Some thoughts on improvements to the game

[Loren]

1) I think buildings in the capital should be immune to random event destruction.

2) I think any mage left idle and capable of doing research should research.

3) Communions in the lab: Select a group of mages, hit a key for communion and then, cast/cast monthly/forge. The whole group can only produce one spell or item but they do so as a communion, thus permitting you to reach levels you otherwise couldn't. I think the other mages should only contribute to paths they actually have a level in.

3) Siege should be considered an activity as far as the Next command is concerned.

[Gregstrom]

1) I think buildings in the capital should be immune to random event destruction.


Misfortune is already popular enough as a design choice, why make it easier to take?


2) I think any mage left idle and capable of doing research should research.


That could work, but I guess it would be complicated to implement. Thus it's unlikely to happen.


3) Communions in the lab: Select a group of mages, hit a key for communion and then, cast/cast monthly/forge. The whole group can only produce one spell or item but they do so as a communion, thus permitting you to reach levels you otherwise couldn't. I think the other mages should only contribute to paths they actually have a level in.


That would be a major rebalancing of gameplay... interesting, but possibly horrible. It's also a big enough change that it's vanishingly unlikely to occur.



3) Siege should be considered an activity as far as the Next command is concerned.

That seems sort of reasonable.

[Edi]

#3 goes pretty much against the idea of communions, which is to provide a temporary boost to the master for the duration of a battle. Would be the same as a mage with E2 casting Summon Earthpower and then forging an E3 item without actual path boosters.

One turn is one month, and the item crafting process is complicated, involved and spread out over the month, which is way longer than a temporary communion could be maintained.

In my opinion, such permanent communions as the idea entails run counter to the way of how magic is supposed to work in the Dominions universe. Your mileage may vary.

[vladikus]

Well, while this suggestions are being proposed I'll go ahead and make mine despite its preposterousness and triteness. When I beat the game, as far as I can remember, I only really received a message saying I had become a God and then was shot back to the main menu screen. How anticlimactic after a long grueling campaign!

Why not make the ending different based on how many enemies you killed or provinces you conquered or turns you took to beat the game. Think of it like Tetris: based on your performance you would have a different ending. I know, it's likely not possible for anyone here to do, but I'd like to see it nonetheless.

Come on... don't lie and say you wouldn't like to to see your pretender do a little dance across the screen upon victory.

[lch]

Originally, you never were supposed to finish the game. The anticlimatic end is more of a "Uh, you won. Sorry."

[Gregstrom]

Yes, something like the victory screenshot from the Amiga version of Nuclear War would be sort of appropriate.

[Squirrelloid]

As long as we're tossing out suggestions...

Use the terms 'heavy' and 'light' appropriately. (Seriously, 'light' means a primary ranged weapon, not that they're wearing lighter armor - although historically these tended to go hand-in-hand because light infantry/cavalry were more cost effective without the heavier armor, its not what the terms mean). And when I use these terms below I intend them in their actual military sense.

More historical unit performance and army performance. For example:
*Sufficiently long weapons receive first strikes when charged (enemy moves up to them). Ie, pikes vs. cavalry.
*Heavy cavalry 'trample' and penetrate into units of troops they charge.
*Heavy cavalry 'cause fear' against infantry. (Undisciplined units should break and run in the face of a heavy cavalry charge, especially light infantry).
*light cavalry actually uses historical light cavalry tactics (shoot while falling back) - this may require larger battle maps. The muslim armies during the first crusade lured crusader armies into ambushes by harassing with light cavalry and then leading them in apparent retreat, often for over a mile or more - all the while firing back at the pursuers - until the pursuing crusaders were surrounded and overwhelmed by ambushing forces.
*Armies which are defending a territory entrench themselves. Archers put down archer stakes in front of their position. Units construct earthen ramparts, etc... Similarly, sieging armies of at least some nations should be able to practice circumvallation (building an earthen rampart all around the sieged city). Notably the Rome themed nations, since this was Rome's historical siege tactic.
*Cities which are starved long enough surrender.
*light infantry attempt to fall back and regroup when melee units get too close.
*light infantry receive the ability to 'Fire Rearmost'.
*Units behave more like units and less like loosely aligned mobs. In particular, they should hold formation when at all possible. (melee will necessarily involve breaks in the line and whatnot, but they should move together as a unit even if some individuals are faster than others).
*Armies should be allowed to pillage in the turn they conquer a province (seriously, its a month between turns). Ie, a 'move and pillage' command. The hundred years war was mostly a conflict of armies pillaging the countryside with the opposing side trying to chase them down and make them fight. (Ideally, moving and pillaging should not cause the territory to change hands, but it produces nothing for the owner, cannot produce units while occupied, and the pillager gains gold and gems at some % of the territories normal rate. Pillaging armies with a map speed higher than 1 should be able to ignore PD (PD is too slow to assemble to deal with an army that doesn't intend to actually fight).
*Mounted units require appropriate amounts of food. If people are size 2 and horses are size 3, each mounted person should require food for a size 2 and a size 3 individual. Similarly, they should consume air (from air producing items) appropriately. The way the game currently handles it the rider should starve, and also suffocate when brought underwater via an item which produces a fixed quantity of air.
*Ability to provide logistics for your armies without magic. Living off the local province is not the only way to feed an army without magic.

