The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[deccan]

A very simple thing: make it so that becoming computer-controlled isn't permanent. This way someone could leave a game without leaving everyone else hanging and still gives the option of another human player taking up the nation again later.

[Yossar]

deccan said:
A very simple thing: make it so that becoming computer-controlled isn't permanent. This way someone could leave a game without leaving everyone else hanging and still gives the option of another human player taking up the nation again later.

And with this allow the AI to be given a basic idea of who it is at peace with and who it is at war with when it becomes AI.

[Chazar]

There is one network related feature I would like:
[*]The .2h file should contain a flag indicating whether it is finalized or not. If this flag isnt set, no Quickhost shall happen. The .2h is used regardless of this flag when forced hosting occurs. "End turn" sets the 'finalized'-flag, while "save and exit"-clears it. No changes otherwise.

Or Dom2/3 should ask whether to upload a turn to a quickhosting server or not: I do not do my turns at once, and reconnecting just to see how much time I got left resulted in quite a few half-done turns...
[*] The server should also ask all connected clients to upload their turn when forced hosting occurs (to fasciliate Blitz-games). Last time I checked this wasnt so...

[Zooko]

I like the idea of changing non-national recruitment costs in response to demand.

It could be global, so that you are competing with other players to hire the best units. It seems like this would instantly balance things out to make more kinds of units get into the game.

I imagine it would also be fun! Instead of just recruiting the same units every turn, I would start looking at the current prices this turn and designing new armies. That sounds like fun. ("Hm. For the next few turns I should be able to pick up light cavalry archers for only 5 gold each! I could add a squad of them to the left flank of my Red Army...")

It could be a nice simple algorithm like: every turn in which a unit of type X was recruited somewhere in the world, the price of X goes up by 1 gold. Every turn in which zero units of type X were recruited, the price of X goes down by 1 gold.

It doesn't have to be exactly like that, but it ought to be simple enough that players can understand why the price has moved and have a certain amount of predictability of future prices.

[Peter Ebbesen]

First, I would really like the Moloch to either loose his imps, have them turned into a lifelong protection force, or, in general, have the fleeing issue solved in a nicer matter than it is now. At the moment, every pretender with autosummons really ought to get a cost reduction for that special ability, which cannot be what was meant to be.

Second, a general UI overhaul. Probably already scheduled.

Third, and possibly already covered by second, but important enough in its own right, a rework of the blood hunting/blood sacrificing/tax adjusting madness would be high on my list. I like occasionally dabbling with blood nations, but it is a real micromanagement pain.

Some simple examples (that would even do for Dominions 2 in a forthcoming patch):

1. Allow blood slave sacrifice directly from a lab present if the priest has no blood slaves but there is a lab present and slaves in a lab. Do NOT reset a priest from Sacrifice to Defence if there are no slaves. If I have started people sacrificing, I want them to continue until I give them another order, and if I have more people sacrificing than slaves and really want to be sure that certain priests get priority, I can still manually give those select priests blood slaves of their own(This would allow you to use the "pool" command without having to then distribute blood slaves to everybody sacrificing). This would allow, e.g. Mictlan players, to set up priest sacrificers and use the "pool" button without the endless tedium of the current system.
2. Alternatively, add a "pool slaves EXCEPT FOR THOSE ON SACRIFICERS" button. Not as good as #1, but still slightly better than what you have now.

Unless unrest is completely reworked in Dominions 3, a big red button labeled "SET TAXES SENSIBLY", which would, upon being pressed, set the tax values in all your provinces to a sensible value given the current unrest setting, would prove very useful. You could ignore it if you wanted to and manage all unreset yourself or press it when you felt a need for major readjustment and would like sensible default values. E.g. blood nations would quite likely press this once per turn and then adjust the tax rates for a few strategic provinces rather than, as now, often having to check and adjust the tax rates of a significant fraction of their provinces per turn. A sensible value in the current system would be something like max{110-2*unrest, 0}. A nicer Version would be max{100-v*max{unrest-d, 0}, 0}, where v is value, say, {0...4} and d is a value {0...unrestMax} both chosen by the player, though it and "advanced" () Version like that was used it should probably be called a tax policy rather than a Big Red Button.

