Problems in demo exist in regular game?

[Edi]

Eyes of the Lord aren't, and they aren't stealthy either. They have a patrol bonus, though. Ears of the Lord are the spies for Machaka.

[PhilD]

TruePurple said:
I downloaded and installed the demo in attempts to decide if I wanted the full game having heard often enough of D3 on the Age of Wonders: shadow magic forum.

A short list of the more serious problems I found in the demo so I can find out if they exist in full game or have been fixed.

Short answer is, the full game is the same as the demo, except you get to play more: more nations, more eras, more research. Features, though, are the same, and the patches don't change gameplay (that I know of).

Basically, the Illwinter devs are real nice guys, but they're a bit headstrong. If they don't like your idea, or they don't feel like doing it, they don't. There are a lot of UI features like the ones you suggest that would be a great thing to have, but that have been suggested since at least Dom2 (probably the very first even, though I wasn't really around in these days) and that I'm not holding my breath for.

750 thunderbird athlon with 384mb ram (issue with full 756mb ram detection on win98) Win98se. 7200rpm HDD with over a gig free space.

RMG buggy

Dominions isnt' resource-hungry, but the map generator might be memory-happy. Maybe your RAM is a little low.

The full game comes with more maps, and there are others available on the 'net, including this forum's "mods and maps" section - I'm pretty sure you can use them in the demo, too. Random maps are good if you're bored with the others and want some change for a quick multi game; then hopefully you can get your opponents to generate them (or use Gandalf's, if he still has his page with "fresh" random maps).

But that was nothing compared to the latest map, land borders on what look like water, no idea where to click to go where. A mismatch of twisted borders, and drawn borders relating in no way to actual borders.

In the early days of the demo, I noticed this: if you played two different random maps one after the other in the same game session, I think the game used the older map's .map file (the one which describes province centers and neighborhoods) with the new one's .tga file (the one with the map picture in it). Or something like that. Maybe the current demo still has the bug (and maybe the current full game too; like many others, I don't tend to use random maps too much now that I have the full game and more maps).

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2. Enemy unit data needs to be readily available on map.

You can always check out your own unit data and usually check out enemy unit data on battle view (though sometimes units can be so close to each other you can't click on one since its like on the same square, a problem if a commander)

But I want to be able to check out unit stats for units I see names of in enemy domain. I'm sure the manual lists them all, but I don't want to have to memorize all those units or be forced to be continuously thumbing through a manual. Plus what if a mod changes the units? Then manuals no good for that.

Excellent suggestion (even worse: the manual is far from giving the stats of all units in the game; there are Excel files around here that give the stats for most of them, but I'm not even sure if they are complete). Unlikely to happen.

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3. Useless scouts/too powerful hidden-invisable.

Scout units seem to give very little more information about areas they are on more then you can tell just by being next to the terrain.(maybe priest helps, some message of scrying sometimes)

But if units are invisable, hidden it seems no way to detect them. Ok maybe theres units that can do that.

But there should be a way for scouts to be able to search for such units with greatly increased risk of their own detection(but good odds of getting the information before they are killed)

Also a option to scout out land type with moderate risk of detection.

Scout reports are of little usefulness in solo play, but I can tell you, they are invaluable in multiplayer. They are always inaccurate, but they can still tell you that a large army is moving your way, AND they let you watch the enemy's battles (which shows you their mages, formations, blessings).

As for Glamour units, yes, they are very strong in that. Watch out for Helheim and Vanheim, which can field whole armies of national glamour troops.

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4. Information in unit stats about what they cost per turn.

Rule is simple, unless it changed since Dom2: each unit costs 1/15 of its initial cost in monthly upkeep (no rounding taking place, IIRC); sacreds cost half of that (1/30). But yes, having this kind of information available in-game, by clicking on a unit, would be useful. One more useful feature that probably won't ever appear.

Oh, and unless I'm mistaken, summoned units don't cost upkeep, UNLESS they are the same unit as something that can be recruited normally (possibly through a site).

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5. Dismissing troops.
There should be some option to dismiss troops who have gotten too injured or you otherwise don't need/want/can't afford.

As has been said, you can always send them on suicide missions - this lets you scout for "almost free".

Plus, you can have a "real-life" rationale for this - you can't just dismiss your soldiers, you have to pay their pensions. Or find them a real heroic mission for the fatherland that they might not come back from

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6. Targeting.
Needs to be some option to have troops target magic units. Also the options to have unit target specific troop types doesn't always seem to work, they seem to just go after closest troops they encounter along the way anyways unless they can fly.