[Humakty]

@squirrelloid : I thought about modding in supply chariots for every faction, but it would completely imbalance the game, as the gluttony characteristic would be completely neutered, as well as armies of big size troops ...etc

[Wrana]

To squirrellord:
Unfortunately, these require writing a new game engine. Except the first one about heavy cavalry - but then, it's not particularly needed: they already can kill 1-2 infantry a turn, which is not worse than with Size 3 trample.
The last one is actually present: your troops gain supplies from your nearby forts, which decline with more distance from fort. And some nations do get supplies-producing units.
And, of course, fire-and-flee order is present - it's just mostly useless. If you are going to try and make a new engine... well, then we can discuss this. This game was made by 2 people, after all! ;)

[Squirrelloid]

To squirrellord:
Unfortunately, these require writing a new game engine. Except the first one about heavy cavalry - but then, it's not particularly needed: they already can kill 1-2 infantry a turn, which is not worse than with Size 3 trample.
The last one is actually present: your troops gain supplies from your nearby forts, which decline with more distance from fort. And some nations do get supplies-producing units.
And, of course, fire-and-flee order is present - it's just mostly useless. If you are going to try and make a new engine... well, then we can discuss this. This game was made by 2 people, after all! ;)

Cavalry and trample:
I suppose what I mean by trample is the horses trample - the rider should still get his normal attacks. But 'trampling' into the enemy unit would allow more cavalry to take their attacks (again, mimicing historical behavior). For a late example of the continued importance to shock cavalry of breaking into the enemy ranks, consider the ~17th century pistol and saber cavalry, who used their pistols to open holes in the enemy formation so they could interpenetrate. The lance helped achieve a similar effect before professional pikemen became common (ie, before ~1350).

Infantry units who have their ranks broken should also take a morale penalty, fwiw.

Supplies:
Local supply by a fort isn't what I'm talking about. The crusaders during the first crusade managed to supply an army in the holy land far from any local supply centers. This seems like an emminently reasonable thing for at least organized civilizations to be able to do.

Fire and Flee:
Except flee actually involves running away, not just withdrawal to a prepared position or merely keeping the opponent at arm's length. There's no 'ambush', no 'turn and fight after fleeing so long'. And no real disadvantage to the pursuing army in pursuit. (The actual history of medieval warfare shows that unrestrained pursuit is a failure of troop discipline, and generally leads to disaster. I'm reminded of the triple alliance of the Khan of Persia, the Crusader states, and the Georgian christians against the muslim armies. The Crusader states defeated the rearguard (left flank of their enemy) and pursued them for miles. While they were busy chasing beaten enemies, their allies were defeated decisively and lost the battle, whereas if they'd regrouped and flanked the muslim armies it would have been a decisive allied victory).

I find tactical flight of the nature i'm talking about distinct from retreat, which is what the fire and flee seems to represent (since it actually cedes control of something the size of a province). You might also consider the experience of the Romans (infantry) agains the Parthians (primarily light cavalry). The Romans couldn't bring the Parthians to melee, the Parthians rode circles around them and annihilated every legion ever sent to fight them.

I suppose there are two problems here: 1) the battlefield is so small that rather little force is sufficient to compel a foe to melee. A cavalry unit should be able to keep out of range of a melee unit indefinitely if it so desires. 2) ranged units do not attempt to keep out of range of shock units. Given that classical light infantry (slingers especially) and all light cavalry routinely used their improved mobility to deny shock combat to the enemy, this is a failure of modelling.

New - army strategic choices
Speaking of bizarre. Anyone who knows anything of pre-Napoleonic military combat knows that the hardest thing to do was to compel an opponent to fight. Generals should be able to be given strategic settings that tell them when to engage and when to refuse to engage when challenged by another army. The only way to force an army to fight when its determined to flee should be when every route of escape leads to an entanglement with military forces (in which case the initially encountered army should be fought, potentially in combination with whichever military units it tried to withdraw into. And I don't mean go to battle map and have every unit start withdrawing, I mean no battle occurs (the enemy army never gets that close) unless the retreating army is cut off.

New engine:
Most of this is really just tweaking the engine a bit - I'm sure given access to the code base I could figure out how to implement all of that. Honestly, some of it (handling units as entities instead of individual people) would probably make things easier in the long run.

So, for example:
-Starved fortresses surrender: Implement a counter during the phase where you check to see if the walls are breached that counts down until fortress surrender. (trivial)

-light infantry attempt to fall back when shock troops get too close: Each light infantry unit would need a metric of too close, although you could just make it 'is within movement range of an enemy shock unit'. Unit then moves backwards until it reaches a 'safe' distance and reforms. This is a quick If/Then check at the start of the units action. (easy)

-Units behave more like units and less like mobs: This is the most profound change I proposed, actually. Its also the most desirable. So, there are two ways you can go about this: (1) define a unit entity which has a depth and facing size, and move that unit entity instead of moving individual guys (this substantially decreases the processor work because it aggregates decisions). Or (2) have individual models know where in the unit they are and check stay in the same position relative to other models in the unit. This is aided by doing things like checking the slowest speed in the unit and capping all model speeds at that speed. I'd vastly prefer #1 for a number of reasons, such as because you can have individual sub-entities which take damage and make attacks, but you don't need to make many AI decisions below the unit level (substantially increasing game performance). I'd need some help implementing this because I'm not used to working with graphical applications, but given a week and someone to ask questions of I could probably figure it out. (Moderate)

[LDiCesare]

-Units behave more like units and less like mobs: This is the most profound change I proposed, actually. Its also the most desirable. So, there are two ways you can go about this: (1) define a unit entity which has a depth and facing size, and move that unit entity instead of moving individual guys (this substantially decreases the processor work because it aggregates decisions). Or (2) have individual models know where in the unit they are and check stay in the same position relative to other models in the unit. This is aided by doing things like checking the slowest speed in the unit and capping all model speeds at that speed. I'd vastly prefer #1 for a number of reasons, such as because you can have individual sub-entities which take damage and make attacks, but you don't need to make many AI decisions below the unit level (substantially increasing game performance). I'd need some help implementing this because I'm not used to working with graphical applications, but given a week and someone to ask questions of I could probably figure it out. (Moderate)
Actually, I think individual fighters already know which unit they are part of. If you give an attack order to a 50-man unit, the 50 men will swarm around lone opponents in front of the enemies rather than go through an dfight behind. They swarm around their target instead of staying in square formation (they should have more than a square formation if we wanted more realism)
Regarding point (2),it's not graphic. It's a simulation on a terrain, but graphics don't matter.
Problems happen when units get killed and you want to regroup. If the forward left part of the unit has been killed and they want to stay in square, then units from left back and right must move left and forward to fill the gaps.

I don't think Illwinter's ever going to do something like that.

