The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[SafeKeeper]

Yes, an in-game, step-by-step tutorial is BADLY needed. Make it very detailed, like that in Stars!, and use scripts (same random events, AI recruitment, etc. every time you launch the tutorial) so that it can follow you trough a whole game
(or at least until it's taught you all the features of the game).

Stars!, a 4x game which no one's ever heard about, had a fantastic tutorial that guided you trough the tough game one tiny thing at a time, teaching you hot keys on the way (which most tutorials fail to do).

But that's surely been discussed earlier, so I'll make myself useful:

A reminder system:
Didn't find this when I searched in this thread for it, so here:

- Support for writing messages and having the game send them to you in intervals starting at turn x, or every xth turn.

- Support for tagging commanders so that the game notifies you at the end of the turn if they are stil idle. I have a nasty tendency to forget about my scout once he's sent far into enemy lands.

Much more to come, once I've searched the thread so I know they haven't been posted beforehttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif.

[NTJedi]

Adding more variations for forged weapons and armor

Currently any weapon made has a fixed amount of damage and any armor made has a fixed amount of protection.

I recommend having these items created where the damage and protection(BodyArmor only) can vary by +/- 2pts. Thus forging these items will allow some differences for multiple items of the same type and more uniqueness within the game.

[B0rsuk]

Animals
I think it would make sense if there were (more?) spells which affect animals.
AND such spells could affect cavalry units, too. Squirrels report there's "animal awe" ability over there somewhere; if that is the case, a creature with animal awe may be harder to kill with cavalry, because horses are animals,after all.
Elephants/mammoth could posess Animal Awe simply because they're so big. As far as I remember, horses are afraid of elephants.

[Chazar]

I wish that DomIII will have a single separate folder "games" to store all ongoing game subfolders containing the fthrlnd file and such, much like the way that all mods are already stored in a single folder called "mod", which may have subfolders itself for each mod.

It is annoying that Dom2 thinks that I have a game called "utilities". And the other way around I also accidentally deleted the doc-folder when deleting old games using my OS's file manager instead of the awkward delete game facility of Dom2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Cainehill]

Yeah - I've often wished for that, Chazar. Hopefully we might see that one in Dom3, since it'd be trivial to have the code create / look for game directories in "Dominions3\games" instead of "Dominions3". Make for a lot more logical arrangement, and make doing things like storing little-used maps & mods easier. ( Since I've possibly had _most_ of the maps / mods, and it gets awkward to find the right map or whatnot when there are 40 or so listed, I like to move the ones I'm not using to "oldmaps", "oldmods", etc. But then, just like your "utilities" game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif it thinks I have an "OldMaps" game. )

[Olive]

If you put a space in the name of the directory, the game doesn't considerate it as a game anymore. (I.E. : "Old Games", "Old Maps", etc...).

[Johan K]

A separate saved games folder is probably a good idea. The main dominions folder tends to get a bit cluttered.

[Chazar]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Eventually a glimpse of hope that at least one of my many wishes for DomIII might come true... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Thanks Olive for the hint of putting a space inside the folder names. This is great! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Olive]

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

There should be a non unique artefact healing afflictions (let's call it amulet of life).

To keep it's attractivity to the chalice and not unbalance the game, this new artefact should be expensive (40 or 80 nature gems ?), useless during battles and have a much lower healing probability than the chalice (divided by 10 ?). OK, Faery Queens are already doing this, but this artefact should work on any unit.

[Chazar]

Hmm, the chalice should remain unique. However, what about a potion which is usable once to cure afflictions? (similar to the elixir of life) It could cure one affliction for sure, or alternatively, give a chance to cure each affliction.

[Chazar]

Another technical whish: Within a .map file, a "#start x" command should supersede a "#terrain x 512" command. In this way, the existing option to use special starting positions or not would make more sense (e.g. in my Chandrea map V4.2 (soon to come), special starting positions yield bonus items, so if one does not want to use these special starting provinces, those provinces should not be choosen at random. However, setting terrain flag 512 will always supersede an explicit "#start", which is odd).

[RedRover]

Just popping in to drop off a summary of Dom3 related items from the Abysian AAR CB5.0 to save a little dev time. Some of these will be familiar (hopefully not all):

More Aggressive AI: At Difficult and higher level.

Strands of Arcane Power global spell: Identify and locate newly found sites.

Blood Economy: Make this less fiddly, improve documentation in manual.

State of War: It would be nice to have a reference screen showing which AIs are actively at war with the player.

Mercs: Alert player the turn before they leave, maybe allow automatic rehire bid (non-default, possibly disabled in multiplayer).

Wish spell…for “Population”: What’s fair for 150 Astral? Suggest 1,500 (that is, 7.5x, where x is the popnumber in the tax formula). Also, let wisher choose a target province. It might be interesting (and easier) to allow any province to be targeted, even if not owned by the player. You might also enable the word “Corpses” to convert population to corpses at the same rate.

((Digression: Hmmm, another possible way to get a base population number might be to work backwards, alchemizing Astral gems to Death gems to reversing the Raven’s Feast conversion into corpses—see what population matches. That is, go from Astral Gems (150)->Alchemy-> Death gems (75)-> reverse Raven’s Feast conversion -> corpses (?) = population. Or maybe not.))

Amulet of Arcane Authority: New item, misc slot, allows command of 10 magic beings. Allows a Gift of Reasoned magic being Commander to lead a raiding force of his base unit type (e.g.: Summer Lion).

Post Game Playback: A desirable feature.

[Chazar]

And more minor technical wishes:

All related to map-editing. They are just annoying and it is possible to get along without, but mapmaking is a real pain sometimes and these little things would really help and should be easy to obtain:
A way to comment things out within .map files. Currently "--#somecommand" is treated as "#somecommand". So Dom2 ignores everything until seeing a "#" and then tries to parse a sensible command. Bad! I would not mind braced /* comments */ to avoid the problem arising from different end-of-line's on different OS. The Mapeditor should alter .map files instead of rewriting/overwriting them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I want a mapediting GUI which preserves my comments and gimmicks (such a placed commanders and units)! Currently, once you used a text-editor you are stuck to edit this way or copy-paste between various versions. The mapeditor should fasciliate renumbering: If I 'add' or 'remove' a white dot in the tga, the mapeditor should be able to recover the mapfile, once I told him the number of the 'added' or 'removed' dot. This is really a pain, as a simple search-and-replace for each-and-every shifted province is not even enough: <font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> ...
#setland 33
#commander 34
#units 35 33
#setland 34
... </pre><hr /> So if province 33 becomes 34 after .tga editing and province 34 becomes 35, etc., then I still want 35 archers placed in province 34 and not 35 commanders-as-units instead! Similarly , province 32 should remain swampy when renumbering province 32 to 31: "#terrain 32 32". So this is real pain when doing it by hand. Related to the one before, there should be a "#ignore_prov xy" command, which tells Dom2 to ignore the white dot which would otherwise be province xy. Cannot be too difficult, but would really help when removing editing a map.

[Wick]

I'd like 1) Machakan Spider Warriors to have the Assassin flag. This is thematic but would only come up with Gift of Reason except 2) any guards of an assassin leader (only the Bane Spider (BS) or someone with a Black Heart AFAIK) that are assassins should also leap out like the pack of crazed ninjas they are.

I think this is wonderfully thematic, would give an incentive to buy Spider Warriors, and is still balanced.

I recognize that the balance is debatable but I find that low stealth makes a BS vulnerable, a BS's best weapon is a Skull Talisman and bane weapons are only useful when losing, and a Bane Spider is too expensive to be expendable and Black Sorcerers are comparatively too valuable. In short a BS is currently a poor value.

On a national level, while Machaka is strong it doesn't seem to be rated in the top tier nor do I think this would put it there.

[Cainehill]

Not sure this has been mentioned lately : I'd like to see blessings that weren't banes. What I mean is, the nature blessing in particular is a screwy one. No other blessing is ever bad, but Nature is for any and all nations with sacred mages. Even when I take a pretender that starts with nature magic, half the time I'm unwilling to bump nature past 3 : Marignon, pythium, ermor, Tien Chi, does anyone take berserk blessing a second time when all their good (or in some cases, all period) mages will go berserk at 1 point of damage and start swinging a dagger instead of casting blade wind?

A flag on commanders that says whether or not they'll accept a blessing maybe? A modification to where mages won't go berserk from the blessing while they've still spells scripted to cast? (Or maybe, at least, a chance depending on MR that they'll cast their spells instead of going berserk?)


*shrug* Maybe it's intentional - Nature-9 is certainly a potent blessing that is supposed to have a drawback to it. But W9 and F9 are also uber-potent, with no drawbacks. Guess I'm just tired of seeing Nature magic being schizophrenic the way Astral is on pretender. (IE : no astral unless it's high astral or immortal. No nature above N3 unless you're either going for N9, or don't have sacred mages to worry about.)

