Re: Patch Improvements
 

And many people (and allways computer) forget to move archers, so you might hit mages/commanders.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I'd like to add Random map generator optimization to the list just because I think it takes much more time than it should to create a map. In particular it seems to get stuck on dividing the world and drawing boundaries more than anything. Now I know any random map generator is better than no generator and I can certainly live with it as it stands now, but I think some optimization in those two categories atleast would be nice. I brought a friend in to see the game and we must have sat there for over 5 minutes while it created a map for the new game I started. I was a little embarrassed to be honest because as a fan you want the game to make a good first impression on people.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Suggestion: Battle Log.

Basically a text file (viewable in game if possible) that shows every action and roll in a battle. Ideally it would be created in real time with the battle, so at any point you could pause the battle, pull open the log and determine exactly what happened.

Obviouslly I realize the insane size this would be on larger battles, but I think this kind of feature would be incredibly valuable for learning the mechanics.

-How does multile attacks against one person lower defense. -How varied the open ended rool can be.
-Effects of fatigue on armor penitration
-Morale rools and effects on them.
-etc...

I know all those equations are available in the manual (or online somewhere), but actually seeing them applied would shed a lot of light on how they work in practice.

These would be particurarly interesting (and understandable) on Arena battles or Thug/SC battles.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Like this?

Pythium starting troops fighting Dark Vines/Druids/Woodsmen. It is a text file written if you use -d parameter with dominions. I think multiple 'd's give more precision. This came with -dddd or so.

It is written to the log.txt in the main Dominions 3 folder. That is created during hosting, and contains other host information as well, and as you can see the format isn't that easy to comprehend...

1917 striking with weapon Spear. [/b]att25 def11[/b]
First, the unit ID number. Each unit in the Dom world has one. Second, those att and def values have already had the random roll added to them.

hitloc Velite strikes Dark Vines wl4 diff0 -> 4
wl -> Weapon Length

Not quite what you wished for, but here you have it.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I would like the echo the improvements to magic site searching ... I think it wouldn't necessarily be too cpu intensive to keep a better list of targets.

I also wish there was a "Move and Search (for magical sites)" (monthly repeatable) option for commanders. Logic like:

searchvalue = [ ((commanderskill in fire {max 4} ) - (currently searched in fire {max 4}) + ((cskill in water {max 4}) - (currently searched in water {max 4}) + ... ]

Every turn: check search value in current province, if non-0 then search. If 0, check the search values of all provinces owned by the empire within 1 movement turn, and move to the one with the highest (non-0) searchvalue. Else, (depending on how complex you want it to be) either just switch to defend, or check the set of owned provinces within 2 moves and so on.

I'd also like to echo, monthly forge item.

Also: repeat recruiting of commanders? I suspect there is some serious design philosophy behind the descision not to allow this sort of queueing, automation, yet this is an "I wish" thread. And I do wish I could tell my province with sages to keep recruiting sages until I say stop. For that matter I wish I could tell the sages to immediately default to researching, but, well, que sera, sera.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

For me, the most tedious part of the game is having to keep moving leaders to the back of the battlefield since they default to the center. It would be nice if they defaulted in a line to the rear of the battlefield or if there were a hot key to automatically arrange the leaders in back and the armies up front. In fact, I think having several standard formation hot keys would save a lot of tedious movement.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

An unlikely wish:

Single screen pretender creation: The pretender creation interface is rather convoluted; everything could easily be combined onto one screen.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Here's my request -

Give the option to edit preveiously made gods Gods using the Pretender creation tool. Make Pretender passwords viewable in plain text in case you forget them.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Well, I know that this is probably far too ambitious for a patch, but if ye shall not ask, ye certainly shall not recieve. Here goes...

User-scriptable AI for spellcasting with decisions

I'd REALLY like to be able to load something like this into my priests.

if(theBattlefield.contains(UNDEAD))
cast(BANISH) //GET RID OF THOSE *%$@#@* UNDEAD! ARGH!!!

While I'm asking for the moon, why not ask for the stars along with it?

getFriendlyUnits(int radius)
getHostileUnits(int radius)
getUnitStrength(unit theUnit)
getUnitResistances(unit theUnit)
getUnitAfflictions(unit theUnit)
&c...

Yes, I'm aware that this is, in all likelihood, utterly unrealistic. But I, and those few of use who can and/or would be willing to learn how to write code would be immensely thrilled. Well, okay, at the very least I would be immensely thrilled.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Okay, I'm interested in the game, but I'm going to wait until the patch hits, to see if I buy it. The deal-breakers for me:

1) Long times for map generation and turn processing.
If you can't come up with a random map generation algorithm which is both fast and good, generate a couple hundred or so templates using your slow map generation algorithm and bundle them with the software or something. I don't want to have to choose among the maps, as that takes away the fun, but it's boring to wait for the map to generate.

