Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I like pretty games.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I would suspect that a single unit in decent 3D animated graphic might take at least as long as long as 8 units in 2d with only 2 images (standing and attack move). For a full-time graphics person that might be feasable but I dont think that the few more sales would justify Kristoffer giving up his teaching career for it. And I sure wouldnt appreciate the game with 1/8th the units but oh gee they are so cool and 3d.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Strategy Games are one of the least useful genre's to sink 3D money into. Yeah, in a FPS, you need crisp and eye-catching graphics to attract gamers. Strategy games have been and always will be about the gameplay, not that graphics. The images in this game are fine, and have a certain charm to them since units even show their equipment(one of the best visual things to do in any Fantasy/RPG game).

Now this isn't to say that the interface couldn't use some improvement. The Tactical Battles are the worst in this regard, and could benefit from a control-bar with the current options (Pause, Exit, Fast-Forward), which would make it much more new-player friendly. Also, if you could add in a way to go forward-backwards through the battle, kinda like the Progress bar when watching a movie in Media Player for example, that would be great.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

FWIW, adding a forwards-backwards option would be time-consuming, given that the battle is actually regenerated while-you-watch from the random seed, not merely replayed from a pre-recording. There is no reason in principle why it couldn't be cached while it's regenerated, but it would take some work. Just for the record.

-Max

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

forward-backward would be available if you use a 3rd party program such as fraps. Plus that would allow you to store battles, email them to thers, upload them to YouTube so you can link to them here (and help sell dominions). I agree that the battles could be improved visually but Im not big on the dev spending time and effort putting in anything that can be done with 3rd party programs

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

That seems rather cumbersome. One would have to play through each battle at normal speed in order for fraps to record it. Then one would have to either switch out or exit dominions and then reload the video file in some external program and then replay it to get the forward/backward ability. This would also be unsuitable in some situations since you lose the ability to examine units, which is useful to see how certain mages use gems, if an enemy sc acquires an affliction, etc.
AFAIK fraps also saves everything as uncompressed video which would then need to be compressed if one wanted to share it with anyone else (which can be rather time-consuming, particularly for the very many battles that can occur in one turn during the late game).

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

It has its pros and cons. But so does having Johan research and then program one into the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

One thing that really annoys me when playing against the ai, is that it kills one of my commanders with a mindburn, seeking arrow or whatever..And the message you get is for instance "Suddently a arrow appeared out of nowhere and struck Alfred in the hearth, Alfred was killed by the attack" or something like it..Well thats all well and good, except 4 the fact that when playing large maps, you have 27 commanders with that same name..which one got killed and where was he?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Some games, I have commanders with names like Alfred. Other times, I have commanders with names like "Death-x," or, if he's assigned to an army, "Death-7," or else "Ponsifaz the Summoner" and "Wericar Staffmaker." In that case, if I can't figure out where a commander was and what his job was from the message, it means it doesn't matter. He was probably just researching or site-searching.

It's not a fix for your problem, but it's a bit of a mitigator.

-Max

P.S. Plus, I think nicknames are thematic. I recall one time when I had a scout (named Sparrow-17 or something) get caught by province defense somehow. He killed 7 or 8 and managed to scare the rest off, single-handedly. (He was a Helheim scout, which helped.) I renamed him Sparrowhawk.

[Wait, maybe he wasn't caught. Maybe I had him attack the province, thinking it was empty or had only a single defender or something. I sure didn't expect as many as there actually there.]

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I would love to see more ritual style personal enchantments. I think that it could be a relatively easy way to add yet another level of wonderful complexity to the game.

Imagine a ritual like ritual of returning that would add a fire shield to you, possibly with increasing intensity with each casting. Or allow an aquatic unit to breathe on land for a certain number of turns, as long as it kept re-casting the ritual. Or any number of different buffs that are already in the game.

Sure this would impact the relative power of magic items, and allow you to send a pre-buffed SC or thug into a battle without having to sit out the first few turns. But it could easily be balanced by an astral spell or two dispelling personal enchantments (which could be deadly to the aforementioned aquatic), adding yet another level to the paper-rock-scissors balance in what I think would be an interesting way. You could even have another astral enchantment designed just to lock your other enchantments in, by always being the first one dispelled.

