A few GUI gripes

[Duthos]

I have been given to understand that Dominsions 3 is fairly easiliy moddable, so I was wondering if my two immidiate complaints with the interface may be addresed,

First, castles obscuring flags. It is more a nuisance than anything else, but it bugs me. Would it be possible to either swap the location of the temple and castle icons, or put the castle behind the temple icon?

The second one is kinda related but likely more complex. I don't like the way armies are displayed. You can never tell at a glance what generals you have somewhere, and the stacks of units are more intrusive than informative. What I would like to see is for the top row of troop icons to be reserved for leaders only, and perhaps rather than endless stacks of units just one icon of each type (your scouts know about) and follow it with small text denoting few, many, horde, etc. With overlapping ranges and variable scout reports this should not give the user more information than intended, while making the intended info more accessable.

Anyway to do this myself, has someone already done it, or should I just give up and deal?

Also, are there any community standard mod packages for new nations and such? Some up to stellar quality of the game itself?

As an aside, I only just discovered this game, and considering how much I was pining for a MOM 2, this will mosty likely become my new favorite game. What a masterpiece.

[Edi]

Sorry, the UI is not moddable in the way you would like.

Nation flags can be changed as a feature of nation modding, but the on-map castle and temple graphics can't. What you can do is use the 1-9 keys to set the flags you want, including armies, castles etc, or you can pop them off for a moment and then back on if you like.

The only UI mods I know of are here and that changes the appearance of the backgrounds and the boxes, not the stuff displayed on the map.

As far as getting into modding, looking at the modding manual in the Dominions 3\doc folder is a good (and required) start.

For some of the most famous mods, look at this thread. In addition to the Conceptual Balance Mod (CBM) versions, it lists some of the best work of the community, (Expanded Nations being a compilation of many mods, WarhammerWorld another). Look to the Scenarios, Maps & Mods subforum for more lists and stuff.

[Gandalf Parker]

And as far as seeing who you have where, the F1 menu is helpful.
You can use the TAB button in the F1 menu to see just provinces, the TAB again to see commanders.

Also a tip:
turn Renaming ON when you create a game to play. People find it helpful to rename their mages to something that tells them the capabilities. Or at least rename the unit you are prophetizing so you can more easily find your prophet on the F1 screen

By the way, a (almost) complete HotKey list can be found on the community-made wiki
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Hotkey
EDIT: when its up

[Duthos]

I didn't know about the tab f1 menu thing, thanks for the pointer. Pity about the GUI, I may delve into the codes sooner or later (I have made a number of mods for several games).

New question, I am having difficulties with 2 of the battgrounds. One is a forest that is so dense that my comp lags horribly, bad enough that much of the information I seek in replays is simply not displayed. The other is a mountainscape that, while it does not cause as big a problem, it is extremely annoying as it seems as though part of the background image isn't drawn and that part of the image is comprised of flickering after images.

So, is there an easy fix, or do I simply need to replace the files with new battlegrounds when I figure out which ones are doing this?

[Foodstamp]

You can turn the graphics settings down under options, that removes some of the trees etc. That will at least help with the forest BG.

Welcome to the community!

[Gandalf Parker]

Here is a link to a thread about changing the games defaults
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com//showthread.php?t=44262

[Duthos]

Neat stuff gandalf, I will be using some of that. Thanks foodstamp.

I have a new problem, one that may be game breaking. Every time I go into my army setup screen I seem to have a chance of my generals, and only my generals, disapearing from my UI. Of course, there is not much one can do without being able to see or interact with those buttons, I searched the forums here and found a thread where some said it was pretty rare and he just restarts dominion.

Well, that worked for awhile, but in my current game it seems to happen about 95% of the time, forcing me to reload dominion over and over within the span of a single turn. Annoying as hell. Son't suppose any of you have encountered/solved this?

[Soyweiser]

Well you could buy the game. That usually fixes it .

It is related to copy protection issues. At least that is what I heard. Perhaps something corrupted your key file.

[Foodstamp]

Yeah it sounds like the piracy protection. It was implemented as such so people get a chance to come to the forums and do the walk of shame. Purchase a copy of the game and it should resolve your issues, maybe even the other issues you were having. If you have purchased a copy of the game, try reinstalling or contacting customer support.

[Duthos]

My game is legit... at least it certainly appeared to be. As I understand it, the copy protection removes your entire gui, not just your leaders.