Wish-List for Dominions 4

[HoneyBadger]

Dominions 3 is a wonderful game, but there are quite a few people lately (including myself) who have expressed ideas for the future of Dominions that go beyond the current form of the game. Rather than lose track of what people want when the time comes, I thought I'd establish a thread just for the purpose of posting ideas for the next generation of Dominions.

This thread is for the posting of ideas that go beyond patches, for things that would require major changes/improvements/renovations to the game.

Try to remember that it's a turn-based fantasy strategy game...No elves, no lazer beams, no saved games.

Let's stay focused! Eye of the tiger, people!

[Loren]

I think the biggest thing the game needs is things to reduce micromanagement.

Off the top of my head:

Routing on new production.

Pathfinding--order a commander to where you want him and he'll find the best way to get there.

A spell that increases the supply available in a province. (There are magic items that provide supply, being able to provide an increase to the province itself shouldn't be imbalancing.)

Work lists: Mark a province that you want <x> done. A commander may be given an automate order--he runs around doing all the <x>'s.

Get rid of the meaningless messages caused by insanity. I don't need a hundred messages telling me my insane commanders failed to find magic sites.

Magic item work list: You indicate what you want produced. Mages with a generic <forge> order produce things on the list.

A larger item inventory.

Repeat production orders--queue stuff and select repeat, it keeps being provided until you cancel it.

Remember your orders after insanity.

Spell inhibition--turn off spells you don't want cast. (You could still script them, though.)

A bit more control in the scripting--the ability to give the mage priorities. I really disliked having a high power mage completely unable to harm my opponents because he buffed himself like crazy then relied on low-level summoning spells until he routed at turn 50.

Get rid of the automatic rout at turn 50. I do agree there needs to be some sort of auto-rout to avoid infinite battles. This could be handled by looking at damage, though--compute the slope of the line graphing the number of hp's of real units (not counting summoned units that will vanish at the end of combat.) Go past turn 30 and you rout if the line ceases to be negative.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like a severely expanded magic system including:

Spells and magic items that are only available for certain ages.

Summoning spells that are tied to terrain-types so that you can only cast a certain spell while in a forest province, for example.

Maximum spell-levels expanded to 15, to match maximum path-levels.

[Dakar]

I'd like more versatile scripting options. For example, something like "Close in, fire a volley of spears, attack" or "cast damage-dealing spells".

[MaxWilson]

It's been mentioned before, but I want it recorded in this list that I'd really like

1.) The ability to disband units (without having to round them up and suicide them) to reduce upkeep and/or clean up routed forces;

2.) Some way of reducing gem micromanagement (e.g. a toggle which specifies that the commander will ONLY use gems for spells he's specifically scripted for);

3.) A way to turn off spells I don't like (on a temporary, per-player basis), so they don't show up in the ritual/battle scripting UIs and aren't cast on the battlefield.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

4.) The option to arrange commanders and/or items in my laboratory inventory by something other than unit ID. Either alphabetically or by category, say.

5.) Moddable blessings and/or new spell paths.

-Max

[Xietor]

1. option to have archers hold fire, if a clear shot is lacking(ie 4 enemies in a pack of your troops).

2. spell scripting as mentioned before, only use gems if scripted option, after script 5 spells a cast offensive spell option, a cast buffing spells option, and a mixed option.

3. map editor, a way to actually change terrain. ie place mountains here(and it looks graphically like mountains). Some games had this 15 years ago, so i know it can be done without much effort given the improvements that have occurred.

4. a way, without running a mod, to make your ma race fight some la races etc.

5. more options at making the pretender.

A. spend points to get a hero at the start of the game(random hero).

B. spend design points to get better pd.

C. spend points for an increased chance of heroes appearing.

6. Better recruits when you capture an enemy capital. Sometimes, if he had misfortune and death, you do not get a great province. You do get 5 gems, but i would like to see either the troops you get at your own capital, or some unique troop that is related to the people you capture.

off the cuff examples: take ulm, you can make arbalest and smith, take ctis, you can recruit shaman and swamp guards, man, lonbowmen and bard; Pangaea, dryad and centaur warrior.

[Salamander8]

1) I'd like to be able to have missle troops stop firing at routed enemies when melee troops are in pursuit, or vice-versa, as this tends to cause some bad friendly fire incidents. Some scripting option like:Do not fire at fleeing enemies, or: Do not pursue fleeing enemies.

2) Better accounts of Fortress assaults when you win. Getting: We captured the fortress!, isn't all that helpful for casualty assessment. Some of them are pretty obvious, but often you have to scour commanders' forces afterward to determine how much damage you took in that victory.

[jutetrea]

1. Categorized spells: Self-buff, army-buff, offensive and scripts to go along with them, army-buff,army-buff, offensive, etc.
2. Disband
3. Global (per player) default army arrangements per unit type. Grouped Cav are always started back left with hold, hold, attack rear.
4. Toggle for # of gems used, or limit
5. Construction queuing
6. More nation/era limited spells, items, heroes and pretenders (also dominion effects)

[Gandalf Parker]

I want a true text host. One that doesnt need graphic libraries to run.

Id also like a seperation of host and client. That would pave the way for many upgrades (such as client-side scripted AIs)

Id like to see the random map generator accept a seed

Id like to see the add-on graphics (little farmhouses and dead cow heads) that get put into the maps be optional. Or even user-replaceable.

Id like to see a switch that does an "Eyes of God" then outputs the map as a graphic file.

[Xietor]

I do not think we need new races, pretenders, or items for dom IV.

There are a multitude of combinations available now. I would like to see some love on some of the pretenders available now that are rarely used.

The Lord of Fertility has been mentioned. Lord of the forest could have some type of animal awe or charm as an innate ability. well, you get the picture. Vampire queen needs to have her cost lowered to 125, give her dom III, 3d, but remove her immortal status. The issue before was she was hard to kill, flies, and you would have to kill her a dozen times on the way to her capital. remove her immortal status and issue is fixed.

[Sombre]

The problem is that for the Devs making new units and races and spells and whatnot is /fun/. Fixing bugs and improving the GUI is less so.

But I agree, Dominions doesn't really need more content. It mostly needs interface and AI improvements and more modding options (such as ability to mod AI etc).

[Horst F. JENS]

I like to have a way of scripting the Tactic and Strategic AI with a mod. Preferable in Python :-)

[Reay]

I think the most important thing to add is: when hitting Y to see which troops are moving to the selected province, it properly displays the troops that are STAYING in the province and remove the troops moving out.

It would be better if we could get an idea of what troops will be fighting the battle in the province next round with out all the other exiting troops complicating the screen. (I guess if there was a castle in the province, it should also exclude other troops that are not patrolling.)

Also, there is another bug with Y where we can not edit or see the position of the existing troops. Hopefully this is the Y bug fix that the dom 3 progress page is showing.

[Baalz]

More in the vein of reducing gem micromanagement:

Blood sacrificers should automatically use slaves from the lab if there is one and blood hunters should automatically place captured slaves there - again if available.

Automatic non-spell site searching - give an order such that a mage repeatedly moves to the closest unsearched (by his magic paths) province and searches it.

It'd be nice if when scripting specific gem using spells you specify how many gems to use. It's kinda frustrating when your second scripted spell doesn't go off because the AI decided to use more than the minimum gems on the first spell to reduce fatigue.

Monthly forging like the monthly ritual casting. Somebody mentioned some more ambitious suggestion which included this, but I'm guessing this would be pretty easy to implement.

[Jazzepi]

Sombre said:
The problem is that for the Devs making new units and races and spells and whatnot is /fun/. Fixing bugs and improving the GUI is less so.

But I agree, Dominions doesn't really need more content. It mostly needs interface and AI improvements and more modding options (such as ability to mod AI etc).



I did pay $50 for the game.

Jazzepi

[thejeff]

Jazzepi said:

I did pay $50 for the game.

Jazzepi



That's great. And you got a good game for it.
If you don't think Dom4 will be worth the price when it comes out, don't buy it.

Obviously, comment and suggest here. The devs do pay attention and some suggestions will be implemented.

But, they do this part time. They have real jobs and work on dominions on the side, mostly for fun. They're not making enough to work on it full-time and given the size of the niche market for games like this, never will.
If they stop having fun working on it, they'll stop working on it.

[Sombre]

Yep. You have to accept the reality of the situation. They're motivated to do what is enjoyable for them, because this isn't their full time job.

[HoneyBadger]

Feel perfectly free to rehash old ideas here, MaxWilson, et all. That's one of the reasons I started the thread-to collect and preserve the ideas that have come before in other threads.

I'd like more dynamic Pretenders.

I'd like the ability to "build my Pretender from the ground up". The ability to choose a chassis (hoburg, jotun, wyrm, obelisk, horror, etc.) and then add abilities and stengths/weaknesses to it, including extra hit points, magical ability and dominion, immobility (almost anything can be in the form of a statue), special abilities (for instance, you can choose the "great dragon" chassis and then fire breath/heat resistance, if you want a red dragon) based on a point-system, rather than choosing the Pretenders that are available, but which might not fit your playing style. So, I could have a mighty SC Pretender that I've designed around my own playing style, and little or no points to spend on my Nation, or, I could have an elderly hoburg midwife who's worshipped just because she keeps more babies and mothers alive during births than not, and a nation that starts out with good dominion, extra gold and gems, and whatnot.

Ofcourse, customization doesn't have to be *that* dramatic, but I think it has a place and an appeal, when it comes to your Pretender. It could simply be the optional ability to choose, in-game, between different sets of graphics.

I'd also ideally like to see Pretenders having their own line of experience, and gaining said experience from doing "Pretendery" things, like casting mighty spells, leading large armies, coming back from the dead, and just surviving (people tend to feel their gods should be immortal). Immobile Pretenders currently suffer from the handicap of a greatly-reduced ability to gather experience, for no really good reason-even though they kill a lot of their "enemies", I don't think mass-murderers are great examples of "personal growth", do you?. I'd then like to see Pretenders able to add directly to their abilities over time, based on that experience-maybe your Pretender *starts out* immobile, but he wouldn't have to stay that way. This would represent the real-world incarnations of gods, which tend to change form and power over time and culture (Example, Odin, the God of the Norse, wasn't always the chief god of that pantheon).

Along those same lines, I'd like the ability to customize my starting nation-make them more or less magical, technologically advanced, add or take away troop types and national summons, etc. Basically, adding back Themes, only in a pay(points)-to-play basis.

[Belcarl]

I'd like some units that grow in power with age, and sometimes with a disadvantage too this. Like a vampire lord, slowly eating your population but growing in power about one upgrade every 4th turn or so perhaps...

Kind of like the eater of the dead, but less expensive, and more useful I guess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Shovah32]

And maybe giving mages a chance to increase their magical abilities when they naturally age(dont want any basic mages getting hit with decay and turning into gods here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)?

[danm]

Jazzepi said:I did pay $50 for the game.


You do realize that that $50 is worth approximately 15 minutes of dev time for two developers, don't you? I'm pretty sure the existing product took significantly longer than that to create.

That their "day job" is teaching may help in the "expected wage" department http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif but I'd be VERY (though happily) suprised if they were not volenteering (without pay) the vast majority of the time they've already invested, including all the copies they've sold.

They don't OWE us anything. The game as delivered is easilly worth the price we paid.

(that said, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make a v4 with improved ai and interfase plz? hehe)

[HoneyBadger]

If they do make a Dominions 4, I volunteer to make/improve the manual. I'm not an experienced manual-designer, per se, but I do know a great deal about fantasy and mythology, as well as history, and I've got a long background of working with computers and designing games.

Naturally, I'd maintain the long-held and sacred tradition of enlisting the help and advice of the Dominions community.

[Cor]

Things that I want:
1) A "Do Not Cast" Spell List to stop AI from doing stupid things
2) Auto Forge. We have auto spellcast, now its time for auto forge.
3)a repeat Production button. In large games sooo much time is used up scanning and recruiting from castles and key provinces. Just give us a repeat button.
4)more battle scripting options
5)a Skermish script option so mounted archers don't suck
6) a use for leftover design points

and this which is bound to be contriversial
* I would like to see more building options for provinces.
I want to build a bazaar, so provinces make more money
a forge so they produce more, an improved farm so there are more supplies. In short I want to be able to improve provinces beyond just building a castle and temple.

I also want multiple levels of castles and temples. Why not have level 1 castles be quickly and cheaply erected forts, while level 5 castles would be nearly impossible to siege.
And the same for temples. It fits historically. Pagan gods had many temples throughout the land, some more important to their followers than others. The levels of temples would effect dominion spread, and possibly holy recruitment.

[Sandman]

I agree that what Dominions needs is more interface improvements, rather than more content.

* More mouse support; ideally the game should be fully playable without a keyboard.

* A more interactive map. Clicking on a province battle icon should take you to the battle, for example. Different-sized icons for different sized battles would be nice.

* A more robust in-game communication system. The current messenger is pretty crude.

* The pretender creation interface could easily be combined onto one screen. So could most of the laboratory.

[Xietor]

I think all he is saying, is since the game is not "free,"
he can reasonably expect the developers to improve the game where it needs to be improved most, not just where it is fun to do so.

I also have that expectation. Their personal lives, the fact they are great guys, work 2 jobs, is irrelevant to the average purchaser, who does not have a clue about anything except the product. In addition, I think there is likely a point of pride that they have produced one of the best strategy games ever. And Dominions is clearly one of the best ever.

If they ever tire of working on the game, and they may, I am sure a gaming company would buy the rights to the game and attempt to make it better. Though as we have seen from some other games, some attempts to improve another person's game, sometimes fail miserably.

[HoneyBadger]

hey now, let's not lose sight of our greedy, unreasonable desire for a well-nigh infinite amount of content. Better user interfaces/graphics/etc are all well and good, but I want 32 flavors and then some!

[Gandalf Parker]

Granted. We paid for the game. But the devs are grown men with lives and families. I dont mean that as an excuse. Im just pointing out that if $$$ isnt the driving force then its not likely that anyone will change their minds on it at this point in their lives. Ive found that they both react better to please-and-thankyous than dangling dollars.

As for it being picked up by a company, I suspect they would need to take the idea and start over. If its not written for understanding and sharing, and it grows in pieces, then it doesnt tend to pass-off well. The term "spaghetti code" is often used.

[Velusion]

Sombre said:
The problem is that for the Devs making new units and races and spells and whatnot is /fun/. Fixing bugs and improving the GUI is less so.

But I agree, Dominions doesn't really need more content. It mostly needs interface and AI improvements and more modding options (such as ability to mod AI etc).



Agreed, though I personally don't care about the modding aspects.

Heck I'd even pay for an expansion pack for Dom3 that improved the interface/ai.

[Loren]

Yeah, I forgot safe archers. An order Fire/Safe--it won't shoot if there's any reasonable chance of an arrow hitting a friendly unit.

Another one: An order "Close". It would always be followed by some other order. It would mean to get close enough to carry out the next order. If you were in range it would do nothing.

One little one that could easily be done with a patch even: Ask only once if you're attempting to move troops you can't. (Immobile, or land/water problems.)

[HoneyBadger]

As much as is possible with the limited contact of a game and a forum, I like the Devs as people. They both seem very polite, friendly, creative, and committed to the finer things in life-as well as to their fans. As such, my preference is that they get as much out of this experience as we do.

I try to keep in mind that yes, their are a lot of things I'd like to see for this game, but also, there's only so much that two people can or desire to do in any given period of time, and if they were to expand the number of people working on *their* project, that it may dilute their sense of personal involvement and their creative vision.

*Their* work and *their* vision are what has brought us all together, and yes, I think their's a lot more to this journey to go, but only if Dominions keeps on the right path.

Personally, I'd like to see it picked up by a company-but only the *right* company. One that would improve some elements of the game that need improving, but leave others alone where they should be left alone, and in all cases, give the Devs their due creative freedom-along with a bigger paycheck, and involve the community-us-to the degree that we're used to.

[MaxWilson]

Sandman said:
* More mouse support; ideally the game should be fully playable without a keyboard.




I'd actually like to see more keyboard support, too. For instance, when I'm selecting spells to script, I'd like PageUp and PageDown to scroll down the screen instead of having to grab the scrollbar with my mouse. Same thing with the monthly messages screen, the ritual magic casting screen, and the F5 research screens.