The same thing applies to the turn processing. I don't know if you're drawing every battle before it starts or if the AI is hopelessly bloated, but I'm running a machine which is can guide a rocket to the moon. More to the point, I'm running a machine which is more than capable of guiding fifty rockets to the moon simultaneously. Graphics are one thing, but work with me here. Figure out where the bottlenecks are and get some damn optimization done.

Not deal-breakers, but likely to influence my decision as to whether to purchase the game and/or recommend it to friends:

1) Pretender generation. This should all be one screen, simple as that.

2) The map. I'm sorry, but the icons and such are still ugly. When it was ugly and minimalist, as in Pretenders II, that was cool -- it was what it was. But this intermediate level of ugly is atrocious. At absolute minimum, make the part of the map that flashes when I click on a province less enormous, and get rid of that absurd arrow extension. I don't need to see a sizable chunk of my screen flashing every time I click an area, and I don't need the game pretending that it's dynamic in an area where it isn't. Plus the arrow is ugly.

3) Menus in general -- get a dang GUI expert to go through and clean house, making all of the backgrounds get along with all of the sprites for the various units, et cetera. This isn't an enormous task, and it would vastly improve playability.

4) Various report options. Let me know how many x's I've killed or gotten killed. That's called flava, and it makes games fun. Let me know how many people died in a siege or assault. If a commander was killed in a battle, let me know which one. Those suckers are expensive. If critters which cost more than 100 GP per were killed in a battle, let me know. Don't make me watch every battle to see if it was my Sorceror or my Water Mage who ate it, because I can't remember who all I committed. When I whack a Pretender, throw up a summary screen of the Pretender's accomplishments (units created, etc.) and a couple of paragraphs on how I threw my enemy down before me. If you're feeling clever, tune the paragraphs to what kind of unit killed it -- if a militiaman finished the job, emphasize ignomy. If it took Joe Stoic, Holder of the Sacred Flame of Badassery, emphasize the heroics. But something. Seriously.

The game still has its overall amateur feel, which isn't a terrible thing; the idea that it is the creation of people who love gaming to give to other people who love gaming is fine. I feel the love. But you gotta take away the un-fun parts, or I can't get at the delicious nougatty center underneath.

Finally, now that Dominions 3 is out, you should totally start selling Dominions 2 for some ridiculously low price on download. Think of it as the first hit being free.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Very good suggestions. Most of the changes would be closer to "Dominions 4" than to "a patch", but still very good suggestions.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I seriously don't see a problem with 'long map generation times' issue. Some things to consider about it - generation times are directly related to PC power so not everyone has problems with it. Remember that time to create random map is insignificant compared to the time you will spend playing on it and having fun.

Another thing to consider is that there are nice premade maps that come with Dom3, new official maps will be released with patches and modders will make even more. So in short time you will have a host of maps to play with even if you don’t want to mess with random map generation.

Last but not least; there are OTHER random map generators already made by other people and there is already random map site from Gandalf Parker who generates a host of new maps of various sizes on daily bases. All you have to do is pick the one you like and unpack it in maps folder.

Personally, I'd prefer if devs focus on things that are broken then on trying to improve random map generation for few seconds and risking even more things get broken in the process.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Some little suggestions to speed up pretenders testing and customisation :

- make possible to delete pretender gods without creating a game

- add an "edit an existing pretender god" option in the create a pretender god screen

- allow to cancel game creation / go back to the last screen at each stage of the process (not just at the beginning and the end)

- when loading a pretender in game creation, give access to the pretenders stats by right clicking on the names (with of course password verification before, if the pretender has one) ; or better, once a pretender is loaded, allow to modify it before launching the game (and re-save him eventually)

- give access to the current player's pretender stats during the game even if he's not awaken, by clicking on him in the list of pretenders gods

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Suggestion: Alternative 'HIDE TRULY'-order, which does the same as 'HIDE', but commanders set on 'HIDE TRULY' are never selected by hitting the 'n'-key. I hate to cycle through all those stationary scouts.

Supports:

I strongly support 1) 6) 7) 15),
and I like the ideas 9) 13) and E).

-----

I am a bit disappointed by Dom3, especially because of the lack of 6) & 7) for example. Don't get me wrong, I'll buy it nonetheless, since Dom2 is a good game and the tax-advisor and the 'y'-key shortcut are so useful, but for Dom3 I would have really liked to see something new that excites me, like a twist and tweak to the tactical setup, which would challenge me to rethink all the tactics I used in Dom2. From playing the demo I found that it just plays the same.

