The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

The following is the Dominions 3 Wishlist. Just to clarify, this is what Users would like to have, not neccessarily what they will get. With the announcement of Dominions 3 I'd like to funnel all the "Feature Request", "Johan do this", "This is what I hate about Dom2, change it in Dom3" Posts so that it's easier for Illwinter to read about potential suggestions (that are probably already brewing) and to allow Users to feel they are being heard.

Suggestions will get potentially more attention if they are worded correctly and not as an attack or "x is BROKE! FIX IT" so foam at your own risk.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Shouldn't there be a separate thread for the "Less Micromanagement" wishes?

I wish for less micromanagement in tax rates. I have a simple rules: if unrest > 9, then lower tax rate by ceil(unrest/10) * 2. If unrest < 10, then set tax rate to 100.

I'm sure the flexibility to set provincial taxes is useful for more sophisticated players than myself, but I'd rather not have to manually tweak taxes in each province each turn unless I want to.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I wish for super-duper 3-D graphics, as I accidentally blurted out on another non-wishlist thread.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

It's okay http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif But knowing those who love Dom2 I know the feature requests are going to be pouring in. This just makes it easier to read and possibly implement any ideas that people may have and would like to share. More than likely IW will be busy making Dom3 that they don't have to spend alot of time reading through suggestions in multiple threads.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Sure. I'm a bit of a nut about reducing tedium in interfaces.

Example: Tax policy in a fairly large empire. If tax rates could be set automatically due to a policy dependent on unrest (e.g.
if unrest <= 0 tax at 100
elsif unrest <= 5 tax at 90
elsif unrest <= 10 tax at 80
elsif unrest <= 15 tax at 70
elsif unrest <= 20 tax at 60
etc (or, more succintly, "reduce taxes by 20 for every 5 unrest") with a per-province manual override and a global override (i.e. the current system: no global rule).

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

Units are aggregated in some displays, notably Gift of Reason is much nicer about not showing numerous indistinguishable units for selection. Aggregation in the army screen would be even spiffier; instead of

aaabaaaaabbbcccaaddaa

where a,b,c,d are unit types,

a b c d
12 4 3 2

would be faster to parse in terms of differentiating between units although it'd require an extra step for selecting subsets, and perhaps would need to be expanded anyway in terms of identifying wounded, experienced, etc. Those could be treated as separate unit types, eh.

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

If blood slave pooling still affects sacrificers, it probably shouldn't, as this hampers Mictlan rather disproportionately. I might even wonder if pooling (any resource) should only affect those -gathering- slaves or holding gem-producing items or who innately generate such bits; this would reduce the need to re-arm battle mages who happen to be hovering over a lab that time. Could always have an additional button to force the current comprehensive pooling in case you need it, e.g. getting ready to cast a global or dispel.

Also on gem rearming, perhaps a mage who's expended gems should know how many gems he's used and reload the next chance he gets (over lab and there's sufficient gems); not really sure about this, 'tho, as there might be gem shortages during which we want them to hold off on this.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I don't really wish for more nations, more units, more spells, or more items. I mean, sure that would be nice (once all the balance issues get ironed out), but it isn't something I really wish for. I've been playing dom2 for around a year, and at the current rate, it will be several more years before I've tried out all the current nations, learned about all the current summonables, etc.

So, while I expect more stuff (due to Illwinter's admirable philosophy), and I intend to enjoy the new stuff, it isn't really a priority for me.

If given the choice between "Dom 2 THREE DEE" with the exactly current gameplay (plus patches and mods) but fancy graphics, or "Dom 3" with exactly the current graphics but a bucketload of new stuff, I might go ahead and play Dom 2 THREE DEE for at least a few months.

I know this makes me sound shallow and ignorant, to say it in this crowd, but somebody's gotta speak up for the shallow and ignorant masses who might buy lots of copies of "Dom 2 THREE DEE" and thus put lots of money into the pockets of Illwinter and Shrapnel.

Just to be clear, I would much rather play Dom2 as is than play a prettier game with worse gameplay. It's just that there has to be a point of diminishing returns in adding units. When do you stop? Eventually you can have so many units that most players are unfamiliar with most of them. Is that good?