[shovah]

i often take high nature (evin with marignon) and against alot of foes try N9 E9. not much damage but effective. or try N4+ with some good air to stop those arrows making you berserk

[boltcutter]

I think this has been gone over somewhat, but adding to "Cast spells" (last thing scripted) "Cast offensive", "Cast support" and possibly "Cast personal defensive".

Because sometimes I want my mages to be massive archers, sometimes I want them to be casting heals and whatnot, and I suppose there might be times I want them to drive themselves unconscious protecting themselves. . .

[Sandman]

Some minor interface/usability suggestions:

Bless effect information: Simple, really. Bless effects should be visible on the pretender magic selection screen, as well as on the pretender's info screen.

Scales infomation: You should be able to see this on the creation screen as well.

Tower information: The disposition of a nation's tower weapons should be displayed on the fortress choice screen.

More obviously different units: A lot of commander units are pretty indistinguishable to the untrained eye. It's not exactly easy to tell the difference between a witch hunter and a grand master, for example.

[Cainehill]

Here's a wish for better placement of starting positions : on a 180 province map, I had another nation's capital right next to mine (which was hard coded for a particular province).

[Molog]

Perhaps allow pretender gods to create weaker avatars of themselves, for a substantial cost.

[Tnahcem]

Molog said:
Perhaps allow pretender gods to create weaker avatars of themselves, for a substantial cost.



Love this one! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Merry Jolkar]

It would be fun to be able to review a game after it is finished. Would it be possible to have utility that allows you to go through turn by turn, seeing everything all players could see? A related idea would be to have a "diary" feature, where each player can keep a record of the game from his or her perspective, and then, in the re-play, you could read all the diary entries. Players could use this any way they wanted, but one interesting use would be for people to explain the reasons behind their strategic decisions, which would be interesting to consider when all the facts are available during the replay. A related idea is to allow players who have been killed to view the game from this universal perspective, including the diaries of the players. This could be an option you could select during setup.

[shovah]

but this global viewing would only be good for non-compettitive games or some people might be able to recieve information on their enemies from these 'viewers' although i like the ideas other than that

[Merry Jolkar]

Perhaps you could only "unlock" access to each player if they gave you their password (or sent your race a game mail permitting you access). You'd only be able to see battles, say, not the whole map, and you could only see battles among races that permitted you access. Or, just make it a toggle at the beginning of the game, that people set if they trust all the other players.

[Endoperez]

Currently, there is option for some kind of statistics that the game writes down for current turn. They can be compiled into full statistics of the game via third-party program. Maybe, if any messages sent/received were also recorded, and maybe the in-game message system improved a bit, that would be enough.

[Sandman]

A small wish: add an item graph. If you can see gems, provinces, research, income, etc, then surely you should be able to see who has the most items.

[Dogboy]

How about a note pad in game where you can jot down notes?
And accumulate info on provinces! Why do we have to write this all down? We're GODS! Let our minions do it. Keeping a scout in a province should improve province info over time. Keep track of last time you had a scout in each province, as part of the report you get when clicking.

[majama]

I dont read all replies in this topic, but i think should be in dominions 3 somethink like diplomacy and fame rating, always lowered for atacking without war, lowered for discover scouts, and many other reasons

[Saber Cherry]

In conjunction with an earlier comment about "The ability to create lesser avatars" - which would certainly be cool - how come Dominions is strictly monotheistic? I want to play as Greece, with lots and lots of gods. But for tough battles, they can merge to form the giant robot OLYMPUS-X and shoot plasma beams!

At least having Persephone around to seduce Hades into releasing some of my better commanders from the underworld would be convenient, since obviously I can't have my main God running little errands like that. And maybe a lesser God of door frames or book binding or tropical ornamental plants, to wave from the limo and cure lesser hangnail while I'm doing serious research.

[NTJedi]

New Building Types for Dominions_3

Healing Shrine: Same as a unit which does the command healing... basically any units in the territory have a percentage chance of getting afflictions removed.
Building Cost: 1500 gold
If not a building which can be built at least a random magic site.

Athenaeum Any units researching here will get +2 research bonus. Building Cost: 700 gold

Armory Hall Castle gets +20 Defense, units defending castle get +1 defense during siege. Towers get increased accuracy +2 and increased damage +2. Building Cost: 300 gold

Granary Food supply storage increases +200 and +1 morale for defending units. Building Cost: 220

Marketplace Resources +70, +2 gold for each gem alchemized into gold. Building Cost: 280

[Ed Kolis]

Saber Cherry said:I want to play as Greece, with lots and lots of gods. But for tough battles, they can merge to form the giant robot OLYMPUS-X and shoot plasma beams!



LOL... you sure you're really from Japan and not some American otaku wannabe? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


New Building Types for Dominions_3


Somehow I get the feeling the devs will think "Repeat after me, Dom is not Civ, Dom is not Civ..." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Not to say it's a BAD idea though... just something I *personally* doubt the devs would care for, not knowing them myself, so go ahead and suggest away, just ignore me, etc etc etc... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[NTJedi]

The building suggestions have nothing to do with Civilization... personally I never played CIV_4. Simply the fact that Dominions is a game series which provides great content. I'm suggesting we increase the building content... because currently we only have 3 buildings to build... temple, castle-type, laboratory. Just trying to add more content.

New Building Types for Dominions_3

Healing Shrine: Same as a unit which does the command healing... basically any units in the territory have a percentage chance of getting afflictions removed.
Building Cost: 1500 gold
If not a building which can be built at least a random magic site.

Athenaeum: Any units researching here will get +2 research bonus. Building Cost: 700 gold

Armory Hall: Castle gets +20 Defense, units defending castle get +1 defense during siege. Towers get increased accuracy +2 and increased damage +2. Building Cost: 300 gold

Granary: Food supply storage increases +200 and +1 morale for defending units. Building Cost: 220

Marketplace: Resources +70, +2 gold for each gem alchemized into gold. Building Cost: 280


For some good humor check out the comment in the next post

[Sandman]

Site searching, spellcasting and item forging are the 'buildings' of Dominions.

[Cainehill]

Some more buildings to make would be kinda nice.

[Olive]

Yes, more buildings would be cool.

Or if not, it would be great to make new buildings moddables. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Olive]

In another thread, NTJedi said:

This is one of the main reasons Dominions_3 needs to have a method which allows players to disable/enable spells and items. Thus if something is broken or unbalanced in the game players can remove this before they start.



Commanders may have a backpack (or equivalent) to store items they find or just carry some from one place to another. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[WraithLord]

More buildings will be nice.

[Chazar]

Olive said:Commanders may have a backpack (or equivalent) to store items they find or just carry some from one place to another. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'd rather wish that they had (invisible) servants to carry items for them to any other commander or the lab! (with time depending on the number of provinces the target is away, where own provinces count 0.45 turns, calculated at point of sending for simplicity)

Honestly, I believe that sending items to/from specific commanders via a simple button could seriously reduce micromanagement! (but didn't someone propose this before?) It would beeven better if you could designate the target commander already at the time of forging ("forge &amp; send"-order), with a greyed-out item showing in the target's commanders inventory if he/she/it is to receive an item.

[Chazar]

NTJedi said:Granary: Food supply storage increases +200 and +1 morale for defending units. Building Cost: 220

Wouldn't that ultimately defeat the Wizard's tower in favour of a mad-castled Watchtower? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Turin]

I disagree that more buildings would be nice. Buildings are really hard to turn into interesting strategic decisions. Most of the time you are just solving a more or less complicated mathematical equation to see if the building is worthwile.

Once you have done that, buildings just add another layer of micromanagement.

But the ability to mod buildings would be nice!

[Cainehill]

Chazar said:
Honestly, I believe that sending items to/from specific commanders via a simple button could seriously reduce micromanagement! (but didn't someone propose this before?) It would beeven better if you could designate the target commander already at the time of forging ("forge &amp; send"-order), with a greyed-out item showing in the target's commanders inventory if he/she/it is to receive an item.



Considering that you can send an item to another player, all the way across the map, even if you (or they) don't currently have a lab, it is kinda boggling that it's so much work to get an item to a commander.

[Wish]

how about this: when you buy a castle, you pay a certain amount for walls, towers, weapons, etc. Then you get to arange them how you see fit. This would be determined at the pretender-making stage.

it would have to be designed where there has to be an entrance, or it will not be accepted.

[Wick]

Yes, something like: During design you pick the admin level that will apply to any castles you have. It's all your corrupt officials anyway. Pick defense &amp; towers when you start construction. If you want to add them later it costs double. Include a castle overrun rule and let PD retreat into castles so their strength matters more then the one turn delay.

Alternatively, use the current system but add dwelvings that negate flying, five-cornered castles at add the residents MR, and so on.

[Endoperez]

Wick said:
Yes, something like: During design you pick the admin level that will apply to any castles you have. It's all your corrupt officials anyway. Pick defense &amp; towers when you start construction. If you want to add them later it costs double. Include a castle overrun rule and let PD retreat into castles so their strength matters more then the one turn delay.