Targeting isn't perfect - other units blocking the line of sight on the battlefield tend to make your units "miss" their real targets - especially when ordered to "attack rearmost". Placing your cavalry/flyers on the far flanks tends to help a little, but targeting is never perfect.

As for targeting options - you can't target enemy commanders, and that's a good thing for their survivability. "Attack rearmost" by flyers is often the best tactic to kill those pesky mages who like to stay in the back - unless they have strong bodyguards of course.

6.b Would be nice to be able to order troops to either prioritize a target but get other stuff too or to avoid combat with other troops altogether and go around them specificially chasing target types if on field.

At some point, it's nice not to have too many options, as that would increase the amount of micromanagement exponentially. Yes, sometimes I also wish I could give my troops more detailed instructions - actually, a completely revamped tactical scripting system is my major wish for Dom4 or Dom5.

7. Stay together

More options, yeah. But this has a cost in micromanagement.

There is a enchanting distance limit right?

More precisely, each spell has its own range, which you can check in its ingame description.

What improvements have been made to unit command options?

None whatsoever - as I said, gameplay is the same in the demo and full versions.

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8.
Would be nice if spell caster AI was a little smarter,
Like having wizards not buff themselves with combat spells if nowhere in range of enemy. Or maybe thats because the army got too far ahead of them to cast spells on friendly troops or enemy. Also general options of commands of "buff friendly troops" "Buff self" "offensive spells" and so on would be nice.

Improvements to such in regular game?

Again, none. A "smart" battle AI is something very difficult to make, because the smartness of using a given spell is very dependent on the overall tactics of the army - sometimes a "mage" is actually a melee combatant just buffing himself up before rushing on the attack, sometimes he's a battlemage who's more supposed to hurl fireballs at the enemy, sometimes he's a support mage whose role is to cast short range buffs at nearby troops. The best that could be done, IMHO, would be to let the player categorize a small number of "roles" and assign relevant spells to each category. But again, this suggest a complete revamping of the scripting system - something that would be very nice to have, but something that is unlikely to appear in a Dom3 patch.

Of biggest interest/concerns is..
Q1. How does the game decide what order to put moves? If your moving troops out of a square and the enemy is attacking the square your moving from.. or to.. and another army is attacking the nation they are attacking from. How does it decide order of resolution?

Small enough armies (no numbers given) can actually cross and not meet sometimes. Otherwise, the order is, according to the manual, random.

Q2. Whats with indepedants numbers varying so much? They don't seem to move around since a nation could be surrounded by types totally different from it and I never see that nations type appear in the other nations from what I can recall. Do independant nation numbers ever change between the the time you give the order to attack them to the time you do?

Numbers don't change (unless some effect kills them, or they get random events reinforcing them), but scout reports and the like are wildly inaccurate - if you keep the numbers from several turns, you should be able to triangulate on more precise numbers (of course, the best way of scouting an independant province is to send a lone commander scripted to "retreat" and placed very far to the back - flyers will get him, but otherwise he's mostly safe from harm, and you can see the exact army then).

Q3. Sometimes I'll get units without combat who develop wounds without disease. Why/how? Is there any way to mitigate disease risk other then feeding troops well? Is there any way to cure disease or for a unit to recover from disease like real people do?

Old age (either natural, or through global enchantment "burden of time") can cause this. Other than that, there's a rather common (though unique, I think) site that spreads disease: Inkpot End. And "diseased" is fatal over time, there is no widely available cure.

Some possible cures: global enchantment "Gift of Health" (level 5, so you won't get it in the demo), Arcoscephale priestesses set to "heal troops", a few other healing commanders (including some high-level Nature summons), and units with Recuperation. But basically, diseased units are toast.

Speaking of... Too much permanent stuff. Like there should be a blessing counter for curse.(I dont know if blessed units get cursed but thats not blessing I mean) I guess I understand permanent wounds but I kinda wish there was a little more ways you could fix those up too. I mean it is a world of magic after all.

Now wait until you are attacked by fully-equiped supercombatants - then you'll be happy that there are a few really unremovable ways to hurt them permanently, like Curse or Horror Mark.

Maybe a overland spell thats high end that could allow you to repair troops a bit each turn.

If you're thinking of permanent wounds, Gift of Health is what you're looking for. One of the good global enchantments that the AI tends to fight over; rarely seen for more than one turn in multiplayer (it boosts friendly units hit points in dominion, plus it lets them slowly recover from wounds in dominion; very strong).

Q.4
Do spell casters need to be on a domain with a lab or something before they can pick up most recently researched spells?