At the current rate, by the time Dom3 comes out in 2005 I *might* have learned about most of Dom2's units and I might be ready to try new ones. We'll see.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Here my first opinions:

Better Pretender and Nation balance.
National Troops *always useful*, perhaps enhanced with more battlefield spells and such.
Better Divine/Unholy Spellcasting, perhaps a dedicated magic school, and forging.
Improved Messaging interface.
More orders for troops, spells in queue.
More skills and special abilities.
More terrain types and more influence of terrain type in battles.
Improved siege.
More indeps unit types and magic site recruits.
Heroic skills assigned related to unit base skills.
Experience gains different from magic summons and national troops.
A random national hero generator (pick a base commander, add something, and create it when the default ones are ended).
More battle maneuver, like flanking (delaying your troop but they enter from flank or rear, doable only by light cavalry for example).
A wider range of events.
Some scales need to be worthy and not exploitable to take negative, especially growth.
Primary and Secondary castle choice, perhaps the secondary allowing only to recruit your troops/mages in, and the primary giving effective defence.
Movement order given by a "command rating" (something like a strategy skill) stat assigned to commanders.
Battle movement given by a tactic skill (if your commander is most skilled you could be even able to move twice than enemy, but only troops are affected, or you move first only ...).
Different kind of battles or order issued (hiding troops could get an Ambush order, to attack only a group of the enemy force for example, this could make useful even villains or such).
Conquering an enemy controlled (from more than X turn --- to avoid a take and retake of a lab in a war, before the lab is filled of stuff it should be considered secure) laboratory could give you a loot due to sacking, stealing gems and perhaps 1 random item from enemy lab.
Better assassination calculation or different way to do that. The assassin could wait for the victim to sleep or to be distracted instead of attacking it in a battlefield.
An assassin could have an assassination percentage that is the chance of success he's, this is augmented by items and experience, and lowered by the amount of bodyguard assigned to the victim. You should be able too to choose who to assassinate.


Now stomach claims something to fill it.

wound them all, and let God sort them out
 

I spend a lot of time laboriously checking my units for battle wounds, then checking what each battle wound is, in order to sort them into new squads.

Battle Fraught units and badly damaged melee units get thrown into one squad which has the privilege of leading the attack. Damaged archers are allowed to stay in the main archer squads unless they have a wound which reduces their usefulness such as Lost One Eye or Lost One Arm.

One very simple improvement would be for a tooltip to indicate the name of the wound when I hover over the red heart icon.

heroic skills
 

I love building up heroes. Even in a game like Dom2 where some of them are destined for a glorious death instead of a glorious victory.

One thing I always loved in Heroes of Might and Magic III was getting to choose between two randomly generated heroic improvements whenever the hero levelled up.

The equivalent in Dom2 is to try to get as many different units into the Hall of Fame as I can, and then choose the one who got the best heroic ability to be my prophet.

All of which is just to say that allowing some kind of (limited) choice about heroic ability could be a real thrill for me.

Re: wound them all, and let God sort them out
 

Cohen:
What do you mean with battle movement? Are you saying troops should be 'quickened' if they have commanders with a high leadership?


What do you mean with more skills? Are you saying there should be more stats on the units?

to make watching battles more enjoyable
 

I wish for a slider allowing me to fast-forward, rewind, and jump to specific moments in the battle. Just think of the battle as being a movie and think of the slider that comes with Quicktime or Real media movies, etc.

I wish that I wouldn't have to sit wait for arrows to make their way through the sky. Maybe arrows could be fired simultaneously with other moves (a la the "realtime battles (not RTS)" wish)? Maybe arrows could just fly with incredible speed? (After all, flying units do!) Maybe if I get the above wish then I can just click the "jump forward 2 seconds" button every time a volley of arrows is loosed.

AI Improvement
 

Below is a repost from a different thread:

I would like to see some modularity for the AI in Dom3, specifically the main program calling an AI "module" or script that can be tinkered with by players. I think Space Empires IV is a good start, but really anything that would let players tinker with the decision trees by nation and "flavor". I think this would be a huge benefit for both players and illwinter, since the players would get better AI's and we'd help keep Kristofer from getting programmer burn out. I think this strategy has worked extremely well for maps, and would be a big benefit in the AI arena.

PS. Another great example of using modules for AI control is the old tank game "omega".

Re: wound them all, and let God sort them out
 

More 'skills' as abilities (mistform, sneak, assasination, sailing...). Eg. thief: a chance to steal an item and/or gems from (semi-)random commander in province, if it doesn't succeed immediately multiple throws against stealth or be found, number of throws dependant on the power of the item/number of gems/recruiting cost of the commander in question/prophethood etc.

Hero improvements, like:
A) Heroes that change not only according to a nation/theme, but on pretender form, his/her/its magics, scales, dominion, pure luck - everything! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Or maybe just heroes dependent on titles.
or B) Heroes bringing items, spells, bodyguards etc. with them. Heroes enabling their nation to cast more spells (when 'addHeroX' then 'addNationalSpellX'), forge new items (eg. Master of the Iron Crutch - Iron Crutch (cursed, poison cloud, disease... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

More events, events scaling with time, events dependent on everything as in the hero suggestion above or, again, titles.

When someone kills a god, or even a pretender, something should happen. Lady of Luck: Luck set to -3, unrest increased... Dependent on pretender's form, scales, titles, magic...