Alternatively, use the current system but add dwelvings that negate flying, five-cornered castles at add the residents MR, and so on.



Well that's an interesting idea! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Things like that could be really interesting, especially for all the site-given Fortresses. And there are some really juicy powers Dark Fortresses could have. Something very evil - and fun! Like 5-15 Skeletons that raise in random places at the battlefield after 15 turns of battle. Death would increase the amount of skeletons manyfold... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

[Wish]

or even demons guarding a bridge? LIKE IN FOLKLORE?

[AMF]

These have probably been mentioned, and I am a newbie, but two things that would be neat in my opinion would be:

• The ability, at high levels and cost, to research new spells and thenceforth use them. The structure for effects, casting cost, time, effect etc could be codified in the code or in settings files, and you could have a research screen where you pick the various attributes of the spell, and depending on your mage’s research skill, get an estimate of how much time and gems it will cost to discover that spell…and then eventually maybe you will…
• Cities: In addition to fortresses, cities would be great. Walled or unwalled, produce trade revenue, supplies, special units, can be in regions or perhaps standalone, etc…

Just my babbling.

Thanks,

Alarik

[shovah]

cities are basically the forts, they produce extra ect, and as for the researching your own spells while alot of fun its too strong and abusable

[Saber Cherry]

I want a pony.

[shovah]

lol, i want a moose assasin with 2 bows of war and lvl 10 air magic for like 20 precision :p

[Ballbarian]

Some sort of 'market' feature for auctioning off magic items would be useful. Many times when I obtain an item via a random event, ally tribute or loot from killing an enemy commander, the item is not something I can (or want) to use, but it might be very useful to another nation. For example, a jade knife. Only useable by 3 or 4 nations for increasing number of blood slaves that can be sacrificed. As Pangae, I have no use for it, but if I could sell it for much needed gold, I would. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Saber Cherry]

An international black market would indeed be interesting. I'm sure that many nations, not to mention indies like Amazons and Blood Druids, would kill for a jade knife... (heh, heh). The market should also deal in flesh and jewels... blood slaves and magic gems, that is... and a sort of system for forming mercenary squads and renting them out to other nations at war (listed with all the indy merc squads) would be particularly nice.

[shovah]

that would be sweet, but people would destroy them (so if they cost you say 200 gold charge 300 maybe?)

[OG_Gleep]

This may or may not have been voiced yet...I didn't read through all the posts.

I really would like the ability to "Set Army Stacks" that have independant army screens. Its really hard to figure out how to place them on the screen when its cluttered with units you have no intention of grouping them with. I run into this a lot as I have staging areas, and I have to physically move everyone I want in a stack outside, arrange them, and then move them back to their original provence.

Rally point, or whatever they call it in TB games....in RTS you can set a point at which produced troops gather at. It could easily be implemented imho. You have the option to set a rally point, based on how far it is determines how many turns it takes. Those troops essentially dissapear off the map for x number of turns, and appear in the provence designated. If the route is broken, then they take the exact amount of turns to retrace their steps as has passed since their departure. This should be a feature of secured areas, and make stealth raiding all that more important, simulating the disruption in supply lines. It would also be following a theme I think. Commanders are the equiv of generals in this game. Theres basically 2 ranks. Pretender/Commander. Theres no difference between a national hero, and an indie commander. That being said, simple troop movements would be handled by Battalion/Division/company commanders, and thus can be modled "behind the scenes".

Somewhere in the game that documents what everything actually means. For instance....I just learned today that being coldblooded actually means something other than ...well that particular mob is cold blooded. There should be some in-game glossary that lays out what something actually does. Right now, the descriptions are written by an artist. Fine, theres a place for that. But somewhere there has to be something by a scientist.

Please make Ulm....well viable. They are awesome, its discouraging to hear everyone say they suck.

Calvary should have shoes. Everyone I have seen horseback riding has done so with footwear.

Gems....I don't like the whole "costs 1 gem" thing for spell casting. Not every battle is important. 1 out of 10 is lets say. If my caster uses 2 gem spells per battle, thats a lot of wasted gems. Seperate out the most powerful, game shifting spells, and all the rest just bump up in skill level.

This is pie in the sky wishing here, I know there are lots and lots of individual unit sprites, but is it possible to have different versions per sprite based on conditions? Say my ulm infantry would look badder, maybe different armor once they hit experience lvl 3. Or look worse for wear if they had battle afflictions. Same goes for commanders, they should look buff if I deck them out with all these fancy smancy weapons. Or atleast look like they have a hammer if I built one for them. Again, harder to do with sprites, I know, its just a wish.

Different sounds for spells. Blade wind and Invulnerability should have different sounds. Would keep my blood pressure in check.

Some way to divert resources to a particular provence other than building a keep. I have seen a ton of times that I find a site with really good troops but I can't recruit them because of resource issues, and building a fort there would be a bad idea. Be it a spell, or a resource giving unit, like a supply cart.

Make Ulm Viable. Yes I know I already said it.

Balance the schools. I don't think blessing should factor into the balancing. They should be balance with eachother independant of the acutal spells.

More national heroes. And every race should have atleast one or two viable mini sc's or atleast a super duper thug.

I think the religion aspect should be fleshed out a bit more. How you do that I have no idea. I think its really really simple right now. Temples, priests, prophets, thats pretty much it.

Thats it for now =)

[Agrajag]

How about having different population types for the different nations?
When one nation conquers a province, the local population is slowly replaced by that conquerors.
The special population will only be able to produce gold/resources for the corresponding race.
With the new populations, you could give the death themes a population changing effect, rather than just killing, so a province deep in AE dominion will have all of its population replaced by useless undead that don't produce gold for them, this way the effect of the death themes wouldn't be so deadly, and provinces that were once under their effect can be reestablished, and become useful once again.
A potential spin-off would be giving special properties to different population types.
Pangean population might produce extra supply, and perhaps CW-Undead population will produce less gold (instead of no gold as it is right now) which will help to make CW more fun.

[Chazar]

Agrajag said:
How about having different population types for the different nations?

Yes, I think this one has been wished for before. In addition, a certain number of a certain population type should allow the production of basic army types for that population without a fort (but no commanders).

This would give the lesser national troops a new niche place.

However, patrolling should affect 'foreign' population types much more than the own type, and the native population (the independents) should also be more resitant to decreasing effects: Thus if I quickly reduce unrest in freshly conquered provinces, I might be able to recruit basic national troops of other players (only the weakish ones). Furthermore, nice native population that allows recruitment of lizard runners and lizard shamen might be lost if extensive patrolling and many battles take place at the province, not to mention the dominion effects (i.e. bad scales might drive them away too). Again, the national poptype and the 'native' poptype should be a little more resistant here.

It would furthermore be fun if population would slowly migrate from one province to antoher due to unrest/scales/over-under-popluation/too-many-too-few-supplies, etc...

[shovah]

OG_gleep, 1 or 2 boots have to do with increasing the users speed/say only works when on the ground so wouldnt really work if mounted. also (even though jotuns and such can use them) i dont think a man with flying shoes could make a horse fly

[Endoperez]

Rather than having the original population replaced, these suggestions should be tied to the existing dominion value.

So what if you are fighting with some fiery dudes, they are fighting for the Prince of Truth, and their warriors have been blessed by the Flaming Sword of Justice!

Besides, even under Turmoil dominion, people are much more contempt when the church intitiates some cleanings than if a conqueror were to look out for the rebels.

[OG_Gleep]

Yes this is true. Right now its basically an on or off. If its on, you get the effect. Its possible to make it conditoinal based on factors. Would be possible to check for certain coditions and then negate the effects if the condition is there.

I think its kinda silly that my Pretender on a horse can't use earth boots, while his little dwarf friends can.

Or fine if thats too complicated to code, allow calvary to dismount...like a shapechange for dragons. If you need inspiration, open up the old Empire rule book for Rieksguard knights on foot.

[shovah]

yea, ive always wanted an option for knights to dismount, maybe increase their attack+defence when they dismount for the added manuverability (and since they loose speed and hoof attack)

[Wick]

Yes. Add two new attributes: Steed &amp; Rider. Then seperate all the mounts &amp; riders and allow anyone who's good enough to ride any mount tractable enough. (Size &amp; sacred permitting.) I've wanted this for ages, I think I was still playing Dominions I when I asked for it.

Riding, like now, adds 3 Def, 2 Enc, -2 Prec, all AP, and removes the fatigue penalty for armor while attacking. He also gets hurt when his mount gets Soul Slain out from under him. The mount moves and attacks normally but loses AP, encumbrance, and possibly Def based on the rider &amp; barding.

Add magic horseshoes to the item list and a golden bridle as well.

Content!!!

Too bad it's so much artwork and not going to happen.

[B0rsuk]

A suggestion meant to improve defence potential, and encourage (better?) castles.

