Wish-List for Dominions 4

[lch]

Didn't we have a wish-list thread already?

Oh well, I'm with the "better interfaces" crowd here, I have two requests which are very much needed and shouldn't even take too much energy to get implemented:

1. The ability to load a previously created pretender in the pretender creation phase. While starting a new game and in the game settings. You should be able to just load what you have saved and then be able to still edit the pretender. I understand that this hasn't been done this way currently because of multiplayer/PBEM games and password security, I guess. Fine, then ask for the password if somebody clicks on "edit pretender" or something and otherwise just assign it to that nation like it is now. It will be "just" a few new dialogs, but it would help things tremendously, especially if you are using a pretender that you created some time ago and you haven't written down what your designed pretender looked like.

2. The ability to read messages that you sent out this turn. I don't even want some history/log feature where you can follow the conversation you had with somebody else, I just what I sent out to whom this turn so far. At the moment, all you can do is see how many messages you have sent out at all, and delete them all if you think you made an error there somewhere. Hardly satisfying.

[Xietor]

Kris,

we as fans of the game, do appreciate that you read and respond to the forums. As an attorney, I do not expect anyone to do anything without compensation. So major work should be done and sold as dom IV.

Unlike the robert jordan series, even if no more work was done, dominions is a complete and finished product. Of course as fans of the game, we will always be able to think of ways to further improve it.

Have you ever thought about posting an internet application for a coder? Explain up front that you can only promise experience in game development, and it may help them move on to an actual paying job in the future. Being a developer of dom IV would look good on a resume and summer is approaching, meaning lots of bored college kids.

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks for the insight, Kristoffer O.

I seem to be one of the last people in the USA who enjoys having a day off, relaxing, sleeping in, etc. more than I do making extra money that I don't really need. Maybe it's my extra-thick skull protecting my brain from the government lazer-beams, or maybe it's just that I've got enough of an imagination to amuse myself, rather than paying for my entertainment, if that's my only option. I don't need that much stuff. I like stuff, and I like to shop, but it's not a driving force in my life.

If I didn't get to work at home in my bare feet, and didn't love the company I work for, and wasn't trying to buy a house in a bloated real-estate market, I wouldn't work any overtime at all.

Hopefully, the good people of Sweden will retain a sensible approach to the better things in life.

Ok, one of the things I'd like to add to the list-so as to make this post on topic-is more graphics. I don't mean a new graphical interface, and I don't want everyone to have to run out and buy a new video card.

I'd just like to see every unit with more graphical options. What we have right now are two unspecified graphics per unit. I want many, many more.

I'd really like to see it expanded to 12 (ideally) specified graphics per unit. That's 2 for walking, 3 for combat, 3 for wounded/stricken/exhausted (so we can see who's in bad shape on the battlefield), 2 for casting spells, 1 for when the unit's just holding still, and one for when the unit is resisting spells.

Obviously, that will require a lot more graphics-and it'll probably take a year atleast to add them in for each and every unit. But it'd be a good improvement to the overall "look" of the game, and hopefully it wouldn't be hard for the Devs to patch in the ability, and then the community could do the actual additional artwork-in the process ending any *****ing about the graphics in the game, because, if you don't like them, you can volunteer time and effort into improving them directly.

I'll be among the first volunteers, especially if I get a scanner soon.

You wouldn't, ofcourse, *have* to add them, if you're modding in a new nation, for instance.

Ideally, there would be a graphic "pool" that would function as graphics currently do in the game. If you don't want to assign graphics to a specific task, then you just leave them in the pool and the computer assigns them as it does now. Ideally, you could even have more than one "set" of graphics in the pool or in slots, and the computer could then choose between "sets" of graphics for assignment-to simulate different looks for the same unit (Bob the Jotun has a forked beard, whereas Doug the Jotun has a big silly moustache. Tim the Jotun impersonates Elvis (the Jotun) on the weekends, and as such, is sporting sideburns and a black belt). Something very similar to this is currently being done in Total War 2.

Along this same line, could we (please! please! please!) get atleast some kind of screen-saver-type changing artwork during the calculation of turns?

Much preferrably, one that we can add to in mods.

I really feel silly as it is, sitting there staring at 2 little bearded busts for 10 minutes while the game calculates the other nations' turns (note: I usually play long games of SP).

I'd love it if I could look at some nifty artwork while I waited. It would really make the time go by, even if it made the turn itself objectively a little longer to process.