-Max

[Xietor]

two minor things, but can be huge impact if careless(or tired).

1. option to have a confirmation when destroying an item. it is right next to the laboratory. I have accidentally destroyed a item or 2 when being careless putting it into lab.

2. An option to have stealth armies move normally unless told to stealth. It can be annoying as Pangaea or another stealth race with a stealth army and wanting to attack, but forgetting to hold down control button when you move that army. you may be moving 12 commanders and armies from that square and happen to miss one.

Scouts and assassins would continue to default stealth when they moved.

[Jazzepi]

Xietor said:
I think all he is saying, is since the game is not "free,"
he can reasonably expect the developers to improve the game where it needs to be improved most, not just where it is fun to do so.

I also have that expectation. Their personal lives, the fact they are great guys, work 2 jobs, is irrelevant to the average purchaser, who does not have a clue about anything except the product. In addition, I think there is likely a point of pride that they have produced one of the best strategy games ever. And Dominions is clearly one of the best ever.

If they ever tire of working on the game, and they may, I am sure a gaming company would buy the rights to the game and attempt to make it better. Though as we have seen from some other games, some attempts to improve another person's game, sometimes fail miserably.



Exactly, I wish the devs would have spent whatever time they did on making the two new races on UI improvements instead (and fixing the awful temple dominion rate spreading bug). Every hour they spend fixing one thing could have been spent fixing something else.

I personally would get infinitely more value out of a better UI then two more races.

That isn't to say that Dom 3 isn't a great product. I think it was worth the money I spent on it, but I still bought it. I expect the game to receive support just like any other software product. Bug fixes, revisions to the code and interface.

I read somewhere that the devs didn't know what to do with the income they were getting off the game. Well I have a suggestion. Hire someone else to help them code the parts they really don't want to. I think it would be easy enough for them to partner with a third party (who could be located anywhere internationally with the miracle of the internet) that could help them with the drudgery of UI improvements, while they focus on maintaining and improving the core of the game.

Jazzepi

[MaxWilson]

HoneyBadger said:
Personally, I'd like to see it picked up by a company-but only the *right* company. One that would improve some elements of the game that need improving, but leave others alone where they should be left alone, and in all cases, give the Devs their due creative freedom-along with a bigger paycheck, and involve the community-us-to the degree that we're used to.



I'd like to see collaboration with a company with a couple of very experienced old C hands and a great manager, who were willing to take direction from Kristoffer and Johan but would also hop to it when they said, "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea but it would be boring to implement. Why don't you write us a patch and we'll see if we like it?"

I can dream, anyway. : )

-Max

[Sombre]

I'm not saying the devs /should/ be doing more races and not fixinf serious bugs or improving the UI, I'm just saying that because of their status as part time devs who do this because they like it, you should probably /expect/ that they'll always focus on adding fun stuff. It's part of the reason Dom3 is the way it is.

[HoneyBadger]

I think they should spend the money on good food, fine wine, and jewelery for their significant others. If they don't have significant others, then high-priced "escorts".

It would be nice for us if they spent their well-gotten gains back on the game, but it wouldn't necessarily be nice for them. I think we in the Forum should offer to start a donation of funds specifically for the purpose of hiring a coder to do drudge-work for the Devs.

[Gandalf Parker]

MaxWilson said:

HoneyBadger said:
Personally, I'd like to see it picked up by a company-but only the *right* company. One that would improve some elements of the game that need improving, but leave others alone where they should be left alone, and in all cases, give the Devs their due creative freedom-along with a bigger paycheck, and involve the community-us-to the degree that we're used to.



I'd like to see collaboration with a company with a couple of very experienced old C hands and a great manager, who were willing to take direction from Kristoffer and Johan but would also hop to it when they said, "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea but it would be boring to implement. Why don't you write us a patch and we'll see if we like it?"

I can dream, anyway. : )

-Max


A game written in Basic on an Atari then gradually converted to C on Linux.. that would have to be one heck of a team to dive into that.

[HoneyBadger]

That sounds really scary!

I think the team's job would be to rewrite the game from the ground up in whichever language seemed the best (I'd love to see it in some form of Java, but I'm guessing that would be a poor choice), under the guidance of the Devs.

I'd guess that it would be significantly easier to re-do the game, maybe in a different language, now that it's been done once, than it was for the Devs to write the original, just because the whole concept is complete and working.

Probably, also, a lot of programming "shortcuts" could be taken in certain areas, where either more powerful tools/commands are available now that weren't previously available, or simpler methods can be used to achieve effects that were done 1 careful step at a time.

After all, it's easier to picture a stained-glass window from the viewpoint of a human looking at it from a distance, than it is as a fly crawling across it.

[MaxWilson]

[Off-topic but perhaps interesting to some]

"Rewrites Considered Harmful." This is such a common meme in the programming community that I'm having trouble locating the article I originally read on the subject, but here are two good articles, one short and one long:

http://www.ronkes.nl/blog/?2005-04-15-neverrewritecode

http://www.neilgunton.com/doc/rewrites_harmful

Redesign is good, refactoring is good. Rebuilding from the ground up tosses out years of accumulated design experience and bug fixes that you'd forgotten were necessary. If a program needs a redesign, do it a piece at a time as much as possible and test continuously so you know instantly when a refactoring breaks the existing functionality, because it's the functionality and not the prettiness of the code that matters most. (Pretty code helps you add NEW functionality, but that's later.)

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

Well, I don't know much about the functionality of specific langages-how versatile *is* "plain old" C? If it works-and it'll work in the future, why change it?

[MaxWilson]

Pretty versatile. It has some weaknesses, such as no runtime type protection, but you can do object-based programming, some object-oriented programming, block-structured, and regular old procedural programming. It interfaces well with tons of other languages. It's about as portable across platforms as Java is, which is to say you still have to be careful about hardware-dependent stuff. I'm aware of no compelling reason why a legacy project which is already in C should be rewritten in another language.

That said, I personally would never in a million years choose to start a new project in pure C unless the only other option was assembly (e.g., writing hardware drivers or software for NASA satellites with special hardware). The lack of runtime type safety makes me nervous (I'm counting things like dangling pointers as a type safety problem here), and it's also a rather verbose language. There's pros and cons, and I'm turned off by verbosity in the same way that I'm turned off by nations with capital-only mages. There, back on topic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

-Max

[Olive]

I'd be happy with a variable allowing to change the aspect ratio of the display for 16/9 or 16/10 screen owners. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

Jazzepi said:
Exactly, I wish the devs would have spent whatever time they did on making the two new races on UI improvements instead (and fixing the awful temple dominion rate spreading bug). Every hour they spend fixing one thing could have been spent fixing something else.



You are mixing devs there. Kristoffer works on the races, Johan works on the code.

And as far as fixing one bug instead of another, thats just an opinion as far as what is an awful bug and best use of time.

[ajr]

Loren said:
Magic item work list: You indicate what you want produced. Mages with a generic <forge> order produce things on the list.




What I'd really like to see is as a UI improvement is a new order for mages, <pool> or something along those lines. Mages set to pool will, if there's nothing else for them to do, research. Somewhere in the UI, there are ways to grab a mage from the pool both to forge magic items and cast ritual spells; mages would be chosen such that all work is fulfilled and research is maximized. If work can't be done, the attempt to add the work item will fail. Solving these constraints may require which mages are doing what to change as more work items are added.

I'll admit it can matter where a ritual spell is cast, but other than for summons and a few other spells it won't matter the vast majority of the time; I would expect the main use for this to be site-searching and attack spells (you'd never send, say, teleport through the pool).

This could almost be implemented entirely on the client, but a "pool" flag for each mage would be required to really make things work. It would also be helpful if newly recruited mages went into the pool...

[Sombre]

Nice suggestion. Sounds do-able too.

[Kristoffer O]

> Exactly, I wish the devs would have spent whatever time they did on making the two new races on UI improvements instead (and fixing the awful temple dominion rate spreading bug). Every hour they spend fixing one thing could have been spent fixing something else.

As Gandalf said, we have different roles. JK is the code-guy and I make sprites and descriptions etc. I can fixe smaller bugs and change stats, but I can't code one bit (almost true). So every hour spent on new nations I could have spent on reading my students work or at quaffing beer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

> I personally would get infinitely more value out of a better UI then two more races.

That's OK. I personally like nations and content more than UI, but I have given up on games with lousy UI's. I would probably not get into dominions unless someone helped me. When I was 20 I wouldn't mind, but I think I'm growing ever more lazy.

> That isn't to say that Dom 3 isn't a great product. I think it was worth the money I spent on it, but I still bought it. I expect the game to receive support just like any other software product. Bug fixes, revisions to the code and interface.

We do fix the game occasionally with patches, but it is a matter of time and engagement. JK works full time as a computer engineer and I wouldn't expect him to work hours when he returnsd from work. After release we were a bit tired and prefered not to think about dominions too much. Important bugs must be fixed of course, but a bit of vacation from dominions was needed. Now we work on weekends when we don't have anything special to do, so It is mostly a matter of priority. Should I see my friends or should I add a new nation. At times friends get the longer straw, and vice versa.

> I read somewhere that the devs didn't know what to do with the income they were getting off the game. Well I have a suggestion. Hire someone else to help them code the parts they really don't want to. I think it would be easy enough for them to partner with a third party (who could be located anywhere internationally with the miracle of the internet) that could help them with the drudgery of UI improvements, while they focus on maintaining and improving the core of the game.

We don't get enough money to pay a full time job for one of us, so it unlikely that we will find another free programmer willing and able to get into the quite jumbled code of 10 years of ongoing programming. I don't think the cost of hiring a new programmer would be covered by possible sale increses.

About not knowing what to do applies to my normal salary as well. I sort of dislike money and don't like to do much, apart from games that is. I'm quite content with what I have.

I wouldn't mind to see a dominions totally remade by someone else (paying me for it perhaps). It would be fun (and possibly agonizing) to se a graphics heavy simplified RTS version of dominions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

> Jazzepi

So it is unlikely that there will be big and ongoing UI-changes, but there might pop up things from time to time.

It might have been fair to go to greater lengths to let you and other customers know that we are a small company that have limited resources. Many on this forum and old dom2 players are probably aware of this, but new players might not know it and expect quick and ongoing work on the game. I think there is some info on the matter on shrapnels site, but I'm not sure if what is said there translates to how much ongoing support you percieve that you recieve.

Hope you are OK with this.

KO

[lch]

Didn't we have a wish-list thread already?

Oh well, I'm with the "better interfaces" crowd here, I have two requests which are very much needed and shouldn't even take too much energy to get implemented:

1. The ability to load a previously created pretender in the pretender creation phase. While starting a new game and in the game settings. You should be able to just load what you have saved and then be able to still edit the pretender. I understand that this hasn't been done this way currently because of multiplayer/PBEM games and password security, I guess. Fine, then ask for the password if somebody clicks on "edit pretender" or something and otherwise just assign it to that nation like it is now. It will be "just" a few new dialogs, but it would help things tremendously, especially if you are using a pretender that you created some time ago and you haven't written down what your designed pretender looked like.

2. The ability to read messages that you sent out this turn. I don't even want some history/log feature where you can follow the conversation you had with somebody else, I just what I sent out to whom this turn so far. At the moment, all you can do is see how many messages you have sent out at all, and delete them all if you think you made an error there somewhere. Hardly satisfying.

[Xietor]

Kris,

we as fans of the game, do appreciate that you read and respond to the forums. As an attorney, I do not expect anyone to do anything without compensation. So major work should be done and sold as dom IV.

Unlike the robert jordan series, even if no more work was done, dominions is a complete and finished product. Of course as fans of the game, we will always be able to think of ways to further improve it.

Have you ever thought about posting an internet application for a coder? Explain up front that you can only promise experience in game development, and it may help them move on to an actual paying job in the future. Being a developer of dom IV would look good on a resume and summer is approaching, meaning lots of bored college kids.

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks for the insight, Kristoffer O.

I seem to be one of the last people in the USA who enjoys having a day off, relaxing, sleeping in, etc. more than I do making extra money that I don't really need. Maybe it's my extra-thick skull protecting my brain from the government lazer-beams, or maybe it's just that I've got enough of an imagination to amuse myself, rather than paying for my entertainment, if that's my only option. I don't need that much stuff. I like stuff, and I like to shop, but it's not a driving force in my life.

If I didn't get to work at home in my bare feet, and didn't love the company I work for, and wasn't trying to buy a house in a bloated real-estate market, I wouldn't work any overtime at all.

Hopefully, the good people of Sweden will retain a sensible approach to the better things in life.

Ok, one of the things I'd like to add to the list-so as to make this post on topic-is more graphics. I don't mean a new graphical interface, and I don't want everyone to have to run out and buy a new video card.

I'd just like to see every unit with more graphical options. What we have right now are two unspecified graphics per unit. I want many, many more.

I'd really like to see it expanded to 12 (ideally) specified graphics per unit. That's 2 for walking, 3 for combat, 3 for wounded/stricken/exhausted (so we can see who's in bad shape on the battlefield), 2 for casting spells, 1 for when the unit's just holding still, and one for when the unit is resisting spells.

Obviously, that will require a lot more graphics-and it'll probably take a year atleast to add them in for each and every unit. But it'd be a good improvement to the overall "look" of the game, and hopefully it wouldn't be hard for the Devs to patch in the ability, and then the community could do the actual additional artwork-in the process ending any *****ing about the graphics in the game, because, if you don't like them, you can volunteer time and effort into improving them directly.

I'll be among the first volunteers, especially if I get a scanner soon.

You wouldn't, ofcourse, *have* to add them, if you're modding in a new nation, for instance.

Ideally, there would be a graphic "pool" that would function as graphics currently do in the game. If you don't want to assign graphics to a specific task, then you just leave them in the pool and the computer assigns them as it does now. Ideally, you could even have more than one "set" of graphics in the pool or in slots, and the computer could then choose between "sets" of graphics for assignment-to simulate different looks for the same unit (Bob the Jotun has a forked beard, whereas Doug the Jotun has a big silly moustache. Tim the Jotun impersonates Elvis (the Jotun) on the weekends, and as such, is sporting sideburns and a black belt). Something very similar to this is currently being done in Total War 2.

Along this same line, could we (please! please! please!) get atleast some kind of screen-saver-type changing artwork during the calculation of turns?

Much preferrably, one that we can add to in mods.

I really feel silly as it is, sitting there staring at 2 little bearded busts for 10 minutes while the game calculates the other nations' turns (note: I usually play long games of SP).

I'd love it if I could look at some nifty artwork while I waited. It would really make the time go by, even if it made the turn itself objectively a little longer to process.

[Jazzepi]

Kristoffer O said:
> Exactly, I wish the devs would have spent whatever time they did on making the two new races on UI improvements instead (and fixing the awful temple dominion rate spreading bug). Every hour they spend fixing one thing could have been spent fixing something else.

As Gandalf said, we have different roles. JK is the code-guy and I make sprites and descriptions etc. I can fixe smaller bugs and change stats, but I can't code one bit (almost true). So every hour spent on new nations I could have spent on reading my students work or at quaffing beer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

> I personally would get infinitely more value out of a better UI then two more races.

That's OK. I personally like nations and content more than UI, but I have given up on games with lousy UI's. I would probably not get into dominions unless someone helped me. When I was 20 I wouldn't mind, but I think I'm growing ever more lazy.

> That isn't to say that Dom 3 isn't a great product. I think it was worth the money I spent on it, but I still bought it. I expect the game to receive support just like any other software product. Bug fixes, revisions to the code and interface.

We do fix the game occasionally with patches, but it is a matter of time and engagement. JK works full time as a computer engineer and I wouldn't expect him to work hours when he returnsd from work. After release we were a bit tired and prefered not to think about dominions too much. Important bugs must be fixed of course, but a bit of vacation from dominions was needed. Now we work on weekends when we don't have anything special to do, so It is mostly a matter of priority. Should I see my friends or should I add a new nation. At times friends get the longer straw, and vice versa.

