The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[Zooko]

I was noticing again today how Dom2 doesn't tell me which specific commanders died during a battle. I don't want to watch the whole battle over and over, keeping my eye on the commanders and hoping to notice when each one bites the dust. Maybe the "units killed" part of the battle report could be clicked on, and when you click it shows you the display of the commander (full stats and everything, just like dead heroes in Hall of Fame).

The related issue of having to write down everything that your scouts tell you could be solved by having a general purpose rewind feature. We already do this sometimes, especially in multi-player -- we save all the .trn files so that we can watch the whole game again afterward. If that kind of functionality were made part of the standard interface then whenever I wonder what a scout told me about this province I could just rewind until I find the turn where the scout reported and read his original report.

[Molog]

How about an ingame battlelog in which players can write down their plans and in which all scouting and other information is automatically added.

Units shapeshifting into different units after a certain time or reaching a certain experience.

[sushiboat]

For the tactical order screen, I would like to have presets for field positions. When you hold the cursor over the green position square and press a number, it would change the position of that squad or commander. There could be 9 presets corresponding to the edges and the center:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

5 would be what is currently the default position, the center. 3, 6, and 9 would be the front; 1, 4, and 7 would be the back. These presets could be customizable with the same control-# used with tactical commands.

[Chazar]

Molog said:
How about an ingame battlelog in which players can write down their plans and in which all scouting and other information is automatically added.

That is essentially what I wanted with my suggestion of sticky notes on commanders or more refined with assigning commanders to non-local groups having sticky notes:

A log is fine, but then you need to describe or name the units used for that plan. So why not attaching a players plan for each (group of) commanders directly to that commander?! It should also help to cycle through a group, eg. assigning all forger to a group, where I write down my forging need...

[Olive]

In the same way, why not keeping informations on provinces you once visited ? I.E. you had a scout in a province, but now he as moved elsewhere and you have no more info. It seems that you have forgotten the name of the province (there's a ???).

Why not having the name of the province and the infos you had last time you knew something about that province ? I.E. : 'last time you visited that province, there was 40 hostile independant units, mainly militias, that was 5 turns ago'. Or something like that .

[Sandman]

The astral bless is fairly redundant on the R'lyeh void summons, given that they have high magic resistance already and aren't really built to make good use of twist fate.

The death bless has different effects on undead units, so why not give the astral bless different effects on void summons? Improved regeneration, perhaps?

[Cainehill]

I'd love to see a new style of victory condition, a cumulative victory point win.

That is to say : currently, if 5 VPs are enough to win the game, as soon as someone gets them all, game over, allowing stealth victories, surprise victories, and even accidental victories. Not that this is a bad thing.

But Alneyan's King of the Hill games are essentially a cumulative VP condition : One key province (the Hill), and whoever holds it for a total of 20 turns wins, with everyone knowing each turn who holds the Hill and how many turns everyone has held it.

This really inspires the fighting - no one wants to let someone else come close to holding the Hill for 20 turns, and as anyone starts to get close, epic attempts to wrest control of the Hill take place.

But it takes the person hosting it to make this work.

So, what I'd like to see is a way to have fixed victory point locations on a map, and the game keep track of how many turns each player has held those VPs, along with a mandatory score graph displaying the gradual accumulation of those victory points. (This particular score graph would be on, even if graphs were turned off.)

This would promote conflict, and keep games from running on too long - once the victory provinces are taken, the scores start accumulating. I can imagine new maps being created with places of power, holy sites / cities, etc, that serve as the victory provinces, as well as old maps which already depict such places being modified for this style of game.

I think it would also make for more intense games, with hot spots of interest and conflict surrounding all the victory provinces. Do people expand in all directions aiming to build up enough strength for the victory sites, or head straight towards them? Given that there's a definate time constraint, people can't just meander about building clams and gobbling independents, not once someone starts accumulating the victory points.

[astrapol]

I'm a total newbie to this great game, so I won't suggest precise rule changes.

Many interesting things have been suggested in this thread, but I think developers should focus on making things simpler and nicer rather than deeper (which does not prevent them from adding new features).
Don't forget many suggestions on that forum come from experienced gamers.
Think about new users : try to stay simple and accessible without loosing the depth of this game.

I'msurprised few people talk about the graphics, while it's obviously the main weakness in Dom2. I 100% agree that the interest of this game is not in its graphics, but anyway, it would be relatively easy improve them, without making it a burdensome task.

Not necessarily by making tedious 3-D graphics but by giving more atmosphere to the game. Nice illustrations for units in their description, nicer (and more distinct) units in army setup screen ; illustrations accompanying messages such as magic site discovery, etc...
Why not try to have some different kind of graphics for each nation ? Chinese style paintings, medieval enluminure or renaissance frescoes...
Battle could be improved of course but not necessarily with realist 3-d graphics. I liked the 2-D, semirealistic approach of Heros of Might and M%agic II.
Dominions 2 cannot, and should not try to, compete on the visual aspect with big commercial games. But it could be much nicer and maybe more "poetic" than it is, and then attract many people who otherwise will not even try it.

The same with the instruction manual. It should include a tutorial and a few tips, and easier to use spell, unit and object lists.

[Endoperez]

astrapol said:

[about improving graphics]
Not necessarily by making tedious 3-D graphics but by giving more atmosphere to the game. Nice illustrations for units in their description, nicer (and more distinct) units in army setup screen ; illustrations accompanying messages such as magic site discovery, etc...
Why not try to have some different kind of graphics for each nation ? Chinese style paintings, medieval enluminure or renaissance frescoes...

Most older units (unit number under 600 or so) were made for Dom:PPP, and were drwan only 16 pixels high. The unit resolutions were doubled for DomII, but all old units weren't redrawn. The work is still on its way, and although the "graphics department" of Illwinter has mentioned he enjoyed redrawing Slinger, he also said that he got depressed with all the other old units he still would have to drawn. This was from old FRAG! review, so things might have progressed.


Also, if by different kind of paintings you mean the GUI (menu) backgrounds, the ability to customize those has been added in the newest DomII patch. I suppose we will see national GUI themes in DomIII, but this is just a supposement.

The same with the instruction manual. It should include a tutorial and a few tips, and easier to use spell, unit and object lists.

I also think that the manual should be reworked. Having the manual should be the reason to buy the game, explaining game mechanics better that the current one.


Also, whenever given order cannot be accomplished, it should always be noted with a message. E.g. for magic items with insufficient gem availability, a message among the lines of "It seems you don't have enough Fire gems.

3 more Fire gems needed."

[FrankTrollman]

One thing to remember about better graphics is that a modder making new units will have to keep the newly required graphics up to par.

A text only game is easy to add units to, you just write a description of a new unit. A 16 pixel-high unit requires a 16 pixel-high piece of art. A 3d wireframe with attached cellshading requires... and so on.

So the higher tech the art gets, the harder it is going to be to add a new team. And since we are still missing:

Klackons (or Abeil, or Formians)
Arabians
Vietnamese
Tibetans
Incans
Vaettiheim (or swamp goblins, or the Unseelie Court)
Beastmen

etc. etc. etc.

...that remains something to worry about. The Dominions meta-setting is one which could potentially incorporate virtually any group from virtually any fantasy or historical setting, and therefore should. So it must remain easy to create a new group.

-Frank