Furthermore, there where many simple and optional things in the Dom2 wishlist (like the suggestion I repeated above - which is not originally mine BTW), which were sadly ignored. Instead we got animated movement arrows... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif And there were many more, e.g. I cannot imagine that it would have been much work to add one or two alternate shapes to tactical setup, apart from a slight disadvantage to the AI nations.

I even doubt that a new shape would make that much of a difference in the end (unless shape affected commands would be added, like keep formation), but I would be tempted to play around with new setups nonetheless and find out for myself!

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I like Dominions 3 very much, it's a great game, but 2 more months under development would have propably made it a lot better game. Less bugs, more features. Some of the stuff that is still plaguing it is old. I can't belive that for battles still generate "We captured the fort!" without details.

Creating Pretender Gods that can be loaded later is counter-intuitive. It would be so much easier, or rather sensible, if you could just save a Pretender design you made when starting a game and if you could edit previously saved designs.

More detailed battle reports that would show types of units involved, the commanders who died etc etc etc would also be nice.

Or creating a mechanic for "nation enchaments" like the Carrion Woods spell that would be cast once and permanently change the nation without eating a global spell slot.

Or heck, creating new standards for Raptors, Aboleths etc. and writing up new descriptions for Early Caelum and so on. As of now quite a number of the nations feel just like exported Dom 2 themes instead of nations mostly because they share the same banners, same unit descriptions etc etc. And the kitbashed late era nations, ugh...if they had no trouble discarding Serpent Cult Pythium they could have disbanded either of the DF/CotS, IF/BF and NE/CW pairs and not unastheticaly kitbash togather Hochmeisters and blood cultists, devils and sailors, manikins and armored minotaurs.

And so on. I do enjoy the game a lot but I also have a nagging feeling it could have been better with some more time under the works. It's good that Illwinter supports it's games really well, so we have at least a slim hope of seeing some of these things addressed.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I second everything Twan said here.

Also points 8 and 11 get my vote.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I agree....

- casualty reports on castle storming should be a must.

- Multiple Victory Conditions I strongly agree with

- AI doing bidding wars for Mercs

- greying out Items that you do not have the resources to make

- Castle Fort Status....maybe every turn....every other turn....in the messages at the start of each turn, list what provinces has a fortress being built, and how much longer until it is completed

- fleeing units SHOULD stay if you win

- I think any nation that does not have nation specific spells should be given spells for that nation. Not sure what nations other than Marverni that does not have them, but they need at least a couple

- maybe this one was listed in another form, but a mouse-over on the map screen when you place it over a commander to show what items, and what troops he is commanding.

- really, any UI improvement....anything that makes the game interface more transparent....so any UI improvement listed, I agree with!!

Those are the ones that I saw that I STRONGLY want to see...but really...any and all I would agree on....

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I support:

6 (i'd like a command like "cast spells without to use gems"), 8, 10, 14 (or atleast target all provinces that arent a capital, i noticed that conquered provinces are almost never searched, and i dont think the AI did it [ or let me know what the AI already searched in that province ] ), 15, 16 (maybe to deactivate priest spells non mage/priests or vice versa), 22.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

This is a big thread, so I might have missed it.

For an additional victory condition, I'd like to see a research win. Where you research all paths fully, and then spend an obscene amount of gems and bloos slaves from all paths to cast a spell that ascends you into godhood after a certain amount of turns. Like building the spaceship in Civ 4.

Or something to that effect.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

More:

Single screen magic laboratory: Like pretender creation, the items, global enchantments, gems and research could be combined onto one screen. Only the spell list need be seperate.

Better spell list: There's something to be done here, it just seems flabby. Two columns of spells, rather than just one, maybe? An option to view the path requirements numerically (i.e D4 rather than DDDD) would be nice; counting the icons for high level spells is a nuisance.

Better province info: The province info should contain the name of the nation that owns it. Yes, you can tell from the flag, but new players may not know which flag is which. And you should be able to view magic sites in enemy provinces as if you owned them yourself.

De-uglyfied provinces: The Dom2 province icons were nicer than the Dom3 ones. In particular, the single dominion candle of Dom2 was better, and the pile of gold representing money was FAR superior to the obnoxious gold infobox.

Better army icons: I liked the old crossed boxes army style - especially the way that commanderless armies were easily viewable as not having a cross. The new system hides this information. At a pinch, it would be nice if the army icon changed according to whether an army contained a commander, mage, priest, prophet or pretender.

