Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I dunno if this has been mentioned, and maybe it would be something for dom 4, but it would be cool if there where temporary magic sites that do some really interesting things -

for example, maybe a dragon's lair, where a hero can enter, and a combat round ensues with an independant dragon - if the hero should win then he gets some sort of special power bonus. like bathing in the dragon's blood gives him increased protection and protection against whatever element the dragon represented (or poison.)

This could also be used for such as the domes that protect a province, or other province enchantments - maybe through magic someone could put up temporary sites that increase luck or prodictivity, temperature, order, or magic. Perhaps temporary sites that decrease unrest, or increase gold.

Anyway I think it would give players and mapmakers a new element to the game.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Not a bad idea. You can kindof fudge that by creative assigning of sites to that province and then posting a dragon there. There are a number of "created" provinces that can be done on maps.

Check out the SemiRandom project
http://www.dom2minions.com/SemiRandom.shtml

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

yeah, but I guess the idea is that they go away after an event, or are summonable by players, and go away after x rounds, like the dome enchantments.

heck, I guess these could even sometimes appear as random events! that would be cool.

additionally: it would be fun if an "apprentice assassin" attacked a commander every turn in a province with the assassin's guild (or whatever it is called) until the site was found. (and, I suppose, required some blood to find)

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

That falls under the heading of "dungeons" which was discussed somewhere in the depths of this thread. I think I'd like site searchers who are one point low to reveal a little dungeon. The main reward of clearing it would be the site. Anything to make site searching more interesting...

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Hmmm we have "enter site to xxxxx" type sites now. I wonder if you could do a site where entering it creates a group you have to fight (entering the cave brings forth a dragon with random low-equipment). It might be abuseable with charm spells and such but it could be fun. Probably not good for mP games but it would be a great MOD

in some of my games I threw around random monsters with random equipment into random provinces. It was kinda fun when you could run into anything from a slinger to a god and they could have any scarey piece of equipment

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

If the Void Gate is possible, simple attack should be easy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If Illwinter implements it is another matter entirely. And, to tell the truth, there'd be many things I'd rather see than even my own suggestions about more important heroes with unique magic items and/or adding national spell to the nation's spell list. After all, it's not the exceptions which make a game, but the basic rules.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Is the option of omitting spells from SP or MP games in Dom 3?

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Oh I definitely hope so!

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

You can omit spells from Doms 2 with a mod. It's pretty easy... but it makes the game a bit boring.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Disabling overpriced spells the AI opponents wastes gems casting or powerful spells not used by the AI(FlamesfromtheSky) actually makes the game more challenging within SinglePlayer.

Also for multiplayer games it helps to disable specific spells which are considered too powerful(GhostRiders) or broken(Stygian Paths). Sure they can be adjusted for balance but then everyone playing has to agree on the balance which takes additional time and the next game may have different players with different views... easier to just disable the spell.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Then why don't you just disable the spells via a mod? I don't understand why you continually ask Illwinter to add functionality that already exists? If your problem is that you can't get people to use your mods because they don't agree with your idea of balance, and would rather just create games where you can turn spells off by fiat, then the problem is with your perception of balance, not the fact that you need a mod to disable spells.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Several gamers don't use mods and several don't trust modded files. Also it would be a hundred times faster if the functionality existed within the startup screen. If you review the previous posts you'll also see it was someone else who suggested this not me.
Example:
Setting up allies can be done within the .map file... doesn't mean every future version should leave it that way. One of the biggest complaints I remember reading are people saying the game is not user friendly... asking these same individuals to make adjustments via mods only steps them further away.

On the same note if Dominions_3 suddenly removed independent strength and magic site frequency from the startup options where this can only be done via MODs or editing .map files more players would be unhappy. The reverse is true where if players could setup allies and disable forged items before the start of each game on an advanced tab more players would be happy for the easier functionality.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

That's their problem, not the games. If they aren't capable of reading a text file to see what it does, or aren't capable of copying a file to a specific directory, then they really aren't going to be capable of playing Dominions in the first place.

Not at all. You can disable a spell with about five lines of text and a couple of mouse clicks. To pick a single spell out of a list of hundreds would take far longer.

