Poll: Should Dom3 allow automatic site searching?

[ioticus]

On another forum (which I won't mention), a number of people wanted Dominions 3 to change the way site searching works. They feel a mage should automatically find a magic site (if otherwise eligible) when it moves into a province without having to give a search order. They feel having to actively search creates too much micromanagement. My feeling is the necessity of having to search in order to find a site forces the player to make tough decisions about what his mages should be doing. Many times I've agonized over whether my mage should spend the turn searching, or instead moving to another province for battle, building a lab, etc. I think the search order is an important part of the strategy in Dominions 2. What are your feelings? I'm including a poll because I'm curious how many people feel the system should be changed.

[sushiboat]

I think that searching should require an action, but in the user interface, the command should be changed to allow a searcher to have a queue of provinces to check. There shouldn't be a free lunch; mages should still have to spend a turn to find a hidden site. Micromanagement can be reduced without changing the basic principle.

[Chazar]

I really like Sushiboat's suggestion!!! (I'd like to see movement queues in general!)

However, having "0.5 level"-sites would be nice too:

• level 0 - found automatically
• level 0.5 - found automatically if a mage with the proper path is present
• level 1-4 - need to be searched by a mage of proper path requirements (as it is right now)

[FrankTrollman]

I would like it if the searching happened automatically if your mage was set to "defend". So if you just forgot about your mage for a turn it would automatically searh if it had any paths that hadn't been searched for.

That seems like a good compromise between management and mage time.

-Frank

[Endoperez]

How unbalancing would it be if mages found all sites of (skill level - 4) automatically? That is, level 5 mage would find all level 1 sites automatically. That would mean 8th fire mage would find ALL fiery sites with just walking through the province.

[Oversway]

That would take away from the site searching ability of rainbow mages. Do we really want free sitesearching as one more reason to pick an SC pretender?

[alexti]

FrankTrollman said:
I would like it if the searching happened automatically if your mage was set to "defend".

I think that's the best way, but I'd prefer to have it extended:
If commander order is defend, then he should:
1) search, unless the province is searched up to his skills
2) research, if he can (has >0 RP and there's a lab)
3) preach if he can

That would reduce some micromanagement.

[quantum_mechani]

alexti said:

I think that's the best way, but I'd prefer to have it extended:
If commander order is defend, then he should:
1) search, unless the province is searched up to his skills
2) research, if he can (has >0 RP and there's a lab)
3) preach if he can

That would reduce some micromanagement.

Of course, this would mess up scrolling through commanders without orders. Though, you could always restructure the system a bit and make it work.

[Saber Cherry]

How about... A NEW TOGGLEABLE GAME OPTION! Yay!!

I'm more interested in avoiding micromanagement than freeing mage-time. I don't think mages should automatically find every possible magic site just by passing through a province... However, the ability to easily give a mage queued "Move and search and move and search" orders - like in Stars! - would be awesome.

[Saber Cherry]

Wow, we think alike