'Timer' so that commands other than fort construction take more than one turn, and this as moddable (unique Master Artificer could craft a Crusher if given 6 months).

Independants being able to defend their forts, hide in them, break siege if needed, recruit more units (up to max(suppliesAvailable, difficultyMax)), independent temples slowing dominion spread, independent mages collecting gems (slowly)...

'Independent nations' for Random Map Creator:
All neighbours of a "citadel" are of the same type (eg. trolls, vaettir, wolfriders), and the citadel itself has a castle, is richer than other provinces, has/can have special defenders...

New spells, including: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Penguin.gif, ightning:, [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gif[/img], Wrath of Seas, [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Racoon.gif[/img], [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon24.gif[/img], [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon10.gif[/img], [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon07.gif[/img], http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../firedevil.gif, [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Acorn.gif[/img], [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon42.gif[/img] and Sea of http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../beerglass.gif!

Ability to mod population types. Ability to give population type defenders that are not the same as the units recruitable there (eg. C'tissian independents, after killing them you get only Slave Lizards), and add special things to the poptype(eg. the independent c'tissian always has a lab, Rarity!, can only be found on a swamp province that borders another swamp province and province that isn't a swamp, has greater chance for magic sites)...

Ability to import characters from Dominions Roguelike! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Things from the old Wishlist for DomII, as developers see fit.

Whatever balancing Illwinter sees as appopriate.

Also, PLEASE make DomIII to be like DomII, unique. I would like to see something I didn't expect, balancing community didn't request, features that were added "just because", Things That Should Be. Dominions III should be something that won't be expected, something that hits like an Orb Lighting cast by a Virtue hovering high above, something that strikes us mortals with awe... Also, don't take this thread too seriously. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: wound them all, and let God sort them out
 

I'd love it if the random map generating feature included ways to modify the results from within the game itself, so that those like me with no drawing skills whatever, and no inclination to obtain and learn a program like GIMP might be able to make maps for MP play.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Way on top of my own wishlist:

Please, please, leave that 'Något gick fel' error message as it is (untranslated) in Dom 3. It always has been, is, and should remain Dominions' most distinctive hallmark. Without it, the game would lose a lot of its appeal to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

It has been there since CoE days. So I don't imagine it will be left out anytime soon.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

The biggest thing I would like to see is more advanced terrain in battles. Swamps that would really give C'tis an advatage, castles with more options for troops on both sides to use (boiling oil, scaling ladders, perhaps even magical options). Wild terrain would also give a real use for light infantry, a few more commands would make light cavalry useful (fire and flee where they all retreat to the same province, hold until enemy route- for chasing down fleeing troops).

I also hope Dominions will keep the ability that sets its apart from any other game I have played- the ability to play non-PBEM MP with a slow modem. That alone has greatly increased the amout of time I put into Dominions.

Re: wound them all, and let God sort them out
 

Would it be possible to include automatisized Advisors/Governours ?
Like in Civ 3 ?

So if you feel lazy ( mainly in Sp ) you turn on e.g. the tax advisor and he sets taxes in all your empire like suggested above by others according to unrest automatically .

Then monthly forging function , hopefully a forge advisor who automatically stocks clams / fetishes / blood stones / new hoarding items on the right commanders ( scouts ) .

Finally improved recruting that you can give e.g. the command build 10 scouts / turn and the Ai just selects 10 provinces where this is possible and does it.

Gamewise : Finetune the supply system a bit because atm imo it is damn hard to make campaigns in enemy territory with only 50 supply eating armies . Normally investing in the bag of vine is not really worth it too cause you would get lots of vine ogres for that e.g. .

More balanced random events and / or option to completely turn them off for an even more competetive game experience .

Maybe more province build options which cost upkeep too but bring additional benefits :
e.g. build a tax office : Gold 100 , 5 upkeep : +20% tax earnings in province .
Build prison : unrest -x / turn .
Maybe some "wonders" which have a global effect like +0,2% popgrowth in every province or 5% more good events etc.


More options in game settings :
-Random events on/off , frequency options for random events .
-all captured buildings destroyed / captured intact , x% destroyed , etc.

So as much as possible adjustable .
I think Aow 2 Shadow magic is here quite good as example .


Everything modable and with a good Userinterface , so a real editor like civilization 3 editor , Aow 2 SM editor , starcraft editor as good examples .

Re: wound them all, and let God sort them out
 

Ability to customize some of the UI, with, say, keyboard shortcuts. Saving some "favorite" army setups and battle scripts would be a nice feature; with the game as it currently is, if you find something that "works" for you, you have to recreate it every time. I find I don't have the patience for it...

