Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

I downloaded and installed the demo in attempts to decide if I wanted the full game having heard often enough of D3 on the Age of Wonders: shadow magic forum.

A short list of the more serious problems I found in the demo so I can find out if they exist in full game or have been fixed.

750 thunderbird athlon with 384mb ram (issue with full 756mb ram detection on win98) Win98se. 7200rpm HDD with over a gig free space.

RMG buggy
1. It takes 10+ minutes to generate a map. Most of this time is drawing borders.(which it does twice for some reason) Especially as it gets closer and closer to the end of the bar. One time it froze up, I went to bed having it drawing borders and woke up 8 hours latter to the same. The program froze up requiring a hard reset.

Despite this it can draw horrible borders and other placement problems(first I didnt know what it meant by drawing borders till I saw it draw borders so bad) One map it made a land district for recruiting sea creatures. Units I purchased simply never appeared.(dont know if I still payed for em) Captains "drowned" the next turn instead of appearing.

But that was nothing compared to the latest map, land borders on what look like water, no idea where to click to go where. A mismatch of twisted borders, and drawn borders relating in no way to actual borders.

I'd look this up in bug reporting but thread too long to check it all out.(glanced through first page)

1.b
Its also placed me two spaces away from enemy cap with only one enemy on a medium size map.

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2. Enemy unit data needs to be readily available on map.

You can always check out your own unit data and usually check out enemy unit data on battle view (though sometimes units can be so close to each other you can't click on one since its like on the same square, a problem if a commander)

But I want to be able to check out unit stats for units I see names of in enemy domain. I'm sure the manual lists them all, but I don't want to have to memorize all those units or be forced to be continuously thumbing through a manual. Plus what if a mod changes the units? Then manuals no good for that.

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3. Useless scouts/too powerful hidden-invisable.

Scout units seem to give very little more information about areas they are on more then you can tell just by being next to the terrain.(maybe priest helps, some message of scrying sometimes)

But if units are invisable, hidden it seems no way to detect them. Ok maybe theres units that can do that.

But there should be a way for scouts to be able to search for such units with greatly increased risk of their own detection(but good odds of getting the information before they are killed)

Also a option to scout out land type with moderate risk of detection.

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4. Information in unit stats about what they cost per turn.

I understand each unit costs gold each turn to maintain right?(units with half cost from being holy so I can only assume) Does the actual game with patches tell you that in unit stats? If not, why not? Seems kinda simple to do.

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5. Dismissing troops.
There should be some option to dismiss troops who have gotten too injured or you otherwise don't need/want/can't afford.

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6. Targeting.
Needs to be some option to have troops target magic units. Also the options to have unit target specific troop types doesn't always seem to work, they seem to just go after closest troops they encounter along the way anyways unless they can fly.

6.b Would be nice to be able to order troops to either prioritize a target but get other stuff too or to avoid combat with other troops altogether and go around them specificially chasing target types if on field.

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7. Stay together
Options of having troops stay together would be awesome too. As I've seen faster troops will simply rush ahead from slower troops and split the army.

Options like keeping in a certain range of slowest friendly troops till withing reasonable enemy range of fire(where enemy isn't mostly missing in its range attack/spells would be nice.)

Keeping in range of friendly wizards spells and having wizards possible move a little bit so they they stay in range would be nice. There is a enchanting distance limit right?

What improvements have been made to unit command options?
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8.
Would be nice if spell caster AI was a little smarter,
Like having wizards not buff themselves with combat spells if nowhere in range of enemy. Or maybe thats because the army got too far ahead of them to cast spells on friendly troops or enemy. Also general options of commands of "buff friendly troops" "Buff self" "offensive spells" and so on would be nice.

Improvements to such in regular game?

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Questions

What I don't know of the game is volumes since the manual that comes with the demo doesn't tell you alot. I admit I combed through it by catagory and not read it line by line but I feel relatively certain it didn't answer these.

Of biggest interest/concerns is..
Q1. How does the game decide what order to put moves? If your moving troops out of a square and the enemy is attacking the square your moving from.. or to.. and another army is attacking the nation they are attacking from. How does it decide order of resolution?

Q2. Whats with indepedants numbers varying so much? They don't seem to move around since a nation could be surrounded by types totally different from it and I never see that nations type appear in the other nations from what I can recall. Do independant nation numbers ever change between the the time you give the order to attack them to the time you do?

Q3. Sometimes I'll get units without combat who develop wounds without disease. Why/how? Is there any way to mitigate disease risk other then feeding troops well? Is there any way to cure disease or for a unit to recover from disease like real people do?

Speaking of... Too much permanent stuff. Like there should be a blessing counter for curse.(I dont know if blessed units get cursed but thats not blessing I mean) I guess I understand permanent wounds but I kinda wish there was a little more ways you could fix those up too. I mean it is a world of magic after all.

Maybe a overland spell thats high end that could allow you to repair troops a bit each turn.

Q.4
Do spell casters need to be on a domain with a lab or something before they can pick up most recently researched spells?

Q.5
Can you change prophet unit latter on if your prophet becomes too decrepit?

So whats been fixed or improved from demo? What should I know that addresses my concerns or otherwise gives me reason to buy (or not) the game? Is there going to be an expansion?

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

To address your specific points:

1) Dunno, I hardly ever use random maps. The player-made maps look better and provide a more balanced MP game.

2) Not entirely sure what you mean here

3)
Scouts: The purpose of scouts is to detect troop movements deep in enemy territory, not near your borders where you get free intelligence. Use them to locate key enemy provs: forts provs, high income provs, low pd provs, etc.
PatrollingYou can detect stealth units via the Patrol command. Fast units and flying units get bonuses to patrol. Additionally, Province Defense above 10 has an increasing chance to detect hidden units moving through your province.

4) Nope. Probably should be there, but its not that big a deal since you dont care too much about individual soldiers in dominions. In case you were wondering, unit upkeep is directly proportional to the unit cost (1/15th for regulars, 1/30th for sacreds).

5) Nope. Put them at the front of your army as fodder http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

6a) Do you mean target spell casters? If so, that option was available in Dom1, but removed because it was far too powerful. As for squad orders "not working": squads normally try to carry out their orders as best they can, but orders and morale have a subtle interplay which effects the result. Too long to go into here.

6b) Too much micromanagement

7) I have this gripe also - Unfortunately no way to do this. Best bet is to just organize squads with like movement speeds and then arrange your formation appropriately.

8) Spellcasting AI same in demo and full game. It is not good, but given the amazing number and variety of spells available in Dom3 it does a tolerable job once you understand its limitations.

Q1) Generally speaking, all moves into a friendly provs occur before any moves into enemy provs. In a contested situation (where two armies attempt to move into each other provs) the result is random - tho it is unknown if things like army size influence it.

Q2) Independent strength is set at via the option when you create a game. Each particular province has some randomness as to troop makeup and amount (tho provs with powerful units like Knights will usually have less). Indys never move.

Q3) The most likely cause is Old Age (you are probably seeing this on your mages, right?). Healing wounds is possible via the global Gift of Health, the artifact The Chalice, and some units in the game which you are not likely to see in the demo.