[Sombre]

I don't think Illwinter's ever going to do something like that.

This is sort of a pointless thing to state in this thread :]

[happygeek]

I'm very new here so excuse me, just an idea, but I think it would be nice:

Sets of items, much like in Diablo II, could confer really interesting boni.
Consider, for example, a Lesser Item, a cap (call it: Tarnhelm) which requires N2A1 to build and offers some protection against lightning and darkvision; consider a Greater Item, a cape (call it: Mist Pelt) which requires E3N1 to build, and offers some frost protection and small magic resistance; consider another Greater Item, a ring (call it: Seal of the Secret Priests), it costs S3W2 to build and it gives its wearer a nice patrolling bonus and immunity to rituals which pick the wearer up and transport him somewhere else (friend or foe).
(Just off the top of my head, and I didnt think of balanced costs right now).
But if you wear ALL THREE TOGETHER you unlock a "set", say, "Disguise of the High Priests", and you get, in addition, stealth +5. (Or whatever.) (I realize Stealth is too nice an attribute to get so easily, hence my requirement of many different paths for all 3 of the set and the necessity to block a misc, body, and head slot.)
I can imagine that this could be made in a patch? Just an idea...

[Illuminated One]

The mechanics are already in -> Axes of Rulership.

[vfb]

Plus you get Awe+0 as a side effect of dual wielding the Twin Spears (leadership+100).

[happygeek]

Wow! I missed those! Maybe when I am big and strong I will mod my "Disguise" and other sets if I figure out how it works?

[llamabeast]

Sadly there's very little you can do with item modding.

[Squirrelloid]

-Units behave more like units and less like mobs: This is the most profound change I proposed, actually. Its also the most desirable. So, there are two ways you can go about this: (1) define a unit entity which has a depth and facing size, and move that unit entity instead of moving individual guys (this substantially decreases the processor work because it aggregates decisions). Or (2) have individual models know where in the unit they are and check stay in the same position relative to other models in the unit. This is aided by doing things like checking the slowest speed in the unit and capping all model speeds at that speed. I'd vastly prefer #1 for a number of reasons, such as because you can have individual sub-entities which take damage and make attacks, but you don't need to make many AI decisions below the unit level (substantially increasing game performance). I'd need some help implementing this because I'm not used to working with graphical applications, but given a week and someone to ask questions of I could probably figure it out. (Moderate)
Actually, I think individual fighters already know which unit they are part of. If you give an attack order to a 50-man unit, the 50 men will swarm around lone opponents in front of the enemies rather than go through an dfight behind. They swarm around their target instead of staying in square formation (they should have more than a square formation if we wanted more realism)
Regarding point (2),it's not graphic. It's a simulation on a terrain, but graphics don't matter.
Problems happen when units get killed and you want to regroup. If the forward left part of the unit has been killed and they want to stay in square, then units from left back and right must move left and forward to fill the gaps.

I don't think Illwinter's ever going to do something like that.

The things that really annoy me are behaviors like mixed-speed units break up as they charge pell-mell down the field. Disciplined troops should not do that. Ie, anything better than irregulars (irregulars are generally militia or forced conscripts when it comes to shock troops).

As to filling gaps, if you define a unit entity then a massive loss in, say, teh middle would lead to a recalculation of unit facing length/depth. Its not like troops don't move to close holes in the line in shock combat - having a hole punched in your line is bad for you. It means the enemy can separate you and defeat you in detail.

[Loren]

Supplies:
Local supply by a fort isn't what I'm talking about. The crusaders during the first crusade managed to supply an army in the holy land far from any local supply centers. This seems like an emminently reasonable thing for at least organized civilizations to be able to do.

Yeah. We have magical supply sources. How about some non-magical supplies? It would be a supply wagon unit--a troop type anyone could recruit anywhere. There would probably be a couple of them, say a 10 unit and a 100 unit one. They would only cost a gold but creating them would use up that much supply from the province--this could never cause the supplies to go negative. (Same as with resources--if there isn't enough supply the unit simply doesn't get built.)

If an army is short on food it eats supplies that are tagging along rather than starving.

I find tactical flight of the nature i'm talking about distinct from retreat, which is what the fire and flee seems to represent (since it actually cedes control of something the size of a province). You might also consider the experience of the Romans (infantry) agains the Parthians (primarily light cavalry). The Romans couldn't bring the Parthians to melee, the Parthians rode circles around them and annihilated every legion ever sent to fight them.

Agreed. Fast ranged troops should get a basically free victory over slower melee troops.

I suppose there are two problems here: 1) the battlefield is so small that rather little force is sufficient to compel a foe to melee. A cavalry unit should be able to keep out of range of a melee unit indefinitely if it so desires. 2) ranged units do not attempt to keep out of range of shock units. Given that classical light infantry (slingers especially) and all light cavalry routinely used their improved mobility to deny shock combat to the enemy, this is a failure of modelling.

Agreed. I think the battlefield should be infinitely long.

New - army strategic choices
Speaking of bizarre. Anyone who knows anything of pre-Napoleonic military combat knows that the hardest thing to do was to compel an opponent to fight. Generals should be able to be given strategic settings that tell them when to engage and when to refuse to engage when challenged by another army. The only way to force an army to fight when its determined to flee should be when every route of escape leads to an entanglement with military forces (in which case the initially encountered army should be fought, potentially in combination with whichever military units it tried to withdraw into. And I don't mean go to battle map and have every unit start withdrawing, I mean no battle occurs (the enemy army never gets that close) unless the retreating army is cut off.

This should depend on mobility. A faster army should always be able to bring a slower army to battle.

So, for example:
-Starved fortresses surrender: Implement a counter during the phase where you check to see if the walls are breached that counts down until fortress surrender. (trivial)

How about doing it as a morale check? Have two siege modes: light and heavy. In light siege mode the defenders have to make morale checks once the supplies run out, failure causes the unit(s) that failed to flee--they retreat from the province. In heavy siege mode the checks are against a lower threshold but a unit that fails surrenders (disbanded, the other side gets anything it was carrying). In light siege mode the defenders can be ordered to leave the province.