> I read somewhere that the devs didn't know what to do with the income they were getting off the game. Well I have a suggestion. Hire someone else to help them code the parts they really don't want to. I think it would be easy enough for them to partner with a third party (who could be located anywhere internationally with the miracle of the internet) that could help them with the drudgery of UI improvements, while they focus on maintaining and improving the core of the game.

We don't get enough money to pay a full time job for one of us, so it unlikely that we will find another free programmer willing and able to get into the quite jumbled code of 10 years of ongoing programming. I don't think the cost of hiring a new programmer would be covered by possible sale increses.

About not knowing what to do applies to my normal salary as well. I sort of dislike money and don't like to do much, apart from games that is. I'm quite content with what I have.

I wouldn't mind to see a dominions totally remade by someone else (paying me for it perhaps). It would be fun (and possibly agonizing) to se a graphics heavy simplified RTS version of dominions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

> Jazzepi

So it is unlikely that there will be big and ongoing UI-changes, but there might pop up things from time to time.

It might have been fair to go to greater lengths to let you and other customers know that we are a small company that have limited resources. Many on this forum and old dom2 players are probably aware of this, but new players might not know it and expect quick and ongoing work on the game. I think there is some info on the matter on shrapnels site, but I'm not sure if what is said there translates to how much ongoing support you percieve that you recieve.

Hope you are OK with this.

KO



Honestly, if nothing was ever done to Dominions 3 from this point on out I'd be pretty happy with the product I purchased. I'd even venture to say I'd go buy the next incarnation of the series when/if it came out. I was always a huge fan of Master of Magic, and this is the closest thing I've ever seen to it since then. The 4X games always were my favorite. Dom 2-3 have a thriving multiplayer community, and that's what really interests me.

Besides that, have you thought of trying to tap into other markets? I think that you could bring in a lot more people if you put your game up on Steam for distribution. I don't know what kind of deals they make with developers, but you'd be opening yourself up to a huge fanbase. I know they had a small company 4X space expansion style game on there a while back called Space Empires 5. I don't know how well it fared, but I checked just a moment ago and it's still up there for sale.

Anyways, I'd love to see you all earn enough profit from the game that you could farm out programming tasks to other people. Finding new methods of distribution besides just Shrapnel Games might be the way to go.

Oh, and I'm very happy with Dominions 3, it's a rich engrossing game and I've recommended it to a few of my friends. Most of them don't have the patience for the slow paced style games, so it's difficult to get them addicted, but I think I have one who might be susceptible.

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

Just a quick one here. I'd like the ability to auction off magical items in the same way mercenaries are currently auctioned off in the game. It'd be better than just having to throw them away (why would you throw a useful magic item away, ever? even if you didn't have a use for it at the moment) and it would make multi-player games that much more interesting.

[MaxWilson]

I'd also like to see a tag in flavor text to substitute in the name of your Pretender, so that if I'm playing "Maximilian, Diviner of Runes, Emperor of Shadows" my spell descriptions will say things like

"The yada yada are servants of Maximilian."

instead of

"The yada yada are servants of the new god." Maybe have a simple text replacement "<pretender>" -> Pretender's name.

-Max

[Olive]

Thinking back of the maaaaany hours spent on dom 2 & 3, I think it's really worth the price. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Kristoffer O said:
I wouldn't mind to see a dominions totally remade by someone else (paying me for it perhaps). It would be fun (and possibly agonizing) to se a graphics heavy simplified RTS version of dominions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Dominions Total War ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif



Jazzepi said:
Besides that, have you thought of trying to tap into other markets? I think that you could bring in a lot more people if you put your game up on Steam for distribution. I don't know what kind of deals they make with developers, but you'd be opening yourself up to a huge fanbase. I know they had a small company 4X space expansion style game on there a while back called Space Empires 5. I don't know how well it fared, but I checked just a moment ago and it's still up there for sale.


Hmmmm... maybe... but keep the good paper manual + cd distrib...

[Cor]

How about ageing (natural or not) that can be benifical to creatures who grow stronger with age, Dragons, Krakens etc.

How about more than 6? size catagories. Like up to 12 in rare instances.

How about spell specific boosting magic sites. Like "Lava Vents" 1 fire gem, adds +100% damage to Fires form afar.

[HoneyBadger]

Now you're talking!
These first two are things I've asked for and made cases for myself, Cor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So far no luck though, but it's nice to see I'm not the only person who thinks these would be good ideas.

The third is also a good idea, although I'm just as in favor of sites that allow you to summon creatures and pay for them with gems, instead of just tying up a single mage and getting a Draconian every single turn.

[Jazzepi]

Cor said:
How about ageing (natural or not) that can be benifical to creatures who grow stronger with age, Dragons, Krakens etc.

How about more than 6? size catagories. Like up to 12 in rare instances.

How about spell specific boosting magic sites. Like "Lava Vents" 1 fire gem, adds +100% damage to Fires form afar.



I actually think there should be more interesting magic sites. Or more sites that do low level things. Like a 1 Death gem site that makes undead in that province immune to banishment. Or just higher MR. Whatever http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

That's another good idea. I don't like the term "unholy" because my coffee-mug isn't-as far as I know-holy, but I think "holy magic"(another bad term) could use a split between angelic and demonic influences.

[Managarm]

Not sure if somebody else has mentioned this before, but here we go...

I'll be great to have the "Army Setup" option available for PD troops and thus enable a much more rational setup.
It's rather frustrating when you have an intermediate PD value (say 20-25) and the province troops launch a frontal assault, get slaughtered soon and brake without causing (almost) any enemy casualties.

I think that nations like Caelum and C'Tis will benefit from this option.
The Flyers you get from Caelum's PD are not suited for a full frontal assault, they're more suited for flanking/killing rearmost units.
The combination of C'Tis' low morale values plus Militias mindlessly charging is destined to fail. OTOH, if you are able to arrange the City Guards in front of the Militias they'll crush a skull or two before routing...

[Xietor]

I think there are a ton of magic sites already. Almost an infinite number. That is low on my priority list.

[Ballbarian]

I'll be great to have the "Army Setup" option available for PD troops and thus enable a much more rational setup.
It's rather frustrating when you have an intermediate PD value (say 20-25) and the province troops launch a frontal assault, get slaughtered soon and brake without causing (almost) any enemy casualties.



I like this idea. In my current Mictlan game, I had a province with 11 defense (1 commander) and remnants of misc indy archers that had routed from other battles nearby. The result was the lone tribal king commander charging to his death while his army stopped to throw / fire ranged weapons. Why he didn't just use his own sling escapes me...

[Jazzepi]

There are a ton of vanilla magic sites, actually. I think that there should be a ton of magic sites with a small effect. Especially ones that alter the battlefield or the province in small ways. Like an A1 site that grants everyone in that province 40% air shield.

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

We do have a lot of sites, but new sites with new powers we haven't seen before would be great. Especially if we can play with them in mods.

[Jazzepi]

I just think there's way too many vanilla sites that do nothing. Personally, to me, vanilla sites should be the exception, not the rule.

I play Magic the Gathering and there are "vanilla" creatures in that game. Creatures with no abilities, and that's exactly how the game is crafted. Vanilla creatures are the exception, not the rule. After you've played about 5 of them, they all start looking the same except for flavor text and artwork. Dom 3 doesn't have flavor text or artwork for their sites, so "howling cavern" looks just the same to me as "canyon full of wind gems".

I just think it'd be a small thing that would make finding low level magic sites more interesting. Sure it's great to get that castle that gives you fire, and earth gems, plus the ability to recruit mages, but I'd like to see that happen on a much smaller scale with level 1 and 2 sites.

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

I think it would be nice if you could do something with "vanilla" sites, either build upon them in some way-like you have to have a fire site in a province to cast a certain spell-or link them together, so that, if you have Site a, b, and c, it means such-and-such.

You could have other spells or whatever that can only be done in provinces with no sites (none revealed, anyway).

I like interesting, quirky things in games, and this game has lots-and I want more!

[Jazzepi]

I want to eat more badgers /threads/images/Graemlins/Racoon.gif

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

well, go ahead and try http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Make sure you've got a tourniquet handy, would be my advice /threads/images/Graemlins/Panda.gif

[Cor]

three more requests.
-Dismiss button, to get rid of old troops.

- Better scripting for afflictions. a Wyrm should never have a limp.

- national artifacts. specific to nations, just like the spells.

[Cor]

Inspired by the "dud nations" thread.
More effects for weapons. a pike is very different than a spear. Make them do diffrent things. Spys and assasins should be armed with stilettos (ap) not daggers.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, that's true-a dagger is a noble's weapon, you use them to finish off your heavily armored opponent after you've knocked him to the ground/senseless, by finding a weakspot in his armor.

I could probably find a dozen different names for fighting-knives, but yes, assassins are going to be relatively poor, and daggers were quite expensive-no reason to use them when you can use something cheap you can discard if you have to.

[llamabeast]

I'm not sure that state-sponsored assassins would be poor. They're the James Bonds of Dominions. Not that I have any particular opinion or knowledge on what weapons they should have.

[HoneyBadger]

State-sponsored or not, would you shoot someone with a crossbow made of solid gold when you could just use a chrome-plated .38? Daggers were EXPENSIVE, flashy, and not the best tool for the job. It's as simple and profound as that.

If you have any questions though, I'd be happy to answer them.

[Cor]

Three more Ideas:

1)How About "templates" that would be added on to units who survive encounters with infectious units.

For example, my heavy infantry is hit by a drain life from a vampire, but survives combat. That unit should have a chance of becoming a vampire, I.E. have a "vampire template" added on. Making it undead adding a drain life attack and strength. Same for werewolves, possibly ghouls and some others.

But I would love to be able to add templates to Pretenders during creation. What If I want to play a Vampire Medusa?

2)How about more than one generic disease? There could be diseases that could have short term benefits. Example:“Red Fever” adds to strength and attack and subtracts from defense and HP every round. There could be diseases that are non-fatal as well. How about “The Madness” any unit effected with this disease would attack the nearest unit in combat.


3)There should be a new ability “Immune to disease”, or maybe it would be part of a dominion of the god. I like the idea in D&D that Paladins are immune to diseases because their god is protecting them.

[Cor]

more things to wish for.

[B0rsuk]

Jazzepi said:
I want to eat more badgers /threads/images/Graemlins/Racoon.gif

Jazzepi



Rawr !

[mivayan]

mod wishes, (probably mentioned 47 times before):
#armor <armor number>
#startsite <site number>
would be nice, right now only names work.

[DrPraetorious]

Special repulsion rules for mounted units.

Mounted units should have a mount-rating, which determines how many resource points they pay to be mounted.

When a mounted unit has to check for repulsion by a smaller unit, special rules apply:
* The mounted unit uses the mount rating instead of Defense.
* The mounted unit suffers full damage from the hit if it is struck.
* The mounted unit uses mount rating instead of Morale to see if it gets to attack anyway.

This would mean that pikemen (better reach than a lance) would actually be able to hold against cavalry charges.
Spearmen would be able to withstand cavalry charges with swords or other short weapons in the early era, but be foiled by lances.

We'd also no longer have to kludge in extra resource points for heavy cavalry - it'd be built into the rating of the mount.

Suggested mod syntax:
#mounted <mount rating>

[MaxWilson]

Wow, I really like that. Especially taking full damage from repels.

-Max

Edit: Why would this apply only to repels by smaller units? I'd rather make it apply to all repels against mounted attacks.

[mivayan]

MaxWilson said:
Edit: Why would this apply only to repels by smaller units? I'd rather make it apply to all repels against mounted attacks.


Cyclops + big spear + attack bonus items + full damage from repel, might be slightly too good against sacred cavalry otherwise.

[vfb]

I think terrain effects would be great in Dom4.

Archers/Cavalry would rule the plains, light infantry the forests, cold-blooded units would get a bonus in swamps, etc.

The implementation could be done both through unit stat adjustments and battlefield modifiers.

For example, in a forest, precision could be at 50% like Mist, AP of (non-Forest) mounted units would be at 50%, and light infantry or Forest survival units get +1 defense.

[MaxWilson]

I still don't see it. Big spear is ineffective against cavalry with lances because spears are only length 4, just like lances. And a cyclops is bigger than cavalry, so this restriction wouldn't apply to them anyway.

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

Are there any new magic paths-and coincidal bless strategies-that people would like to see in Dom4?

As it is, we've only got 8 blesses, 16 if you count them in twos for high-level effects.

That doesn't seem like a whole lot when you consider we're over the 50 nation mark.

[jutetrea]

Not particularly, if you wanted to go that route I would introduce a special "bless" unit - 1 ability reflecting the chosen bless. Is it possible to scale cost? 200g for a lvl 4 bless as a base, increased costs up to a level 9 bless...or maybe a high initial cost, then requires gems? No clue, doubt it would work.

I'd rather see more spells within the existing schools, more items and more national restrictions on both.

[HoneyBadger]

What if bless effects were independent of the magic schools? I think that would be a nice feature too, if you separated the two. That would let you build up your physical Pretender-choosing areas of dominion, instead of magic paths, and these "areas of dominion" (War, Nature, Death, Love, Medicine, the various elements, Forging, whatever) would then grant your Pretender stat bonuses, and your sacred troops blessings.

For instance: A high Forging "area of dominion" might grant additional strength, protection, and a Forging bonus, while Love area might grant awe, 'unit heals afflictions', and perception.

The magic paths could still be incorporated-like you could choose your Pretender to have dominion over Fire, and maybe a high enough dominion would grant bonuses to fire magic, or you could choose him or her to have dominion over Magic, and through that, gain a research bonus and a nice discount when purchasing Paths.

It would allow spells to be kept along the same lines they are now-with the potential for expansion still in the future-but allow for many more Bless effects, and allow you to personalize (and pimp out) your Pretender.

You'd pick a Chassis-which might come with some Areas of Dominion and starting Magic Paths, or just great stats/special abilities.

Then you'd pick your Areas and pay for them, which would increase some stats, maybe lower a few others. Then (while I'm brainstorming) maybe you could pick a special ability or two and pay for them (fire resistance, an extra head, an additional form, whatever), or an affliction of your choice (limp, lost an eye, low MR, etc.) for a few extra points, and then finally, you add magic paths-which can still bump up your stats a bit.

Instead of just paying for Dominion, your Dominion would be equal to your number of Areas. You'd no longer get Awe based on your Dominion, it'd be a special ability that you'd either have to pay for, or that came with an Area.

[MaxWilson]

MaxWilson said:
I still don't see it. Big spear is ineffective against cavalry with lances because spears are only length 4, just like lances. And a cyclops is bigger than cavalry, so this restriction wouldn't apply to them anyway.

-Max



Edit: Um, never mind about that second point. I was totally mixed up.

Edit^2: Sorry, that was supposed to be an edit, not a quote.

[mivayan]

MaxWilson said:
I still don't see it. Big spear is ineffective against cavalry with lances because spears are only length 4, just like lances.


There are not as many length 5-6 forgable items as I thought, but the two-handed S1 enchanted pike is length 6. That's the item I was thinking of when I wrote big spear.


And a cyclops is bigger than cavalry, so this restriction wouldn't apply to them anyway.


Right, but if that rule was removed, it might be an issue. Since you asked why that rule was there.

[HoneyBadger]

I think if you have a 5-6 length weapon, it should be effective against calvalry, regardless of how big you happen to be. If it's 4 or less, then yes it can be size-determinate, but I don't see any reason why a huge heavy guy armed specifically with an anti-calvalry weapon should be penalized against an enemy he should-by all natural rights-have an advantage against.

Yes, I realize that it can be taken advantage of, but why not mod lances in the process so that they hit larger creatures more easily? And give war-horses the ability to independently trample smaller units at the same time their riders are attacking, while still retaining the ability to kick. That would even things out and make better sense.

[Endoperez]

Simple-enough suggestion:

If a commander has no commands, can research and is in a province with a lab, it will count as a researcher and increase the research pool.
These commanders will show up in the research screen as normal. Commanders can still be set spesifically to research, so that they e.g. aren't found by the 'n' command.

Cainehill's request:
Capability to hide commanders set to researcher, as the DomII Tab option, in both main map view and in F1 view.