I think it would be a cool middle ground between combat buffs and items, allowing for some interesting strategies and counters.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

One thing that would be nice is having commanders pick up the troops of a commander that's killed by a ritual mid-move. The current situation where grouped commanders will leave a significant part of the army behind when they have leadership to spare when one of their comrades gets killed by a spell is pretty much completely nonsensical when they're all moving together.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I agree that the current Dominions graphics do have a certain charm. They do sort of grow on you. I am basically content with the game as it is - no real complaints. I think it is a great value for the price. I have already spent fractions of a penny per hour of entertainment from this one.

I just see the potential. How great would it be it this super-deep, meaty, juicy game also had ultra-modern, 2008 graphics to draw in new players? Well, I hate to shoot down my own argument by playing devil's advocate for a minute, but there is something to be said for having a smallish player base comprised of mostly experienced and mature players who challenge you and think through their strategies.

So, I'm not volunteering to do the 3-D modelling on thousands of different unit types, but the little kid in me thinks it would be kinda cool if it happened. Dom 5?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Yeah, thats the worst part about ultra-popular online games like Counterstrike and WoW(never played WoW though). I like to call it "Counterstrike Syndrome": where most of the players are idiots. You can escape by playing new mods with small player bases, but, if the mod becomes popular, eventually the Syndrome catches up and the game fills up with a bunch of idiots again.

It'd be nice to not see Dominions end up like that, and as a testament to it, I don't think I've yet seen any flaming or other such idiocy on these forums yet. Good people around here. (Don't worry though, I'll eventually post something stupid. It usually happens)

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I wish more of the players in the community were idiots. I'd do better in my MP games if that were the case!

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Filter for magic sites: lists to see sites with summons, recruits, magic bonus or other specialities and a quick link to the province and for sites which can be entered if they are in use.

Since the priests channel the power of the pretender god, the pretender itself should be able to wield that power too. Perhaps even add that a weak pretender (in this aspect) can limit the power of the priests. A pretender with holy level one limits all the priests to the same. Regardless of their own abilities.

While it was mentioned already I really would like to see some advanced scripting for the battles. It is really annoying if the mages casts endless summons which never reach the fighting. At the same time limiting the choice to a single spell can lead to a disaster: Falling frost and banishment one is great against normal troops the other works well enough against undead. What do I script my water mage priests if I fight against a nation with both unit types. Most times nothing at the moment and hope that at least sometimes they use the correct spells and not some undeads which never make a difference.

The next one might be a bit controversial: In the game you can improve the bless magic. That would be more expensive than a normal empowerment (about factor 100). To make the pretender playable the levels would be separate from the normal magic, though it would be one during the creation.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

OK, heres my 2 cents...

1.improved graphics(we don't need no "gears of war" here, but SOME improvements wouldn't hurt...right?!)
2.siege weapons!!!
3.maybe add a formation setup for units?
4.more combat orders!
5.siege weapons!!!
6.more nations, spells, items etc. you know... the usual stuff.

I'm sorry if some of these things are already proposed or if they are in dom3 already!
great game by the way! can't stop playing it.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I know this is a joke, but the idiocy in question would probably manifest itself in things like dropping out of MP games as soon as they started to sour. That it also includes tactical idiocy would be small consolation. :\

-Max

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

On menus such as F1 can we have the headers be part of the menu box? That way they will stay in place as you scroll down so you can always tell what you are looking at.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Another map filter:
This one would show if a troop type can be recruited in a province. The configuration should be fairly easy to reach. The dialog should contain the list of recruit able units and one of this units can be selected. If the filter is active every where the unit can be recruited its symbol would be displayed. It would be nice if some kind of general unit types could be selected there too like missile troops or units with trample and the filter would show the best fit (if one in a province). For example Cavalry: if there is a heavy and a light cavalry the heavy one would be shown first.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

If the ravening hordes of morons ever became a problem in Dom3 (doubtful, since playing Dom3 actually requires both possession of and the ability to use brains), setting up games with the simple stipulation that anything goes and not giving any breaks to whiners and lamers would take care of that problem for most games. What would they do, quit on you? Good riddance. As far as such hordes infesting the forum and making trouble here, let's just say that I suspect any troublemakers would be very unpleasantly surprised indeed. There is precedent of disruptive users having been booted out in the past.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I'd like more filters for the army setup screen. At the moment, you can hide researchers, but it'd be nice to be able to hide other things, like preachers, sneakers or non-mages.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Did you mean to post this in the Dominions 2 forum?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

No, he didn't, I think. If you press tab in the army setup screen, every mage with research orders (regardless of whether he has squads) will be hidden just like the tab used to do for researches in Dom2 on the overland map.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Oh, wow. That's nifty. Now if I could sort by path I'd be much more inclined to actually use my Arcosephalian Mystics.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Rename. "Mystic FE," "Mystic FW," etc.