-light infantry attempt to fall back when shock troops get too close: Each light infantry unit would need a metric of too close, although you could just make it 'is within movement range of an enemy shock unit'. Unit then moves backwards until it reaches a 'safe' distance and reforms. This is a quick If/Then check at the start of the units action. (easy)

Yup. If there is an enemy unit within range, move away, otherwise shoot. If you're out of ammo and don't also have a melee weapon, keep moving away regardless of range.

-Units behave more like units and less like mobs: This is the most profound change I proposed, actually. Its also the most desirable. So, there are two ways you can go about this: (1) define a unit entity which has a depth and facing size, and move that unit entity instead of moving individual guys (this substantially decreases the processor work because it aggregates decisions).

I don't believe this would work--the formations would keep getting disrupted by the presence of other troops.

Or (2) have individual models know where in the unit they are and check stay in the same position relative to other models in the unit. This is aided by doing things like checking the slowest speed in the unit and capping all model speeds at that speed.

This is how I would implement it. At the start of battle each unit notes it's position within it's group and always seeks to maintain that. The group moves at the speed of the slowest mobile unit in it (anything that can't move gets left behind.)

[LDiCesare]

The things that really annoy me are behaviors like mixed-speed units break up as they charge pell-mell down the field. Disciplined troops should not do that. Ie, anything better than irregulars (irregulars are generally militia or forced conscripts when it comes to shock troops).
Yes. However, you have to take into account crippled units. If a soldier is crippled, you probably don't want him to cripple the movement of the whole unit. Crippled individuals should be removed from the computation somehow, so the unit would move at the 1st slowest decile speed for instance (means 9 units out of 10 move at least at that speed) rather than the slowest unit. Otherwise, you'd have to remove crippled units by hand systematically, which is a pain when you have big armies late-game, particularly if they get old or have fought a lot.

[thejeff]

It would also mean one lucky crippling arrow would bring a whole unit to a crawl. Not something you'd want or could do anything about.

Nor would you always want such unit discipline to apply to flanking cavalry, or the like.

Approaching the enemy front line in a solid unit is important, but if you're charging the archers who are mowing you down, you might not be so concerned.

[Squirrelloid]

It would also mean one lucky crippling arrow would bring a whole unit to a crawl. Not something you'd want or could do anything about.

Nor would you always want such unit discipline to apply to flanking cavalry, or the like.

Approaching the enemy front line in a solid unit is important, but if you're charging the archers who are mowing you down, you might not be so concerned.

Holding a line is far more important for shock infantry than anything else. Possibly there should also be a distinction between skirmishers and regular units.

And I'd rather a crippled unit just be removed as if killed. No one loses the use of a leg and keeps fighting - that's just silly.

[NTJedi]

Squirrelloid and Loren

Those are some interesting ideas, but Dominions_3 updates have virtually ended as Illwinter is developing a new game. Also Dominions_4 is not even being considered by Illwinter at this point, so I'd recommend storing all your ideas for when Dominions_4 does finally begin development... otherwise it's a forum discussion only amongst the community which doesn't go anywhere.

[Squirrelloid]

Squirrelloid and Loren

Those are some interesting ideas, but Dominions_3 updates have virtually ended as Illwinter is developing a new game. Also Dominions_4 is not even being considered by Illwinter at this point, so I'd recommend storing all your ideas for when Dominions_4 does finally begin development... otherwise it's a forum discussion only amongst the community which doesn't go anywhere.

That depends on how motivated people are =).

No, seriously, I'd be totally interested in collaborating on a purely historical tactical and/or strategic military simulator that gets it (mostly) right. I wouldn't mind doing a fantasy one either, but ideally you'd have this core historical simulator that you could append various levels of the fantastic to. I have some free time, but certainly don't have the expertise to do it all myself (in particular, I know nothing about the graphics end, and its been awhile since i've used a plausible language for doing this in).

I mean, this is a hypothetical 'this is what would make the game cool(er) for me' thread. But if someone with vision, motivation, and organization wanted to try to actually do something... I'd at least think about being involved. At one level there's 'ask the company to make it cooler', but at another level there's 'do it yourself'.

[Sombre]

So are you going to do it yourself? I don't get it. You can't dangle that carrot as justification for a load of hypotheticals unless you actually might do this stuff yourself.

[Squirrelloid]

So are you going to do it yourself? I don't get it. You can't dangle that carrot as justification for a load of hypotheticals unless you actually might do this stuff yourself.

I think I said I'd be willing to help if someone else was willing to organize such a project. I really don't have the time to do it entirely by myself right now, nor the expertise to do everything. (And while I can learn, that takes more time).

[chrispedersen]

I've done it before - had best game of 1993 by Computer Gaming Mag; mentions in other mags as well.

Game was called Suzerainty. Yeah I know. Sucky name.

Anyway... have a game idea in mind. Interested in workers. Sweat equity venture..

Interested?

[Sombre]

This 'someone else' guy is evidently awesome, but he also seems quite busy. I think he has ideas from at least 50 people on these forums alone on his to do list ;]

[Ballbarian]

Ideas and detailed hypotheticals are incredibly valuable. The entire SemiRandom project was born of someone else's vision. One of the projects that I have been working on currently was prompted by a thread on these forums. Threads like this one can be a great resource for the "someone else" guys. (But you are right Sombre. We are awesome & busy! :) )

[Sombre]

Ideas and detailed hypotheticals are incredibly valuable. The entire SemiRandom project was born of someone else's vision. One of the projects that I have been working on currently was prompted by a thread on these forums. Threads like this one can be a great resource for the "someone else" guys. (But you are right Sombre. We are awesome & busy! :) )

I agree they /can/ theoretically be useful, but the noise rate appears to be somewhere around 99.99%. You say semirand was born of someone's vision, fair enough. I highly doubt it was this kind of brainstorming. Semirand's fundamental ideas are not pie in the sky and never were. There's a LOT we can already do regarding dom3, but these kind of threads go way, way beyond those limits imo. And since we're using personal examples, I haven't found a single useful idea amongst any of the vast number of 'brainstorming' posts on these forums.