No. Even, since research takes place before almost everything else in the turn sequence (only "recruiting" comes before it), they get the newly researched spells for the turn's battles, though of course you cannot script for them in advance.

Q.5
Can you change prophet unit latter on if your prophet becomes too decrepit?

No. Prophethood is for life (what kind of god would you be if you changed your mind about who your prophet is?). If you don't like your prophet anymore, make him die in some battle, and a few turns later you'll be able to make a new one.

So whats been fixed or improved from demo? What should I know that addresses my concerns or otherwise gives me reason to buy (or not) the game? Is there going to be an expansion?

As I said, patches change extremely little to gameplay, so what you see in the demo is basically what you'll get (or not) in the full game.

As for expansions - this is the kind of thing that the good folks at Illwinter like to do in patches. The latest patch (3.04) added a new nation to the game. The thing is, since the patches are free, it's hard to press them for things we'd like, but they wouldn't like to code...

Basically, I'm afraid my answers don't go in the direction of making you buy the full game. This would be too bad, really - the game isn't perfect, but it's a great load of fun, both solo and multiplayer (and this is almost the only PC game I've ever played multi - if you discount Dom2).

[TruePurple]

BTW, I applied a number of the things you guys told me about things. Especially about upkeep. My game improved notably in both skill and fun factor. Still find things lacking. I still love AoW and got endless numbers of other games to play.

Like #2. being able to see stats of enemy units you see in enemy domain is a big one for me to prevent game headaches and make the game more enjoyable.

@ mostly PhilD

3. Thats interesting about attacking and retreating with a scout, though seems a bit exploitive. Rather see that closed up as a option (like enemy troops being invisable to the battle screen unless you get close enough) And instead a option for more active scouting where you can try to find more information, most specifically invisable-hidden units with increased risk of detection/destruction. If the unit doesn't make it back you don't get the information. But I suppose if the other way sorta works for the game, just not nearly as well IMO.. but its not as big of a issue for me.

But it doesn't cover that scouts unfortunitely don't seem to garner land information (like is it lucky/unlucky, growth/death etc)nor can they be instructed to check it out for increased risk.

4. Information in unit stats about what they cost per turn.

That information about the general rule of thumb for unit cost and that summons are free is very helpful. But sometimes you get units for free from an event or other circumstances where you simply don't know how much it costs. (like you don't know if a summon unit is also purchasable or not) Also like being able to see enemy unit stats outside of battle, it saves you from having to look things up or memorize them.

Does inkspot allie or other negative sites act even if you haven't found em?

5. Being able to dismiss troops

PhilD said:you can always send them out on suicidal missions

Unless their units, then you have to make a commander and go through the hassle of meeting up and switching units and finding something to suicide against.. too much hassle.

PhilD said:real life rational

Come on, pensions?! Thats a modern concept. More likely would be compensations to family for soldier loss. But if we really wanted to get realistic we would have units be drawn from general population (population goes down when units recruited) and population gets more unhappy when units from there get killed. Which actually would be good ideas but are not in the game AFAIK.

As of yet noones mentioned a game reason for not being able to dismiss units. Or have quibbled with my logic that programming a dismiss command in would be a cakewalk for any programmer. It baffles me that its not in there and makes the game look amaturish in design IMO.

7. Units stay together in battle.

PhilD said:But this has a cost in micromanagement

You and I have a very different Phil on what micromanaging is it seems. My definition is more time spend on settings to compensate for what can be done simplier or by the AI or design. So when I can order troops to stay together by command or just have them do so automatically.. thats less work then having to figure out how far back I need to put faster units with or without pause so they don't get too far ahead in a battle and place them there.

So to me a option to have units stay together is less micromanaging as far as I see it. I got no idea what your idea of micromanaging is.

Q5. Yet I've read a number of exploitive technics that allow you to have more then one prophet.

Gods can change their mind about who they favor, else they wouldn't be gods (think of biblical god.. god) Rather have an option to change prophet with delay perhaps.. and measures to prevent one from having more then one prophet.

You don't pay upkeep on prophets right?

[Shovah32]

Just wondering, how exactly would a scout looking at enemy troops from any sort of distance be able to tell their stats? The only real way to do this would be watching them fight but we can already see their stats when they fight so...

[TruePurple]

For that matter how could a unit know its exact strength level to report it as a number in the stat screen? Oh brother, its a game. Lets just chalk it up to gods knowing the stats of all unit types.