Some castle types would allow INSTANT attack on adjacent province. By instant I mean 'such move happens before other moves'. It would make it easier to defend your lands if you invest some money in proper defense.

Althrough Watch Tower sounds like the tool for the job, it's probably not a good idea to have this special on already overused 0 point structure.

[OG_Gleep]

The number of calvary units isn't huge, when you take out things like spider riders and such. My main concern however is for commander class units, as giving up an item slot doesn't make much sense. There are plenty of other commander units with equal mobility and they still retain their slot.

The dismounting of calvary, is just a work around. I would really like to see it as a general option for all mounted units, as calvary often did dismount to fight. But you are right that at this point its not likely to happen.

What you suggested is another solution however, adding horse/mount specific slot and duplicating the key footwear thematically. Bridles of Earth (+1E), or Barding of the Mountains (Essentially boots of stone). Theres lots of options here, wouldn't take a whole lot of work, and be easy to implement. The footwear options are really limited in the first place, and there are only 2 that I can think of that warrented the elimination of the foot slot (Long Stride, Flying Boots). On the other hand...can't you get armor that allows you to fly?

[Wick]

No, you can't get armor that allows you to fly... if you're mounted. The Stymphalian Wings can't be worn by mounted troops. Which may be a good thing since I had this vision of what a quickened Allfather (Size 6, AP 80!) could do trampling. Especially since he wouldn't have suffered from the armor's high encumbrance.

[NTJedi]

Some DOM_3 ideas so map-editors can make more interesting SP games:
provinces on the map which are one-way only ??
or
provinces with restricted access where only specific nations can reach them??

[B0rsuk]

Support for external music !
Pleaaase ! Some people are crazy about music and would love to use custom soundtracks while playing Dominions. I'm no expert on licensing, but I believe at least OGG support could be implemented without additional trouble.

[OG_Gleep]

No, you can't get armor that allows you to fly... if you're mounted. The Stymphalian Wings can't be worn by mounted troops.

Then the ability to limit items based on certain conditions is already in the code. It would be no great effort to give the shoe slot to mounted commanders and limit what shoes they could use.

[Vicious Love]

Right, I've kept quiet about this for a while, and I think the time has finally come to make myself heard.

I'd like land sharks*. Because land sharks are cool. And games incorporating land sharks are cool, by extension.


* Not the D&amp;D creatures of the same name, either. Proper land sharks, as fearsome as they are implausible. Stealthy, too. And able to work doorknobs, if there are doors in Dom III.

Edit: On an unrelated note, I dig Wick's rider/steed idea immensely. Fun and hypothetically balanced! Pity it'd either look hideous, or take almost a full game's worth of artwork.

[OG_Gleep]

One quick suggestion, don't know if its already been made....

The ability to paste in the network address window. A lot of games have this ability, and it would make managing multiple games easier. If its too late to do that, then an external MP launcher. You could have a IP List, and just select a server to connect to, game would automatically launch and connect.

[Arralen]

OG_Gleep said:
The ability to paste in the network address window.



Too much coding issues for too little gain.
You may have noticed that Dom does not use the standard (OS-provided) file selection dialogues as well ..


.. then an external MP launcher. You could have a IP List, and just select a server to connect to, game would automatically launch and connect.



Won't work (that easily): 90% of the players don't have a fixed IP, so you would have to type in the IP again and again nevertheless.

If you really want such a MP launcher, tell me and I write one for you ... .

[OG_Gleep]

Another idea is a "favorites" option within the program. That can't be too hard to code.

I don't play blitz games (yet) which is what I suspect you were reffering to. I am playing in 4 QH games, on 3 different servers, and am looking at getting into more. Forcing us to input the same IP's daily, is an added step that could easily be removed.

I would love an MP launcher, if you could write that, I would be really grateful.

With an external MP launcher, you wouldn't have to type anything. Cut N Paste the IP from IRC/Forums/Note Pad and away you go. As long as I don't have to manually type an IP address I'd be happy.

[Graeme Dice]

OG_Gleep said:
With an external MP launcher, you wouldn't have to type anything. Cut N Paste the IP from IRC/Forums/Note Pad and away you go. As long as I don't have to manually type an IP address I'd be happy.



You can always create shortcuts using the command line parameters to automatically log into thd server you want.

[Vicious Love]

OG_Gleep said:
What you suggested is another solution however, adding horse/mount specific slot and duplicating the key footwear thematically. Bridles of Earth (+1E)



Whoa, whoa, whoa! Unthematic. You shouldn't even be able to Summon Earthpower through a horse. I mean, that's a whole horse's worth of insulation! Horses aren't elementally conductive, are they?

[Cainehill]

And we all know that people riding horses never get off their horses. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Arralen]

Graeme Dice said:
You can always create shortcuts using the command line parameters to automatically log into thd server you want.



That's what my MP launcher would do: store different command lines in an .ini file and give you a very simple GUi to choose from the list.

I could rip some parts out of my dom map randomizer and work from there. If I find the time. What is -I must admit- not very likely atm http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Cainehill]

Umm... Under Windoze, why not just make a directory / folder and create all the shortcuts there? That's what I've done, so I click on "Dom2 Shortcuts" on my desktop (shortcut to the folder) and then I have all my shortcuts in one window, clicking on whichever one I want.

Linux, a script for each one would be even simpler.

[Oversway]

I wish to be able to rename provinces that I control, in a similar fasion as renaming commanders.

[Agrajag]

Here's a nice idea (which might have been suggested already), why don't you make it so the unit description will detail which kind of random a mage gets? (IE Full Random, Sorcery or Elemental)

[OG_Gleep]

Alternatley, or additionally, a color coded question mark would be nice too, so we wouldn't have to hover over it.

The best would be a combination of the two. But at this point I would take the worst system over the guessing system.

Also, this is a suggestion for the forums when the Dom III forums are launched. Please make the General, AAR/MP and Mods forums to be equal as far as the heirarchy is concered. I personally don't like the search functionality of the website, but it works in a way. What doesn't work is getting back threads from the AAR and Mod forums with no way to stop it. It is because they are listed as subforums and so any search will search all 3. Since I would assume you would include the "Do not search subforums" option if the forum code allowed for it, so the only easy way I see of doing it is what I mentioned. The method however is not my concern, there may be better or easier ways of getting it done...I'd be happy with any result that would let me search JUST the general forum.

[Zooko]

This detail about "which kind of random magic pick is this?" is my pet peeve about Dominions.

There should be no important facts about the game that the user cannot learn from the user interface! This applies especially to game state.

For example, how many Calls to God have you made? How many turns have you spent building a Mountain Citadel in this province? Any game state which the user cannot get to in the user interface should be removed from the rules. Conversely, any game state which is part of the rules should be accessible in the user interface.

As another little example, the Medusa's turn-to-stone power is not featured as an icon in her list of qualities. I lost quite a lot of troops to her because I wasn't aware of it.

[Olive]

I've seen screenshots in CyberStratege (French Newspaper - Buy it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ). It seems there will be on the main screen a bar indicating the resources owned by the player. It's a good improvement. The same is planned on HoMM5 and a beta-tester suggested something like that :
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6659/barreressourcesh5p0bu.jpg

It seems a good idea to show the monthly income too (except for the slashes, imho useless here).

A imo better idea would be to show the monthly expenses between brackets (upkeep for money, sum of monthly cast spells for gems) :

Example : [gem icon] 150 +10 (-5)
The player owns 150 of one gem type, gets 10 per month and uses 5 per month.

[Olive]

Maybe brackets are useless ? Here's how It could be (at least for the left part, and the money seems to be included already) :

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/4463/barleft7yt.jpg

[Fate]

Just a thought. Could gem income from items be listed?

[OG_Gleep]

I don't see it being done easily unless theres an auto pool option.

[shovah]

free rituals: free monthly ritual to summon something weak, higher path requirement than would be expected for their cost

[Morkilus]

shovah said:
free rituals: free monthly ritual to summon something weak, higher path requirement than would be expected for their cost



Aargh! Nooo! No more vine ogres! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif

[shovah]

lol, i meant things weaker than that (such as a lvl 2-3 nature spell that would give 1-2 vinemen or maybe a few weak animals)

[Tyrant]

I'm sure these things have been said b4, but i want to put in my 2 cents and cannot be bothered to read 56 pages of posts, so here's my list of stuff i want for #3:


1) A public host (like Mosehansen). I am equiped for and capable of hosting public games, but i do not because i do not want to be stuck hosting a game for *months* if i should happen to be defeated in the early game. A quick look at the forums will show that the number of public games has dropped way off since Mosehansen retired his service. I really think that this would be the single biggest thing that could be done to help the game. Personally, i'd pay a modest annual fee for a pro host.

Failing that, anything that would make hosting easier would be good. Would it be possible to arrange turn transfers through an FTP site so that one could host without having a 24/7 dedicated machine? ie you fire up the host and have it go check a file storage site on the web for the turn files.

