Impartial MASTER LIST of issues/problems

[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.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Leif_-:

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

You can click "ok" as soon as it starts to go to the battle view immediately.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by HJ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leif_-:

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

You can click "ok" as soon as it starts to go to the battle view immediately.

---

Ah, sorry - I should have been more clear. I want an option to turn it off entirely - just like the "no fade" option in Dominions 1.

[Saber Cherry]

Unarmored mages and priests should never rush out to engage in melee, even when there are no appropriate spells, unless specifically scripted to attack. Currently, they rush to the front lines.

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Leif_-:
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.

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.)

various things snipped

#9 - I believe you can do this currently, if I'm understanding what you mean

#10 - I can't quite fathom this, but I'll add it

#1 non-UI - You should try to get some discussion going on this one - maybe start another topic? I suspect this may not be a popular feature.

Having said all that, this is an impartial list, and so I will add all this stuff. Thanks for posting.

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Unarmored mages and priests should never rush out to engage in melee, even when there are no appropriate spells, unless specifically scripted to attack. Currently, they rush to the front lines.

This has got to be a bug, don't you think? If it is it'll come under the general heading of "bug fixes" in #4 and you should post it in the "list game bugs here" thread. If it's not a bug I can add it.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by st.patrik:

#9 - I believe you can do this currently, if I'm understanding what you mean

Well, if so I haven't figured out how. The only keys that seems to have anything to do with selecting commanders is "n" for the next commander without orders, "a" for select/deselect all commanders, "return" to deselect all commanders (seems a bit useless since one or two presses of "a" will do the same) and + and - which "scrolls commanders" but doesn't seem to do anything for me.

#10 - I can't quite fathom this, but I'll add it

Well, suppose you have a map with only 9 provinces, #1 through 9, arranged in a square pattern as shown below, where the middle province 5 borders all the other provinces.

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

Select province number 5. Press the magic key (say ":") once, and you'll select one of the provinces bordering 5 - let's say we start with the northernmost province, so one press of ":" will select province 2. As long as we don't press anything else but ":" the "central province" for the selection won't change, and each press of ":" will select the another border-province of 5, with the clock.

So, press ":" once and we'll select province 2. Press ":" again and we'll select province 3, and another press brings us to province 6. Now, we press "t" here to look at the forces we've got in province 6, so the "central province" now changes from province 5 to province 6. When we now press ":" again, we'll go to province 3 (due north of province 6), and another press of ":" will take us to province 9 (the next province that borders province 6) and so on.

It's basically a "I've now got this province selected, and I want to select _that_ province, but I don't want to move my hand over to the mouse to do so."

[st.patrik]

Leif - I must not have understood what you were getting at with #9 - could you explain it more fully.

I summarized a couple of your points (including #10) as: "Way to select provinces using keyboard (e.g. entering province #, key to cycle through provinces, etc.)" - is that ok?

[st.patrik]

List updated again. If you made suggestions check to make sure I got everything 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.)
• Able to quit battles using ESC
• When selecting commander from F1 screen, have the commander be highlighted when it jumps to him
• X axis labeled in score overview graph
• Message in top left when Commander is killed in battle

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)
• Ability to close screens without having to scroll down or press ESC (e.g. Windows-style [x] or 'Exit' button below instead of at the end of scroll-lists)
• 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
• Ability to turn off pre-battle zoom animation
• Ability to enter new subscreen (F1, recruitment, etc.) without ESCaping out of the current one
• Ability to scroll lists with arrow keys instead of mouse
• Keyboard selection (hotkeys or something else) for every command available with mouse
• Way to select provinces using keyboard (e.g. entering province #, key to cycle through provinces, etc.)
• Hostile borders different colour than province borders within your nations [don't know if this is possible or not]
• Keyboard interface for research screen
• Number of local defense force killed show up on battle report (even though they're automatically replaced)

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)
• Translucent filters for map instead of icons (for dominion strength, production, province defense, etc.)

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? (I'm afraid )

[ October 30, 2003, 19:31: Message edited by: st.patrik ]