Q4) No. Newly researched spells are available to all your mages anywhere, instantly.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Q3-Old age, maybe burden of time(though it may just speed up aging), disease(miamasa dominion, starvation ect), marignon flagellants, misbreds and possibly other units come with random afflictions.
Q5-You cant prophetise a new commander until your old prophet dies(even then you must wait a few turns)

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

1. Maybe, but play AoWsm I appreciate how fun it can be in RMG to explore and find stuff. Of course AoWsm looks much better and had more interesting stuff to find, AoWsm also had much more risk to scouts(indies can kill scouts in AoWsm, they see through concealment/invisability ) And AoWsm the map is black till you explore it. But regardless a good RMG can be real fun, just about all AoWsm games are played in RMG for this reason. (not that their RMG is perfect, and I understand how hard it can be to make a good RMG)

2. What I mean is unit stats, like you get when you click on them in battle, or recruitment screen. Except also when you see their name in a area your considering attacking so you know exactly what your going to face if you do so you can guess what your odds are. Without having to memorize things or dig out a manual (useless if a mod)

3. I'd also like a chance for you to be able to check out invisible/hidden units in terrain you don't control. So you don't get wiped out by troop strength you did not expect when you went in. You can't patrol land you don't control of course.

I'd also like scouts to be able to be told to check out terrain their on with increased risk of detection so you can know the value of land and whether to try to take it.

4. I care how much over all they are costing me and what troops I need to get ride of in order to free up resources for other things. Also how much do units who join your troops through events, seduction, avatar unit etc cost?

5. Which goes around to the annoying lack of an option to dismiss units. Which is just asinine if you ask me. How hard would it be to put in such a command? I can't imagine that hard. What possible downside would it be for it to be there?

How amaturish to not have that, even heroes of might and magic games have a option to dismiss troops. And those troops don't have upkeep costs.

6. Give magic users guards, make them have better defenses. Don't take away the option to target them.
6.b Not really more micromanaging. Just more options in existing micromanaging.

7. No way to program this? I find that hard to believe. Its my gripe in many a game, it can't be that hard to to have units keep pace with slower units. Its just a matter of them self adjusting speed or stopping and starting depending on unit closeness

Q2. Then how come indie strength various from one turn to the next? One turn it tells me there are 20, another turn 50, then 30 and so on. BTW to the game is each turn a month?

Q3. There needs to be more options for healing such wounds then the very rare and or limited race specific. Maybe spells like regeneration could also help with permanent wounds if cast ritualistically with gem cost. And if some of those "wounds" were the old age of magic users then it should show as increased age penalty, not "battle wounds" which is just confusing.

Q6. A new one,
Whats the little house on certain lands indicate? or is that decorative?

I like the complexity of the game.. to a point and find the approach to simultanous turns novel. I gripe at graphics so poor it can be work just differentiating units. Though I've always been one who feels gameplay should come first (though it is pretty extreme in its low grade graphics quality sometimes)

But if none of these issues were addressed in the official game or its patches.. I don't know its worth some $40-$50 bucks.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

in no particular order:

Q2. the count changes because they are estimates, if you REALLY want to know what exactly is in there, send a cheap commander to attack on his lonesome. with a scout in th province or scrying the estimate becomes more accurate, but is still just an estimate.each round is a month iirc.

5. this i think is another point where it is a bit too much micromanagement. use them for fodder, like ironhawk said, if you want to get rid of them any way they may as well serve a purpose. not amaturish, just not too useful in my opinion, but that's just me

3. the whole point of invisibilty / glamour is to make them undetectable by scouts. there are a few item iirc that will reveal invisible units, but i do not know whether that will make them visible to scouts. if that is not the case i think it ought to be

7. i would like to see the possible orders and combat ai beefed up a bit too, but not too far. the game goes on the premise that once battle starts, orders be damned, the average joe is just trying to stay alive and i like that

1. the RMG does have a few large holes in it, but it does an ok job on default sized maps and as long as you don't ask it to put in rivers. check the link in my sig, i'm working on one of my own

Q6. some of the icons suggest a known low level magic sit in a province, for the RMG any way. not sure if the house have any meaning. if you are looking at a hand crafted map, it completely depends on the creators preference whether they mean anything further than decor

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

The answer to your second question is because the scouting reports aren't completely accurate. The number of indies doesn't change, your scouting report does. If it's going from 30-80 troops over a few turns there are probably about 50 guys there. If you keep track of it from turn to turn you'll get a good idea of the true strength as you gather intelligence, otherwise you're relying on a small amount of time, so you shouldn't be completely sure what you're going up against, it's one of the judgement calls you have to make.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

In Dominions: Priest, Prophets and Pretenders, the first in the series, you could order troops to Attack either Magic Users or Commanders, and also Fire at either. It caused a lot of problems (the only way to protect yourself from both archers and fliers was Storm, and the nation best at its use (Caelum) had flying Air mages whothe Storm made more powerful AND units capable of flying in the storm).

1) The random maps are adequate. It doesn't do beautiful maps, but the maps it does work. The map in which borders didn't match the provinces is in fact product of a bug, but the bug isn't in the map generator. You generated a new game with the same name as an earlier game, both used random maps. Unless you restart, you'll see the second map's coordinates and provinces over the first map's graphic.

2) The manual only lists summonable units. National units are only detailed in-game, and only when viewing that nation.
I suggest creating three games for just viewing the different nations: choose some big map with both water and land, press and hold 'n' to add new nations until you've added all nations of an Age, press 'Shift+H' to set all nations to Human, then alternate between 'Enter' (for getting past every screen except accepting a pretender design) and a mouseclik (Ready in the pretender design - you don't have to move the mouse). Repeat for the two other ages. This won't take more than few minutes, and lets you quickly check out any nation.

When viewing units in battle, you can change view between units that are in the same grid. You can press 'g' to make the grid visible, that should help with finding the commanders.


3) How can Scouts be useless when they are just as invisible as units with Glamour? There are two kinds of "invisibility" in the game: Stealth, which makes the unit capable of moving through enemy territories as long as it isn't found, and Glamour, which allows the unit not to show up in the army report screen. Ethereal, True Ethereal etc abilities just protect the unit from weapons.

Scouts can move into enemy territories, find out where and how strong his province defense and conventional armies are, where is his capital and what are his richest provinces, etc. about the province he is in, so you'll have to recruit multiple scouts if you want to know what your enemy is doing.
Spies are more expensive than scouts, give more accurate reports and actually show the income, resource, unrest, PD etc numbers of the province and the possible magic sites. Spies can also generate unrest. One scout or spy will only give information

Arcoscephale's dominion has the special ability to giving out as much detail of the enemy lands as if they had a spy in every province where they have dominion. However, they also need spies to get a warning of enemy moving armies into their direction.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

There is a way. Just set your scout to attack the province, with orders to retreat.

That said, an in-game database about units and so on would be quite handy. And the huge difference between a (perfect) battle report and a scout report is disconcerting.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

I have the regular game patched to 3.04, but the generating time problem is always present, it is very long, too much for me as i frankly prefer to not have to wait so many minutes before being able to play when launch D3. That's why i don't play random maps anymore after 2 tries.

