Problems in demo exist in regular game?

[TruePurple]

Would cause some to quit because they couldn't resist the temptation to reload when things to wrong.

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.

You can mimic it by backing up your save directory.

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.

for 'heavy infantry' it shows one of the many heavy infantry, randome one every time.

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.

I like having stuff in the manual.

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 & Annette? (both girls right?)

[Edi]

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

[TruePurple]

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.

[Endoperez]

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.

[Edi]

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

[TruePurple]

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?

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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! ) 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.

[Edi]

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

[Twan]

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

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.

[PDF]

TruePurple said:
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.

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