,def75), lvl-2 Keep (admin30, def150), and lvl-3 Castle (admin35, def250).

You can choose how large/sophisticated a fort you develop at each location, but it is still limited to the flavor you selected at the start. Largest forts take a long time and gold to build, but you only expand where you need it, and if you really need to defend a location you can do something more than just pile militia and summons into the fort. Imagine an attacking force coming to seige a Keep, and see it upgraded to a full Castle (extra def and supply) just as they arrive. Maybe a Pallisade province is taken by defenders just 1 month before the completion the Walled City, and then the seiged have to drive the attackers away just long enough to (continue) complete the construction.

Every nation starts with their level-2 as their home fort, so it is bigger then the lvl-1 forts they will start building elsewhere. But it still has upgrade headroom for later in the game or if they think there is an early rush coming and choose to beef up the home fort first instead of expanding with a new fort. Maybe require a lvl of construction research before being able to upgrade forts to lvl-3. It also provides another good investment to spend money on for those longer games where I always have extra cash.

You see... this is what happens when you stay up late reading about history of fortifications and how defences evolve at specific sites over time?

Sill

[FrankTrollman]

Absolutely. Further, I would like different fort plans to cover different things at the different levels.

For example: if you spend out the points for "magical fortresses", your forts protect the magic sites with just a level one fort. Otherwise you need the level 2 or even level 3 fort to do that. Contrarywise, if you spend out the points for the "city walls" archetype, you get a big admin value even on the level 1 fort.

The basic no-frills set-up would be something like:

Watch Tower (low admin, covers your Lab and Temple)
Castle (medium admin, covers your Lab and Temple and Magic Sites)
Citadel (High Admin, covers your Lab and Temple and Magic Sites)

but other progressions should certainly exist (and cost points):

Warrior Monastery (low admin, IS your Temple, covers Lab)
Shiro (Medium Admin, IS your Temple, Covers Lab and Magic Sites)
Dark Citadel (Medium Admin, IS your Temple, Covers Lab and Magic Sites)

Fortified Estate (Medium Admin, Covers your Lab and Temple)
Walled City (High Admin, Covers your Lab, Temple, Population and Magic Sites)
Fortified City (Very High Admin, Covers your Lab, Temple, Population and Magic Sites)

Wizard Tower (Low Admin, Covers Lab, Temple, and Magic Sites)
Magic Castle (Medium Admin, Covers Lab, Temple, and Magic Sites)
Floating Fortress (Medium Admin, Covers Lab, Temple, and Magic Sites)

-Frank

[Nerfix]

I'm not so sure about covering magic sites. They could be hundreds of kilometres apart within the province...

Other than, well, I don't really have an opinion. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh yeah, I'd like to see the possibility to make a "mutating" dominion which alters the recruited unit's stats randomly within given parametres. So a units HP could be affected within the range -6 to +8.

I know it's not really relevant but the weird nation plan I cooked up today after playing Kamband would really need it to work. And magic site modding. And magic sites generating random gems.

*slaps himself -bad Nerfix, be less selfish* *sticks his head into chaos mist*

[FrankTrollman]

I'm not so sure about covering magic sites. They could be hundreds of kilometres apart within the province...



In Dominions II, every castle covers the lab, temple, and magic sites. It does not cover the populations, and is a separate building from both the lab and temple.

Strategically, I would like it to cost a bit more to defend magic sites. Right now any old Watch Tower will do. I do not think that I am ready for it to be impossible to defend magic sites with fortifications.

-Frank

[SurvivalistMerc]

I might wish for an option to allow your blessing to change upward or downward depending on your current paths in the various magical powers. Not sure how hard it would be to code. And it's not too important. I tend to go rainbow and want to acquire blessings in my SP games.

It might also be nice to have an Option, not automatic so that folks who do things differently need not be bothered by it, to assign newly ordered troops to the largest squad of such troops on the commanders present at the recruitment site. This is because I spend too many clicks assigning troops too often when I'm just making one large group on a particular commander.

The other thing I thought of is a command to "Go to province x as a group in as few moves as possible." So you wouldn't have to move your stacks manually every turn.

Just a couple of thoughts.

[Endoperez]

A Rainbow mage who equips Staff of Elemental Mastery, Robe of Wizardry, Flaming Helmet, Ring of Wizardry, Skull of Fire would net +5 Fire. I think 60 Fire (empowerment from 3 to 4) gems is quite a cheap way of getting Fire 9 bless, and that would mean that I get Fire 9 in any game that lasts long enough. I don't like that.

However, if only EMPOWERMENT and unboosted magic skill were counted in, it might work... It would make bless pretenders more risky, or more expensive if one bought level 10 in case.

[Nerfix]

Endoperez said:
A Rainbow mage who equips Staff of Elemental Mastery, Robe of Wizardry, Flaming Helmet, Ring of Wizardry, Skull of Fire would net +5 Fire. I think 60 Fire (empowerment from 3 to 4) gems is quite a cheap way of getting Fire 9 bless, and that would mean that I get Fire 9 in any game that lasts long enough. I don't like that.

However, if only EMPOWERMENT and unboosted magic skill were counted in, it might work... It would make bless pretenders more risky, or more expensive if one bought level 10 in case.



He said "an option"... Make it a non-default option. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Argitoth]

Well I personally feel blessing troops were pretty underpowered. I never used em and they would only be used in conjuction with a powerful spell combo anyway... so... like... yeah... and... all...

[Cainehill]

Blessing troops underpowered? *snicker*

Yeah, blessed centaurs, spiders, giants, wardens, vans, and heart companions are all so underpowered.

The only problem with blessed troops is that some nations have relatively sucky sacred troops, and that most are capitol only while lucky lucky Vanheim gets to build one of the best and cheapest everywhere.

[Zooko]

In keeping with my on-going theme of "show me everything I want to know", it is really irritating to see "base hitpoints 100, dominion -20, current hit points 110". Please please please tell me the actual numbers which add up to the current number. If you can't bring yourself to do that, then just remove that whole page, because numbers that don't add up are more irritating than no numbers at all.

Next, battle wounds should have tooltips so that hovering over the red heart with the mouse will let you know which wound it is. (Even better: invent unique icons for every kind of wound. :-) But they all have to be identifiable as battle wounds (i.e. they all have to start with the same big red heart)).

Along the same lines, when inspecting troops on the armies page, they should have teeny tiny hearts and stars inscribed atop their image so that you can tell which ones are experienced and wounded without clicking on them. If you can't do that, then at least give tooltips so that you have to hover but don't have to click.

Next, when the "zoom into the province" happens just before a battle replay, I can rarely tell which province it is. That's because the image being zoomed in doesn't have the overlays that I'm used to, such as the name, fortresses, temples, dominions, etc.

One solution to this is to include the current overlay settings in the zoom image. Alternately, allow the user to pan and zoom the image before he clicks okay to see the battle.

[Zooko]

I like to watch the battles without knowing who wins. It makes it exciting! Unfortunately the messages screen sometimes gives away who won, either by having a random event happen in that province and showing the flag of the new owner or by announcing that my troops in that province are starving.

Perhaps this could be fixed by not-showing the flag of the owner of a province until the user has viewed all battles (or all battle-results-pages) in that province. Likewise, "troops are starving in Province" messages could be hidden until the user has seen results of all battles in that province. For users who want to see all messages and don't care about spoilers, there could be a "show all messages" button that effectively marks all battles as viewed.

[Zooko]

In general, if there is some information that I will often want to know, and which can be encoded into the current page without over cluttering that page, then that is the best solution.

example: wouldn't it be cool if the wound, poison, fatigue bars were displayed on the battle display, such as was done in the Myth games? (It would of course be togglable, just like the grid and background parts of the battle display are.)

example: show wound and experience marks right on the "t" military information screen, as teeny tiny graphical overlays on the units

example: which battle wound it is should be indicated right on the unit information page, by encoding the battle wound type into the battle wound red-heart icon.

example: when looking at the F1 nation page I often want to know the terrain type of a province. Currently I have to click on it to find out.

Okay, but for various reasons you sometimes don't encode all information onto the current page. In that case, the next alternative should be to make that information be tooltipped.

Example: if I hover the mouse over a unit on the battle display, the wound/fatigue/poison bars should pop up beneath (or next to, or on top of) the unit.

Example: if I hover over a unit on the "t" military information display, its battle-wound and experience status should appear.

Example: if I hover over a battle-wound on the unit information page, which battle-wound it is should appear.

Example: if I hover over a province on the F1 nation page, its terrain types should appear.

[Manuk]

I would like to have an option to list all spells or by school but only those that a specific mage can cas.

Example: I pick The renegade sage with 1 nature. then I can see the list of all 1 nature spells and not the others. This will make research pathing easier.

[Endoperez]

Zooko said:
In keeping with my on-going theme of "show me everything I want to know", it is really irritating to see "base hitpoints 100, dominion -20, current hit points 110". Please please please tell me the actual numbers which add up to the current number. If you can't bring yourself to do that, then just remove that whole page, because numbers that don't add up are more irritating than no numbers at all.



That works. "dominions: -20" shows how the dominion of the province the unit is in affects its hitpoints. The "current hitpoints" is (base + dominion_bonus) of the last turn. In your example, whether the pretender/prophet moves to another province or not in the next turn, it will have 80 hitpoints.
Except that it wont, because it has little extra hp left from the turn before (your example, i.e. 110 hp), but I don't know how that is calculated.

[Zooko]

Endoperez: I know the explanation of why the hit points numbers are reported like that, but it doesn't matter. My brother was playing yesterday and I was looking over his shoulder and when he looked at the hit point report, he cursed. The user interface is irritating, and turns off potential customers, even though it is actually possibly for an experienced player to figure out the hidden variables and deduce most of what it actually means.

[Nerfix]

- Wishing for "gems" produces a magic item called "Gems" which goes to the caster's misc slot. The description would say "They are pretty baubles".
- Wishing for "doom horror" would result in the caster gaining reversed effects of Twsit Fate and Luck and a Curse. Description would say "You're doomed, oh the horror!"
- Wishing for a particular kind of magic gems would result in 50 gems of the type

[sushiboat]

Nerfix said:
- Wishing for a particular kind of magic gems would result in 50 gems of the type


Wish costs 100 astral pearls, which can be alchemized into 50 gems of any other kind except blood slaves. Then again, I suppose that fits with the theme of screwing over newbies who don't know enough to download and read the user-written information files. Good way to prevent new people from enjoying the game!

[Nerfix]

It's a good way to screw

I wish
doom horror
gems
doom horror

[Cainehill]

sushiboat said:

Nerfix said:
- Wishing for a particular kind of magic gems would result in 50 gems of the type


Wish costs 100 astral pearls, which can be alchemized into 50 gems of any other kind except blood slaves. Then again, I suppose that fits with the theme of screwing over newbies who don't know enough to download and read the user-written information files. Good way to prevent new people from enjoying the game!



Oh yeah, new people really tend to start casting wishes right away. The main issue with newcomers to the game is that there isn't any decent walk-through or guide to the early game, although someone (Arralen or Alneyan?) is working on that. Still won't really solve the problem unless / until Illwinter starts including something like it with the demo and game.

If people can get past the steep initial curve of figuring out how to deploy units on the battlefield, give them commands, etc, they don't seem to have much of a problem with enjoying the game while they find more and more of the hidden lore.

[Endoperez]

AFAIR, wishing for 'gems' currently gives just enough gems to alchemize them to 100 pearls. That is how it should be, IMO.
Wish should be about choice, absolute choice, of getting whatever one might want to play with. It should be choice of "what is worth it" instead of "quess the password". The choices should all be beneficial and of about similar power-level. Of course, this does not mean all units should be able to face each other in combat, but that wishing for powerful monsters shouldn't always or even in most cases be the optimal choice.

[FrankTrollman]

Doom Horrors aren't even necessarily the best thing you can wish for, to be honest.

You can wish for a "lord of hell", and get a Demon Lord that spawns Militia and even Blood Slaves as soon as you GoR it.

You can wish for a Vastness, it has no item slots once you Gift of Reason it, but it is immune to Cold, shock, and Poison, and it has Astral Magic Level 3, and it has a bunch of Mind Blasts (which yes, are enhanced by the Astral Magic once you make it a leader).

Nerfing the standard wishes now will just make people spend some time wishing for new crap in single player for a while getting new units and effects that are crazy good.

It would issue in another dark time, where some people know what is good that can be Wished for and other people don't. That makes it unfair. Frankly, the list of high-quality wishes should be published with the game. It's fine if not everyone knows about wishing for Vastnesses, but at the very least everyone should know about:

*Gems
*Magic Power
*Doom Horror
*Gold
*Girls

Those are the standard wishes, and everyone should have access at least to those. The more specialized wishes, like Arena Fight and Lord of Hell can be Easter Eggs, but all the "raw power" wishes should be available to everyone.

-Frank

[Endoperez]

Well, considering that the in-game wishes one is most probably going to try will be 'gems', 'gold' or 'magic'. The ones trying it out for the first time won't know just *how* the Wish will carry that out. In the case of "magic" (I think that should give the same as "magic power" if it already doesn't, for the reason FrankTrollman listed above), the surprise will be quite positive, I think. And as Doom Horrors will be unique in DomIII, they will be less of a problem as well.

Wishing for at least some spells should also work. I'm mainly thinking of the high-level summons, the ones that give you uniques. Newbies might not now the creature types of the summonable creatures, but they can find the spells from the manual.

[Nerfix]

What does "Girls" do? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I was thinking about Vastness too. Maybe it should give something along the lines of "The *caster* started to grow in size. He crushed the entire province! Then he grew so large he sank into the earth, never to be seen again!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh yeah,

*wishes*

Move and Pillage
Skirmish

[Endoperez]

Maybe wishing for any of the void monsters, the Void itself or the Void Gate should act as a mage had just entered a void gate, with some pre-defined summoning bonus and lesser (only 80% or so) chance of insanity thanks to the wish. That would be more in line with how the game works.

[Nerfix]

"Reverend Bob the Arch Theurg wished for Vastness. Azatoth ate his brain. Tasted like chicken."

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[FrankTrollman]

Wish costs 100 Astral Pearls and requires a ginormous investment just to make the path requirements. Casting it should be good.

Let's face it, two castings and 120 gems to get a Doom Horror or Vastness as a leader just isn't all that titanic compared to the 95 gems and 6 castings it takes to get an Air Queen off the ground.

The only thing that is a problem with Wish is that not everyone knows how it works.

-Frank

[sushiboat]

For multiplayer games, there should be a "no staling" option, which means that the AI plays one turn for the nation that would have staled. It is usually better than nothing for the would-be staler and for opponents who want competition. It would also allow another player to substitute for one who has dropped out because the AI could just play on a turn-by-turn basis instead of taking over for the rest of the game.

If this option is implemented, there should be a revised message to indicate that the AI took over temporarily. For example, "Rumors say that Ulm's Grand Vizier has been exercising greater authority recently."

[Cainehill]

Or at least something that _says_ "Ulm's pretender slept for the 7th straight month", etc, so people could know when to complain to the player, set him AI, swear to never get into another game with them again, etc.

[Argitoth]

Hey I'm just wondering. Is Dominions 2 one of the first games that had so much more positive feedback than negative? Seriously people, hooray for Dom2. The game is everything everyone wants to a large degree. Long last Dom2! Hail Dom3.

[Argitoth]

to add to my wishlist: good music.

not saying that Dom2 music was bad, I'm simply wishing for Dom3 to have good music.

[Molog]

A exchange souls spell

Allowing a commander to exchange his soul with another commander, magic paths and experience are switched between the two commanders. A way for evil mages to cheat death at the expense of some unfortunate victim.

[Nerfix]

Argitoth said:
to add to my wishlist: good music.

not saying that Dom2 music was bad, I'm simply wishing for Dom3 to have good music.



I like the medieval songs a lot but there's just too few of them. I get bored of the two same songs and then I switch to Dimmu Borgir. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Argitoth]

I second this.

[Olive]

I loved the music, It's a part of what made me buy the game. I bought the music CD too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif .

But yup, there wasn't enough tunes, it should have been more varied http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

[Argitoth]

Whatever the music turns out to be I hope it's as original sounding as Dom2 music. No game has ever taken music from a REAL and live-recorded artist before.

[Kristoffer O]

I suppose we should have Dimmu Borgir doing some songs then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Wonder what they would say. Probably RAAawwggghhh or something. But they have turned ambient if I'm not mistaken. So they might not answer in Growls. Actually I'm not sure if they ever were growling.

Falsobordone is in on Dom 3, so you will not be dissapointed.

[Endoperez]

Maybe we should start a music wishlist...

Brobdingnagian Bards might have something. They play middle-agish music, but most of their music is too light or humorous for taking over the world. Still, it would be funny to select a Dragon pretender just to have "Dooo virgins tase better than those who are not" playing on the background... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Nerfix]

Two wishfull wishes:

Possibility to create units that eat unburied corpses as/if there are no supplies. Somekind of "Carcass Consumption" ability. Maybe 1 corpse/size level. Maybe something for Ulm? http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v50/Nerfix/eek2yum.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Units that change to another unit over time. A Hydra Hatchling could turn into a fully grown hydra.

[Cainehill]

Nerfix said:
Two wishfull wishes:
Units that change to another unit over time. A Hydra Hatchling could turn into a fully grown hydra.



