The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[NTJedi]

Another idea to add... imagine 4 magic sites exist on this one province: Magic site A, B, C, D

Some magic sites should be consider outside and others inside. For example those sieging a province would gain control of magic site A & C... and those inside the castle control magic site B & D.

Gems coming from an outside magic site: forest of black magic=2death gems

Gems coming from an inside magic site: the great statue of fire=1 fire gem

[tinkthank]

MODDING
- A command under #selectspell called #nationspecific /number/ which allows all of the changes made until #end to be applied to that nation only: Thus one can mod national starting (making a spell a free national starting spell for a nation but leaving the spell unchanged for all other nations) or allow some nations easier access to some spells (for example: allowing Abysia to research King of Elemental Fire at Conj 6 instead of 7, or having it cost only 40 fire gems instead of 50 for one nation only).

[tinkthank]

TACTICAL AI

Two suggestions here:

- Allow a setting (perhaps in the Troop screen, if this is to be kept) where commanders can tell their troops what to do when their enemy routs. The default could be “normal”, which is as it is currently now in dom2 2.14: slaughter the routing enemy as you see fit (kind of distasteful to me, but who cares). There could be 4 options: Default, Ranged Only, Melee Only, Self Defence. The last option would leave the victorious attacking troops in a position to let all enemy troops rout except those who are either berserk, immortal in their own dominion, have no free path to rout (and hence attack the victorious survivor). One could also call this option “merciful” for RPG purposes, or whatever. The second option would have the melee troops return to their original positions and have only ranged firing units and spellcasters continue to cast spells; the third option will disable archer and spellcaster fire and let the melee troops mop up. The first option could also be called “slaughter” if you wanted. These options would, at least, help reduce friendly-fire casualties, as well as being halfway “realistic” and allow for RPG-immersion for those who care.

- *IF* there is to be no “spell selection” tac-AI improvement of the type “give this spell high priority” and/or “never cast this spell”, then flag each existing non-ritual spell with one of the following type of spelltypes:
#spelltype summon
#spelltype damage
#spelltype debuff (this could also include anti-haste spells which freeze, etc.)
#spelltype selfbuff
#spelltype otherbuff
(these could conceivably be differentiated more: buffarmor, buffresistance, buffother, etc.)
#spelltype heal
#spelltype whatever
Then, commanders could be given one “mentality” type to cast: summon, damage, buffarmor, heal, etc..., once their script runs out.

[tinkthank]

- MORE WAYS TO ENCOURAGE NATIONAL TROOP USAGE:
- In game setup or Map Setup, there should be a separate screen which one activates by clicking “Extra Parameters”:
- There is a setting there for “Cost of Independent Troops”, ranging from Very Inexpensive (perhaps –25% gold cost) to Exceptionally Expensive (+75% gold). Thus, if wanted, non-national independents can be made more difficult to come by, if this is wished.
- Flag all ritual spells with types, including these types: #spelltype summontroops and #spelltype summoncommander ; in Game Setup, under “Extra Parameters”, there is a setting for “Ritual Summon Cost”. You can set “Summoned Troops” and/or “Summon Commander” to any setting between Very Inexpensive (perhaps –25% gem cost), Inexpensive (-10%), Default (normal), Slightly Expensive (+10%), Somewhat Expensive (+20%), Very Expensive (+30%), Exceptionally Expensive (+50% gem cost), to Incredibly Expensive (+75%), while keeping research values and Magic Site Frequency independent of these choices.
(This can also be used for Items as well – there could be a column for “Set Forging Costs” with identical settings...)
- Make a setting in this screen for “Gem-Producing Items and Units”, ranging from Easy (produces 1 extra gem every turn) to Very Difficult (produces gems at ¼ rate, or thus 1 gem every 4 turns).
- Make SCs in general more expensive.
- Make extreme damage-dealing spells of one certain type (e.g. wrathful skies) either more expensive or allow more possibilities of countering.

[tinkthank]

GAME SETUP
- Handicapping: Would like to elaborate on the idea I posted earlier. In the game setup screen, let there be 1 column labeled “Handicap” – the default is set to “none”. This column and these settings are used independently of any AI strength and should have nothing to do whether a nation is AI (whatever strength) or human. There are two settings: None (default) and Set Handicap; this opens up a second screen in which the game creator can change via a slider the following parameters: Ritual Spell Cost (very cheap – very expensive), Unit HP, and Nation Design Points.