A variant of the earlier:
Capability to choose which commands are visible through a set of variables including but not limited to: magic in general, spesific magic paths, sacredness, afflictions, old age, number of units lead, has magic items. Preferably in both F1 and main map view.

[Loren]

Endoperez said:
Simple-enough suggestion:

If a commander has no commands, can research and is in a province with a lab, it will count as a researcher and increase the research pool.
These commanders will show up in the research screen as normal. Commanders can still be set spesifically to research, so that they e.g. aren't found by the 'n' command.




Good idea, although I would go further.

A commander who can site-search better than the province has been searched and has no orders should search it.

A commander who has research orders in a province with no lab builds one rather than canceling the research order. (If a random event destroys your lab it will be auto-rebuilt.)

[Nix]

I've been thinking about having different classes of pretenders, which would cost or grant points on a scale like the "awakening" option. You could have: Immortals/Demi-Gods, Idols, Magical creatures/nature spirits, Olympians, etc. all the way up to Demiurge-like pretenders.

[lch]

Loren said:
A commander who can site-search better than the province has been searched and has no orders should search it.


To the research-thing I could reluctantly agree, but I definately wouldn't want this site-searching done without my order. If added at all then it should be done by the server that the default for somebody on "Defend" should be switched to these other useful actions (research) like units that "Sneak" in a province are then set to "Hide". But there should be an option to turn these "auto-actions" off, too.

[Sensori]

There's one thing I miss from Dominions 1. I never learned to like the blesses, which now seem to dominate the game. It also nerfed some perfectly nice Pretender types, and makes only some certain types viable for most nations. My wish would be that Dominions 4 would go back to the generic 2 morale bless rather than making it even worse (or "better" as the bless fanatics would probably say), or just at least some nerfing on it that makes it nice to have but not a game winning plan. Yeah, I want proper rainbow mages back. Among other things. ;p

And instead of making the pooling even more comprehensive than it already is and whatnot, I'd like to see some kind of method to place orders on the mages/commanders you're in the process of recruiting, so they'd go to research/patrol/whatever mode from the get go instead of the basic defend. That way once you have assloads of mages everywhere you wouldn't always have to remember to put that one new researcher dewd to research on your own, since it'd just start doing it on its own.

And I want a way to make the building queue of units to stick, plox!

[Endoperez]

Sensori said:
There's one thing I miss from Dominions 1. I never learned to like the blesses, which now seem to dominate the game. It also nerfed some perfectly nice Pretender types, and makes only some certain types viable for most nations. My wish would be that Dominions 4 would go back to the generic 2 morale bless rather than making it even worse (or "better" as the bless fanatics would probably say), or just at least some nerfing on it that makes it nice to have but not a game winning plan. Yeah, I want proper rainbow mages back. Among other things. ;p



I thought the rainbow mages were NEVER viable. I remember reading posts about their uselessness and fragility in either Dom:PPP or early DomII era, on the CSIPGS newsgroup or some IGN forum or something. At least now you can't get all paths on your national mages and they're harder to get via summons as well, so rainbows do have their uses. Booster items are also harder to make, though...

Also, IIRC, blesses added a whole new category of viable pretender types into the game: pretenders that are good for going high level in a path. If you didn't want a bless, why would you take magic over level 5 on your pretender? 5 + a booster you can forge with it is enough to cast anything you might want. And even that'd be ONLY required if you wanted to cast the better spells. In Dom:PPP it was even worse, because level 3 was enough for boosters. Cyclops might've taken Earth for protection, and perhaps some Air pretender to spam Orb Lightning, but that's about it.

[Sensori]

Endoperez said:
I thought the rainbow mages were NEVER viable. I remember reading posts about their uselessness and fragility in either Dom:PPP or early DomII era, on the CSIPGS newsgroup or some IGN forum or something.



I think you're thinking about Dominions 2, because in 1 they were plenty viable and doubleplusgood based on my experiences with them in PBEMs. You could use them for site searching early on, they were great at research, they were great at making items... And with little help from the right items (Robe of the Magi, RIng of Sorcery and Wizardry, Staff of Elements, then for instance the astral cap and earth boots), they could potentially cast anything you needed. Now, thanks to the change in bless effects, a rainbow mage Pretender is far less usable, because, well, you usually want blesses to counter the other guy's blesses. Only situation I can think a rainbow mage is good now is when you play a nation that doesn't get anything out of a bless strategy. As for the fragility and "uselessness" of a rainbow mage... If you think it's supposed to be fighting on the front lines like a bigass Titan, you just made your first big mistake.

A bunch of other Pretender types became rather unusable, too, because the blesses are so powerful. Indeed, a lot of the Pretenders are completely unused now because they don't really fit well into a bless strategy.


Also, IIRC, blesses added a whole new category of viable pretender types into the game: pretenders that are good for going high level in a path.



There's a massive difference between making a new type of Pretenders viable and making a certain type of Pretenders the only ones that are viable for quite a few nations. Hell, before blesses became a deciding factor on what a Pretender should be like, even a Manticore with no magic was a viable option due to the bonuses it gave you to scales, since it required no points - and those excellent scales actually ended up helping you throughout the game. Now it means far less.


If you didn't want a bless, why would you take magic over level 5 on your pretender?



If you don't want a bless, you get screwed sideways by some other guy who wanted a bless if your nation happens to be one of those which "should" use a bless. It's not a choice between different pretty much as good choices anymore, but a choice between nerfing your capabilities wholesale and getting the best bang for your buck.


In Dom:PPP it was even worse, because level 3 was enough for boosters. Cyclops might've taken Earth for protection, and perhaps some Air pretender to spam Orb Lightning, but that's about it.



You mean levels 2 and 3. But still, the change in levels of magic required to make boosters wasn't the thing that made rainbow mages (and most other types of Pretenders) far less usable, it was the blessings (and very distinct types of blessings, no less) being so much more potent as a whole.


---

I don't think there's anything anyone could say that would make me think that nerfing the bless effects or even turning it back to what it was in D1 isn't a good idea. And I'm sure I'm entitled to my opinion. ;ppp

[Endoperez]

Sensori said:
Endoperez said:
I thought the rainbow mages were NEVER viable. I remember reading posts about their uselessness and fragility in either Dom:PPP or early DomII era, on the CSIPGS newsgroup or some IGN forum or something.

I think you're thinking about Dominions 2, because in 1 they were plenty viable and doubleplusgood based on my experiences with them in PBEMs... ...Now, thanks to the change in bless effects, a rainbow mage Pretender is far less usable, because, well, you usually want blesses to counter the other guy's blesses. Only situation I can think a rainbow mage is good now is when you play a nation that doesn't get anything out of a bless strategy. As for the fragility and "uselessness" of a rainbow mage... If you think it's supposed to be fighting on the front lines like a bigass Titan, you just made your first big mistake.



I *like* rainbows. I've always used them, and for as long as I can remember, I've heard how that isn't an optimal choice. I know their strengths, but I've also killed enough of them to know that they ARE fragile. A rainbow mage can't be used for early expansion. In Dom:PPP and in DomII, pretenders were a great boon in early expansion. A rainbow slowed you down in both games, and a non-rainbow pretender coming your way physically or via his blessed hordes was just as deadly in both Dom:PPP and in DomII. I know rainbows aren't good for fighting, but I also think they are often NEEDED to participate in battles when an enemy comes your way. Of course, I've only played small blitz games and a couple of bigger games. I am aware that rainbows are better in the big games, but that's just as true in Dom3 as it was in the earlier games.


If you didn't want a bless, why would you take magic over level 5 on your pretender?

It's not a choice between different pretty much as good choices anymore, but a choice between nerfing your capabilities wholesale and getting the best bang for your buck....

...still, the change in levels of magic required to make boosters wasn't the thing that made rainbow mages (and most other types of Pretenders) far less usable, it was the blessings (and very distinct types of blessings, no less) being so much more potent as a whole.



I expressed myself poorly here. I meant "without blesses, taking magic ever level 5 would be useless on a pretender". That's how the situation was in Dom:PPP. Low-magic pretenders were the rule. There were no Fire 9 pretenders, no Fire 7 pretenders, and few Fire 5-6 pretenders. One of the reasons for implementing blesses was to encourage players to give the pretenders high levels of magic. And yes, the actual levels of the boosters varied a bit, but you never needed more than 3. I could've expressed that one better, too.

Any way, I understand that you might not like the bless mechanic. That's fine. I don't think it's going to vanish, but you've expressed your opinion and there's no need to fight over it, except perhaps to raise a virtual drink in the honor of the original Dominions, which had a really good-looking interface (even though it was horrible to use). The dominion candles in their small stone shelf, the big magic site symbols, the fine golden text that almost seemed to be carved to that beautiful dark grey stone... and, of course, The Cube. The Cube of Ages, the Talisman of Turn Generation.

[Nix]

Oh, and something else: it'd be cool if the game could be played with a focus on the RPG aspect, or possibly mixing RPG and strategy kind of like Lords of Midnight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_midnight). This would mean a hero editor, site editor and control over events.

[DrPraetorious]

Spell effect predicate logic.

At present, there seems to be a single field for each spell to have a secondary effect. I'm not sure if you can chain these together ot have more than two effects for a spell or not (Unfrozen seems to indicate yes,) but you should be able to do so.

Spells should instead have *six* secondary effect fields.
Secondary-effect-each-effect - EACH effect generated by this spell also gives this spell if that effect returns TRUE, hitting/centered on that target (if applicable).
Secondary-effect-once - The spell also generates this effect. This is equivalent to the current secondary effect field.
If-TRUE-secondary-effect-each-effect - IF the predicate of the spell returns TRUE for any given target, generate this effect on that target.
If-FALSE-secondary-effect-all-targets - IF the predicate of the spell returns FALSE for any given target, generate this effect on that target.
If-TRUE-secondary-effect-once ; If-FALSE-secondary-effect-once - likewise, but

Spells with magic resistance return TRUE if the magic resistance fails, and FALSE if it succeeds, on a target-by-target basis.

Otherwise, most spells just return TRUE.

However, we'd have new effects which all they do is check predicates. There'd be an effect to check for the presence of magic paths, an effect to check the size, etc. etc. Most of them would take bitmasks in the damage value.

With this, we could make a spell which, if it targets an earth mage, tries to kill him, and if he fails his magic resistance check, summons an earth elemental in his square, for example. You could do all kinds of interesting and complicated stuff.

[HoneyBadger]

That sounds fun, DrPraetorious.

I like complex spells and magic systems-and as complex as this game is, the magic system is woefully over-simplified.

I know, plenty of people argue that it isn't, but in relation to the rest of the game, it really is. Around 2000 different creatures in the game, 50+ nations, who knows how many Pretender-types, and only 8 areas of magic?

Just to keep on the same level as the rest of the game, there should be atleast 16-24 different areas, 3+ more spell levels, a few dozen more magic items, and a couple hundred more spells.

It's over-simplified, along with being lopsided (plenty of really broadly useful spells, plenty of spells that are over-specialized and aren't very useful at all, not that many that fall in between-and this disparity is occurring at all magic levels), unbalanced (I don't know about you, but I'd take Gift of Health-level 5 enchantment-over Dragon Master-level 8 enchantment-every single solitary time in any conceivable situation), and underincorporated.

Why do we have a total of 4 well-developed elemental fields of magic, and only 4 other fields of magic-each of which is potentially as broad as the entire *area* of elemental magic?

[jutetrea]

Turn memory

Multi-month rituals. Similar to Domes you spend gems on to make last longer, but in reverse. The longer you take to cast the spell, the fewer gems it takes or the more powerful the spell is.

random thought, single turn rituals to convert gems. Similar to alchemy, but would take a mage-turn and have a better conversion rate. I'd probably do higher level/limits too, takes 50 fire gems to make 40 earth gems or some time of equation Alt 5, 4F to cast. Essentially costs X gems to gain a 1:1 conversion on a limited amount.

[HoneyBadger]

Head shots.

I don't think the game currently incorporates units' bodies and heads as separate combat targets. If I'm wrong, fine, good, but if not, let's have this updated. Everything else is in place for this to work, it just needs to be separated.

Then we can see some nice critical hits, including decapitations. It shouldn't be too hard to add, even as simply a sort of affliction.

[MaxWilson]

Actually, I'm quite positive that decapitation is an affliction which is already in the game. Although I've only seen it on Soulless, presumably because it's the only unit which can still function without a head. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

[Endoperez]

HoneyBadger said:
Head shots.

I don't think the game currently incorporates units' bodies and heads as separate combat targets. If I'm wrong, fine, good, but if not, let's have this updated. Everything else is in place for this to work, it just needs to be separated.

Then we can see some nice critical hits, including decapitations. It shouldn't be too hard to add, even as simply a sort of affliction.



Head protection and body protection already exist as separate values, and AFAIK, they are the only values the game uses in fights. Head hits are only affected by head protection. Small units can't hit big units in the head in melee, and some afflictions are based on the hit bodypart ( only headhits cause eyeloss etc).

[Cor]

HoneyBadger said:
Head shots.
......
Then we can see some nice critical hits, including decapitations. It shouldn't be too hard to add, even as simply a sort of affliction.



Oh yes, with spurting blood too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Dagda]

Personally, I would love to see some diplomacy in the singleplayer game. Give us some gameplay options, instead of constant, mindless war.

[HoneyBadger]

I was thinking, not only blood-geysers, but head-graphics actually falling to the ground, bouncing around, and being kicked repeatedly across the battlefield. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Forrest]

Hows about a continue button on start up like MOO 2 has?

I would like to be able to jump straight back to the last game I was playing against the computer without going through the list of saved games trying to figure out which one it was.

The button I press most of the time in MOO 2 is the very top one putting me right back to where I stopped with no thought required on my part.

[Gandalf Parker]

Forrest said:
Hows about a continue button on start up like MOO 2 has?

I would like to be able to jump straight back to the last game I was playing against the computer without going through the list of saved games trying to figure out which one it was.

The button I press most of the time in MOO 2 is the very top one putting me right back to where I stopped with no thought required on my part.


It does have that, in a linux sort of way. On the command line you can give the name of the game to go right into it.

With Windows or Mac you can create a desktop link for your game which takes you right into it. You can also add other switches such as one to kill the credits for a faster quit.

I also like to use the desktop icon settings to set things that I continually change on every game I start. Like turning on renaming, setting the indepts higher, setting the magic sites higher. That way when I get to that screen, those settings are already chosen the way I like.

[TwoBits]

Has anyone mentioned naval battles yet? It would definitely require a new dimension (literally).

[Cor]

-I would like a big red X to appear over unique artifacts that have been forged. the greying out is not always helpful.

-I would like the path requirements to be listed in the artifacts decription

-I would like to be able to give commanders battle scripting from the main screen. or at least be able to click on them and bring up scripting screen for them only (I get confused with dozens of identical commanders)

-I would like to see more levels of experince, why a 5 star limit?

[MaxWilson]

Good idea about battle scripting for individual commanders. This is a better solution IMHO than being able to rearrange the order of commanders on the army setup screen.

-Max

[Failure]

Support for ogg and flac files (both free to implement).

I have a huge amount of thematically suitable music that I'd love to put into directories like...

Dom3\Music\Combat\
Dom3\Music\Mapview\
Dom3\Music\Mainmenu\

...and have it auto utilised. I would say this would assist with people who want to make big game modifications and distribute new music with them.

[CUnknown]

One silly little thing that I would like to see:

I like playing with the Score graphs off in multiplayer. But I'm always so curious about them at the same time. What's I'd like is a way to set them up so that the graphs would be visible like once every 20 turns or something. So everyone gets a report on all the other factions periodically.

Either that, or make it so that scouts can give you data by infiltrating the enemies capital, or something.

[lch]

CUnknown said:
One silly little thing that I would like to see:

I like playing with the Score graphs off in multiplayer. But I'm always so curious about them at the same time. What's I'd like is a way to set them up so that the graphs would be visible like once every 20 turns or something. So everyone gets a report on all the other factions periodically.

Either that, or make it so that scouts can give you data by infiltrating the enemies capital, or something.