That'd be kinda cool - hydra hatchling becomes adult hydra at 2 experience stars, and becomes a hydralisk, a king Hydra, something like that, at 4 stars.

Currently it just doesn't seem like experience means enough for the troops : I'd really like to see all units get more benefit from experience, along the lines of 1 HP per experience star, 1 extra MR every 2 - right now it seems that the slight bump in morale is the biggest difference between raw recruits and real veterans. (Not that we see many 3 star veterans except for Pangaea & other troops that either recuperate or regenerate.)

[Endoperez]

Cainehill said:
That'd be kinda cool - hydra hatchling becomes adult hydra at 2 experience stars, and becomes a hydralisk, a king Hydra, something like that, at 4 stars.




That would be way too powerful! For a unit to "evolve", they should have to preferably have 5 stars, but 4 in the minimum IMO. It should not something that can be done with some training in with the Ancient Master, after all.

And I think stars do have a great effect on units' stats, especially att and def, and of course morale.

[Chazar]

I wish for DomIII that each finished game is followed by another turn revealing the full statistics of the game. Preferably one should be able to jump through history to any turn and see which province belonged to which player at that turn (like in WarlordsII or III - it was a lot of fun to see how each player struggled and expanded step by step). Cool! Falsbordone on Dom3! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I do like the idea of units evolving by experience, that is something Dom2 was missing! Nursing fluffy hydra hatchlings is soo much fun! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif (If you're poison resistant, that is...)

[sushiboat]

I would like an option to hide the game buttons on the upper right. They were useful in the first few days of playing, but not after I learned the much faster f-keys. Hiding those buttons would let me see more of the map without changing the transparency of the info window on the upper left.

[Nerfix]

A truly minor wish but the lightning spells (excluding Shimmering Fields) could use a bit diffrent graphics. The straight blue lines look a bit bland and weird.

Also, some commander specific abilities would be nice. Maybe something like "Inspiring Leader" which gives troops morale bonus and some ability that would give the troops attack and defence bonus.

A "Healer" ability would be neat. The commander would have a chance to heal "simple" (broken bones etc.) afflictions from troops in the province automaticaly.

Maybe a "Willpower" ability that could be on units and commanders alike. It would give a percentually high chance (40-50%) that the unit gains +3 mr when it is targeted by a spell that checks mr.

[Argitoth]

My most desired wish is to limit Nerfix's ability to post in the wishlist.

[Endoperez]

Enemy-spesific heroes, and better definition for 'in war' than the current.

Some heroes that only join you when you confront spesific enemy, possibly restricted to some nations. Whether or not you are in war with someone would be found out by examining the number of battles (possibly over several turns, although that is not needed) and the number of units that died in those battles. In some cases, just the fact that certain nation exists would be enough.

As an example, if Marignon is fighting against Ermor, they should be able to get more and different heroes than usually. Renegade Star Child with enough mental power to block his mind from reading (S2 or even S3) might want to join forces with the enemies of the Illithids. Enemies of Man (base) might get the unexcepted help of one of the few Sidhe still living on This Side, and some survivors of the witches or human defenders of Avalon might have survived to attack against Man (Last of the Tuatha). Charred, possessed Wood Golem joining with Pangaea to help stop the fire of Abysia, Harab Elder joining other cold nations in hopes of getting revenge on their relatives, etc etc.

[fmunoz]

Also special herores from indie provinces will be nice to have...
Linked to some target scales and unrest... you can get the "Sammy the lucky hoburg scout" if you have there +1luck +1grown +1sloth (+-1) and had a lucky event there... if you get unlucky and you have a lot of unrest the said hero could lead a revolt...
So we can have 4 amazon heroines, 1 hoburg or 2, indep lizards, few special magic order leaders, maybe some undeads (wigth mage?)
No too powerfull but nice to have them for free (well, not so free as you will get instead of a good random event)

[Argitoth]

I'm pretty sure this was already wished for but...

#1. Hold and Fire command for ranged troops.
#2. Recruitable artillary/vehicles (catapults, trebuchets, those big arrow thingies, and maybe some fantasy-type stuff)

[cryingdevil]

I'm not sure if anyone has wished for this yet, but as a person who pretty much only plays sp games, I would like to have the AI improved. At least make it build forts or not starve its armies. Speaking of starving armies, the sites that provide a supply bonus don't seem to work, would really appreciate if fixed in Dom3.

[Nerfix]

I wonder how hard it would be to program the AI to madcastle/clamhoard/(ab)use supercombatants/build wrathing squads. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Gargoyle]

I posted this response to a thread titled -"To Blood Magic, Or Not To Blood Magic".

My answer will also tied to the "Dom III Wishlist" so I posted it here also.

I'll like to see many more elements of the game to be tied to an "Good and Evil" scale. For example, if you were at the extreme evil end of the scale it would benefit your Death and Blood magic but would hamper your Nature and Air. There could even be specific Good and Evil units, items and spells.

So to answer your question, you would use Blood if your were tending toward evil, but not toward good.

[Nerfix]

OHDEARGODNO

[Endoperez]

Look for earlier discussion about Holy/Unholy. DomIII won't have more unholyness, but there will be new holy magic that has more in common witht he unholy of DomII. For each nation, its priests and pretender are holy, and every other nations' priests and pretender are unholy, or something like that. Blood isn't bad for Abysia, and it is part of the nature for Pangaea, and the way of life and much more for the Mictlan. Water/Air in the hands of Seraphs is considered very evil in almost all other nations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Gargoyle]

Endoperez said:
Look for earlier discussion about Holy/Unholy. DomIII won't have more unholyness, but there will be new holy magic that has more in common witht he unholy of DomII. For each nation, its priests and pretender are holy, and every other nations' priests and pretender are unholy, or something like that. Blood isn't bad for Abysia, and it is part of the nature for Pangaea, and the way of life and much more for the Mictlan. Water/Air in the hands of Seraphs is considered very evil in almost all other nations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



I see what you mean. Okay, skip Good\holy and Evil\unholy. But relationships between related magic which provide mutual benefits is all I was looking for.

[Ed Kolis]

I think when a leader forges an item there should be a log message, just so you don't forget about it and leave him on defend afterward and the item in treasury. (This could be incorporated into a Dom2 patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

[Nerfix]

Ed Kolis said:
I think when a leader forges an item there should be a log message, just so you don't forget about it and leave him on defend afterward and the item in treasury. (This could be incorporated into a Dom2 patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)



Good idea.

[sushiboat]

Ed Kolis said:
I think when a leader forges an item there should be a log message, just so you don't forget about it and leave him on defend afterward and the item in treasury. (This could be incorporated into a Dom2 patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)


I agree that a log message would be good. However, you can cycle through commanders who have default commands (defend for most units in most situations, hide for stealthy units, siege in a province with an enemy fort) by pressing n (next).

[Turin]

One thing to improve micromanagement: it would be nice if you were able to set a default setting, where the unit should be placed on the battlefield.
You could place the current army positioning screen in the recruitment screen, and all leaders that get recruited start with that position.

[Gargoyle]

Turin said:
One thing to improve micromanagement: it would be nice if you were able to set a default setting, where the unit should be placed on the battlefield.
You could place the current army positioning screen in the recruitment screen, and all leaders that get recruited start with that position.



The way I see doing this is to have a standard setup screen. You choose where the 1st Melee unit should go, 2nd, etc. Choose where first Missile unit should go, etc. Spellcaster, etc. So if you have 2 squads is 50% missile or more, they will be put into the first 2 missile slots when a battle begins. Of course you could override the standard setup with a checkbox in the army setup screen in any province. You might even have more than one setup (missile army, melee army, mounted army, etc).

[Olive]

When stealthy units are in enemy territories, those territories should be flagged. It's difficult to find where your stealth armies are located when there are many...

[Endoperez]

F1 screen helps a little, but it is hard to find out which armies are close enough to work together. I agree that a flag (a cloak?) would be nice.

[Sandman]

Further Ideas:

More scale magic resistance dependencies: As well as the magic scale, you could also have order/turmoil affecting demon MR (higher MR in turbulent provinces), and the growth/death scales affecting undead MR (apart from vine undead).

More emphasis on leadership: Non-mage commanders don't really have much effect on the battle. What if there were a variety of different leadership traits which gave bonuses to commanded troops? Examples:

Armorer: All commanded units get +1 protection.
Sharpshooter: All commanded units get +1 precision.
Tactics: All commandered units get +1 AP.
Random: A random leadership trait.

Leadership traits, would, in fact, be similar to magic paths. You could even have booster items.

[Ballbarian]

This may have already been wished for, but I would love to see the ai made "scriptable". Along the lines of Age of Kings. There are still lots of people (including myself) scripting for those games and the ai players are much tougher than the original ai shipped with the game. You can try out multiple strategies, and easily give individual custom ai's alot of varied personality.

[NTJedi]

With an improved and more user friendly map editor the game will have more maps made available. My suggestions below:

1) Ability to create a map, the provinces and basic settings within the map editor itself... instead of using GIMP or another tool.

2) Ability to create events which occur during specific turns or when a specific province gets occupied or when a specific graph measurement is reached.
This would allow for more interesting and creative maps.

3) Ability to disable specific spells, items, or units. Thus players could remove stuff they feel are unbalanced or weaknesses for the computer AI.
example... during a recent game I noticed the computer AI with high research summon at least 20 cave drakes during late game. Would be nice to sometimes disable a spell like this since I very rarely use the spell and it only wastes gems by the computer AI.

4) Ability to add or improve the computer AI via scripts. This was done within Neverwinter Nights with great success!

5) Ability to place a limit for the number of each building type(forts, labs, temples). Map makers can then provide maps where gamers would need to place these buildings in more strategic locations.

6) Ability to easily change the units which can be recruited within a province. Many of these weak units such as militia are purchased in mass numbers by the computer AI. Allowing map makers to easily provide more useful units within a province can make the AI more challenging.

7) Lots of other great ideas exist within other turn-based strategy games. The two best map editors I know would be AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic and HeroesofMight&Magic_3. I definitely believe examining these map editors would provide some ideas for Dominions_3.

[Cainehill]

NTJedi said:
7) Lots of other great ideas exist within other turn-based strategy games. The two best map editors I know would be AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic and HeroesofMight&Magic_3. I definitely believe examining these map editors would provide some ideas for Dominions_3.



Some great ideas, but note that both the games mentioned here had complete, professional, development teams working on them, probably with at least one programmer whose main task was the map editor.

What we might hope for is to be able to do those various things by messing with the map files as we do now, only with more sophisticated, complex map commands for us to hang ourselves with. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Endoperez]

Atleast HoMM games use tile-based system. With tiles creating a map is much easier, but Dominions doesn't really get any use from having tiles. On the other hand, making a map using HoMM editor and then converting it into Dominions map could be made much easier. Mainly, if the map editor/converter would allow:

1) change all white pixels to almost white, so that one could start adding capitals without worrying about the base map's colors.

2) adding map making commands to spesific province, either writing them or choosing from a list

3) adding and/or removing provinces, so that province numbers change, without changing the provinces' info. This would allow one to easily add or remove provinces from existing maps.

4) extracting province info from earlier maps. This would allow one to remake, for example, the Elric of Melnibone map made for Dom:PPP. This would also allow one more easily make a map that covers larger or smaller area of the same world that one of the existing maps already covers.

[NTJedi]

Cainehill said:

NTJedi said:
7) Lots of other great ideas exist within other turn-based strategy games. The two best map editors I know would be AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic and HeroesofMight&Magic_3. I definitely believe examining these map editors would provide some ideas for Dominions_3.



Some great ideas, but note that both the games mentioned here had complete, professional, development teams working on them, probably with at least one programmer whose main task was the map editor.

What we might hope for is to be able to do those various things by messing with the map files as we do now, only with more sophisticated, complex map commands for us to hang ourselves with. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Yes I don't expect it to match the quality of these other map editors... only that the developers might be able to pull a few ideas from them. Such as the developers might see that Hereoes_3 map editor had a tab where map editors could enable/disable the spells and items and depending on the Dominions_3 code it might be easy to add a GUI interface for this within the Dominions_3 map editor.
Even allowing the change available within the .map file would be nice.

[King Lear]

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but it would be nice to be able to change the initial province defense, so when you set the indipendents to 9, someones capitol's defense can be equally raised. As it is, a weak player is much more tempting than a cavalry defended rich province.

[PDF]

A small UI thing that would be quite useful : in the Army setup screens, after/below the scripta area, add a "Req'd Gem" number per gem type.
It would indicate the total basic gem cost of the scripted spells according to the mage's paths (basic, that is without any buff effects that could occur with the scripted spells, only counting base gem cost of spell and necessary additional gems if the mage is under the required level).

Any figure obtained that is more than the current number of gems carried by the mage should be tagged in red or whatever so the player is warned the guy needs more gems.

[Ed Kolis]

On the forge item screen, I'd like to see the items grouped and labeled a bit more logically - maybe at least have the gem costs displayed next to the items and have items for which too many gems are required grayed or X'ed out, or display the names of the items... as it is, it's hard to find the item you need if you don't know all the items in the list already! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[SurvivalistMerc]

If it's not already on here, I would like to add a manual that explains the details of how the game works in greater detail than the current brief manual. (The brief manual I'm referring to is the short manual before the printout of the spell and magic item information from the game.)

Maybe the devs don't have to be the ones to actually write the manual (if they are now). Perhaps a player who understands the mechanics, especially relating to global enchantments, could write it for them and they could proof it for accuracy. I bet there are folks on this site who would do that for free if they got into Beta Club and the devs explained any significant changes from Dom 2.

I think consideration should be given to reorganizing how the spells and magic items are listed in the manual. Perhaps trinket/lesser/greater/artifact or the actual research level and (?not intuitive) category of spell research is less important than the paths involved to folks learning the game (who are the ones most likely to be looking at the manual). Not sure that there is any truly easy way to organize it without making it cumbersome and repeating information though. (For instance, items and spells requiring two types of magic would then be listed under both types for a new player.)

I apologize if this is a repeat of something that was already listed in the prior 40 pages.

[Kristoffer O]

The manual will be written by a known someone else. To my knowledge it will go deeper into the underlying mechanics and workings of the game. Spells and items will probably be organized in a new way as well. I think the manual will be recieved with much rejoicing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Molog]

When you have a commander selected and press 't' to go to the troops setup screen, could the selected commander be focussed on, instead of the current situation where you still have to scroll down to that commander.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Kristoffer O,

I love these forums because it is wonderful to talk to the devs of a game I love. I'm already rejoicing at the notion of getting this sort of manual for Dom3. Perhaps it will help make the game less difficult to get started with, given the richness of the game, and help you reach a larger market.

I hate to keep adding thoughts here, but another thought I am having is perhaps letting the player see what dominion a province is under if the player owns it or has a unit who can report about that. In other words, perhaps keep white candles for the player but let us see that this is in enemy Caelum's dominion rather than in enemy Ulm's. Someone else may already have mentioned this. This could be done with different color candles or with the information in the province info screen.

[Molog]

Being able to right click on mercenaries in the hiring screen and seeing their statistics and what men are under their control.

A battle simulator in the game.

[Vrtra_Vanquisher]

Not sure if this has been talked about before, I've
read "almost" everything in here now... ^^

I was thinking about having greater controll
over the troops formation. Being able to choose
different formations such as "V" -formation, or "U"
-formation would be cool. Also adding different
strengths/weaknesses with the formations so if;
a mounted troop in "V" -formation storms
straight into a troop with pikemens lined up in "U"
-formation the result would be devestating for the
cav. Since the pikemens has the range and are surr-
ounding the cav. (Weaponlength is allready a factor
in the game though.)
If the pikemens where in "|" -formation they would
be splittered by the cav, diveded into two groups,
easaly slaughtered by the cav.
- As it is now you often just put your big heavy army
at the front with "fight closest enemy" selected.
(And perhaps some of the fireing units.)
As I see it, the battles should be a bit more complex.

Also increasing the "flanking" possibilitys would
make the battle really exciting.
- Fast units far up or far down on the battlefield
with "fight rearmost" often tend to run into the
middle to early.

All troops take up grids, the bigger the troop the more
space is required, what about being able to change
that square?
If you want just 2 lines of units in depth but perhaps
15 units in height or viseversa.
Let's say you have 30 units, size 5 with the "trample"
ability, (troglodytes huh? ^^) and you're about to attack
a minor province with 50 barbarians, granted it's pretty
obvious that you would win. But having the units in one
line or two might be even better at this point.


The "stealthy" units could get really resourcefull
at this point. Having a scout with you could imply
benefitial information about your opponents lineup.
Thus helping you with your formationsetup.

Ok, hopefully this evolves into something awesome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Tiavals]

The main wish is probably an Aboleth theme for R'lyeh. I shudder when I think how great it would be. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

Tiavals said:
The main wish is probably an Aboleth theme for R'lyeh. I shudder when I think how great it would be. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



This has been suggested once before, and we got an answer...

Post#294834 (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=294834)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Tiavals]

Endoperez said:
This has been suggested once before, and we got an answer...

Post#294834 (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=294834)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif



Yeah, I noticed that as well. But that doesn't mean it's 100% sure it'll be implemented. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Anyways, hope it does. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[WraithLord]

Maybe has already been asked.

