Wish-List for Dominions 4

[Salamander8]

1) I'd like to be able to have missle troops stop firing at routed enemies when melee troops are in pursuit, or vice-versa, as this tends to cause some bad friendly fire incidents. Some scripting option likeo not fire at fleeing enemies, or: Do not pursue fleeing enemies.

2) Better accounts of Fortress assaults when you win. Getting: We captured the fortress!, isn't all that helpful for casualty assessment. Some of them are pretty obvious, but often you have to scour commanders' forces afterward to determine how much damage you took in that victory.

[jutetrea]

1. Categorized spells: Self-buff, army-buff, offensive and scripts to go along with them, army-buff,army-buff, offensive, etc.
2. Disband
3. Global (per player) default army arrangements per unit type. Grouped Cav are always started back left with hold, hold, attack rear.
4. Toggle for # of gems used, or limit
5. Construction queuing
6. More nation/era limited spells, items, heroes and pretenders (also dominion effects)

[Gandalf Parker]

I want a true text host. One that doesnt need graphic libraries to run.

Id also like a seperation of host and client. That would pave the way for many upgrades (such as client-side scripted AIs)

Id like to see the random map generator accept a seed

Id like to see the add-on graphics (little farmhouses and dead cow heads) that get put into the maps be optional. Or even user-replaceable.

Id like to see a switch that does an "Eyes of God" then outputs the map as a graphic file.

[Xietor]

I do not think we need new races, pretenders, or items for dom IV.

There are a multitude of combinations available now. I would like to see some love on some of the pretenders available now that are rarely used.

The Lord of Fertility has been mentioned. Lord of the forest could have some type of animal awe or charm as an innate ability. well, you get the picture. Vampire queen needs to have her cost lowered to 125, give her dom III, 3d, but remove her immortal status. The issue before was she was hard to kill, flies, and you would have to kill her a dozen times on the way to her capital. remove her immortal status and issue is fixed.

[Sombre]

The problem is that for the Devs making new units and races and spells and whatnot is /fun/. Fixing bugs and improving the GUI is less so.

But I agree, Dominions doesn't really need more content. It mostly needs interface and AI improvements and more modding options (such as ability to mod AI etc).

[Horst F. JENS]

I like to have a way of scripting the Tactic and Strategic AI with a mod. Preferable in Python :-)

[Reay]

I think the most important thing to add is: when hitting Y to see which troops are moving to the selected province, it properly displays the troops that are STAYING in the province and remove the troops moving out.

It would be better if we could get an idea of what troops will be fighting the battle in the province next round with out all the other exiting troops complicating the screen. (I guess if there was a castle in the province, it should also exclude other troops that are not patrolling.)

Also, there is another bug with Y where we can not edit or see the position of the existing troops. Hopefully this is the Y bug fix that the dom 3 progress page is showing.

[Baalz]

More in the vein of reducing gem micromanagement:

Blood sacrificers should automatically use slaves from the lab if there is one and blood hunters should automatically place captured slaves there - again if available.

Automatic non-spell site searching - give an order such that a mage repeatedly moves to the closest unsearched (by his magic paths) province and searches it.

It'd be nice if when scripting specific gem using spells you specify how many gems to use. It's kinda frustrating when your second scripted spell doesn't go off because the AI decided to use more than the minimum gems on the first spell to reduce fatigue.

Monthly forging like the monthly ritual casting. Somebody mentioned some more ambitious suggestion which included this, but I'm guessing this would be pretty easy to implement.

[HoneyBadger]

Feel perfectly free to rehash old ideas here, MaxWilson, et all. That's one of the reasons I started the thread-to collect and preserve the ideas that have come before in other threads.

I'd like more dynamic Pretenders.

I'd like the ability to "build my Pretender from the ground up". The ability to choose a chassis (hoburg, jotun, wyrm, obelisk, horror, etc.) and then add abilities and stengths/weaknesses to it, including extra hit points, magical ability and dominion, immobility (almost anything can be in the form of a statue), special abilities (for instance, you can choose the "great dragon" chassis and then fire breath/heat resistance, if you want a red dragon) based on a point-system, rather than choosing the Pretenders that are available, but which might not fit your playing style. So, I could have a mighty SC Pretender that I've designed around my own playing style, and little or no points to spend on my Nation, or, I could have an elderly hoburg midwife who's worshipped just because she keeps more babies and mothers alive during births than not, and a nation that starts out with good dominion, extra gold and gems, and whatnot.

Ofcourse, customization doesn't have to be *that* dramatic, but I think it has a place and an appeal, when it comes to your Pretender. It could simply be the optional ability to choose, in-game, between different sets of graphics.

I'd also ideally like to see Pretenders having their own line of experience, and gaining said experience from doing "Pretendery" things, like casting mighty spells, leading large armies, coming back from the dead, and just surviving (people tend to feel their gods should be immortal). Immobile Pretenders currently suffer from the handicap of a greatly-reduced ability to gather experience, for no really good reason-even though they kill a lot of their "enemies", I don't think mass-murderers are great examples of "personal growth", do you?. I'd then like to see Pretenders able to add directly to their abilities over time, based on that experience-maybe your Pretender *starts out* immobile, but he wouldn't have to stay that way. This would represent the real-world incarnations of gods, which tend to change form and power over time and culture (Example, Odin, the God of the Norse, wasn't always the chief god of that pantheon).

Along those same lines, I'd like the ability to customize my starting nation-make them more or less magical, technologically advanced, add or take away troop types and national summons, etc. Basically, adding back Themes, only in a pay(points)-to-play basis.

[HoneyBadger]

What if bless effects were independent of the magic schools? I think that would be a nice feature too, if you separated the two. That would let you build up your physical Pretender-choosing areas of dominion, instead of magic paths, and these "areas of dominion" (War, Nature, Death, Love, Medicine, the various elements, Forging, whatever) would then grant your Pretender stat bonuses, and your sacred troops blessings.

For instance: A high Forging "area of dominion" might grant additional strength, protection, and a Forging bonus, while Love area might grant awe, 'unit heals afflictions', and perception.

The magic paths could still be incorporated-like you could choose your Pretender to have dominion over Fire, and maybe a high enough dominion would grant bonuses to fire magic, or you could choose him or her to have dominion over Magic, and through that, gain a research bonus and a nice discount when purchasing Paths.

It would allow spells to be kept along the same lines they are now-with the potential for expansion still in the future-but allow for many more Bless effects, and allow you to personalize (and pimp out) your Pretender.

You'd pick a Chassis-which might come with some Areas of Dominion and starting Magic Paths, or just great stats/special abilities.

Then you'd pick your Areas and pay for them, which would increase some stats, maybe lower a few others. Then (while I'm brainstorming) maybe you could pick a special ability or two and pay for them (fire resistance, an extra head, an additional form, whatever), or an affliction of your choice (limp, lost an eye, low MR, etc.) for a few extra points, and then finally, you add magic paths-which can still bump up your stats a bit.

Instead of just paying for Dominion, your Dominion would be equal to your number of Areas. You'd no longer get Awe based on your Dominion, it'd be a special ability that you'd either have to pay for, or that came with an Area.