Similarly: I'd like to see the return of the Battle Simulator - and to have it launchable from the main game. Here I am, planning for my next turn; I know what my available armies are (or could be, depending on how I move this and this one); I have a good (or bad) idea what the opposing armies are (or could be), and what the opposing player's tactics seem to be. I'd like to be able to test, from within the game, what the possible outcomes might be.

More content: I'm not sure this is so essential. I mean, maybe some people managed to explore each and every unit/combo in the game, but I haven't; I'm pretty sure there's enough stuff in there already to Last me until Dom4.

More battlefield orders. More scripting options, especially if it's easier to store/recreate them. Include an "intelligence" stat on some commanders (or troops?) that lets them store more complex orders. Include an option for "if" orders, or maybe just "if unapplicable, do this instead". Of course, for this to be manageable, we'd need better "script management" (I guess that one's my top wish, after all).

Saveable battle replays. Not that it matters so much, but sometimes, in a big MP game, you're so happy with how things turned out, you'd like to be able to brag about it without sharing your password http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

little wish: literature / link list
 

just a little dom3 wish:

add in the manual a (big! long!) section with links to books/pages about all that mythological stuff.

since playing dominions1, i feel that my interest increase to learn more about the background/legends/history of all those monsters and weapons in the game.

Re: Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Here are my two (or three) bits:

It would be nice if AI nations would build forts. Better AI in general is always good, but to me this one has always stood out.

More and/or more distinctive choices of forts to select from.

Something to spend those annoying left-over Pretender creation points on. Like maybe allowing up to 20 points to be converted into extra starting cash.

Change the routing system for commanders. I especially dislike the "if only commanders are sent into battle, they all rout when one of them dies" feature. It should be possible to use squads of, say, Ulmish Black Knight commanders with magic items to try and take out an enemy army. Or a squad of Pythium mages to do the same. As it stands now to use teams of relatively fragile commanders like this you need to either load them up with chaff soldiers (which probably still rout and cause your commanders to rout with them), or the good old "lamed pikeman at the rear of the battlefield." Any system that encourages the use of a ridiculous ploy like that one must has something wrong with it.

Change the movement system so that it is possible (not guaranteed, just possible) to move your army into a location with enemy troops and intercept them before those enemy troops get to move elsewhere.

Re: Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

THAT announcement lured me back here for a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

A humble request from the server providers? Could the client be separated from the server?

Specifically I would like three programs:

1. A gameserver that calculates the new turns.
2. A client that displays the turns (and do all the other GUI stuff)
3. A TCP/IP netserver that listens to a port and accepts uploads of turns and pretenders. Ideally, this server would also allow clients to download mods and maps.

So the design becomes this
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
client ------- TCP/IP-----&gt; netserver ---- turn/pretender-files --&gt; gameserver
| ^
+--------------------------------- turn/pretender-file by email ---------------+
</pre><hr />

Feel free to email me for any thoughts and suggestions on that one. Client/Server application is what I do professionally these days http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

(As for playing, I agree that making the battlefield mean something would increase the complexity (in a good way) tremendously. I suggest something liek a factor 2 or so.

Re: Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I want only two things:

1. My SC not running away when his auto-summons die.
2. My prophet not going berserk due to a stray arrow.

And many others want this one thing:

1. The ability to tell a unit what not to cast.

Re: little wish: literature / link list
 

Most of my "most important" ones have already been covered -

1. Little need for yet more races/units/spells/items - in hundreds of hours of play I've only explored a fraction of them. I know there will inevitably be more, but units/spells/items that nobody uses (because there's something better and cheaper) are a bit of a waste. That's not a criticism that can be levelled at much of the current content, but the more you have, the more likely it is to occur.

2. More sophisticated combat scripting - lots of people seem to want this, and I'm not an expert by any means but my personal bugbear is storming castles. I'd really love to see "get inside and melee defenders" and "stay outside and pelt defenders" orders. For some reason my troops always end up on the wrong side of the walls ...

3. UI improvements (definable shortcuts, global taxation orders, grouping troops by wounds or experience, selective pooling of gems, etc.). My top top single UI improvement is a screen for locating items - a scrolling list of every commander's inventory (name followed by icons would do, if hovering over the icon pops up the item name or something).

4. On (semi-)automating of tasks (like taxation, production, research etc.): all the games I've ever seen with "governors" or "advisers" to reduce micromanagement have suffered from the excruciating flaw of not making them user-definable! So I either have to do the micro and input the same build queue each time, or turn on the AI "governor" who won't build what I want. If you go down this route, please please please allow players to define and save recruitment queues, forge queues, ritual queues, tax heuristics etc. etc. Otherwise the "reduction" of micro becomes negligible if you can't tailor it to your own play style.

5. Allowing waypoints would be very handy for the later stages of long games. I often find I can't remember where a particular army was heading, especially if a game is only running once or twice a week.