For this last feature (Nation Design Points), the game checks whether the pretender submitted for that nation has the right number of design points. If that nation is handicapped (for example: Has a -40 design point handicap, or a -125 point handicap, or even a +40 positive handicap), then the pretender chosen will be invalid if it has too many design points (e.g. the "normal" amount for a handicapped nation).
Handicapping in this way will allow fun 1on1 experimentations and will also allow viable 5 against 3 games, for example, as well as make playing against the AI possible. Also, this way, one can play against, for instance, a very rich Marignon, or a very magically powerful Tien Chi, or a very robust Atlantis, either as human or as AI.

Additonally,

- Let us see under “View Game Settings” everything applicable: AI Strengths, if any, Handicaps, etc.

[Ranger]

Wish List for Domminions III

1. A new Ruler Class, each nation would have 4 or 5 units (Royal Family, etc) and one new way to win would be to capture or kill the other nations rulers. Each ruler unit would have special abilitys and when the unit is lost the whole nation would take a hit.

2. Ability to capture units.

3. Random Map.

4. More building types where some buildings would require research.

5. One cool idea from the game EFS fading suns was different relgious factions that were very powerful in the begining of the game and would ban different types of research. You could align yourself with one of these factions to receive some benifits or be attack by the faction.

6. Ability to make peace and build a allance with different factions.

7. Please keep the ability to re-name units.

[Endoperez]

Ranger said:
Wish List for Domminions III

1. A new Ruler Class, each nation would have 4 or 5 units (Royal Family, etc) and one new way to win would be to capture or kill the other nations rulers. Each ruler unit would have special abilitys and when the unit is lost the whole nation would take a hit.

I would also like to see this. C'tis has too many Lizard Kings for my test, as an example...

2. Ability to capture units.

Other than with spells (Enslave, Mass Enslave, Charm, Hellbind Heart and converting attacks), and when they retreat to your territory (=instant death)?

5. One cool idea from the game EFS fading suns was different relgious factions that were very powerful in the begining of the game and would ban different types of research. You could align yourself with one of these factions to receive some benifits or be attack by the faction.


[/quote]

Or put to Dominions terms: guiding your religion to certain direction by choosing a Theme will change the types of magic your nation has available, thus making certain paths of research unprofitable.
Encountering some rebellious, non-Serpent Cult Pythians when playing Pythium might be interesting... But I think the theme=nation change allows this anyway.

[Sandman]

A small idea: give priest commanders with sacred units under their command a bonus to their preaching ability. After all, you'd expect sacred units to be useful for spreading the faith.

[Chazar]

Ranger said:2. Ability to capture units.

...and sell them back to their owner for ransom? That would be pretty cool!

I imagine that fatigued and paralyzed units at the end of the battle should be found by the victor with a propability slimilar like items are found right now. Like items, they should be transferred to a dungeon (functions as the laboratory for items). You can then just kill them or send them to somebody else, just like items. Nothing else is possible. And the captives should have a small chance to catch a disease while being in the dungeon...!!! Cool!

PS: ...or maybe everybody who dies with something between -10 and 0 hitpoints gets a chance depending on his negative hitpoints to survive as a captive!

[tinkthank]

- Make events occur on a per-province, not per-nation basis. If a nation has 200 provinces, 100 events per turn would not be unthinkable under a Turmoil scale.
Of course this presupposes a type of UI overhaul as I suggested in previous posts on the Wishlist thread (mail window, events window, forge reports window, spell reports window, etc.) so that the "message" screen is not flooded.
- Then, increase the intensity of bad events, so that misfortune is truly something to fear if very high.
Then, greatly increase the number of special events which only happen if you have a certain type of scale (preferably: those which are currently considered underused as "no-brainers"). Such things could be, for example, to greatly increase the number and intensity of events which require Misfortune 1, Misfortune 2, and Misfortune 3 respectively. Ditto for Luck 1, 2 and 3. (Fun and interesting would be, for example, neat types of helpful units which join your cause: assassins and mages of various types, perhaps those which are not available anywhere else, as well as sages.) One could make many more certain events requiring Productivy 1, 2 or 3: new items are transported to your lab (perhaps those not forgable by ordinary means), perhaps a group of units get a boost to armor; perhaps a special event requiring Prod 3 will yield you a castle (or maybe: only if it occurs in a province with a castle already in it, although this would tend to encourage "mad castling") in which you can recruit your national units which all automatically have +1 protection or something, or adds a special Heavy-Infantry type unit to that castle. I think that would be neato. Of course, this last bit would require a different way of attributing units protection stats.
- Make quite a number of nation-specific events (or even better for modding: nation-type specific events, e.g. for tree-huggers, blood-worshippers, cold-lovers, underwater, etc.)