Return the combat simulator. It's fun and it helps get a hang of what combinations work and what not.

Hey it can even be enhanced to contain some battle template. like tournement, modified weather and terrain conditions, sieges etc.
Also might add ability to give equipment to leaders and script them.

[WraithLord]

Another thing that was probably mentioned.

In dom-I there was this cool visible effect that the map grew warmer or colder in some areas according to the dominion.

I wonder if it's possible technically to return this.

[Kristoffer O]

I miss the warm/cold effect on the map as well. It will unfortunately not implemented in dom3. Other map features will though.

[WraithLord]

Kristoffer O said:
I miss the warm/cold effect on the map as well. It will unfortunately not implemented in dom3. Other map features will though.


Thanks for the information.
Other features Like maybe forests growing or dying according to life vs. death dominion?

[Ed Kolis]

Other map features? Like maybe labs appearing on the map just like temples and forts do? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Tals]

Minor one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'd like the ability to have an ingame notepad - maybe even tied into the year you make notes. Always thinking of stuff I want to do and then forgetting it a few turns later http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Also history of messages - otherwise you need to keep a seperate (outside the game) record of agreements etc.

Tals

[GriffinOfBuerrig]

I think that you should be able(or to have the option) to transfer the bloodslaves to the pool instant. like all other gems, there is also no transport nessesary.

Would greatly remove mirco and is not so complicated for beginners.


SAVE PASSOWRD OPTION for games, so you do not have to type it in again and again(expecially on TCP/IP games)<---!

[WraithLord]

Tals said:
Minor one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'd like the ability to have an ingame notepad - maybe even tied into the year you make notes. Always thinking of stuff I want to do and then forgetting it a few turns later http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Also history of messages - otherwise you need to keep a seperate (outside the game) record of agreements etc.

Tals



I want to generalize that request.
Dominions is a very large scale game and to play it competitively one has to deal with a Hugh amount of information. Dominions I gave very poor management abilities to the player. Dominions II improved that considerable but it is still not there yet.
Some examples (maybe already given).
1. handling tax rates. becomes a nightmare on Hugh maps especially with blood economy running. Two things might significantly improve that. The first is configurable tax rate/unrest ratio. meaning the player can set provinces to maximum tax rate so long as unrest is smaller the X. Then the provinces will set their tax rates accordingly.
The second is important for other aspects as well, it is adding to the management screen (F1) some information processing capabilities. The most important are: sort ascending/descending according to any field. income, population, tax rate, gems per turn, army size; search for ... to search for province name, commander name, site name and so forth; Tie all management screens of game to management screen (like HTML hyperlinks), thus allowing the player to do everything from within one screen and one context. This can save tons of time switching from army screen to management screen to lab etc.

2. The management screen. As described above. In addition allow queries at least for: all commanders that are in state X, for example hiding to manage your scouts. All fire gem producing sites. Top 10 income provinces etc.

3. messages history. All messages are linked to everything in them. say commander this assassinated in province that. user can click on commander to get the stats of the commander, click province to get to that province.

4.Visible not active tag for commanders, so that when cycling all commanders (N key) they are ignored.

5. AI. mages can be assigned the task of site searching. Two options, one by "foot" (visit provinces and search), second by spells for locating sites.

6. Way points. Armies can be assigned a command of "move from start province to designated province".

[Endoperez]

GriffinOfBuerrig said:
I think that you should be able(or to have the option) to transfer the bloodslaves to the pool instant. like all other gems, there is also no transport nessesary.

Would greatly remove mirco and is not so complicated for beginners.




Is this anything like F7 - Pool Slaves? It makes all commanders with blood slaves in provinces with a laboratory to put all blood slaves in their inventory into your laboratory. This could be improved, mainly for the sake of Mictlan who has to give its Blood Sacrificing priests new slaves after pooling the slaves every turn.



SAVE PASSOWRD OPTION for games, so you do not have to type it in again and again(expecially on TCP/IP games)<---!


Possible to do as a shortcut, but a program/graphical front-end for doing working shortcuts for given game, server, port, password, etc. would be nice. This is more probable as a fan project than as an official update.

[magnate]

Tals said:
Minor one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'd like the ability to have an ingame notepad - maybe even tied into the year you make notes. Always thinking of stuff I want to do and then forgetting it a few turns later http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Also history of messages - otherwise you need to keep a seperate (outside the game) record of agreements etc.

Tals


Hmmm. We should only need to make notes of our own future plans etc. - about a million posts ago in this thread I said something like if you have to make notes of what's happened, then the game isn't providing enough information. Your history of messages idea is the tip of the iceberg - we need to be able to scroll back through every turn of the game and recall what scouting/scrying info we had at any previous point, like Echoview for VGAP. Also what events occurred in previous turns, where armies moved, preferably even watch old battle videos. All this would mean storing old turn data in the client directory separate from the .trn file, but it could be done.

This is definitely one of the most important improvements for Dom3 - the amount of note-taking you have to do at the moment is staggering.

CC

[DrPraetorious]

Diplomacy and unit diversity.

Should I finish my summary of all posts? I'd planned to do another one this month, but this thread is soooo long, and it seems that the devs are reading each message anyway. The only real purpose would be to avoid duplicates.

I don't think these are duplicate suggestions but I might have mis-read, misunderstood or simply failed to notice/read some posts. If I'm repeating earlier suggestions, I apologize. These suggestions are not as modular as they could be - I view them as a piece.

1) Unit Generation
Preamble, heroes should just cost money. You get one hero, per turn, per province, and they bring their own gear, so no resource costs.

Firstly, each province should generate a fixed amount of-
Resources (needed to make fancy equipment)
Mounts (needed to make cavalry)
Special Training (needed to make elite units)
Holiness (needed to make sacred units)
Magic (needed to make special units and monsters)
Each province outputs a number of units per turn, based on the levy rate, which is like the tax rate but set independently. Additionally, you assign each province a recruiting budget, but this should be small.
Raising the levy rate causes you a penalty to population growth, and may increase unrest. Ideally, unrest should be mitigated by a credible threat (i.e. neighboring hostile force.) Levies should appear prior to offensive unit movement. This will make sending twenty heroes with 15 guys each against somebody less of promising as a military strategy, which is good for realism and reduces a really annoying feature of playing against the AI (and some players.)
Provinces without temples ordinarily make no holiness (perhaps at dominion strength 8+ they do anyway).
Provinces without labs ordinarily make no magic. Magic is used to make special units like trolls, giant hydras, Pegasus riders, etc. Some population types make extra magic, amazons for example.
A province with a castle makes (lots of) extra training, as well as national unit profiles and unit equipment (see below.)
Provinces with marketplaces/foundries/whatever (some extra building) make bonus resources, possibly bonus money as well. Or not.
Provinces with a stables make mounts, as do provinces with certain culture types, for example horse barbarians in plains provinces make mounts without needing a stables built for them.

mechanics -
Firstly, each province figures out how many units it is building, based on the levy rate and the population. Then, if the budget for the province and the number of training and/or holiness points is sufficient, units are upgraded to have elite profiles (automatically).
So, for example, if Pythium levees 22 units and has 13 training available, 13 of those units will have the elite profile (str, precision etc. of a praetorian guard) and 9 will have the basic profile (of a velite). There can be more than 2 profiles, of course, but then you need a system for the player to pick which elite profile is preferred. In fact, you probably need such a system anyway, since some holy/elite profiles should forbid heavy equipment. The simplest (and I think best) way to approach this is to simply let the player turn profiles off with checkboxes. If no profiles are deactivated, the computer will have some relatively simple heuristic to choose whether to build more battle vestals or more praetorian guards. Obviously you can't disable the worst of the profiles (the one that only costs a levy point.)
Then, assuming the budget is sufficient and enough mounts are available, units are mounted. Elite units get mounted first. Some profiles forbid mounting.
Finally, any remaining money is spent on equipment packages, which are handed out to individual models, with the elite units getting the pick of the stuff. So in the example above, if there were money/resources left for 16 full legionnaire packages and 6 wussy packages, you'd get:
13 Praetorian Guard is full armor
3 Velites in full armor
6 Velites in cheap junk
Again, checkboxes should be available to disable most of the packages (except the cheapest/defaults.) That way you can specify that your legionaires all get swords, or all get spears, whatever.

Each province should have a mix of population types and a predominant culture. By population types I mean for example:

Human
Elven
Abyssian
Caelumite
Lizardmen
etc.

and by cultures I mean:
Western (Ermor, Marignon, Pythium, Ulm)
Northern (Jotunheim, Man, Vanheim)
Natural (wild lizardmen, druids, Pangaea?)
etc.

Undead population shares generate a fixed number of units, irrespective of levee rate. If your nation/theme does not have the undead-friendly tag, you don't get the units. Undead unit generation could depend both on population and dominion strength, if desired.

When a new game is generated, for provinces with unspecified population, population and culture in adjacent provinces should be more likely to match. Thus, all else being equal, caelum will have a cluster of caelumite provinces in their general vicinity to make many more caelumites in.

The province mix in the capital is fixed by your nation/theme.

Anyway, based on the population mix, you find out what profiles you get at stage 1 of unit generation.

So if a 50% caelumite, 50% human province levees 14 units, you get 7 humans and 7 caelumites, which can then be trained to be elite humans / elite caelumites, and so on.

The culture of a province may influence which profiles you get (so Amazon provinces should generate female versions of everything), as well as which equipment packages are available.

If you build a castle, you get a pile of extra production of every sort. Also, a certain percentage of the levy turns into your national population type, and they get first pick of all goodies. Finally, your national equipment packages become available to all the units there. This means that a pythianise castle in a lizard men province will produce mostly human legionnaires but also some lizard men in legionnaire armor.

2) Unit dismissal.
Units should not cost a lot to hire, but they should cost a lot to maintain (relatively speaking), and even more to dismiss.
When units flee a province, or are dismissed, they should have a chance of taking up banditry and turning into unrest points, as well as a chance of deserting harmlessly. The same is true for units who are not fed, or who are not paid, with varying likelihoods having to do with morale, existing unrest level etc. When you dismiss units, you can (and generally this should be beneficial on balance) spend money to prevent them from turning into unrest points.

Anyway, the idea of these changes is to make the game, absent magic, a better simulation of late dark ages period warfare. It's already pretty good.

3) Diplomacy, between player positions
Firstly, some people are going to hate diplomacy and there should be both custom map and start of game flags that disable it. So they can stop complaining right now.
The game needs to support the following pacts. These pacts can be reciprocal, but need not be. The target of a pact must accept the pact, and can cancel it at any time (generally by giving units the "attack current province" order)
a) Permission to travel. If you have permission to travel from me, then you get to move through my provinces without attacking them, if you wish. If a province changes hands while your troops are in it, your troops will fight the new owner unless you also have permission to travel from them.
b) Aid defense. If you have aid defense from me, you have permission to travel through my provinces, AND, if my provinces are attacked while your units are in them, your units will fight.
c) Respect your faith in your lands. This pact greatly reduces my ability to reduce your dominion in your territory.
d) Respect your faith in all lands. This pact greatly reduces my ability to reduce your dominion PERIOD.
e) Alliance. Must be reciprocal. Includes reciprocal aid defense and respect faith in your lands pacts, automatically. The number of VP you need (or other condition) to win is increased somewhat, but your VP, provinces, total research and total dominion are pooled for victory purposes.

All of this is modeled after the Dune board game, which had a special event card that allowed alliances to be formed/changed. You might consider the same thing.

Trade pacts and such would be cute but aren't really needed.

Computer players should sometimes, ala Master of Orion, call you up and demand tribute to avoid attacking you (this option is of course already available to players.) Likewise, there should be some way to make such demands to computer players, and a chance they'll respond.

4) Diplomacy, with the peoples of the world and the powers of the spheres
Again, some people will hate this, so if you include it, include options to turn it off.
You have relationship meters with the various forces - one for each element, plus the celestials, the demons, nature sprits and the denizens of the underworld.
Your deities spheres and the nation you play influence them as starting values.
If game settings allow, these different factions are capable of taking the initiative in helping your enemies if they hate you. They might offer a bounty (in gems of the corresponding type, or magic units) to take out specific players provinces.
You can improve relations with these forces by attacking players they hate, or by offering them various pacts/bribes. Of these the two most important are:
a) Pact of joint worship. Beings associated with that force are incorporated into your religion as your aids and flunkies, and prayers are directed to them as intermediaries to your glory. This dilutes your religion (a penalty to dominion strength) but makes the forces in question like you. It may also unlock extra, sacred versions of units associated with that force.
b) Pact of elevation. When you are Supreme Being, you promise to elevate one faction of supernatural beings above all others. That faction now adores you - all the other factions now hate your guts.
Relationships with forces modify -
a) Morale of beings associated with that force in your armies (and/or magic resistance.)
b) Severity of detrimental spells, associated with that force, that land in your provinces.
c) Type of random events that are generated in provinces that contain sites associated with that force. If Water hates you, provinces with water sites risk being targetted by raiding water elementals and sea trolls, for example.
d) Income from sites associated with that force - water sites have a chance of spitting out extra gems if water really likes you.
e) Random events in general. Some events (e.g. Queen of Water shows up to work for you for no reason) require and/or become more likely depending on elemental relation scales.

These may be independent of any diplomatic initiatives that the forces of water may make for or against you. The two aspects of diplomacy should be disable-able separately.

Similar diplomacy should be available in dealings with the various sentient races.

Pillaging provinces not only pisses off the residents of a given province, but the races represented in the province dislike you, world-wide. This isn't a perfectly satisfying mechanic.

If a race likes you, unrest in provinces populated with that race is reduced, units of that race have positive morale adjustments, and your dominion spreads more easily in provinces populated by that race.

If a race hates you, the reverse of all that applies.

Same things with random events and so forth.

Races can't call players up and demand things, but you should have the option on race-specific policies.

A policy of genocide against a given race means your troops perpetually, and selectively, pillage that race out of all provinces. Obviously they hate you.

A policy of disfavor against a race raises tax income from that race's population, at the expense of making them dislike you.

A neutral policy towards a given race has no effect.

A policy of favor towards a race costs you money but makes them like you more.

Finally, you can nominate one race as the master race, if you wish, promising them a favored place in the new order when you ascend. Like the equivalent pact with one of the forces, they really like this and all the other races really hate it.

[Kent-Ove]

About the map showing heat or cold, you could put a halo round the center of the province.

[Endoperez]

I would prefer the halo telling about the dominion levels of that province, instead of boring long or short candles. Changing map, map filters, scales, dominion power candles and bigger magic site pictures on the top of the screen are few of the things I miss from original Dominions.

[WraithLord]

Endoperez said:
I would prefer the halo telling about the dominion levels of that province, instead of boring long or short candles. Changing map, map filters, scales, dominion power candles and bigger magic site pictures on the top of the screen are few of the things I miss from original Dominions.


I really agree. I also miss the greyed out animation for units that can't be produced in this turn. And, this may sound weird, to the hosting animation (the rolling cube), it reminds me somewhat of hell raiser (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095294/) puzzle cube (lament (http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/hillcrest/76/hellraiser/lament-gallery/animations)) .

[Tals]

Windows Server Improvements

Ability to run game as a service
Ability to start game at a command prompt as a service
Ability to manage game remotely

But still keep its resource requirements low (most important!)

Tals

[Edi]

A feature request:

Indies and monsters from events (barbarian hordes, vampire counts etc) regarded as belonging to different "nations" (e.g. "indies" and "marauders"). That way if some event happens in an indie province, the monsters from the event aren't just added to the province garrison but there will be a battle between the indies and the special monsters, with whoever is victorious left in control of the province. Similarly, an indie provice getting the high priest, Elludian refugee and other similar events would have these added to their garrison. This suggestion was inspired by the problems that occurred with the Doom Horror garrisoning an indie province on the Loemendor map.

-----

Another one:

It would also bne awesome if indie provinces could act like nations and recruit additional units and commanders. This idea might work better if such happens only when the indie provinces border one or more nations, they would go into recruitment mode (or they could start from turn 1) and once they get enough above what they began with (e.g. a 50% increase or double), you would have forces from the indie province trying to reclaim land from the evil, imperialistic gods who intend to gobble them up (so some province that was left sitting alone for a long time would mount preemptive raids immediately upon getting a nation neighbor). Scripted provinces would have to use the number of units they originally got during game generation before the #land command wipes them out for this determination.

Don't know how easy or difficult this would be to do, but it would certainly spice up the game and would also give good incentive to really take care of the nastier indie provinces as soon as possible or risk getting your plans disrupted by invasions.

In the same vein, indie units from events (barbarian horders etc) and units from these proposed incursions should damn well also siege and storm forts and then hold them (which would make taking indie provinces with forts a big priority, because they would also get more resources as per admin and be able to recruit more troops).

Would also be nice if when some nation dies a Dominion death, their leftover units would simply go native and become indies instead of vanishing like smoke into the wind.

Edi

[Cainehill]

The first and last are definately things I'd strongly agree with, as they both enable better suspension of disbelief (troglodytes living with militia, vampire swarms moving in with knights & priests, huge (player) armies going "poof" following a dominion death, and shouldn't be terribly hard to implement, in the sense of not requiring additional AI & gaming logic.

No more barbarians living peacefully with amazons! Hear hear! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Aeshi]

I think Pretenders should be able to cast Priest/Unholy Priest Spells!I think it is dumb how priest & prophets can bless but pretenders can't!