Fortunately the stock and user created maps are superb and well thought enough to provide all the entertainment i need with D3.

But it would be really nice if it was possible for the map generator to work a lot quicker.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Short answer is, the full game is the same as the demo, except you get to play more: more nations, more eras, more research. Features, though, are the same, and the patches don't change gameplay (that I know of).

Basically, the Illwinter devs are real nice guys, but they're a bit headstrong. If they don't like your idea, or they don't feel like doing it, they don't. There are a lot of UI features like the ones you suggest that would be a great thing to have, but that have been suggested since at least Dom2 (probably the very first even, though I wasn't really around in these days) and that I'm not holding my breath for.


Dominions isnt' resource-hungry, but the map generator might be memory-happy. Maybe your RAM is a little low.

The full game comes with more maps, and there are others available on the 'net, including this forum's "mods and maps" section - I'm pretty sure you can use them in the demo, too. Random maps are good if you're bored with the others and want some change for a quick multi game; then hopefully you can get your opponents to generate them (or use Gandalf's, if he still has his page with "fresh" random maps).

In the early days of the demo, I noticed this: if you played two different random maps one after the other in the same game session, I think the game used the older map's .map file (the one which describes province centers and neighborhoods) with the new one's .tga file (the one with the map picture in it). Or something like that. Maybe the current demo still has the bug (and maybe the current full game too; like many others, I don't tend to use random maps too much now that I have the full game and more maps).

Excellent suggestion (even worse: the manual is far from giving the stats of all units in the game; there are Excel files around here that give the stats for most of them, but I'm not even sure if they are complete). Unlikely to happen.

Scout reports are of little usefulness in solo play, but I can tell you, they are invaluable in multiplayer. They are always inaccurate, but they can still tell you that a large army is moving your way, AND they let you watch the enemy's battles (which shows you their mages, formations, blessings).

As for Glamour units, yes, they are very strong in that. Watch out for Helheim and Vanheim, which can field whole armies of national glamour troops.

Rule is simple, unless it changed since Dom2: each unit costs 1/15 of its initial cost in monthly upkeep (no rounding taking place, IIRC); sacreds cost half of that (1/30). But yes, having this kind of information available in-game, by clicking on a unit, would be useful. One more useful feature that probably won't ever appear.

Oh, and unless I'm mistaken, summoned units don't cost upkeep, UNLESS they are the same unit as something that can be recruited normally (possibly through a site).

As has been said, you can always send them on suicide missions - this lets you scout for "almost free".

Plus, you can have a "real-life" rationale for this - you can't just dismiss your soldiers, you have to pay their pensions. Or find them a real heroic mission for the fatherland that they might not come back from http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Targeting isn't perfect - other units blocking the line of sight on the battlefield tend to make your units "miss" their real targets - especially when ordered to "attack rearmost". Placing your cavalry/flyers on the far flanks tends to help a little, but targeting is never perfect.

As for targeting options - you can't target enemy commanders, and that's a good thing for their survivability. "Attack rearmost" by flyers is often the best tactic to kill those pesky mages who like to stay in the back - unless they have strong bodyguards of course.

At some point, it's nice not to have too many options, as that would increase the amount of micromanagement exponentially. Yes, sometimes I also wish I could give my troops more detailed instructions - actually, a completely revamped tactical scripting system is my major wish for Dom4 or Dom5.

More options, yeah. But this has a cost in micromanagement.

More precisely, each spell has its own range, which you can check in its ingame description.

None whatsoever - as I said, gameplay is the same in the demo and full versions.

Again, none. A "smart" battle AI is something very difficult to make, because the smartness of using a given spell is very dependent on the overall tactics of the army - sometimes a "mage" is actually a melee combatant just buffing himself up before rushing on the attack, sometimes he's a battlemage who's more supposed to hurl fireballs at the enemy, sometimes he's a support mage whose role is to cast short range buffs at nearby troops. The best that could be done, IMHO, would be to let the player categorize a small number of "roles" and assign relevant spells to each category. But again, this suggest a complete revamping of the scripting system - something that would be very nice to have, but something that is unlikely to appear in a Dom3 patch.

Small enough armies (no numbers given) can actually cross and not meet sometimes. Otherwise, the order is, according to the manual, random.

Numbers don't change (unless some effect kills them, or they get random events reinforcing them), but scout reports and the like are wildly inaccurate - if you keep the numbers from several turns, you should be able to triangulate on more precise numbers (of course, the best way of scouting an independant province is to send a lone commander scripted to "retreat" and placed very far to the back - flyers will get him, but otherwise he's mostly safe from harm, and you can see the exact army then).

Old age (either natural, or through global enchantment "burden of time") can cause this. Other than that, there's a rather common (though unique, I think) site that spreads disease: Inkpot End. And "diseased" is fatal over time, there is no widely available cure.

Some possible cures: global enchantment "Gift of Health" (level 5, so you won't get it in the demo), Arcoscephale priestesses set to "heal troops", a few other healing commanders (including some high-level Nature summons), and units with Recuperation. But basically, diseased units are toast.

Now wait until you are attacked by fully-equiped supercombatants - then you'll be happy that there are a few really unremovable ways to hurt them permanently, like Curse or Horror Mark.

If you're thinking of permanent wounds, Gift of Health is what you're looking for. One of the good global enchantments that the AI tends to fight over; rarely seen for more than one turn in multiplayer (it boosts friendly units hit points in dominion, plus it lets them slowly recover from wounds in dominion; very strong).

No. Even, since research takes place before almost everything else in the turn sequence (only "recruiting" comes before it), they get the newly researched spells for the turn's battles, though of course you cannot script for them in advance.

No. Prophethood is for life (what kind of god would you be if you changed your mind about who your prophet is?). If you don't like your prophet anymore, make him die in some battle, and a few turns later you'll be able to make a new one.

As I said, patches change extremely little to gameplay, so what you see in the demo is basically what you'll get (or not) in the full game.

As for expansions - this is the kind of thing that the good folks at Illwinter like to do in patches. The latest patch (3.04) added a new nation to the game. The thing is, since the patches are free, it's hard to press them for things we'd like, but they wouldn't like to code...

Basically, I'm afraid my answers don't go in the direction of making you buy the full game. This would be too bad, really - the game isn't perfect, but it's a great load of fun, both solo and multiplayer (and this is almost the only PC game I've ever played multi - if you discount Dom2).

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

BTW, I applied a number of the things you guys told me about things. Especially about upkeep. My game improved notably in both skill and fun factor. Still find things lacking. I still love AoW and got endless numbers of other games to play.

Like #2. being able to see stats of enemy units you see in enemy domain is a big one for me to prevent game headaches and make the game more enjoyable.

@ mostly PhilD

3. Thats interesting about attacking and retreating with a scout, though seems a bit exploitive. Rather see that closed up as a option (like enemy troops being invisable to the battle screen unless you get close enough) And instead a option for more active scouting where you can try to find more information, most specifically invisable-hidden units with increased risk of detection/destruction. If the unit doesn't make it back you don't get the information. But I suppose if the other way sorta works for the game, just not nearly as well IMO.. but its not as big of a issue for me.