Another (minor) irritant is the current solution of putting save games in a subdirectory directly in the root of the installation (on windows, at least). This is ugly and unnecessary. A subdirectory "save games" in which the games directories would be placed would improve the aesthetics and also minimize the risks of some mistakes when messing around with the files manually.


--- Architecturally, the franchise would probably win quite a bit in the long run (if one was looking forwards to producing a #4 or using the code base of #3 as the basis for a new game) by finally doing a major rework of the code structure. Cleanly separate it based on components instead of having it all mashed up together and you gain a much more maintainable code. Even splitting it up in just four discreet components would help:

• Server (executes all commands and calculates turns based on input in a well-specified format, returns an output per nation)
• Client (displays turn ouput and accepts input that generates a turn order)
• Netserver (interface between client and server)
• AI (generates a turn order based solely on the information stored in its turn-output and map, just like a player)

Since Dominions is not real-time, there is really very little reason whatsoever architecturally for having the client perform actual execution. While it does make some things much easier (e.g. if you move item A from commander B to C, you just plain move it on the spot rather than storing a "move item A from B to C" action, which has either to be amended to an "move item A from B to D" if the player then subsequently moves it from C to D or to be stored subsequently leading to bloat), it leaves the turn format vulnerable to hacking and corruption.

I appreciate that the Illwinter team is rather small, but this really is an area that is open for major improvement design-wise. (Whether it is economically feasible is, of course, another issue - and one that only Illwinter can answer). If the development team needs (unpaid ) help on this, there are several client/server experts on this forum who might pitch in with ideas and advice if asked nicely. Esben comes to mind though he is currently AWOL.

The AI could very profitably have major factors involved in decision taking externalised as modifiable floats allowing everybody to tweak to their content (or discontent as it might be). I am not asking for a full script language here, just a dozen or a hundred floats I can tweak to adjust AI behaviour, mainly on overall (rather than specific) spell choice and troop composition, though front/garrison values for army movement would also be greatly appreciated. Allow a MOD to point to a specific AI file, and, if necessary, store the AI settings chosen (a few K of data max) as part of save game fatherland file. No breath of winter, shockwave, or immolation chosen by the spellcaster AI unless you really want to? Set the KILL_FRIENDS_WITH_FRIENDLY_FIRE_FOR_THE_HECK_OF_IT value to 0.0

[Avocet]

This has been mentioned in here but I too would like to see a "skirmish" command for light infantry. Letting them pelt the opposition with javelins while staying out of range of advancing troops. When ammo is depleted the light infantry can then retreat....or maybe have the option to close to hand-to-hand if their target breaks.

Another wish is for troops using "fire and flee" to stay together instead of ending up in any adjacent province. Since they aren't routing, but retreating in good order, they shouldn't disperse (hopefully).

Formations, and the ability to move in formation would be nice as well. A solid pike phalanx would be a formidible target from the front (historical) with many opportunities to get poked by long pointy things before landing an attack.

[Yossar]

Peter Ebbesen said:Some simple examples (that would even do for Dominions 2 in a forthcoming patch):

1. Allow blood slave sacrifice directly from a lab present if the priest has no blood slaves but there is a lab present and slaves in a lab. Do NOT reset a priest from Sacrifice to Defence if there are no slaves. If I have started people sacrificing, I want them to continue until I give them another order, and if I have more people sacrificing than slaves and really want to be sure that certain priests get priority, I can still manually give those select priests blood slaves of their own(This would allow you to use the "pool" command without having to then distribute blood slaves to everybody sacrificing). This would allow, e.g. Mictlan players, to set up priest sacrificers and use the "pool" button without the endless tedium of the current system.
2. Alternatively, add a "pool slaves EXCEPT FOR THOSE ON SACRIFICERS" button. Not as good as #1, but still slightly better than what you have now.

Also blood hunters in a province with a lab should automatically deposit slaves in the lab.

