Wish List

[st.patrik]

People that have been around for a while might remember this in it's earlier incarnation. I've reposted it with a less …abrasive… title. It's basically a gathering together of all kinds of suggestions for changes that different people have made in one place, rather than have them be scattered every which way in different threads. If you want something added/tweaked please post a reply with a description of your suggestion, and a summation small enough to fit in a bullet point (I hate summarizing what other people have written). I will try to post a fresh Version every week or so, if of course people keep adding things.

I have divided up the wish list into 4 sections: things that would be pretty simple to change, should the devs feel like it would be a good idea; changes which would require some extra work, but not a ton; changes which would require significant work (and thus are unlikely to happen); finally bigger picture balance considerations. This Last Category is for more sweeping considerations than a specific feature addition or change, and for general improvements.

If I missed something I apologize in advance.

1. Tweaks/Easy changes to implement
• Darker colours/textures in unit displays [to make sprites easier to see/look better]
• Alignment of stats in unit info screens [i.e. in a column]
• Pre-made pretenders for new players
• New player 'get started' guide
• Quick start game for new players
• End/quit/save/host button remake [so that 'end turn' takes you directly to next turn]
• Bless effects displayed when creating a pretender's magic
• Actual effects of scales explained when creating a pretender's scales
• Line between commanders and regular units in recruitment screen
• Titles in recruitment screen for unit section and commander section
• More details on exactly what different effects mean (e.g. exact benefits of mountain/forest/swamp survival, etc.)
• Able to quit battles using ESC
• When selecting commander from F1 screen, have the commander be highlighted when it jumps to him
• X axis labeled in score overview graph
• Message in top left when Commander is killed in battle
• When you win/lose a game, instead of exiting the program, get brought back to main menu
• Show undead and magic leadership in unit info screen (e.g. 25/0/10)
• Soldiers with "guard commander" orders fire missiles if a target is within range
• Link from nation overview (F1) to recruitment screen in each province
• Show resource usage in nation overview [so that you can see at a glance which provinces aren't being used to their full potential]
• Warning colours in nation overview (e.g. red for supply usage when higher than supply availability, etc.)
• Allow finer adjustment of map richness levels
• Add "Cast Monthly Ritual" to commander orders list
• Increase accuracy of Evocation spells - if necessary reduce damage to balance
• Change strategic move to 2 for HI and increase the 'cost' of moving through difficult terrain for HI [net effect: LI can move through difficult terrain quicker than HI]
• Research estimate in recruit screen should reflect research with current drain scale
• In enemy/indie province screen, link unit names to description (even if it is just generic)
• prevent blood slave harvesting in provinces where no chance exists to get slaves (pop too low), and show estimated blood harvest for each mage
• Combine Blood Harvest reports into one, linking to each commander
• When using the "N" key to cycle through commanders and a commander in a group gets selected, select the whole group of commanders.
• When a magic site is found, include the level required to find it in the site info window
• Right-click should bring up commander details in gem-transfer screen (as it does everywhere else).
• Seasonal autobid for mercs, like in Dom I
• Default bid price on mercs should not reset itself to the asking price
• Clearer distinction between province and global gold stats
• Net kingdom gem and gold income displayed in F1 screen
• Autoarrange commanders alphabetically by type, then name
• Confirmation screen for 'throw item away'
• Change order of game creation: first choose scenario, then number and types of player etc.

2. Additions of relatively minor features
• Battle results (i.e. list of casualties) when storming a Castle
• '?' accessible on main menu (i.e. as a button)
• Research point 'lock' for schools of magic
• Random nation AI opponents
• Map and Scenario triggers [not sure where this was mentioned]
• Ability to rename commanders, or at least add epithets
• Enhanced start (starting with more than one province)
• Ability to close screens without having to scroll down or press ESC (e.g. Windows-style [x] or 'Exit' button below instead of at the end of scroll-lists)
• Names of units in addition to icons in recruitment/deployment screens
• Detailed breakdown of mixed squads in deployment screen
• Detailed lists of losses (most importantly commanders)
• Right-clicking commander in main screen gives you list of troops under his command
• Build queue for commanders (even though there is only one recruitable per month)
• Shift-click to add higher multiples of units [e.g. 5 at a time] in recruitment screen
• Build queue doesn't charge you for units which won't be built that turn
• Ability to turn off pre-battle zoom animation
• Number of local defense force killed show up on battle report (even though they're automatically replaced)
• Ability to enter new subscreen (F1, recruitment, etc.) without ESCaping out of the current one
• Hostile borders different colour than province borders within your nations [don't know if this is possible]
• Prevent redundant site searching [or have a message like the "preaching cannot be used to raise the dominion of this province any higher" message]
• When game ends prompt for deletion of game file
or
• When game ends, automatically delete game file
• Ability to toggle on/off battle grid in squad positioning screen
• New Command for missile units: Hold or Fire
• Keyboard selection (hotkeys or something else) for every command available with mouse
also including:
• Keyboard command to select next commander within province, even if he already has orders.
• Ability to scroll lists with arrow keys instead of mouse
• Keyboard interface for research screen
• Keyboard command to cycle through friendly provinces
• Expanded gem-transfer screen, showing more than 2 commanders
• Label in nation overview identifying province types [feudal, amazons, etc.], and therefore the troops recruitable there
• Ability to cycle through recruitment screens without exiting to main map
• Add separate gold richness and resource richness settings for new games
• Add tactical "Cast Support Spells", "Cast Summon Spells", and "Cast Attack Spells" commands
• New unit command: Fire and Retire. missile units fire a couple of rounds, then retreat to behind the main battle-line
• Supply bonus for a certain number of LI/LC - in accordance with their role as foragers
• Compress trn files for Online play
• Allow changing pretender in design screen
• In battle screen, link spell casting notification to spell description
• Special Guard commander order "Surround Body Guard":Auto position body guards encircling the commander
• New Order in map screen "Collect Gems/Slaves" - collects all the gems/slaves held by any commanders in a province, and gives them to the selected commander
• New battle order "Hold or Cast Spells"
• Show actual adjustments to stats from fatigue (ie 0 defense, half armour, etc)
• More detailed list of combat losses
• Military info for hostile provinces displayed on main screen

