Re: Patch Improvements
 

No, but then, quickness wouldn't be enough to allow you to survive against a horde of longdead horsemen either. We can go around in circles for ever discussing the relative merits of each of the self buff spells, but I hardly see quickness as overpowering considering that it no longer affects spell casting.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

And Quickness wouldn't do much of anything for you against a powerful enough a mage casting various battlefield spells. So obviously Quickness is useless, it doesn't keep them from killing you with Petrify / Disintegrate / etc.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I don't think Quickness needs a nerf.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Well I searched but didn't find, so ...

Tooltips in Army Setup Screen!

It's a little difficult to see whether it's a javelin hurler or a swordsman - and sometimes the "swordsmen" come in 4 varieties - axe, sword, flail, shield and sword. There is no way to check which ones you have outside of right-clicking every unit right now. :/

Perhaps a tooltip that says the Unit Name + wielded equipment?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I distinctly remember this was one of my problems with Dominions:PPP (the first one!): units with different equipment and stats having the same name, and sprites that were either identical or so little different that they might as well have been the same. Not much changed in this department over the last few years...

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Aye, and the tooltip could include stuff like exp stars, affliction icons with the name of affliction(s) and horror mark, curse etc

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Damn, now ppl will also have to manage a horde of Fetish-carrying scouts and check to replace the dying when they hit 1 hp ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Injured.gif
That change is useless and will just add stoopid mm http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif !!

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Is there are reason why the items of the diseased should not go back to the lab?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Yes, that would have been a welcome change instead ! Note that I didn't test if it has changed BTW...

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Well, I think that was the original intent of the Fever
Fetish.
It doesn't really make sense that undead can get diseases, but have no ill effects from them and still generate gems with Fever Fetish.

I do like the idea of items of dead commanders in lab provinces going back the lab. Probably not if they died in battle and maybe not if they're killed by range spells (Flames/Fire from the Sky, Seeking arrows etc), but someone dying of disease should be able to prepare a little bit.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Fever fetish still work on undeads, it's just slower (about 1 gem / 4 turns) because they just have one affliction (the "disease" without effect).

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I'll try it again. I don't remember how long I left it on him.

If Fever Fetish generates much less than 1/turn, it's probably not worth doing. Have the other generators been nerfed like that too?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I understand that the original intention was that these items would be used to produce gems for mages that travel with armies, not to generate income. That is, to lessen micromanagement. Few fever fetishes and few undead commanders (Black Servants?) produce about 1 gem/turn, allowing e.g. Machaka to not worry that much about ferrying gems for their mages. In theory, at least.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Clams still produce 1 astral pearl per turn, but are now much harder to manufacture, and cost 50% more than before.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Except that you can't put them on the mages, because they get diseased and die.
You can put them on Black Servants to ferry gems along with the mages, but you still have to distribute them every turn, just as you would if you'd just shipped out gens on normal scouts. (Which you have to do anyway for non fire gems.)

I suppose it's still useful in some situations.

The description makes it sound like it should only work on those who actually suffer from disease. I always assumed it working on undead was something of an exploit. Might be the intent though.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

...so, you should put it on an undead that's already been mangled (ex. was living Twiceborned mage who died of disease)?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Date: 10/19/2006 Main topic updated... I didn't get to add everyones, but it will eventually be done.
Purgatory Section has also been added within the second post.

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
 

I'd like to see new awakening options in god design (after all we have just 3 choices instead of lots of castles and themes options).

I imagine...
- in a far away plane (no bless effects before awakening)
- dead (need to be called by priests once available for awakening)
- petrified (will never awaken, only ascension (and/or perhaps a special endgame ritual you can't use before many empowerements) can free him, but he can give bless effects if not in a far away plane ; pretenders petrified in a far away plane are considered non-existant by most mortals and always have a base dominion of 1 - to avoid immobile petrified pretenders with dominion 10 and best scales-)

Being dead should give more points if the god is awaken or dormant as you have fewer priests (something like 75/50/25). Being in a far away plane should give more points if the god is imprisoned or petrified, as you have no bless for a far longer time (something like 25/75/100).

Standard dormant and imprisoned pretenders would have a little less points so the new options won't allow to make overpowered end game gods.