You've suggested this at least a half-dozen times NTJedi.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Whoaa... that is so wrong and close minded.
Despite your current computer abilities you can't expect everyone to know modding skills... in fact many gamers never edited a game file. To instantly believe they are not worthy of a game because of this is bad business thinking.
Your comments have nothing to do with even basic business sense.

WRONG... I can scan at least 12 spells within one second. Reading the word 'eagle eye' takes 1/10 of a second. Which means 120 spells would take 10 seconds. Which is far faster then locating a file, locating the spell within the file, editing file lines of text, couple mouse clicks and then testing to verify no mistake was made.

Do you have any idea how hard the game reviews would be if all starting game options had to be done thru modding?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

And all I did was agree with someone yet you had to go dig up a whole discussion instead of opening a new topic or tossing me a message. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

You mean this "discussion"? I think we've said enough. I'm wondering if some wonderfully talented programmer can come up with a utility to auto-generate the kind of mod NTJedi's looking for. I'm starting to get used to PHP, but I'm very much so a novice.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I missed that. What mod?
I probably could although I never really got interested in mods. I did quite a few programs to do map changes. And Ive dabbled with the idea of one to run a multi-game campaign (read the results of one game to write you into the next one). But except for my compiled stuff (turning it into an .exe) there was never much interest in getting the programs. Probably because the code wasnt in a popular language

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

When I agreed with someone it was from post#415997 - 04/03/06 07:32 PM from OG_Gleep... so my post with agreeing with someone wasn't from that discussion.

And the option to disable spells and items existed within Heroes_3 which is over 5 years old. Heroes_3 had an easy user interface to disable items held by commanders... I merely suggested taking the same direction. As I mentioned before one of the biggest complaints from other gamers was Dominions was not user friendly... my suggestion is to make it more user friendly so the community grows.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

NT_Jedi: Would you also care to compare the manpower and financial resources available to Illwinter vs. New World Computing/3DO? That's required for your point about Heroes 3 to have any actual meaning. We're talking orders of magnitude differences here, and the limitations imposed by the already existing engine architecture. Which means that you have to mesh any new additions to that and see that it doesn't break anything. It's not simply coding something from scratch to your specifications.

Edi

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

What are you talking about? Heroes 3 did not have an option to remove items from the game.
You had to open the map editor, locate the relevant map, go into the correct settings panel and then find and disable the items, then rename the map to prevent confusion and then resave it in another name in the correct location.

Unless you are talking about WoG (which IIRC allows you to disable whatever item you want from the game settings menu), but then again, that's an independant mod for the game, and we are assuming we are dealing with people that can't install mods...

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

NTJedi, you have suggested this many times. I think Illwinter has already read at least one of these suggestions AND the discussion that followed each one. We don't know what is implemented in Dominions 3 - I suggest you wait until you have the game, and ask for this to be added to the first patch if this or some other easier way to disable spells doesn't exist and you still feel this is so big a problem.

Besides which - what spells do you want to ban?

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Yes and doing all those steps took a combined total of 2 minutes. I recommend the disable option exist before the startup of each game, but if the option existed within the Dominions_3 map editor that would be great too.

Earlier within the topic I simply agreed with someone. If someone else drops a post in response to my post I acknowledge their post and respond... which is what happened here.

The spells vary depending on the game and its players. Many games include human players and AI players... as a result we ban powerful spells not used by the AI players such as 'FlamesfromtheSky' and 'GhostRiders'.
I'm merely recommending a successful feature from one of the best TBS games. The best way to describe the importance is "pretend" 3DO reappeared and released a new patch which removed the option to disable spells and items within the editor.... now picture how many complaints would arrive. The point is all those complaints are people which found that feature useful and I'm sure an equal percentage would be true for Dominions.

In regards to how difficult this would be... well only the developers know the game coding well enough to determine if this is a small task or a huge task.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

If you would like to ban spells to improve AI, shouldn't you be asking for AI to be able to either use those spells, or to protect his armies against them?