[Gandalf Parker]

No, seriously, I'd be totally interested in collaborating

If you mean Illwinter (the Dom3 devs) if I remember there is a language requirement (swedish? finish?).

There are tons of such projects that you can just jump in on.
You might check the Shrapnels forums. I remember that the Combat Command Series guy (Horse & Musket amoung other award winning games) asked for more programmers here a couple years back. Shrapnel has put out various calls. For Female game programmers. And another thread to gather together programmers, sound, graphics, writers, etc to try and do a collaborative in-house project (I dont think it got past the discussion of what kind of game it should be).

But I digress. Its no longer my place to mention those. I would suggest that you check out SourceForge which has tons of open source projects for games and you can jump in with any side skill involved with game development.

[Ballbarian]

Ideas and detailed hypotheticals are incredibly valuable. The entire SemiRandom project was born of someone else's vision. One of the projects that I have been working on currently was prompted by a thread on these forums. Threads like this one can be a great resource for the "someone else" guys. (But you are right Sombre. We are awesome & busy! :) )

I agree they /can/ theoretically be useful, but the noise rate appears to be somewhere around 99.99%. You say semirand was born of someone's vision, fair enough. I highly doubt it was this kind of brainstorming. Semirand's fundamental ideas are not pie in the sky and never were. There's a LOT we can already do regarding dom3, but these kind of threads go way, way beyond those limits imo. And since we're using personal examples, I haven't found a single useful idea amongst any of the vast number of 'brainstorming' posts on these forums.

Certainly too far fetched for a Dom3 patch, but I am thinking in broader terms. Yet another personal example is a game project that I have fiddled with for several years now. It is a blend of concepts from Dom3 and Lords of the Realm 2. There are pages and pages of conjecture, sample algorithms & programs scattered across my hard drive that are all about ideas. Time that I spend in a text document thinking through game concepts and mechanics is time not spent writing the program. A discussion like this one is very interesting to me as the pitfalls of a given feature or technique are weeded out. It's not so much a step by step manual of what to do, but rather food for thought.

It might be argued that the discussion is wandering away from Dom3 possibilities and should therefore be squelched. I wonder if it might be interesting to the developers regardless?

(Sorry for going so far OT myself.) :)

[Illuminated One]

Well, I do find it interesting, from a slightly similar point of view.
And it is certainly doing no harm.

[NTJedi]

It might be argued that the discussion is wandering away from Dom3 possibilities and should therefore be squelched.
Just more useful if the ideas are placed on the shelf until Dominions_4 begins. I've provided a healthy list of improvements for Dominions over the years, yet I know reviving them will not provide any changes, until we know development of Dominions_4 begins.
Squirrelloid mentioned willing to help someone lead a project for his idea which is extremely unlikely to happen. Now if he was leading the project and already has working pieces than he might be able to find someone to help him with a few adjustments/improvements.

[Squirrelloid]

It might be argued that the discussion is wandering away from Dom3 possibilities and should therefore be squelched.
Just more useful if the ideas are placed on the shelf until Dominions_4 begins. I've provided a healthy list of improvements for Dominions over the years, yet I know reviving them will not provide any changes, until we know development of Dominions_4 begins.
Squirrelloid mentioned willing to help someone lead a project for his idea which is extremely unlikely to happen. Now if he was leading the project and already has working pieces than he might be able to find someone to help him with a few adjustments/improvements.

Ah to have that kind of time. No seriously.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think that some of the best ideas that became useful to this community were not treated well when offered just as ideas. But they did help move us forward when someone else was sparked by the idea to flesh it out.

[Sombre]

Examples?

[Gandalf Parker]

Not like they were actually attacked. Some might have been but I tend not to remember things like that. This community is too great for that. But sometimes the helpful suggestions werent always taken as helpful suggestions by the original poster. :)

[lch]

I agree they /can/ theoretically be useful, but the noise rate appears to be somewhere around 99.99%.
I have to back up Sombre on that one. I have TONS of very awesome ideas. Ideas that I very much wish somebody else would implement for me, or even just help me to work on. And sometimes I do fail (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39527) to restrain myself from propagating them, though I know that to walk the walk is a lot more difficult than to talk the talk. I haven't seen anybody seriously saying "Hey, I want to do something awesome, but I don't know what, give me something to work on" and then following through with it here - so as far as market economies are concerned, there is a lot more supply than demand for ideas to work on here. I'm very glad that there are a couple of altruistic people here that find the energy to make sure that not everything stays at the "idea" level.

Regarding suggestions to the devs, I wouldn't condemn them, the devs should see those suggestions as a form of flattery. People do care about their game, even when they criticize it. But those people should be very, very aware that their suggestions, however good and meaningful they might be, will have minimal chance of getting implemented, for various good reasons.

[Gandalf Parker]

There are always more ideas than results. The other side of the coin (often seen in the open source world and mmorpgs) is the abundance of experts offering assistance who never follow thru which is probably another version of the same thing. Id rather have the semi-productive ideas than the non-productive help if I had to choose.

Anyway Im not sure that holding back the ideas is a good idea. :)
Altho it does have a drawback of lost credit. Ive been promised any number of times to be mentioned in the credits (even on this forum) for extensive email conversations fleshing out a project that I recommended and others have finished. Luckily Im not real bothered by that but if I was then I would certainly understand holding back the flow of ideas. You would probably have to even take into account that some of the projects which were completed by the original suggester were more often IMHO spurred on by people saying they want it. Not to mention the projects done out of spite for the original persons refusal to do "such a simple task".

Squelching idea conversations or DIY responses might have had a large impact on this community altho we will never really know. Im not sure if we would have CBM, or SemiRand, or a pbem server. Or map generators (even the in-game one), or the many map modification utilities. Are you sure that the utilities for checking status on online games, or score charts, or backups would have just appeared out of the blue without someone requesting it?

