Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I was thinking of Master of Magic, actually.

Maybe, if you controlled a province, and all the provinces around that, and they were all of the same type, you could cast a spell (or build a magic item and sort of plant it in the ground) in the central province and set up a sort of "magical node" (a name change would ofcourse be appropriate) that would produce a gem each turn for you. The "node" as it were, would only function if inside your Dominion, and you could use the province-changing spell to set this up. A small benefit, but perhaps of interest.

I was also thinking of it's most direct successor, Lords of Magic (special edition). Really incredible maps on that game. The best looking that I've ever seen in a game. Since this *is* a wishlist, I'd love if Illwinter could find the guy who set up the map editor and get him to set up a map editor to include with the game.

(If you haven't tried this game and you see a copy, by the way, I really recommend grabbing it. Except for not including an item editor (for who knows what reason), the game is superb, second only-in my book-to Starcraft as a (sortof) RTS.)

Also, I think it would be great if magical sites that don't require paths to find, were present and visible on the greater map.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

You can make a map where the sites are found and visible on the map.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

True, but it's a little convoluted for something that would be known, anyway. I know it can be done, but can it be a feature?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Just read all 11. pages of this thread, there a great deal of good ideas, which inspired my whish list for a future patch/Dom4.

Mage auto site search.
-As described above + If a mage comes by a province a lower level mage has searced or he has a different path of magic, he should move in and search it again..

Diplomacy.
-Whole lot of options here..but my main wish, is some form of declaring war/making peace (and neutral state, which would be the default state), that binds you for x turns.
And a more rational ai declaration of war..like for instance that you should actually "know about"/Have borders up to a nation, to be able to declare war on them..

Age selection.
-Could be fun if you could pick different nations, from different times, maybe making a 4th age..like EA, MA, LA and one "Mixed age"..

Experience.
-Mages magic potential should increase with experience..
-You should be able to train units, to get increased attack/defence skill.


More special sites.
-Like for instance make 3 or 4 connected teleport towers, you could find as a magic site..
-Holy sites.


Research
-What about making a whole new school/patch of research, where you could research better armour, better swords, crossbows, siege equipment, stronger castles ect.
-More research in general..make a 10th level with ultra powerfull mega expensive spells :-)

Mounted units
-I've seen some gryphon fight on if their rider is killed.. but how about knights getting their mounts killed, fighting on, on foot.

Pathfinding 4 your commanders..And maybe waypoints?

Buildings
-If new buildings is implemented, teleport gates would be a nice thing to be able to build..(perhaps an addon to the lab? And connecting to other gates you own..)
Maybe splitting up the castles up in two parts could stop the ai's castlespamming..
-Castles, takes a long while to build and are expensive. Gives you a small admin boost, besides the defence..and:
-Cities takes a short amount to build and is less expensive..

Volumecontrol
-Please implement a volumencontrol for battle sounds :-D

Fortifying
-Units which stays in a territory for more than one turn, could get a small increase in their stats each turn after the 1st, up to a certain point..to reflect them "digging in", getting to know the terrain ect..

Independant attacking armys
-Make them more active..and being able to attack a territory once in a while..Like if there is 60 indie militia in a province, perhaps 20 of them should go on a raiding party in a neighbouring territory..just once in a while..

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I'll second an extended magic spell selection
Expanded construction (to start with) up to level 15

spells L1
trinkets L2
spells L3
minor magic items L4
spells L5
major magic items L6
spells L7
greater magic items L8
spells L9
very powerful magic items L10
spells L11
lesser artifacts L12
minor relics L13 (magic items that require holiness and other magic, or just holiness to forge, and can only be used by a sacred commander, a prophet, or a Pretender)
greater artifacts L14
major relics (artifacts that require holiness to forge and that can only be used by a Pretender)

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Just had another idea..Maybe instead of a disband button, you could have two extra spells, one lower spell called "gather troops" or something who gathered orphaned (soldiers from a random province with no commander) troops from a specific province and transported them to your home province..Maybe 10 soldiers max at a time, not to unbalance the game..and one higher spell called gather army, who transported up to 40 orphaned soldiers from 5 different provinces..

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

naval battles

Arrr! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Injured.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Thought of a couple more:

1. Be able to record and watch replays of games. While watching a replay, you can target a nation by right clicking on any of their provinces and that would give you access to hit 'm' and see all their messages for that turn. Buttons would allow you to move back and forth 1 or 10 turns, or skip to the last or first turn.