3. Additions of relatively major features
• SP diplomacy
• Increased battle replay functionality (various speeds, etc.)
• Ability to store more than one god for each nation
• Modability
• Search function for items on commanders
• Battle Sim
• Enabling/disabling spells [being able to indicate which spells your mage should pick from]
• Translucent filters for map instead of icons (for dominion strength, production, province defense, etc.)
• Rework of province defense
• Different types of battle terrain

4. Balance considerations
• Improve Strategic AI
• Less focus on supercombatants
• More regrowth possibilities / less emphasis on population death
• Greater 'bless' effects [e.g. starting at an earlier level (lvl 3?), increasing exponentially rather than by addition (1,2,4,8 vs. 2,3,4,5), magic cheaper in general, etc.]
• Reduce effectiveness of artillery-like spells (esp. in hostile dominion), or provide counters
• More global enchantments

Please use this thread for all your 'requests', 'please change', 'this would be good', 'I have a suggestion', 'man this sucks', and various other items of interest that tend to clog the board.

[Saber Cherry]

Oh, yay, you're alive=) Patty, I mean, not Zen

[Arralen]

4. Balance considerations
• Less focus on supercombatants
• More regrowth possibilities / less emphasis on population death


You can achieve this with the modding tools already at hand - simply multiply gold, ressource and supply production of provinces and growth per scale at least by 2.

I agree, though, that it would be great to have the option set pop growth with a growth scale of "0", maybe fixed to the equal of 1 scale of growth, so that a death-1 dominion will cancel all growth. I suggest there are diminishing returns from growth as the population nears "starting pop"*2 - shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

A.

[ January 28, 2004, 06:39: Message edited by: Arralen ]

[Gandalf Parker]

My wishlist mostly is for hosting things for the web-based gameserver project. (side note, anyone want to start a 3rd party wishlist?)

a "start game and quit" switch, even better if it works in text-mode

a --preexec switch for making backups or keeping a list of who didnt do turns

increase the --statfile or add a new switch to export scoreBoards (and maybe a provinces owned list? and maybe all Messages?)

a gameserver-only mode which doesnt load all the librarys/graphical/sound so that you can run more tcpip games on one machine would be nice. But I know that would be a major thing. Probably a Dom3 thing.

commandline switches for the MapEditor things so they can be done in a text-mode do-and-quit script. Also probably a Dom3 thing.

[ January 28, 2004, 14:23: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[rabelais]

[Edit: Originally Magic Items we'd like to see...]

Let me preface by saying I love this game and am deeply indebted to illwinter and this board for giving me such a horribly effective timesink.


I looked for the suggestion thread, but can't seem to find it, please merge if appropriate.

Here's my list. Add your own...

1.Items that give leaders (and potentially (all?) followers) move through terrain x (forest, mountain, etc) intrinsic.

1b) Items that enhance strategic movement for an entire squad/army.

2. More precision enhancing items than one cursed semi-boobytrapped affliction inducing misc.

3. Income producing items (Forgable!)

4. have shrouds reduce upkeep (this true already?)

5. Items that affect each domain scale locally

6. More magic boosters, outside of astral they are IMHO too rare. (all fire boosters helmets? why?)

P.S. I'm definutely in favor of the pocket lab someone mentioned earlier! Great idea!


Rabe the Fantastically Accessorized

[Adept]

The bonus effects of water magic are too weak. Complete the list:

Fire: attack bonus
Air: accurasy bonus
Earth: armour bonus
Water: defence bonus
-------------

Currently water only gives a really puny ability of water breathing for 1 unit / power level. This is almost meaningless, and certainly not in par with the other bonus effects.

It would be neat to have the defence option anyway, and this would balance the water dragon with the fire dragon. Currently the fire dragon is a much fiercer beast because of the automatical attack bonus.

The water breathing could parhaps be changed so that any water mage can enter the sea, but not take anybody with him. It's not all that important.

Parhaps an air mage could exit the sea, if aquatic, to balance this.

[Ed Kolis]

I would like to see a log message when one of my mages forges a magic item. Too often I forget I ordered him to (especially in multiplayer!) and I send someone off into battle only to have him get slaughtered because he didn't equip some crucial magic item that is now lying around in the treasury...

[PvK]

Originally posted by rabelais:
...

6. More magic boosters, outside of astral they are IMHO too rare. (all fire boosters helmets? why?)

...

Not all fire boosters are helmets.

PvK

[asparagus]

How 'bout an expansion? with 50 additional nations, 100 additional pretenders, spells, artifact and so on and so fort....

It's just a wish.... but hey, isn't this why this computer game was inspired for?