ODDS & ENDS
Here are a few wishes of miscellaneous nature:
Historical Scenarios, but…: While it would be fun to have specific scenarios based on the original fantasy Elesium world history, and also the ability to randomize games within specific game-historical periods (I applaud your intention to do so), I wish to keep the ability to plug
any theme into
any game if I so choose.
Spell Scripting: While I am not a fan of extending the spell scripting past five rounds, I wish for the appropriate number of remaining script slots to be automatically added for Quickness effects, so that you get five rounds of scripting, instead of five scripted spells interrupted by whatever the heck the AI decides to do (and if you de-script a Quickness spell, for example, its extra slots would go away).
I Win…: It would be nice to have a final cut-scene or screen that celebrates the player’s victory. Dom 2 ends a bit abruptly. (I still get a kick out of playing the original Hoyle Solitaire collection, which has a happy jumping Joker that congratulates you, while riffling decks of cards blossom like streamers around him!)
…Or Not: Also, it would be nice to have a continuation option, if I want to continue with a won game (to experiment with magic or items, for example). However, I would resent a Civ-style end screen that insults and sneers at the player if the game is left short of victory.
Multiple Map Directories: I wish I could organize my maps better, and I wish scenarios were separated from random maps. Just to control the various options available—for example: Official random maps, official scenarios, (these are the ones we know work), mod maps, mod scenarios, (some very good, some are something of a crapshoot), maps in progress (MyMaps), Daily Downloads (thanks Gandalf!).
Toggled AI: I wish going AI wasn’t a one-way street. It would be fun occasionally seeing what the AI would do for a turn or two, then taking the controls back. Also, it can be instructive to set everything to AI and just watch the game run (maybe you can set an “observer mode” in single player to ghost you in as a specific nation; but your only two options in this mode would be to change the nation “observed”, or to take “player” status for the observed nation). Once this is in place, we might play around with experimental events:
“Bureaucratic Zeal:” If player, +1 Productivity in capital. If AI, Difficulty setting for that nation increases by 1.
“National Malaise:” If player, -1 Productivity in capital. If AI, Difficulty setting for that nation decreases by 1.
“Civil Disorder:” Player becomes AI for a turn (or maybe several turns at Misfortune 3).
Spells New spells should be useful, thematic, and different from what has gone before. Cookie cutter duplicates of other paths’ spells, mere powerups, or a “spell war” of spells aimed exclusively at other spells should be avoided, IMO. An example of a “good” new spell might be:
Enclave Garden: Enchantment 5. Path: 4N. Type: Ritual. Cost: 10N.
This spell creates a hidden enclave of fertility in a chosen province, even the most desolate, magic-blasted land. Such enclaves are attractive to immigrants, but blossom only in areas of strong dominion. They increase population in the target province.
(Game Effect: Adds 200 population*
to the target province next turn, provided the Pretender’s dominion there is positive. Otherwise, the player gets a popup: “Enclave fails due to insufficient dominion.” The gems are expended regardless of the outcome. This spell essentially creates a simple population seed. Once in place, the population is no different from any other population: it grows, dies, etc., normally.)
*NB: The above is a default value. The actual coded variable is the #poppergold<people>, so the spell automatically scales with any mod affecting taxation. The intended overall tax effect of the spell is to create +1 gold at 100% taxation and neutral scales.
Note: I think it is a strong positive feature to have some game information the players have to dig out through experience or observation. Since much of the effect of this example is plainly visible, I would recommend keeping the italicized information out of the game’s primary documentation, though it might be included in a secondary source like Liga’s Guide.)
I’ve always found it somewhat unhappy that nations like Ermor can completely depopulate an area, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it except hope the Immigration random event just happens to occur in exactly the right province. Magical rebirth is such a common fantasy theme that IMO this spell or an equivalent would add an additional immersion factor to play, and could be configured so that it doesn’t seriously impede the population-killing themes when the game is going their way.
I put this together as single player effect, for those of us who just want to get things visibly growing again. A higher impact version for multiplayer might be closer to 1,000 pop/20N, but exact tweaking for multiplayer would take testing. I don’t think the seed itself should be affected by Growth scale, but once the population is in place, Growth would affect the base population normally.
Example 2:
High Glamour: Alteration 4. Path: 3A. Type: Ritual. Cost: 3A (+1/turn?).
Any force in the province this spell is cast on is reported at 200%-300% strength by normal intelligence reports and scouting. Spies and magical scrying may penetrate the ruse.
(Note that the forces need not be those of the caster. I’m not sure there’s any easy way to key this to a force, but by making it province-specific, it might also be given a duration, like Astral Window. Spies and scrying might either be allowed an accurate report, or maybe require a successful Magic Save against the caster to get the accurate report. I originally thought to hard key this at 200% only, but that would let the caster effectively use this spell for scouting, which is not the intent.)
Modular AI Tweaks: Set up AI processes so that more efficient algorithms can be swapped in by the program (or modder) at higher difficulty levels. For example, take the taxing algorithm.
(I’m not certain exactly what the AI uses when dealing with taxes/unrest, but I did observe that when I was trying to play like the AI during some benchmarking tests, my test algorithm—reduce taxes 10% per 5 or fraction points of unrest, adjusted each turn—was yielding consistently higher income than whatever the AI was doing with the same nation.)
For example, if there are four difficulty levels, there might be four slightly different ways for the AI to deal with Unrest. At least the highest level should not be possible for a human player. Example:
Easy: Set tax to 100%. If Unrest is 30 or more, reset tax to 0 (a less efficient algorithm).
Normal: Current algorithm, whatever’s in the black box (which works OK for Normal difficulty).
Difficult: Set tax to 100%. Reduce tax by 10% for every 5 or fraction points of Unrest (by observation more efficient than the black box).
Impossible: Reset current “Unrest” to “Unrest –5” and apply method #3.
Light Cavalry Special Abilities, Rally Back/Pursue: A thought about making Light Cavalry operations look better on the tactical display. I wish for an automatic unit behavior that might operate like this:
Define a unit ability called “Rallyback.” The essence of the ability is as follows:
1. The squad acts under orders until routed. At the start of a turn in rout, the Rallyback ability converts its unit’s routed status to a full move straight back toward the friendly baseline in good order, then changes the squad default order to “Fire (closest).”
2. Units with the Rallyback ability leaving the field are routed, count as squad casualties, and scatter normally. Units without the Rallyback ability never recover from rout status and are treated as squad casualties.
3. You might consider a “Rallyback2” ability that defaults to “Attack (closest),” instead. This would be for lance-armed light cavalry, as opposed to bow or javelin-armed cavalry.
4. Note that this ability is useless for flyers, because their move back automatically takes them off the field. This might either be left as is, or cap the move back at, say, 20.
Configured in this way, the Rallyback ability might be extended to Light Infantry and some Ranger/Light Archer types as well. Note that it becomes a bad idea to mix units with and without the Rallyback ability, since other routed troops are essentially treated as squad casualties once they rout.
Pursue: The other ability, “Pursue”, simply prevents the Light Cavalry squad from retargeting an enemy squad in good morale once it has broken an enemy—the pursuers continue to hack at the original target squad until its units have left the board or been killed, then it targets the nearest surviving enemy units.
Since these would not necessarily be units in good order, light cavalry overruns might ultimately be more dangerous to Leader units, although they would not specifically target such units. Also, battles might be lost because the light cavalry is off running down fugitives instead of helping to break the remaining effective enemy units.
Finis
With this second post, I'm done with all the wishes that I've been accumulating over the last year. You might see another short post or two, but this should be the last monster. Thanks for listening.