Of course, better AI HAS been asked for many, many times already.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I don't think downloading a 1Kb mod, putting it in the mod folder, going into the game and enabling the mod takes more than 2 minutes.
Neither does typing down one or two lines of code.
Neither does learning the code required to disable items.

Also, you messed up your third quote in that post, that wasn't really me asking you what spells you'd like to ban.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I wasn't talking about the WOG mod... I was talking about the editor... obviously you misread my post.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I cant see how this can possibly be such a big deal as to use programming and screen space to offer a way to turn it off. And possibly add it also to map commands? And to command-line switches? Those are already fairly crowded.

I dont particularly like the MODding stuff but as long as thats an option to handle this then I would tend to think its handled well enough for the majority.
Just IMHO

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I am amazed at the negative feeling in this discussion toward NT Jedi. I think all of you should go back and read the second and fifth post on page 58. You will see, as NT Jedi has pointed out through out the discussion, he was merely commenting on a COMMENT on the idea of adding a spell-disabling feature to the Dominions interface.

I agree with the following points:

1) Spell disabling within the normal interface (especially if well organized) would be nice.

2) Due to the number of people working on Dominions, it probably won't make the cut.

I do not want to insult anybody. However, this is a 50+ page wishlist, do you think everything will be added? Everybody and anybody should have the right to state their opinion w/o being yelled at, as only so much will make it anyway.

I trust the great people at IllWinter, and I trust them to make Dominions 3 the way it should be. Maybe Gandalf will be kind enough to make a spell-canceling interface sometime http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Yes that would definitely be better! My AI suggestions included random multiple personalities thus players wouldn't be able to predict as easily what the AI player would do. Ideally the best AI improvement would be allowing gamers to modify the AI or add their own AI via scripts.


Thanks Fate... I agree a well organized interface for disabling spells would be nice. Only the developers know how easily this can be setup.
Also everyone should know I'm not complaining... just recommending ideas.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

New idea, and one I just came up with (too late apparently?)...
Randomized opponents. You pick the number of other nations you want but not which ones. (while you could call for some at each difficulty level... say you wanted 8 opps at 4 normal and 4 hard)
Deadly themes would be excluded if any are around in the age being played (unless you let them in special). Super special option: No unveiling of the other nations' identities until 1) you meet them, 2) they get taken out by other opposing nations or 3) someone tosses up a global enchantment.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I think someone already suggested it somewhere buried in this thread. Maybe it will be in Dom3. Lets wait and see. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Edit: Managed to make a typo on such small post. I'm improving. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Obviously you misread my post.

I said:
And you replied by saying:
So what I said was that it also didn't take more than 2 minutes to mod out a spell with the current system of Dom2.
(IE:

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

IF it doesnt get put into the game, dont be saddened. It was done by 3rd party programming in Dom2 and can easily be done by a 3rd party program for Dom3 also. Hopefully by someone better at it than I but if not then I will whip out something for it.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

These are all the steps which should be done within the Heroes_3 editor which takes 2 minutes.
NO WOG MOD is needed...
NO Mods at all are needed.
No installing of Mods also not needed.
Thus your steps of installing Mod and renaming files are wrong.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

These are all the steps which should be done within the Heroes_3 editor which takes 2 minutes.
NO WOG MOD is needed...
NO Mods at all are needed.
No installing of Mods.
Thus your steps of installing Mod and renaming files are wrong.

[/quote]

The problem here is many gamers have never modified any game files. Many gamers never even visit forums. My suggestion would make this functionality available to all gamers which buy the game.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

There's no "modifying of files" going on, there's a text files with the prefix .dm that needs to be put in a folder, and then a few more clicks to enable it in-game.
No modification of any sort, and all changes are reversible with a click of a button.
The option of mods is available to everyone, all you need to do is download the correct patch (in the case of DOM2) and you get the modding manual in the /docs folder, and you can easily use that to create a one-command-line-long files and enable it, no visiting forums required.
Its also a much better way, because in HoMM3 you auto-downloaded the maps from the other player, so you had no idea what that map contained (the other player could have disabled spells you didn't like disabled, or enabled spells you'd rather be disabled, or just make himself start with 10,000 Black Dragons), in Dom2 you could just open up the .dm file and see what it does.
And even if you choose not to auto-download, but rather have the other player presend the modded map, you still have to face the "difficulties" of locating the correct folder and putting the file there.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Shouldnt long debates of wishlist items be restarted in a seperate thread? Not to shut them down. I feel that discussions are good but long ones might be counterproductive to the list. It might make it hard for the developers to check the wishlist, and force someone to have to create another trimmed version of the wishlist, which then gets filled with... etc etc loop

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Ok, here is an idea (about training). I know it probably won't make it in the end, but whatever.

