[Ballbarian]

1) Long times for map generation and turn processing.

There are already existing random maps being provided by Gandalf, and alternative random map generators exist and another is in develpmont.

As for the turn generation, Dominions is a game with tremendous depth and with that depth comes complexity. I am actually impressed that Johan has managed to keep the turn processing as streamlined as he has.

1) Pretender generation. This should all be one screen, simple as that.

Eh. I could care less one way or the other on this one. Might be nice, but I don't mind it as it is now.

2) The map. I'm sorry, but the icons and such are still ugly. When it was ugly and minimalist, as in Pretenders II, that was cool -- it was what it was. But this intermediate level of ugly is atrocious.

Huh?

I don't need to see a sizable chunk of my screen flashing every time I click an area

Sounds to me like you are zoomed all the way in. (Either that or you are playing on a cell phone screen.) You can zoom out via page up/down keys or by the mouse wheel.

3) Menus in general -- get a dang GUI expert to go through and clean house, making all of the backgrounds get along with all of the sprites for the various units, et cetera. This isn't an enormous task, and it would vastly improve playability.

The developers have included the ability to mod the gui backgrounds to your own tastes and several users have already done so and made them available here on the forums.

4) Various report options. Let me know how many x's I've killed or gotten killed. That's called flava, and it makes games fun. Let me know how many people died in a siege or assault. If a commander was killed in a battle, let me know which one. Those suckers are expensive. If critters which cost more than 100 GP per were killed in a battle, let me know. Don't make me watch every battle to see if it was my Sorceror or my Water Mage who ate it, because I can't remember who all I committed. When I whack a Pretender, throw up a summary screen of the Pretender's accomplishments (units created, etc.) and a couple of paragraphs on how I threw my enemy down before me. If you're feeling clever, tune the paragraphs to what kind of unit killed it -- if a militiaman finished the job, emphasize ignomy. If it took Joe Stoic, Holder of the Sacred Flame of Badassery, emphasize the heroics. But something. Seriously.

The game is already loaded with "flava"
Overall I am satisfied with the reports that I get, but I will never complain if I get more verbose reports as long as they don't become spam. If I have an important commander in a battle then I watch it unless it is a sure win scenario. But if the report shows that a commander died then I watch the battle replay closely to see what the heck I did wrong.

The game still has its overall amateur feel, which isn't a terrible thing; the idea that it is the creation of people who love gaming to give to other people who love gaming is fine. I feel the love. But you gotta take away the un-fun parts, or I can't get at the delicious nougatty center underneath.

I hope you can get past the things that are un-fun to you, because it is delicious.

Finally, now that Dominions 3 is out, you should totally start selling Dominions 2 for some ridiculously low price on download. Think of it as the first hit being free.

This has been discussed in other threads, thus no comment.

When I first read your post, my first impression was to post a reply similar to Arralen's. I think it was something about the tone or choice of words that came across as "I won't buy this game because it does not have enough wizbangs ."