6. I instinctively prefer SP so I'm in the "better and/or moddable AI" camp. I also share Gandalf's love of minor random SP experiences. I used to love finding "retorts" in MoM - if there was a way to include random events which adjusted your scales, or awarded (or took away) magic paths or items from a commander ... without making such things potentially unbalancing ... that would be fun. (Purists please remember that you can always switch such random events OFF ....)

7. (Sorry, I'm getting really carried away now) I think much more could be made of heroic abilities. Being able to choose them would be a bit potentially cheesy, but a little less randomness would be really good (eg. strength more likely on a melee commander or SC, precision more likely on an archer or spellcaster etc.). Perhaps do away with the somewhat artifical HoF mechanic and make heroic abilities the result of experience (meaning finer gradations of xp levels) ... or something. I do think heroes really add to the game (full marks to the person who suggested more national heroes, or randomly generated ones or whatever). Maybe if you got a heroic ability you really didn't want, you could eventually choose to start developing a 2nd one instead of continuing to improve the first one (so the 2nd one would be a much smaller boost, but better than yet more Valour ...)

8. More sophisticated squad arrangements, including routing conditions! Is there a reason why a commander respected by 300 troops can only have 5 squads? Being able to specify that your army will rout if your key HI squad at the front gets decimated (but not if the archers get mashed) would be really good. Not that I want to start another debate about routing of course ....

I'll stop there. Still, this is no criticism - Dom2 is right up in my top 5 games of all time (only MoM, Elite, Civ1 and maybe MoO1 have ever occupied more of my time) - if Dom3 never gets made I bet I will still be playing Dom2 in 5 years' time.

CC

Re: little wish: literature / link list
 

I agree that I do not feel I have played Dom2 to its death, nor will this next year let me accomplish that...
But keep in mind that this is mostly a 2 man team. Johan is the programmer, and Kristoffer does the themes/nations/units/items. I dont want to cubbyhole them incorrectly, there may be some overlap...
But the POINT I want to make is that it doesnt do alot of good to try and trade off "I dont want new nations etc etc" with "I would rather see more programming etc etc". If you are going to do tradeoffs then they would need to be programming for programming, or playing choices for playing choices.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Well, Rome: Total War graphics for battles, sentient AIs and a hoburg in every box!

What? It's a "Wish" list.

On the more realistic side...

D2's magic system in general is ridiculously awesome, but the handling of the more mundane aspects of empire building is..lacking, to say the least. Static populations without a growth scale? That's just silly.

Migration and population growth could be factors. Bad luck could cause migrations to less accident-prone areas. That could be a real balance to the luck scale.

The different racial and cultural populations could be a factor. Caelians displacing lizardmen? Neat! And each population would have its preferences. That may be a bit more work than it's worth, though.

Some more abilities for units, especially generals. Strategoi and similar units could give big bonuses to morale.

Re: little wish: literature / link list
 

Yes, and I must say I'm a bit worried by this. I'd like to see a new 'skirmish' order (or battle formation) implemented for light troops, but that's about it. I don't want an overcomplicated system with tons of choices or conditional options that would led to more MM. I think there's enough of it already.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Almost forgot this old pet peeve of mine -

One thing I'd really like to see in Dom 3: balanced recruitment for national troops. Eg, Arco has hoplite infantry and light cavalry, everybody likes the former but nobody uses the cavalry. The game should track troop recruitment and make overused troop types more expensive over time (or underused ones less expensive) to give players an incentive to field more balanced armies.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I would like to see more detailed battle reports that tell me specifically which units died, with the summary that we have now at the top.

I would also like the second or third the idea of having some sort of tax manager button (not a really sucha problem unless you are playing a blood nation, I suppose).

- Kel

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Two things that haven't been mentioned (much) so far:

1) The ability to set a destination for troops, so I don't have to walk them by hand every single turn. It's okay if it gets broken if, say, your intermediary provinces are conquered, but it would still be an improvement.

2) Underwater provinces need to be more differentiated. I would love to see a variety of types of provinces: in addition to a standard open ocean, for example, there could be shallow coastal waters, deep sea trenches, perhaps areas of high underwater volcanism or subduction zones or other things for the geologically geeky. In addition to having a wider variety of inahbitants, I would also like to have the names means something the way "forest" and "plains" indicate what kind of province it is. Coastal waters could have more income but less magic sites, subduction zones have higher turmoil, troops from deep sea vent provinces tend to glow, etc.

-Sedna

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

A few of my personal wishlist is:

A.) A more dramatic battlefield impact of Leaders or Leadership upon normal Troops during battle..

B.) More impact of Pretender Blessing on normal troops and/or more sacred or more game spanning Sacred troops (This could play well with NGF's idea)

C.) Movement Phase Initiative System based on troop composition, troop type, leadership, special abilities, survival, dominion, province ownership and whatever other factors to create more of a dramatic 'group' strategy phase.