2. Be able to observe in live blitz non-play by email games.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I would like to see a little icon appear in provinces that had a random event this turn, then you could press a hot key, lets say 'e', and see the events in the province.

Basically the way it is now is needlessly confusing. I have to click on the message to find out what happened, then i have to exit that screen and click go to province. its just a pain.


I would also like to see a mages magic paths listed on main screen. I get confused with 20 identical mages with random magic paths. Which one is going to forge my boots of quickness again? I guess that is what the nation overview is for but i just dont find it helpful.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I say this cautiously, I am not sure it a good idea, o rif it currently already works this way, but here it is anyway:

How about if you take luck scales there are certain bad events that cannot happen. Knights, bogus and lab burning come to mind. Those things can really ruin your game if they happen early. Why shoul dthey happen at all in a province with luck 3?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Wishes:

1. The ability to mod magic items, assigning arbitrary spells to magic items.

2. The ability to mod magic items and spells, modifying any arbitrary unit characteristic + or - (morale, strength, HP, resistances, magic bonuses, supply use, etc.)

3. The ability to mod spells to modify any arbitrary province characteristic + or - (income, sloth, etc.)

4. The ability to mod spells to modify any arbitrary game characteristic as a global (random event occurance, etc.)

5. Magic item: "Reliquary" - +1 holy, unique or greater magic

6. Somebody to run a poll or survey so the devs know which "wish list" items are most popular!

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Hostages and Prisoners!

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Holy gems and things to use them on!
And the ability for pretenders to preach and build temples.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I think you can mod a pretender to preach / build temples... It would be a special pretender though. This has been discussed elsewhere, I recall reading it and the logic behind not allowing pretenders to preach about themselves.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Unique magic item: Portable Lab!

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Oooh, now that is thinking outside the lab, or box or whatever.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

can't read all these w/out losing my mind. If I repeat something(s) then the clamor for it is that much more louder i guess:

I'd like a flag on commanders to allow me to skip them when pressing 'n'

I'd like either the ability to select what spells are in a mages 'book' (meaning I can select/deselect all possible spells the mage can cast and then toggle 'on' the ones I want) OR i'd like to be able to set my mages to 'offensive', 'defensive', or 'balanced'. Sometimes i get annoyed when my more capable mages spend most of the battle buffing themselves instead of contributing.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

If there is a Dom 4 down the road (developer fatigue may be set in by now, I hope not, as this game is such a gem…), at this juncture, here would be my wish list:

1. F1 screen is almost useless to me and would be of much much greater value if:

A. Could filter commanders/provinces. That is, show ONLY commanders or ONLY provinces.

B. Sort by various column values - income, resources, magic, name, etc...

2. A better post battle breakdown, something like a textual representation of the rounds of battle, at least a report on the commanders who got whacked

3. Integration with a MP server, doesn't have to be snazzy (would be happy with something integrated into the current UI), could also perhaps set up a ranking/rating system for rated games, casual games. If this was done, I bet sales would triple alone on this merit…

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I would like to see in Dom4 a chance of being able to recruit another nations national units when you conquer there capital. I have outlined a system below:-

When you conquer another races capital, you have a 1 in 3 chance of being able to recruit that races national troop types/leaders. This always excludes that races sacreds.

So for example, I conquer MA Agarthas capital, a one off check then occurs for MA Agarthas national troops as follows:-

Agarthan scout 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Cave captain 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Pale one Captain 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Agarthan light infantry 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Agarthan infantry 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Argathan heavy infantry 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.
Pale one soldier 1 in 3 chance of still being recruitable.

Ancient one, attendant of oracles, earth reader, golem crafter, ancient lord and oracle of ancients are all sacred so can never be reruitable by another nation. Those units are dedicated to Agartha and there god only.

Should Agartha reconquer his capital all units are recruitable as normal. But should any other nation conquer it after, the original units who made the 1 in 3 are recruitable, another check is not made.

I believe this would stop all nations morphing into one problem but make capitals more tempting targets with a greater reward for the conquerer. It would also open up more tactics/strategies up for individual nations later in the game.