[quantum_mechani]

Crazy_Bonvine said:
I think Pretenders should be able to cast Priest/Unholy Priest Spells!I think it is dumb how priest & prophets can bless but pretenders can't!

I'm quite sure this is not going to change. I like it better the way it is anyway.

[Nerfix]

A new chapter of the dev diary.

[Edi]

And where would one find this dev diary? I haven't been paying as much attention as I should have, so I don't know where it is. I lost patience with Google, couldn't find it...

Edi

[Endoperez]

I think his WISH is a new chapter of the dev diary... Quite straightforward, but I thought the same as Edi when I read that. Must be our hopes getting the better of us. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Edi]

Another feature request: Add the following commands to the tactical orders menu:
Hold and Fire - same as hold and attack, but for missile units. The stupid buggers don't know how to hold off for a few moments, which is necessary sometimes, especially with javelin units.
Attack and Fire - again a new missile unit command. Again, the morons will never use javelins, throwing axes or any other missile weapons if they have been given normal attack or hold and attack orders. This command would have the idiots charge forward and switch to missile weapons immediately upon coming in range. They would keep firing until out of ammo or forced to melee, whichever comes first.

Adding these two commands would remove a lot of the headaches of planning battle tactics and trying to make certain the units don't do something stupid on their own. I especially like to use the indie light infantry with javelins (or other similar units), and the only way to get the maximum effectiveness out of them or Abysian axe throwers is to leave them unscripted. That annoys the hell out of me.

Edi

[Nerfix]

t Edi, Endo: FRAG! newsletter you silly old men.

[Endoperez]

I got the FRAG!, but I ain't got no DevDiary...

I have the FRAG!, but it only mentions Dominions as one of the top sellers, and the only other interesting thing is the Fiction. Wouldn't it be cool to have a DomII fictive story on the FRAG!? Now we just need a writer... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Aeshi]

1.Better missile units!I bet many of us have lost 'cause the !@&)@! missile units hurt YOUR units more than your foes

2.More nations and pretenders!

[magnate]

No no no no NO.

NOT "more nations and pretenders". Argh. Damn that's annoying. There are squillions of nation/theme/pretender combinations already, and the more you add, the harder everything is to balance properly. Look how many pretender chassis currently don't get used, even in a Zen-modded game. Why add more? If you add more less useful ones, they simply take up space and don't get used. If you add more good ones, they simply get used at the expense of others, which get relegated to wasting space.

I can't understand this obsession with more content. Please please let Dom3 focus on a better UI and better gameplay experience, there is already buckets of content to keep us fascinated until well after the release of Dom4.

CC

[Olive]

It should be nice to give an Intercept order to an army. If any adjacent province is under attack, the army will defend it (being informed of the attack by the people of the attacked province or supposed scouts). If there are more than one of the adjacent provinces under attack, the one with the biggest enemy army will be defended.

Also, I'd like a second patrol order, let's say Patrol for enemies , only searching for sneak units in the province, not killing people (and not reducing unrest of course).

It seems fair and not unbalancing imho http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

[Aeshi]

*very small voice* an ally feature?

oh and magnate what do you mean by "squillions" of nations?do you mean the measly 17 that grow boring quickly?

"squillions" of themes?do you mean the 0-2 extra themes some lucky nations have?

"squillions" of pretenders?you are reffering to the rather boring animals/statues/<instert boring random physical form choice here> yes??

so get the facts straight before you open your gob next time!

I a....COW has (in a way) foxed you!

Who said cows were dumb again???

[magnate]

Bovine (oh such an apt name) - if the current thirty-plus nation/themes have quickly bored you, I respectfully suggest that you find a game more suited to your intellect, such as DOOM3 or maybe Tic-Tac-Toe. It is people like you who constantly whinge about wanting more content who seriously jeopardise the success of Dom3. I hope and pray fervently to the One True God that the devs ignore you and all your ilk, and concentrate on the real limitations of the game, which are certainly not in the area of content. We don't, for example, need more spells, we simply need the existing spells differentiated slightly better, so that there are no useless spells and no "no-brainer" spells. The same is certainly true of units, and imho pretenders as well.

On balance, there is just one area where I think a few things could be added, which is in forgeable items. There are plenty of weapons and body armours and misc items, but far fewer shields, hats and boots. Many commanders don't use a shield and a surprising number don't have feet, but I think we could do with a slightly broader choice of hats to forge.

There you go - want some more content? Design some hats.

CC

[Endoperez]

Crazy_Bonvine said:
"squillions" of pretenders?you are reffering to the rather boring animals/statues/<instert boring random physical form choice here> yes??




Maybe you missed his point. It was that there are already too many pretenders, spells, and to less extent, nations that are not in par with the other choices. Magnate wants to have more choices, not by adding more units, but by making all the existing ones more interesting.

And even if you left out all the "similar" nations/themes, like Vanheim/Man:Last of the Tuatha (sneaky, sacred, high-def special units and commanders) and Pythium & Ermor: Broken Empire (same units, different magic), you are losing much. All the nations play very differently, especially when you consider what kind of pretender would help them. I'll use Last of the Tuatha and Vanheim as an example:, because I consider them the two nations that share the closest theme/idea in how they work:

shared abilities: high-def sacred units lacking good protection, mage-commanders with awesome defence, Air magic, human allies with few special elites
Tuatha: Nature, better human allies (knights and longbowmen), cheap temples, stealthy priests and spies, spell songs that can be used to boost morale in enemy dominion, forced scales (no Order/Misfortune for them)
Vanir: Dwarves, Earth, minor access to Blood and Blood Sacrifice, sailing, flying Valkyries, prefer cold (bonus points), glamour makes the Vanir undetectable by enemy scouts or spies

Because Vanheim already has Earth, Vanheim player won't probably go for Earth blessing. Rejuvenation does wonders for mages, although it would work better with ones cheaper than theirs, and would help Vanirs' protection. Water helps them very much, boosting the Vanirs' defence into absurd numbers. Vanheim doesn't have easy access to nature, because going for a bless makes new paths costly, and bless makes their special units and mages much better.
Last of the Tuatha, on the other hand, can very well go for Earth blessing. They could take Earth and reserach Enchantments, aiming for Enliven Statues and playing with Cloud Trapeze, Personal Regeneration, Haste, Faery Trod, Relief and even Flaming Arrows if they can access it in the meantime. The Tuatha can go for Water as well, and Fire gives them access to Flaming Arrows which makes their longbowmen even more devastating. Each of Water, Earth and Fire blessings can work very well with the Tuatha, and can double to form interesting combinations: access to anti-undead items, Dwarven Hammers, quickness, protection or rejuvenation in items or blessings; and/or Claymen, Rune Smashers (to use with Charm), unresistable Acid Evocations, access to both cold- and heat-based spells (and damage shields!) to play around enemies' weaknesses, Magma Bolts and later Magma Eruption, Charcoal Shields...

As for items, Dwarve Smiths can do wonders. Have you realized E3A1 Smith can take Bag of Winds and Winged Helmet a Vanadrott forged, and make an Elemental Staff? Those are great items, and enable Smiths to forge even more boosters for other elements.

And if one considers how Vanir and Tuatha differ as warrior-mages, both have good defense and access to Mirror Image and Mistform in Air Alterations. Vanir start with minor Mirror Image, and can get good protection with Smiths' Earth, while Tuatha have access to Regeneration and can use Eagle Eyes to boost their precision to absurd numbers. I wonder if a Bard with Bow of Botulf, ordered to Fire Rear, fires at the enemy mages... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif Of course, a Vanherse or even a Jarl with a Black Heart kills enemy commanders with much more deadly accuracy. While they cannot don Flying Boots, Flying Carpets and few extra Vanir might be enough to even take over weakly defended provinces, and quickly move over both seas and land. Unmatched paranoia!

[Nerfix]

EDIT: I have failed. Nevermind what was here.

[Zooko]

So I just heard that Civ 4 will include a feature which I have previously suggested for Dom 3: moddable AI using Python

http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p3.html

Now actually I made two suggestions. The first one is to make the strategic AI fully moddable. This can be done very simply -- so simply that Illwinter can probably actually do it for Dom 3. The way to do it is simply to publish complete specification of the contents of the .trn and .2h files. Done.

The second suggestion was the make the tactical AI moddable. You can imagine making the tactical AI moddable in the same way: invent ".tactical-trn" and ".tactical-2h" files, have the game write out and read in those files in between every step of the battle. Obviously, that would be completely impractical. So where Python comes in (or you could choose a different scripting language -- Lua is popular and Io is very nice) is that instead of writing out a .tactical-trn file, you make a call to a Python function, passing all of the data as arguments. Instead of reading in a .tactical-2h file, you get a return value from the Python function containing all of the data.

That latter one is harder to implement so I'm not suggesting that Illwinter attempt it for Dom 3. (Maybe for a patch though?)

The former one obviously raises cheating concerns, but as we have seen, a secret 2h spec does not prevent cheating, it only makes it harder and less widely known. Whereas a server that verifies the fairness of all moves and a published 2h file spec would completely prevent cheating and also enable strategic AI mods.

Adding that "verification of fairness" is more work that might interfere with the timeline that I've proposed. One option would be to go ahead with Dom 3 plus strategic AI mods, and then add fixes for any cheats that are discovered in subsequent patches.

I don't have much time to spare, but for a tiny tiny sliver of a royalty, I will spend a few hours a week consulting to help you guys (Illwinter) implement this and make sure that it is safe. (A sliver of a royalty of Dom 3 is much less than my normal fee for this kind of consulting work -- I would do it only because I love the game so much and it would be fun.)

[WraithLord]

When user clicks the 'e' button a confirmation window is opened.
This is good for the rare scenarios when one is the last player to submit his turn in a TCP/IP hosted MP game.
Otherwise that player will lose his turn.

hehe, although rare, I still remember the few times it happened to me, for I seem to have a knack for it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Olive]

Got an idea for the castles (don't know if it has been said before). Instead of choosing one castle type and making the same kind of castle for all the game, why not building custom castles ?

There's one basic castle type (i.e. : admin 10, 20 supplies, 20 defense...) When designing the pretender, the player could use design point to get knowledge of different improvements. During the game, the player builds the basic castle structure. And if he's got the right knowledge, he can spend extra gold improving the castle. Like building a better admin center or putting ballistas on the walls to defend during an assault.

I see these domains :
- Warehouse (increases admin)
- Granary (better gathering of supplies)
- Masonry (increases defense)
- Ballistics (putting crossbows, ballistas, etc... on the walls)

It would allow the player to build small castles where he doesn't needs big ones, and, if he's got the knowledge, big ones where he needs. And the ability to build good castles would still cost design points, to keep the same balance for pretender design.

It seems nice and balanced (???)

[Turin]

Allowing more kinds of buildings to build would turn this into more of a civlike game.
Most often building all those improvement buildings turns into a micromanagement nightmare(for example you´d almost always want to build warehouses, since more admin==more gold==even more warehouses etc) and that distracts from the wargame aspect.

I´d like to see a flexible castle design system in the pretender creation part though, with similar functionality to the scales system (higher admin costs points, longer buildtime gets you points etc).

[Olive]

> more admin==more gold
Admin increases only resources.

Don't know if it will add more micromanagement. As far as you build castles only in specific places (strategic places or to recruit indep units), the micromanagement will be limited. Afaik, it should take less time than moving armies and giving orders.

Don't know of the time ratio it should take to make custom castles. If it'is too high, then having an only castle by nation as you suggest is better... don't know.

[Sandman]

The thing about economy boosting buildings is that whilst they would turn the game into a micro-management fest, they'd still be fairer and more fun than clams, which are effectively the same thing.

[Turin]

Olive said:
> more admin==more gold
Admin increases only resources.




admin increases the gold you gain from the province by half the admin value. So a castle with admin 40 increases the goldincome from a province by 20%.

It´s a difficult decision if the game should be made more of a buildergame like the civ series or AoW. Those games are a huge success, but I feel that the builder aspect almost always becomes tiresome.
In addition the comparison with clams is accurate. Most people don´t like to play with clams in multiplayer because clams encourages a defensive hoarder style. More improvement buildings would have the same effect and a game where the best strategy is to bunker up tends to get boring quickly.

[Aeshi]

Note to Endoperez:

"Pythium & Ermor: Broken Empire (same units, different magic)"

The therugs are the only goddamn things they both have!

"I'll use Last of the Tuatha and Vanheim as an example:, because I consider them the two nations that share the closest theme/idea in how they work:
shared abilities: high-def sacred units lacking good protection, mage-commanders with awesome defence, Air magic, human allies with few special elites"

Excuse me for not falling on my knees with awe...2 Boring human empires have something in common for your reasons and because their both empires of homo sapiens...so what?got any pictures of pigs flying???

[Endoperez]

Crazy_Bonvine said:
Note to Endoperez:

"Pythium & Ermor: Broken Empire (same units, different magic)"

The therugs are the only goddamn things they both have!




Are you saying that the Theurs are only useful units they have? I find Principes to be exceptional infantry, for both nations.
Or are you saying that the theurgs are the only thing they have in common? From Velites to Triarii, their units are the same, and both also have Standard. Broken Empire doesn't have Hydras, gladiators or Emerald Guards, it has Praetorian Guards and can summon undead. Even Broken Empire can get impressive amounts of undead in surprisingly short time.



"I'll use Last of the Tuatha and Vanheim as an example:, because I consider them the two nations that share the closest theme/idea in how they work:
shared abilities: high-def sacred units lacking good protection, mage-commanders with awesome defence, Air magic, human allies with few special elites"

Excuse me for not falling on my knees with awe...2 Boring human empires have something in common for your reasons and because their both empires of homo sapiens...so what?got any pictures of pigs flying???



Again, I'm not sure what your are implying. Are you trying to say that both of those are boring human nations, and that is the reason I find similarities? Neither centers around humans. Last of the Tuatha wins or dies with the Tuatha, the knights and longbowmen are just something to support them. The same things with Vanir, Valkyries and Dwarves of Vanheim; they are the point, the humans are just there so that you have something cheaper to use as cannon fodder and in early game. And, the human parts happen to be pretty different: Knights, Longbowmen and useless militia vs basic shielded spear/sword units, berserkers and Shapeshifters without real ranged units.

Or was your point that there aren't enough differences between two human nations? Unit-heavy Ulm is weaker than most nations under most situations, Marignon has priests, firepower and the power of fire, neither is like Machaka, Mictlan plays differently from anyone else, and as said above, both Man and Vanheim have different powers and weaknesses even in their human armies. The base troops are very similar between the human nations, but magic and special units make the difference.

And it just so happens that I do have a picture of a flying pig. Granted, this isn't from actual game, because Fay Boars aren't very useful melee units. One would need a Flying Carpet or two to transport the "dead" ones back to the main armies, and there are better things to use your Flying Carpets for.

[Olive]

Turin said:
admin increases the gold you gain from the province by half the admin value. So a castle with admin 40 increases the goldincome from a province by 20%.




Ooops. Didn't knew that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif .


Turin said:
It´s a difficult decision if the game should be made more of a buildergame like the civ series or AoW. Those games are a huge success, but I feel that the builder aspect almost always becomes tiresome.
In addition the comparison with clams is accurate. Most people don´t like to play with clams in multiplayer because clams encourages a defensive hoarder style. More improvement buildings would have the same effect and a game where the best strategy is to bunker up tends to get boring quickly.



I thought of - real - basic building. Didn't thought of that, but I naturally play defensively ( camper and clam hoarder http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif ) . If it changes the spirit of the game, then let's forget it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

The thing I'm sure is that I don't want a clone of Civ or AoW-SM http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

[Ed Kolis]

How about at least if you go to the army setup screen, you get an overlay showing where the fortification is located so you can strategically protect certain chokepoints without having to memorize the layout of every fort? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Chazar]

A map-command for global random equipment of independents. (like #randomequip command, but for all independent commanders at once)

[Kaljamaha]

I'd like to see more local enchantments. Right now, if you want to magically boost your empire, you have exactly five global enchantment slots to work with, that you have to fight for with the other pretenders, no less. The only local enchantments that come to mind are the various domes and astral window. How hard can it be to boost resources in one province, growth in another, and maybe travel through another?

On that note, I'd like to have a number somewhere that shows how many turns the enchantments that have gem dependent duration have remaining.

And finally (this has probably been mentioned already, but here goes) I dislike the fact that battle scripting is rather... binary. A few examples:

For some odd reason I like javelin tossing infantry. Now, if I script them to attack, they never use javelins, but I leave the script open the do, and then engage in melee. Good so far. However, if I'd like them to hold and attack intelligently, no can do.

In one game, I was playing Vanheim and got Vanlade. Great! I equip him with items and send him out to kick butt. Problem: after the buffing script, he can either casts spells, or attack, one or the other but never both. So, it's either spam undead into unconsciousness, or attack without ever using spells. It would be much smarter for him to buff, attack for a while, and when a bunch of infantry surrounds him, cast Shockwave.

I'm not sure how to implement intelligent, or even semi-intelligent choices after the five action script, but the current MO is extremely wasteful, not to mention more than a little moronic.


K.

[Edi]

On the same note, more global enchantment slots would also be nice. Say about ten of them. Because there must be around 20 or more of them that are useful and having more than just 5 would make for a more enjoyable game.