With all these options, the complete list of awakening choices would be :

- awake
- dead but awake (75)
- dormant (100)
- dormant in a far away plane (125)
- dead & dormant (150)
- dead & dormant in a far away plane (175)
- imprisoned (200)
- dead & imprisoned (225)
- petrified (250)
- imprisoned in a far away plane (275)
- dead & imprisoned in a far away plane (300)
- petrified in a far away plane (350 = with a 0 point god all good scales +3 with a medium dominion, but you have no use of anything else)

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Why exactly should the amount of points you get be generally lowered? It is allready less than in Dom2, why would we make it even lower? Also: would dead pretenders lose one from all magic paths? Also, why are you worried about people taking dominion 10, good scales and being unable to actually take part in real world events? Sort of like real-life gods? (depending on beliefs of course) That would be cool.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

If you're remote searching, I'd like an option to go to the province where you found the site instead of the commander.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

- Why exactly should the amount of points you get be generally lowered?

Because pretenders starting imprisoned are already more powerful than a dom2 pretender, what may have become a lot more powerful with the actual base points + my options. And also because many players have said that bless strategies with imprisoned gods are overpowered in small games, and are starting to ask for nerfs, so I've reduced a little the points for the normal imprisonment.

-Also, why are you worried about people taking dominion 10, good scales and being unable to actually take part in real world events?

I'm not worried. It's just that with the "petrified + in a far away plane" option and say an Oracle you can have all scales at +3 and 10 dominion if he's allowed to have a base dominion of 4, so all players wanting a "high scales only" strategy would take an Oracle petrified in a far away plane and end exactly the same, with dominion 10. Reducing base dominion to 1 for petrified pretenders, force to make some choices even for them, they may take all positive scales at 3 and dominion 5 or go for a higher dominion but with some lower scales.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Even better, why not tell the player the name of the discovered site in the message?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Yet more:

More unit trait icons: I'm thinking of drain-immune, minor death bless, gem producers, spy ability, assassin, shape-changer etc. Almost every unusual trait should have an icon on the unit screen.

Accurate army depiction on map: There's no reason to not show every unit in your armies in the correct proportions, rather than just the most common one or two.

Better fort icons: A great city should look different from a fortified one. In an ideal world, this would extend to the map icons as well.

Jotun hurler defence boost: Is there any particular reason they have such a low defence? They only have a few shots, and then charge into battle, where they inevitably get clobbered.

Marignon mage age reduction: A fairly weak nation is made all the weaker by hobbling its priest-mages with old age.

Reworked Conquerors of the Sea: It's a fair old mess of a theme at the moment. Mixing diabolic faith and CotS was a mistake.

Reworked Black Forest: As above, but even more a mish-mash. Illuminati, vampires, villains, holy inquisitors, paladins, wolfherds, rangers, fortune tellers, ghoul guardians, zweihanders ...why? I'd remake it as a B-movie style vampires and werewolves nation, but that's just me.

I also agree with proposals 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I don't see it as a mistake. It takes a weak nation and gives them the more powerful magic that they need to actually survive.

The nation is horribly weak without some way to put armour on its vampire counts, and even then, is only middingly powerful. It needs earth mages.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

It's pretty minimal as is. The Black Priests are capital only and old. And the benefit for being an inquisitor is proportionately less than it was in Dominions 2. They really got boned. They need their random pick back. A 100% chance of getting an Earth, an Astral, or a Nature wouldn't change the overall magical capabilities of the nation, but would do wonders for their ability to get things done.

For a team so dependent upon site finding spells, it's a travesty that noone in the empire can cast Gnome Lore. Even a 1/3 chance of getting a Gnome Lorer would set them to right to an amazing degree.

-Frank

Re: Patch Improvements
 

A little thing very useful for MP games :

The ability to see the list of messages you are sending by clicking on "messages sent" (especially the number of gems and gold sent and identity of recievers). If you make many exchanges in a turn in a slow paced game, not having this possibility may be really annoying.

(ps : I wasn't a big mp player in dom 2 so I don't know if there is a shortcut or any way to see sent messages, if there is one it's not in the shortcut list)

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Ulm, Black Forest
I think that a hodgepodge is the result of any nation making it to Late Age. It almost seems to the be definition of late age.