D.) Mitigate Flying's Strategic strength.

E.) Dynamic Event System based on Nation, Scales, previous events, battles, etc.

F.) Advanced Squad AI based on battlefield conditions. Flank Support, line breaks, etc.

I have quite a number more.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

i am a new player and one small thing i would like to see. It appears to be very easy to kill off population but impossible to increase pop. expecially in repopulating ermor bLasted lands.
Rex

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

What the hell does that mean?

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

It seems that quite a few people have requested that fast armies be allowed to catch up with slower ones on the strategic map. Why not use the movement system in SEIV?

For example, assuming that you want to impose a hardcoded maximum strategic movement of 10, then you would sub-divide each turn into 10 movement phases, and each movement phase can have its own battle if at the conclusion of the phase, more than one army occupies a province.

So, a Doom Horror with strategic movement of 10 would be able to move 1 province during each phase. A heavy infantry unit with strategic movement 1 would only move 1 province each turn and get to move only on phase 10 (the Last movement phase of the turn). A heavy cavalry unit with strategic movement 2 would get to move 2 provinces each turn, meaning that it moves once on phase 9 and again on phase 10. A light cavalry unit with strategic movement 3 would get to move on phases 8, 9 and 10 and so forth.

This way a heavy cavalry unit chasing a heavy infantry unit would catch up with the heavy infantry unit because it moves on phase 9, before the HI moves.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I want multiple fort building options.

It's apparent that the fortification selection for a nation is a key balance factor in the nation, but it seems excessively and artificially limiting to me to only allow exactly one fort design for the whole nation.

Maybe reduce the cost of forts in the design phase by 20% or so and allow you to 'buy' multiple fort plans -- as many as you want to pay for. Then in play when you construct the thing you get options of all the fort designs you paid for. Is it a bad thing to have different design and building strategies for different needs: high defence fort in those chokepoints, quick building tower when you need it NOW, high admin for production centers, etc.? Maybe when you seige/capture an enemy fortress you can learn that design and add it to your nations build list, or have certain heroes or site-recruitable units which come with 'plans' for other forts. I guess I hear the howls of agony from the anti-mad-castling contingent now....

Sill

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Edit: fixed an improperly coded list

Pretender Design
Would it be possible to make the following change to pretender design: Selecting first nation, then special theme, and only then pretender chassis? This way it could be possible to perhaps assign different pretender lists for each nation according to theme if desired, though the current system works quite well.

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Terrain Types

Currently we have:

• Plains
• Farmlands
• Fresh Water (not visible in-game, please change this?)
• Forest
• Mountain
• Swamp
• Waste
• Sea
• Nostart (switch, but acts like a terrain type)
• Manysites (switch, but acts like a terrain type)

I think the following would make great additions, especially if a couple of the existing ones are modified a bit:

• Tundra
• Glacier
• Jungle
• Hills
• Road (switch, but acts like a terrain type)

Right now, Waste terrain type covers everything from real hot sand and rock deserts to tundra and glaciers. This can lead to such bizarre things as having Plains of Perpetual Drought in and so forth in glacier regions, Cold Lands in the middle of Sahara and so forth. That's why I at least feel that Tundra and/or Glacier (less necessary, but would be nice) would be good additions.

Right now all provinces that should be hills have to be listed as mountains, but it would be great to be able to throw a hill terrain type in conjunction with e.g. forests or farmlands instead of having a whole Himalaya in there, and jungles and temperate forests are also rather different from each other.

The addition of new terrain types would allow for a greater variety of population type assignment by terrain (especially if there will be more units and more population types), more specific correlation of certain types of magic sites with certain types of terrain (Cold Lands and Blizzard Vale more likely in Tundra, not possible in Waste, for example, and the reverse for e.g. Plain of Perpetual Drought).

The new terrain type system would also work very well if the strategic move system is slightly modified, perhaps by increasing the range and assigning different terrain types different strat move costs (without relevant survival, moving through that terrain will cost X start moves, or if not enough strat move, than the units will move just one province).

Example strat move cost suggestions (off the top of my head)

• 0.75 Plains/farmlands
• 1 Tundra/waste
• 2 Forest/hills
• 2.5 Swamp/jungle/glacier
• 3 Mountains
• Roads would subtract 1 from base strat move cost for terrains with move cost greater than one, works like the manysites and nostart switches.

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Combat System

I'm pretty happy with the current combat system, but there is one order I would really like to see added: Hold and Fire. This would allow for a better use of javelin and throwing axe troops, instead of having them charge immediately to combat if you want them to use their missile weapons, they would wait for three turns before they start firing. This is my single biggest source of frustration for regular unit orders.

