magic site searches
 

Is there any way to see which provinces have been searched by which skill levels from the main map?

I know you can hit F1 and look it up. But it would streamline things immensely if you could determine this from the main map.

Also, as long as I'm making suggestions................

Please add a save feature. Most people play strat games to figure out which strategies work. Its a pain to start over from scratch because a strategic decision didn't work.

Re: magic site searches
 

Maybe it would work if those Site Search cubes were shown like the income box from the map options, but I still think it's just plain laziness to not want to hit F1 or just click a mouse to view your national statistics.

Also, I don't think a save feature is necessary. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a choice; I just think it's not really necessary. If you just want to test a strategy, it really doesn't matter if you win or lose.

Sorry if I came too harsh.

Re: magic site searches
 

If you select an already-searched province, there should be some colored boxes with numbers inside them below the PD listing. The color represents the path, (if you're not quite sure which color means what, hover your mouse over the suspect box) and the number the level.

Or you could hit F1. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Oh, yes, and until someone makes a save feature, (Though it's unlikely) you can make a copy of the game file (look in C:\Program Files\dominions3\savedgames) and paste it elsewhere, then paste it back where it belongs to 'reload' the file. Not the most user-friendly thing in the world, but it works nonetheless.

Re: magic site searches
 

There already is an unofficial program that saves the turns. I think it can even be set to save them automatically at each hosting.

Re: magic site searches
 

Thanks for the help. I didn't realize that the earches are shown on the province screen. Thats a big help. Contrary to some opinions, it really is a hassle to go to the F1 overview and scroll through all your provinces to figure out what has been searched.

Yeah, I know I can save by copying the folder (I just drag it to the desktop). But it is a bit clumsy.

Re: magic site searches
 

I actually also find the F1 screen troublesome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: magic site searches
 

Let me boot this thread to put a request for a slight modification in the message report from successfull spell searches. A direct link to the new found site or province would be very nice (e.g. in stead of a link to the commander that casted the spell). If that is too complicated, would it be possible that the province number is included in the report. Finding the province back can take a long time with larger maps in the f1 screen. Let alone that repeated provinces names are common.

Re: magic site searches
 

I completely agree... the current "go to commander" is no help in locating the new magic site on large maps.

Re: magic site searches
 

Thats a good idea, a link to the land instead of the commander.

Re: magic site searches
 

I would like to back the suggestion to link to the province where your new magic site has been found. You want to see your nice new magic site not the boring old mage who you have had for turns casting detect magic site spells.

What would be really, really cool is when casting a site searching spell, it highlights all the provinces unsearched for in that sphere of magic for you. It could pop up with a number over each province ie...1,2 etc showing you at a mere glance what level if any magic search as been carried out in that province.

Computer gaming software user friendly dreamland/paradise I know but we can wish...

Re: magic site searches
 

This reminds me of something that I don't like in Dom3 relative to the original dominions -- it is now *harder* to cast site searching spells, from a UI perspective.

When playing the original dominions, I had a sheet of graph paper with all the province numbers listed, and I'd tick off which ones I'd searched after casting the spell. I could easily punch in new province numbers when I cast new searches.

In Dom3, you can't just type in the province number, you have to find the province on the map, which means I have to click away until I find the province number I'm looking for. And there's no way to see from within the casting menu which provinces have/haven't been searched, so I still have to rely on my trusty sheet for prov. numbers...

The current system is great for manually site earching, but still needs improvement for the search spells.

Re: magic site searches
 

Not to grumble but I will anyway...

The first province offered to be searched does not have a full search at 9 done, which is nice. However, once you pick it for a search, the next mage you use to cast the same search spell (in the same turn) gives you the same first choice. It would be great if you were given a choice of all provinces not searched to 9 when you cast a spell. Further, since I am already asking, it would be cool if that choice indicated that you had already issued orders to search a given province.

While you are at it, I would like free beer every Friday afternoon, preferably ice cold.

Re: magic site searches
 

It would definitely be a lot better if the automatic choice of province when site searching was more carefully done. Ideally, it should:

- Choose wastelands, mountains, forests and not-farms preferentially
- Avoid any captured capitals (unsearched but you know nothing will be there)
- Choose sites you've searched to a lower level last, searching those already searched to level 1 first, then 2, then 3
- Most importantly, take account of other site-searching orders already given (I understand this might be difficult).

If it took all these things into account, then you could just give a couple of people monthly casting orders on the site-searching and leave them to it, and they'd make the same decisions you would. When there are no sites left to search they should cancel the order.

This might all be a bit over-optimistic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . But there's no harm in describing the ideal solution, even if it would be hard to implement.

Re: magic site searches
 

How do you make it automatically pick search targets anyway??

Re: magic site searches
 

If you assign a mage to cast a site search spell as a monthly ritual (Shift-M), he will pick a new province to target every month.

As I understand it, he picks the first province that, when he chooses his new target, is owned by you and not searched yet. There are two problems. The most obvious is that it doesn't consider provinces that are already being targeted this month, so only one auto searcher can be used per path.

The more subtle is in that "when he chooses his new target". This is done during the ritual casting phase, apparently right after he casts.
If other mages are also using that searching spell, targeted manually, they may or may not have cast already. Thus a province searched later in the turn may be targeted.
Also, since battles occur after the new target is chosen, provinces conquered that turn are not considered and provinces lost can be searched.

Whatever is being used to determine whether a province is a capital seems broken as well. Some capitals are searched, some are not. Sometimes non-capital provinces are skipped for no apparent reason.

All told, it's still worth using, but I hope it can be fixed.

Re: magic site searches
 

I tried that once and got the same place searched each turn until I stopped it.

Re: magic site searches
 

Another usefull improvement might be that the message is from the province searched, ie provinnce X has been searched and Y magic sites were found. Sort of similar to the blood hunting message. Then goto province and you can choose that to see which sites have been found