Regardless its a important feature of being able to see enemy unit stats outside of combat for avoid lots of headache. Especially in a game with primative graphics as it is which makes it more of a chore memorizing units. And in a game with lots and lots of different units, even variations on those units. I don't want to have to memorize lots of crap I shouldn't need to! Then to have to memorize new stuff in case of mod?! No way!

One programmer? Sheesh then they are really overcharging for the game or D3 has a small buyer base or something..

[Endoperez]

TruePurple said:
For that matter how could a unit know its exact strength level to report it as a number in the stat screen? Oh brother, its a game. Lets just chalk it up to gods knowing the stats of all unit types.

Regardless its a important feature of being able to see enemy unit stats outside of combat for avoid lots of headache. Especially in a game with primative graphics as it is which makes it more of a chore memorizing units. And in a game with lots and lots of different units, even variations on those units. I don't want to have to memorize lots of crap I shouldn't need to! Then to have to memorize new stuff in case of mod?! No way!

One programmer? Sheesh then they are really overcharging for the game or D3 has a small buyer base or something..

Dom3 is very good in some things, quite poor in others. Graphics and sound are weak. Content is very good. Modding capabilities are good. At the moment, it's one-of-a-kind in turn-based fantasy strategy games, and it sells well. Shrapnel Games (who publishes the game and decides the price) has sold many copies of the game. The amount of resources used to make something shouldn't affect the price, just the quality of the product. Because Shrapnel Games is still in the business, I guess they know the value of Illwinter's small team's product.


Usually, you don't have to know the details of the spesific units. While details differ, the same counters generally work against all heavy infantry, massed medium/light infantry, massed archers, armored archers/crossbows, etc. In most cases, remembering if the unit has less than 10, more than 15 or somewhere in between protection is enough.

[Jack_Trowell]

About one previous question, you can have different units with different speed grouped : give the squad the "guard commander" order, and use a commander with good enought survivability.

That way, you could, for exemple, have a hoplite commander leading a mixed group of hoplites, or better the sacred version, and elephants.

The hoplites are hard to kill, an almost invulnerable to arrows (very heavy armor + shield), but versus other ultra heavy infantry they might lack offensive ability (longspear is a good weapon versus lightly armored troop, but lack damage to pieace the heavier armors)

Moreover, the better morale on your hoplites will be averaged with the low morale of the elephants if they're in the same squad, so you have less chance of them routing and smashing your own troops (could still happen, so careful)

For the commander's orders, you can have him hold 0-5 turns before making him attack (better control that the "hold and attack" order that always wait for 2 turns)

If you have the better ranged attacks , you can haveyou heavy units keep the center while your bows and spells hurt the opponent's army.

You can protect you flanks by using other units, often with better mobility.

Classic army with MA man :


rear - center : mages

rear - left : squad of longbowmen, set to "fire archer"
(note that this give them sometimes a good chance to hit enemy mages)

rear - right : another squad of longbowmen, this time without specific target , expect if you know what your next fight will be against and wish to target some specific units.

front - center : lord Warden with squad of wardens (MA man sacred units) set to guard commander. The Lord Warden himself set to hold x3 and attack closest
You can of course make without the Lord warden and use the standard hold and attack orderd, but then you wardens will start advancing sooner.


front - right and left : squad of knights (or knights of avalon) set to hold and attack -> rearmost

By waiting for the ennemy army to advance , your knights will have a chance of ignoring them and going for the easy kill of ennemy archers and commanders/mages.

If the ennemy has a big squads in the center, your flanking units will probably attack them by the flank instead of attacking the rearmost units (this is not a bug, in the middle of a battle, if a large squad is near you, you will find hard to ignore it), but them it will probably be a welcome addition to your wardens that could have been overpowered with a trully large force.
And sometimes you will win the day because your knights have managed to kill all ennemy commanders while your wardens were being killed by a larger force.

You can also use a knight commander or other fast commander on the flank and use the "guard commander" order to have your flankiong units wait for a different number of rounds

[Ironhawk]

PhilD said:
Basically, the Illwinter devs are real nice guys, but they're a bit headstrong. If they don't like your idea, or they don't feel like doing it, they don't. There are a lot of UI features like the ones you suggest that would be a great thing to have, but that have been suggested since at least Dom2 (probably the very first even, though I wasn't really around in these days) and that I'm not holding my breath for.

Well put, PhilD. That is a really accurate description of the IW devs. Additionally tho, you have to consider that they are only 2 guys (only one programmer!) so they must make really hard decisions about what to program. That said, as TruePurple points out (and we all know) there are many small improvements that could be made. At some point tho we just have to accept that this really is an independent game and tolerate any flaws in order to get at the awesome gameplay.