Playability Wishlist

[DrPraetorious]

I've been keeping a list for dominions 4:
* Sort commanders by name, or magic skill, or gold cost, or really anything other than unit #, both in the strategic and tactical screens.

* An auto-disperse command in the tactical screen that spreads all of your commanders out, maybe something similar for troops?
It'd be even better if you could somehow save tactical configurations, or specify them as text files.
example of such a text file:
(commands1.txt)
TS1 :front spread: - #communion master, #falling frost, #falling frost, #falling frost, #falling frost, !cast
TS2 :middle spread: - #commion slave, hold, hold, hold, hold, !stay behind troops

We add a command which lets me load such a text file, I load it, the game engine parses it, and when I hit ctrl-1 on a commander, he automatically gets put somewhere in the front 33% of the grid with those orders.
The other painstaking thing is to set up skirmishers - small units of 5 or 6 troops spread out over a varge large area. The game has many units (markata, a number of light javelin troops) which are excellently evolved for this purpose, but it's a major pain to set up.

* Sort provinces in the nation overview. Highlight (with red background or something) units in the nation overview that need orders (see locked commanders below). Option to change what info is displayed in the nation overview (scales, dominion, terrain masks).

* Search levels displayed while picking the province to target with search spells.
Alternatively/in addition, when targeting any spell, if the brown window including a list of what all other mages where casting at the selecting province (and what they were casting) this would also be keen.

* I'd like to be able to "lock" commanders on a particular task, and have them repeat it exactly each turn whatever it is (forging the same item, mainly.)

Locked commanders should vanish from the tactical screen when you hit tab (just like researchers.)
Locked commanders should be skipped with you progress through your list of commanders with the "n" key. This way I could assign units to siege or to scout a particular tactically relevant province and still skip them with the n key.

* Insane commanders should automatically have their orders cleared when they regain their sanity.

* I'd like to be able to "lock" recruitment in a province, so that the province automatically recruits the same mix of units every month.

* On the nation overview, when I left-click on a commander, as opposed to a province, it'd be nice if it zoomed to the province instead of just exiting the overview.

* And the endless request to selectively pull blood slaves and/or other gems.

[Sombre]

I keep hearing about this 'tab to hide researchers' thing, but it seems like it only works in dom2, not in dom3. I can't get it working, anyway.

[WraithLord]

DrP's list is awesome.
I agree with all the items on his list but I think the nation overview sort and the commander lock are *the* most important.
For IW to give any one of them in a patch would be so kewl.

[Velusion]

WraithLord said:
DrP's list is awesome.
I agree with all the items on his list but I think the nation overview sort and the commander lock are *the* most important.
For IW to give any one of them in a patch would be so kewl.

Seconded! Locking commanders and recruitment are the biggest issues for me. If I could ask for anything - it would be that.

[K]

If I had one wish....

Locking numbers of gems on a commander so that they draw from labs each turn to fill that number, and that Pool Gems commands don't take their gems. They'd also auto-drop gems into the lab if they are locked at 0.

[Zeldor]

K:

If we are talking about that - I would want a limit of gems commanders can use per battle. I would like that 30 gems to last more than 1 battle, especialy when he needs only 3 for spells I want.

[hnchrist3]

(1) The ability to set a default action to a unit. You could make any change and it would do that action and then go back to the default (really handy for researchers that suddenly need to forge an item).

(2)When the "Generating new turn" screen comes up, I'd like to know what phase (1=recruit through 28=scouting) it is in, rather than just seeing "Resolving battle (turn #)" so I have some idea how much longer it will be.

(3) I like LA Ermor, and it is impossible to deal with thousands of troops. I have to send all my freespawn commanders in to remove the chaff so I can select what I want. What good is casting "great lamentation" if you have no access to the gals later. There needs to be a button for a full-screen view of troops so you can select them, and then go back to the "normal" view. Tartarians disappear in the chaff as well.

(4) The "Scripted Spell Redundancy Detection" as suggested by Psientist. Once my Arch Bishops finish their scripts all they do is cast "protection of the sepulchre" which only works once, instead of "anathema" or "unholy command".

[Agrajag]

Sombre said:
I keep hearing about this 'tab to hide researchers' thing, but it seems like it only works in dom2, not in dom3. I can't get it working, anyway.

I don't recall any talk about 'tab to hide researchers' in dom3, but indeed it doesn't work in dom3. (And works in dom2, obviously).
I think its the change I hate the most between dom2 and dom3.

[SlipperyJim]

DrPraetorious said:
* Sort provinces in the nation overview. Highlight (with red background or something) units in the nation overview that need orders (see locked commanders below). Option to change what info is displayed in the nation overview (scales, dominion, terrain masks).

...

* I'd like to be able to "lock" commanders on a particular task, and have them repeat it exactly each turn whatever it is (forging the same item, mainly.)

Those two suggestions would totally make my day.

Other than that, I'd love for merc contracts to automatically renew. Or perhaps for a pop-up reminder when the contracts end? Whatever, really. I can't tell you how many times I've lost a useful merc because I forgot to renew the contract....

[canahari]

I'm new here. (Hi.)
My biggest problem in the game at the time is that it's too easy to forget a commander when I, for example, want him to go from one province to the another without an army, or to search for magic sites. After the first few steps I usually forget my commanders. (Especially my spies who aren't even visible.)

- It would be nice when I could be able to cycle through all my unmoved commanders with a "next commander" button or so. It would be even better when I could flag my commanders to make him selectable or not by this button (so avoid the researchers' every-turn selection for example)

- I'd like to have a "goto" command for the commanders. I give this order, I pick up the goal country, and he moves to that without me to move him step by step. Maybe even a message when he arrives.

Other things:

- I would like to suggest you that don't give a dark background color neither to the recruiting screen, nor the commanders' background squares (on the map view), or any surface when an unit have to be visible on it. With most of the units being dark too, the unit doesn't show up cleanly, the little details are almost undistinguishable. Far better with the light recruiting-screen-backcolor of Dominions 2.

- Another vote to locking commanders on a particular task, I would be able too to forge the same thing every month.

- It would be nice when I would be able to assign a commander to another's army with all his squads. (One "level" of this would be enough, just for multiple commanders easier to move together and, especially, for the teleporting spells (for ex. gateway) to have mages who can bring armies to far provinces, without having the armies' commanders left behind.)


Thank you and keep up the good work! (And please excuse me for my bad english, not my native lang