Wish-List for Dominions 4

[HoneyBadger]

I think if you have a 5-6 length weapon, it should be effective against calvalry, regardless of how big you happen to be. If it's 4 or less, then yes it can be size-determinate, but I don't see any reason why a huge heavy guy armed specifically with an anti-calvalry weapon should be penalized against an enemy he should-by all natural rights-have an advantage against.

Yes, I realize that it can be taken advantage of, but why not mod lances in the process so that they hit larger creatures more easily? And give war-horses the ability to independently trample smaller units at the same time their riders are attacking, while still retaining the ability to kick. That would even things out and make better sense.

[Endoperez]

Simple-enough suggestion:

If a commander has no commands, can research and is in a province with a lab, it will count as a researcher and increase the research pool.
These commanders will show up in the research screen as normal. Commanders can still be set spesifically to research, so that they e.g. aren't found by the 'n' command.

Cainehill's request:
Capability to hide commanders set to researcher, as the DomII Tab option, in both main map view and in F1 view.

A variant of the earlier:
Capability to choose which commands are visible through a set of variables including but not limited to: magic in general, spesific magic paths, sacredness, afflictions, old age, number of units lead, has magic items. Preferably in both F1 and main map view.

[Loren]

Endoperez said:
Simple-enough suggestion:

If a commander has no commands, can research and is in a province with a lab, it will count as a researcher and increase the research pool.
These commanders will show up in the research screen as normal. Commanders can still be set spesifically to research, so that they e.g. aren't found by the 'n' command.

Good idea, although I would go further.

A commander who can site-search better than the province has been searched and has no orders should search it.

A commander who has research orders in a province with no lab builds one rather than canceling the research order. (If a random event destroys your lab it will be auto-rebuilt.)

[Nix]

I've been thinking about having different classes of pretenders, which would cost or grant points on a scale like the "awakening" option. You could have: Immortals/Demi-Gods, Idols, Magical creatures/nature spirits, Olympians, etc. all the way up to Demiurge-like pretenders.

[lch]

Loren said:
A commander who can site-search better than the province has been searched and has no orders should search it.

To the research-thing I could reluctantly agree, but I definately wouldn't want this site-searching done without my order. If added at all then it should be done by the server that the default for somebody on "Defend" should be switched to these other useful actions (research) like units that "Sneak" in a province are then set to "Hide". But there should be an option to turn these "auto-actions" off, too.

[Sensori]

There's one thing I miss from Dominions 1. I never learned to like the blesses, which now seem to dominate the game. It also nerfed some perfectly nice Pretender types, and makes only some certain types viable for most nations. My wish would be that Dominions 4 would go back to the generic 2 morale bless rather than making it even worse (or "better" as the bless fanatics would probably say), or just at least some nerfing on it that makes it nice to have but not a game winning plan. Yeah, I want proper rainbow mages back. Among other things. ;p

And instead of making the pooling even more comprehensive than it already is and whatnot, I'd like to see some kind of method to place orders on the mages/commanders you're in the process of recruiting, so they'd go to research/patrol/whatever mode from the get go instead of the basic defend. That way once you have assloads of mages everywhere you wouldn't always have to remember to put that one new researcher dewd to research on your own, since it'd just start doing it on its own.

And I want a way to make the building queue of units to stick, plox!

[Endoperez]

Sensori said:
There's one thing I miss from Dominions 1. I never learned to like the blesses, which now seem to dominate the game. It also nerfed some perfectly nice Pretender types, and makes only some certain types viable for most nations. My wish would be that Dominions 4 would go back to the generic 2 morale bless rather than making it even worse (or "better" as the bless fanatics would probably say), or just at least some nerfing on it that makes it nice to have but not a game winning plan. Yeah, I want proper rainbow mages back. Among other things. ;p

I thought the rainbow mages were NEVER viable. I remember reading posts about their uselessness and fragility in either Dom:PPP or early DomII era, on the CSIPGS newsgroup or some IGN forum or something. At least now you can't get all paths on your national mages and they're harder to get via summons as well, so rainbows do have their uses. Booster items are also harder to make, though...

Also, IIRC, blesses added a whole new category of viable pretender types into the game: pretenders that are good for going high level in a path. If you didn't want a bless, why would you take magic over level 5 on your pretender? 5 + a booster you can forge with it is enough to cast anything you might want. And even that'd be ONLY required if you wanted to cast the better spells. In Dom:PPP it was even worse, because level 3 was enough for boosters. Cyclops might've taken Earth for protection, and perhaps some Air pretender to spam Orb Lightning, but that's about it.

[Sensori]

Endoperez said:
I thought the rainbow mages were NEVER viable. I remember reading posts about their uselessness and fragility in either Dom:PPP or early DomII era, on the CSIPGS newsgroup or some IGN forum or something.

I think you're thinking about Dominions 2, because in 1 they were plenty viable and doubleplusgood based on my experiences with them in PBEMs. You could use them for site searching early on, they were great at research, they were great at making items... And with little help from the right items (Robe of the Magi, RIng of Sorcery and Wizardry, Staff of Elements, then for instance the astral cap and earth boots), they could potentially cast anything you needed. Now, thanks to the change in bless effects, a rainbow mage Pretender is far less usable, because, well, you usually want blesses to counter the other guy's blesses. Only situation I can think a rainbow mage is good now is when you play a nation that doesn't get anything out of a bless strategy. As for the fragility and "uselessness" of a rainbow mage... If you think it's supposed to be fighting on the front lines like a bigass Titan, you just made your first big mistake.

A bunch of other Pretender types became rather unusable, too, because the blesses are so powerful. Indeed, a lot of the Pretenders are completely unused now because they don't really fit well into a bless strategy.

Also, IIRC, blesses added a whole new category of viable pretender types into the game: pretenders that are good for going high level in a path.

There's a massive difference between making a new type of Pretenders viable and making a certain type of Pretenders the only ones that are viable for quite a few nations. Hell, before blesses became a deciding factor on what a Pretender should be like, even a Manticore with no magic was a viable option due to the bonuses it gave you to scales, since it required no points - and those excellent scales actually ended up helping you throughout the game. Now it means far less.

If you didn't want a bless, why would you take magic over level 5 on your pretender?

If you don't want a bless, you get screwed sideways by some other guy who wanted a bless if your nation happens to be one of those which "should" use a bless. It's not a choice between different pretty much as good choices anymore, but a choice between nerfing your capabilities wholesale and getting the best bang for your buck.

In Dom:PPP it was even worse, because level 3 was enough for boosters. Cyclops might've taken Earth for protection, and perhaps some Air pretender to spam Orb Lightning, but that's about it.

You mean levels 2 and 3. But still, the change in levels of magic required to make boosters wasn't the thing that made rainbow mages (and most other types of Pretenders) far less usable, it was the blessings (and very distinct types of blessings, no less) being so much more potent as a whole.


---

I don't think there's anything anyone could say that would make me think that nerfing the bless effects or even turning it back to what it was in D1 isn't a good idea. And I'm sure I'm entitled to my opinion. ;ppp