Wish-List for Dominions 4

[lch]

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

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

[Sensori]

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

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

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

[Endoperez]

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

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

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

[Sensori]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


---

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

[Endoperez]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Nix]

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

[DrPraetorious]

Spell effect predicate logic.

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

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

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

Otherwise, most spells just return TRUE.

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

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

[HoneyBadger]

That sounds fun, DrPraetorious.

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

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

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

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

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

[jutetrea]

Turn memory

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

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

[HoneyBadger]

Head shots.

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

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