It would also reflect the nation being enslaved/conquered/ruled by the host nation. Its very unrealistic at the moment that a nations entire conquered population refuse to serve there conquerer. The Roman Empire for example had its armies made up more of auxilleries from conquered nations than soldiers from Rome/Italy.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I like the idea of "capturing" a capital with a chance of building the units of an occupied country. Perhaps an increase of cost would be a good way to show that you've forced your new peoples to bend themselves to your will, i.e. 150% of the original price.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

For Agartha, I'd suggest just allowing the recruiting of Trogs and Trog captains. That's a nice reward in and of itself, and would be applicable for all 3 eras.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

An option for larger battle maps, selectable at game creation.

Large game where 400+ unit armies may be seen, large battle map.

Battlefield enchant dispel mechanism

Other past suggestions:
Casting script groups (buff self, buff all, offensive)

Editable spell book - ability edit the "realm" spell book so 0 mages can cast a certain spell, or more granular and change for each mage as scripting.

Battlefield placeables - either stationary summonable or via PD or gain via site; or move with army a la siege engines.
-towers (1 or 2 towers, higher quality towers with higher quality PD)
-Catapult/Ballistae/trebuchet/etc slow single purpose units, probably recruitable. Since there is no provision for breaking down a wall during a combat just having wide AOE single spell affects would work
-stationary archer shields(+prot)/small walls(restrict movement)/raised platforms(+range)

Option selectable at game creation to have max fort #, in conjunction with another build option for a training grounds - recruit but no defense.

improved PD choices beyond 20

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

1. Ability for mercs to recruit. Issue a recruit order and gain a little strength back.
2. Ability for units/leaders to 'train' when they have nothing else to do.
3. Provide a small initial resource boost when you have extra points left over at the start of the game. For example 4pts = +100 gold +40 resources first turn.
8pts = 200 gold, +80 resources. Alternately, provide it as better starting units.
4. Provide more things to spend start points on.
5. Get rid of combat movies. Resolve combat and move on - I don't need to see it. Some sort of fast combat resolution.
6. Other buildings that can be built in a square. Think civ or other games where you have a building tree.

Best


Chris

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

You can already show only provinces in the F1 screen. Use the TAB key to hide/unhide all the commanders. This does make it a lot easier to look at province data.

I would like to see an indicator on this screen that taxes are NOT set to automatic, like make the tax rate a different color. This would make it a lot easier to find provinces where you have set temporary tax rates and forgotten them.

Sill

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Watching the movies is one of my favorite things in the game!

I'm definitely against getting rid of it. It's not like you're forced to watch it, anyway, and by watching it, you can improve your tactics for the next combat.

The merc thing isn't bad, although the way I'd do it is give the commander units the Merc ability, which makes them freespawners for whatever their particular specialty is-elephants, icthys, villains, pirates, whatever, and then you hire the mercenary captain from the merc pool, and you get the captain and whatever starting troops, and the captain freespawns for whoever's paying the bills.

The longer you pay, the more benefit you get.

Here's another idea: the ability to customize forged items, in-game. Have certain abilities, like armor piercing, regeneration, magic resistance, whatever, pop up at certain levels of Construction-1-9, and then when you forge an item, you can design it, and pay for something custom, on the spot, with gold and gems. Kindof/sortof like NWN2. This would go hand in hand with the way forging works now, the custom items would just cost less than the "standard" ones.

I'd get a kick out of customing say an "ice axe" or a "fire trident", and then selling it on the MP open market, or equipping a hero with all custom stuff.
The balancing would be the higher expense and a limitation on what would be possible.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Excellent idea. I'll have to try it today. Try not to come up with any other great ideas for a few days, okay? I'd want to test them too, and the idea thread has been delayed far too much already.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

They're not movies. They're real reports from what happened in the battle.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Endo, I get "great" ideas on a ratio of 1-500 bad ideas, so I don't think you have a lot to worry about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

#summon and #summon5 don't create the units under the commander's control unless he starts with none. #makemonster doesn't work either. Unless someone comes up with a way to give the spawned units to the mercenaries, they can't use the commands mentioned above.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I didn't check through all the pages, so sorry if this has already been proposed...

I'd like to see archers shoot first (or maybe after spells), before melee combatants take their turns. It's pretty sad watching my brave Caelian troops lose so many lives unnecessarily, being shot in the back by their own comrades right after descending upon the enemy.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

A really small but important change:
Make the 'seduce' ability work in both ways, not just female critter seducing male critter.
Preferably, three types of seduction 'seduce men', 'seduce women' and 'seduce all'.
That way, there can be not just Succubi but also Incubi and shapechangers...