2) Tactical UI. I have done quite a bit of evangalizing for this game, and the tactical UI has been a sticking point nearly every time. A single screen for unit deployment deployment instead of one per unit and commander would help alot! I'd also like to see a persistent graphical interface for repeat unit order.

3) Easier site searching. The other complaint i always hear when teaching noobs is "Too much micro-manegment".
This puzzled me for awhile until i figured out that site searching was what was bothering them. i don't have any brilliant idea for how to improve this one, just passing it along.

4) Workable multi-turn building que. In a game that lasts months, missed turns are a certainty. As it stands now the consequnces of missed turns are so severe that players often quit. A building que would provide some mitegation.

5) An option to set the game for random duration within a range. For awhile the gigantic, beutifull, and excellent Fearun map was quite popular, but it turned out that it was really quite impossible to conclude a game on a map that big.(duh) Many of us, however, like big pretty maps.
It would be nice to be able to set up games with VPs that ended randomly between turns xx and yy and ranked the finishers based on how many VPs they had at the end.

6)Global random events. I'd like to see random events that affected the entire world - Harsh Winter, Population Surge, etc.

7)Support for formal team games where some other players would be friendly. Given the way the basic game works i realize that there is only so much that can be done in this regard, but anything would be a plus. Perhaps as little as simply not moving into a provence that already has a an allied army and not taking contol of an allied provence that you occupy.

8) Better fort/siege rules. This one has gotten plenty of attention and i'm sure that there are plans in motion already. I'd like to see some fort types serve as a multiplier to the defender's siege strength (ie defenders count 110% in fort type x), and i'd really like to see siege engines on the battlefield.

9) Water magic that works underwater! I think water is a good but narrow suite as is, but it does not, in my experience, provide much of an advantage in underwater combat. There ought to be a few water spells that kick some serious butt underwater.


11) An option to start with national heroes. The Heroes are fun in SP, but i have yet to actually get a cool one MP.

12) More special abilities. The HoF stuff is cool and fun without normally having a big impact on the game. i'd like to see minor abilites pop up on anyone who gets 3 stars exp. on top of the bigger powers from the HoF.

13) A little more control of BF casters. Just a little. Specificaly i'd like to see "Cast Spells" expanded to three options: "Cast Destructive Spells", "Cast Buffing Spells" , or "Cast Hindering Spells". Another possibility would be a selectable national default tendency for after the mages finish their scripted spells.

14) More powerfull Dominion effects. As it now stands most good players use crappy scales and powerfull pretenders, that's all wrong- Dominion is the name of the game! Whatever the effects of the scales are, they should be strong.

______

Kinda late in the devo process for input i suppose, but that's my wish list. DomII's my all time favorite PC game and i'm looking forward to the new one. Thanks for making it!

[Wick]

#14 is funny since several Dominions II changes were in reaction to the Dominions I tendency of throw-away pretenders. It's a matter of taste.

For #13 add "Bravely cast" such that if the caster is out of range, they move! A wraith lord should be able to cast Hand of Dust sometimes.

For #5 I'd be happy being able to use monthly ritual for vaccum clean^H^H^H site searching spells. An decent algorithm considering many sites terrain, known sites, and known searches isn't that hard.

[Chazar]

For #3:

Yeah, the AI should offer a preset of commands. You press a button and all commanders tagged as searches move somewhere where they can search. The automatic set movement should have a different coloured arrow and its own "n"-key to cycle throught them.

Really, commanders should have 1-3 tag boxes and for each tag there should be a key for cycling through them (i.e. cycling through searchers, forgers,etc. - with the tag being idependent to their current action, so that you can find four forgers the next turn again), as well as a key which removes a commander from the current cycle just for the time being (i.e. unless the turn is saved and reloaded later). I hate it to come back to commanders by an 'n'-key that I had already considered to leave as they are... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Saber Cherry]

Sounds like a good list, Tyrant. I never really thought of #2, but I agree.
#4: Especially a leader queue and a way to enque more than 1 unit per click.
#7: Great in practice, bad in theory (the opposite of most cases http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif In other words, strict teams would be loads of fun, but The Son of the Sun teaming with a Frost Giant aganst the Prince of Death and Virtue is conceptually pretty silly http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif More diplomacy optinions are always good, though, regardless of what you have to do to rationalize it.
#9: Yes! I was about to send my rainbow pretender underwater as support, but then I realized... he had no spells he could cast underwater http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It's a bit annoying, too, that there is no good script you can put on an amphibious water mage that will work above and below water.
#12: I'd just settle for a 25-slot Hall of Fame http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But sub-heroes are an interesting idea. Like "Big-fisted Bob" or "Hank, the thief that usually escapes". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
#14: Totally agree. I've been advocating a 5-point scale rather than a 3-point scale for a while... 4 usable points, and an fifth reserved for e.g. a Cold 4 nation that gets hit by Wolven Winter. A couple more balances might be nice. What would they be... fiestiness/meekness, giving stat bonii and malii to national recruits... and science/superstition, balancing unit resource, gold costs, and leadership versus undead and magical leadership, the probability of getting random magic picks and extras levels on mages, and extra preaching effectiveness.

A science/superstition scale that adjusted weapon and armor strength, and bow range of the nation's troops would also be neat, but a +-3 swing on protection and damage would be pretty severe. If only Illwinter went floating-point, it would be possible.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[shovah]

could always make it +0.5/0.66 or so instead of +1 if +3 for a maxxed scale is too much

[tibbs]

Add more victory conditions to shorten games. Have each province provide 1 victory point and then give an option to end the game when a player achieves a certain number of points. Add a turn limit so if he wants, a player can set a game to end in at a set number of turns.

Expand ingame diplomacy options.

[Edi]

A couple of minor requests:

If the tundra terrain type is added, can we also add jungle? With the existing terrain types, those would round it out very nicely.

I also wouldn't mind being able to set a default heat/cold scale for provinces as a mapmaking option. With the expanded terrain types, you could model any kind of terrain and climate and customize maps.

The Nation overview screen should also have one more info column visible: Dominion strength. It's a pain in the *** to check every single province with just a few unrest for whether or not they have a point or two of enemy dominion which drives the unrest up. If you saw it in the F1 screen, adjusting taxes accordingly would be less of a chore.

Edi

[Kristoffer O]

Perhaps not a bad idea, but less needed now. Taxes are autoset, unless you wish to manually change them.

[Olive]

Edi said:
If the tundra terrain type is added, can we also add jungle? With the existing terrain types, those would round it out very nicely.



Those terrain types are maybe linked to specific climates, will there still be tundra in an abysian sominion or jungle in a caelian's one ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Edi]

Olive said:

Edi said:
If the tundra terrain type is added, can we also add jungle? With the existing terrain types, those would round it out very nicely.



Those terrain types are maybe linked to specific climates, will there still be tundra in an abysian sominion or jungle in a caelian's one ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif


The idea is that you can set terrain like you can now, but tundra and jungle are distinct from waste (that'd be desert) or forest (which implies temperate climate). The idea about being able to set default provincial heat/cold would mean that in the absence of dominion with heat/cold, it'd creep toward the default, which could be anything from +3 cold to +3 heat. So if the Abysians conquer the big glacier in the north with +3 cold ambient, they won't ever get it hotter than 0, because the +3 heat dominion will only cancel out the ambient cold. Same for Caelum in the heart of Sahara.

Of course, you can have cold deserts like Gobi, which is not tundra, but isn't hot like Kalahari or Sahara. That is the what I meant. Does this make it any clearer?

Edi

[Olive]

Yes, it's clearer. But haven't we already the same thing with sites like Mount Frost or Plain of Perpetual Drought ? Okay, there are actuelly in my knowledge no specific sites to turn the climate into a precise value like cold+1 or heat+2, but that could be modded ?

[Edi]

Most of those sites are pretty uncommon or rare at best. And sites can't be modded, at least not in Dom2. Then there is the problem that climate controlling mpas via such sites gives automatic guaranteed gem income of a specific type. That's often not desirable, and it's a rather clumsy workaround. I've used it in the Faerun maps, and I'd rather not do it. That's why I asked for this feature, because then it might at least get considered. Not asking is guaranteed to get me nothing, after all.

Edi

[Olive]

&gt;I've used it in the Faerun maps

Congratulations, nice map. Got a pbem on Faerun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

&gt;Not asking is guaranteed to get me nothing, after all.

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

I'd also like climate to play a bigger part. Not in economics, which I'd like to be much less affected by climate than by order/turmoil, but for battles.

Also, having the map changing with climate would be cool. Having different sprites for, by example, the trees (snow covered for cold climates, yellows or burned when it's hot ) or the mountains should be great. But it means not hand drawn, but real-time calculated maps. Maybe for dom 4 ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Edi]

They had that in DomPPP, but the tradeoff would be more difficult mapmaking.