Then there are any number of popular modded nations, spells, AI improvements, special maps which I think sparked from an idea put forth not by the person who developed the mod. Im probably biased or dont fully understand what the wealth of worthless ideas was.

Gandalf Parker

[Gandalf Parker]

Come to think of it this might all boil down to the age-old preferences for forums. Thats a conversation Ive had often with many forum owners. There are many sliding scales with forums and one is how much preference the owner has for a quieter newbies ask and elites answer Q&A forum vs the more active higher noise ratio of community conversation newbies talk to newbies. How much are OT posts slapped, how much editing of threads, etc.

[chrispedersen]

There are always more ideas than results.

"When all is said and done, there's much more said than done".

Sorta cuz its easier to talk than do = ).

[Sombre]

Come to think of it this might all boil down to the age-old preferences for forums. Thats a conversation Ive had often with many forum owners. There are many sliding scales with forums and one is how much preference the owner has for a quieter newbies ask and elites answer Q&A forum vs the more active higher noise ratio of community conversation newbies talk to newbies. How much are OT posts slapped, how much editing of threads, etc.

That isn't the issue. We aren't talking about non idea noise. The fact is there are more people coming up with ideas (regardless of quality) than there are people willing to implement the ideas of others. As evidenced by the many, many threads like this and the near total lack of results from them.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im sorry.
But I feel thats just an impression. I think that many of the conversations like this did end up creating something which everyone went on to enjoy. I would not give it a 90%-or-greater failure rate at all.

Im also quite aware that if I did give it a percentage it would just be my own impression and probably be just as incorrect on the other side of the real setting. But there are only a few major threads that stick in my mind as completely failed conversations while many come to mind as producing worthwhile results. Much fewer results would have come about if the person didnt bring it up as an idea first but simply pursued it on their own.

[chrispedersen]

I agree with you gandalf. I have seen many ideas implemented here, as the result of discussion.

[Sombre]

"Much fewer results would have come about if the person didnt bring it up as an idea first but simply pursued it on their own."

That's patently untrue. There would be far more out there in terms of mods, utilities and games if people actually did something about their ideas rather than posting them up for someone else to do (which almost never happens).

chrisp - discussion of the game is a very different beast from idea threads like this.

[MaxWilson]

That isn't the issue. We aren't talking about non idea noise. The fact is there are more people coming up with ideas (regardless of quality) than there are people willing to implement the ideas of others. As evidenced by the many, many threads like this and the near total lack of results from them.

It may not have Dom3 results, but it's given me some ideas for my GURPS project. The comment on infinitely long battlefields, for instance[1].

-Max

[1] The insight here being that you can be infinite in only one dimension without hurting the tactical complexity much if at all, while possibly making the UI and gameplay more fun.

[sector24]

For some people the glass is half full.
For some people the glass is half empty.
For some people the glass is made of glass and it could break and cut you.

My friends always tell me I'm #3.

[Gandalf Parker]

"Much fewer results would have come about if the person didnt bring it up as an idea first but simply pursued it on their own."

That's patently untrue. There would be far more out there in terms of mods, utilities and games if people actually did something about their ideas rather than posting them up for someone else to do (which almost never happens).

Ahhhh I see. We are not talking about the same thing. Not quite anyway.

What you say is true. IF every idea was tackled by the initial person and completed then there would be more. But that isnt very likely.

On the other hand, some of our best stuff would not have happened without someone bringing up the idea and someone else finishing it.

It wouldnt take many suggested-that-someone-else-finished to outnumber the number that were finished by a DIY response. My impression is that most of those simply died on the vine, or were sloppily done then taken up by someone else anyway.

Not to mention that some of the most interesting discussions on here would not have happened. :)

[Dragar]

I don't think it ever hurts to put ideas up, whether or not they are implemented. First rule of brainstorming is not to stifle any ideas, no matter how impractical they seem. If 100 ideas are put forward and out of them 1 great one is picked up and implemented by someone, then they are all worthwhile.

Besides, who knows which great idea will spark renewed interest in Dom3 by the devs?

[lch]

It isn't hard to pat each other on the shoulders here and say that we're all big pals and great guys, and everything is wonderful. That's not only quite easy, but also very reassuring and condescending. Lots of room for doing so, too. But I don't really see why that would be needed.

Newbies, yes, those will receive a lot of good will and encouragement. Unless they come here with a bad attitude. But apart from a few examples of know-alls, that started on the wrong foot, most people come here with questions, or they say "I want to do X", or "I have made X, here it is".

There are always more ideas than results.
Naturally. For every successful, completed project, there are many failed projects, a lot of canceled projects, an enormous amount of planned projects that never emerged. If we're talking ideas, there are myriads. I'm not a gardener, but I don't want to see the endless forest of possibilities, where it's uncertain if things ever make it. It's confusing, at best.

Id rather have the semi-productive ideas than the non-productive help if I had to choose.
If I'd have to connect words, I'd always pair up "help" with "semi-productive" and "ideas" as "non-productive". Everybody has ideas. It's not like there was any shortage because anybody is lacking the ability. It's different if somebody would actually be asking for ideas, of course.

Anyway Im not sure that holding back the ideas is a good idea. :)
Altho it does have a drawback of lost credit.
If they stay at the idea level, they're debilitating. Especially if others see that those ideas are not getting realized, then something seems wrong. Especially if ideas repeatedly fail to get realized, people get the impression that nobody really bothers about realizing them.

There's lots of obvious applications that come to mind, and I'm not the only one who can come up with "Wouldn't it be nice if..." / "Wouldn't ... be cool?", but as long as there's no indication that it isn't more than a fantasy, claiming credit for those things seem preposterous, even though the achiever in question could honor it out of his good will, of course. If somebody gives even a half-assed attempt at realizing the ideas that he brought forward, this would become a better world. It could entice others to try and make something similar, or do better, to enhance that effort in some areas, or to pick up where that person stopped later. That's what leads to progress.