I was contemplating with Velusion about nerfing graphs a little bit, by collecting the scores.html files from the turns and generating an overview of the nations which doesn't reveal too much information. It should only give a list of the top nations like in Civilization, and maybe show a trend aswell (rising/constant/declining). Thus you know who is outperforming the others, but you don't know by how much he's doing it. After the game the data could be used to generate exactly the same graphs as in the game, too.

Since we had other things too keep us busy with and didn't talk about this again I didn't pursue this any further, but if there is interest in it I could whip up a PHP script or something.

[Gandalf Parker]

I had a long write-up someplace on that subject. Collect the scores.html, import it into a spreadsheet, use a ghostscript or gnuplot routine to turn it into a graph, convert to .png

I hadnt considered the options for partial info or spaced out info which sound very interesting. I was hoping for single turn info in something abit more readable such as pie charts. Especially for really large games where the regular score info is hard to read.

Later I was considering how cool it would be to duplicate the in-game score screens for viewing on a webpage for that game. When I thought about trying to export them from inside the game it turned out easier to go with the build-from-scratch using the scores.html file.

Also, the same programming can be used to get around another complaint about the scores in the game. That they lose the info on a nation when its beat.

[lch]

So I take it that there's interest in the matter? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

I have a little free time at the moment and it shouldn't be too hard to program a script for this. There are lots of free PHP packages ready (JpGraph (http://www.aditus.nu/jpgraph/) for example) for generating graphs that I can use (column, line, pie, whatever you want), so all I'd have to do is to parse the scores.html files and prepare the data, and that's quite easy.

[CUnknown]

Yeah, sounds great Ich. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[MaxWilson]

I wish that when a message occurred for a province, the province number was listed as well as the name. "Banner has cast Voice of Apsu. 1 new magic site was found in Sedgewater (33)." It would make it much quicker to look it up in the nation overview table, and it would also make the "#" hotkey much more useful.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

I wish that turn reports were archived somehow, so that I could read messages from previous turns or even watch battles from last year. Even better if I could see what the map looked like in the past, and/or watch a replay of it changing, including watching dominion creep and border provinces changing hands, seeing phantom armies of now-defeated enemies menace my homeland and be shattered by a "battle" icon, etc.

-Max

[llamabeast]

I'd be interested in your PHP script Ich.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like an auto-generated cave system feature, so that you could search for caves in a province and may find one-might just find a slab of granite-but the cave system itself would be random.

You could still have user-generated cave systems, but this would allow extra random cave provinces that noone would know about until you found them. You could even find extra random caves in provinces that already are-or connect to-established user-created cave systems. Some would be dry land-based caves, while others would be full of water. You might even have some filled with lava.

[Edratman]

I would like a double check on the end turn button (surely I'm not the only one who has prematurely ended a turn).

An expensive building to increase gold and/or resources in a province.

Better selection of units from a captured home province, maybe add another building that allows recruitment of a mage and/or a warrior (non-sacred).

[HoneyBadger]

I tried suggesting just one extra building, and got a lot of negative responses from it-there's a lot of anti-building sentiment going around, unfortunately.

I'd like the ability to create spells that not only have greater effects depending on your path level, but different effects if you're strong enough to actuate them. Like, you could have a spell that creates a cone of wind that stuns enemies be the first effect, but if you have 2 more Water than you need to cast it, it also causes ice damage.

You could even have spells that can be improved if you've got other paths beside the standard one-like casting a Bladewind that, if you've got high enough Fire magic in addition to Earth, the spell does additional fire damage.

It would look something like this:

Bladewind, cost 3 Earth
If caster has 5 Earth plus 5 Fire-each blade does +1 fire damage. Every 2 levels of Earth and Fire beyond 5 (7, 9, 11, 13, 15) grants +1 fire damage beyond that.

Something like that

It wouldn't necessarily be over-powered, because mostly only Pretenders are going to be able to use these kinds of spells, and the really powerful ones might have increased gem-costs associated with them

[Micah]

Could we get an option to reserve gems away from the "pool gems" button? It'd save a lot of work reassigning blood sacrifice slaves after pooling all the new recruits, or keeping my returning pearls where they need to be when I've got clams all over the map...I'd like to not have to wait for dom 4 for this one =)

[MaxWilson]

I agree in spirit about the end-of-turn thing, but rather than a dialogue box--"Are you sure you really want to end this turn?", which makes me think, "Yes, of course I am, I just clicked on the button!" except when I think, "Oops, no I thought my keyboard was on QWERTY and I was hitting 'd' for Defense"--what if the computer paused for a second or so before beginning its calculations, and if you hit Escape during that time it would dump you back to the main screen. Sort of like an Undo in that it doesn't get in your way except in the rare case when it actually is a mistake.

Confirmation dialogues are bad and should never exist.

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like to get rid the bad events that dispose of gold you've already earned. There are ways around this, so it doesn't really serve a purpose except to punish newbies, and it doesn't really make the game better, because it's rather harsh.

Ok, I'm all for bad events that lower your income from one round to the next-temporarily or more permanently, but outright robbery? If you're going to do that, then let us as players take steps to protect our righteous loot.

Let us build stronghouses, assign guards, and cast protection magic.

Otherwise, let us keep the gold we've earned 3 turns ago and only take from the gold we earn this turn, so that we don't have to perform actions of dubious merit just to keep ahead in the game.

[MaxWilson]

Which events are those? Snowfall costs 100 pounds, etc., but I thought those came from your income for the current turn. Are you saying that if you spend all your money in advance that those events don't hurt you?

-Max

[thejeff]

No, there's a robbery event. I don't remember the specific message, but I have seen it.

I wonder if it only happens if you have some set amount left in your treasury at the end of the turn. Though it would be funny to read: "Robbers broke into your empty treasury and stole your last 3 gold."

[vfb]

I was robbed once by a Master Thief who stole a whole bunch of my gems. Ouch! Maybe if you have no gold he takes your gems instead.

[Edratman]

Max, you are right about the irritation I always get when the game implies "Are you too stupid to click on the right button?" However, the 3 or 4 times I've ended a turn by mistake makes me wonder.

You made an excellent sugestion.

Another simple and functional change would be to move the end turn button to some location that greatly reduces the misclick factor for people like me,although I can't think where that would be.

One possible idea would be to place it inside a second button, such as settings, that would really two hits. I'm positive many, if not most, will object to the extra click, but a turn on a medium sized map takes me 5 to 10 minutes, so 2 extra seconds would be an insignificent imposition.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah. I don't know how you deal with misclicks now, but I usually alt-tab out as quickly as I can, and then kill the process. (Windows, so I use Task Manager.) My computer is slow enough that late-game turns on large maps take 2-5 minutes to process so there's plenty of time to do this. I know it's safe because the .2h file is the first thing written, and the ftherlnd and .trn are the last things written.

-Max

[thejeff]

It would be nice to be able to set or change a password on an existing pretender.
This would help those who start a MP game without remembering to set one, but more importantly would let the host use the master password to let a substitute play without giving out the master password.

[HoneyBadger]

I think their are a handful of events that take directly from your gold, rather than affecting your income.

That doesn't bother me as much as that there are perfectly good-but cheesy-counters, the most obvious of which is to purchase more troops than your resources can handle and then halting the production on the next turn.

I mind the events less than I do the micromanagement and the jarring of immersion.

[Edratman]

MaxWilson said:
Yeah. I don't know how you deal with misclicks now, but I usually alt-tab out as quickly as I can, and then kill the process. (Windows, so I use Task Manager.) My computer is slow enough that late-game turns on large maps take 2-5 minutes to process so there's plenty of time to do this. I know it's safe because the .2h file is the first thing written, and the ftherlnd and .trn are the last things written.


-Max




My technique for misclicks requires loud and redundant swearing, a healthy dose of regret and a longing for multiple autosaves like Civ or even the "I think your too stupid to click properly" pop-up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Loren]

Micah said:
Could we get an option to reserve gems away from the "pool gems" button? It'd save a lot of work reassigning blood sacrifice slaves after pooling all the new recruits, or keeping my returning pearls where they need to be when I've got clams all over the map...I'd like to not have to wait for dom 4 for this one =)



I think the better approach is to get rid of the need for pool gems.

If you obtain a gem while in a province with a lab it goes to your pool automatically, just like blood sacrificers pull from your pool to replenish their supply.

[Loren]

Edratman said:
Max, you are right about the irritation I always get when the game implies "Are you too stupid to click on the right button?" However, the 3 or 4 times I've ended a turn by mistake makes me wonder.

You made an excellent sugestion.

Another simple and functional change would be to move the end turn button to some location that greatly reduces the misclick factor for people like me,although I can't think where that would be.

One possible idea would be to place it inside a second button, such as settings, that would really two hits. I'm positive many, if not most, will object to the extra click, but a turn on a medium sized map takes me 5 to 10 minutes, so 2 extra seconds would be an insignificent imposition.



Yeah, I've clicked it by accident a couple of times when I meant to click what was next to it. I do agree it should have a confirmation or else be isolated from other buttons.

[DrPraetorious]

A refined version of the magic as you rise in level wish.

#xpmagic <mask> <percent>

So a theurg acolyte could have a 30% chance of gaining AWS every time he goes up in level.
A theurg could have a 20% chance of gaining AWSF.
And a an archtheurg could have a 10% chance of gainin AWSF.

It would be theoretically possible for lower level units to "grow" into the higher level spellcasters, but rather unlikely (still, out of fifty theurgs you recruited, one would probably get the three bonus picks and become an archtheurg equivalent.)

And most of the high level casters have a 10% random anyway, so you'd just get another shot at that random each time they went up in level.

Edit: I'm not suggesting that this feature should even exist in the basic game, just that it should be available to modders who wished to try it.

[HoneyBadger]

I agree in principle, but in practice I'd push way back the percentage chance to something like 5%, 3%, 1%, just so you don't entirely eliminate the usefulness of empowerment for paths a caster already has. It's not the best strategy, but it is a strategy and should be allowed to have value.

[Kuritza]

Some new nation(s) for late age pretty please!
Something that could be perceived as 'optimistic' for the setting. I understand the Lovecraftian feel, dying world and such, but even in the most grim setting there should be some ray of hope. Too many cursed nations already, with Ermor vs Rlyeh Apocalypse in the end. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[MaxWilson]

I thought Ermor, Ashen Empire, WAS optimistic. I mean, who doesn't want a second chance at life as a brain-eating zombie?

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

-Max

[PsiSoldier]

Besides the obvious better graphics wish there are a few things missing from Dominions that I would think should be there.

Diplomacy: creating alliances, Trading various items and resources etc.

Wish Spell: This is probably my favorite spell but would be a lot better if you could wish for more things, like maybe "I wish to be ethereal" or being able to wish to fly or be immortal etc.

Spying Options: I guess Dominions 3 does have certain spying options and to be honest in 4x games things like sabotage generally dont get much attention from me, but it would be nice to have the option to send spies to poison drinking water or burn temples etc. Which would mean you would have to employ your own spies to counter such things.

More improvements: Being able to build just a Temple, Lab and Fort don't exactly give you too many options. It would be great to be able to build things like Markets for income, Housing to increase population, Farms and Mines for more resources, Watch towers for small garrisons to help with province defense and detection of spies. There are certainly more things but those are probably some of the most important.

[MaxWilson]

RE: spying options. Try playing with Bane Venom charms. Yes, it requires magic, but I guess that's just how well-poisoning works in Dominioland.

-Max

[Failure]

Three things that stand out.

Interface streamlining.
Graphics.
Sound.

The game has content abounds and tonnes of depth, but these three things are killers.

[Sarvoth]

Orc laser troopers! Kidding :-D.

1- Please, re-work the routing system so that if you're holding out in a fortress surrounded by enemy territory; it's impossible for your units to suicide by retreating. I'm not sure how this would be possible, but IMO this is a big problem.

2- Variable battlefield size.

3- Powerful turf spells that visibly alter the battlefield.

4- Siege engines, and real sieges!

5- A diplomacy system for SP.

If any of these suggestions have already been mentioned, I apologize. I haven't quite managed to read all ten pages of this thread yet.

[purge383]

Off the top of my head:

1. ***Diplomacy*** that doesn't need to be too complex or it can be too.

-non-aggression pacts where you can set a penalty for breaking it and set a number of turns that must pass when the treaty is honorably nullified before attacks can begin.
- economic treaties that can boost income
- research treaties to boost research
- treaty to share fog of war
- alliances
- gem trading
- etc.

2. An improved GUI

- Place buttons that go to menus to manage all aspects of your empire next to each other. The point would be so you could simply click through each of these buttons to review/manage every aspect of your empire so you don't have to worry about forgetting something. Galactic Civs II uses this approach well.

3. Outposts that have little or no defense so they can be razed easy but are cost balanced.

supply outpost - provides supplies to surrounding provinces
mining outpost - boosts income in a mountain province
lumber mill - boosts income in a forest province
watch tower - reveals fog of war around the province with fairly inaccurate military details
etc.


4. set in map creation options the chance for special guarded inde provinces with one time instant rewards or interesting structures/objects

- item(s), gold
- ancient ruins, library, etc - one turn boost to RP
- dragon cave: enter to battle for the horde
- demon gate: Boosts RP of mages in the province through studying the gate but occasionally demons come through and attack or kidnap mages
- palantir: pay gems to scry
- wizards tower: boosts a magic skills by 1 for units in the province
- ancient forest: the sentient ancient trees will help defend the province, but first you have to take it from them
- volcano: slowly provides earth/fire gems but can erupt
- forgotten tomb: dare to enter to battle hordes of undead for the lost treasures.
- evil(demon,undead,cult) entity rules the province and demands living sacrifices from the population.
- the remnants of a lost civilization live in a fort in the province that can be taken over

5. counter spells in battle

[Sandman]

Please, please, please no waterwheels, lumbermills or mining for ore. Dominions is better for not having them.

[jutetrea]

Agreed, if any new buildings are ever introduced keep them minimal.

irregardless of that I'm still going to suggest one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Have a setting in game creation where no castles can be built beyond the capital. (or 1,2,3, etc beyond capital). At the same time have a "recruitment/training center" or somesuch where troops can be recruited.

Initially, sieging 50 AI castles in SP is a pain. I think it would also change MP by speeding it up a bit more and reducing castle grind on nations like LA Ermor. Give the benefits of a castle if it works (+resource %, +income %, +supply %, etc) there would just not be a siege phase. I'd probably still keep the same cost to limit them, or maybe 20% less...but it would speed up games a bit. Possibly upgrade castles at the same time as they're more valuable now..shrug.

If the above was ever implemented, possibly add a garrison command to an army. Garrison would just reduce income/supply needed to pay for turn by turn upkeep of the units. They would almost turn into PD, just not regenerating.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like all gems to be saleable, just worth different amounts-astral gems worth the least, then elemental gems, then death/nature.

Blood slaves should be unsaleable, this would improve the balance of the game, since producing gems would actually improve your economy, while producing blood slaves would reduce it.

It would also be nice if you could have something set up to let you auction off magical items blindly-you put them in the auction and whoever bids the highest automatically gets the item, but you'd never know who won the item. Artifacts would be exempt from this. This would also allow you to auction off items to the AI, who might have set prices for select items.

Thirdly, it would be nice if you had another Empowerment option. Like, you could have the choice to sacrifice nature gems to improve a unit's HP, and death gems to improve it's lifespan: 1 year/1 hp for 1 gem, increasing on the same scale as PD.

Just a thought.

[vfb]

I'd like it if insane commanders could be placed on 'Defend' when they recover their sanity, so the n key does not skip over ordinary commanders whose insanity made them research/preach the previous turn. An indicator on the F1 screen (maybe show orders in red) for insane commanders would also cut down on the micro.

[HoneyBadger]

How about, instead of new buildings, the ability to "improve" provinces with gems? Like say 50-100 nature gems to change a province from plains to forest, or the same amount of gems to change it from plains to hills, or air gems to change plains to caverns?

[MaxWilson]

I like this alternate empowerment idea of Honeybadger's, and the idea of Wishing for Flight, Recuperation, etc., abilities. It would probably have zero impact on MP games but might be fun in SP.

Terrain improvements: that could become a Nature spell. Echoes of Master of Magic, here...

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

I was thinking of Master of Magic, actually.

