Impartial MASTER LIST of issues/problems

[PDF]

While we're at asking changes, one thing that bothers me in Dom is that you have to pay "cash" all the builds in a queue, even if the units are only build X turns later.
In the end this means you should build only one turn worth of units and change the queue each turn, unless you like spending money earlier.

A welcome change would be that costs be calculated on a per-turn basis, so on one turn you only pay what you get (and this is how nearly all others strat games work BTW )
.
This is maybe not that simple, cause in this case the program will have to keep track of funds to find if you can afford a build you've queued earlier, then "kills" queued builds if you can't, but it'll be cool nonetheless

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Jasper:
My real problem with these spells is the complete lack of a counter.

I think that is fairly summarized by "reduce effectiveness of artillery-like spells" - whether it be by introducing counters or by making them weaker, you are still making them less potent.

[st.patrik]

Updated list. People who posted suggestions, check to make sure I got it, and got it right.

1. Tweaks/Easy changes to implement
• Darker colours/textures in unit displays
• Alignment of stats in unit info screens
• Pre-made Gods for New players
• Newbie 'get started' guide
• Quick start game for Newbies
• End/quit/save/host button remake
• Bless effects more prominently displayed when creating a God's magic
• Actual effects of scales explained when creating a pretender's scales
• Line between commanders and regular units in recruitment screen & titles for each
• More details on exactly what different effects mean (e.g. exact benefits of mountain/forest/swamp survival, etc.)

2. Additions of relatively minor features
• Castle battle results
• '?' accessible on main menu
• Research point 'lock' for schools of magic
• Random nation AI opponents
• Map and Scenario triggers [not sure where this was mentioned]
• Ability to rename, or at least add epithets to commanders
• Enhanced start (starting with more than one province)
• Closing dialogues without having to scroll down or press 'esc'
• Unit names with icons/detailed breakdown of mixed squads
• Detailed lists of losses (most importantly commanders)
• Right-clicking commander gives you list of troops under his command
• Build queue for commanders
• 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

3. Additions of relatively major features
• SP diplomacy
• Increased battle replay functionality (various speeds, etc.)
• More than one god for each nation
• Moddability
• Ability to search for items on commanders
• Battle Sim
• Enabling/disabling spells (see Windreaper's post in this thread for details)

4. Balance considerations
• Improve Strategic AI
• Bug fixes
• Less focus on supercombatants
• More regrowth possibilities / less emphasis on population death
• Greater 'bless' effects (starting at an earlier level/increasing exponentially rather than by addition/magic cheaper in general, etc.)
• reduce effectiveness of artillery-like spells (esp. in hostile dominion)

Any more? As soon as it slows down I'll make a poll.

[ October 30, 2003, 14:03: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Jasper:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pocus:
there was a quite raging thread about how the army destruction spells (overland, not in tac battle) were felt by the players. Most people speaking in the thread were vets of doms I, and their opinion varied from 'I find then a bit too potent' to 'they must be seriously toned down'.

I didn't get quite that impression out of the thread, more that people just didn't like them.

I myself am not so sure they're unbalanced per se (provided you're prepared for them), but I don't like the way they dominate the game, forcing one towards a guerilla strategy, and away from large battles.

---

basically the opinion was that people wanted something to be changed, either reducing their effectivness, or having real counter, and not poor work arounds, or something like that. I gave my solution, but others are ok too.

[Saber Cherry]

From the list,

"Closing dialogues without having to scroll down or press 'esc'"

...might be a little more clear if rephrased to:

"Standardized mouse interface for closing windows, without scrolling: an "X" in the upper corner."

Also, I'd like to see:

"Standardized keyboard exit command: 'Esc' should exit battles."

-Cherry

[ October 30, 2003, 18:08: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Leif_-]

For my part, there's a series of changes to the UI I'd like to see:


1. Close the battle-view with "Esc" in addition to "q"

2. An option to turn off the "zoom into the province" animation before a battle.

3. Exit buttons placed below scroll-lists, rather than as the Last element on the scroll-list, so we don't have to scroll to the end of the list to press it.

4. Being able to change the sub-screen / report you've opened without going back to the main map view, and then returning to the main view by pressing a single "Esc". I.e. I want to be able to press "r" to open the recruit screen, then "t" to go to directly to the army setup-screen, then "F1" to get to the province overview report and then a single press on "Esc" to return to the main map. (As it is today I have to first press "r", then "esc", then "t", then "F1" and finally a Last "Esc")

5. Be able to scroll through the options in a list with the arrow-keys - both for ordinary lists (such as the list of commands you get for a commander when your press "space") and scroll-lists. Also to be able to use PgUp/PgDown to scroll in scroll-lists.

6. All options in lists should be selectable through the keyboard. This goes for the command-list, the list of Messages to read, the "which nation to play / host game / cancel" list between turns and so on. Preferably both by hot-keys (which ought to be shown in the list) and by selecting with the arrow-keys and space/return.

7. A key to select the next province I control (or a pair of next-province / Last-province keys to cycle through them with)

8. The borders between provinces you control and provinces you don't control, ought to be another colour than the other borders.

9. A key to select the next commander in the currently selecty province. If the commander is part of an army-group, select the whole army-group.

10. A key to select the next province bordering to the start province (the province you had selected when you first started pressing this hot-key.) So, if you have a province Centre and you press this key, you'd select province North. Press it again and you'll select East, then South and finally province West.

11. The # hot-key which lets you jump to a province by its province number would be a lot more useful if in addition to the province name, you also had a filter for showing the province numbers on the map.

12. If you press F1 to open the nation overview and selects a commander by clicking on him, you'll jump to the province this commander is in - but the commander is not selected. He ought to be.

13. The score overview is ... not very pretty, and it should at the least have an x-axis at the bottom with the number of turns.

14. One should be able to change the research using just the arrow-keys. (Choose between the schools with Up-arrow and down-arrow, and increase and decrease the research in the selected school with right-arrow and left-arrow)

15. "Translucent brightness display" on the main map to show the strength of such things as dominions, province income, province production, province defence, unrest and tax-levels. I.e. some sort of coloured alpha-transparency which will show the strength of the currently selected variable by being more or less transparent over each province on the map (an improved Version of the grey-scale map of dominion from Dominions 1.)


A couple of non-gui issues.

1. The battle report ought to also include the number of "province defense soldiers" that were killed. (Just a very minor annoyance this, but it always did bug me in Dominions 1 too.)

2. When a commander is killed, there ought to be a text-message about this in the battle-display (i.e. same as there is when a commander casts a spell.)

[ October 30, 2003, 18:42: Message edited by: Leif_- ]

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
From the list,

"Closing dialogues without having to scroll down or press 'esc'"

...might be a little more clear if rephrased to:

"Standardized mouse interface for closing windows, without scrolling: an "X" in the upper corner."

Not sure if I agree - especially considering not all people playing this game are playing it on Windows.

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Also, I'd like to see:

"Standardized keyboard exit command: 'Esc' should exit battles."

-Cherry

I'll add this to the list.