Re: Addendi
 

I haven't read all the Posts of this thread, but I have one major improvement in my mind:

The battles in dom 2 seem to go in real time, but they really go in turns. In my opinion this is somewhat bad choice, since it unbalances the fights.

For example a battle that seems to be a cakewalk, BUT.. the enemy troops gain the "first strike" (hit with all of its troops, while you hit 0 times). At its worst this can lead to a severe morale loss, which again causes all your troops to route. In terms of realism this isn't right, since both the defening and the attacking squads should have almost an equal amount of hits. So let's compare turn-based and real time battles:

Turn-based

- Unbalanced
- Unrealistic first strike

Real Time

+ More action = more fun
+ More realistic feel
+ The strategic element more visible
+ You don't have to wait for every single arrow to hit
- Harder to see the course of the battle
- Battle system somewhat challenging to carry out

Re: Addendi
 

It's a good point, Azhur.

I would find real-time battles more fun to watch, because I get tired of waiting for arrows to fly.

In fact, I sometimes hit fast-forward while arrows are in flight and then hit pause as soon as the following turn happens so I can see what's going on.

Azhur's complaint about arbitrary first-strike could be solved by making battle moves simultaneous but still turn based. But simultaneous games have a whole bunch of funny corner cases, of course...

The devs should play Titan -- the strategy board game -- if they haven't. It's combat rules are interesting and they avoids weird corner cases. Titan's combat rules are not simultaneous-move.

I kind of feel like the Dom combat rules, which evolved (I guess) from a board game, should evolve some more to be best for a computer game and not a board game...

Re: Addendi
 

Real time battle has been suggested earlier in this thread, you might want to dig it up to see what comments it got. IIRC it would be too hard to be worth implementing, and would present problems such as missiles and spells that would be shot at the place enemy units are moving away from...

UI wish
 

I wish that the UI for "outside the game" things were better. For example, it takes a lot of clicks to connect to a server and see the status. For another example, I don't know how to download the game state and make my moves off-line and then upload my moves later. I guess maybe connecting and then choosing "Quit without saving" and then choosing "Play game" and choosing the game named after the server and then later connecting again, but I don't want to try it for fear of losing my turn if it doesn't work.

Re: Addendi
 

As far as i know of real-time battles being mentioned before in this thread, it got absolutely no comments (lol)....that are already solved in many games. On the downside, solving problems that are already solved might be less challenging than leaving unsolved problems unsolved.

Re: Addendi
 

Dominions does many things better than some other games, but it can't do everything as well as every game that was the best at something.

Here is a link to a message of Soapyfrog and the discussion that followed.

Re: Addendi
 

Thanks a lot for the link to the real time battles discussion.
________
Disclaimer: I have nothing against randoms. Maybe all the suggestion below was caused by a few funny-looking exceptions I didn't know of.

Got the impression that sometimes morale slightly over 10 is something that makes the troops concentrate more on the dilemma of 'to rout or not to rout' than the battle. But sometimes they fight with unexpected bravery. Which makes me think that there might be too high chance of getting the extreme results with the routing formula. Maybe there could be some inertia in the function (like more consecutive bad events have more serious impact on routing).

Also, havn't had time to check it again lately, but don't units still have normal morale when you pick them up in the neighboring provinces after routing? Was a surprise at first, somehow I naturally expected that fleeing from battle would ruin morale.

So it makes me think that the morale stat you see in unit info in battle is some base morale of the unit, not the actual morale in battle. Maybe it would be nice to see more components of morale and when morale drops below blah-blah, the unit would be likely to flee. And 'likely' would be somewhat more predictable than atm, coupled by more predictable 'unlikely'. Meaning more chance to get the average result, less chance to get the extremes. Or if the unit is secretive about it's real morale response to demoralizing battle events, maybe there could be some comprehensive estimation based on battle events.

I hope the routing formula used atm is something different from 'given enough time any army will rout no matter what because of the encoded probability'.

Re: Addendi
 

An elaboration

I will try to be as concrete and specific as possible in detailing what I mean by the nation
management screens I sketched in my previous post (addendi), because I think this would
particularly useful while not costing terribly high amounts of resources.
Basically, the "inbox" and "outbox" scheme can have the same form throughout all screens and
represents information coming in from Last turn (inbox) and going out this turn (outbox).
I will use the Lab and the Magic screen as examples here:

"LAB SCREEN" (shift-f3):

PREVIOUS TURN
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

Mage Action Bonus Type Place
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bob* forged Crystal Coin* 25% hammer Snofonia*
Jim* forged Magic Lamp* -- Dogville*
Art* forged Rainbow Armor* 50% hammer + M. Oggville*
</pre><hr />


<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

CURRENT TURN
Mage Action Bonus Type Place
----------------------------------------------------------------
Stan* forge Skull Staff* -- Snofonia*
Jim* forge Staff of Elem* -- Dogville*
Bob* forge Slave Matrix* 25% hammer Snofonia*
Ted* forge Lightless Lanter* 25% Master S. Ulm*


</pre><hr />

The fields marked with an asterisk (*) should be "hyperlinked"; that is, for example,
clicking on Bob will send you right to him, highlighted; clicking on Snofonia will send you
to that province; clicking on the object forged (Crystal Coin) will send you right to that
item in what is now the f8 screen.