Maybe, if you controlled a province, and all the provinces around that, and they were all of the same type, you could cast a spell (or build a magic item and sort of plant it in the ground) in the central province and set up a sort of "magical node" (a name change would ofcourse be appropriate) that would produce a gem each turn for you. The "node" as it were, would only function if inside your Dominion, and you could use the province-changing spell to set this up. A small benefit, but perhaps of interest.

I was also thinking of it's most direct successor, Lords of Magic (special edition). Really incredible maps on that game. The best looking that I've ever seen in a game. Since this *is* a wishlist, I'd love if Illwinter could find the guy who set up the map editor and get him to set up a map editor to include with the game.

(If you haven't tried this game and you see a copy, by the way, I really recommend grabbing it. Except for not including an item editor (for who knows what reason), the game is superb, second only-in my book-to Starcraft as a (sortof) RTS.)

Also, I think it would be great if magical sites that don't require paths to find, were present and visible on the greater map.

[Gandalf Parker]

You can make a map where the sites are found and visible on the map.

[HoneyBadger]

True, but it's a little convoluted for something that would be known, anyway. I know it can be done, but can it be a feature?

[Benthien]

Just read all 11. pages of this thread, there a great deal of good ideas, which inspired my whish list for a future patch/Dom4.

Mage auto site search.
-As described above + If a mage comes by a province a lower level mage has searced or he has a different path of magic, he should move in and search it again..

Diplomacy.
-Whole lot of options here..but my main wish, is some form of declaring war/making peace (and neutral state, which would be the default state), that binds you for x turns.
And a more rational ai declaration of war..like for instance that you should actually "know about"/Have borders up to a nation, to be able to declare war on them..

Age selection.
-Could be fun if you could pick different nations, from different times, maybe making a 4th age..like EA, MA, LA and one "Mixed age"..

Experience.
-Mages magic potential should increase with experience..
-You should be able to train units, to get increased attack/defence skill.


More special sites.
-Like for instance make 3 or 4 connected teleport towers, you could find as a magic site..
-Holy sites.


Research
-What about making a whole new school/patch of research, where you could research better armour, better swords, crossbows, siege equipment, stronger castles ect.
-More research in general..make a 10th level with ultra powerfull mega expensive spells :-)

Mounted units
-I've seen some gryphon fight on if their rider is killed.. but how about knights getting their mounts killed, fighting on, on foot.

Pathfinding 4 your commanders..And maybe waypoints?

Buildings
-If new buildings is implemented, teleport gates would be a nice thing to be able to build..(perhaps an addon to the lab? And connecting to other gates you own..)
Maybe splitting up the castles up in two parts could stop the ai's castlespamming..
-Castles, takes a long while to build and are expensive. Gives you a small admin boost, besides the defence..and:
-Cities takes a short amount to build and is less expensive..

Volumecontrol
-Please implement a volumencontrol for battle sounds :-D

Fortifying
-Units which stays in a territory for more than one turn, could get a small increase in their stats each turn after the 1st, up to a certain point..to reflect them "digging in", getting to know the terrain ect..

Independant attacking armys
-Make them more active..and being able to attack a territory once in a while..Like if there is 60 indie militia in a province, perhaps 20 of them should go on a raiding party in a neighbouring territory..just once in a while..

[HoneyBadger]

I'll second an extended magic spell selection
Expanded construction (to start with) up to level 15

spells L1
trinkets L2
spells L3
minor magic items L4
spells L5
major magic items L6
spells L7
greater magic items L8
spells L9
very powerful magic items L10
spells L11
lesser artifacts L12
minor relics L13 (magic items that require holiness and other magic, or just holiness to forge, and can only be used by a sacred commander, a prophet, or a Pretender)
greater artifacts L14
major relics (artifacts that require holiness to forge and that can only be used by a Pretender)

[Benthien]

Just had another idea..Maybe instead of a disband button, you could have two extra spells, one lower spell called "gather troops" or something who gathered orphaned (soldiers from a random province with no commander) troops from a specific province and transported them to your home province..Maybe 10 soldiers max at a time, not to unbalance the game..and one higher spell called gather army, who transported up to 40 orphaned soldiers from 5 different provinces..

[HoneyBadger]

naval battles

Arrr! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif

[purge383]

Thought of a couple more:

1. Be able to record and watch replays of games. While watching a replay, you can target a nation by right clicking on any of their provinces and that would give you access to hit 'm' and see all their messages for that turn. Buttons would allow you to move back and forth 1 or 10 turns, or skip to the last or first turn.

2. Be able to observe in live blitz non-play by email games.

[Cor]

I would like to see a little icon appear in provinces that had a random event this turn, then you could press a hot key, lets say 'e', and see the events in the province.

Basically the way it is now is needlessly confusing. I have to click on the message to find out what happened, then i have to exit that screen and click go to province. its just a pain.


I would also like to see a mages magic paths listed on main screen. I get confused with 20 identical mages with random magic paths. Which one is going to forge my boots of quickness again? I guess that is what the nation overview is for but i just dont find it helpful.

[Cor]

I say this cautiously, I am not sure it a good idea, o rif it currently already works this way, but here it is anyway:

How about if you take luck scales there are certain bad events that cannot happen. Knights, bogus and lab burning come to mind. Those things can really ruin your game if they happen early. Why shoul dthey happen at all in a province with luck 3?

[Psientist]

Wishes:

1. The ability to mod magic items, assigning arbitrary spells to magic items.

2. The ability to mod magic items and spells, modifying any arbitrary unit characteristic + or - (morale, strength, HP, resistances, magic bonuses, supply use, etc.)

3. The ability to mod spells to modify any arbitrary province characteristic + or - (income, sloth, etc.)

4. The ability to mod spells to modify any arbitrary game characteristic as a global (random event occurance, etc.)

5. Magic item: "Reliquary" - +1 holy, unique or greater magic

6. Somebody to run a poll or survey so the devs know which "wish list" items are most popular!

[Psientist]

Hostages and Prisoners!

[DigitalSin]

Holy gems and things to use them on!
And the ability for pretenders to preach and build temples.

[Psientist]

I think you can mod a pretender to preach / build temples... It would be a special pretender though. This has been discussed elsewhere, I recall reading it and the logic behind not allowing pretenders to preach about themselves.

[Psientist]

Unique magic item: Portable Lab!

[Cor]

Psientist said:
Unique magic item: Portable Lab!



Oooh, now that is thinking outside the lab, or box or whatever.

[djtool]

can't read all these w/out losing my mind. If I repeat something(s) then the clamor for it is that much more louder i guess:

I'd like a flag on commanders to allow me to skip them when pressing 'n'

I'd like either the ability to select what spells are in a mages 'book' (meaning I can select/deselect all possible spells the mage can cast and then toggle 'on' the ones I want) OR i'd like to be able to set my mages to 'offensive', 'defensive', or 'balanced'. Sometimes i get annoyed when my more capable mages spend most of the battle buffing themselves instead of contributing.

[J Henry Waugh]

If there is a Dom 4 down the road (developer fatigue may be set in by now, I hope not, as this game is such a gem…), at this juncture, here would be my wish list:

1. F1 screen is almost useless to me and would be of much much greater value if:

A. Could filter commanders/provinces. That is, show ONLY commanders or ONLY provinces.

B. Sort by various column values - income, resources, magic, name, etc...

2. A better post battle breakdown, something like a textual representation of the rounds of battle, at least a report on the commanders who got whacked

3. Integration with a MP server, doesn't have to be snazzy (would be happy with something integrated into the current UI), could also perhaps set up a ranking/rating system for rated games, casual games. If this was done, I bet sales would triple alone on this merit…

[Meglobob]

I would like to see in Dom4 a chance of being able to recruit another nations national units when you conquer there capital. I have outlined a system below:-

When you conquer another races capital, you have a 1 in 3 chance of being able to recruit that races national troop types/leaders. This always excludes that races sacreds.

So for example, I conquer MA Agarthas capital, a one off check then occurs for MA Agarthas national troops as follows:-

Agarthan scout 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Cave captain 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Pale one Captain 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Agarthan light infantry 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Agarthan infantry 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Argathan heavy infantry 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Pale one soldier 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.

Ancient one, attendant of oracles, earth reader, golem crafter, ancient lord and oracle of ancients are all sacred so can never be reruitable by another nation. Those units are dedicated to Agartha and there god only.

Should Agartha reconquer his capital all units are recruitable as normal. But should any other nation conquer it after, the original units who made the 1 in 3 are recruitable, another check is not made.

I believe this would stop all nations morphing into one problem but make capitals more tempting targets with a greater reward for the conquerer. It would also open up more tactics/strategies up for individual nations later in the game.

It would also reflect the nation being enslaved/conquered/ruled by the host nation. Its very unrealistic at the moment that a nations entire conquered population refuse to serve there conquerer. The Roman Empire for example had its armies made up more of auxilleries from conquered nations than soldiers from Rome/Italy.

[Caduceus]

I like the idea of "capturing" a capital with a chance of building the units of an occupied country. Perhaps an increase of cost would be a good way to show that you've forced your new peoples to bend themselves to your will, i.e. 150% of the original price.

[HoneyBadger]

For Agartha, I'd suggest just allowing the recruiting of Trogs and Trog captains. That's a nice reward in and of itself, and would be applicable for all 3 eras.

[jutetrea]

An option for larger battle maps, selectable at game creation.

Large game where 400+ unit armies may be seen, large battle map.

Battlefield enchant dispel mechanism

Other past suggestions:
Casting script groups (buff self, buff all, offensive)

Editable spell book - ability edit the "realm" spell book so 0 mages can cast a certain spell, or more granular and change for each mage as scripting.

Battlefield placeables - either stationary summonable or via PD or gain via site; or move with army a la siege engines.
-towers (1 or 2 towers, higher quality towers with higher quality PD)
-Catapult/Ballistae/trebuchet/etc slow single purpose units, probably recruitable. Since there is no provision for breaking down a wall during a combat just having wide AOE single spell affects would work
-stationary archer shields(+prot)/small walls(restrict movement)/raised platforms(+range)

Option selectable at game creation to have max fort #, in conjunction with another build option for a training grounds - recruit but no defense.

improved PD choices beyond 20

[chrispedersen]

1. Ability for mercs to recruit. Issue a recruit order and gain a little strength back.
2. Ability for units/leaders to 'train' when they have nothing else to do.
3. Provide a small initial resource boost when you have extra points left over at the start of the game. For example 4pts = +100 gold +40 resources first turn.
8pts = 200 gold, +80 resources. Alternately, provide it as better starting units.
4. Provide more things to spend start points on.
5. Get rid of combat movies. Resolve combat and move on - I don't need to see it. Some sort of fast combat resolution.
6. Other buildings that can be built in a square. Think civ or other games where you have a building tree.

Best


Chris

[silhouette]

J Henry Waugh said:
1. F1 screen is almost useless to me and would be of much much greater value if:

A. Could filter commanders/provinces. That is, show ONLY commanders or ONLY provinces.

B. Sort by various column values - income, resources, magic, name, etc...



You can already show only provinces in the F1 screen. Use the TAB key to hide/unhide all the commanders. This does make it a lot easier to look at province data.

I would like to see an indicator on this screen that taxes are NOT set to automatic, like make the tax rate a different color. This would make it a lot easier to find provinces where you have set temporary tax rates and forgotten them.

Sill

[HoneyBadger]

Watching the movies is one of my favorite things in the game!

I'm definitely against getting rid of it. It's not like you're forced to watch it, anyway, and by watching it, you can improve your tactics for the next combat.

The merc thing isn't bad, although the way I'd do it is give the commander units the Merc ability, which makes them freespawners for whatever their particular specialty is-elephants, icthys, villains, pirates, whatever, and then you hire the mercenary captain from the merc pool, and you get the captain and whatever starting troops, and the captain freespawns for whoever's paying the bills.

The longer you pay, the more benefit you get.

Here's another idea: the ability to customize forged items, in-game. Have certain abilities, like armor piercing, regeneration, magic resistance, whatever, pop up at certain levels of Construction-1-9, and then when you forge an item, you can design it, and pay for something custom, on the spot, with gold and gems. Kindof/sortof like NWN2. This would go hand in hand with the way forging works now, the custom items would just cost less than the "standard" ones.

I'd get a kick out of customing say an "ice axe" or a "fire trident", and then selling it on the MP open market, or equipping a hero with all custom stuff.
The balancing would be the higher expense and a limitation on what would be possible.

[Endoperez]

HoneyBadger said:The merc thing isn't bad, although the way I'd do it is give the commander units the Merc ability, which makes them freespawners for whatever their particular specialty is-elephants, icthys, villains, pirates, whatever, and then you hire the mercenary captain from the merc pool, and you get the captain and whatever starting troops, and the captain freespawns for whoever's paying the bills.



Excellent idea. I'll have to try it today. Try not to come up with any other great ideas for a few days, okay? I'd want to test them too, and the idea thread has been delayed far too much already.

[CelestialGoblyn]

chrispedersen said:
5. Get rid of combat movies. Resolve combat and move on - I don't need to see it. Some sort of fast combat resolution.




They're not movies. They're real reports from what happened in the battle.

[HoneyBadger]

Endo, I get "great" ideas on a ratio of 1-500 bad ideas, so I don't think you have a lot to worry about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

#summon and #summon5 don't create the units under the commander's control unless he starts with none. #makemonster doesn't work either. Unless someone comes up with a way to give the spawned units to the mercenaries, they can't use the commands mentioned above.

[ArkkiMeisseli]

I didn't check through all the pages, so sorry if this has already been proposed...

I'd like to see archers shoot first (or maybe after spells), before melee combatants take their turns. It's pretty sad watching my brave Caelian troops lose so many lives unnecessarily, being shot in the back by their own comrades right after descending upon the enemy.

[CelestialGoblyn]

A really small but important change:
Make the 'seduce' ability work in both ways, not just female critter seducing male critter.
Preferably, three types of seduction 'seduce men', 'seduce women' and 'seduce all'.
That way, there can be not just Succubi but also Incubi and shapechangers...

[HoneyBadger]

Incubi, shapechangers, and Pan units/summons would work.

[jutetrea]

Ability to set multiple winning conditions (or to exclude winning conditions).

For example, Research OR Dominion OR VP could win a game.

Also possibly add new winning conditions or static turn limits - game plays to 50 turns, leader in X or Y condition wins.

Somehow not have the game go to "YOU WIN" and kick you out. Continue playing SP maybe?

EDIT: Ability to set pre-existing conditions via game setup instead of just map mods. Starting gold, Initial resource pool (goes to normal after x turns), initial research per school (or spendable bulk), initial dominion maybe?, initial gems.

[HoneyBadger]

I seem to remember seducing women, myself, once upon a time, but that was before I got married, and my wife apparently has stayed seduced, so it's a little foggy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[BigDisAwesome]

You should be able to script your mages from their info screen that comes up when you right click them. Later in the game when you have a ton of mages in your forts, it's a total pain to find the specific mage you need in the army setup screen. Especially when your mages start getting the same names.

[fungalreason]

I'd like to be able to see the summary troop losses from the window that shows the battle resuts rather than just the number. It can be hard to tell exactly which units died without watching every battle.

Also results from castle seiges would be nice too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Theonlystd]

A counter that tracks the number and kind of troops lost and then of course the number and kind of troops killed.

Just how many undead do i send back to the grave as a game of Ermor would be interesting to know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[MaxWilson]

BigDIsAwesome,

One thing that helps is to give your troops their move/attack/whatever orders first. Then when you got to script them, either hit Tab to hide all the researchers, or select the destination province and hit 'y'. I admit this doesn't help much when the army you're moving has 20 mages with it, but if you're just trying to find the right single mage out of a bunch of researchers it can help.

-Max

[BigDisAwesome]

Yeah I knew that trick, but like you said it still doesn't help if your army has a bunch of mages.

[Gandalf Parker]

add "enter site to get" units to the recruit screen greyed-out

I might be missing another obvious helpful button or something but here is my problem. It involves abit of micro-management.

