Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I think that's the best way, but I'd prefer to have it extended:
If commander order is defend, then he should:
1) search, unless the province is searched up to his skills
2) research, if he can (has >0 RP and there's a lab)
3) preach if he can

That would reduce some micromanagement.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Of course, this would mess up scrolling through commanders without orders. Though, you could always restructure the system a bit and make it work.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I think sushiboat and Sabre Cherry are on the right track.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

But what if... when a turn ends, and a commander has no orders, it does something intelligent? For example (these are in order of priority):

1) If a mage has no orders, it searches or researches.
2) If a holy has no orders, it searches or preaches.
3) If a unit that can "summon allies" has no orders, it summons allies.
4) If an unholy unit has no orders, it searches, summons the highest-level undead it can (excluding ghouls), or preaches.

...the above all assume that those commands are available - a unit set to "hide" in an enemy province would obviously not be able to search or reanimate.

These would never be reflected in the units' orders, or change the units' orders. Rather, between turns they would [b]act as though those orders had been commanded[b], even though during the turn and during the next turn their orders say "defend." There could be an "Activate automatic orders" toggle for players, if they want this to occur. The examples I listed, as far as I can tell, can never have any drawbacks, and have no effect other than allowing players to accelerate their turns and avoid micromanagement. In this situation, pressing "n" will still cycle through commanders that you never gave orders, since the orders will still be listed as "Defend."

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searching?
 

What SC says http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I don't need the game to play instead of the player, but reasonable default behavior for idle units and ability to "script" search routes (or even better : paths and actions, à la Stars!) would be very nice.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

So, you're saying that if they have the option, they would do all of the above? For instance a mage-priest set to defend would preach and research at the same time?

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I sure cannot speak for SC, but I thought what SC meant to say was that a commander set to defend should be assigned to any one of the unit's available tasks which are guaranteed to do no harm by the server when hosting instead of allowing commander to simply stand idle...

I often issue a "search" command for priests which are waiting for other armies to arrive and that cannot preach for a higher dom-strength anyway. It usually avails nothing, but even a slight chance for a site is better than no chance of anything useful.

It might be one of the reasons why I need hours to complete a single turn. So as long as these commands cannot no any harm (i.e. preaching, searching, researching as opposed to blood hunting, patrolling, hiding...) it would save me the trouble to check all idle commanders (which is a trouble because I usually have stationary scouts on most bordering enemy provinces...)

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

hmm, I see. I suppose such a system wouldn't hurt but I doubt I would use it much. There are too many cases were you do not want the commander taking the default action, that I would probably end up going through them all anyway.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Could you please ginve an example? I can't see the harm in preaching, or searching for sites, if the other option was doing nothing. Auto-defaulting research might make efficient researching a chore, but you wouldn't accidentally lose any research points either. And telling mages to research (to see their RPs added to the pool) wouldn't be any worse than it would be now.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I was thinking that but then I thought about cyclops, son of nifel, titan, etc. and I've seen them do double duty as bless effect and sc.