The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[Tuna]

Just figured a single mod/unit creation command that could make making some very cool effects easy.

#preferredscale [what scale] [what value -3...3] [penaltystat] [penaltyvalue]

All units such as niefel giants or abysians would be modeled as what they are on their best situation, say cold-3 for niefel giants, and then their stats would be modified by a set modifier for each point a scale in the province in which they reside differ from their preferred value.

So, for example, niefel giants would be something like:
#prefscale heat -3 prot -2
#prefscale cold -3 enc +1
etc etc, so niefel giants would get +6 enc when in heat 3...



What's so good with it is that with it many hardcodings can be removed and simplified into a single softcode command, everything from mage research ability in drain to units encumberance malus in wrong heat conditions and many more things that already are in the game, to many that are very thematic but aren't now and would be hard to implement otherwise. For example speed and strenght for Pan CW units in growth dominion, morale bonus for early ermorian and late pythian troops in order dominion (so also a quite substantial malus in turmoil...) and some more interesting things such as units whose stats differ much depending from the scales so that some stats go up and some down.

Just an idea, implementable?

[Phoenix-D]

-Please- included a printed manual. PDFs suck, plain and simple. You have to print them to get any use out of them; if you want a manual for reading on screen there are much better choices (like, oh, HTML..)

[sushiboat]

I like the concept of resources as a local constraint on troop recruiting. However, in addition to forts, there should be ways to upgrade a province's resources or decrease the resource costs of troops. I suggest three new buildings. A smithy would increase a province's resources. A barracks would decrease both the resource costs and the monetary costs of all kinds of foot soldiers. A stable would decrease resource costs and monetary costs of mounted troops.

[Turin]

Don´t know if this has been mentioned before, but here is a small ui suggestion:

it would be nice if you could set spells cast by items to cast monthly. Right now it´s possible to click on the spell, but you get the "this ritual is too complex for this mage" message, if he doesn´t have the necessary paths.

It´s most notable with stone spheres, it´s a major hassle to click on the same province turn after turn if you want to scry on it always.

[Zapmeister]

How about a simple, numeric limit on the number of castles you can have? If you have that number or more (you may have captured some) then you simply can't build any more. The exact number might be game parameter (like the number of HoF entries).

The idea, obviously, is to address the castling problem.

[sushiboat]

In Dom2, the map is the central screen of the game. For mid/late game management, however, the map is an inefficient way of moving from one task to another. I would like to see navigation be more free, so I can move from recruiting to research to nation overview without going back to the map every time. I would also like to have "previous" and "next" buttons to take me to my other provinces, in the order given in the nation overview.

Think of this new UI as becoming more similar to a web browser. You don't go back to your starting page before going to a new page. You just go straight to the new page. Perhaps there could be a fixed navigation pane across the top. It would have buttons for some key screens and some customizable buttons.

[Verjigorm]

I would like to see more specific Global counterspells like Fate of Oedipus to put less emphasis on the Dispel spell for getting rid of enemy enchantments. Perhaps certain globals could conflict with each other (e.g. Second Sun and Utterdark cancel each other's effects without dispelling either enchantment).

For map editing, I would like to see grouped random start locations--for instance, each group of start locations belongs to a single specific or non-specific nation. In this way a nation could be assigned to a specific map area without forcing them to be contained in a specific province. A structure something like this may help explain what I mean:

#Start_Group "North Forest"
#Number_of_Random_Nations_In_Group 1
#Start_Province 113
#Start_Province 114
#Start_Province 115
#Start_Province 116
.
.
.
#End_Start_Group

or

#Start_Group "North Forest"
#Nation_In_Group 17 //Machaka
#Nation_In_Group 11 //Pangaea
#Start_Province 113
#Start_Province 114
#Start_Province 115
#Start_Province 116
.
.
.
#End_Start_Group

[silhouette]

I would like an additional nation-global way to do Alchemy instead of just a commander action. Whenever I need a few extra gold, it is several extra mouse clicks to go back to a province with a lab, click a commander, do the alchemy, then scroll back where you were before and finish recruiting or buying defence or whatever. And then you forgot that you hired an alchemist 3 turns ago, or had the alch. stone in someone else's hands. Since alchemy doesn't take a turn, reducing the micromanagement to use it should be easy. Just have a national "slot" for designated alchemist that you can assign to a specific mage at a certain site, and then you can open the alchemy screen anywhere like the globals, and it defaults to that guy. Or maybe make it a national role like Prophet -- it takes a turn of training to become the national alchemist and then he gets a small gold bonus..

Sill

[tinkthank]

Perhaps one can label "good event" volunteers (and freely volunteering creatures, such as Ryleh Hybrids and Pan Manaeads) #noupkeep, so that they must be fed and hence require supplies but don't hold their hand out for a paycheck the entire time.

[Chazar]

The UI needs improvement! My conrecte wish:
Similar as assigning troops to commanders, commanders should be assingable to "task forces" - which are nothing more than named lists. The tactical setup screen should then be sortable by "task forces" and there should also be a tactical setup screen which just shows all commanders and their troops assigned to that particular "task force", regardless of where they are located.

Yesterday I gave up in confusion while making my turn. I had 3 castles with too many troops and wanted to attack now. Firstly, I divided my troops in each of the 3 castles into attack Groups, but distributing gems and scripting and positioning was immposssible, as I could not remember who was accompanying whom else from what other castle!

So it would have been nice, if I could invent a name and assing some commanders to that name, and then pull up a tactical screen exactly like the one we have now, which exclusively contains the units belonging to the task force to coordinate the troops. The "garrisson" field should combine all garrissoned troops available in all provinces where commanders of the task force are located, but its ok if one could only assign troops to commanders being in the same province at the time of assignment...

I assume that this would enhance the managbility of troops greatly, and I do not think that it would be too difficult to add named records of commanders...