Edi

[sushiboat]

More (or fewer) global enchantment slots would be good as a game option. A good number depends on the number of players (as well as your taste). Five slots for 17 players seems insanely cutthroat. On the other hand, for two players, three slots might be plenty.

[Aeshi]

1.Better AI for mages.I was using my pretender and my army vs an emeny and my pretender did NOTHING but sit there and cast spells on himself

[Daynarr]

sushiboat said:
More (or fewer) global enchantment slots would be good as a game option. A good number depends on the number of players (as well as your taste). Five slots for 17 players seems insanely cutthroat. On the other hand, for two players, three slots might be plenty.



I think cutthroat was the general idea of developers, but some option to change it would really be welcome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Aeshi]

1.Nations specific items?I mean C'tis has the Jade Mask and Ermor has the Black Laurels!

[Zooko]

Sometimes I spend part of an hour placing all of my units juuust right on the battle field. Then the battle that I anticipated doesn't happen, and I need to move them all around to prepare for a completely different kind of battle (for example, attack versus defense). Then the next turn, I realize that the original kind of battle is going to happen, so I have to move them all back.

Two things would help:

1. Make the green position map show transparent images of the units instead of white squares. This would make it go faster since I wouldn't have to keep clicking on other units to double-check who is where. It would also be prettier and more intuitive.

2. Make hot-keys to save formations just like the ones that are currently there to save order scripts. When you press the key to set a formation, then everyone in the current province gets their current position marked as being part of that formation. When you press the key to go to a formation, then everyone in the current province, *if* they have a position marked in that formation, assumes that position. Simple.

[cwkjc]

I would like script for the same units 2 formations :

1 for defense and 1 for attack...

[Aeshi]

Terrain?so in a battlefield there could be hills and archers on top of these will have increased range.Or Rocks that units could hide behind.Or there could be bogs that slow emeny units down UNLESS

-It is floating (float spell?)
-It is Etheral
-It has swamp survival?

[Endoperez]

The only problem with Naresh's suggestion is that one would have to check the province he wants to fight in to see things like that and take them into account. This will be easier in DomIII, but it is still something extra that takes micromanagement...

[Molog]

Some more easter eggs in the combat maps. I've been lowering my vision and looking throught those gigantic woods in fron of the battle looking for them.

I'd like to give assasins different orders for assasinations versus getting caught by patrollers. Attack in first case and retreat in second case.

[Ice_Sickle]

I had a few thoughts in recent weeks:

1) Research option. It would be nice to have an research option for the game in addition to easy, normal, and hard. Diminishing return research. The idea is that either the greater the number of researchers working in a particular field or the greater the total research in an area the less efficient it becomes. So with say 50 points of research you may get 50 points of benefit but with 100 points of research in a particular area you my get 90 points of benefit. The effect increases as research in one single area increases. This would slightly compress the difference between a person with very high research and a person with lower research and would encourage a balanced approach to research (spreading out the research between multiple areas). That's the design benefit. Of course it's also more realistic. You can't take 40 mages who are working on conjuration switch them over to blood research and not see a decline in benefit.

2) It would be nice if magic items showed up somehow in the National Summary (F1). I pass around my hammers of forging based on what I need and when it's been a long time since my last turn it takes a long time to find them. This is not the only instance when it is nice to find an item, but it's the most common for me.


Ice

[Endoperez]

Ice_Sickle said:
2) It would be nice if magic items showed up somehow in the National Summary (F1).




You know, I really like some of the chances they have made for DomIII. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I like the 'y' key the most. It's just sooo great. I haven't actually thought about it since Dom:PPP, but it will see a lot of use...

Okay, I'll give a hint. The idea was also mentioned in this thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Tals]

With Stars! you used to be able to give an instruction that represented many turns. So for example move a unit 5 turns worth. This would be remebered each turn to save having to rekey in the instructions. Any where this is possible would assist with the management. It also assists when turns are missed.

Tals

[Edi]

I hope we get a #clearequipment mod command so that weapons and armor assignment to units will be straightforward and without the problems encountered here (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=dom2scen&Number=383903&pag e=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=2).

[Olive]

While gaining experience, scouts ans some other stealthy units should have their stealth increased instead of attack/defense.

[B0rsuk]

1. New, suplementary battle orders: alternative target

It would be used for ranged units. If the target of ranged units is very close to friendly units, alternative target is used instead.

- safe shooting: it should be possible to order ranged units to completely STOP shooting once their target is too close to allied units and there are no alternative targets.
------------------
2. Commander orders templates

By pressing a key combination, like CTRL-1, I'd like to be able to give predefined set of orders to selected commander.

[Endoperez]

Your 2. exists: Currently, you COPY the order combination by Ctrl-1, and PASTE it by pressing 1. All numbers from zero to nine work. You must do this while hovering mouse above the orders of that commander.

It is poorly documented, but it was added quite a few patches ago.

[Turin]

Some more UI suggestions:

1)When recruiting units, you should be able to recruit multiple units with shift-click or ctrl-click. Shift click could be 5 untis ctrl-click could be 10.

2) There should be a button called "Recruit troops" , that automatically recruits troops until your resources are used up. You could either make the recruited troop chooseable
(right clicking on the recruitment button would open up a palette of the recruitable troops in the province and you could create a template that should always be used when you click the button) or it simply recruits the units with the best Rcost/gcost efficiency, so that you get the most heavy troops possible for your gold.

3) This one is trickier to implement, but it would improve the UI considerably. Right now artifact creation is a pain, you basically have to remember all the pathcosts to know which mage can forge which item and even then you have to hunt down the specific mage and tinker with all the path boosters.
It would be far better if there was a create artifact screen, that shows you all the artifacts you can create with your researching/defending/ally summoning mages. Then you simply click on the things you want and the program automatically assigns the mages to the artifacts(assigning those with defend orders first, then the worst researchers, then the summoners. (bonus points if you can assign dwarven hammers to those mages, and even more bonus points if they get boosters assigned automatically if needed).

4) This has probably been mentioned before, but there should be a limit in the pool gems screen. As in pool all gems, but don´t take the last x gems. Would greatly help bloodhunting micromanagement.

[Reverend Zombie]

Endoperez said:
Your 2. exists: Currently, you COPY the order combination by Ctrl-1, and PASTE it by pressing 1. All numbers from zero to nine work. You must do this while hovering mouse above the orders of that commander.

It is poorly documented, but it was added quite a few patches ago.



Not only is it poorly documented, it is temporary. A template should persist from turn to turn so that you do not have to *hunt for commander with orders you want to copy* and then *hunt for commander to receive the orders."

A template would ideally be viewable and editable even if not currently assigned to a commander.

[Endoperez]

Reverend Zombie said:
Not only is it poorly documented, it is temporary. A template should persist from turn to turn so that you do not have to *hunt for commander with orders you want to copy*
and then *hunt for commander to receive the orders."




It does stay over many turns, and even stays if you exit the game. They aren't saved/moved between games, which might be what you were after.



A template would ideally be viewable and editable even if not currently assigned to a commander.


Yes, I'd like an addition like this. Many order-slots that could be filled as needed, and a possiblity to set orders from the list to spesific slot (0 through 9). As there could be lots of them, it would propably work much better if they could be given custom names. So, Seith_Darts could be [Eagle Eyes, Nether Darts x4, Cast spells], Seith_Prot might be [Luck, Body Ethereal, Nether Dart sx3, Cast Spells], H3Bless [Blessing x2, Sermon of Courage x3, Stay behind troops], etc. All of these and lots more would be saved, and they could be accecced whenever needed, whatever the nation.

[Reverend Zombie]

Endoperez said:
It does stay over many turns, and even stays if you exit the game.



No kidding? I could have sworn I tried it and gotten nothing. I'll have to give it another shot.

[Daynarr]

Lol, scripts are saved with save game so you can set them on turn one and use them whenever needed during game (single or multi). I'm really surprised that after all this time you still don't know that (you are way past N00b point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif).

[Reverend Zombie]

Daynarr said:
I'm really surprised that after all this time you still don't know that (you are way past N00b point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif).



Indeed. Chalk it up to the "poorly documented" aspect of the feature.

[Wish]

I want special combat AI based on unit experience. Perhaps highly experienced or martial artsbased troops (like in tien chi) can have special fighting styles... perhaps a style thats designed to wear out larger enemies and then dig into them. (higher defense but attacks only do stun damage until the enemy is at a certain fatigue point, then normal attacking) or other special attack orders. make stuff like this available to other units only if all units in a row have a certain amount of experience stars.

also certain commanders and the such could have special attack orders designed just for them.

[Endoperez]

Wish_For_Blood_Slaves said:
I want special combat AI based on unit experience. Perhaps highly experienced or martial artsbased troops (like in tien chi) can have special fighting styles... perhaps a style thats designed to wear out larger enemies and then dig into them. (higher defense but attacks only do stun damage until the enemy is at a certain fatigue point, then normal attacking) or other special attack orders. make stuff like this available to other units only if all units in a row have a certain amount of experience stars.

also certain commanders and the such could have special attack orders designed just for them.



This might work out quite well... Maybe three stars enabling archers to Fire Rear, four Attack Commanders and fire commanders, and five attack magic users/ fire commanders. All of those are commands that already exist (used in Dom:PPP, by Bogus the Troll and his friends, and possibly by AI). I'm not sure if commanders should get as many new commands, as SCs are already quite powerful. Fire Comanders/Magic Users would make magical bows much more powerful.

[Edi]

I must have said it before, but I would like an ID number based system for magic sites, the same way it is with units, weapons and armor. Make it easier to document, mod and make maps that way. Typos in site names will also become irrelevant for mapmaking purposes. And more magic istes would always be nice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Edi

[Nerfix]

I wish we would have *some* info on how the project is going. The long silence is very disturbing.

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:
I wish we would have *some* info on how the project is going. The long silence is very disturbing.



There have been few hints. The development continues, and I'm quite content with what I know. Of course, I have kept my eyes open to more directions than most of you.

EDIT:
One example is the fact that on 6th of August, Kristoffer pondered why he couldn't see the last page of the bug thread. -> They still check what people post in there!
Gives you a nice, warm feeling, doesn't it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

EDIT2:
Currently known new nations of DomIII:
Bandar Log - India. Bandar means 'monkey' and log means 'people'-> they might be something not quite human. Also, in the Shepherds of Creation, we got another four-armed pretender (the previous one being the Nataraja), with Death and, IIRC, Air .
Oceania - available as a mod, although certain things were left out. Hippocampi, which the Wave Lords currently autosummon, will be available from a national summon spell in DomIII.
Shinuyama - probably a Japanese nation, or at least one of its themes. I also have some old information which points to Japan.

[Nerfix]

Wait, wait, wait what is this "Shinuyama" you are talking about?

[Kristoffer O]

Shinuyama - land of the bakemono kings. A warlike nation that rose in the aftermath of a great rebellion against the oni kings of Yomi.

[Morkilus]

Oni kings? Perhaps we might see a nation of demons and/or ogre-magi? (mind that I know little of Japanese mythology, and most of what I know comes from the last Magic: the Gathering set)

[Wish]

also I would like to see some addition of native american traditions, the hopi/zuni had a very in debth mythology as do the tlingit. certainly enough material to deck out another nation.

(I admit, I just want to play a Coyote pretender or an evil Baxbaxbalinushiwe pretender)

[Zapmeister]

I imagine that Dom3 will be similar to Dom2, in that single-player will quickly cease to be very challenging, even on "Impossible" settings. Strong AI is hard to write, and that's not what I'm wishing for.

What I'd like is a scoring system for single-player. A score awarded at the end of a single-player game that measures in some way how successful you were. Something to beat next game.

Care would have to be taken in designing this metric so that the mistake made in Imperialism II, that the score could be arbitrarily inflated by deliberately deferring the end of the game, is not repeated.

With Dom2, I've tried just seeing how quickly I can win given a fixed set of parameters, but this is too one-dimensional, and leads to a narrow range of strategies that will have any chance of raising the bar.

A clever scoring scheme would be great.

EDIT: It might also provide a way of resolving MP games that aren't played to their ultimate conclusions.

[Kristoffer O]

> the hopi/zuni had a very in debth mythology as do the tlingit.

Unfortunately my Zuni musings are in a less developed stage and will not be part of dom3 at release. Perhaps in a patch or mod.

> What I'd like is a scoring system for single-player. A score awarded at the end of a single-player game that measures in some way how successful you were. Something to beat next game.

Interesting idea. What kind of parameters do you think of? Time of defeated gods, percentage of map, percentage of dominion, percentage of spells researched?

[Zapmeister]

Kristoffer O said:
> What I'd like is a scoring system for single-player. A score awarded at the end of a single-player game that measures in some way how successful you were. Something to beat next game.

Interesting idea. What kind of parameters do you think of? Time of defeated gods, percentage of map, percentage of dominion, percentage of spells researched?



Time as a negative and anything currently shown in the score graphs as positives would be candidate factors, I guess. Whatever it is, though, there needs to come a time when prolonging the game will definitely decrease your score.

Perhaps the time penalty could be quadratic or even more severe, e.g. winning on turn 10 is -100 points while winning on turn 100 is -10000 points.

Alternatively (or also) the bonuses for other things could be capped at maximum values, so that after a while the only way to go is down.

[B0rsuk]

- a nation based on arabic myths/culture. Non-undead ghoul shapeshifters, 4 kinds of genies (Djinni, Marid, Efreet, Dao), scimitars, yantchars (spelling differs - I mean hardcore, fanatical infantry made of captured&brainwashed infidels), lots of (mostly light) cavalry. I'm sure someone knows the subject better than me.

- a slavic nation (100% pagan). If it won't come with Dom3, I will do my best to mod such a nation. The main problem is that slavic/pagan culture isn't described in many records, and the Church tried its best to erase it. Still, lots of info can be found. Slavic people often worshipped warlike gods (like Svarog or Perun - althrough it's not sure if Svarog was a god of his own or merely a prefix of older god Rod. In that case Svarog Rod would mean "mighties Rod" or similar). Slavic people were known to ocassionaly join raiding parties with vikings. There was a widespread belief in supernatural entities, you can even say demonology. There was lots of minor supernatural beings, many of them dangerous).
Without too much research I can say that army would be based around teams/parties of 15-20 or so people. This means not-so-great commanders.

As far as magic goes, witches were supposed to have great knowledge of charms, curses, herbalism, shapeshifting, divination, demonic pacts, and healing. Witches were often feared, but also respected, mainly because they were able to heal the sick. Translating to Dominions language - a bit of Astral magic, nature/earth, possibly Blood.

One of national heroes would have to be Baba Yaga. Capitol magic sites could include Lysa Gora (Bald Mountain), a place where witches were supposed to gather ocassionaly and meet devils (djabel), demons etc. But I don't think limiting witches to capitol would fit very well - they often lived in alone in the woods.
Nation-specific spells could be some summonings - there were dozens of demonic beings to be afraid of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_mythology
So, there is a potential.

[Nerfix]

Hey Kristoffer, how many new nations there will be? Any chance of seeing that Kalevala based nation?

[Kristoffer O]

Slavic myth is interesting, but I havn't done any research on the matter (not since an ars magica campaign a couple of years ago). So there will not be a slavic nation in dom3 at release, but I have considered adding one as a patch or mod later on.

The number of nations is tricky. Themes are reworked and put into the three ages. Niefelheim becomes Jotunheim in the middle era and is Utgård in the late era. Some nations do not exist in some eras etc. What earlier was a theme is now considered a nation in its own right which makes modding much easier. Thus I do not know exactly how may nations there will be, but about 60 is probably right. Entirely new ones (with early and late versions excluded) there are perhaps ten new ones. Sauromatia is very different from Pythium, but could be considered an early version. They do have Hydras, but Witch Kings are very different from Arch theurgs. Likewise Yomi is quite different from the later form Shinuyama and the last "nipponese" nation Jomon. The semblances between early middle and late Caelum are stronger.

So your question is a bit hard to answer. There will be about 60 nations but many of these are themes and variations that you will recognize from dom2.

Kalevala is on my own wishlist. It will probably not be in the first release of dom3, but has high priority after I'm finished with the current intended nations.

[Kristoffer O]

Happy birthday by the way!

[Edi]

Kristoffer O said:
Slavic myth is interesting, but I havn't done any research on the matter (not since an ars magica campaign a couple of years ago). So there will not be a slavic nation in dom3 at release, but I have considered adding one as a patch or mod later on.

The number of nations is tricky. Themes are reworked and put into the three ages. Niefelheim becomes Jotunheim in the middle era and is Utgård in the late era. Some nations do not exist in some eras etc. What earlier was a theme is now considered a nation in its own right which makes modding much easier. Thus I do not know exactly how may nations there will be, but about 60 is probably right. Entirely new ones (with early and late versions excluded) there are perhaps ten new ones. Sauromatia is very different from Pythium, but could be considered an early version. They do have Hydras, but Witch Kings are very different from Arch theurgs. Likewise Yomi is quite different from the later form Shinuyama and the last "nipponese" nation Jomon. The semblances between early middle and late Caelum are stronger.

So your question is a bit hard to answer. There will be about 60 nations but many of these are themes and variations that you will recognize from dom2.

Kalevala is on my own wishlist. It will probably not be in the first release of dom3, but has high priority after I'm finished with the current intended nations.