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Incubi, shapechangers, and Pan units/summons would work.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Ability to set multiple winning conditions (or to exclude winning conditions).

For example, Research OR Dominion OR VP could win a game.

Also possibly add new winning conditions or static turn limits - game plays to 50 turns, leader in X or Y condition wins.

Somehow not have the game go to "YOU WIN" and kick you out. Continue playing SP maybe?

EDIT: Ability to set pre-existing conditions via game setup instead of just map mods. Starting gold, Initial resource pool (goes to normal after x turns), initial research per school (or spendable bulk), initial dominion maybe?, initial gems.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I seem to remember seducing women, myself, once upon a time, but that was before I got married, and my wife apparently has stayed seduced, so it's a little foggy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

You should be able to script your mages from their info screen that comes up when you right click them. Later in the game when you have a ton of mages in your forts, it's a total pain to find the specific mage you need in the army setup screen. Especially when your mages start getting the same names.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I'd like to be able to see the summary troop losses from the window that shows the battle resuts rather than just the number. It can be hard to tell exactly which units died without watching every battle.

Also results from castle seiges would be nice too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

A counter that tracks the number and kind of troops lost and then of course the number and kind of troops killed.

Just how many undead do i send back to the grave as a game of Ermor would be interesting to know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

BigDIsAwesome,

One thing that helps is to give your troops their move/attack/whatever orders first. Then when you got to script them, either hit Tab to hide all the researchers, or select the destination province and hit 'y'. I admit this doesn't help much when the army you're moving has 20 mages with it, but if you're just trying to find the right single mage out of a bunch of researchers it can help.

-Max

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Yeah I knew that trick, but like you said it still doesn't help if your army has a bunch of mages.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

add "enter site to get" units to the recruit screen greyed-out

I might be missing another obvious helpful button or something but here is my problem. It involves abit of micro-management.

When I have a large map and I have mages doing auto-searches then I occasionally have to use F1 and scroll thru all of the finds to see if there are sites which allow recruiting something new or where a mage can enter to get a unit. Some of the sites are not helpful in their naming. The ones that sound like they might give me a unit, dont. And the ones that do, arent always named in a way to make that obvious. So all in all its pretty time consuming. Kristoffer and Johan might not notice since they create the sites and probably knows them all by name.

Now the ones that allow recruiting a new unit I will often stumble across as Im revisiting the province. Just moving armies thru them will usually have me reminding myself of what I can make there and I will notice something new that I got from a found site that I hadnt noticed before. Can we get a unit showing there for sites that a mage enters? Maybe showing it greyed out as if it needed a structure but the help text would instead say something like "requires a death mage".

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Or... alternatively...
a message whenever a mage finds a special site (anything not involving gold or gems).

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I would like to get a more permant way of grouping units together.

To explain, I often group three mages together for manual site searching. However, when the results are announced on the message screen, the mages are listed (I am guessing here) by their unit ID number, which means they are scattered about the message screen, which may be two pages, most probable if I'm playing a 250+ province map and have 10 to 30 units searching on any given turn. So when I go to the first unit listed, it is the only unit highlighted and my group is broken unless I am smart and clever (small enough chance, not even worthy of consideration) and remember that this particular independent mage is part of a group.

Alternatively, if site searching results were listed by province instead of unit number, I would have a better chance of maintaining the groups integrity.

I also have the same problem with armies when I pause in a province and do. some construction, patrolling and site searching

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I agree that would be a nice feature. I the interim I sometimes rename the mages for the same effect, e.g. Bless-E, Arty-E, and Buff-E compose task group E (for "East army").

-Max

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

max, that's a good idea. I rename now for various other reasons, but I haven't thought of extending it to a group.

So that gives me another thought, make renaming allowed the default option on the menu screen and "No renaming" the option requiring the click. That will save me on the times when I forget to click on renaming allowed, which always seems to generate a starting province with six or seven neighbors, all forest and/or farmland and positioned in a corner of the map.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

My wishlist is this (some of my wishes, people have already stated):

1) The ability to customize your nation and Pretender. I want to pick what my Pretender's titles are! The nation can be default one that has been altered or one that you created from scratch.

2) The ability to spare another nation's Pretender. This lets you create a pantheon. In fact, I hope they have a feature where you can actually create a pantheon of allied pretenders for a nation, or choose to play a single pretender. For example, I might have my Ulm's Virtue spare the life of Mictlan's Enchantress, making the Enchantress a member of a new Pantheon for Ulm.