-Max

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Is there a top-list of suggestions somewhere?
Here are my Top 4, in order of priority:

1. Either a better combat-AI or (prefered: ) more scripting options. I guess this was mentioned allready.

2. More terrain influence. The caves are nice allready, but I'd like to see combat maps with narrow streets or lots of trees, too (and a good pathfinding to handle this). Units that get specific terrain-bonusses would be nice, too.

3. Borders that can only be crossed by amphibian and/or flying units and/or take more then 1 movement point. Actually all borders could take a number of movement points and the units could have a high number of movement points and movement costs per terrain type.

4. Streets, that can be build like buildings to increase movement speed between 2 provinces you control.






Maybe a more thought out vision on scripting stuff:

Squards:
You can set your Squards' formations, agressiveness and Tactics.

Formations:
-Phalanx: The Squard will move and attack as a long line. This may break into a loose formation if the ends are attacked or into a tight formation if the center is attacked.
-Wedge: This is a really close formation, soldiers at the back of the Squard will not try to move around their comrades in front of them. The Squard will try to attack their targets, even if attacked themselves

-Close formation: The units will try to stay together and attack one enemy squard
-Loose formation: The units will spread out and attack individually. Useful for and against archers.


Agressiveness:
-Very aggressive: The Squard will rush the enemy at full speed and go for melee. If equipped with ranged weapons, the units will fire untill the target comes into melee reach themselves. This overwrites a tight formations order to stay together, for units of differing movement speeds.
-Aggressive: The Squard will not break, if ordered a tight formation. When attacking an opponent squard with lower movement speed, they will try to get the first attack.
-Defencive: The units will wait in place, untill opponents come into charging range, then attack. Enemy missle fire might cause this to change to aggressive.
-Very defencive: The units will only defend themselved if attacked, not engage on their own, they are more likely to retreat.


Tactics:
-This includes the Target-priority from Dominions 2 and 3 and adds the following:
-Skirmish: The Unit will try to attack the next enemies not attacking them while trying to retreat from any unit attacking them.
-Defend: The Unit will attack charging enemies




Commanders:
Commanders can follow a number of scripts, players are even able to generate their own scripts.

Pre-Generated scripts are:
-Passive: The unit will stand around and try to avoid enemies.
-Warrior: The unit will attack opponents (in the savety of an army, if available)
-Fighter: The unit will Fire opponents with ranged weapons, try to outmaneuver the bigger armies (both in number and unit size) and attack smaller ones.
-Spellsword: The unit will cast support-spells on itself, untill it is moderately fatigued, then attack.
-Mage: The unit will cast a mixture of support- and attack spells.
-Evoker: The unit will cast attack spells at the enemy army, focussing on damage dealing.
-Supporter: The unit will cast spells that buff the own units and try to heal them. If out of useful spells for this cause, it will attack the opponent, focussing on debuffs and staying concious.
-Savety caster: Like mage but focussing on low cost spells and saving gems.
-Assasin: The unit will try to avoid enemy troops and attack the commanders. Only Assasins have that option.


Misc:
-Commanders can now move through own squards, by exchanging places with other units.

-Commanders have a strategy-value, that influences routing behavior:
-High values decrease the probability of single squards routing but slightly increases the probability of the whole army routing.
-Depending on the value, the commander's troops might stay in the province after retreading from a battle that was won afterwards. Same goes for fights at castles.
-If the commander retreats, there is a probability on the skill, that his retreating troops all retreat into the same province.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

wish: battlefield wide +defense and +attack spells. Seems like there's about 8 spells for +prot. Instead of doing the caster, aoe 1, aoe 15-25, battlefield progression it would be cool to be "battlefield +1 atk, battlefield +2 atk, etc". Maybe have the +atk be a priest spell (crusade or xenophobia or something) and +defense would add some meat to water paths along with quickening.

Maybe +1, +2, +4 at lvls 5,6 and 8?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I'd really like such spells to exist also. Would be a great way to shore up deficiences of certain army units. Suddenly with an Attack buff those Pale one soldiers wouldn't be so useless.

You'd want to keep them limited though. If you make it too easy to buff then it starts to remove differences between nations and units.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

There is a top list of bugs but not a top list of suggestions.