Hot damn! That's the biggest news in a long time, and I'm practically salivating already.

*rubs hands with glee*

The only thing that makes me cringe is the prospect of having to produce a complete Dom3 DB for units, weapons, armor and other stuff...

*runs screaming into the night* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Edi

[B0rsuk]

About music...

Is there any chance that Dom2 music will be transfered to Dominions3 ?

Is there any chance there will be some new music ?
-------------
If yes, I have a suggestion, but I have no slightest if it can work. There's a polish folk/celtic/etc music band that I like a lot. Perhaps you could reach some kind of agreement with them ? They aren't the most commercial band out there, they play because they like to. Amateurs in strictest (original) meaning.

http://free.art.pl/openfolk/index.html

Note: I'm not in any way related to Open Folk. I just like their music. I have no idea if they'd agree to provide a piece or two for Dominions3 game. I have no idea if (or how much) they would charge.
I don't even have any idea if they check their mailbox. But at least I can tell they understand english, because they travel abroad from time to time and sometimes sing in english.
It may be worth trying. You can check out 4 of their music pieces on their website. Unfortunatelly, they didn't publish my favourite piece there. ( Czarownica - witch)

[Kristoffer O]

Falsobordone and Erik Ask-Uppmark's and Anna Rynefors' other musical project "Drom" will be the main contributors. So you will get new music you will recognize.

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:So your question is a bit hard to answer. There will be about 60 nations but many of these are themes and variations that you will recognize from dom2.

Kalevala is on my own wishlist. It will probably not be in the first release of dom3, but has high priority after I'm finished with the current intended nations.



That's quite a number...! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif
Well, that should keep us occupied for a while. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Nice to hear that Kalevala is in your own wishlist. That certainly is a good birthday gift. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Well, keep up the good work.

[WraithLord]

Kristoffer, is your avatar taken from dom-III? -Is it by anyway a new angel or a new image for the harbringer?

I read somewhere that in Dom-III angels will be more powerful. I sure hope they would be.

[Nerfix]

izaqyos said:
Kristoffer, is your avatar taken from dom-III? -Is it by anyway a new angel or a new image for the harbringer?

I read somewhere that in Dom-III angels will be more powerful. I sure hope they would be.



I think it is Dom III Harbringer.

[Endoperez]

izaqyos said:
Kristoffer, is your avatar taken from dom-III? -Is it by anyway a new angel or a new image for the harbringer?

I read somewhere that in Dom-III angels will be more powerful. I sure hope they would be.


Took me some time to find, because I had forgotten to paste it into the same text file the other two DevDiaries are in. EDIT: This was number 3, the February one.


Another topic is the Angels. I like Angels, more than Devils actually, but I never
really liked the Angels in Dominions. They are ugly, they are friendly and they don't
sing. Devils are way cooler, and that is bad. Bad to the bone. Angels rule, or should
rule. Impossible to behold they mete out the justice of the Lord or praise Him with their otherworldly hymns. So now the Angels have new sprites that I like. I have the harbinger
as my new forum avatar. Seems appropriate. Now they have to be revamped to be on par
with Arch Devils. There is also a new angelic being to match the Demon Lords. Feels
good.

[WraithLord]

Endoperez said:

izaqyos said:
Kristoffer, is your avatar taken from dom-III? -Is it by anyway a new angel or a new image for the harbringer?

I read somewhere that in Dom-III angels will be more powerful. I sure hope they would be.


Took me some time to find, because I had forgotten to paste it into the same text file the other two DevDiaries are in. EDIT: This was number 3, the February one.


Another topic is the Angels. I like Angels, more than Devils actually, but I never
really liked the Angels in Dominions. They are ugly, they are friendly and they don't
sing. Devils are way cooler, and that is bad. Bad to the bone. Angels rule, or should
rule. Impossible to behold they mete out the justice of the Lord or praise Him with their otherworldly hymns. So now the Angels have new sprites that I like. I have the harbinger
as my new forum avatar. Seems appropriate. Now they have to be revamped to be on par
with Arch Devils. There is also a new angelic being to match the Demon Lords. Feels
good.





Thanks.

Bad news for Pythium and Arco http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Kristoffer O]

> Kristoffer, is your avatar taken from dom-III? -Is it by anyway a new angel or a new image for the harbringer?

Correct, a harbinger it is. A fitting avatar I thought.

You will also get a six winged seraphim.

[WraithLord]

seraphim.
That's actually a word in hebrew.
IIRC it describes a cast or an order of angels.
I also checked and there's an entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraphim) about them in wikipedia.
Oh and check out the article about Metatron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metatron).

Having six wings?- Would it give them any benefit, like higher strategic movement?


Thanks for this interesting information.

[Chazar]

izaqyos said:
seraphim. Having six wings?- Would it give them any benefit, like higher strategic movement?

What about an increased chance to spread the bird flu? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Angels, hmm?! A proper sort-of-evil theme for my beloved Caelum-birdies would be nice though. However, neither blood nor death would be really fitting thematically... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Maybe something similar to Ctis Miasma: Unholy units that spread diseases in cold provinces. Maybe most units should start diseased (for a proper reduction in cost). Everything else should be frozen to death. Less lightning, more frost, after all Caelum prefers Cold 3:
It is cold here, cold enough to chill my lips blue, cold enough to still my aching heart, cold enough to turn my wayward thoughts to ice.
If you seek warmth, comfort, or easy victory, if you strike in haste, are quick to anger, and must do battle while your blood is hot, then turn away from me, for I offer no heat. Those who embrace me will become as I am, cold./threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

[Ed Kolis]

Isn't seraphim the plural form? The proper singular is seraph...

[WraithLord]

Ed Kolis said:
Isn't seraphim the plural form? The proper singular is seraph...


Correct. the "im" is suffix for male plural in hebrew.
same as "kruvim" and "kruv" (I think it's cherubs and cherub in english), another angelic order.

[Endoperez]

Wrong THREAD! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

So, I posted rather long post to wrong thread... To not just spam the thread, I'll give few ideas that have been on my head for some time already. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I already mentioned some of them in this thread:

Being able to recruit multiple commanders at the same time:
Instead of a commander slot, each province has a martial slot and arcane slot. A commander who is a priest, mage or both fills the arcane slot. A commander who has knows no magic fills a martial slot. Sometimes I recruit independent commanders just to lead my national units because I DON'T want to NOT recruit a mage. Some commanders could be made to fill BOTH slots (Niefel Lords).

Modding tools: #prophetform:
Currently some units use different, good-looking graphics when made into prophets (Jotun Jarl), while others just get the abilities (Jotun Herse). I wish that special prophet form could be added to any unit. In addition, it would be interesting to have a nation where being a prophet REALLY makes a difference (magic levels).

Map editing: #prophet <nation> <unit number>|<unit type>
Simple (?) addition, very usable in certain scenarios. Works like #pretender; chosen nation starts with unit of chosen type as its prophet.

Spells with Holy magic as requirement.
This has been used in few mods, so it works. In some cases, being a priest would be a very interesting requirement, especially in case of national summons (Tien Chi).

Star for Arena Champion:
The Champion of the Arena gets one Heroic Ability, or something similar chosen from the same pool of effects. It doesn't improve with experience/kills, but rather:
1) with the number of Arena fights that have happened, or
2)with the number of championships the current champion has won, or
3) it doesn't improve at all, but starts at a level where the effect is worth fighting for.


Afflictions for the Chosen:
More different afflictions! Afflictions disrupting the flow of energy in the body of unnatural creatures, a mark sinner left on an angel, etc. More restrictions on afflictions: disease already doesn't work on undead; feeble-mindedness, fear, insanity etc don't affect mindless; flying units can't become limp or crippled, etc. If unit has an affliction that doesn't affect it, hide it from view (undead aren't diseased, mindless aren't feeble-minded). Also, it would be nice to see affliction only spesific creatures can cause or which spesific creatures cause more often: magic units/horrors might Horror Mark those they strike, touch of an angel might take out the will to fight (-2 att, -2 str, -2 mrl), wolves go for tendons and make people crippled/lame more often, terrifying creatures cause Battle Fright more often...

Angels should be able to heal their wounds, if they can't already. Witches (1N1E sacred but without priestly magic, available from few sites) should be able to heal afflictions (much more poorly than e.g. Arcoscephalian Priestesses) or disease (new, possibly passive, ability).

New name list for female demons. Right now, a Succubus might have a name like Ami, Fyllia or *shudder* Polli. You know, in Finland, it is Polli who wants the cracker. Unfortunately, it's more sad than funny. If you rather create a game than invent a patch of crazy words, at least change them to use the undead name list. Some of the undead ones, like "Lepertongue" or "Wormfriend" are strangely fitting...

[RedRover]

I’ve been off for a while looking at how modding is handled in other games (CivFanatic site is awesome--there's even a StarGate mod for Civ2!), and would like to weigh in with some specific modding wishes. First, though, are two wishes I haven’t seen mentioned, but that I would really like to see in Dom3:

TWO WISHES

Default Button: I wish for a Default Button to reset the game to the original “classic” game parameters once I have totally changed everything in the setup screen. This is IMO the single most desirable feature, if the huge number of setup choices other people wished for are implemented. (Don’t get me wrong—I’m first in line for more setup choices. But I also want the classic base game the developers are designing, regardless of how badly I've fiddled the game options.)

Time Flag: It would be highly useful if the main map screen had a tag (maybe in the lower right-hand corner) that toggles between Game Turn, Game Time (e.g.: Late Spring), and Real Time (Clock). It would be much more convenient than going to the End Turn screen for Game Turn, Message screen for Seasonal Turn, and Desktop for real time.

MODDING WISHES

Modding Tool, LGR: The single most useful modding tool I can think of is a Local Group Randomizer. This would let a scenario designer specify a group of elements by name or number and place one or more elements from a library file into the group randomly.

For example, on the Cradle map, I might create a scenario in which I want the special magic sites (only) to have L4 sites (only). In this case, I don’t care which L4 site goes in which special site, as long as each special site on the map has a L4 magic site and all L4 sites in the scenario are assigned to the special sites.

Or I might have a scenario in which a specific site will be located in only one of half a dozen potential locations (King Arthur/Grail).

This might be modified with a locking function so each element in the library file is flagged closed once it is used (and resets to open when the last is used). For example, I could set up an element file of 24 sites, only eight of which, all different, would be selected randomly for a given map.

This would, for example, make it easier to keep the ratio of L1 to L2 to L3 to L4 sites the same, and Path distribution roughly equal, while allowing a theoretically infinite number of special sites in the library files. Since most people like making complex/weird power/high-gem sites more than low-gem plain vanilla sites, this would prevent the former from overwhelming the latter by sheer number once modders start adding their creations to the game.

Mod Tool, Default Designator: This tool would let me designate specific game elements as defaults for a modpak, so hitting the default reset button when the mod is enabled would reset these specified elements to the modpack defaults rather than the standard game defaults.

Modding Tool, Event Scheduler: Assuming we will pick up the ability to mod random events and expand the Dom 3 event list, I wish for the additional capability to set specific triggers for events. For example, an event that 1)creates (or destroys) game element such as a magic site or unit on a given game turn, or 2) a certain number of turns after a specified event occurs, or 3)after the creation/destruction of a specific unit. The LGR might be combined with this to allow one of a limited file of events to occur, or even to randomize a turn of occurrence within a specified range of turns.

Mod Tools, Link Tracking for Spells/Abilities: You can change parameters of spells, weapons, and so on. However, I wish the Dom 3 mod utility could also tell you where else a spell or weapon is embedded in the game; that is, which other game elements your change will affect.

For example, if I replace the “Call of the Wild” spell with the all-new “Vine Jaguar” spell, it would be nice to know that I’m also messing up the “Soulstone of the Wolves” magic item, a detail I might otherwise forget.

New Magic Item Effect, Visibility Curse: A unit equipped with this cursed item has any stealth function disabled. In addition to a new standard item (1A1S Amulet of Location?), the Soul Contract might be given this attribute to remove the “hide from Horrors” exploit.

This concept might be expanded to allow almost any special ability/power to be disabled by a specially created cursed item.

Hobby Tool, Libraries: I’d like to see a more developed system of library files for the game. For example, God Libraries. For this, I might keep a folder called Ulm. In it, I might have a dozen of my own designs for Ulm Pretenders, sortable by Chassis, Theme, and Challenge level, maybe identified by the God’s name. I wish for the option to go into this library and pick the Pretender of my choosing when I start a game. Also, when I set up a game, I wish for the option to go into the God Library and pick specific Pretenders for each nation, or set Pretenders to full random selection (the default) or random selection from a limited group (for example, human Pretenders only). I wish for a base library of one default Pretender per base nation for each difficulty level (in Dom 2, 17x4), about 75%-80% optimized for their level of play (in other words, leave space in the default Pretenders for me to improve them).

For the God Library specifically, it might be useful to have a “Splash” screen for each Pretender that lists Chassis (w/picture/stats), Magic, Scales, Dominion, Fort, Themes/Enabled, that you could easily call up and look at when making a selection.

The Library concept might be extended to Sites, Items, Special Powers, Spells, Weapons, National Heroes, Independent Poptypes, and so on.

I’m not wishing that extensive libraries be filled for Dom 3. I’m wishing that the architecture be put into place, using the default game files as examples. The fans can take care of filling the shelves.

Mod Tool, Era Libraries: It would be useful to have a grouping tool that could assign specific nation themes and other elements as defaults for a randomly generated game.

Example: If (to pull a setting out of the air) I liked the Dragonlance setting so much I wanted to do a full mod, I could, after doing, say, the War of the Lance period, set up the Age of Myth period as well, and have the game engine randomize games for either, at my option. Era libraries would establish a default mix of spells, items, sites, creatures, and so on specific to the fantasy world and era. The defaults (and the only ones necessary to include in Dom3, of course) are those from the core Dominion 3 world.

Generic Hero Slots: One generic National Hero slot for each nation, generally a non-wizard military commander that must be named (or is randomly named with renaming possible), to which hero-creating events default once the specially designed heroes have all appeared. This ensures that even in the longest games, the supply of heroes never really dries up for a nation, nor do you have the same hero showing up after it's killed.

Default Settings: Most of the default settings in Dom2 are OK, but I'd like to see the Renaming default set to "On."

[RedRover]

ODDS & ENDS

Here are a few wishes of miscellaneous nature:

Historical Scenarios, but…: While it would be fun to have specific scenarios based on the original fantasy Elesium world history, and also the ability to randomize games within specific game-historical periods (I applaud your intention to do so), I wish to keep the ability to plug any theme into any game if I so choose.

Spell Scripting: While I am not a fan of extending the spell scripting past five rounds, I wish for the appropriate number of remaining script slots to be automatically added for Quickness effects, so that you get five rounds of scripting, instead of five scripted spells interrupted by whatever the heck the AI decides to do (and if you de-script a Quickness spell, for example, its extra slots would go away).

I Win…: It would be nice to have a final cut-scene or screen that celebrates the player’s victory. Dom 2 ends a bit abruptly. (I still get a kick out of playing the original Hoyle Solitaire collection, which has a happy jumping Joker that congratulates you, while riffling decks of cards blossom like streamers around him!)

…Or Not: Also, it would be nice to have a continuation option, if I want to continue with a won game (to experiment with magic or items, for example). However, I would resent a Civ-style end screen that insults and sneers at the player if the game is left short of victory.

Multiple Map Directories: I wish I could organize my maps better, and I wish scenarios were separated from random maps. Just to control the various options available—for example: Official random maps, official scenarios, (these are the ones we know work), mod maps, mod scenarios, (some very good, some are something of a crapshoot), maps in progress (MyMaps), Daily Downloads (thanks Gandalf!).

Toggled AI: I wish going AI wasn’t a one-way street. It would be fun occasionally seeing what the AI would do for a turn or two, then taking the controls back. Also, it can be instructive to set everything to AI and just watch the game run (maybe you can set an “observer mode” in single player to ghost you in as a specific nation; but your only two options in this mode would be to change the nation “observed”, or to take “player” status for the observed nation). Once this is in place, we might play around with experimental events:
“Bureaucratic Zeal:” If player, +1 Productivity in capital. If AI, Difficulty setting for that nation increases by 1.
“National Malaise:” If player, -1 Productivity in capital. If AI, Difficulty setting for that nation decreases by 1.
“Civil Disorder:” Player becomes AI for a turn (or maybe several turns at Misfortune 3). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Spells New spells should be useful, thematic, and different from what has gone before. Cookie cutter duplicates of other paths’ spells, mere powerups, or a “spell war” of spells aimed exclusively at other spells should be avoided, IMO. An example of a “good” new spell might be:

Enclave Garden: Enchantment 5. Path: 4N. Type: Ritual. Cost: 10N.

This spell creates a hidden enclave of fertility in a chosen province, even the most desolate, magic-blasted land. Such enclaves are attractive to immigrants, but blossom only in areas of strong dominion. They increase population in the target province.

(Game Effect: Adds 200 population* to the target province next turn, provided the Pretender’s dominion there is positive. Otherwise, the player gets a popup: “Enclave fails due to insufficient dominion.” The gems are expended regardless of the outcome. This spell essentially creates a simple population seed. Once in place, the population is no different from any other population: it grows, dies, etc., normally.)