[Agrajag]

Well...
Obviously I have many wishes for dominions III (not as an insult to II), but here is a short list containing some of them:
1. Being able to choose formations, so instead of a square getting bigger the more troops you put in the squad you would get a choice of square, diamond (a square tipped by 45 degrees), circle etc..
2. Improved unit order - just like a lot of other people say - I understand that you can't provide a highly elaborate plane and expect your braindead soldiers to understand it all and memorize it, but something more elaborate than "Attack" should obviously be an option. As well as increasing the 5 commands limit, you should add a "And repeat X action" command, so a commander can be instructed to cast the same spell repeatedly instead of resorting to an AI selected spell.
3. More spells - Obviously, there are many spells, only you can't use most of them, since because they aren't very good and some because you don't have the mages.
This applies mostly to strictly offensive spells (with two or three being actually effective) but there aren't always good summoning spells available as well.
Obviously this will be taken care of in dom III, I'd just like to say I'd appreciate some more offensive spells a la fireball.

Maybe I'll add some more later, I keep thinking of stuff and then forgeting...

[Ironhawk]

National units competitive throughout the game
Magic and summons far too rapidly overtakes the value of most national troops. Perhaps allow the building of special nation specific sites at your forts (say with an investment of 500 resources/gold or something) which allow access to the next set of national troops, which would be effective for the mid-game. Ditto for the late game.

Make Lifedrain drain only HP or Fatigue, not both
SCs are a very fun part of the game and good from the standpoint of investing magical resources. But lifedrain in its current form is too powerful in that it practically negates the value of all existing mortal troops.

Rethink population killing dominions
Empires with pop-killing dominions are better than they should be since other nations have less incentive to attack them. Why expend all your troops attacking Ermor and get useless dried up provinces when you could attack Arco and get oodles of gold?

Limited Diplomacy / Messaging
Add a simple diplomacy screen from which you could see/set your peace/nuetral/war status with any other empire. A full grid of all nations would be nice but not required. This screen dovetails with the need for updates to the trade and messaging system b/w empires. Make it clearer what Messages you have sent that round and to which nation. Allow multiple items/gems/provinces/etc to be traded in a set instead of one by one.

Some visual distinction of commanders with magic items/gems
Its silly to have to hunt through all your commanders just to find the one that has the particular magic item or stash of gems that you are looking for.

Waypoints for moving troops from far in the rear to the front

An Intercept order
Trying to guess where an enemy will move on the strategic map is sometimes a fun challenge, but more often just a headache. I think that this might actually be hard to code for the movement system as it stands, but I state it here because it really is needed.

[PvK]

(Options to) tone down SC dominance.

Perhaps increase penalties for being attacked by many at once, to reduce the SC dominance.

Reduce effect of Life Drain.

Partial idea: (Optional?) magic system change where mages need to actually study specific spells, rather than automatically being able to cast any spell their nation has researched.

Allow larger sized armies and larger battlefields. This is not just for spectacle, but to help the requests balancing SC's versus human troops.

Add terrain to battlefields with important effects on combat.

Revise the supplies/disease mechanic, replacing with something which makes more sense (people don't get fatal diseases from fasting for a month), even if the net effect is similar (limiting food-needing troop deployment).

Revise system of retreats, auto-rout, stealth and army-interception so that units that escape combat but would be "auto-eliminated" instead become refugees that can find their way into independent forces, mercenary companies, volunteers, event attacks, etc.

Add non-pretender nations and active independents that try to resist the world being conquered by prentender-led nations.

Change sequence of combat so melee attacks are not at the same time as movement and all one-side before their opponents. When two forces meet, not just one side should get the first attacks, based on where they end their turns, as it presently works.

Develop seduction mechanics so it's not just for succubi and doesn't involve teleportation.

Add an option to play where underwater areas are all or mostly barren.

Add more detailed sailing mechanics.

Game settings options for stronger seasonal effects.

Mod options for tweaking combat system a bit - I'm curious about making to-hit rolls harder and damage rolls less lethal (might help light troops), but it'd be days of modding work with the current system.

Change armor system so there is a hit location and the armor at that location is used, rather than adding all armor to every attack, and giving higher values to torso armor. Most hits would be scored on body or shield, but if you get hit in the head and lack a helmet, it would be a problem, etc.

Deathmatches revised and called something appropriately archaic. Perhaps add duel challenges and have warrior-only and mage-only contests. Don't have the AI's tossing their pretenders into duels to the death.

Graphic option to have dead bodies left on the battlefield rather than vanishing.

PvK