But it doesn't cover that scouts unfortunitely don't seem to garner land information (like is it lucky/unlucky, growth/death etc)nor can they be instructed to check it out for increased risk.

4. Information in unit stats about what they cost per turn.

That information about the general rule of thumb for unit cost and that summons are free is very helpful. But sometimes you get units for free from an event or other circumstances where you simply don't know how much it costs. (like you don't know if a summon unit is also purchasable or not) Also like being able to see enemy unit stats outside of battle, it saves you from having to look things up or memorize them.

Does inkspot allie or other negative sites act even if you haven't found em?

5. Being able to dismiss troops

Unless their units, then you have to make a commander and go through the hassle of meeting up and switching units and finding something to suicide against.. too much hassle.

Come on, pensions?! Thats a modern concept. More likely would be compensations to family for soldier loss. But if we really wanted to get realistic we would have units be drawn from general population (population goes down when units recruited) and population gets more unhappy when units from there get killed. Which actually would be good ideas but are not in the game AFAIK.

As of yet noones mentioned a game reason for not being able to dismiss units. Or have quibbled with my logic that programming a dismiss command in would be a cakewalk for any programmer. It baffles me that its not in there and makes the game look amaturish in design IMO.

7. Units stay together in battle.
You and I have a very different Phil on what micromanaging is it seems. My definition is more time spend on settings to compensate for what can be done simplier or by the AI or design. So when I can order troops to stay together by command or just have them do so automatically.. thats less work then having to figure out how far back I need to put faster units with or without pause so they don't get too far ahead in a battle and place them there.

So to me a option to have units stay together is less micromanaging as far as I see it. I got no idea what your idea of micromanaging is.

Q5. Yet I've read a number of exploitive technics that allow you to have more then one prophet.

Gods can change their mind about who they favor, else they wouldn't be gods (think of biblical god.. god) Rather have an option to change prophet with delay perhaps.. and measures to prevent one from having more then one prophet.

You don't pay upkeep on prophets right?

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Well put, PhilD. That is a really accurate description of the IW devs. Additionally tho, you have to consider that they are only 2 guys (only one programmer!) so they must make really hard decisions about what to program. That said, as TruePurple points out (and we all know) there are many small improvements that could be made. At some point tho we just have to accept that this really is an independent game and tolerate any flaws in order to get at the awesome gameplay.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Just wondering, how exactly would a scout looking at enemy troops from any sort of distance be able to tell their stats? The only real way to do this would be watching them fight but we can already see their stats when they fight so...

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

For that matter how could a unit know its exact strength level to report it as a number in the stat screen? Oh brother, its a game. Lets just chalk it up to gods knowing the stats of all unit types.

Regardless its a important feature of being able to see enemy unit stats outside of combat for avoid lots of headache. Especially in a game with primative graphics as it is which makes it more of a chore memorizing units. And in a game with lots and lots of different units, even variations on those units. I don't want to have to memorize lots of crap I shouldn't need to! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif Then to have to memorize new stuff in case of mod?! No way!

One programmer? Sheesh then they are really overcharging for the game or D3 has a small buyer base or something..

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

About one previous question, you can have different units with different speed grouped : give the squad the "guard commander" order, and use a commander with good enought survivability.

That way, you could, for exemple, have a hoplite commander leading a mixed group of hoplites, or better the sacred version, and elephants.

The hoplites are hard to kill, an almost invulnerable to arrows (very heavy armor + shield), but versus other ultra heavy infantry they might lack offensive ability (longspear is a good weapon versus lightly armored troop, but lack damage to pieace the heavier armors)

Moreover, the better morale on your hoplites will be averaged with the low morale of the elephants if they're in the same squad, so you have less chance of them routing and smashing your own troops (could still happen, so careful)

For the commander's orders, you can have him hold 0-5 turns before making him attack (better control that the "hold and attack" order that always wait for 2 turns)

If you have the better ranged attacks , you can haveyou heavy units keep the center while your bows and spells hurt the opponent's army.

You can protect you flanks by using other units, often with better mobility.

Classic army with MA man :


rear - center : mages

rear - left : squad of longbowmen, set to "fire archer"
(note that this give them sometimes a good chance to hit enemy mages)

rear - right : another squad of longbowmen, this time without specific target , expect if you know what your next fight will be against and wish to target some specific units.

front - center : lord Warden with squad of wardens (MA man sacred units) set to guard commander. The Lord Warden himself set to hold x3 and attack closest
You can of course make without the Lord warden and use the standard hold and attack orderd, but then you wardens will start advancing sooner.


front - right and left : squad of knights (or knights of avalon) set to hold and attack -&gt; rearmost

By waiting for the ennemy army to advance , your knights will have a chance of ignoring them and going for the easy kill of ennemy archers and commanders/mages.

If the ennemy has a big squads in the center, your flanking units will probably attack them by the flank instead of attacking the rearmost units (this is not a bug, in the middle of a battle, if a large squad is near you, you will find hard to ignore it), but them it will probably be a welcome addition to your wardens that could have been overpowered with a trully large force.
And sometimes you will win the day because your knights have managed to kill all ennemy commanders while your wardens were being killed by a larger force.

You can also use a knight commander or other fast commander on the flank and use the "guard commander" order to have your flankiong units wait for a different number of rounds

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Dom3 is very good in some things, quite poor in others. Graphics and sound are weak. Content is very good. Modding capabilities are good. At the moment, it's one-of-a-kind in turn-based fantasy strategy games, and it sells well. Shrapnel Games (who publishes the game and decides the price) has sold many copies of the game. The amount of resources used to make something shouldn't affect the price, just the quality of the product. Because Shrapnel Games is still in the business, I guess they know the value of Illwinter's small team's product.


Usually, you don't have to know the details of the spesific units. While details differ, the same counters generally work against all heavy infantry, massed medium/light infantry, massed archers, armored archers/crossbows, etc. In most cases, remembering if the unit has less than 10, more than 15 or somewhere in between protection is enough.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Content might be good but design and mechanics leave something to be desired.

If these units are so generic like you describe then wheres the content? Whats the point of having so many different races? If there are many different types of units you can encounter, you need a option to be able to see enemy unit stats. I have a terrible memory as it is, stats of a hundred different units and variations there of is not something I wish to try to fill it with. One should also be able to see spheres of magic users and artifacts of commanders.

Re: dismissing units
 

An elaberation of my simple suggestion of a dismiss command.

For injured units.
Option for groups ordering themselves in injury first, putting them first on the list by most injured. You highlight all the units you see has having the most injury and dismiss them together enmass with a hot command.

For just dismissing units you can't afford you would have the highlight units and dismiss enmass option.

Flexibility, yet reduces micromanaging. No fretting with moving units to squads for killing or having to bother to send commanders on suicide missions.