I was thinking about how to give units more character. I remember that one of the things that gives me the greatest feeling of love for my units is when you do something special w/ them. So, what if you could TRAIN them!

Here is how I envision it:

---Only specific (normally the non magical or priestly commanders) commanders may train units.

---The player would give the order to advance all the units to x level. All units below level x would gain 1 level that turn. They would eat (1 + the level attained) TIMES as much food. So level 1 = 2x, level 2 = 3x, level 3 = 4x, etc...

It would probably be hard to implement and balance, but I like the idea (plus, it is fun to fantasize).

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

We all know how powerful Ethereality is, and how it is used wherever possible to create thugs to take down entire conventional armies. How about a spell to give a mage and some loyal bodyguards or PD a chance against silly raiding Banelords, Spectres, or (ugh) Black Servants?

Spiritbane Weaponry
Construction 1
Earth 1
Fatigue: 40
Area: 5

Bestows the Magic Weapon trait on troops' weapons in the area of effect.

That vampire queen may be less likely to attack your capitol on turn 5 knowing there might be a sage ready to buff your 25 PD.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

nice idea, however it would make certain units (fire and air elementals, dispossesed, soulgate in general) kind of useless. if you increased its difficulty to cast a little/decrease its area it might be a little more even (or make it very short ranged)

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

You would be quite lucky to have a sage in your capital on turn 5. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

anyone with random/earth mages could get it though and since practically everone can get earth on their mages even without indies (ok, maybe not mict) it kind of spoils etherealness

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

havn't read all the posts, but so if these have been mentioned already, I apoligize

Hot seat for at least 4-5 players
war screen to show who's at war with who would be nice
eliminate the graphs and use highest to lowest

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

How about having a unit do one simultanious counterattack on an enemy when attacked if it has enough movement left instead of the current repel rule.

That would remove the way entire armies get free strikes on enemies and would allow powerfull units to get overwhelmend easier.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

a bit late, considering how soon dom 3 will be out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I was thinking about how I would like the Dominions movement rules to work and this is what came together for me.

Core change one - Sweep: Like Hide & Sneak, Defend & Move, Sweep becomes a moving counterpart to Patrol (replacing "Move & Patrol" with a sexier name -- and much more utility). Sweep does nothing about unrest or sneaking enemies, but see what Patrol now does below.

Core change two - Non-required MP costs: Movement points (MP) are used for several things. Fighting battles, entering rough terrain, sneaking, and moving to an adjacent province all cost MP but only the last requires that the force actually have the MP.

Everything else is either just making those work or tweaking for effect, but since this is a monster post there's a lot of it.

OPERATIONS:
In a operations phase, after the first battle round, all forces moving into friendly territory move, the move order of remaining forces is based on proportion of movement points (MP) remaining. Battles are resolved after every moving force has moved one province, or been pushed back or caught by pursuers while trying to. The process is repeated until no force has both orders and MP remaining, up to 10 rounds. Routing, but not retreating, clears orders.

Battles are first checked for patrolling (or sweeping) forces. If a patrolling force is matched then it falls back on a moving force. If a moving force is outmatched it withdraws into a castle. Defending forces always withdraw into castles. Indoor actions (e.g. Research) behave like defending forces and outdoor actions (e.g. Searching) behave like patrolling. A unit that cannot fall back participates in the battle. Province Defense (PD) and independents always Patrol. (So castles work for independents!)

TRIVAL DETAILS:
Since forces have a move path it is easy to have the much requested multiple turn orders.