Edi

[Wish]

I dunno if this has been mentioned, and maybe it would be something for dom 4, but it would be cool if there where temporary magic sites that do some really interesting things -

for example, maybe a dragon's lair, where a hero can enter, and a combat round ensues with an independant dragon - if the hero should win then he gets some sort of special power bonus. like bathing in the dragon's blood gives him increased protection and protection against whatever element the dragon represented (or poison.)

This could also be used for such as the domes that protect a province, or other province enchantments - maybe through magic someone could put up temporary sites that increase luck or prodictivity, temperature, order, or magic. Perhaps temporary sites that decrease unrest, or increase gold.

Anyway I think it would give players and mapmakers a new element to the game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Not a bad idea. You can kindof fudge that by creative assigning of sites to that province and then posting a dragon there. There are a number of "created" provinces that can be done on maps.

Check out the SemiRandom project
http://www.dom2minions.com/SemiRandom.shtml

[Wish]

yeah, but I guess the idea is that they go away after an event, or are summonable by players, and go away after x rounds, like the dome enchantments.

heck, I guess these could even sometimes appear as random events! that would be cool.

additionally: it would be fun if an "apprentice assassin" attacked a commander every turn in a province with the assassin's guild (or whatever it is called) until the site was found. (and, I suppose, required some blood to find)

[Wick]

That falls under the heading of "dungeons" which was discussed somewhere in the depths of this thread. I think I'd like site searchers who are one point low to reveal a little dungeon. The main reward of clearing it would be the site. Anything to make site searching more interesting...

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmm we have "enter site to xxxxx" type sites now. I wonder if you could do a site where entering it creates a group you have to fight (entering the cave brings forth a dragon with random low-equipment). It might be abuseable with charm spells and such but it could be fun. Probably not good for mP games but it would be a great MOD

in some of my games I threw around random monsters with random equipment into random provinces. It was kinda fun when you could run into anything from a slinger to a god and they could have any scarey piece of equipment

[Endoperez]

Gandalf Parker said:
Hmmm we have "enter site to xxxxx" type sites now. I wonder if you could do a site where entering it creates a group you have to fight (entering the cave brings forth a dragon with random low-equipment). It might be abuseable with charm spells and such but it could be fun. Probably not good for mP games but it would be a great MOD



If the Void Gate is possible, simple attack should be easy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If Illwinter implements it is another matter entirely. And, to tell the truth, there'd be many things I'd rather see than even my own suggestions about more important heroes with unique magic items and/or adding national spell to the nation's spell list. After all, it's not the exceptions which make a game, but the basic rules.

[OG_Gleep]

Is the option of omitting spells from SP or MP games in Dom 3?

[NTJedi]

OG_Gleep said:
Is the option of omitting spells from SP or MP games in Dom 3?



Oh I definitely hope so!

[Saber Cherry]

You can omit spells from Doms 2 with a mod. It's pretty easy... but it makes the game a bit boring.

[NTJedi]

Saber Cherry said:
You can omit spells from Doms 2 with a mod. It's pretty easy... but it makes the game a bit boring.



Disabling overpriced spells the AI opponents wastes gems casting or powerful spells not used by the AI(FlamesfromtheSky) actually makes the game more challenging within SinglePlayer.

Also for multiplayer games it helps to disable specific spells which are considered too powerful(GhostRiders) or broken(Stygian Paths). Sure they can be adjusted for balance but then everyone playing has to agree on the balance which takes additional time and the next game may have different players with different views... easier to just disable the spell.

[Graeme Dice]

NTJedi said:
Sure they can be adjusted for balance but then everyone playing has to agree on the balance which takes additional time and the next game may have different players with different views... easier to just disable the spell.



Then why don't you just disable the spells via a mod? I don't understand why you continually ask Illwinter to add functionality that already exists? If your problem is that you can't get people to use your mods because they don't agree with your idea of balance, and would rather just create games where you can turn spells off by fiat, then the problem is with your perception of balance, not the fact that you need a mod to disable spells.

[NTJedi]

Graeme Dice said:
Then why don't you just disable the spells via a mod?


Several gamers don't use mods and several don't trust modded files. Also it would be a hundred times faster if the functionality existed within the startup screen. If you review the previous posts you'll also see it was someone else who suggested this not me.
Example:
Setting up allies can be done within the .map file... doesn't mean every future version should leave it that way. One of the biggest complaints I remember reading are people saying the game is not user friendly... asking these same individuals to make adjustments via mods only steps them further away.

On the same note if Dominions_3 suddenly removed independent strength and magic site frequency from the startup options where this can only be done via MODs or editing .map files more players would be unhappy. The reverse is true where if players could setup allies and disable forged items before the start of each game on an advanced tab more players would be happy for the easier functionality.

[Graeme Dice]

NTJedi said:
Several gamers don't use mods and several don't trust modded files.



That's their problem, not the games. If they aren't capable of reading a text file to see what it does, or aren't capable of copying a file to a specific directory, then they really aren't going to be capable of playing Dominions in the first place.


Also it would be a hundred times faster if the functionality existed within the startup screen.



Not at all. You can disable a spell with about five lines of text and a couple of mouse clicks. To pick a single spell out of a list of hundreds would take far longer.


If you review the previous posts you'll also see it was someone else who suggested this not me.



You've suggested this at least a half-dozen times NTJedi.

[NTJedi]

Graeme Dice said:
That's their problem, not the games. If they aren't capable of reading a text file to see what it does, or aren't capable of copying a file to a specific directory, then they really aren't going to be capable of playing Dominions in the first place.


Whoaa... that is so wrong and close minded.
Despite your current computer abilities you can't expect everyone to know modding skills... in fact many gamers never edited a game file. To instantly believe they are not worthy of a game because of this is bad business thinking.
Your comments have nothing to do with even basic business sense.


Graeme Dice said:
Not at all. You can disable a spell with about five lines of text and a couple of mouse clicks. To pick a single spell out of a list of hundreds would take far longer.



WRONG... I can scan at least 12 spells within one second. Reading the word 'eagle eye' takes 1/10 of a second. Which means 120 spells would take 10 seconds. Which is far faster then locating a file, locating the spell within the file, editing file lines of text, couple mouse clicks and then testing to verify no mistake was made.

Do you have any idea how hard the game reviews would be if all starting game options had to be done thru modding?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif


Graeme Dice said:
You've suggested this at least a half-dozen times NTJedi.


And all I did was agree with someone yet you had to go dig up a whole discussion instead of opening a new topic or tossing me a message. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif

[Morkilus]

NTJedi said:
And all I did was agree with someone yet you had to go dig up a whole discussion instead of opening a new topic or tossing me a message. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif



You mean this (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=UBB74&amp;Number=401456&amp;Forum= f74,f82,f127&amp;Words=%2Bmod%20%2Btext&amp;Searchpage=0&amp;L imit=25&amp;Main=401321&amp;Search=true&amp;where=bodysub&amp;Name =&amp;daterange=1&amp;newerval=5&amp;newertype=y&amp;olderval=&amp;old ertype=&amp;bodyprev=#Post401456) "discussion"? I think we've said enough. I'm wondering if some wonderfully talented programmer can come up with a utility to auto-generate the kind of mod NTJedi's looking for. I'm starting to get used to PHP, but I'm very much so a novice.

[Gandalf Parker]

I missed that. What mod?
I probably could although I never really got interested in mods. I did quite a few programs to do map changes. And Ive dabbled with the idea of one to run a multi-game campaign (read the results of one game to write you into the next one). But except for my compiled stuff (turning it into an .exe) there was never much interest in getting the programs. Probably because the code wasnt in a popular language

[NTJedi]

Morkilus said:

NTJedi said:
And all I did was agree with someone yet you had to go dig up a whole discussion instead of opening a new topic or tossing me a message. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif


[url) this [/url] "discussion"?



When I agreed with someone it was from post#415997 - 04/03/06 07:32 PM from OG_Gleep... so my post with agreeing with someone wasn't from that discussion.

And the option to disable spells and items existed within Heroes_3 which is over 5 years old. Heroes_3 had an easy user interface to disable items held by commanders... I merely suggested taking the same direction. As I mentioned before one of the biggest complaints from other gamers was Dominions was not user friendly... my suggestion is to make it more user friendly so the community grows.

[Edi]

NT_Jedi: Would you also care to compare the manpower and financial resources available to Illwinter vs. New World Computing/3DO? That's required for your point about Heroes 3 to have any actual meaning. We're talking orders of magnitude differences here, and the limitations imposed by the already existing engine architecture. Which means that you have to mesh any new additions to that and see that it doesn't break anything. It's not simply coding something from scratch to your specifications.

Edi

[Agrajag]

What are you talking about? Heroes 3 did not have an option to remove items from the game.
You had to open the map editor, locate the relevant map, go into the correct settings panel and then find and disable the items, then rename the map to prevent confusion and then resave it in another name in the correct location.

Unless you are talking about WoG (which IIRC allows you to disable whatever item you want from the game settings menu), but then again, that's an independant mod for the game, and we are assuming we are dealing with people that can't install mods...