Smarter independents: It would be good if indies were more unpredictable in their tactics, rather than always fighting the same way. Flanking, or anti-archer ranged attacks, for example.

Whole army positioning: Often, you will want to move your entire army forward or back, depending on the enemy you're fighting. This is a tedious task, which becomes more tedious the larger your army is. A way to move your whole army would be very nice.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

That's just not true at all. It is the programming, plain and simple. Every other game I've played that has a random map generator takes split-seconds to generate one. Why is this game so different that it requires minutes? I have an AMD 2500+ with 1.5 gigs of RAM and you're telling me it's not powerful enough to efficiently create a small random map with two AIs? How much horsepower do you think such a task needs lol? I do agree with you that there are more important things for them to do deal with but as this thread is more of a wishlist than a practical list of what will go into the next patch, I don't see how my suggestion is anymore out of place than many others.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Good suggestions.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Just want to say I agree with Sandman that the Dom2 way of representing armies, gold, and dominion was better than the current way. In Dom2 you could easily tell the dominion and gold of a province at a glance. The new way is not very clear. Also, you could quickly tell which armies had leaders and their relative size was easier to see as well.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention, I also like the temple and fortress graphics of Dom2 better.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Most random map generators are for games where the basic measurement is a single tile of a specific terrain, while Dominions uses arbitrary, semi-realistic looking maps. While it does take longer than I'd expect it to, the results make it appear that it's using a fairly complicated algorithm.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I suspect map-creation can be sped up significantly if the graphics / message updating code is tweaked.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

That's the difference between colouring 2,560,000 pixels and "colouring" 65,536 tiles.
Also, considering how Dominions maps use up to 32bit coloring, compared to maybe 200 different tiles in the richer games, that's 4,294,967,296 * 2,560,000 = 10995116277760000 different options compared to 256 * 65,536 = 16777216 with other games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Here's a suggestion that should be easy to implement. Since you can have lot of micro management to put the gems in the lab when you have units dedicated to gem/slaves production (that should drop their gems in the lab) and units that need to keep their gems on for combat purposes, I think those 4 buttons should be added in the global screen where you manage your gems :

- Pool bloodhunter's slaves : pool the slaves of all commanders actually bloodhunting.
- Pool clam's pearls : pool the pearls carried by commanders equipped with a clam.
- Pool fetish's gems : pool the fire gems carried by commanders equipped with a fever fetish.
- Pool stone's gems : pool the earth gems carried by commanders equipped with a bloodstone.

I think that's all the ways commanders can produce gems/slaves. It should remove a lot of micro management imho. I'm waiting for this feature since I've discovered dom 2. Pleaaaasssse. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Yep, I too experienced that progress bars or indicators can slow down things enormously.

...but can't someone who has the full version yet easily try this out by running a graphicless server and connecting locally to it (and disconnect before hosting)? Or does even the graphicless server spit out useless progress comments?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I think that the +3 attack +3 defense bonus of quickness is too much, should be removed. Acting 2 times the same turn is enough bonus. Right now it´s the same as dom2. no-brainer.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Are you talking the spell? Or the blessing? Because the blessing isn't +3 attack / + 3 defense, nor is it really 2 actions per turn.

As far as the spell goes, it no longer allows casting two spells per turn, so it's already been down-graded. And it makes no sense for someone moving more quickly than everyone else to _not_ be harder to hit & have an easier time hitting foes.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

didn´t know of the downgrade done so far. I was talking about the spell. even then the bonuses are an unneeded plus.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

One improvement that would really be nice : An option to _not_ have any mercenaries show up for the first 10 (or X) turns. An awful lot of Dom2 games had to use "no hiring mercenaries the first 10 turns" as a house rule, just because early game mercs could be so imbalancing.

And it's looking just the same with Dom3 : the nation that gets the first mercenaries is often getting the first three or four mercs, because of the leg up on expansion & thus gold income it gives.

And it should be trivial to implement, along the lines of :

IF NoEarlyMercs AND TurnNumber LESSTHAN 10
...SkipMercenaryCheck
ELSE
...CheckForMercenaries

The mercs are wonderful for SP games, but can add too much of a luck factor to MP : getting a full 20-60 temporary troops in place of 3-10 regular troops is a huge boost.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Why shouldn't it be a "no-brainer"? It's a low level buff spell, one of the only ones for water magic, and a 3 defense boost is eaten up by the now increased defense penalty of 2 for every consecutive attack against a single target in a turn.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

well, if you have unit with 2 or more attacks they get multiplied by 2 and each attack gets you a +3 attack. and more defense (+3) there´s no reason not to cast it in a SC or thug, better if it´s the mass quickness (quickening?) in a group of units with multiple attacks.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

This is true. However, a SC or thug either has to have Water, which isn't too common on the suitable chassises, or makes you choose water intead of something else like Fire or Earth or Nature for Fire Shield or protection spells/Earth Power or Personal Regeneration; or the SC or thug has to wear Boots of Quickness/Jade Armor, which need Water magic; or the SC or thug needs a friendly mage to cast Quickness (Quicken Self is where Quickness used to be, Quickness is AoE 1 version of it), in which case you might want to add other SC/thug or some bodyguards to keep the mage alive.