Not to mention the projects done out of spite for the original persons refusal to do "such a simple task".
I'm trying to do that, and it practically never, ever works. :) Maybe it works if you try it often enough, after the 1000th time. I can spite all I want. I can spite, beg, order, ask, compliment people to work on something that I want, and it doesn't work - the only thing that does seem to work well is living by example.

Im not sure if we would have CBM, or SemiRand, or a pbem server. Or map generators (even the in-game one), or the many map modification utilities.
Those are all things from Dom2 times or maybe even earlier, before I got here. Those have produced spin-offs and successors. I think the in-game Dom3 map editor wouldn't have necessarily come into existence if the Dominions community wouldn't have come up with a similar software in the first place. Not saying that JK borrowed from the code, but I'd assume that he probably was inspired by the effort.

Are you sure that the utilities for checking status on online games, or score charts, or backups would have just appeared out of the blue without someone requesting it?
Since those are all things that I have been working on: Yes, I am very sure of that. Those things are obvious applications, and since I was hosting multiplayer games I thought "Hey, this would be cool to have for my users, and I know that I can do it." Nobody asked me to do that, and I am unaware of the existence of any such things, server-wise. So I sat down, wasted a week or more of work on those things, and came up with a product. I have heard from others that it was inspirational for them, too, and enticed them to try out and create things from some ideas of their own - the best compliment I can think of.

Im probably biased or dont fully understand what the wealth of worthless ideas was.
Often, demands masked as helpful suggestions. I don't have anything against ideas, and I'm encouraging people to realize their ideas, and offer my help to them when I can. Which happened often. I'd just be very wary to continue complimenting people that do no else than cough up ideas and then - nothing. The danger is that they might get too used to that.

[Sombre]

I don't think it ever hurts to put ideas up, whether or not they are implemented. First rule of brainstorming is not to stifle any ideas, no matter how impractical they seem. If 100 ideas are put forward and out of them 1 great one is picked up and implemented by someone, then they are all worthwhile.

Or alternatively, the 99 poorly thought out/unfeasible ideas more or less bound to bear no fruit act as noise to drown out the one good idea. It's completely possible for those coming up with ideas to at least partially filter the useless stuff themselves, even if they aren't going to actually do any of it (god forbid). At least then there would be less noise.

As an example, I fill a productive role here. I am far less likely to catch that one good idea (a mythical beast) which is better than any ideas I personally have (or I wouldn't work on it, obviously) if it comes from the source of 99 previous useless ideas.

Bottom line is coming up with ideas (even good, well thought out ones) is much, much easier than actually realising them. I know people don't want to hear that, but it's true. On top of that the people who are actually productive seem to have /better/ ideas in the first place, since they actually know what can be done. If I'm out of ideas for mods I know who I'll ask first - they're all modders.

[Illuminated One]

I really don't see your point(s).
Yes, actually modding things in is more productive and harder to do than just having ideas. So? There is no need for being productive here, everything said or done on this forum is just for fun (or at least it should be). If someone steps up to do anything that he or someone else proposed that's nice, but in no way compulsory. Neither is it neccessary to know what cannot be done (besides that's a relative term).
If the thread somehow annoys you just don't read it (and I don't buy it that the 99 unimplementable ideas hinder you implementing a good one, when you make pretty clear that you wouldn't dare think of ever doing something that came up on threads like this). If it is against forum rules the mods can close it. Problem solved.

Besides I don't view all of these ideas as just some hints about what should be implemented into dom. They might start a train of thought going somewhere else, or show preferences, point out problems, etc (which might be useful if someone else would be making his own game). And yes, even in that context 99% are useless - but then, it's everyone's own decision if he tries to make something out of it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yeah Im not sure either.
Its not as if slowing the idea threads would increase modding.
Maybe its commentary on the quality of the ideas being posted?
Or how they are posted (daybream, discussion, request, wishlist, whine)?

I would consider CBM to be the top example of a popular mod that sprung from requests and has been fueled by discussion of desired improvements in the game. Or maybe no_indie maps. Llamaserver? The various save-game utilities? Im guessing that something like MegaGame (all nations in one game) is an example of one that got done but not the right way? Or SemiRand?

[Sombre]

I'm not complaining about this thread. If people want to talk about this stuff they're welcome of course. The only time it's irritating is when it comes up in threads where it probably shouldn't (such as in many mod threads) or it is coupled with this whole "someone else should do this" "my job is to provide the ideas" attitude. Having been at this forum a couple of years, I've gotten a little tired of people posting about things they want in the game and how someone should add them, then not listening when they are told how easy it would be for them to add them, or contribute something useful.

Obviously when I say 'productive' I mean I contribute something to this community, for fun, which lengthens the lifespan of the game and leads to more people having fun with it. It's not work, I don't need thanks and I don't expect people to do it if they don't find it fun. But I will continue to roll my eyes at people who consistently talk big and do nothing, while asking others to do what they want.

The 99 bad ideas have already caused me to stop listening. That's the whole point. I started out trying to help people realise their ideas with mod commands, play options and so on, but after a certain amount of time you learn to recognise when people are just jabbering away about nothing. That's worth criticising, frankly. If everyone did it we would barely have a community.

[llamabeast]

It annoys me Gandalf when you say (as you frequently do) that the LlamaServer arose from a community discussion, or from one of your suggestions, because unless my memory has failed me it didn't. It was just an obvious opportunity for useful automation (I could never imagine having the patience of the people who ran PBEM games by hand), and I thought it would be fun to try. You did help me with a command line command for starting new games which has proved quite invaluable (and which I appreciate), but that is different. Sorry to say that, but it annoys me - unlike Sombre I don't really mind people saying a lot of stuff and not doing it, but it is somewhat grating people taking implied credit for ideas they didn't even suggest.

If my memory has failed me of course, which it sometimes does, I apologise.

[quantum_mechani]

I would consider CBM to be the top example of a popular mod that sprung from requests and has been fueled by discussion of desired improvements in the game.I'd just like to point out that, as much as I've tried to get discussion going on specific CB changes, out of all the CB changes maybe 5% have been related to discussions on the forum. So while I certainly value all the input I've received (especially to tell when some change has gone too far), I would hardly say it is what fuels the mod.