[Endoperez]

NTJedi, you have suggested this many times. I think Illwinter has already read at least one of these suggestions AND the discussion that followed each one. We don't know what is implemented in Dominions 3 - I suggest you wait until you have the game, and ask for this to be added to the first patch if this or some other easier way to disable spells doesn't exist and you still feel this is so big a problem.

Besides which - what spells do you want to ban?

[NTJedi]

Agrajag said: Heroes3
You had to open the map editor, locate the relevant map, go into the correct settings panel and then find and disable the items, then rename the map to prevent confusion and then resave it in another name in the correct location.



Yes and doing all those steps took a combined total of 2 minutes. I recommend the disable option exist before the startup of each game, but if the option existed within the Dominions_3 map editor that would be great too.


Endoperez said:
NTJedi, you have suggested this many times. I think Illwinter has already read at least one of these suggestions AND the discussion that followed each one.


Earlier within the topic I simply agreed with someone. If someone else drops a post in response to my post I acknowledge their post and respond... which is what happened here.


Agrajag said: Heroes3
Besides which - what spells do you want to ban?



The spells vary depending on the game and its players. Many games include human players and AI players... as a result we ban powerful spells not used by the AI players such as 'FlamesfromtheSky' and 'GhostRiders'.
I'm merely recommending a successful feature from one of the best TBS games. The best way to describe the importance is "pretend" 3DO reappeared and released a new patch which removed the option to disable spells and items within the editor.... now picture how many complaints would arrive. The point is all those complaints are people which found that feature useful and I'm sure an equal percentage would be true for Dominions.

In regards to how difficult this would be... well only the developers know the game coding well enough to determine if this is a small task or a huge task.

[Endoperez]

If you would like to ban spells to improve AI, shouldn't you be asking for AI to be able to either use those spells, or to protect his armies against them?

Of course, better AI HAS been asked for many, many times already.

[Agrajag]

NTJedi said:

Agrajag said: Heroes3
You had to open the map editor, locate the relevant map, go into the correct settings panel and then find and disable the items, then rename the map to prevent confusion and then resave it in another name in the correct location.



Yes and doing all those steps took a combined total of 2 minutes. I recommend the disable option exist before the startup of each game, but if the option existed within the Dominions_3 map editor that would be great too.



I don't think downloading a 1Kb mod, putting it in the mod folder, going into the game and enabling the mod takes more than 2 minutes.
Neither does typing down one or two lines of code.
Neither does learning the code required to disable items.

Also, you messed up your third quote in that post, that wasn't really me asking you what spells you'd like to ban.

[NTJedi]

Agrajag said:
I don't think downloading a 1Kb mod, putting it in the mod folder, going into the game and enabling the mod takes more than 2 minutes.



I wasn't talking about the WOG mod... I was talking about the editor... obviously you misread my post.

[Gandalf Parker]

I cant see how this can possibly be such a big deal as to use programming and screen space to offer a way to turn it off. And possibly add it also to map commands? And to command-line switches? Those are already fairly crowded.

I dont particularly like the MODding stuff but as long as thats an option to handle this then I would tend to think its handled well enough for the majority.
Just IMHO

[Fate]

I am amazed at the negative feeling in this discussion toward NT Jedi. I think all of you should go back and read the second and fifth post on page 58. You will see, as NT Jedi has pointed out through out the discussion, he was merely commenting on a COMMENT on the idea of adding a spell-disabling feature to the Dominions interface.

I agree with the following points:

1) Spell disabling within the normal interface (especially if well organized) would be nice.

2) Due to the number of people working on Dominions, it probably won't make the cut.

I do not want to insult anybody. However, this is a 50+ page wishlist, do you think everything will be added? Everybody and anybody should have the right to state their opinion w/o being yelled at, as only so much will make it anyway.

I trust the great people at IllWinter, and I trust them to make Dominions 3 the way it should be. Maybe Gandalf will be kind enough to make a spell-canceling interface sometime http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:

If you would like to ban spells to improve AI, shouldn't you be asking for AI to be able to either use those spells, or to protect his armies against them?

Of course, better AI HAS been asked for many, many times already



Yes that would definitely be better! My AI suggestions included random multiple personalities thus players wouldn't be able to predict as easily what the AI player would do. Ideally the best AI improvement would be allowing gamers to modify the AI or add their own AI via scripts.



Fate said:
I am amazed at the negative feeling in this discussion toward NT Jedi. I think all of you should go back and read the second and fifth post on page 58. You will see, as NT Jedi has pointed out through out the discussion, he was merely commenting on a COMMENT on the idea of adding a spell-disabling feature to the Dominions interface.

I agree with the following points:

1) Spell disabling within the normal interface (especially if well organized) would be nice.

2) Due to the number of people working on Dominions, it probably won't make the cut.

I do not want to insult anybody. However, this is a 50+ page wishlist, do you think everything will be added? Everybody and anybody should have the right to state their opinion w/o being yelled at, as only so much will make it anyway.

I trust the great people at IllWinter, and I trust them to make Dominions 3 the way it should be. Maybe Gandalf will be kind enough to make a spell-canceling interface sometime http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Thanks Fate... I agree a well organized interface for disabling spells would be nice. Only the developers know how easily this can be setup.
Also everyone should know I'm not complaining... just recommending ideas.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

New idea, and one I just came up with (too late apparently?)...
Randomized opponents. You pick the number of other nations you want but not which ones. (while you could call for some at each difficulty level... say you wanted 8 opps at 4 normal and 4 hard)
Deadly themes would be excluded if any are around in the age being played (unless you let them in special). Super special option: No unveiling of the other nations' identities until 1) you meet them, 2) they get taken out by other opposing nations or 3) someone tosses up a global enchantment.

[Daynarr]

I think someone already suggested it somewhere buried in this thread. Maybe it will be in Dom3. Lets wait and see. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Edit: Managed to make a typo on such small post. I'm improving. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Agrajag]

NTJedi said:

Agrajag said:
I don't think downloading a 1Kb mod, putting it in the mod folder, going into the game and enabling the mod takes more than 2 minutes.



I wasn't talking about the WOG mod... I was talking about the editor... obviously you misread my post.


Obviously you misread my post.

I said:

Agrajag said: Heroes3
You had to open the map editor, locate the relevant map, go into the correct settings panel and then find and disable the items, then rename the map to prevent confusion and then resave it in another name in the correct location.



And you replied by saying:

NTJedi said:
Yes and doing all those steps took a combined total of 2 minutes.



So what I said was that it also didn't take more than 2 minutes to mod out a spell with the current system of Dom2.
(IE:

Agrajag said:
I don't think downloading a 1Kb mod, putting it in the mod folder, going into the game and enabling the mod takes more than 2 minutes.
Neither does typing down one or two lines of code.
Neither does learning the code required to disable items.

[Gandalf Parker]

Etaoin Shrdlu said:
New idea, and one I just came up with (too late apparently?)...
Randomized opponents. You pick the number of other nations you want but not which ones. (while you could call for some at each difficulty level... say you wanted 8 opps at 4 normal and 4 hard)



IF it doesnt get put into the game, dont be saddened. It was done by 3rd party programming in Dom2 and can easily be done by a 3rd party program for Dom3 also. Hopefully by someone better at it than I but if not then I will whip out something for it.

[NTJedi]

Agrajag said: Heroes3
You had to open the map editor, locate the relevant map, go into the correct settings panel and then find and disable the items, then rename the map to prevent confusion and then resave it in another name in the correct location.



These are all the steps which should be done within the Heroes_3 editor which takes 2 minutes.
NO WOG MOD is needed...
NO Mods at all are needed.
No installing of Mods also not needed.
Thus your steps of installing Mod and renaming files are wrong.

[NTJedi]

Agrajag said: Heroes3
You had to open the map editor, locate the relevant map, go into the correct settings panel and then find and disable the items, then rename the map to prevent confusion and then resave it in another name in the correct location.



These are all the steps which should be done within the Heroes_3 editor which takes 2 minutes.
NO WOG MOD is needed...
NO Mods at all are needed.
No installing of Mods.
Thus your steps of installing Mod and renaming files are wrong.

[/quote]


Agrajag said: Heroes3
So what I said was that it also didn't take more than 2 minutes to mod out a spell with the current system of Dom2.


The problem here is many gamers have never modified any game files. Many gamers never even visit forums. My suggestion would make this functionality available to all gamers which buy the game.

[Agrajag]

There's no "modifying of files" going on, there's a text files with the prefix .dm that needs to be put in a folder, and then a few more clicks to enable it in-game.
No modification of any sort, and all changes are reversible with a click of a button.
The option of mods is available to everyone, all you need to do is download the correct patch (in the case of DOM2) and you get the modding manual in the /docs folder, and you can easily use that to create a one-command-line-long files and enable it, no visiting forums required.
Its also a much better way, because in HoMM3 you auto-downloaded the maps from the other player, so you had no idea what that map contained (the other player could have disabled spells you didn't like disabled, or enabled spells you'd rather be disabled, or just make himself start with 10,000 Black Dragons), in Dom2 you could just open up the .dm file and see what it does.
And even if you choose not to auto-download, but rather have the other player presend the modded map, you still have to face the "difficulties" of locating the correct folder and putting the file there.