I know, they probably won't do it else they already would have.. or something like that. Just thought I'd express my hope for things.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

I said usually, and that counters [g]generally[/b] work against the same types of units. Ulmish non-shielded basic infantry is almost tough enough to ignore normal archers, black plate infantry is pretty resistant to crossbows; the shields still help against crossbows, and especially against special missiles (Banefire Archers, Jotun Javelinists, normal archers with Flaming Arrows active). And of course, Ulmish infantry is all very cheap (10 gp) and tougher and stronger than normal humans, if a bit more vulnerable against magic. Marignonian infantry doesn't have shields and is vulnerable to arrows, and especially to crossbows, but they have higher morale (11 instead of 10). Marignonian Man-at-Arms have shields, but are a bit more expensive. Machaka's Hoplites have good armor, but their Great Hide Shields are weaker in melee than most other shields - on the other hand, they are very good against missiles. Agarthan medium and heavy human infantries use Kite Shields instead, and are the only infantry to do so, giving them slight edge against missiles and against heavy weapons. Their own weapons have rather low damage, though, and they themselves will have trouble against heavy units. Their encumberance is also rather high, due to enc 2 of the Kite Shield. Their Darkvision also makes able to fight under Darkness. Pale Ones of MA are medium infantry with very poor attack and defence, and only Bucklers to protect them from missiles, but they have lots of hp, good strength and an array of useful special abilities. They are vulnerable to missiles, though, and are prone to losing their only eye and thus becoming useless. Satyr Hoplites have very good base skills and stats (14 hp, 13 def, 13 magic res), but their archaic bronze armor causes them to fatigue quickly and their body protection is rather weak; however their ability to heal battle afflictions means that you can have them get lots more experience than infantries of other nations.

Magma Eruption works against all of these. Lighting spells work against all of thies. Massed crossbows work against all of these, but with wildly varying results. Crossbows with Flaming Arrows cast works pretty well against all of these and devastates most. All of these get fatigue rather quickly, and you might be able to beat them if you can tire them somehow.

The counters are similar. The uses, the strengths and particular national bonuses vary.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

You can tell by their stats whether they would be good against missles, special missles or melee, etc?

If they vary in their strengths and weaknesses, don't they vary in what you want to use against them? From what you say it sounds like yet more reason to make enemy unit stats visable.

Theres definitely no downside at least other then programming time. Since theres already a unit stat screen its a matter of making a new access point system for it. It doesn't sound that hard to program.

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

I agree that it would be nice addition. I'm just trying to explain why I think it's not necessary.

The main thing that varies is Protection. If they have shields, high shield Parry value helps.

Unshielded Ulmish infantry has protection of 17. Unshielded Marignonese infantry has protection 14. Crossbows cause 10 (armor-piercing) damage, so they deal about 1.5 [20 - 17/2] points of damage against Ulmish and about 3 [20 - 14/2] points of damage against Marignonese infantries. Flaming arrows adds another armor-piercing attack with 8 damage. Thanks to the random rolls, the damage varies quite a lot; just stacking enough armor-piercing attacks against heavy infantry will ensure that damage gets through and afflictions happen even if the armor is a bit better (prot 20 of Black Plate infantry of Ulm) or if a Shield gives a chance of parry.

Satyr Hoplites have protection 16 and Shield, Arcoscephale hoplites have protection 17 and Shield, Machaka Hoplites have protection 16 and Great Hide Shield, Agarthan Heavy Infantry has protection 17 and Kite Shield, Ulm has access to troops with protection 17 and protection 20, both varieties with and without tower shields, Pale Ones Soldiers of Agartha have protection 13, 18 hp and Buckler.

Normal crossbows work against all of these. Armor-piercing and -negating spells work against all of these. All have rather high encumberance.

Making enemy unit stats available
 

Lets say your facing a "markatas" Is it a shooter, foot soldier of low or high grade defense/offense? How about a "peltest"? I know a markatas is a real low grade shooter and a peltest is a javelin thrower (bonus against riders?) But their names do not tell me this.

What would you build against a markatas or a peltest army if you didn't know what they were?

Do certain other weapons give bonus against riders? If you were facing a enemy that had such weapon but you didn't know they did, do you build riders or not?

Lets say you have a army of slingers (low grade shooters) or are considering building them since at 2 resource you can make alot quickly. But your facing a foe you don't know whether they have high def shield protection.. what ever.. where the slingers shots might be almost completely ignored... or low def where their large numbers can do alot of damage?

You could be facing "Marignonian infantry" or "Machaka's Hoplites" but if you don't know the difference...

So you don't need to know what kind of units your facing because crossbows can be used against everything? Or just maybe everything except riders &amp; fast units which are always riders?

Lets say you want to try to seduce a commander with that 400 gold magic user whos name I forget. You want to equip her with something to defeat the commander if the seduction fails (and its never succeeded yet against commanders weak or strong, I'm starting to wonder if its broken)
and you have to have that one unit battle enemy commander and guards together. Is it a air mage with air rocks and good items that can cast lightning that you should build the item that makes a unit immune to lightning for her? A archer that you need a good shield even if that means more incumbrance?

Lets say your facing same commanders in a regular battle. Lightning can pass by troops and injure enemy commanders directly unless their properly equipped.

Lets say you have a army of wyvrm spawn which have foul vapor ability. Its nice to know if the enemy is protected against poison or weak against it. Or your facing a army of wyvrm spawns. Or if you have or are facing those units that give off heat verses something cold themed or fire protected.(or you need to know to make item to make commanders fire or poison immune)

I still see it as a must to be able to see unit stats. What you said has convinced me of this more. It would also be nice to be able to scout out enemy commanders and see their stats &amp; equipment.

Question about the tips
 

Between turns it sometimes gives game play tips, but this usually passes by too fast to read. Is there a way to read these without taking up speed reading and staring hard at the screen between turns?

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Then I'm guessing you don't have that much experience in programming http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
(It might be easy to program, but it just might be really really hard)

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

What does higher dominion in your land do for you? How does enemy dominion in your land hurt you?

Does dominion give you a chance to flip enemy lands? How much is required for what kind of chances? Does preaching in a area ever increase the dominion around that land?

Re: Problems in demo exist in regular game?
 

Dominion is pretty complicated, though the manual has a decent explanation. (by the way, I don't think anyone has yet pointed out to you that the game comes with a 292 page manual. It does not include stats for the basic national troops, but it does include full stats for every kind of maigically summoned troop - which is far more important).

The short answer is that all troops gain morale in + dominion and lose morale in enemy dominion. Your pretender and prophet gain/lose hitpoints based on dominion. A few pretenders and troops are immortal - but only if they are killed in friendly dominion.

Dominion is spread to surrounding provinces by temples, your prophet, and your pretender. Preaching can raise dominion, but only in that province.

There is an indirect chance to 'flip' - high enemy dominion increases unrest, high unrest can possibly lead to a revolt, which would flip the province to independent - but don't expect to ever see it happen in a game.

A province of yours under enemy dominion will suffer from any negative scale effects, but will not benefit from any positive scale effects.

Like I said - that's the short answer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Making enemy unit stats available
 

Markata and Peltasts are cheap, weak units. Slingers are handled just like arrows, mechanically; Shields help against them (Parry), but high defense doesn't. Javelins don't have bonus against cavalry.