Sweeping and Patrolling forces start battles with 2*melee fatigue.

All current move rates are increased by one, up to ten. This makes administrative marches faster.

Flying forces which have orders and MP and are not patrolling may not participate in battles.

Sailing costs all (10?) MP, sailing forces may not patrol, nor may they participate in battles while they have orders and MP.

Stealth is checked each movement round for all ten rounds after patrol battles but before regular ones (which a found sneaker joins). This, and equating independents with PD, require that each stealth check be much safer then currently.

Sieges & storming castles are done after the operations phase.

EXAMPLES:
Example one: A Tien Ch'i army consisting of a 40 Barbarian Horsemen sweep force and a 200 Footman and Archer moving force bumps into a Pythium PD of 10 and 100 moving Emerald Guards. The Pythium PD, being clearly outmatched by the horde, falls back and joins the Guard. The Barbs then consider attacking the Pythium regular force but decide they are also outmatched and join the Feet. The TC and Pythium regular forces, including the former patrollers, each spend a movement point and fight.

Example two: Ulm, eschewing its reputation as ponderous, has decided to strike two provinces deep in a single month. It's mighty force of Pikeneers is set to patrol and a group of Black Knights are using regular move to the target province. The Pikeneers will overmatch any patrollers and crush any regulars leaving the Knights able to pass through unmolested. That, at least, was the plan. Unfortunately, a flock of Black Hawks distracted the Pikeneers so they had no remaing MP to move at all. The Knights only encountered a few PD but the wasted time caused the plan to fail.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

How do you decide this? A single ice devil could probably kill both armies, but it clearly doesn't have numerical superiority.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

With difficulty?

More seriously, the answer depends on how much accuracy people need to tolerate it. On one extreme the game could run the battle as a monte carlo simulation and use that to decide which is stronger. On the other extreme, simple counting, maybe people would enjoy a half dozen ewoks distracting the ID while the main force leaves them to their fate. It's certainly no weirder then SCs retreating because the PD ran away.

In between, there is probably a workable algorithm. Cost might work -- (20*gems+gold+resources) would have a lot of mundanes thinking a fully equiped SC shouldn't be their problem. I think the toughest case to calculate isn't SCs but rather mage teams. If a force that defeats a patrolling force without loss gets a free shot at the main force, would you prefer that? Or thats SCs need to bring along extra eyes to find the main army? I'm fine with either of those, so precise calculation is not a high priority for me.

A serious discussion of a force comparison algorithms wasn't my point so if that's what you would enjoy then please set up a target for us to shoot at. In the meantime, mine is up. :-)

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Someone can prepare for a HUGE project. As soon as Dom3 is out they will need to go thru this wishlist and copy everything not covered into a Dom4 wishlist

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Thank god for the Show All button. Though even that won't help that much.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

I imagine it's too late for any suggestions (although this is a perhaps a fairly simple one) but I asked a question in another thread that I think would be a good suggestion:

I would very much like to be able to have the province information screen (or somewhere) allow for descriptive text. I love D2, but always wanted to be able to make a more complete world when making my own maps. Can anyone answer if this will be possible in D3? I think descriptions are a simple way to add a tremendous amount of depth and storyline to the game.

Anything like: "Province X is an area of rolling hills on the west bank of the Lamza River. There are a series of abandoned ruins on a long ridge line in the west of the province. The land is only moderately valuable with sheep farming common in the rocky hills."

Anything like that would be great... it would allow for the addition of a lot of possibilities. You could have hints about magic sites, descriptions of why the province borders others (mountain pass, port, or such)... all sorts of things.

Re: Dominions 3 Wishlist
 

Option IN THE CAPITAL ONLY to -for a higher price (double, triple)- CHOOSE which mage begins with what magical school (if capability exists). See it as a magical academy or something.

Market should exist in the capital. There, Magical items must be able to be BOUGHT for gold (for a high price).

Possibility to build buildings everywhere. More towers for the castles, a thieves guild, a mages guild, markets, magical academy, fighters guild (for bonuses when officers are recruited at the capital), Army training camp (every year of continouus training, +1 in any trait)