As for the ranking of its abilities, I note that they are being done by people who tend to play large-army. No mention of the stealth at all. Ulm BF is setup rather well for using stealth armies in the field while keeping its non-stealth units closer to home defensively. Any ranking of its abilities without taking note of such things amounts to a personal play opinion Im thinking.

Altho I do feel it that could benefit from a stealth priest.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Patch Improvements
 

No, I am definetly including the stealth when I discuss black forest Ulm, as the rangers are just about the only unit that's worth producing. Everything else is no better, or actually worse, than the mediocre troops of middle age Ulm.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Aye aye, agreed. I'll start working on un-mishmashing mods for LA Marignon and Ulm once (if!) they fix the age commands.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

It's an unappealing senseless mishmash, a lazy cop-out. That's whats wrong with it.

And the Diabolists who have enough magic to actually to do something are too old to do anything before they die in most of cases.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Isn't it more like 15 turns, like with every other old mage in the worst case?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Diabs seemed to suffer more than the average mage from my experience.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I see. So what would you do to make them at least as powerful as they currently are without offending your sensibilities about what combination of mages they should have?

Even if you recruit them in the winter, where age related afflictions happen, and you are unlucky enough to get them diseased, you still get ten turns out of them.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Depends really on whether we want a Sailing Marignon or a Diabolic Marignon.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

In the main screen we can see the items leaders have with them (in reduced graphics) - and this is INCREDIBLY helpful to noobies like myself.

I WISH these items were also shown in the Army Setup screen - I am constantly having to right-click on commanders in the army setup screen to recall what goodies they have.

Any chance this could be put into the patch? Seems like it would be a simple fix.

Thanks!

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Either way, it'd be nice if their troops reflected the theme, rather than being the same as middle era Marignon, minus knights.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Topic has gone a bit off since my last post, but I'd like to respond to Twan. If the concern with dual bless imprisonned gods of death and destruction playing as early era vanheim is that a single F9/W9 blessed vanir can solo independant strength 9, then FIX THE BLESSES! F9/W9 isn't great on say Marverni, although it's ok, or on any other race with weak sacreds, or to a lesser extent on races without non-capitol only sacreds. F9W9 early era T'ien Chi is not totally rigged, Warrior of the Five Elements can be shot, and are capitol only. It's units like van that are the problem. Ask yourself this: If I had a Fire 9 Water 9 bless, would I buy a helhirding for 150 gold? Honestly, they are probably worth that much. Well, atleast 100. If they couldn't be mass produced, they would dominate quite so much. Simply nerfing the points from imprissonned to counter the blessing issue isn't the answer. It may solve the problem, but it hurtsthe few people who might want to take an imprissoned god for reasons other than a bless. What if water nine game a minor chill effect instead of quickness? And fire gave a minor heat? Less characterful, and less fun, but it actually fixes the bless problem, as opposed to making the bless less practical.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I'd rather see Vans and Hels getting fixed. I'd say that even those EA Vanir/Hel infantry would win against every infantry unit of any age with possibly the exception of Niefel Giants on a battle with equal numbers.

It doesn't get any simpler. Glamour is overpowered. It's super stealth and superb combat bonus rolled into one.

The units with Glamour either need a cost increase or then Glamour needs to be reduced in power.

There are also some other units which are tremendous with the right blesses but have some weaknes. Jag Warriors can be shot unless they have an Air bless and I've seen SLINGERS pierce a low-level air shield. Eagle Warriors can get slain in the riposte that follows the round after their flying attack. Warriors of the Five Elements are glass cannons, excpet in spring, and are vulnerable to missiles. Burning Ones have encumberance and defence problems. Niefels can get ganced, though it isn't easy to pull off. And so on.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

At least for the Helhirdlings, the fact that they appear twice in the unit list of Helheim in the capital suggests that they were supposed to be capital-only, like the Walkyries. What makes them so efficient is that they can be produced in any fortress; take that away, and I guess they'd only be real bad on small maps (though I have exactly zero experience with Dom3 MP, so...)

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I've beaten Ermorian armies a bit under THRICE the size of my forces with F9 Vanheres and two commanders shooting lightning bolts and one in melee. I've beat Sauromatian armies of 70 units made out of their comp bow cavalry and bowmen with 16 Vanheres and 18 of those axemen. And so on.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I agree with the following;

2) Random Computer Allies Option

Add me to the Desired by list.