It seems I'm not good at arguing for my point, so I'll just drop it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif IMO, the one thing that you should know is an approximation about how much protection the enemy troops have, and that alone is enough in most cases.

There are few problems with letting scouts see the amount of enemy commanders, and especially the details of enemy mages. Knowing the numbers and types of the commanders would already be quite powerful, because then you would know how much magic you should expect the opposition to have. Knowing the gems and items of the mages would let you guess at their strategies, as well as script for spells that work against them especially well. If you know what that Gorgon pretender is vulnerable to, your mages can easily kill her.

Questions
 

Of temples prophets and pretenders, which raise dominion in provinces they aren't in .. All of them?

I know that, the point is that if one didn't know that.. or what kind of unit they were.. range.. melee.. etc Its helpful to know

I also asked if there were any weapons at all that had bonus against riders? If there wasn't it would be skipping out a important aspect of medieval warfare as well as paper rock scissors game mechanics.

Don't want to memorize that either.

Markato for example only do 2 damage range. It doesn't take much protection to reduce that to zero. Though I don't know that its such a linear subtraction (2 damage verses 2 protection=zero damage?)but still probably pretty important to know if your enemy has high protection with them.

Parry subtracts from a units missile accuracy right? Markata &amp; slingers have only 6 &amp; 8 precision. So you'll want to know about that too. Gave a few other examples where unit stats would be real helpful to be able to know.

Re: Questions
 

Manual lists the formula for if a missile strikes a target or not. Precision affects where the missile lands, but this formula is used to see whether or not it hits a unit in the square, and precision doesn't affect it.


Temples, prophet and pretender all increase dominion outside their province. Priests preaching increase dominion only in the province they are in.

Protection is reduced from damage, but a random number is added to both sides. Because the "dice-roll" is open-ended, there's always a chance of dealing some damage. It's often very small chance, but it exists any way.

I don't think there are any weapons with a bonus against any types of units (infantry, archer, cavalry). However, cavalry are fewer in numbers (because they cost more than infantry), and thus the enemy can usually swarm them. Every attack against a unit lowers it's defence by 2, so if it's a three-on-one the third attacker get to attack against defence reduced by 4. This has already eliminated the +3 defence bonus cavalry gets.

Some weapons are better against cavalry than others, even if they don't have a bonus:
Battleaxes have base damage of 9, and with str 10 they can deal damage through even the heaviest of armors. Against the best armors it might be just a point of damage here and there, though, and shields are enough to block them. Halberds, mauls, glaives etc have similar uses.
Flails have damage rating of just 3, but they have two attacks and ignore shields. Flailmen won't deal lots of damage but because their attacks can't be parried, they effectively reduce the knight's defense by at least 4 points, often more, before you count in the malus from multiple attacks. Flails are very good against light to medium cavalry, but won't deal damage to heavy cavalry.
Morningstars have better damage (6) but only one attack/round, which makes them better against heavy cavalry but worse against units that have high defense even without shield (medium cavalry like Royal Guards of Marignon).
Pikes have base damage of 5, so they aren't that good at piercing heavy armor. Most cavalry units have rather high morale, so repel doesn't keep them from attacking, but as long as the pikeman can hit the knight he deals 1 point of repel damage. IIRC, shield parry doesn't affect repel, so it's usually attack 10+1(pike) against defense of 9 to 11 defense (heavy cavalry) or 11-13 (light/medium cavalry). Pikes can also parry lances and light lances.

Saving when you want to.
 

Not a specific reason not to buy but..

Sucks that you can't simply save when you want. I know, that nethack mentality of the challenge.. and thats great and all... But if you simply want to explore game mechanics or made a stupid mistake last turn with the countless settings.(like forgeting to renew bid on mercenaries) and want to reset to a earlier turn.. One should be able to.

If its a matter of comparing scores or something.. simply have a ironman setting players can set that shows in scores.

Re: Saving when you want to.
 

It's not only that they cost more : normal cavalry units are size 3, versus size 2 for normal (human-sized) infantry.

A a cas can only contain up to a total of 6 point of size, it means that you can only have 2 cavalry per cases, versus 3 infantry. So even in equal numbers, infantry will have the advantage in number of units fighting.

Of course, heavy cavalry have one advantage : the hoof/bite attack of the mount means that 2 units of cavalry make in fact 4 attacks, versus the 3 attacks of a normal infantry.

But those secondary atacks usually don't do mch damage (10 damage for a heavy cavalry), and are most used to decimate light and medium infantry (a cavalry charge on a squad of archer is not a pretty thing to see - if the archers are yours -).

Summon stats
 

I see what you mean jake, still interesting/nice to have things like pikes do extra damage to riders. You could make riders a little nicer to compensate. Of course that would obligate enemy troop information access even more... What do you mean by "case"?

Please don't miss my "Saving when you want to" post bottom of last page.

Along the line of providing stats for enemy units.. providing stats of summons when you middle click or left/right click.. what ever.. summon spells as well a number showing how many you will get.(or put that information in spell description)

You could then cut out a number of pages of manual with that information.. which would save money and tree resources..and make things easier for players not to have to look it up thumbing through a manual. And make it more mod friendly since if someone wants to mod different stats for summons the manual becomes worthless.

Granted then you can't "brag" about having 300 pages (or 292, the demo and web site pages say 300) manual. But other then that silly bit and if it were taken out of the manual one couldn't browse said info outside of the game..and the manuals alteration would require existing copies to run out and enough reason to change the print. Otherwise its a win win for everyone.

How often do those two read the forum? It would be nice to hear directly from them what they think of this stuff.

Do blessed units cost half upkeep like sacred troops?

Re: Summon stats
 

Sorry, english is not my first langage, i didn't use the correct word.

I was writing about the combat grid (you can show it in combat by pressing 'g' I think) : one box/zone can only have up to 6 size of unit (yes, it means that jotuns, having size 4, have lost space, unless you mix them with smaller units)


The number of units summonded is already shown : see the "number of effets" value in the spell description.

If there's a "+" after the number, extra levels in the spell main magic will summon additionnal units.


???

a blessed unit is just a sacred unit under the effect of one of the blessing spells, so I don't understand the question.

The prophet is special, being always blessed, but as the prophet he doesn't cost *any* upkeep at all.

You're maybe wondering about the items that give blessed status to the weared (their are 2 : the shroud of the battle saint, and an artifact armor).

I was thinking of using it to halve the upkeep of some non sacred national mages, but equiping it doesn't show any change in the total upkeep cost (unless you have to wait for a turn first before the change show ? I didn't check yet)

Re: Summon stats
 

It's been talked about: Would be very nice for new players. Would cause some to quit because they couldn't resist the temptation to reload when things to wrong. Since it's still first of all a game for one turn per day multiplayer, the devs prefer to focus on other features. You can mimic it by backing up your save directory.