*NB: The above is a default value. The actual coded variable is the #poppergold<people>, so the spell automatically scales with any mod affecting taxation. The intended overall tax effect of the spell is to create +1 gold at 100% taxation and neutral scales.

Note: I think it is a strong positive feature to have some game information the players have to dig out through experience or observation. Since much of the effect of this example is plainly visible, I would recommend keeping the italicized information out of the game’s primary documentation, though it might be included in a secondary source like Liga’s Guide.)

I’ve always found it somewhat unhappy that nations like Ermor can completely depopulate an area, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it except hope the Immigration random event just happens to occur in exactly the right province. Magical rebirth is such a common fantasy theme that IMO this spell or an equivalent would add an additional immersion factor to play, and could be configured so that it doesn’t seriously impede the population-killing themes when the game is going their way.

I put this together as single player effect, for those of us who just want to get things visibly growing again. A higher impact version for multiplayer might be closer to 1,000 pop/20N, but exact tweaking for multiplayer would take testing. I don’t think the seed itself should be affected by Growth scale, but once the population is in place, Growth would affect the base population normally.

Example 2:

High Glamour: Alteration 4. Path: 3A. Type: Ritual. Cost: 3A (+1/turn?).

Any force in the province this spell is cast on is reported at 200%-300% strength by normal intelligence reports and scouting. Spies and magical scrying may penetrate the ruse.

(Note that the forces need not be those of the caster. I’m not sure there’s any easy way to key this to a force, but by making it province-specific, it might also be given a duration, like Astral Window. Spies and scrying might either be allowed an accurate report, or maybe require a successful Magic Save against the caster to get the accurate report. I originally thought to hard key this at 200% only, but that would let the caster effectively use this spell for scouting, which is not the intent.)

Modular AI Tweaks: Set up AI processes so that more efficient algorithms can be swapped in by the program (or modder) at higher difficulty levels. For example, take the taxing algorithm.

(I’m not certain exactly what the AI uses when dealing with taxes/unrest, but I did observe that when I was trying to play like the AI during some benchmarking tests, my test algorithm—reduce taxes 10% per 5 or fraction points of unrest, adjusted each turn—was yielding consistently higher income than whatever the AI was doing with the same nation.)

For example, if there are four difficulty levels, there might be four slightly different ways for the AI to deal with Unrest. At least the highest level should not be possible for a human player. Example:

Easy: Set tax to 100%. If Unrest is 30 or more, reset tax to 0 (a less efficient algorithm).

Normal: Current algorithm, whatever’s in the black box (which works OK for Normal difficulty).

Difficult: Set tax to 100%. Reduce tax by 10% for every 5 or fraction points of Unrest (by observation more efficient than the black box).

Impossible: Reset current “Unrest” to “Unrest –5” and apply method #3.

Light Cavalry Special Abilities, Rally Back/Pursue: A thought about making Light Cavalry operations look better on the tactical display. I wish for an automatic unit behavior that might operate like this:

Define a unit ability called “Rallyback.” The essence of the ability is as follows:

1. The squad acts under orders until routed. At the start of a turn in rout, the Rallyback ability converts its unit’s routed status to a full move straight back toward the friendly baseline in good order, then changes the squad default order to “Fire (closest).”

2. Units with the Rallyback ability leaving the field are routed, count as squad casualties, and scatter normally. Units without the Rallyback ability never recover from rout status and are treated as squad casualties.

3. You might consider a “Rallyback2” ability that defaults to “Attack (closest),” instead. This would be for lance-armed light cavalry, as opposed to bow or javelin-armed cavalry.

4. Note that this ability is useless for flyers, because their move back automatically takes them off the field. This might either be left as is, or cap the move back at, say, 20.

Configured in this way, the Rallyback ability might be extended to Light Infantry and some Ranger/Light Archer types as well. Note that it becomes a bad idea to mix units with and without the Rallyback ability, since other routed troops are essentially treated as squad casualties once they rout.

Pursue: The other ability, “Pursue”, simply prevents the Light Cavalry squad from retargeting an enemy squad in good morale once it has broken an enemy—the pursuers continue to hack at the original target squad until its units have left the board or been killed, then it targets the nearest surviving enemy units.

Since these would not necessarily be units in good order, light cavalry overruns might ultimately be more dangerous to Leader units, although they would not specifically target such units. Also, battles might be lost because the light cavalry is off running down fugitives instead of helping to break the remaining effective enemy units.

Finis
With this second post, I'm done with all the wishes that I've been accumulating over the last year. You might see another short post or two, but this should be the last monster. Thanks for listening.

[Sandman]

A new wish: Better Fire Magic

Fire magic lacks oomf. Its specialty, attack spells, are not particularly wonderful. For summoning, items and buffs, it's fairly weak.

Here are some new fire spell ideas. You could make room for them by clearing out some of the redundant evocations.

Incandescence: A self-buff that increases the damage inflicted by the mage's attack spells by 30%. This works for all spells, not just fire ones! The rationale behind this spell is to allow for a bit of synergy between fire and the other magic paths. We all know that a good mage can become great with a water random - due to quickness. This is the same sort of idea.

Forest Fire: An attack ritual that can only be uased on a forest square. Basically an evil version of those forest-only spells nature has. The province suffers population loss (10%?), and any troops in the province may receive injuries, although deaths are unlikely. Creatures with forest survival and/or are in stealth mode are more at risk.

Detonate: Incinerate is pretty good for a fire spell. But an offensively orientated school like fire should have an even better lethal alteration. Detonate is that spell. The mage points a finger towards an enemy, who instantly explodes, damaging everyone around them. Magic resistance negates.

Call of the Warrior: This is a ritual which focuses on the leadership aspect of fire magic. The targetted province will receive a large number of bonus resources next turn, allowing many units to be recruited. You can use it on resource-poor areas like farmland to recruit heavy units, or on your own capital for massive unit production.

This might be better off as an earth spell, but think of it as calling up, rather than producing, new units.

[RedRover]

(Found this in an old file labeled "Wacky Wishlist." The file is about a year old and has a time stamp of 3:38 AM. You have been warned.)


Nerf the Demons!

Are demons the key to victory in MP? Or are they just the flavor of the month?

Makes no difference—the thought is that if you have a computer to crunch numbers, why not crunch numbers?! Thus, a little idea to add a small cost to using Demons. We all know how nasty they are…

1. In the province they occupy, Demons torture and kill one person per 100 hp of Demons each month. Round fractions down (3 devils=1 kill).

2. These count as successful Blood Slave raids with respect to their impact on Unrest.

The population gets a suitable complaint popup.

(Hey, they're demons, they kill things for fun!)


Up the Angels!

1. Each 10 hp of Angels adds +1 to province population each month (Love is in the Air).

2. Each 50 hp of Angels reduces unrest by 1.


Chaos Reigns!

If Angels and Demons are in the same province on the same side at the end of the turn, they compare hit points. The weaker side deserts. If equal, they both desert!

[Endoperez]

Angels have already been empowered, there is new angel (cast of angels?) approximately the power of the Demon Lords, they have new graphics (Kristoffer's avatar is the new Harbringer), etc.

[Nerfix]

Sandman said:
A new wish: Better Fire Magic

Fire magic lacks oomf. Its specialty, attack spells, are not particularly wonderful. For summoning, items and buffs, it's fairly weak.

Here are some new fire spell ideas. You could make room for them by clearing out some of the redundant evocations.

Incandescence: A self-buff that increases the damage inflicted by the mage's attack spells by 30%. This works for all spells, not just fire ones! The rationale behind this spell is to allow for a bit of synergy between fire and the other magic paths. We all know that a good mage can become great with a water random - due to quickness. This is the same sort of idea.

Forest Fire: An attack ritual that can only be uased on a forest square. Basically an evil version of those forest-only spells nature has. The province suffers population loss (10%?), and any troops in the province may receive injuries, although deaths are unlikely. Creatures with forest survival and/or are in stealth mode are more at risk.

Detonate: Incinerate is pretty good for a fire spell. But an offensively orientated school like fire should have an even better lethal alteration. Detonate is that spell. The mage points a finger towards an enemy, who instantly explodes, damaging everyone around them. Magic resistance negates.

Call of the Warrior: This is a ritual which focuses on the leadership aspect of fire magic. The targetted province will receive a large number of bonus resources next turn, allowing many units to be recruited. You can use it on resource-poor areas like farmland to recruit heavy units, or on your own capital for massive unit production.

This might be better off as an earth spell, but think of it as calling up, rather than producing, new units.



I like them, expect I think that Forest Fire is a bit too powerfull. I don't think that all that many people lived in woods.

Incadescence is a neat idea and perhaps Detonate could provide a bigger bang if the enemy is larger? A hobbit would produce a small boom while a Niefel Giant would produce a massive explosion! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Call of the Warrior sounds fair but in all honesty I still expect that magical units "pwn" so to say the fleshly units.

[RedRover]

Endoperez: Great news, that! Thanks.


Something New

I just did a search of this list today and I found something that no modders have mentioned so far:

I wish for the ability to create new mercenaries.

If we are eventually do true mods for Warhammer's Old World, Forgotten Realms, Middle Earth, Adventurien, Tyrande, Black Company, and others, we need the ability to create mercenary groups native to those settings.

(I would really like to hear a word of feedback on this one...)

[Chazar]

I wish that in Dom3, messages send to nation X are also sent to the sender. I usually have some time in between turns so I sometimes forget what I had sent. So a CC to self would help me for one more turn...

[B0rsuk]

It would be very cool, and efficient, if I were able to select what kind of spells my mage is allowed to cast. It would work as a list of binary YES/NO switches. All spells are allowed by default.
The categories could be:

Area effect offensive spells and Spells Which Can Harm Your Army - to disallow casting Breath of Winter and suchlike.
Direct offensive magic(precision-dependant offensive spells?) - to disable fireballs, firedarts, flying shards, and all these annoying spells which usually have hardly any effect. They're especially pitiful on Scorpion King pretender (precision:9). As it is, fire magic on a pretender seems a disadvantage, because he keeps wasting time casting silly ineffective spells.
self-buffs - personal luck, twist fate, and so on. These are good on SC's, but there are ocassions when you don't want your mages to cast them. On the other hand, SCs may want to disable all else.
Team buff spells - all kinds of spells which target multiple units you control. There are reasons not to use them - high fatigue cost, etc. Sometimes you attack with a small group of commanders, and +3 armor isn't really going to do much.
non-combat combat spells - I mean stuff like Horror Mark, Curse, Seven Years Fever.... They're ok if your commanders are going down and will die anyway, but not in a serious battle I think. Well, curse may be useful, but not others I listed.
summonings - to have more options.
spells with gem cost/fatigue>100 - for fighting weaklings with well-equipped mages. I know one alternative:transfer gems to another commander.

Spells would have to be manually inserted into each category (by game developers). Comments ?

[shovah]

i would love that, maybe another option for more specific spells (keep my seraphs casting false horror instead of phantasmal wolves/warrior)

[Chazar]

Dead God Option: During Pretender Design one might choose that the Pretender starts as dead (i.e. must be called by Priests first), which yields a few more design points. Thereby one might achieve a higher bless effect while still being somewhat less adapt of casting (because of the -1 for recalling).
Minor Blessing: All own national troops should be able to receive a minor blessing. Something along the normal blessing -5, i.e. a 9-blessing would also yield minor blessing equivalent to a 4-blessing to the own national troops (but maybe with the +3 to morale reduced to +1 as well.)
Priests and normal national troops could really benefit from a little boost and blessing is just cool, but so difficult to use with only one or two unit types to use.

[boltcutter]

I, as a new guy, wish for: (many of these have been covered)

1. Tutorial/Walkthrough/Something! I learned Dominions I the hard way, and so I can actually play, but I thought about trying to teach my wife, and . .. I flinch at the thought.

2. When some huge, spectacular feat of magic happens: you should get a picture of it, not just a message saying "There was Rain of Flaming Toads and 25% of your population died." I know, you are a two person company and your goal is to provide deep content rather than pretty pictures, but I think that one picture per "effect" [you might even reuse some pictures] is not too much to wish for.

3. I would like less micromanagement but have no useful ideas on how to acheive it, aside from what has been listed. "Deliver magic item to X", "Collect wounded troops and Heal" [for an Arco priestess], "Build Sages and set to Research" [for a Library]- those are some ideas I had.

4. If there was some way to tag your units with your color, that would be nice. If both sides are using, e.g. pikemen you have to guess who owns which based on what direction they're facing.

5. Single Player improvements- even basic ones like "Starving AI troops"- would be nice.

I realize most of my wishes are "chrome" but I think that a little chrome will go a long way. The people posting in this thread are, by definition, the ones who don't mind the graphics and are past the brutally-steep learning curve.

It's a hard game to convert someone to.

[quantum_mechani]

boltcutter said:
"There was Rain of Flaming Toads and 25% of your population died."

lol, this spell just made my personal wishlist http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[B0rsuk]

I know I already posted it several posts above, but some sort of SERIOUS control over spells cast by mages is sorely needed.
I had all of my water mages cast quickness, and then proceed casting self-buffs (which are actually worthless unless your mages are going to be attacked). THey cast like 10 selfbuffs each, and NOTHING to change outcome of battle - like troop protection, panic, frighten, attack spells. At this point they were about 120 fatigue.

Another time I attacked much weaker independent province. I thought I was going to stomp them into the ground. I check battle report and 3/4 commanders dead. Impossible?!?!
Breath of winter.
--------------------
I think all events listed on beginning of turn should be also marked on map. One symbol per province would be enough. For example, eclamation mark "!". If you click on the mark, you get a list of events which happened there. If there was also a battle in that province, you get the usual swords symbol instead, but you can click on the symbol to get list of events and ability to watch replay.
It is simply hard to read the messages, click ok and remember all province names with events.

Another/additional way of doing it would be "map zoom" for all events, not just before battle replay starts.
EDIT ----------------------
Here's my suggestion for extended battle summary:
For both sides separately:
- most kills by (unit type/spell/misc stuff like fatigue)
- most common spells
- high-level spells cast:
- cause of commander's death (for each dead commander)
- amount of units which died to friendly fire. Extra points for type of friendly fire mentioned (Breath of winter, arrows, breath of winter, bolts, inacurate spell, breath of winter, frenzied elephant, or breath of winter)

Just these essential stats would enable me to check each battle quickly. I wouldn't have to view each replay to know what went wrong. I would still do that ocassionaly, but it gets tiresome after a while (if you have to see several longish battles/turn)

[boltcutter]

Something else that's been covered: better user interface for leaders. My ideas for implementation [could be stupid]:

One screen for each leader.

Has the stats and items as current.
Has army list and tactical orders.
Has current strategic. (those 3 could be on "tabs" like MS Excel sheets, maybe. Or pages)

Has arrows for next/previous leader. [in province or on full list.]

Less of a big deal:
This may be in the game already, but is there a spell [like the Ars Magica one] that opens a crack in the ground under someone's feet, they fall in, and the ground closes up again?

I say leave some of the tactical stupidity. Battles are full of chaos and death and mistakes. Arrows fall short. Routing units can't be stopped [hence, "routing."] No plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

[Sandman]

Nerfix said:

I like them, expect I think that Forest Fire is a bit too powerfull. I don't think that all that many people lived in woods.

Incadescence is a neat idea and perhaps Detonate could provide a bigger bang if the enemy is larger? A hobbit would produce a small boom while a Niefel Giant would produce a massive explosion! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Call of the Warrior sounds fair but in all honesty I still expect that magical units "pwn" so to say the fleshly units.



You're right that incandesence and detonate are the more meaty spells. Just trying new ideas, I suppose.

More:

Wither Flames: This is an easily castable whole-army buff which instantly extinguishes any units on fire. At the moment, fire magic has no counters to itself, unlike many of the better schools.

Mass Blindness: Does exactly what it says on the tin. High level. If you have spells which enslave, curse and destroy whole armies, why not blind them as well?

Warp Wood: Ripped off from good old Master of Magic. This spell destroys ammunition of enemy ranged units. There is no defence against this spell, apart from keeping your ranged units at a distance to hinder its accuracy. Magical ranged weapons are unaffected.

[Nerfix]

I like them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[B0rsuk]

Mass Blindness: Does exactly what it says on the tin. High level. If you have spells which enslave, curse and destroy whole armies, why not blind them as well?
[quote]

It could use a better name.
[quote]

Warp Wood: Ripped off from good old Master of Magic. This spell destroys ammunition of enemy ranged units. There is no defence against this spell, apart from keeping your ranged units at a distance to hinder its accuracy. Magical ranged weapons are unaffected.


Not just ripped, but ripped without thought. Do you really think a spell which instantly shuts down multiple ranged units with no chance to resist would help the balance ?

[Sandman]

Not just ripped, but ripped without thought. Do you really think a spell which instantly shuts down multiple ranged units with no chance to resist would help the balance?



Depends on the particulars of the spell. No-one seems to complain about destruction or wither bones, after all.

[Zen]

Oh, you mean *ANOTHER* spell that does this? Look at Arrow Fend.

I agree that it might be a cool spell, but arrows units already have a hard life in Dominions. Storm/Mist is also particularly bad as well. No other entire unit class has such effective spell counters.

[Sandman]

Well, there's the water evocation rain, which doubles the fatigue cost of virtually all fire spells. Counters don't get much better than that.

But you're probably right about the arrow thing.