The "trick" is the order screen for the current turn. As soon as you set a mage to perform a
task, he or she is automatically and instantly put into the "outbox"; that is, her orders
are set up in the Lab screen. No more must you search forever for that hammer you were sure
you had, nor must you keep track of who is casting what. You want Stan to forge a Crown of
the Ivy King instead of casting Summon Vine Ogres -- no problem finding the appropriate
people now. You want to make sure that someone is casting Summon King of Elemental Fire, but
you want the mage who is doing that now to cast Flaming Arrows in a battle somewhere else --
now you can exchange places easily. This way, mages can be easily found and their orders
changed.
I envision the Lab Screen to be one tab in a national overview, and the Last Turn and
Current turn to be next to one another side-by-side on one screen. If this proves to be too
much of a nuisance, perhaps this suggestion would be better: Have "Current Turn" and
"Previous Turn" be two "tab registers" on the "same" screen.

The setup sketched above can be used not only for the Lab -- and analogously, the Magic
screen, where casting rituals are documented -- but also for receiving and sending Messages
and items:


"TRADE SCREEN"

PREVIOUS TURN
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

Sent to Items Sent Quant. Received From Items Received Quant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mictlan Lightless Lantern 1 Mictlan Fire Gems 5
Mictlan Astral Pearls 19 T'ien Starshine Skul. 2
T'ien Lightless Lantern 1
</pre><hr />


<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

CURRENT TURN
Sending to Items to Send Quant. EDIT
Marignon Staff of Storms 1 edit/delete this transaction
T'ien Chi Astral Pearls 11 edit/delete this transaction

*SEND NEW ITEM* *SEND NEW GEMS*

</pre><hr />

On this screen, the "SEND NEW" fields highlighted here with asterisks indicate buttons which
allow you to send resources.


<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

"MESSAGE SCREEN"

Incoming Messages

Received From Topic
Mictlan Our trade
T’ien Want to kill Mictlan?
Marignon Why are you bothering me? 1
</pre><hr />


<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
CURRENT TURN
Sending to Topic EDIT
Marignon Misunderstanding edit/delete this message
T'ien Chi Bloodlust edit/delete this message


</pre><hr />

I think this would make my gaming experience, especially dealing with late-game micromanagement, exponentially more fun. Thanks for listening.

Re: Addendi
 

I can almost guarantee that it is at present although a couple of us think there's something buggy with morale in the latest patch.

At present, I've watched normal infantry keep coming even after about 24 out of 25 in the unit had been killed, after which one would _think_ that Last wounded unit would rout, if not substantially sooner.

Also, supposedly non-berserk troops rout after all commanders die, and non-berserk, non-immortal commanders rout after all troops die, and commanders with no troops rout after a commander dies, but it all too often doesn't work this way. (But this is something I am pretty sure has been mentioned in the bug thread, which is where it belongs.)

Yet More Addendi and Elaborations
 

II.
In the Category Prioritization of Dev Resources:

- At the very bottom of the prioritization list should be "more"; I would not like to see "more" units, more gods, more nations, more weapons, more trees, at least not at the expense of other things (see above, see below), and not primarily. The "more (of the same)" aspect feels like an expansion pack. Dominions 3 should not be an expansion pack, but a new, wonderful game in the Dominions tradition.
- therefore, the Ally Option (form alliances, allied troops can fight together on the battlefield against opponents) should have high priority, as should other aspects of this nature, such as theme-modding; after which should come
- improved fun-insuring UI
- Game balance doublechecks (make sure certain aspects (e.g. race for SC-building) or combinations of aspects (Caelum and Wrathful Skies) do not become no-brainers)

III.
Concrete Suggestions:
- Each "state" (e.g. mistform, etheral, mirror imaged, fire resistance, communion master) should have an icon and can be flagged during unit modding.
- Allow in Game Setup an option which lets you specify the number of Globals allowable simultaneously via slider (say, 0 to 20)
- New Checks and Balances: In addition to more Buffs and Debuffs (my first post), there could be more concrete, small defenses which protect well against specific attacks, thus awarding players' usage of strategic scouting, for example:
Dog Whistle: This item can cause Panic in nearby Wolves when used
Garlic Talisman: Wearing this item will bestow the wearer with Awe (+2) which only works on Vampires

New Diversity in Functionality of Spells:
- Divine Intervention: Make some (very few) powerful spells castable only by Pretenders
- 3-path Spells: Perhaps there are a few rare spells which have requirements in 3 paths, or perhaps even more.