Would be nice if clicking on the text 'The army consists of mainly emerald guards' in a province description, showed the info a pythium player gets when right clicking on a unit on the recrutment screen. And for 'heavy infantry' it shows one of the many heavy infantry, randome one every time. Same for spells, show the stats for one of the 3 air queens from a link in the spell description.

Nah... I like having stuff in the manual.

Re: Summon stats
 

iirc, and i don't know if it's been mentioned yet, you can back up a game much the same way as you could in roguelikes, by copying the save directory to somewhere else. if you screw up, just drop it back into the dominions directory

Feedback and other stuff
 

You mean quit playing the game? Seems the traditional saving is intentionally not there. Putting it in might not be much work, suppose putting in a ironman option could be a bit of work. But the ironman option is best of both worlds. If it reflects in scoring, someone could easily choose it for extra challenge rather then quit the game.

I know that but..

Not easily, since I have issues with the game where when it loads and I click it minimizes, I have to refocus to the game twice and then switch resolutions over and back and do this every time I alt tab and all that takes plenty of time. To do this ever so often.. So your solution is a hell of alot of work and waiting.

Then when you want to load the save you got to remember which one you hadn't used. Which is hard since copying the save requires either different names or different directories.
Because you figure it would be easier to program that way? Well that would definitely be better then nothing, its about the less generic units anyways. But really its confusing and silly to have so many units with the same name. Like the better druids (the ones that cost 380, not 120 or so) should be called "master druids" or something. These units should have more specialized names in my opinion, least some of them.

Not a real big thing for me but it would be nice and in some examples its just plain absurd for them to have same name IMO.

Sure, but if it was a choice between having the information in the manual where you flip around and find it and having the information at a click in the game. I'd much prefer the latter. Especially since it makes the game notably more mod friendly. And in my experience players can make some real nice mods sometimes. And as a bit of an environmentalist.. anything that saves resources. Plus savings in manual costs might be extra incentive for the developer to put it in the game.

Speaking of, how often do they (the developer/programmer pair) read the forum? Might I ever hear from them on these issues?

What are their names anyways? Is it Mindi &amp; Annette? (both girls right?)

Re: Feedback and other stuff
 

The devs are Kristoffer O and Johan K. They'll respond to you if they feel like it, but believe me, you are NOT going to get universal unit stat visibility as per AoW. More important issues than that have been brought up in the past without a response.

As for unit stats, once I get done with the Dom3DB project, the stats for every unit in the game will be available and make things much more mod-friendly than being able to see everything in the game would do.

Edi

Dom3DB project
 

Those two would be the ones to come onto the forum and apply gamer feedback to the game? How often to they come onto the forum and give consideration (with feedback showing they have)?

I suppose you mean accessing enemy unit stats from map screen and summon unit stats from spell screen as "universal"?

Are you familar with AoWsm BTW?(so I can know if we are speaking on the same wave length)

Please tell me more about this dom3db project and how its to work for showing unit stats and what else it would do if anything else.

Re: Dom3DB project
 

Dom2DB was a group of Excel and other files (OpenOffice files too IIRC) that listed the stats of all units, pretenders, nations, etc in the game. It has everything, is easy to browse, etc.

Re: Dom3DB project
 

TruePurple, yes, I'm familiar with all three incarnations of Age of Wonders. Back when we still only had the original AoW, I was very active. I've got the same username on the HG forums as I have here, but I've not been active there in ages.

I also did mean precisely that, accessing enemy info on the map screen. We're not going to see it.

If you want an idea of what the Dom3DB will approximately look like, go here and scroll down until you find the Dominions 2 Unit DB and Magic Site DB files that list me as author. Only the Dom3 ones will be improved from that.

Edi

Re: Dom3DB project
 

So a floating reference library? Does it access the files directly for the information or would anyone making a mod be required to make their own altered library file for dom3db that people would have to load?

<font color="blue">---------------------- </font>

So these two guys/gals are rare shows who interact with and listen to the community minimally? Sounds discouraging.

Perhaps more interested in "cool new stuff" then meat and potatoes mechanics?

Like scouts being able to see everything by attacking and retreating(which by what you guys have said is too powerful, finding out what the enemy commanders are and such).. yet the game doesn't slowly center to average when you see indi unit numbers over turns. (yeah you can keep track of what you saw last turn and average yourself.. yah more work! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ) Perhaps dom3db has such a feature?

Or the game allowing you to have two prophets by a number of corny methods yet you can't take take prophet status off a unit and simply give it to another unit after a number of days. Which is pretty unforgiving.

Or not allowing you to simply dismiss units.

More work for the gamer to play because the developers don't feel like doing the work of adding such effort saving etc features because they would much prefer adding content. Least thats what I've gotten the impression of. It shouldn't be work to play a game.

And everything in Dom3 seems so unforgiving. You never recover from disease naturally for example. Ways to deal with permanent injures are limited. Once a unit hit old age its dead in like 4 years without special measures. No option to autorenew contracts so if you forget you can be screwed. No option to save when you want.

Re: Dom3DB project
 

TruePurple:

You misunderstand. The DB file is essentially still a spreadsheet (even though it will be made so that it can be converted to an SQL DB), it doesn't access anything from the game files themselves. It's all put in there by hand, but because it gives more information than anything else in an easily accessible format, it allows modders to look at what they like to change and to easily implement those changes. That's why it's mod friendly. But it's not an add-on program to the game. It's just documentation.

As for JK and KO, they are cool guys. They might not implement everything we want, but they do keep an eye on the forum. You also have a misplaced idea about just how much planning has gone to the mechanics. The manual is absolutely brim-full of mechanics and their explanations that are enough to make most strategy gamers' heads spin. There's more meat in Dominions even in that area than in most other games

As for your complaints about

1) Enemy numbers estimates: The way it's done in Dominions 3 is realistic. You get a rough estimate that may or may not be accurate, but you can't expect to have precise info. That is the REALITY of ALL battlefields throughout history. The estimates are never less than 50% or more than 200% of the actual figure.

2) Number of prophets: Enslaving or charming another god's prophet means that that unit became an apostate and switched sides. He used to be the holy figure of another rival god but has now seen the truth and changed sides. Arguably pretty damned inspiring from the common grunt's point of view, hence he remains a prophet. The reason why you don't also get to strip prophet status willy-nilly is the same thematically, it's not good for the peons to have their revered religious figures arbitrarily stripped of their status. Besides, there is an expectation that sooner or later prophets get killed. Then you nominate a new one.


3) Not allowing to dismiss units: There isn't a mechanism for that, which can be annoying, but the usual way to do it is use them for fodder or send them on a suicide mission. You've hired them and they'll stick by you, you don't just get to dump them in a ditch.

Arguably, AoW (the original) had a cool way of going about dismissal: all such units became independents, and they could be a real pain in the arse. In AoW2 and AoW:SM dismissal is instadeath, which was stupid. There's pros and cons to all of these approaches.

As for playing Dominions 3, it's not work unless you take it too seriously. No disrespect intended, but it seems to me a rather arrogant approach to come to the forum and just with your opening posts make a pretty hefty list of demands that the game be molded to suit your personal desires, especially when you take into account the character of the game and the number of people Illwinter has (2).