Wouldn't mind having a commander script that was one or two orders longer than the current five either.

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Scripts

There was a suggestion in here about enabling scripts to be stored system wide, instead of specific to a game, but how about this: Having a script file for each nation, where scripts stored when playing that nation are recorded, and every time you play any game where you are that nation, Dom3 references that script record file automatically? Problem solved and you can specify the necessary scripts just the first time you play a nation without needing the micro every time you start a new game. If scripts contain orders that are not available (such as casting spells that are not yet researched), the unit does something else that round.

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Random Map Generator

If possible, would you please make the random map generator in a fashion that allows people to enter the default map colors they desire as hex codes? Have some default values, but allow them to be altered from RMG settings?

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These are my humble wishes/suggestions, and I would be definitely overjoyed if IW will see fit to implement any parts of them. The mapmaking related stuff (terrain and the RMG request) are the ones I would most like to see, because they would allow me to produce better maps. However, I can't judge whether or not any of that is feasible to implement, so I will no be devastated if they don't appear.

Edi

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

D3 Wishlist

I would like to see a leader class units (King,Queen,Etc.) and one way to win would be to elimination all the leaders of an enemy nation. Each side would get 4 leaders/family members and if you lose your leaders you lose. This would help eliminate the need to conqure all of a enemies territory, if you take out the leaders, their empire falls.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

There's the more or less obvious stuff, like UI improvements, less micromanagement and so on. But for me, the most important things would be:

More actual diversity. Dom2 has hundreds of spells, items and troops, but after a short newbie phase it seems like only a fraction of these are ever used. It would be very hard to keep us damned players from doing this, but I think an approach could be made with some sort of a rock-paper-scissors system. Perhaps by dividing leader traits in three Groups (items slots, magic power, physical strength) and making sure no leader is ever good at all of them. Just generally make it harder to make a "best" choice that fits most situations.

More of the same, but better. Dom2 is a great game. Please keep everything that makes it awesome and only add things that make it better. This is probably harder than it sounds.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Err, how is 'measured' what most folks like and dislike? I just urgently need to agree to some of the suggestion made and repeat and comment further on them:

- I would really like to see terrain affecting battles in both ways: terrain affecting e.g. mounted units in tactical ways (e.g. have some obstacles within the battle field like those castle moats), and effecting stats (Why are Pangaea's units as effective in Wastlands as in Forests?).

- Also I like to see that the survival skill for each terrain would enable a unit to attack one province further into enemy territory if both provinces have the proper type - or maybe roll over slightly defended provinces (ie. if the battle was resolved in less than X turns, then move to the second target province, where the auto-route will happen Y turns earlier, where Y is the number of battle rounds the previous battle Lasted. Fatigue,HP,etc. should be kept as well).

- I also support a proper not-so random movement initiative system, encouraging the use of light cavalry! Quick-moving armies having sufficient scouting fascilities should also be able to patrol more than one province and defend them against slower moving attackers!

- Dom3 definitely needs a waypoint system! I would not require the PC to figure out the shortest route, but I want to manually set way point(s) for each commander. They do not need to affect anything, all they would do is reminding the player where he planned to move his units the turn before... (generally add reminding-fascilities for the feebleminded players like me! Its a pain to write down all my plans for each commander on paper!)

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Oh, wait, instead of adding to much terrain, why no add a scale for humidity/aridity which similar to the heat scale and also affected by the existing seasons?

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I am not sure how well these ideas can fit into Dominions, but I figured I would throw them out there anyway just in case. My apologies if they have already been mentioned.

How about some type of sites that are like ruins or dungeons or abandoned temples. These are not gem producing (although they could be I suppose), but are one time conquerable sites once they are found. A new turn order would be added and be something like "Enter Dungeon" and would have a battle result for those that entered. If the army inside is conquered, there would be some random reward which could be gold, gems, artifacts, or other things perhaps. This would be similar to the feature that the old Warlords games had where you could fight the creatures inside the site to get rewards. The enemies inside could be any combination of troops and even pretender type creatures for the tougher ones. Maybe some sites of this type would be automatically found when a province is conquered, but some would need to be searched for... maybe by a new skill that allows for easier finding. There could be different levels (hardness) of each with scaled up defenders and rewards. I am not sure how this could be handled, but maybe on detection the scout/finder would get some hint of to the type of creatures or ability of them so the player could judge a least a little as to whether they would want to attempt the battle without wiping out easily. This could give you another choice in the game... do I keep expanding or take a shot at getting something cool/useful in the dungeon this turn (if I can win).

Edit: Another thing that may be neat as a reward would be a mage or commander could join your army if you defeat all of the defenders in the dungeon or site and "rescue" them. This could give you a new mage with paths you don't have or possibly a good leader or fighter or even a band of units.