This is Water version of Luck. Not Body Ethereal, but Luck. A considerable bonus good against almost everything but, on its own, not enough against powerful opposition.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Are the various gem-producing items even still in the game? I don't recall seeing them...

That said, I've already loudly noted my wish for the blood-slave pooling command. How easy it'd be to implement, however, I can't say.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Is having a reason to cast a spell a bad thing?

Quickness is already nerfed by no longer allowing 2 spell castings on the same turn. It most certanly doesn't need another nerf.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I can readily understand your point and might even agree. I do tend to find that the mercs really -do- make a huge difference in early expansion. That said, one balancing factor might be that the bidding system helps check this somewhat. If I put half of my starting gold towards a mercenary, I'm necessarily also gutting my magic research or my early expansion if I -don't- win the bid. Even though I get the money back, that's a turn of research I've lost or, worse, I have the cash to buy soldiers but not the resources. So that makes it less of a no-brainer to buy mercs as you may have to overpay just to be sure you don't get the shaft of not only not getting the mercs, but slowing down your growth even further by not winning.

I'm not convinced that this is -enough- balance, mind you. But it's a thought.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

No, there's no reason not to cast it, just as there's no reason not to cast mirror image, mistform, body ethereal, personal luck, astral shield, personal regeneration, fire shield etc.

It's a powerful spell for water magic that generally lacks powerful spells.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

They are. Clams now require W3N1, while I haven't yet looked at the stats for the Earth Blood Stone or the fever fetish.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Ah, thanks for the tip. That certainly solves the issues of hording, I think. Or at least stalls the issue. I'll have to play out an SP game gunning specifically for clams and see just how economical the strategy is.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Which is yet another reason why the person who wins the mercs gets a big leg up : anyone else who bids is generally setback compared to if they hadn't bid. Mind, I'm not sure that losing 4 points of research is gutting research, especially with the longer research times in Dom3.

I think an awful lot of people bid, because of the large advantage, and for a good merc it might just be the person who alchemizes his or her fire gems to bid 415 instead of 400 who wins the mercs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Fever Fetish is still the same cost, but it no longer works on undead. So you actually have to disease a commander to get the benefit.
Of course, you could just start an old age fetish farm of your already diseased commanders.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

But then, mightn't a smarter starting strategy for people who know they don't have the money to put out towards mercs (particularly without alchemizing) be just to not bid at all and instead use your money to buy national units?

I agree, though, that it's probably far too much of a no-brainer to hire mercs in the early game. Heck, given their relative cheapness, I tend to default to hiring mercs more often than not simply because of how quickly they arrive. It's perhaps something to be saved for Dom4, but maybe mercenaries should have a delay of a few turns before showing up when first hired or hired away from another nation. Maybe that'd counteract their element of benefit, as I know that I've often felt it a bit cheap to siege a castle and then begin hiring every mercenary band available into that province to quickly blow through the siege.

And hey! It can be up to 8-10 or so research lost, depending on eras or scales. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Okay, okay. You're likely right in that that's not at all "gutting" anything.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Yes, they're almost unchanged I think (except for clams that require nature gems)

Re: Patch Improvements
 

youre right, but body ethereal is useless later on when lots of guys have magical weapons, the same with mistform. Personal luck on the other hand is also a no-brainer, personal reg is useful also fireshield, but the latter 2 are not overpowered at all.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

And Fever fetished are very unpredictable in how often they generate a fire gem. I believe the more afflictions a unit has the more likely a gem will be produced. Testing on some units with recuperation I was averaging 1 gem every 3 to 4 turns.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I've killed more than 50 vine ogres in a single battle using only a dragon with fire shield. Does that make it overpowered?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

UPDATED: 10/18/2006 More updates added, eventually everyones request will be added. This topic to save work/time for Illwinter.

Any post placed here requesting a feature will eventually be added to the original 1st or 2nd post providing Illwinter a quick one stop place for feature improvements.

Please NOTE: Post your approval for suggestions others listed which you find important.
I will update the original topic allowing the developers to see which are in greatest demand.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

would you have done the same to 50 abyssian infantry? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif
(end of replys)