[Gandalf Parker]

Shouldnt long debates of wishlist items be restarted in a seperate thread? Not to shut them down. I feel that discussions are good but long ones might be counterproductive to the list. It might make it hard for the developers to check the wishlist, and force someone to have to create another trimmed version of the wishlist, which then gets filled with... etc etc loop

[Fate]

Ok, here is an idea (about training). I know it probably won't make it in the end, but whatever.

I was thinking about how to give units more character. I remember that one of the things that gives me the greatest feeling of love for my units is when you do something special w/ them. So, what if you could TRAIN them!

Here is how I envision it:

---Only specific (normally the non magical or priestly commanders) commanders may train units.

---The player would give the order to advance all the units to x level. All units below level x would gain 1 level that turn. They would eat (1 + the level attained) TIMES as much food. So level 1 = 2x, level 2 = 3x, level 3 = 4x, etc...

It would probably be hard to implement and balance, but I like the idea (plus, it is fun to fantasize).

[Morkilus]

We all know how powerful Ethereality is, and how it is used wherever possible to create thugs to take down entire conventional armies. How about a spell to give a mage and some loyal bodyguards or PD a chance against silly raiding Banelords, Spectres, or (ugh) Black Servants?

Spiritbane Weaponry
Construction 1
Earth 1
Fatigue: 40
Area: 5

Bestows the Magic Weapon trait on troops' weapons in the area of effect.

That vampire queen may be less likely to attack your capitol on turn 5 knowing there might be a sage ready to buff your 25 PD.

[shovah]

nice idea, however it would make certain units (fire and air elementals, dispossesed, soulgate in general) kind of useless. if you increased its difficulty to cast a little/decrease its area it might be a little more even (or make it very short ranged)

[quantum_mechani]

Morkilus said:
That vampire queen may be less likely to attack your capitol on turn 5 knowing there might be a sage ready to buff your 25 PD.

You would be quite lucky to have a sage in your capital on turn 5. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[shovah]

anyone with random/earth mages could get it though and since practically everone can get earth on their mages even without indies (ok, maybe not mict) it kind of spoils etherealness

[mac5732]

havn't read all the posts, but so if these have been mentioned already, I apoligize

Hot seat for at least 4-5 players
war screen to show who's at war with who would be nice
eliminate the graphs and use highest to lowest

[ologm]

How about having a unit do one simultanious counterattack on an enemy when attacked if it has enough movement left instead of the current repel rule.

That would remove the way entire armies get free strikes on enemies and would allow powerfull units to get overwhelmend easier.

[shovah]

a bit late, considering how soon dom 3 will be out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Wick]

I was thinking about how I would like the Dominions movement rules to work and this is what came together for me.

Core change one - Sweep: Like Hide &amp; Sneak, Defend &amp; Move, Sweep becomes a moving counterpart to Patrol (replacing "Move &amp; Patrol" with a sexier name -- and much more utility). Sweep does nothing about unrest or sneaking enemies, but see what Patrol now does below.

Core change two - Non-required MP costs: Movement points (MP) are used for several things. Fighting battles, entering rough terrain, sneaking, and moving to an adjacent province all cost MP but only the last requires that the force actually have the MP.

Everything else is either just making those work or tweaking for effect, but since this is a monster post there's a lot of it.

OPERATIONS:
In a operations phase, after the first battle round, all forces moving into friendly territory move, the move order of remaining forces is based on proportion of movement points (MP) remaining. Battles are resolved after every moving force has moved one province, or been pushed back or caught by pursuers while trying to. The process is repeated until no force has both orders and MP remaining, up to 10 rounds. Routing, but not retreating, clears orders.

Battles are first checked for patrolling (or sweeping) forces. If a patrolling force is matched then it falls back on a moving force. If a moving force is outmatched it withdraws into a castle. Defending forces always withdraw into castles. Indoor actions (e.g. Research) behave like defending forces and outdoor actions (e.g. Searching) behave like patrolling. A unit that cannot fall back participates in the battle. Province Defense (PD) and independents always Patrol. (So castles work for independents!)

TRIVAL DETAILS:
Since forces have a move path it is easy to have the much requested multiple turn orders.

Sweeping and Patrolling forces start battles with 2*melee fatigue.

All current move rates are increased by one, up to ten. This makes administrative marches faster.

Flying forces which have orders and MP and are not patrolling may not participate in battles.

Sailing costs all (10?) MP, sailing forces may not patrol, nor may they participate in battles while they have orders and MP.

Stealth is checked each movement round for all ten rounds after patrol battles but before regular ones (which a found sneaker joins). This, and equating independents with PD, require that each stealth check be much safer then currently.

Sieges &amp; storming castles are done after the operations phase.

EXAMPLES:
Example one: A Tien Ch'i army consisting of a 40 Barbarian Horsemen sweep force and a 200 Footman and Archer moving force bumps into a Pythium PD of 10 and 100 moving Emerald Guards. The Pythium PD, being clearly outmatched by the horde, falls back and joins the Guard. The Barbs then consider attacking the Pythium regular force but decide they are also outmatched and join the Feet. The TC and Pythium regular forces, including the former patrollers, each spend a movement point and fight.

Example two: Ulm, eschewing its reputation as ponderous, has decided to strike two provinces deep in a single month. It's mighty force of Pikeneers is set to patrol and a group of Black Knights are using regular move to the target province. The Pikeneers will overmatch any patrollers and crush any regulars leaving the Knights able to pass through unmolested. That, at least, was the plan. Unfortunately, a flock of Black Hawks distracted the Pikeneers so they had no remaing MP to move at all. The Knights only encountered a few PD but the wasted time caused the plan to fail.

[Graeme Dice]

Wick said:
Example one: A Tien Ch'i army consisting of a 40 Barbarian Horsemen sweep force and a 200 Footman and Archer moving force bumps into a Pythium PD of 10 and 100 moving Emerald Guards. The Pythium PD, being clearly outmatched by the horde, falls back and joins the Guard.



How do you decide this? A single ice devil could probably kill both armies, but it clearly doesn't have numerical superiority.

[Wick]

With difficulty?

More seriously, the answer depends on how much accuracy people need to tolerate it. On one extreme the game could run the battle as a monte carlo simulation and use that to decide which is stronger. On the other extreme, simple counting, maybe people would enjoy a half dozen ewoks distracting the ID while the main force leaves them to their fate. It's certainly no weirder then SCs retreating because the PD ran away.

In between, there is probably a workable algorithm. Cost might work -- (20*gems+gold+resources) would have a lot of mundanes thinking a fully equiped SC shouldn't be their problem. I think the toughest case to calculate isn't SCs but rather mage teams. If a force that defeats a patrolling force without loss gets a free shot at the main force, would you prefer that? Or thats SCs need to bring along extra eyes to find the main army? I'm fine with either of those, so precise calculation is not a high priority for me.

A serious discussion of a force comparison algorithms wasn't my point so if that's what you would enjoy then please set up a target for us to shoot at. In the meantime, mine is up. :-)

[Gandalf Parker]

Someone can prepare for a HUGE project. As soon as Dom3 is out they will need to go thru this wishlist and copy everything not covered into a Dom4 wishlist

[Agrajag]

Thank god for the Show All button. Though even that won't help that much.

[Zuppa]

I imagine it's too late for any suggestions (although this is a perhaps a fairly simple one) but I asked a question in another thread that I think would be a good suggestion:

I would very much like to be able to have the province information screen (or somewhere) allow for descriptive text. I love D2, but always wanted to be able to make a more complete world when making my own maps. Can anyone answer if this will be possible in D3? I think descriptions are a simple way to add a tremendous amount of depth and storyline to the game.

Anything like: "Province X is an area of rolling hills on the west bank of the Lamza River. There are a series of abandoned ruins on a long ridge line in the west of the province. The land is only moderately valuable with sheep farming common in the rocky hills."

Anything like that would be great... it would allow for the addition of a lot of possibilities. You could have hints about magic sites, descriptions of why the province borders others (mountain pass, port, or such)... all sorts of things.

[weimaar]

Option IN THE CAPITAL ONLY to -for a higher price (double, triple)- CHOOSE which mage begins with what magical school (if capability exists). See it as a magical academy or something.

Market should exist in the capital. There, Magical items must be able to be BOUGHT for gold (for a high price).

Possibility to build buildings everywhere. More towers for the castles, a thieves guild, a mages guild, markets, magical academy, fighters guild (for bonuses when officers are recruited at the capital), Army training camp (every year of continouus training, +1 in any trait)

[Morkilus]

Wow... you must be either Rip Van Winkle or Marty McFly.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yeah, I have to be here but I wonder about others.
It interesting to read thru some of this though