3) The ability to create a hero. I want to create a hero that is unique.

4) Diplomancy: This would include such things as alliances, trades, and spying.

5) I want to be able to create unique buildings. For example, as Ulm is my favorite nation, I want to create the Iron Statue, a statue made of black iron that grants a morale bonus to all my forces in the providence it's in, and any 3 neighboring areas.

6) Allow us to purchase and download the game!

Basically, everyone's already mentioned some of my wishes already.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Have you tried modding, SCKnight? You can get pretty much all of points 1, 2, 3, and 5 with some creativity. 4 already exists, but you have to play with other people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif 6 has been shut down repeatedly by Shrapnel. Well, maybe for Dominions 4, but don't hold your breath.

Oh yeah... You can get a building that raises the morale of troops in the province, and eventually that of surrounding provinces. It's called a "temple" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

You can pick one or two. There is a pretty good space there. When you name your god you can name him "Brik, the SuperCombatant"

In multiplay nothing stops you from doing that. In solo play you can create a pantheon to play against by creating a map where the AI's are allied (they wont attack each other). If you mean that as a human player you want to grant subservience to an AI pretender then thats kindof possible by using higher magics such as wish

Already in modding commands. Check out the Worthy Heroes mod which does a few for every nation.

Already a big part of the game. It is a multiplayer game mostly. Putting it in a menu would only limit it. As a human playing solo you can send things to the AI (which can be useful) but any effort to open human/ai diplomacy and trading only opens it up to be abused.

available in modding commands

Its not really a "allow" thing. You can purcase/download some of Shrapnels games but its not really feasable for Dominions at this time. But obviously Shrapnel keeps up on the subject so things might improve in the future for digital downloads.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I'd like to see a completely new engine with better graphics for the tactical battles. I'm not satisfied with the speed, clarity or modernity of the current system.

Right now, the combat system works. It is functional and legible and you CAN make out what is happening. If you want to pay close attention to the intricacies of the battle, you may need to watch twice - once to see what happened to your forces, and once to see what happened to the opponent's forces.

There are some good programs out there that would enable an improvement in the graphics for the tactical battles. It would mean a huge overhall and reworking of the code, and this may not even be a real possibility for Shrapnel or Ilwinter or whoever would be in charge of making this big investment. Firaxis uses some XML or Python based program for their newer games, Civ 4 (not 3), Pirates, Railroads, etc. The engine is very pretty...in a way that Dom 3 is not pretty.

Ok, my motivations here are solely to bring in new players to this great game! I don't honestly care that much personally about pretty cartoon graphics. I am more into it for the contest and the matching of wits, the outguessing of your enemies, and the sweet thrill of victory over an aggressor nation. I am an old grognard who plaed Avalon Hill boardgames since the age of 8.

Who gives a heck about grpahics? Everyone else but me and a few other die-hard wargamers. I want to see a big pool of players. Many people are turned off from this game by the graphics they see in the battles. Some would consider these graphics pretty lousy if Dom 3 had come out ten years ago.

I would like to see a whole new engine used for tactical battles. Specifically, the ability to zoom in on the tactical battlefield with the mouse scroll wheel would be great. Also, the ability to rotate the battlefield view angle would be fun.

Pathing would be a great addition, or even simple rally points for newly built commaders. A command for newly built commanders to load up all available troops and rally to a province would be great.

I love this game, and I will try to think up more improvements. My big push is to make the game prettier to attract more players.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

The better the graphics are the harder it will be to have the wide variety of units that is out there now. Personally I find that focus on graphics ruins games. All main stream commercial games bore me quickly. Dominions is the only one that has held my interest for such a large period of time. The Space empires series tried to go the route of better graphics in the last addition, instead of game play improvements, and suffers for it.

For graphics to work there will need to be a larger team to work on it. One that does not get in the way of the enhachment of other game play features.

personally graphics won't do a thing to interest me. I will want more strategies and challenges available.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

StrictlyRockers,

In the interests of data-gathering, of the people you know who are turned off by the sprite-based graphics, how many of them have the patience for long strategy games? Or even short strategy games, a la Axis and Allies? What is it about Dominions that they're likely to enjoy?

It's just that I'm having trouble imagining a person who would appreciate a complicated game and yet NOT have an old wargamer's attitude toward graphics.

-Max