The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[LDiCesare]

UI:
Be able to iconify the information boxes (units, menus, province info... all). The list of commanders for instance may well hide just about all the map. Right now, I end up with a dead part of the screen between menus in the upper right part of my screen.

Single Player:
-The ai would be much more interesting if it built castles.
-Some diplomacy would be great in SP. Simple things like propose to attack someone, request a province, allow for taking of a province.
-Make sure the program remains usable for SP and hotseat. A client/server thingy like some people want should remain hidden if it is implemented.

Fog of war: Remember information about regions you used to see but no longer do. This information would ba tagged as 'old' somehow. Who owns the province, strength of the troops... Alternately, let the player write some info for each province and display it on the map as an additional map filter.

Getting rid of useless units and items noone ever uses. Does anyone build light cavalry? Or make them worth buying. Here, less units/spells/items could actually be a plus.

Raid command. If your army has a strategic move of 2, you could use it to raid the neighboring province (i.e. attack, loot and come back) rather than attack it really. It would act as a pillage command, but in the neighboring province. The units would have to fight the defense force with something like a 'hold 3 turns and flee' order. This could make light cavalry worth buying. Plus it would be nasty.

A national building and national troop unlocked when this is built. If you research one school (e.g. Construction for Ulm, Summonning for Ermor, Evocation for Marignon...) to level X(6?), you have the ability to build one special building (in only one province) which unlocks a new national troop. This building would cost gold and gems (most races) or gems only (Ermor?) or gold only (Ulm?). The available units could be built either normally or through an 'enter site' command from an appropriate commander, and be worth buying late in the game.

Make the Arena worth going into it. Gaining a cursed two handed weapon, however strong, is no excuse for risking the death of your commander. Winning should instead give a special ability as the hall of fame does, boost some stats, provide luck, or something worth having. Particularly when you run the risks of facing a diseased scout equipped with a half dozen cursed items.

Already stated by others, but I'll repeat them here anyway:
-Add an option to play where underwater areas are all or mostly barren.
-Tax management: Be able to precise a tax reduction per unrest formula and say which provinces it does NOT apply to. Formula would be something like reduce tax by (float) for every 1 unrestor (int) per 10 unrest.
-Save God.

[RedRover]

Just a quick note to check out my new post/thread on Water Magic. I didn't want to clog this thread with a long and detailed post, but I'd be interested in some feedback.

Post#307918

[FarAway Pretender]

Dom2 is a great game (among the 5 best I've ever played, and I've been playing for more than 20 years now!), and rather than getting too specific (I hope!!--sometimes my enthusiasm gets the best of me), I'd like to stick with/suggest some general themes:

1) Reduce micromanagement. This is really my only complaint with the game, but it's a big bother and seems to be a very common one. Includes:
- Allow Scripted "taxation vs. Unrest" policies
- Allow repeatable Artifact forging
- Allow disbanding of unwanted units
- Reduce micromanagement of gems ("Gem pooling from Clams")

2) Try to clean up the "Things that make you go huh?" issues. Mostly AI-related, but not all. This just detracts from the gameplay and interrupts the real feeling of beloved immersion I get when playing the game. A few of my pet peeves:
- Legendary Hero bonuses that make little sense. Having an extra-strong Crone of Avalon, or a Knight with extra Precision... Either assign them by hero type, or allow players to choose between two options when given a special ability.
- Spell-casters who insist on casting defensive spells on themselves when all the enemy is already routed.
- Allow setting archers for "Aggressive Fire" (the current default, where 20 Crosbbowmen will fire at one surviving Militia surrounded by 15 of my Heavy Infantry) or "Cautious Fire" (only shooting at targets not adjacent to my units).
- Spell-casters who keep casting spells on incapacitated units (e.g., when I've already paralyzed a Jotun Axeman, it's kinda silly to keep Casting Soul Slay on him, as opposed to the other Axeman who's carving up my cavalry). This is especially infuriating against units with high MR.

3) Keep combat scripting simple. I'm sympathetic to players wanting better tactical control of units, but allowing this makes for even more micromanagement. It also handicaps the AI, who should remain a credible challenger well into any game. I LIKE having "modest control" over what happens in combat, and think this is good for play balance.

4) Try to give the hero's a little more individual character, at least a few of them. Possibilities include:
- Tying Legendary bonuses to unit types is one thing.
- Revise the way those bonuses work, so that 33% of units get a "Heroic Bonus" upon reaching Lvl. 1 might be cool. Have those abilities be useful but not great, but have them escalate into more dramatic abilities with Experience. This gives heroes more individual flavor, but also encourages you to be less cautious with the ones you like until they're "unkillable by normal units".
- Consider giving some Heroes abilities that might affect the province they're in. Maybe only give this ability at Level 3 or Level 4? Such abilities might include:
* Speak to the People: Reduce Unrest by 10 in current province
* Inspire Work: Increase Productivity scale 1 notch in current province
* Promote Commerce: Increase Order scale 1 notch in current province
* Drill Master: Double XP accumulation (2/turn instead of 1/turn, I think?) of units in current province.