When I have a large map and I have mages doing auto-searches then I occasionally have to use F1 and scroll thru all of the finds to see if there are sites which allow recruiting something new or where a mage can enter to get a unit. Some of the sites are not helpful in their naming. The ones that sound like they might give me a unit, dont. And the ones that do, arent always named in a way to make that obvious. So all in all its pretty time consuming. Kristoffer and Johan might not notice since they create the sites and probably knows them all by name.

Now the ones that allow recruiting a new unit I will often stumble across as Im revisiting the province. Just moving armies thru them will usually have me reminding myself of what I can make there and I will notice something new that I got from a found site that I hadnt noticed before. Can we get a unit showing there for sites that a mage enters? Maybe showing it greyed out as if it needed a structure but the help text would instead say something like "requires a death mage".

[Gandalf Parker]

Or... alternatively...
a message whenever a mage finds a special site (anything not involving gold or gems).

[Edratman]

I would like to get a more permant way of grouping units together.

To explain, I often group three mages together for manual site searching. However, when the results are announced on the message screen, the mages are listed (I am guessing here) by their unit ID number, which means they are scattered about the message screen, which may be two pages, most probable if I'm playing a 250+ province map and have 10 to 30 units searching on any given turn. So when I go to the first unit listed, it is the only unit highlighted and my group is broken unless I am smart and clever (small enough chance, not even worthy of consideration) and remember that this particular independent mage is part of a group.

Alternatively, if site searching results were listed by province instead of unit number, I would have a better chance of maintaining the groups integrity.

I also have the same problem with armies when I pause in a province and do. some construction, patrolling and site searching

[MaxWilson]

I agree that would be a nice feature. I the interim I sometimes rename the mages for the same effect, e.g. Bless-E, Arty-E, and Buff-E compose task group E (for "East army").

-Max

[Edratman]

max, that's a good idea. I rename now for various other reasons, but I haven't thought of extending it to a group.

So that gives me another thought, make renaming allowed the default option on the menu screen and "No renaming" the option requiring the click. That will save me on the times when I forget to click on renaming allowed, which always seems to generate a starting province with six or seven neighbors, all forest and/or farmland and positioned in a corner of the map.

[SCKnight]

My wishlist is this (some of my wishes, people have already stated):

1) The ability to customize your nation and Pretender. I want to pick what my Pretender's titles are! The nation can be default one that has been altered or one that you created from scratch.

2) The ability to spare another nation's Pretender. This lets you create a pantheon. In fact, I hope they have a feature where you can actually create a pantheon of allied pretenders for a nation, or choose to play a single pretender. For example, I might have my Ulm's Virtue spare the life of Mictlan's Enchantress, making the Enchantress a member of a new Pantheon for Ulm.

3) The ability to create a hero. I want to create a hero that is unique.

4) Diplomancy: This would include such things as alliances, trades, and spying.

5) I want to be able to create unique buildings. For example, as Ulm is my favorite nation, I want to create the Iron Statue, a statue made of black iron that grants a morale bonus to all my forces in the providence it's in, and any 3 neighboring areas.

6) Allow us to purchase and download the game!

Basically, everyone's already mentioned some of my wishes already.

[Morkilus]

Have you tried modding, SCKnight? You can get pretty much all of points 1, 2, 3, and 5 with some creativity. 4 already exists, but you have to play with other people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif 6 has been shut down repeatedly by Shrapnel. Well, maybe for Dominions 4, but don't hold your breath.

Oh yeah... You can get a building that raises the morale of troops in the province, and eventually that of surrounding provinces. It's called a "temple" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

SCKnight said:
My wishlist is this (some of my wishes, people have already stated):

1) The ability to customize your nation and Pretender. I want to pick what my Pretender's titles are! The nation can be default one that has been altered or one that you created from scratch.



You can pick one or two. There is a pretty good space there. When you name your god you can name him "Brik, the SuperCombatant"


2) The ability to spare another nation's Pretender. This lets you create a pantheon.


In multiplay nothing stops you from doing that. In solo play you can create a pantheon to play against by creating a map where the AI's are allied (they wont attack each other). If you mean that as a human player you want to grant subservience to an AI pretender then thats kindof possible by using higher magics such as wish


3) The ability to create a hero. I want to create a hero that is unique.


Already in modding commands. Check out the Worthy Heroes mod which does a few for every nation.


4) Diplomancy: This would include such things as alliances, trades, and spying.


Already a big part of the game. It is a multiplayer game mostly. Putting it in a menu would only limit it. As a human playing solo you can send things to the AI (which can be useful) but any effort to open human/ai diplomacy and trading only opens it up to be abused.


5) I want to be able to create unique buildings.


available in modding commands


6) Allow us to purchase and download the game!


Its not really a "allow" thing. You can purcase/download some of Shrapnels games but its not really feasable for Dominions at this time. But obviously Shrapnel keeps up on the subject so things might improve in the future for digital downloads.

[StrictlyRockers]

I'd like to see a completely new engine with better graphics for the tactical battles. I'm not satisfied with the speed, clarity or modernity of the current system.

Right now, the combat system works. It is functional and legible and you CAN make out what is happening. If you want to pay close attention to the intricacies of the battle, you may need to watch twice - once to see what happened to your forces, and once to see what happened to the opponent's forces.

There are some good programs out there that would enable an improvement in the graphics for the tactical battles. It would mean a huge overhall and reworking of the code, and this may not even be a real possibility for Shrapnel or Ilwinter or whoever would be in charge of making this big investment. Firaxis uses some XML or Python based program for their newer games, Civ 4 (not 3), Pirates, Railroads, etc. The engine is very pretty...in a way that Dom 3 is not pretty.

Ok, my motivations here are solely to bring in new players to this great game! I don't honestly care that much personally about pretty cartoon graphics. I am more into it for the contest and the matching of wits, the outguessing of your enemies, and the sweet thrill of victory over an aggressor nation. I am an old grognard who plaed Avalon Hill boardgames since the age of 8.

Who gives a heck about grpahics? Everyone else but me and a few other die-hard wargamers. I want to see a big pool of players. Many people are turned off from this game by the graphics they see in the battles. Some would consider these graphics pretty lousy if Dom 3 had come out ten years ago.

I would like to see a whole new engine used for tactical battles. Specifically, the ability to zoom in on the tactical battlefield with the mouse scroll wheel would be great. Also, the ability to rotate the battlefield view angle would be fun.

Pathing would be a great addition, or even simple rally points for newly built commaders. A command for newly built commanders to load up all available troops and rally to a province would be great.

I love this game, and I will try to think up more improvements. My big push is to make the game prettier to attract more players.

[Sir_Dr_D]

The better the graphics are the harder it will be to have the wide variety of units that is out there now. Personally I find that focus on graphics ruins games. All main stream commercial games bore me quickly. Dominions is the only one that has held my interest for such a large period of time. The Space empires series tried to go the route of better graphics in the last addition, instead of game play improvements, and suffers for it.

For graphics to work there will need to be a larger team to work on it. One that does not get in the way of the enhachment of other game play features.

personally graphics won't do a thing to interest me. I will want more strategies and challenges available.

[MaxWilson]

StrictlyRockers,

In the interests of data-gathering, of the people you know who are turned off by the sprite-based graphics, how many of them have the patience for long strategy games? Or even short strategy games, a la Axis and Allies? What is it about Dominions that they're likely to enjoy?

It's just that I'm having trouble imagining a person who would appreciate a complicated game and yet NOT have an old wargamer's attitude toward graphics.

-Max

[sum1lost]

MaxWilson said:
StrictlyRockers,

In the interests of data-gathering, of the people you know who are turned off by the sprite-based graphics, how many of them have the patience for long strategy games? Or even short strategy games, a la Axis and Allies? What is it about Dominions that they're likely to enjoy?

It's just that I'm having trouble imagining a person who would appreciate a complicated game and yet NOT have an old wargamer's attitude toward graphics.

-Max


I like pretty games.

[Gandalf Parker]

I would suspect that a single unit in decent 3D animated graphic might take at least as long as long as 8 units in 2d with only 2 images (standing and attack move). For a full-time graphics person that might be feasable but I dont think that the few more sales would justify Kristoffer giving up his teaching career for it. And I sure wouldnt appreciate the game with 1/8th the units but oh gee they are so cool and 3d.

[Wahnsinniger]

Strategy Games are one of the least useful genre's to sink 3D money into. Yeah, in a FPS, you need crisp and eye-catching graphics to attract gamers. Strategy games have been and always will be about the gameplay, not that graphics. The images in this game are fine, and have a certain charm to them since units even show their equipment(one of the best visual things to do in any Fantasy/RPG game).

Now this isn't to say that the interface couldn't use some improvement. The Tactical Battles are the worst in this regard, and could benefit from a control-bar with the current options (Pause, Exit, Fast-Forward), which would make it much more new-player friendly. Also, if you could add in a way to go forward-backwards through the battle, kinda like the Progress bar when watching a movie in Media Player for example, that would be great.

[MaxWilson]

FWIW, adding a forwards-backwards option would be time-consuming, given that the battle is actually regenerated while-you-watch from the random seed, not merely replayed from a pre-recording. There is no reason in principle why it couldn't be cached while it's regenerated, but it would take some work. Just for the record.

-Max

[Gandalf Parker]

forward-backward would be available if you use a 3rd party program such as fraps. Plus that would allow you to store battles, email them to thers, upload them to YouTube so you can link to them here (and help sell dominions). I agree that the battles could be improved visually but Im not big on the dev spending time and effort putting in anything that can be done with 3rd party programs

[Saulot]

That seems rather cumbersome. One would have to play through each battle at normal speed in order for fraps to record it. Then one would have to either switch out or exit dominions and then reload the video file in some external program and then replay it to get the forward/backward ability. This would also be unsuitable in some situations since you lose the ability to examine units, which is useful to see how certain mages use gems, if an enemy sc acquires an affliction, etc.
AFAIK fraps also saves everything as uncompressed video which would then need to be compressed if one wanted to share it with anyone else (which can be rather time-consuming, particularly for the very many battles that can occur in one turn during the late game).

[Gandalf Parker]

It has its pros and cons. But so does having Johan research and then program one into the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Benthien]

One thing that really annoys me when playing against the ai, is that it kills one of my commanders with a mindburn, seeking arrow or whatever..And the message you get is for instance "Suddently a arrow appeared out of nowhere and struck Alfred in the hearth, Alfred was killed by the attack" or something like it..Well thats all well and good, except 4 the fact that when playing large maps, you have 27 commanders with that same name..which one got killed and where was he?

[MaxWilson]

Some games, I have commanders with names like Alfred. Other times, I have commanders with names like "Death-x," or, if he's assigned to an army, "Death-7," or else "Ponsifaz the Summoner" and "Wericar Staffmaker." In that case, if I can't figure out where a commander was and what his job was from the message, it means it doesn't matter. He was probably just researching or site-searching.

It's not a fix for your problem, but it's a bit of a mitigator.

-Max

P.S. Plus, I think nicknames are thematic. I recall one time when I had a scout (named Sparrow-17 or something) get caught by province defense somehow. He killed 7 or 8 and managed to scare the rest off, single-handedly. (He was a Helheim scout, which helped.) I renamed him Sparrowhawk.

[Wait, maybe he wasn't caught. Maybe I had him attack the province, thinking it was empty or had only a single defender or something. I sure didn't expect as many as there actually there.]

[Cheezeninja]

I would love to see more ritual style personal enchantments. I think that it could be a relatively easy way to add yet another level of wonderful complexity to the game.

Imagine a ritual like ritual of returning that would add a fire shield to you, possibly with increasing intensity with each casting. Or allow an aquatic unit to breathe on land for a certain number of turns, as long as it kept re-casting the ritual. Or any number of different buffs that are already in the game.

Sure this would impact the relative power of magic items, and allow you to send a pre-buffed SC or thug into a battle without having to sit out the first few turns. But it could easily be balanced by an astral spell or two dispelling personal enchantments (which could be deadly to the aforementioned aquatic), adding yet another level to the paper-rock-scissors balance in what I think would be an interesting way. You could even have another astral enchantment designed just to lock your other enchantments in, by always being the first one dispelled.

I think it would be a cool middle ground between combat buffs and items, allowing for some interesting strategies and counters.

[Micah]

One thing that would be nice is having commanders pick up the troops of a commander that's killed by a ritual mid-move. The current situation where grouped commanders will leave a significant part of the army behind when they have leadership to spare when one of their comrades gets killed by a spell is pretty much completely nonsensical when they're all moving together.

[StrictlyRockers]

I agree that the current Dominions graphics do have a certain charm. They do sort of grow on you. I am basically content with the game as it is - no real complaints. I think it is a great value for the price. I have already spent fractions of a penny per hour of entertainment from this one.

I just see the potential. How great would it be it this super-deep, meaty, juicy game also had ultra-modern, 2008 graphics to draw in new players? Well, I hate to shoot down my own argument by playing devil's advocate for a minute, but there is something to be said for having a smallish player base comprised of mostly experienced and mature players who challenge you and think through their strategies.

So, I'm not volunteering to do the 3-D modelling on thousands of different unit types, but the little kid in me thinks it would be kinda cool if it happened. Dom 5?

[Wahnsinniger]

StrictlyRockers said:
Well, I hate to shoot down my own argument by playing devil's advocate for a minute, but there is something to be said for having a smallish player base comprised of mostly experienced and mature players who challenge you and think through their strategies.




Yeah, thats the worst part about ultra-popular online games like Counterstrike and WoW(never played WoW though). I like to call it "Counterstrike Syndrome": where most of the players are idiots. You can escape by playing new mods with small player bases, but, if the mod becomes popular, eventually the Syndrome catches up and the game fills up with a bunch of idiots again.

It'd be nice to not see Dominions end up like that, and as a testament to it, I don't think I've yet seen any flaming or other such idiocy on these forums yet. Good people around here. (Don't worry though, I'll eventually post something stupid. It usually happens)

[BigDisAwesome]

I wish more of the players in the community were idiots. I'd do better in my MP games if that were the case!

[Taku]

Filter for magic sites: lists to see sites with summons, recruits, magic bonus or other specialities and a quick link to the province and for sites which can be entered if they are in use.

Since the priests channel the power of the pretender god, the pretender itself should be able to wield that power too. Perhaps even add that a weak pretender (in this aspect) can limit the power of the priests. A pretender with holy level one limits all the priests to the same. Regardless of their own abilities.

While it was mentioned already I really would like to see some advanced scripting for the battles. It is really annoying if the mages casts endless summons which never reach the fighting. At the same time limiting the choice to a single spell can lead to a disaster: Falling frost and banishment one is great against normal troops the other works well enough against undead. What do I script my water mage priests if I fight against a nation with both unit types. Most times nothing at the moment and hope that at least sometimes they use the correct spells and not some undeads which never make a difference.

The next one might be a bit controversial: In the game you can improve the bless magic. That would be more expensive than a normal empowerment (about factor 100). To make the pretender playable the levels would be separate from the normal magic, though it would be one during the creation.

[theenemy]

OK, heres my 2 cents...

1.improved graphics(we don't need no "gears of war" here, but SOME improvements wouldn't hurt...right?!)
2.siege weapons!!!
3.maybe add a formation setup for units?
4.more combat orders!
5.siege weapons!!!
6.more nations, spells, items etc. you know... the usual stuff.

I'm sorry if some of these things are already proposed or if they are in dom3 already!
great game by the way! can't stop playing it.

[MaxWilson]

BigDisAwesome said:
I wish more of the players in the community were idiots. I'd do better in my MP games if that were the case!



I know this is a joke, but the idiocy in question would probably manifest itself in things like dropping out of MP games as soon as they started to sour. That it also includes tactical idiocy would be small consolation. :\

-Max

[Gandalf Parker]

On menus such as F1 can we have the headers be part of the menu box? That way they will stay in place as you scroll down so you can always tell what you are looking at.

[Taku]

Another map filter:
This one would show if a troop type can be recruited in a province. The configuration should be fairly easy to reach. The dialog should contain the list of recruit able units and one of this units can be selected. If the filter is active every where the unit can be recruited its symbol would be displayed. It would be nice if some kind of general unit types could be selected there too like missile troops or units with trample and the filter would show the best fit (if one in a province). For example Cavalry: if there is a heavy and a light cavalry the heavy one would be shown first.