5) Improve AI Opponents Bidding on Mercenaries

Add me to the Desired by list.

6) New Troop Orders

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8) Battle reports from Storming Castles

Add me to the Desired by list.

9) Grey-Out forging items which lack the resources

Add me to the Desired by list.

12) Have non-death AI nations avoid death scales

Add me to the Desired by list.

13) Provide wrap-around option for randomly generated maps.

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14) Improved Monthly cast search spells.

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16) Function to allow the disabling of specific combat spells.

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17) Add a commander repeat previous commands

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18) Mouse-scroll and scroll-wheel zoom on the battle map.

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19) Ability to "page" through unit statistics within a squad.

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24) New battle command for archers: Fire and Reserve
Archers would fire for three rounds and then assume stay behind troops order.

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31) Provide more information for commanders which have been snatched away via spells or succubus.

Add me to the Desired by list.

34) Allow archers to avoid targets which are near friendly melee troops.

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43) Blessing not working or Blessing penalty until pretender gets free. Provides balance for the imprisonned/asleep pretender with blessing paths.

Add me to the Desired by list.

44) Allow alt-tab to keep graphics stable.

Add me to the Desired by list.


I am against;

15) Have fleeing units stay in the province if the owner of the fleeing units is victorious.

38) Increase pts reward for imprisoned pretenders.


I don't care one way or another on the rest.

Sammual

Re: Patch Improvements
 

UPDATED: 10/24/2006 Lots more updates added, soon starting page_8, eventually everyones request(s) will be added.
This topic is 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
 

Desire: 1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,13,14,16,17,25,27,32,43,47,51, 56,57.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

A simple interface improvement is all I'm ready to suggest now, as my Dom experience is limited to DOM 3 and I'm still learning.

When you check the spells that you're considering having a mage cast, your gems are shown at the top, but they quickly scroll off the screen. It would be useful to sticky them, so you don't have to scroll back up and recheck your stockpile.

Also, a link to the alchemy screen from the spell list wouldn't be a bad idea. It would save some clicking.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

When forging an item using a commander with a forge bonus, the gem cost for the item shown is the base cost, not the cost after applying the forge bonus.

For example, if my smith has a forge(25) bonus, and I order him to forge something, and I look through the items list and I see "sword of spaghetti" its' gem cost is shown as 5 Earth gems. This, I presume, is the base cost, and the actual cost to me to forge it would be 4, due to the forge bonus.

Most of the time, the game is great at showing values with all the modifiers applied, but not in this case. Can we get this changed?

Re: Patch Improvements
 

Supporting list:

2, 6, 7 (much wanted, though unlikely to happen), 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19, 29 (similar in my mind to 7: give more complete "army deployment" options, to make skirmishers possible), 37, 38, 45, 47, 51

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I'd quite like the list of godly names to be moddible. Idealy with no built in names.

Titles will be devided into requirements and title. A requiremnt can be any of the following:
Minimum skill in a magic path(s)
Gender
physical body
Dominion scales.

Boolean operators should be supported, e.g. Growth > 0 OR Nature > 2

The title can be simple.

King of Air.

or by useing brackets () you can have a comma seperated list and one word will be selected randomly.

(King, Lord, Prince) of Air.

And if you have a secondary bracket [] inside the first bracket you can make it chose between two lists based on requirements. The first list that passes will be selected.

([male: King, Lord, Prince] [female: King, Lady, Princess]) of Air.

If you use {} instead of () then rather than choseing the first list that passes it randomly selects a word from any list that passes. If there are no [] brackets then () and {} are interchangeible.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I'd quite like to see it that casting a global enchantment dosn't dispell existing ones.

Re: Patch Improvements
 

I agree with
1,2,5,8,13,14,16,17,18,19,22,25,32,33,39,41,43,44, 46,47,48,53

Re: Patch Improvements
 

This is most likely a positive design decision from Illwinter, as well as a possible way for non-Astral nations to remove a hurting enchantment (ie, fill enchantment slots and then try to overwhelm the annoying one with a new enchantment). So I don't think they will want to "improve" this part...

Re: Patch Improvements
 

IMO its better to make dispel easier than have enchantments overwrite each other.

For example they could create a whole range of dispells one for each gem type.