Small suggestions for the next patch

Kalin · #1 February 2nd, 2007, 01:13 PM

1. You can queue up the troops as much as you want, as long as you have the gold for it. The resource will go negative, and so will the holy count for sacred troops, the ones that can't be recruited will be done the turn after.

Try going to your capital, hold down shift, and click a dozen time on your favorite troops (to add 10 per click), and it'll continue to recruit them until it's done. You have to have the gold to spend on them though. XD

2. There are income and dominion icons on the map, it's just disabled most of the time. Try hitting "4", or go into "Map filters" and check "Income box".

3. A dimiss option is sorely needed, I definitely agree. Right now the best way to kill worthless troops is to astral gate into the ocean with a shambler skin armor (late game solution). You can also walk into the ocean with a sea king and abandon them there to drown earlier in the game.

4. Spell sorting would be useful I suppose, although having played for a while, I've kinda gotten used to all of them, so I don't really notice it anymore (kinda memorized most of them). Still, it's always nice to have the option... especially when you got one of those wishers... XD

Actuarian · #2 February 2nd, 2007, 01:48 PM

I agree dismiss would be nice. You shouldn't have to creatively kill your own troops to 'retire' them.

I do have to say that I have very seldom wanted to dismiss troops. Even the low level random event troops make good chaff for armies or for individual spell casters, asumming they are generated reasonably near the front.

Regarding the behemot, they aren't great, but I wouldn't say they are useless. If I remember correctly you can transfer them to another weaker death mage, and you can have more than one commanded by a single mage. If you have the time to get a decent sized group of them they can cause some significant trample damage.

Loren · #3 February 2nd, 2007, 02:03 PM

As for queueing:

You can only queue up 100 units. I have actually had a situation where I could--and wanted to--recruit more per turn than this (I had been trying for a long time to get into the water and finally found a Shambler Reef.) Furthermore, you're limited by the amount of gold on hand.

How it should work:

You should be able to recruit without regard for gold just like you can recruit without regard for resources or holy points. Anything beyond what's available will be shaded just like what happens now for resources.

There should also be a "repeat" checkbox on the screen. If checked the units are not removed from the queue when recruited, thus you will get the same thing each turn until you cancel it.

The queue needs to be expanded to at least 400 items. There are units that cost one resource point so the queue needs to contain at least as many slots as the highest number of resources a province can produce.

thejeff · #4 February 2nd, 2007, 02:23 PM

A little trickier than it sounds.

Consider: Assume I have 400 gold on hand and 400 income.
I queue up 500 gold worth of troops in 2 provinces.
Which get bought this turn?
If you base it on which was selected first, which would seem reasonable, what about next turn? I still don't have the cash for all of them. Who gets bought?

I like the repeat idea better, but it runs into the same money allocation problem.

Nick_K · #5 February 2nd, 2007, 02:48 PM

There are a lot of user-friendliness improvements that can be made, but I don't know if we'll see there in Dom3. I'd like mercenary renewals to be automated. When I'm playing a fast SP game checking my mercs is a fairly substantial part of many turns. It's also prevents me from really getting lost in the fun parts of the game, because I have this niggling voicei n my head wondering if I've checked the mercs.
There's also some stuff from Dom2 such as the ability to grey-out researchers and remove them from the unit assignment screen that'd be really nice to see again.

I do agree that queuing could be improved. I prefer short games so it's not a huge issue for me, bit it'd be nice. As for the 'money allocation problem'... ideally how it was allocated would be up to the player. For example, provinces could be given a priority level and money would be divided equally among each province at the highest level until all troops are bought, then the next.

The ability to queue commanders would also be of huge benefit

Finally, I think that some of the messages, in particular battle reports could be improved a lot. The main offender is "We captured the fortress!" but even regular reports could give more info. I sometimesl ike watching battles, but if I lose a commander in a fairly dull battle I don't want to watch the whole thing just to figure out which one. I'd like it if battle reports gave a full list of casualties on both sides by commander name and type (e.g. "Ariulf the priest") and by unit number and type ("8 militia").

As I said, I don't know if this sort of thing is a realistic expectation for a doms3 patch. UI is an area that illwinter have mostly improved in further versions of dominions, but of course it's a very important part of the game and I'd hope to see continuing improvements for as long as any issues exist.

Tichy · #6 February 3rd, 2007, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Nick_K said:
I'd like mercenary renewals to be automated.

You know what would be great with mercenaries: a nation event on the month that you'd have to renew a merc. ("Mercenary X wants to know if you're going to renew his contract" (Go To Province)) Would that be hard to do?

Endoperez · #7 February 2nd, 2007, 06:03 PM

Quote:

thejeff said:
A little trickier than it sounds.

Consider: Assume I have 400 gold on hand and 400 income.
I queue up 500 gold worth of troops in 2 provinces.
Which get bought this turn?

All of them. When you queue units, your "gold on hand" goes down. You can't queue up 500 gold worth of troops if this would but your "gold on hand" to -100 gp.

thejeff · #8 February 2nd, 2007, 06:07 PM

The suggestion was to allow you to queue units past that. That would be paid for on later turns.

I was pointing out conceptual difficulties with the idea.

Endoperez · #9 February 2nd, 2007, 06:12 PM

Quote:

thejeff said:
The suggestion was to allow you to queue units past that. That would be paid for on later turns.

I was pointing out conceptual difficulties with the idea.

Indeed you were. Sorry for that, I skimmed the thread rather quickly and didn't notice the post you replied at.

Loren · #10 February 2nd, 2007, 11:25 PM

Quote:

thejeff said:
A little trickier than it sounds.

Consider: Assume I have 400 gold on hand and 400 income.
I queue up 500 gold worth of troops in 2 provinces.
Which get bought this turn?
If you base it on which was selected first, which would seem reasonable, what about next turn? I still don't have the cash for all of them. Who gets bought?

I like the repeat idea better, but it runs into the same money allocation problem.

You get the ones in the lower-numbered province. No big deal.