Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searching?
 

On another forum (which I won't mention), a number of people wanted Dominions 3 to change the way site searching works. They feel a mage should automatically find a magic site (if otherwise eligible) when it moves into a province without having to give a search order. They feel having to actively search creates too much micromanagement. My feeling is the necessity of having to search in order to find a site forces the player to make tough decisions about what his mages should be doing. Many times I've agonized over whether my mage should spend the turn searching, or instead moving to another province for battle, building a lab, etc. I think the search order is an important part of the strategy in Dominions 2. What are your feelings? I'm including a poll because I'm curious how many people feel the system should be changed.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searching?
 

I think that searching should require an action, but in the user interface, the command should be changed to allow a searcher to have a queue of provinces to check. There shouldn't be a free lunch; mages should still have to spend a turn to find a hidden site. Micromanagement can be reduced without changing the basic principle.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

How about... A NEW TOGGLEABLE GAME OPTION! Yay!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm more interested in avoiding micromanagement than freeing mage-time. I don't think mages should automatically find every possible magic site just by passing through a province... However, the ability to easily give a mage queued "Move and search and move and search" orders - like in Stars! - would be awesome.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Wow, we think alike http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site search
 

I would also agree that there should be some sort of command that would eliminate the need for separate commands on separate turns. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've overlooked a "search" and lost valuable time having to issue the command the following turn.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I really like Sushiboat's suggestion!!! (I'd like to see movement queues in general!)

However, having "0.5 level"-sites would be nice too:

• level 0 - found automatically
• level 0.5 - found automatically if a mage with the proper path is present
• level 1-4 - need to be searched by a mage of proper path requirements (as it is right now)

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I would like it if the searching happened automatically if your mage was set to "defend". So if you just forgot about your mage for a turn it would automatically searh if it had any paths that hadn't been searched for.

That seems like a good compromise between management and mage time.

-Frank

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

How unbalancing would it be if mages found all sites of (skill level - 4) automatically? That is, level 5 mage would find all level 1 sites automatically. That would mean 8th fire mage would find ALL fiery sites with just walking through the province.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

That would take away from the site searching ability of rainbow mages. Do we really want free sitesearching as one more reason to pick an SC pretender?

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

SC pretenders typically don't take high levels of a single magic path, but instead spread their picks out to gain the buffing spells that they need. Bless effect pretenders and monster types are the only ones that are likely to have high single level paths.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I think that's the best way, but I'd prefer to have it extended:
If commander order is defend, then he should:
1) search, unless the province is searched up to his skills
2) research, if he can (has >0 RP and there's a lab)
3) preach if he can

That would reduce some micromanagement.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Of course, this would mess up scrolling through commanders without orders. Though, you could always restructure the system a bit and make it work.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I think sushiboat and Sabre Cherry are on the right track.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

But what if... when a turn ends, and a commander has no orders, it does something intelligent? For example (these are in order of priority):

1) If a mage has no orders, it searches or researches.
2) If a holy has no orders, it searches or preaches.
3) If a unit that can "summon allies" has no orders, it summons allies.
4) If an unholy unit has no orders, it searches, summons the highest-level undead it can (excluding ghouls), or preaches.

...the above all assume that those commands are available - a unit set to "hide" in an enemy province would obviously not be able to search or reanimate.

These would never be reflected in the units' orders, or change the units' orders. Rather, between turns they would [b]act as though those orders had been commanded[b], even though during the turn and during the next turn their orders say "defend." There could be an "Activate automatic orders" toggle for players, if they want this to occur. The examples I listed, as far as I can tell, can never have any drawbacks, and have no effect other than allowing players to accelerate their turns and avoid micromanagement. In this situation, pressing "n" will still cycle through commanders that you never gave orders, since the orders will still be listed as "Defend."

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searching?
 

What SC says http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I don't need the game to play instead of the player, but reasonable default behavior for idle units and ability to "script" search routes (or even better : paths and actions, à la Stars!) would be very nice.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

So, you're saying that if they have the option, they would do all of the above? For instance a mage-priest set to defend would preach and research at the same time?

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I sure cannot speak for SC, but I thought what SC meant to say was that a commander set to defend should be assigned to any one of the unit's available tasks which are guaranteed to do no harm by the server when hosting instead of allowing commander to simply stand idle...

I often issue a "search" command for priests which are waiting for other armies to arrive and that cannot preach for a higher dom-strength anyway. It usually avails nothing, but even a slight chance for a site is better than no chance of anything useful.

It might be one of the reasons why I need hours to complete a single turn. So as long as these commands cannot no any harm (i.e. preaching, searching, researching as opposed to blood hunting, patrolling, hiding...) it would save me the trouble to check all idle commanders (which is a trouble because I usually have stationary scouts on most bordering enemy provinces...)

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

hmm, I see. I suppose such a system wouldn't hurt but I doubt I would use it much. There are too many cases were you do not want the commander taking the default action, that I would probably end up going through them all anyway.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Could you please ginve an example? I can't see the harm in preaching, or searching for sites, if the other option was doing nothing. Auto-defaulting research might make efficient researching a chore, but you wouldn't accidentally lose any research points either. And telling mages to research (to see their RPs added to the pool) wouldn't be any worse than it would be now.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I was thinking that but then I thought about cyclops, son of nifel, titan, etc. and I've seen them do double duty as bless effect and sc.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Yes, that's what I meant. Conceptually, if you have a mage / priest / necromancer in a province with no orders, they have to do something during that month. Will they sit around and pick their noses? A sage at a lab would almost certainly start reasearching on his own volition, and a priest would probably try to convert people. And adventuresome druid would wander around the woods looking for magical forest glades. But there's no special advantage - a unit can still only do a single action.

The only time this system could ever be a problem is when you are not actually playing the game for real - e.g., hosting a supercombattant tournament where you want to keep magic research below level X. Which is why a toggle would be nice. But in a real game, I can't imagine why a person would not like it.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I agree there should be a default action to search, research, etc. I think that would help micromanagement and at the same time keep searching as a separate action.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I'm not saying that the system would harm anything, simply that I would be ordering my commander to use a specific action every turn anyway. So, I see no problem with it being in the game, other than the effort to implement it.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

It would also be nice if a spellcaster set to cast a site searching spell monthly would automatically pick a new site each month that had not been searched by that spell before.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Quite true; that would be extremely convenient.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

I'd like to see an option to prioritize provinces in general, rather than detailing orders to a specific mage. Particularly when casting sitesearching spells. So you could put all your Waste provinces at the top of the list and all your Farm Lands at the bottom. Site searchers of any kind would look at the top and see if it had already been searched to whatever thier ability (or spell) was, then skip to the next one etc.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searchi
 

Or just let them intelligently prioritize on their own, skipping capitols, and following the known order of site probability.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searching?
 

I think searching should still be a voluntary action, but it should be much simpler and effective. I would personally suggest that any commander should be able to search. Special site could be of three or four categories(holy, magic, civilian and military for example) and if searched by the right class (priest, mage, soldier or civilian), all sites of the matching category would be found. Some commanders or spells could be able to find more than one kind of sites.

Re: Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searching?
 

The only thing which should change with magic site searching is... computer opponents more actively searching for magic sites.