[Molog]

Soul Harvest: Anyone killed by the necromancer casting this spell will have their souls trapped and continu to fight for the necromancer as a dispossed spirit.

Also powerful troops should be the last to get starvation or diseased from starvation. It feels wrong to have my knights starve to death, while the wolves are apperently getting fed.

[Kristoffer O]

The wolves feed themselves http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Nerfix]

A simple fire spell:

Wilt

This spell evaporates liquids from a target. Normal creatures will take only small damage and become exhausted but this spell is effective againstliquid or plant based enemies.

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:
A simple fire spell:

Wilt

This spell evaporates liquids from a target. Normal creatures will take only small damage and become exhausted but this spell is effective againstliquid or plant based enemies.



I don't see the need. There is no stat for liquidness at the moment, and the some of the few plant units already have fire vulnerability... I'd much rather see some nasty Water spells, like mass-version of Sailor's Death... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

There are lots of possible spells, but not all of them would work in the theme and world of Dominions. There is no need to have counters to Vine Men/Ogres and Mandragoras, because they have their own, build-in weaknesses. Also, the developers are willing to make different spells, instead of the same old ones again and again. As an example, a AoE 10 caster-centered spell which would cast Breath of Winter effect for one turn would offer new possibilities. It is rather weak, and unless the AI knows to only use it in severe situations (it WILL damage the caster and everyone around him) it will be another nuisance... But if it were a Water 1 spell, a mage with stupid random might just be able to counter scary Dragonfly or even Black Hawk assault. Nature spell that makes target to attack its closest comrades (it's on your side and has Attack Closest orders) until it succeeds in a Strength roll against 13. Air spell that pushes targets around, doing minor damage (acts as Trampler of size dependant on caster's Air level). A spell that severely poisons target and gives him 8+ Poison damage. If he dies, a cloud of poison appears around the place of his death. Higher-level Howl-like spell that summons animals like Summon Animals spell, 1 or no gems. Blood spell that calls forth a spirit that possesses a Horror-marked unit, making it Berserk and forcing it to attack the closest creatures. Water/Fire spell that transforms Rain or Strom into Acid Storm (acid-based Wrathful Skies) (maybe counters Wrathful Skies if it is already in effect?). A low-damage AoE Blood and/or Death spell that creates a neutral Vengeful Spirit (comparable to Dispossessed Spirit) for every non-mindless, animate (NOT inanimate), non-undead, non-demon unit that dies from it. A Death spell that causes random affliction. I want something different. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Kristoffer O]

Hidden scouts are displayed now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Olive]

It's good news. I always forget half of my scouts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

[RedRover]

The first item has an unusual history. I wrote it over a year ago, but just before I was going to post it, someone else brought up the idea. Not wanting to play the copycat, I buried this version of the idea in my files. However, no one has specifically added the idea to the Wishlist thread, and it has been a full year, so I’m sending it in now.

Seasonal Pretenders
Another vector of changing god power—Seasons. God stats are cyclical and change from turn to turn, based on month of year, in addition to changes by dominion. (Suggest limit this to human nations only.)

1. Seasonal Pretender stats peak in middle of “high” season, then wane to a low in the middle of the annually opposite season, then wax to maximum strength again (maybe 12 variations using % multiplier, one per month).

2. A standard variation of +/- 33%, looks ok to me (maybe 25% minimum, to a 50% upper limit).

3. Example: Possible breakdown for human nations:

Spring High: Arcosephale, T’ien Ch’i; Man (std),
Summer High: Machaka, Marignon,
Fall High: Mictlan, Pythia; Man (Last of Tuatha),
Winter High: Ermor, Ulm.

4. Seasonality might also be made an attribute of a specific Pretender chassis, or possibly a pre-game setup option.

5. This would add an additional timing factor for advanced players.
[end of section]



Item Mod Wish
A special #noprod command to prevent an item from being manufactured in a scenario, regardless of its actual statistics. This would not, of course, limit a modder’s ability to add the item to the scenario manually in the design phase, or schedule its appearance if we get moddable trigger conditions.

Magic Item Wish
I wish to see a HUGE magic item that takes THREE Misc slots to carry. I don’t care what it is, as long as the item is good enough to make it a viable choice (but not a no-brainer)!

The idea is enable the creation of items specifically designed to be mounted on an Elephant or similar. Somewhat lesser items intended for smaller animal mountings might only take two slots.

[Endoperez]

#noprod already exists. You can have an item that needs Construction 10 to be crafted, e.g. an item that CAN'T be made at all. It can, however, be Wished for.

Currently, Elephans only have two misc slots. The units with three misc slots are specialist magic-users, including Crone and Oracle. Size or Strength requirement might work better, but then we would have Firbolgs with Bear Claw Talismans, Boots of Giant Strength, Stypmhalian Wings etc' flying around with all the cool stuff.
It could be done, but not as an item. Check out Juggernauts. They are very close to what you describe. Construction 5, 7 and 9 should have more spells, which would effectively include making an item which only specified unit/construct can carry. Also, each Behemoth in controlled by a Revenant, but it is only seens in the picture of the unit; there is no revenant except in the description. Similarly, there could be items that only exist in the carrying units' description.

[Chazar]

Luck scale might influence the probabilty of finding magical items after battles, which, btw, is too low any way. It might be thematical to have a low chance of finding weak magical items, but shouldnt low-level magical items be common in a magical world? Apart, it would be certainly more fun to see more minor items in gameplay (e.g. my current chandrea map features at least two independent commanders with #randomequip 2 per province, but most do not have any items and if they have and if the commander was killed instead of routed, then finding the items is pretty difficult. There is almost no difference between having two random equipped guys in every province as compared to normal game play -- taking into account that the victor brought more than 3 commanders, including spell caster)

It isnt a large issue or big impact on gameplay, but it is simply no fun!

[RedRover]

Endoperez: Your statement about elephant slots confuses me. I found three misc slots on Hannibal, and checked out the Elephant (unit 150) on the Black_Unit_View--also three misc slots.

Is one of the listed slots disabled?



And just so the post does not go without another useful item:

Commander Mounts
Introduce more mounts configured as items that fill the Feet item slot. ([Cohen’s brilliant idea!])

Current: Horse, Alicorn, Griffin, Pegasus, Chariots (as Arco, Std+GE), Lizard (as Amazon), Spider (as Machaka), and very moddable (Greyhawk dragonnels or Hoburg eagles, anyone?).

[Endoperez]

Re: Elephant
I misremembered that. Maybe I was thinking of Dom:PPP? As there all commanders had two misc slots, and the only Elephant commander I can think of is a mercenary, I might not have seen them in Dominions II at all... My fault, sorry.

Re: mounts as items
I don't think it would work. Mounted units are totally different from un-mounted units. Besides, the fact that graphics wouldn't change would be annoying, as you wouldn't notice it before you right-clicked a commander.
Some kind of an item that acts mostly as mount would be better IMO. Strategical (main map) flying for commander, and even for small number of troops with a Chariot, or rejuvenation and map move 4 (unicorn), would be some of the more apparent options.

[Chazar]

REDUCE MICROMANAGEMENT: There should be an item "Gem Pouch" (or alternatively a mere checkbox for all mages) that allows a mage to use up to three gems on the battlefield directly from the lab. Otherwise gem usage/shipping should be as usual.

Maybe a ritual spell to teleport some gems/items to commanders would be helpfull as well...

[mg]

new poster here. any idea when there might be some new info released on Dom 3 (ie screenshots, release date, other specific improvements as noted in the initial press release)?

thanks!

[RedRover]

Endoperez:
(Elephants) I sympathize. Even worse than going from one edition to another is developing a new edition. Then you have to not only remember which edition you are working in, but also screen out all the variations that were discussed, but not implemented (or implemented, then removed). A friend of mine had a little wail of despair for this condition:

"My brain hurts!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

At least the way seems open for the THREE-MISC-SLOT ITEM!

(Mounts): Nice response--you've convinced me. Still wishing for some of those unusual Feet slot items though! They don't all have to be shoes and boots!

(New Item): This was composed and filed at the time of the T'ien Ch'i balance thread, but not posted. Although that discussion has long ended, I think enough of this minor idea to send it in now.

T’ien Ch’i Celestial Master Tweak
Change the 1S to 1 random sorcery, but switch Blood results to Astral. Thus: CMs break down 25% Nature, 25% Death, 50% Astral (both Nature and Death sorceries have their celestial facets in Oriental magic systems). This small tweak helps eliminates the “certain death” dueling situation by removing half the CMs from danger, with minimal disturbance to the theme.

[Ice_Sickle]

I'd like to see more options with respect to the in game data charts (number of provinces, research, income, gem income etc.) The options I'd like are time related so that I can show the charts of current informtion or have it lag by 5, 10, 15 or 20 turns. So that at turn 70 I see the state of the world at turn 50 if 20 is selected. This gives players some informtion on large maps about what their distant neighbors were up to a while back but still requires you to watch your neighbors for current information.

It would also be nice that even if the charts are off that when the game ends they get turned on. We played a 80 turn 10 player VP game and it would have been very nice at the end to have the charts to see how things evolved.

The other minor thing I'd like to see is knowlegde of magic sites that a player knows about being retained even if they lose ownership of that province.

[RedRover]

River Deities

I wish for the ability to mod river deities into the game.

Currently, there is no real way to do this, because there is no way in Dom2 to tag a province with a river in it.

Once such a tag is available, then this opens the way to keying poptypes, summoned allies, and various effects (increased supply, increased growth, minor flood effects, events, etc.) to river provinces.

Applications include Egyptian river gods, Japanese kappa, European nixies/river nymphs, Chinese river dragons and so on.

Another tweak might be to give amphibians a strat-move of 2 in river provinces.

Variant
A further mod command might be a hard-key option to prevent river-based units from entering non-river provinces. (This might be reversed to keep deep desert spirits out of river provinces.)

As an extension, the ability to hard-key units to any specific terrain types might be fun to play around with.

(OT: I would also like to see a distinction between shallow ocean [ie: coastal] and deep sea ocean provinces in Dom3.)

[Kristoffer O]

> OT: I would also like to see a distinction between shallow ocean [ie: coastal] and deep sea ocean provinces in Dom3.

It's there already.

[Endoperez]

I'm not sure if the existing definition makes difference between land-coastal and sea-coastal provinces, but at least land provinces neighbouring seas have some special features (Shambler Reef and other sites, "some water gems have washed ashore" and other events, certain poptypes, etc).
It might be that some underwater poptypes (Mermen) only appear on sea provinces neighbouring land provinces. I don't know what and where this affects. The Mermen are the only one I can think of right now. However, there can very well be sites/events that are limited to "shallow", i.e. land-neighbouring, seas.

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:
> OT: I would also like to see a distinction between shallow ocean [ie: coastal] and deep sea ocean provinces in Dom3.

It's there already.



Are you talking about Dom II or Dom III?

[johan osterman]

Dom3

[Nerfix]

Ahh, that's cool. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[RedRover]

Great! Tell me that the details are accessible to modding and you will make my week.

Heck...You will make my month!

[Ed Kolis]

/me still wants a fully moddable game ala SE4... so you can add additional nations (Hyrule?), magic items (the Triforce, the Wind Waker, the Ocarina of Time?), forts, etc. fully specifying their attributes and without having to replace other objects in the game to make room http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[RedRover]

Complex Event Modding
Assuming we get the ability to play with Events, it would be fun to have the tools to create Events more complex than are available in the current game.

Here is an example of such an Event, inspired by B0rsuk’s planned Slavic project:

Event: “Rusalka appear in [PROVINCENAME] and lure local soldiers to their doom. These hostile water nymphs are likely to continue their actions until they are driven off.”

The Guts: Rusalka are female Slavic river nymphs. They appear only in a river province, which they cannot leave (they are much like dryads in this respect).

First, the event happens only in Forest or Swamp River provinces. Second, this event only only occurs if Luck scale is 0 or negative. Third, this event cannot occur in a province with a fort in it (this is thematic and prevents a capital from being messed up). Reroll any result that affects a province with a fort. The event:

· immediately reduces province PD to 0, and

· makes the province independent unless nation-controlled troops are present, and

· creates 10+ Rusalka, and

· activates a Beckon spell in the province that triggers during the Ritual Magic phase of each turn in which any Rusalka survive in the province.

Say the Base number of nymphs appearing is 10, adjusted by +5 per Misfortune point. So the worst that can happen is 25 Rusalka in Forest/River/Misfortune 3. Add a Witch leader per 10 Rusalka, and the event is complete. (Unit note: Use Hama Dryad graphic and stats, but change TGA colors from greens to blues, since they are water- as opposed to forest-spirits.)

[rolandthemad]

There should be more things you can build in your provinces. I don't have the full game yet, just playing the demo, but I'm going to order it tomorrow. Are there other buildings besides forts, churches, and labs?

One thing that is kind of bothersome that I noticed in the demo is that I usually start off on a peninsula with maybe one other foe, and I defeat him and move into the main continent. Down there though I usually find two or three all coming at me at once. It'd be nice if you could build a wall across your provinces like the great wall of China, or just something to keep the hordes at bay.

[Endoperez]

Currently, the best you can do is recruit some provincial defense and hope that it keeps the AI at bay... If the AI thinks that you have strong defense, it doesn't attack you in the first place. Sometimes you can also use strong independent provinces as an upkeep-free guard. 80-strong army of Knights and Longbowmen will keep AI armies from coming to you through that province, and while the income might be nice the fight would be costly!

However, buying more than 11 is rarely worth it, but 11 allows PD to occassionally catch enemy scouts, and with nations like Ulm, Marignon or Jotunheim might even help if enemy does attack. For any real threat, PD alone won't work, but recruiting some independent units in addition to PD works much better. Some heavy infantry with Marignon Crossbowmen supporting them works very well as long as the enemy army isn't too big.

There are no more buildings in DomII, and I haven't heard about any more in DomIII. I'm not sure if PD will be changed, but I seem to recall one of the developers stating that making defense a viable option would make the games boring. Currently, some people already consider gem-generating items like Clam of Pearls or Earth Blood Stone a viable strategy that really pays off after 50 or so turns... Games can last so long that it isn't fun anymore.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Don't know if this has already been addressed but:
Wraparound now goes on either both map directions or none. Could there be an option for Horizontal-only map-wrap (the Ribbon option) as well as both ways (the Torus option) since well-designed worlds aren't donut-shaped? (Technically they won't be ribbon-like either but the polar lands have a tendency to be nigh uninhabitable so it works out almost right...)
{For the reason I thought of this see the discussion on the new NeoPangea map...}

[Sammas]

Gem-generating items need to be fixed so that they don't offer exponential gains. At the moment, gem-generating items can fuel their own construction with little loss in efficiency. And since gems can be used to counter almost anything, any large-scale game is always under threat from a hoarder of such items.

Wish for magic power is also way too good. And wish for artifacts should have to overcome some kind of test if a unit is wearing the item.

Strands of arcane power has a serious flaw as well. Basically, the spell should have some risk attached to it, with the duelling of enemy astral mages. So if you cast it with minimal astral investment, then you could be caught out by a high level astral mage. But that rarely happens, because high level astral mages are highly unlikely to fail the MR test due to their high astral resistance - meaning that the duel never takes place.

[Cainehill]

Endoperez said:
(...) I seem to recall one of the developers stating that making defense a viable option would make the games boring. Currently, some people already consider gem-generating items like Clam of Pearls or Earth Blood Stone a viable strategy that really pays off after 50 or so turns... Games can last so long that it isn't fun anymore.



Eh, but I think that's more of an issue with the maps and victory conditions involved than it is the gem-generating items. I mean - we have maps with 360-420 provinces, and arguably the clams etc are the only thing that can finally help win a normal, no-special victory condition set game on those in less than 1000 or so turns.

[B0rsuk]

Quick, before it's too late !!

Separate skills for Hide and Sneak
It would allow for traps and ambushes. Sneak would be for moving stealthy only, while Hide would be used if you wanted to stay somewhere for a bit longer.

An army with decent Hide ability would be great for setting up traps. Coincidentally, I'm gathering information/ideas for a new nation which could use this.
Sneak and Hide in one pack is too much, sometimes.

Extended leadership effects
At the moment leadership is measured only by single number. It is assumed that a better leader can lead more troops and that's it. What I'd like to see is a way to make commanders boost their troops somewhat.
Better military commanders would give +1 attack/defence; mages +1 MR, priest +1 Morale perhaps (perhaps not necessary since priests already can boost morale).
Standard ability would become a subcategory of Leadership.
Other options could include: a commander who gives Mountain Survival (guide) to his troops; enchantments (low power) like Air Shield, slow regeneration/reinvigoration etc.

[Neophyte]

Would it be possible to make it so that item produced gems were not able to be used for alchemical purposes? If so, would this help with the clamming complaints? If this was done, obviously (to me at least) any gem use should first use item created gems, preserving the alchemically active gems as much as possible.

A score (similar to Civ) would be a nice, trivial to code boon to the SP players.

It would be nice if when you clicked on an enemy controlled province the enemy's nation name appeared - as a newbie, I haven't yet memorized the various flag icons.

What do people think of making it so that if your pretender's astral rating + enemy dominion score >= 11 you learned the identity of the enemy? This would represent pretenders being able to "feel" each other coming (a la the old disturbance in the Force - maybe this should only work if you name you pretender Obi Wan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).