If this game is not something you enjoy, particularly if you've only tried the demo and already know it isn't for you, move on. Otherwise you should accept at least some of the main things about the game.

Edi

Re: Feedback and other stuff
 

Try to just Ctrl-enter to get into windowed mode, make the copies or whatever (get email, send turn, ..;) ) and then Ctrl Enter back to fullscreen. It's much quickier this way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Questions
 

And another thing : with Sunray we've just updated the Dom3 Unit List Excel spreadsheet which is now complete for 3.04 !

It only include standard units, as all summoned creatures are in the manual (except the Lanka national summons that would be in but are not finished yet).

Go get it there :
http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Dom3DB project
 

You well resumed the IW philosophy. UI or mechanics improvements are rare, they prefer to work on new nations, units, spells. It's sometimes sad, as this game would have the potential to be The best fantasy 4x for years with some work in the UI/mechanics area. But once you love dominions you may start to like some of the things making it different from other games in the genre.

In example the "lack" of save game feature often makes you think and find original strategies in situations you would never encounter with saves each turn, 50% of the interest of the game in SP comes from this non-feature (and if you really want you can still copy files to save, personnally I "save" about 1 time each 10-15 turns in SP, so I'm able to correct suicidal long-term strategies but not occasionnal bad luck, and it makes the game far funnier than if I save before each hosting -what I would be tempted to do with an "save" button-).

Not being able to dismiss troops is also among the qualities of the game for me as well, as it allows some vicious tactics to weaken economically an opponent, making his troops useless but still costing money (try a golem with an eye shield and scripted to attack 4 rounds then cast returning IE).

Some players also like the excessive mortality of ... mortals, and your incapacity to make choices about how they developp their skills (chosing heroic ability or stats improved with xp), as it gives you more the impression of being a god far from these considerations. Personnally I would have nothing against easier healing, true resurrection spells, more hp for heroes, etc... and would like a lot the ability to make choices for heroes progression, like in all but this one fantasy games. But it seems a large part of the public find perma death, uncurable illnesses and a very poor xp system thematic, so this game will never have the classical RPG charm of MoM/AoW. Just adapt of find another game.

As well, for very strange reasons, some fanatics of this game that features a lot of micro management speak like if they dislike "micro management" and use this arguement to justify the scripts limited to 5 orders, the absence of a "cast a kind of spell" final order for mages, of "fire and stay out of melee" order for skirmishers, of the ability to chose which spells your followers are allowed to use, of conditionnal orders etc... So the hope to see these things implemented is very small.

To resume there are minorities in favor of different changes including the ones you mentioned and some others, but these topics are dead horses as there isn't a consensus for any. Different players have found different sources for the Dominions charm, and these reasons often include some things other players percieve as lacking.

If you liked AoW a lot, your hope should be in a new game stealing the good aspects of Dominions and AoW more than in the Dominions serie itself. As Dom 3 is an unexpected success it's probable some bigger companies will look at it, steal good ideas, mix them with some more popular concepts from AoW, Heroes and MoM, and end with the product you are waiting for. As most indie games the purpose of Dominions is not to obey the wishes of the larger possible player base, but the vision of its authors, most players liking a part of it.

Re: Dom3DB project
 

I missed a few posts before posting this message, but I'd just like to point out that someone already published a very simple "script" to be put in a batch file that backs up your save for a selected game. Combine that with the -preexec switch and you can get an autosave at the end of each turn before turn resolution in case you really need to load.
Personally, I'd rather just play the game, and occasionally manually save when I feel like experimenting.

Re: Dom3DB project
 

You misunderstand me.

If the game kept track of the random number and gave you a average of that number.. Like lets say first turn the game says there are 20 troops. Next turn it gives and average of 70 troops. But because of the 20 troop figure the turn before it gives you an average guess of 35. Next turn it randomizes 50 troops figure. But because of the 20 &amp; 70 numbers of the turns before it gives you a number thats an average of all 3 numbers.(additionally under the random number or in replace of it)

Such assumes the scout has an IQ number high enough to rub together and start a fire (2 :p )that he could work out averages. But makes sense in alot of ways both for game play and game reasoning (the longer you observe troops, the better you know their numbers) Yes players can keep track of and average these numbers but who wants to bother with that kind of work when playing?

The units don't "die" they go back to the population. Just like when you recruit units, your not bringing them to life. Your recruiting them from the population. So AoW2's dismissal is not "instadeath" and works fine. Not to mention being much simpler to program then them turning indie I figure. Better too IMO.

Speaking of, I like caring about my population and troops in a game. Dominions forcing one to go through the effort of putting units on suicide missions say if you want a new prophet because you got a much better unit a turn after you finally decided to put it on a more regular unit. Or because a unit is dreadfully crippled yet with all your powers you can't tell that unit "your fired" (like you see alot of cripples [aside from fresh cripples of course]on medieval battlefields.. or any battlefields for that matter)

Because of that dominion makes it much harder to reach that feeling. And so unforgiving &amp; so much work.

As far as me sounding arrogant. Sorry about that. I lack social skills and I think thats naturally how I come off.

But I'm not making any demands. I like alot about dominions3, but these issues are driving me batty. They reduce the pleasure of playing for me alot. Yet they seem so simple in nature. So I list them and inquire about the possibility of their change/fixing. Any of them, not necessarily all. Seeing if they will be fixed or not and seeing how responsive developers are to issues and to the community(not much at all I gather) I'm also a sucker for a good debate and can easily get sucked into one, which is also a little of whats happening.

BTW, who ever mentioned the bug of the RMG where you run it twice in a row is right I think. The RMG has not given me a really twisted bad map since I now never run it if I've ran it before without closing down dom3 and reloading.

Also thanks PDF, that windowing trick helped alot. Now if I could only find out how to view those tips that flash by between turns. And why shift ? doesn't show me a list of hot keys (or do anything at all for that matter)

Re: Dom3DB project
 

This only works if the defenders don't change. Because the same algorithms are used for both independent provinces and enemy nations' provinces, approximation would mean that a province that had been empty for 4 turns and then had 100 troops passing by would show up as having 20 units. Furthermore, even independent provinces can have a varying amount of defenders in them. Events can add knights, vampires, trolls and various other things to independent provinces. These can double or triple the number of original defenders, and I'd rather be notified instantly. There is also at least one creature that moves from independent province to independent province without being part of any nation (Eater of the Dead once it becomes unfettered). It would be easy to mod it to be some kind of inquisitorial general and then add it to a map and give it an army, and in theory (I'm not sure if this would work) it would then move around the map with its army, going through independent provinces without harming them and rather randomly attacking human or AI players.

Average numbers
 

Yes I know the numbers can change, thats why I suggested a separate number for the average (current random, average #for the last 4 turns) If the current random is much different from the average you know somethings moved in/out.

But more simple approach could be, the average number resets every time the actual troop amount changes. (observer on the hill top: Damn, I think some troops left/arrived.. now I got to start over)

Re: Average numbers
 

I agree. The harshness of the Dominions universe is a good thing, setting it apart in a genre where healing potions and resurrection are as common as bread.