5) Give the provinces more individual flavor. I LOVE the Dom2 system, but I wish my provinces had a little more character or sentimental value to me (as opposed to Gold and Production numbers). I can think of three ways to do this:
- Give more Magic Sites a function not related to Gem Production. This could even extend to modest bonuses for units produced in the province:
* Waters of Quickness: 1 Water Gem/turn, units built in this province get +1 to Defense.
* Great Oak Tree: 1 Nature Gem/turn, +1 Growth Dominion locally.
* Dwarven Forge: +1 Earth Gem/turn, units built in this province get +1 to Protection, +1 to Strength.
- Have Terrain affect combat. Easiest way to do this is to use the Warlords approach, where certain unit types get certain bonuses in certain terrain. Cavalry SHOULD be more fearsome in plains than in mountains, no?
- In addition to Unrest, have "Abiding Love" in certain provinces when a Pretender REALLY earns their adoration. Repelling attacks successfully, random events, etc. might bring extra bonuses when a province has positive Dominion and 0 Unrest. This could increase the Pop Growth, Productivity, or Gold production by 1-10%, depending on how much "Love" people feel. Conquering armies rampaging through would obviously obliterate that.

6) Ruins. I think you could work this into the game in a way that would be play-balanced and fun, but not too intrusive. Specifically, as a possible Magic Site (but perhaps one very easy to find), have certain Ruins, guarded by Monsters but offering Treasures/benefits. A few possible things you could do with this:
- Have Ruins contribute to Unrest (3, 5, or 10 per turn, depending on the magnitude of the critters hiding in the Ruins) effectively reducing income (and perhaps production). Or, just contribute "negative dominion" (e.g., Death, Sloth, Turmoil), if that seems more appropriate.
- Have Ruins of different levels, guarded by Monsters of different severity and number. Killing those monsters might yield Treasure (gold and/or random magic items--if I only had Earth Magic, I'd love to equip a Hero with an "Ice Sword" I found in a dungeon), and/or might allow access to higher-powered Magic Sites. Don't have Ruins be so disruptive that they have to be explored, but leave it as an option that the player will "want to clean up sooner or later".

[Graeme Dice]

FarAway Pretender said:
- Reduce micromanagement of gems ("Gem pooling from Clams")

Clicking pool on the gem info screen accomplishes this.

[Blacksilver]

I understand the ravages of a Deity war are going to
reduce populations. That being said I've come across
a problem in most games, that skew most games in favour of
undead or non supply populations.

Your populations diminish with random events, half a dozen
spells, combat, and pillaging hordes. When playing against
a Ermor or Ctis this usually hands them the game. All it
takes is one break through your lines and that province is
destroyed for any non death caster.

Growth is ineffective. I've played with growth 3 and seen
no movement on populations over a hundred turns. Provinces
below 1000 will never grow short of a random influx of citizens. (Probably because the growth calculation rounds down).

I'd like to see 3 things...

1. Growth as a dominion aspect much more improved...Perhaps
even tie it into the prophet. When the prophet comes to a
loyal town he probably has to preside over quite a few marriages.... large increase in birth rate.

2. Mid level spells to counter specific dominion aspects on
a province by province basis. Somewhere around lvl 4 or 5
so that when the enemy seeps death or misfortune across
your physical border you can send mages out to battle it
directly. (And high dominion doesn't always stop these
things from spreading) ex Joe the Air mage casts -Blue Moon- luck in the province has increased -make them yearly rituals, so they have to be refreshed every 4 turns.

3. The ability to move or increase population growth through
a zero tax rate. Provinces next to a zero tax province will
see a gradual stream of emigration to that province. A farm
land isn't going to send hordes to a wasteland, so terrain-terrain should be factored... but a depopulated farm land
should draw hordes from surrounding regions.

Playing a heavy supply based nation would be feasible if you
had any kind of (long term) real control over the supplies
in a province. The high level nature spell(Gift of Nature's bounty) is knocked out in 1 turn by any smart Ermor
or Ctis player, or is not realisticaly available to many
nations.


Thanks, keep up the great work guys, best strat game since Moo 2.

[Graeme Dice]

Blacksilver said:
When playing against a Ermor or Ctis this usually hands them the game.

I'm not sure why you include C'tis in there, since they need population as much as anyone else. Ermor might kill population, but their armies evaporate in the face of moderate resistance anyways, so it's usually not too much of a problem.

[Agrajag]

Regarding Ermor's provinces being rendered completely useless:
1) Ermor has a hard time spreading its dominion since the ONLY thing that spreads their dominion is building temples (no preaching available, no blood sacrifices available), so most of the time their dominion won't bother you.
2) Ermor lives and dies by gem supplies, they can't recruit [censored] so they have to rely on a very high gem supply, that means that a smart Ermor player will make efforts to discover all possible magical sites (which is very easy with all their randoms), which will give you plenty of magical gems of all types on all of the previously-Ermorian provinces (unlike provinces from nations that lack certain types of paths etc.).

Obviously, I could just be stupid and misleading, but then again, I don't think I am...

[Oelfwine]

I believe #1 (above) is wrong Agrajag. Ermor AE at least has Bishops and such which they can summon which can preach. Am I mistaken?

[Endoperez]

Ermor's unholy priests can't preach. I don't think even the normal (40 gp indep.) priests Ermor might recruit cannot preach (they become Unholy-1 for Ermor, BTW).

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Endoperez said:
Ermor's unholy priests can't preach.

I believe unholy priests can't preach, whatever the nation they belong to.