Wish-List for Dominions 4

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like all gems to be saleable, just worth different amounts-astral gems worth the least, then elemental gems, then death/nature.

Blood slaves should be unsaleable, this would improve the balance of the game, since producing gems would actually improve your economy, while producing blood slaves would reduce it.

It would also be nice if you could have something set up to let you auction off magical items blindly-you put them in the auction and whoever bids the highest automatically gets the item, but you'd never know who won the item. Artifacts would be exempt from this. This would also allow you to auction off items to the AI, who might have set prices for select items.

Thirdly, it would be nice if you had another Empowerment option. Like, you could have the choice to sacrifice nature gems to improve a unit's HP, and death gems to improve it's lifespan: 1 year/1 hp for 1 gem, increasing on the same scale as PD.

Just a thought.

[vfb]

I'd like it if insane commanders could be placed on 'Defend' when they recover their sanity, so the n key does not skip over ordinary commanders whose insanity made them research/preach the previous turn. An indicator on the F1 screen (maybe show orders in red) for insane commanders would also cut down on the micro.

[HoneyBadger]

How about, instead of new buildings, the ability to "improve" provinces with gems? Like say 50-100 nature gems to change a province from plains to forest, or the same amount of gems to change it from plains to hills, or air gems to change plains to caverns?

[MaxWilson]

I like this alternate empowerment idea of Honeybadger's, and the idea of Wishing for Flight, Recuperation, etc., abilities. It would probably have zero impact on MP games but might be fun in SP.

Terrain improvements: that could become a Nature spell. Echoes of Master of Magic, here...

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

I was thinking of Master of Magic, actually.

Maybe, if you controlled a province, and all the provinces around that, and they were all of the same type, you could cast a spell (or build a magic item and sort of plant it in the ground) in the central province and set up a sort of "magical node" (a name change would ofcourse be appropriate) that would produce a gem each turn for you. The "node" as it were, would only function if inside your Dominion, and you could use the province-changing spell to set this up. A small benefit, but perhaps of interest.

I was also thinking of it's most direct successor, Lords of Magic (special edition). Really incredible maps on that game. The best looking that I've ever seen in a game. Since this *is* a wishlist, I'd love if Illwinter could find the guy who set up the map editor and get him to set up a map editor to include with the game.

(If you haven't tried this game and you see a copy, by the way, I really recommend grabbing it. Except for not including an item editor (for who knows what reason), the game is superb, second only-in my book-to Starcraft as a (sortof) RTS.)

Also, I think it would be great if magical sites that don't require paths to find, were present and visible on the greater map.

[Gandalf Parker]

You can make a map where the sites are found and visible on the map.

[HoneyBadger]

True, but it's a little convoluted for something that would be known, anyway. I know it can be done, but can it be a feature?

[Benthien]

Just read all 11. pages of this thread, there a great deal of good ideas, which inspired my whish list for a future patch/Dom4.

Mage auto site search.
-As described above + If a mage comes by a province a lower level mage has searced or he has a different path of magic, he should move in and search it again..

Diplomacy.
-Whole lot of options here..but my main wish, is some form of declaring war/making peace (and neutral state, which would be the default state), that binds you for x turns.
And a more rational ai declaration of war..like for instance that you should actually "know about"/Have borders up to a nation, to be able to declare war on them..

Age selection.
-Could be fun if you could pick different nations, from different times, maybe making a 4th age..like EA, MA, LA and one "Mixed age"..

Experience.
-Mages magic potential should increase with experience..
-You should be able to train units, to get increased attack/defence skill.


More special sites.
-Like for instance make 3 or 4 connected teleport towers, you could find as a magic site..
-Holy sites.


Research
-What about making a whole new school/patch of research, where you could research better armour, better swords, crossbows, siege equipment, stronger castles ect.
-More research in general..make a 10th level with ultra powerfull mega expensive spells :-)

Mounted units
-I've seen some gryphon fight on if their rider is killed.. but how about knights getting their mounts killed, fighting on, on foot.

Pathfinding 4 your commanders..And maybe waypoints?

Buildings
-If new buildings is implemented, teleport gates would be a nice thing to be able to build..(perhaps an addon to the lab? And connecting to other gates you own..)
Maybe splitting up the castles up in two parts could stop the ai's castlespamming..
-Castles, takes a long while to build and are expensive. Gives you a small admin boost, besides the defence..and:
-Cities takes a short amount to build and is less expensive..

Volumecontrol
-Please implement a volumencontrol for battle sounds :-D

Fortifying
-Units which stays in a territory for more than one turn, could get a small increase in their stats each turn after the 1st, up to a certain point..to reflect them "digging in", getting to know the terrain ect..

Independant attacking armys
-Make them more active..and being able to attack a territory once in a while..Like if there is 60 indie militia in a province, perhaps 20 of them should go on a raiding party in a neighbouring territory..just once in a while..

[HoneyBadger]

I'll second an extended magic spell selection
Expanded construction (to start with) up to level 15

spells L1
trinkets L2
spells L3
minor magic items L4
spells L5
major magic items L6
spells L7
greater magic items L8
spells L9
very powerful magic items L10
spells L11
lesser artifacts L12
minor relics L13 (magic items that require holiness and other magic, or just holiness to forge, and can only be used by a sacred commander, a prophet, or a Pretender)
greater artifacts L14
major relics (artifacts that require holiness to forge and that can only be used by a Pretender)

[Benthien]

Just had another idea..Maybe instead of a disband button, you could have two extra spells, one lower spell called "gather troops" or something who gathered orphaned (soldiers from a random province with no commander) troops from a specific province and transported them to your home province..Maybe 10 soldiers max at a time, not to unbalance the game..and one higher spell called gather army, who transported up to 40 orphaned soldiers from 5 different provinces..