Personally I dont think a top list of wants would be a good idea for this game. Getting something added tends to be more about getting the interest of the devs. Either programmically (Johan) or thematically (Kristoffer). Any effort along the line of "we are all really noisy about wanting this" tends to act against us. Keep up the suggestions, and the discussions.

Altho, come to think of it, a short-list might help it get read more often when the devs are bored. Quick one sentence lines for each item with a link to the further discussions in case it sparks their interest.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I'd hate to have the job of summing up all the ideas in this thread.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I'm really proud of this thread. It's one of the longest ever on this forum, and so many people have come up with so many really great ideas, as well as insights into the inner workings of Dominions and especially enthusiasm for the continuation of the series.

And that was really the point of the thread in the first place-to show Johan and Kristoffer how thrilled we are with what they've done, and how much we want more and better of the same http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I have more wishes:

Researchers should be allowed to research for gold, instead of magic. THis would be mostly useful when there is notghing else to research. The conversion could be very high to prevent abuse like 20 research = 1 gold or something. I dont liek end of game when you have built this massive research machine and then you have a thousand nearly worthless mages with nothing to do, this would help, maybe.


2.I suggest a "volunteer badge" for units that you get in special events. I think most of us hate those hordes of militia. THe volunteer badge would give a bonus to morale of 1-3 making them less likely to break. It makes sence in rpg terms, they want to be there, they want to fight for their god, but they have a 9 morale? this would also make flaggies better as well.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Better unit graphics.

Grass and other improvements on the background where unecessary.

The units are still fuzzy, the general form is OK, but they look real bad and not in tune with the background.

A good idea (IMO) would be trying to make the untis and background like medieval paintings or miniature, thus reducing the amount of necessary colors.

The battlefield is also way too big, much more than needed. Reducing it would save resources that could be used rendering visually more appaling units.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

The problem is not rendering time. Each unit is hand-drawn, pixel by pixel. It's an incredible set of largely great quality pixel art. Just 'improving the graphics' isn't really an option, redoing the sprites in a higher resolution would take months of artist time. It's not really like they have the team size to do it.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

And a factor that a lot of people on the "better graphics" side seem to lose sight of-people like me can actually design graphics simply, even casually, and feel like we're accomplishing something we can see *in the game*-although I think I lack the patience and single-mindedness to even do graphics as well as Kristoffer.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

As llamabeast said this is not really an option without gutting the number of units. There are just short of 2000 units with the latest patch. Kristoffer can make a handful units a day, working more or less fulltime on it, with the current spritebased graphics. If the graphics were to be improved as in higher resolution or made 3d based it would no doubt take longer, especially since Kristoffer is used to his current production method and not to 3d art etc. Illwinter does not make enough money to realistically be able to afford hiring additional people. Keeping the diversity of units is simply not compatible with a more than incremental upgrade of the unit graphics.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

It might also be worth noting that Kristoffer is getting better and better all the time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
We are getting upgraded graphics, gradually.

And I agree that shifting to something like 3D and full animation would be prettier but would hurt the game in other areas. Im fine with the 2D sprites and 1 move animations. I have plenty of "pretty" games on my machine (that I played about a month)

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I couldn't agree more, that's why i love this game as well as Paradox's Hearts of Iron

Actual gameplay/fun > graphics(3D) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Item request - lvl 6 const, insert interesting and fun name, gives 10 units +0 stealth.

boots of elvenkind - lvl 2 construction, gives commander +0 stealth in forests only

spell - shadow dome - anti-astral window/spying/scout dome, gives completely oddball scouting reports. Instead of 100 men at arms and 3 mages it may show 200 giants or a dragon and 300 demons. Low cost, # gems affect duration, good for casting in a border castle before war.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

More "Common" blood sites and make blood sites more common. I always get my hopes up by playing blood nation and stating to cast Bowl of Blood. Blood sites are so rare that finding even one is like super-frigging-awesome.

I start my turn. Just checking out how my radar-spell went and then BAM! after 7 turns my B2 guy actually found something. I quicly rush out of the message window hit F1 and try to find the province in question. My eyes race for the real province name while my mind "perhaps it's that Demon-summon site or.. Dare I think about.. something even more cool".

Then I find the province in the F1 list and swiztly move my mouse over the blood site image...

It's another-freaking Brigand Lair! GAAAAHHH!

It's seriously not fun anymore. I want to see something other than Brigand Lairs for change. Is this somesort of a trap to make people not use blood magic? Either make Blood sites a really big deal (read: actually doing something usefull instead of rising unrest and allowing recruiment of a bland unit) or make some other common blood sites.