[Gandalf Parker]

It annoys me Gandalf when you say (as you frequently do) that the LlamaServer arose from a community discussion, or from one of your suggestions, because unless my memory has failed me it didn't.
Nahh. The thought of Llama server was more the comment about promised credit lines. Not a big deal. Luckily Im not one who does things for credit. But thanks for remembering.

[Sombre]

I would consider CBM to be the top example of a popular mod that sprung from requests and has been fueled by discussion of desired improvements in the game. Or maybe no_indie maps. Llamaserver? The various save-game utilities? Im guessing that something like MegaGame (all nations in one game) is an example of one that got done but not the right way? Or SemiRand?

CBM benefits from the discussions of a relatively restricted group of players who have a good sense of what can be done and what would work. It is still largely authored by qm, who puts in the actual work involved. It has nothing to do with the kind of 'brainstorming' I'm talking about. You'd have to ask qm to see if he finds those kind of posts useful - I see no evidence of them in cbm though.

NI maps were conceptually created by edi who mentiond offhand what setting the poptype too high would do. I shared a couple of map files I'd applied this theory to, because I personally found them enjoyable, not as a response to other people talking pie in the sky. A couple of other guys made scripts to NI any map in response to the map files I'd put out.

llamaserver is basically Llama's hard work. Like cbm it probably benefits from tweaks suggested by people who actually know what they're talking about. I assume llama ignores people who make silly requests and describe fantasyland ideal utilities.

SemiRand I'm not very familiar with, but I'd say once again it didn't benefit from half baked ideas with no grounding in what's possible.

Frankly I think you're just being ridiculous with those examples. None of them were born from the kind of useless brainstorming I'm talking about. You act as if I'm saying there can be no ideas from discussion, no tweaks suggested by users of mods and utilities, no response to a perceived want or need of the community.

[lch]

It annoys me Gandalf when you say (as you frequently do) that the LlamaServer arose from a community discussion, or from one of your suggestions, because unless my memory has failed me it didn't. It was just an obvious opportunity for useful automation (I could never imagine having the patience of the people who ran PBEM games by hand), and I thought it would be fun to try.
This is kind of off-topic, but I have to add that I had similar plans for a fully web-automated Dom3 game server (I still do), though as a non-PBEM server, and I had been working on it infrequently, when your game server popped up and monopolized the market. :) Which is perfectly fine, since it's good for the player community and you doing it saves me a lot of time and trouble to maintain it, which I can put into other projects instead. That's one such "obvious application" that I was speaking of, which doesn't require that one carefully reads through dozens of suggestions to think about. A lot of things that popped up over time could be expected. Some other things popped up which I wouldn't have thought about, too, of course, as somebody else can be creative and have the required motivation and determination to realize something, too.

[Gandalf Parker]

On further checking I have to apologize to Llamabeast. My memory on some fun conversations is tooooo long.

Alneyan ironed out the original pbem stuff. And I think Arralen. I dont remember even playing a pbem Dom game yet much less run one. Esben Mose Hansen if anyone would have (possibly) more credit for initially for a pbem server since he had the first working server up and made the code available. (too complicated for me. Used python and sql)

All I did was a Dom3 webpage but never made it actually start games.
http://www.dom3minions.com/lab/MakeGame.htm
That was way back when there was talk of the possiblity of an official Shrapnel server. I kept popping it up in conversations to show that it could be done.

@LB: I do apologize. The search engine here is crap but it does appear that most of the conversation I remember was almost a year before you started your project. I apologize for thinking you had seen all that before it jumped into your head. We do all appreciate your work (especially me)

Sheesh does anyone else think Im talking about me? The only examples Ive given that Id chalk up to me were the "probably examples of things done wrong" such as mega games and semirand. The only other projects I had major input in are pretty much dead (mostly involving maps and map gens). I was trying to come up with examples where there was lots of discussion on how nice it would be and how it might be done. Maybe I do need to just bow to the idea that we all just do our own $#!^.

Or as Sombre says, maybe it just comes down to the quality. Ive always left that rating up to him. Obviously I can enjoy a discussion no matter how likely it ever might actually happen so Im afraid Im not the one to care about that if its important. It would probably be impossible for me to come up with a conversation that was impossible to do and led to it being done :) (at least outside of the beta group forum) so I concede.

@QM: Sorry to hear that there isnt much conversation in the threads. I had the impression it was community agreement. I remember many argument threads that had to be stomped about balance which CBM pretty much took care of. I thought those were the first shell of it.
Still awfully good work though. Kudos to you for it.

[lch]

Esben Mose Hansen if anyone would have (possibly) more credit for initially for a pbem server since he had the first working server up and made the code available. (too complicated for me. Used python and sql)
Perl, not Python! Unfortunately, to me. :( But yes, kudos to him for making those things available.

[llamabeast]

Oh. That was all before my time actually. Maybe I've been repeating his work! Mine's also in perl. Sorry lch!

I think I may try to learn Python sometime soon. C# too.

[Gandalf Parker]

Nice.

Heehee. The CGI I was working on to act behind that web page was written in BASIC. Almost a certain guarantee that someone would have reworked it. A web app written in basic is sacrilege. :)

[NTJedi]

Oh. That was all before my time actually. Maybe I've been repeating his work! Mine's also in perl. Sorry lch!

I think I may try to learn Python sometime soon. C# too.

I've read the game Elemental from Stardock will allow modding of the AI via Python. Lots of other modding options will also be available... might be the perfect place to start.

:)

[lch]

Oh. That was all before my time actually. Maybe I've been repeating his work! Mine's also in perl. Sorry lch!
No reason for apologies, it's not uncommon that people come up with the same ideas, knowingly or unknowingly. That doesn't contradict what I have been saying. ;)

I can heartily recommend C# and Python, too. Both are very elegant and powerful. While I've been working a lot with PHP, I create most of my scripts in Python now. It ships with Gentoo Linux and every Mac out of the box, too.