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Pressing the N key cycles between idle commanders.
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No, it cycles between commanders defending. If there are 40 defending commanders and another 40 doing something else but only 10 you want to give new orders you still have to find and look at all 80 of them unless you can keep track of them in your head from turn to turn or start up the next day. There is no dedicated status to indicate which ones YOU want to give orders to next. This is a non issue, for decades of development, in all other games, I can't even begin to understand why it's a problem here.
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I don't quite follow here. I find the mages extremely specialized, ... In fact, the highly complex and specialized magic system is what makes the (it) great for me.
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In Dom1 the Mages had to be individually targeted on each spell casting method. But instead of evolving to where the mages had to learn the methods individually (like the gem stuff) the method mutated into a general pool of point buckets when everyone instantly learned everything. Have your mage farm fill the buckets to level 9 and you get to do everything.
Yes there are existing some specialized mages and early in the game they make a difference but the most common thing to do is make rainbow mages.
There is no advantage to specialize. There are no real difficult choices when you can just research a method and all you mages can use it instantly.
The opportunity was to make the mages learn the methods individually even as you acquire the technology. The second thing to have done was to give mages who specialize in, method and gem, special related abilities and titles, which go away if they stray from the path. Getting a new, meaningful, title for your commander would be interesting.
Going further you could have specialized labs for, say, researching 'Alteration' or making potions or items.
Doing this give the player exclusive choices, which makes the choices both difficult and meaningful. It makes the 'rainbow' mage far less powerful and more difficult to come by.
Yes there is complexity, but it lacks an 'economy', rules that force choices. I want mages that learn and act like mages not magic mushrooms.
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There are other shortcuts and mechanics that help too. Like monthly ..
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I know all those. It doesn't substitute for poor design. Keeping all relevant information and actions together is what the design philosophy should be. But even in something as simple as casting a spell the amount of gems scrolls up out of sight as you scroll down the spell list.
Often, when doing something magical, you need to do some alchemy but then you have to back out of the lab and re-enter it to do that. Or put some rock in some mage's pocket to help with the lab activity.
The Gem information, Alchemy, Spell Casting, Item Production and list of available mages should all be right there. Available mages includes ALL mages with Lab access, not just the ones in the province.
Then you can do everything you need to do very quickly without jumping in and out of screens each and very time for each and every step of each and every activity.
For that matter, there's no reason why something the Alchemy Stone has to leave to lab to function as all alchemy occurs within the player turn.
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With all due respect. The placement and scripting system is certainly a bit unintuitive, ..
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I understand placement and scripting well. What happens is that if an orc runs up to my commanders on the right side of the field my mage on the left side of the field drops a nuke on them to kill the orc. And usually misses the orc while he blows up everyone else. Instead of aiming at the mass of archers far in the rear of the front line he drops bombs on the guys in melee. Which would be not horrible if he would center of the rear so undershoots don't wipe out the line. And there is no script that tells troops not to stack up.
There's a Paradox game, Chariots of War, which also does program resolved battles that you set up. Their algorithms don't exhibit this behavior, it it is possible to do.
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There have been some minor tweaks to the GUI from D2 to D3, including making the background dark so un-highlighted units fade into it but it hasn't really changed in a way that makes communicating with the program less difficult. It was behind the times when it was originally written and it's ten years older.
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Misc.
Have the ability to tell commanders how many gems they should be carrying and let them pick up or drop gems based upon that.
This is the idea of 'automating' micromanagement. Same with the build queues, state how many of what should be in production and for how long.
Allow complex plotting of movement, beyond one turn. As a good example HoI2 AoD, or Trade Empires. Those are RTS but it should be simple to do in a TBS.
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I love the complexity but there has to be a way to manage it without burn out. And complexity alone doesn't give you the kind of meaningful choices that are needed.
The game isn't nitch because it is complex, it is nitch because the interface discourages participation by all but the most dedicated and pain tolerant.
Solving these problems instead of excusing them will make the difference between the effort being a hobby and something that can earn money for the authors.
Re: what about the future?
Hybrid Mode