[Edi]

Wahnsinniger said:

StrictlyRockers said:
Well, I hate to shoot down my own argument by playing devil's advocate for a minute, but there is something to be said for having a smallish player base comprised of mostly experienced and mature players who challenge you and think through their strategies.




Yeah, thats the worst part about ultra-popular online games like Counterstrike and WoW(never played WoW though). I like to call it "Counterstrike Syndrome": where most of the players are idiots. You can escape by playing new mods with small player bases, but, if the mod becomes popular, eventually the Syndrome catches up and the game fills up with a bunch of idiots again.

It'd be nice to not see Dominions end up like that, and as a testament to it, I don't think I've yet seen any flaming or other such idiocy on these forums yet. Good people around here. (Don't worry though, I'll eventually post something stupid. It usually happens)


If the ravening hordes of morons ever became a problem in Dom3 (doubtful, since playing Dom3 actually requires both possession of and the ability to use brains), setting up games with the simple stipulation that anything goes and not giving any breaks to whiners and lamers would take care of that problem for most games. What would they do, quit on you? Good riddance. As far as such hordes infesting the forum and making trouble here, let's just say that I suspect any troublemakers would be very unpleasantly surprised indeed. There is precedent of disruptive users having been booted out in the past.

[Sandman]

I'd like more filters for the army setup screen. At the moment, you can hide researchers, but it'd be nice to be able to hide other things, like preachers, sneakers or non-mages.

[Morkilus]

Sandman said:
I'd like more filters for the army setup screen. At the moment, you can hide researchers, but it'd be nice to be able to hide other things, like preachers, sneakers or non-mages.



Did you mean to post this in the Dominions 2 forum?

[Edi]

No, he didn't, I think. If you press tab in the army setup screen, every mage with research orders (regardless of whether he has squads) will be hidden just like the tab used to do for researches in Dom2 on the overland map.

[Morkilus]

Oh, wow. That's nifty. Now if I could sort by path I'd be much more inclined to actually use my Arcosephalian Mystics.

[MaxWilson]

Rename. "Mystic FE," "Mystic FW," etc.

-Max

[Maraxus]

Is there a top-list of suggestions somewhere?
Here are my Top 4, in order of priority:

1. Either a better combat-AI or (prefered: ) more scripting options. I guess this was mentioned allready.

2. More terrain influence. The caves are nice allready, but I'd like to see combat maps with narrow streets or lots of trees, too (and a good pathfinding to handle this). Units that get specific terrain-bonusses would be nice, too.

3. Borders that can only be crossed by amphibian and/or flying units and/or take more then 1 movement point. Actually all borders could take a number of movement points and the units could have a high number of movement points and movement costs per terrain type.

4. Streets, that can be build like buildings to increase movement speed between 2 provinces you control.






Maybe a more thought out vision on scripting stuff:

Squards:
You can set your Squards' formations, agressiveness and Tactics.

Formations:
-Phalanx: The Squard will move and attack as a long line. This may break into a loose formation if the ends are attacked or into a tight formation if the center is attacked.
-Wedge: This is a really close formation, soldiers at the back of the Squard will not try to move around their comrades in front of them. The Squard will try to attack their targets, even if attacked themselves

-Close formation: The units will try to stay together and attack one enemy squard
-Loose formation: The units will spread out and attack individually. Useful for and against archers.


Agressiveness:
-Very aggressive: The Squard will rush the enemy at full speed and go for melee. If equipped with ranged weapons, the units will fire untill the target comes into melee reach themselves. This overwrites a tight formations order to stay together, for units of differing movement speeds.
-Aggressive: The Squard will not break, if ordered a tight formation. When attacking an opponent squard with lower movement speed, they will try to get the first attack.
-Defencive: The units will wait in place, untill opponents come into charging range, then attack. Enemy missle fire might cause this to change to aggressive.
-Very defencive: The units will only defend themselved if attacked, not engage on their own, they are more likely to retreat.


Tactics:
-This includes the Target-priority from Dominions 2 and 3 and adds the following:
-Skirmish: The Unit will try to attack the next enemies not attacking them while trying to retreat from any unit attacking them.
-Defend: The Unit will attack charging enemies




Commanders:
Commanders can follow a number of scripts, players are even able to generate their own scripts.

Pre-Generated scripts are:
-Passive: The unit will stand around and try to avoid enemies.
-Warrior: The unit will attack opponents (in the savety of an army, if available)
-Fighter: The unit will Fire opponents with ranged weapons, try to outmaneuver the bigger armies (both in number and unit size) and attack smaller ones.
-Spellsword: The unit will cast support-spells on itself, untill it is moderately fatigued, then attack.
-Mage: The unit will cast a mixture of support- and attack spells.
-Evoker: The unit will cast attack spells at the enemy army, focussing on damage dealing.
-Supporter: The unit will cast spells that buff the own units and try to heal them. If out of useful spells for this cause, it will attack the opponent, focussing on debuffs and staying concious.
-Savety caster: Like mage but focussing on low cost spells and saving gems.
-Assasin: The unit will try to avoid enemy troops and attack the commanders. Only Assasins have that option.


Misc:
-Commanders can now move through own squards, by exchanging places with other units.

-Commanders have a strategy-value, that influences routing behavior:
-High values decrease the probability of single squards routing but slightly increases the probability of the whole army routing.
-Depending on the value, the commander's troops might stay in the province after retreading from a battle that was won afterwards. Same goes for fights at castles.
-If the commander retreats, there is a probability on the skill, that his retreating troops all retreat into the same province.

[jutetrea]

wish: battlefield wide +defense and +attack spells. Seems like there's about 8 spells for +prot. Instead of doing the caster, aoe 1, aoe 15-25, battlefield progression it would be cool to be "battlefield +1 atk, battlefield +2 atk, etc". Maybe have the +atk be a priest spell (crusade or xenophobia or something) and +defense would add some meat to water paths along with quickening.

Maybe +1, +2, +4 at lvls 5,6 and 8?

[Wahnsinniger]

I'd really like such spells to exist also. Would be a great way to shore up deficiences of certain army units. Suddenly with an Attack buff those Pale one soldiers wouldn't be so useless.

You'd want to keep them limited though. If you make it too easy to buff then it starts to remove differences between nations and units.

[Gandalf Parker]

Maraxus said:
Is there a top-list of suggestions somewhere?


There is a top list of bugs but not a top list of suggestions.

Personally I dont think a top list of wants would be a good idea for this game. Getting something added tends to be more about getting the interest of the devs. Either programmically (Johan) or thematically (Kristoffer). Any effort along the line of "we are all really noisy about wanting this" tends to act against us. Keep up the suggestions, and the discussions.

Altho, come to think of it, a short-list might help it get read more often when the devs are bored. Quick one sentence lines for each item with a link to the further discussions in case it sparks their interest.

[BigDisAwesome]

I'd hate to have the job of summing up all the ideas in this thread.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm really proud of this thread. It's one of the longest ever on this forum, and so many people have come up with so many really great ideas, as well as insights into the inner workings of Dominions and especially enthusiasm for the continuation of the series.

And that was really the point of the thread in the first place-to show Johan and Kristoffer how thrilled we are with what they've done, and how much we want more and better of the same http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Cor2]

I have more wishes:

Researchers should be allowed to research for gold, instead of magic. THis would be mostly useful when there is notghing else to research. The conversion could be very high to prevent abuse like 20 research = 1 gold or something. I dont liek end of game when you have built this massive research machine and then you have a thousand nearly worthless mages with nothing to do, this would help, maybe.


2.I suggest a "volunteer badge" for units that you get in special events. I think most of us hate those hordes of militia. THe volunteer badge would give a bonus to morale of 1-3 making them less likely to break. It makes sence in rpg terms, they want to be there, they want to fight for their god, but they have a 9 morale? this would also make flaggies better as well.

[YuanShi]

Better unit graphics.

Grass and other improvements on the background where unecessary.

The units are still fuzzy, the general form is OK, but they look real bad and not in tune with the background.

A good idea (IMO) would be trying to make the untis and background like medieval paintings or miniature, thus reducing the amount of necessary colors.

The battlefield is also way too big, much more than needed. Reducing it would save resources that could be used rendering visually more appaling units.

[llamabeast]

The problem is not rendering time. Each unit is hand-drawn, pixel by pixel. It's an incredible set of largely great quality pixel art. Just 'improving the graphics' isn't really an option, redoing the sprites in a higher resolution would take months of artist time. It's not really like they have the team size to do it.

[HoneyBadger]

And a factor that a lot of people on the "better graphics" side seem to lose sight of-people like me can actually design graphics simply, even casually, and feel like we're accomplishing something we can see *in the game*-although I think I lack the patience and single-mindedness to even do graphics as well as Kristoffer.

[johan osterman]

llamabeast said:
The problem is not rendering time. Each unit is hand-drawn, pixel by pixel. It's an incredible set of largely great quality pixel art. Just 'improving the graphics' isn't really an option, redoing the sprites in a higher resolution would take months of artist time. It's not really like they have the team size to do it.


As llamabeast said this is not really an option without gutting the number of units. There are just short of 2000 units with the latest patch. Kristoffer can make a handful units a day, working more or less fulltime on it, with the current spritebased graphics. If the graphics were to be improved as in higher resolution or made 3d based it would no doubt take longer, especially since Kristoffer is used to his current production method and not to 3d art etc. Illwinter does not make enough money to realistically be able to afford hiring additional people. Keeping the diversity of units is simply not compatible with a more than incremental upgrade of the unit graphics.

[Gandalf Parker]

It might also be worth noting that Kristoffer is getting better and better all the time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
We are getting upgraded graphics, gradually.

And I agree that shifting to something like 3D and full animation would be prettier but would hurt the game in other areas. Im fine with the 2D sprites and 1 move animations. I have plenty of "pretty" games on my machine (that I played about a month)

[shaihulou]

Gandalf Parker said:
Im fine with the 2D sprites and 1 move animations. I have plenty of "pretty" games on my machine (that I played about a month)



I couldn't agree more, that's why i love this game as well as Paradox's Hearts of Iron

Actual gameplay/fun > graphics(3D) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[jutetrea]

Item request - lvl 6 const, insert interesting and fun name, gives 10 units +0 stealth.

boots of elvenkind - lvl 2 construction, gives commander +0 stealth in forests only

spell - shadow dome - anti-astral window/spying/scout dome, gives completely oddball scouting reports. Instead of 100 men at arms and 3 mages it may show 200 giants or a dragon and 300 demons. Low cost, # gems affect duration, good for casting in a border castle before war.

[Burnsaber]

More "Common" blood sites and make blood sites more common. I always get my hopes up by playing blood nation and stating to cast Bowl of Blood. Blood sites are so rare that finding even one is like super-frigging-awesome.

I start my turn. Just checking out how my radar-spell went and then BAM! after 7 turns my B2 guy actually found something. I quicly rush out of the message window hit F1 and try to find the province in question. My eyes race for the real province name while my mind "perhaps it's that Demon-summon site or.. Dare I think about.. something even more cool".

Then I find the province in the F1 list and swiztly move my mouse over the blood site image...

It's another-freaking Brigand Lair! GAAAAHHH!

It's seriously not fun anymore. I want to see something other than Brigand Lairs for change. Is this somesort of a trap to make people not use blood magic? Either make Blood sites a really big deal (read: actually doing something usefull instead of rising unrest and allowing recruiment of a bland unit) or make some other common blood sites.

Please.. Just stop those Brigand Lairs. I'm gonna go postal soon if I find more Brigand Lairs in SP game I'm having (found 4! of them).

All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull boy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
....

[lch]

Burnsaber said:
Please.. Just stop those Brigand Lairs. I'm gonna go postal soon if I find more Brigand Lairs in SP game I'm having (found 4! of them).


I can top that - five! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif And I share your pain...

[Burnsaber]

I can't believe this...

I just played some of the before-mentioned SP game I'm having and I conquered a province with a 100+ unrest. Unrest increasing site was a likely culprit but I didn't want to find more Brigand Lairs so I wanted to know if it increased by 5 every turn. So I patrol with my army and turn taxes to 0% and after couple of turns I see that it rises by 10 each turn. Yes! No Brigand Lair!

Perhaps.. It just might be Devil's Den? I find my monthly Bowl of Blood caster and make him target that province. I was so excited that I probably forgot to move all my troops before hitting end turn.

Next turn begins and I quickly check the Bowl of Blood report. He found 2 blood sites! Damn I'm excited! I get to see two cool blood sites! Oh, my innocent mind.. I quit message screen and hit the province in question. I click the new site icons..

BAM! THEY'RE BOTH BRIGAND LAIRS!

And a piece of soul died and withered away.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif That's what you get for using blood magic, kids.

I was stunned. I just quit the game and deleted it afterwards. There is no way I'll be playing that game again.

I know that this no suggestion and is a bit off-topic but I just had to share this.

[BigDisAwesome]

Not to laugh at your misfortune, but that is funny.

[YuanShi]

shaihulou said:

Gandalf Parker said:
Im fine with the 2D sprites and 1 move animations. I have plenty of "pretty" games on my machine (that I played about a month)



I couldn't agree more, that's why i love this game as well as Paradox's Hearts of Iron

Actual gameplay/fun > graphics(3D) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Hmmm, I wasn't talking exactly about 3D Studio rendered realistic animations, but about a certain "synchronizing" of background and unit graphics.

Indeed, the background is a bit "too much" 3D, while the units resemble paintings. My idea would be making the background more like painted with a brush, that would indeed only require
reducing the number of colors. And perhaps add darker orders to the units.

I'm quite happy with the rest, else I wouldn't even have bought Dom3 or stuck to Dom2 from the beginning (OK, I'm not quite a social animal of sorts).

I will, nonetheless continue adding opinions, if they make sense, nice, if not, don't hesitate in telling http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

BTW: Dom2 and Dom3 are the _only_ games I have on my Mac and
I'm just not interested in other stuff.

[Kristoffer O]

@burnsaber

OK, I'll make a Slaughter House for you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Burnsaber]

My whining made a difference! My dreams have come true, I can now die in peace..

But seriously speaking, you're the man.

P.S: I know that some villaineous people would probably send me into a mental asylym by making this new "Salughterhouse" site to be something like this:

Increses unrest by 5 per turn
Allows recruiment of boars

But I know you're above that. Aren't you?

[Kristoffer O]

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

[HoneyBadger]

I want to see Dominions 4. On the other hand, I've heard rumors that the Devs don't want to make Dominions 4 because it would mostly involve work that would be boring and nasty and make them break out in hives in uncomfortable places.

So, here's my effort to find a way to make it happen, without driving poor Johan insane and forcing poor Kristoffer to invent Dominions-the pinball game.

How many people on these forums can write in C? I think that's what Johan uses, I could be wrong. How many of those can write in C would be willing to put in the time and effort (for free) to help create Dominions 4?

There's been a lot of talk about adding more people to the Dev team to help take the pressure off. So, since it's us-the rabid fans of Dominions-who care most about seeing a sequil, why not provide that workforce ourselves?

So, to give the Devs the option of adding more people to the team, without *hiring* more people, who here has the skills and time and economic stability to become slavish interns and do the boring, time-consuming work that would take the pressure off the Devs and lead to Dominions 4, purely for the thrill of the experience?

[Gandalf Parker]

It was originally written in Atari Basic if I remember right. C is a great cubicle language but only the major companies work in cubicles. Much fewer independent games are written in C than people think.

And Im guessing the spaghetti code might be something that Johan is not real interested in another coder commenting on.

Also there is the alpha-group language requirement (swedish?). I remember being in a programming project (a MUD) where one of the main programmers was russian and the only common toungue was C so I know that it can be done but it can be a hassle.

Since Dom4 would have to be rewritten pretty much from scratch to get any major changes, I foretell a future like other games. When Dom is dropped then an open-source project will recreate it with all new code which will be more efficient for having the end goals clearly in view. For not having gone thru the bit-and-piece growth that it has gone thru up to now.

[johan osterman]

Dominions 1,2 and 3 is all in C. CoE was in atari basic before it was converted.

I kind of doubt JK is eager to supervise other people messing around with the code. He isn't usually that keen on explaining stuff, even in person, and the code is not commented or structured to be easy for others to read.