[SurvivalistMerc]

I will confess I haven't read the entire thread yet.

One of my pet peeves is that missile units do not reaquire targets and keep firing at their first set of targets until that set routs. This seems to me undesirable. I would think these troops would be smart enough to target fast troops or large enemy monsters, such as elephants, which are about to overrun their positions the following turn and fire at them when there is no screen of troops between them and what appears to be their certain death (especially when their original targets are a small squad that hasn't advanced much). I would include in this retargeting feature also pretenders or other large size commanders that are about to attack them physically and are located nearby (though I wouldn't want to see them pick out that sage pretender in the back and all fire at him if he is staying back).

I love the game you folks have made. And I finally downloaded all the new patches.

It would be amazing if "fire and flee" were not converted into "fire and rout" so that it could be used with mercenaries and the orderly retreat would be to a designated province.

I agree that graphics are far less important than gameplay (and I've deleted Shadow Magic from my hard drive but still have Dominions). Yet you guys have already done the hard work of designing good gameplay. I have to ask for the eye candy, which you could probably subcontract out if you don't have the time or inclination to do it yourselves. And I'd pay another 50 bucks for it.

I love the ideas to reduce micromanagement, especially of tax rates and the like. And if you would just go ahead and make the wounded troops look different without having to click a member of that group and then press W that would be great. Maybe make them more reddish-gray in a way easily visible for all nations and have them get more so as they pile up the afflictions. Let each user set rules for who gets autoselected by affliction and let us see the afflictions by moving the mouse over the afflicted unit. This shouldn't be that hard to do and it would go a long way toward reducing wasted time in the game.