Also, some type of diplomacy like the old Warlords games would be fun for single player, but that would be probably a lesser request. It would be fun to have as an option, though, and could add a level of complexity to the single player experience.

Other than that, some type of modified AI would be nice. This could include changes in how troops are built and having the AI build more castles like others have mentioned. Perhaps just having the AI be a bit more unpredictable would have the single player experience be a bit more enjoyable. I tend to think the AI plays very well myself, but is just too predictable for it to be a challenge to most of the good players.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Instead of many new terrains, just new tags for #cold and #hot lands. Tundra is a cold waste, desert hot waste, jungle hot forest etc. This would, of course, affect the temperature. It would also make it possible to have quite thematic maps, from Ice Age to a land where Rimtursar are returning.

More ways to dispel. Independent globals defined in the map.

I don\'t wish for...
 

I don't wish for more complex scripting for battles. Those little guys are just mortals, and you're never going to configure them to do exactly what you want. And if you did, it would blow away balance and make battles into a "rock-paper-scissors" contest to see whose script destroys the other guy's script.

In fact, the current scripting options are just about as complex as I can stand.

On the other hand, adding complexity to battles in terms of terrain might be great fun.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I would only like Warlords-like Ruins if there would be an option to disable those! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I do not like more random elements which would make the Luck Scale even more obsolete...

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

There are two things in the current game that really irk me:

First, no disbanding command. I mean, if Joe Farmer decides to take up arms for the greater glory of me, cool. But, if he expects me to feed and pay him, I should be able to tell him to sod off. Currently, I have to divert a commander, who in all likelihood could have been doing something productive, to go pick up Joe Farmer and his merry men, and ship them off to be killed. Except when I try to slaughter them, they don't even manage that, instead running around my kingdom, and doing things like causing Anthrax to flee from a couple of Blackhawks and... *head explodes*

Now that I've reassembled my head, the other thing that annoys me is when I choose a bunch of commanders and order them to go to that province over yonder. If some are able to and some aren't, the arrow shows up, all commanders are still selected, and I'm in no way informed that one or more commanders can't reach the destination. Instead, they commence to twiddle their thumbs. Extremely annoying. Though I guess this could go under the improved UI.

Err... so I guess I'd be happy if those two things were fixed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


K.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Their orders will only change to move if they are able to make the move. Otherwise they will still be on defend.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I read the list of previous wishes, yet I will probably manage to reiterate some of the wishes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

My list:

1. Less micromanagement. Make end game bearable. Some very good suggestions were already made to automate/streamline some of the more time consuming aspects of the game.
2. Combat simulator. Please let it return. Maybe even enhance it so that you could create a DB of armies and/or previous battles.
3. Game replay. So that we can learn from the games of the masters. So that we can analyze our mistakes.
4. More province structures.
5. Cold and heat change the map dynamically.
6. Saved pretender list.
7. New magic path. Maybe life ala MOM. Maybe psionic.
8. I still want a dark elf nation. (yes, yes, I know DOM isn't a typical fantasy game.)
Also It would be nice to have another nation except ermor that has less use for gold and more for gems. Sort of a summons nations.
For example, Pythium splinter (like ermor) that has gone completely devote to the divine and uses astral/holy magic only.
All commanders and units are summonable ( maybe angels/seraphs/kruvim/malachim etc).
9. A new strategic aspect to the game. Make a raiding nation (like TC barb king) a viable choice.
10. More counters to SCs. It doesn't make sense to me (in the alternate domII reality that is) that an equipped bane lord will stomp countless soldiers. SCs should stay a factor in the game only less major.
11. improve astral summons (angels?)
11. More content. More spells. More pretenders. More nations. More myth.
12.. Change light.bolt animation. I liked the old animation from dom I better http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

Ok, fair enough. But it still is IMHO extremely misleading that the group as a whole stays chosen, with no indication of trouble, when only a part of them can reach the destination.


K.

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

You mean like ... Pangaea's Carrion Woods, or C'tis Desert Tombs? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The Dominions 3: \"Wishlist\"
 

I would like to see a little picture when you select a province, which shows you the population and scale effects.( think MOM city windows).
Basically you have one basic picture and then add content according to the scale effects.
If the population is small, you see a village, if big a large city.
If it has death scale it could be bleak and maybe some corpses hanging from trees, if it has growth, there could be large wheat fields.
For misfortune you could have something like black cats, for luck some four leaf clover sheets.
sloth could be one to three guys sitting lazily at a tree, etc.
Pd could be shown as little soldier icons in one corner of the picture, high unrest could be shown as burning houses.

I think this would add lots to the immersion factor(which is somewhat missing in dom2) and provide you with needed info without hovering your mouse over the scale icons to see if they are 1-3 scales.