Please.. Just stop those Brigand Lairs. I'm gonna go postal soon if I find more Brigand Lairs in SP game I'm having (found 4! of them).

All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull boy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
All Brigand Lairs and no Devil's Den makes Burnsaber a dull buy
....

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I can top that - five! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif And I share your pain...

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I can't believe this...

I just played some of the before-mentioned SP game I'm having and I conquered a province with a 100+ unrest. Unrest increasing site was a likely culprit but I didn't want to find more Brigand Lairs so I wanted to know if it increased by 5 every turn. So I patrol with my army and turn taxes to 0% and after couple of turns I see that it rises by 10 each turn. Yes! No Brigand Lair!

Perhaps.. It just might be Devil's Den? I find my monthly Bowl of Blood caster and make him target that province. I was so excited that I probably forgot to move all my troops before hitting end turn.

Next turn begins and I quickly check the Bowl of Blood report. He found 2 blood sites! Damn I'm excited! I get to see two cool blood sites! Oh, my innocent mind.. I quit message screen and hit the province in question. I click the new site icons..

BAM! THEY'RE BOTH BRIGAND LAIRS!

And a piece of soul died and withered away.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif That's what you get for using blood magic, kids.

I was stunned. I just quit the game and deleted it afterwards. There is no way I'll be playing that game again.

I know that this no suggestion and is a bit off-topic but I just had to share this.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Not to laugh at your misfortune, but that is funny.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Hmmm, I wasn't talking exactly about 3D Studio rendered realistic animations, but about a certain "synchronizing" of background and unit graphics.

Indeed, the background is a bit "too much" 3D, while the units resemble paintings. My idea would be making the background more like painted with a brush, that would indeed only require
reducing the number of colors. And perhaps add darker orders to the units.

I'm quite happy with the rest, else I wouldn't even have bought Dom3 or stuck to Dom2 from the beginning (OK, I'm not quite a social animal of sorts).

I will, nonetheless continue adding opinions, if they make sense, nice, if not, don't hesitate in telling http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

BTW: Dom2 and Dom3 are the _only_ games I have on my Mac and
I'm just not interested in other stuff.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

@burnsaber

OK, I'll make a Slaughter House for you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

My whining made a difference! My dreams have come true, I can now die in peace..

But seriously speaking, you're the man.

P.S: I know that some villaineous people would probably send me into a mental asylym by making this new "Salughterhouse" site to be something like this:

Increses unrest by 5 per turn
Allows recruiment of boars

But I know you're above that. Aren't you?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

I want to see Dominions 4. On the other hand, I've heard rumors that the Devs don't want to make Dominions 4 because it would mostly involve work that would be boring and nasty and make them break out in hives in uncomfortable places.

So, here's my effort to find a way to make it happen, without driving poor Johan insane and forcing poor Kristoffer to invent Dominions-the pinball game.

How many people on these forums can write in C? I think that's what Johan uses, I could be wrong. How many of those can write in C would be willing to put in the time and effort (for free) to help create Dominions 4?

There's been a lot of talk about adding more people to the Dev team to help take the pressure off. So, since it's us-the rabid fans of Dominions-who care most about seeing a sequil, why not provide that workforce ourselves?

So, to give the Devs the option of adding more people to the team, without *hiring* more people, who here has the skills and time and economic stability to become slavish interns and do the boring, time-consuming work that would take the pressure off the Devs and lead to Dominions 4, purely for the thrill of the experience?

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

It was originally written in Atari Basic if I remember right. C is a great cubicle language but only the major companies work in cubicles. Much fewer independent games are written in C than people think.

And Im guessing the spaghetti code might be something that Johan is not real interested in another coder commenting on.

Also there is the alpha-group language requirement (swedish?). I remember being in a programming project (a MUD) where one of the main programmers was russian and the only common toungue was C so I know that it can be done but it can be a hassle.

Since Dom4 would have to be rewritten pretty much from scratch to get any major changes, I foretell a future like other games. When Dom is dropped then an open-source project will recreate it with all new code which will be more efficient for having the end goals clearly in view. For not having gone thru the bit-and-piece growth that it has gone thru up to now.

Re: Wish-List for Dominions 4
 

Dominions 1,2 and 3 is all in C. CoE was in atari basic before it was converted.

I kind of doubt JK is eager to supervise other people messing around with the code. He isn't usually that keen on explaining stuff, even in person, and the code is not commented or structured to be easy for others to read.