The Dominions 3: "Wishlist"

[Cainehill]

sushiboat said:

Wish costs 100 astral pearls, which can be alchemized into 50 gems of any other kind except blood slaves. Then again, I suppose that fits with the theme of screwing over newbies who don't know enough to download and read the user-written information files. Good way to prevent new people from enjoying the game!

Oh yeah, new people really tend to start casting wishes right away. The main issue with newcomers to the game is that there isn't any decent walk-through or guide to the early game, although someone (Arralen or Alneyan?) is working on that. Still won't really solve the problem unless / until Illwinter starts including something like it with the demo and game.

If people can get past the steep initial curve of figuring out how to deploy units on the battlefield, give them commands, etc, they don't seem to have much of a problem with enjoying the game while they find more and more of the hidden lore.

[Endoperez]

AFAIR, wishing for 'gems' currently gives just enough gems to alchemize them to 100 pearls. That is how it should be, IMO.
Wish should be about choice, absolute choice, of getting whatever one might want to play with. It should be choice of "what is worth it" instead of "quess the password". The choices should all be beneficial and of about similar power-level. Of course, this does not mean all units should be able to face each other in combat, but that wishing for powerful monsters shouldn't always or even in most cases be the optimal choice.

[FrankTrollman]

Doom Horrors aren't even necessarily the best thing you can wish for, to be honest.

You can wish for a "lord of hell", and get a Demon Lord that spawns Militia and even Blood Slaves as soon as you GoR it.

You can wish for a Vastness, it has no item slots once you Gift of Reason it, but it is immune to Cold, shock, and Poison, and it has Astral Magic Level 3, and it has a bunch of Mind Blasts (which yes, are enhanced by the Astral Magic once you make it a leader).

Nerfing the standard wishes now will just make people spend some time wishing for new crap in single player for a while getting new units and effects that are crazy good.

It would issue in another dark time, where some people know what is good that can be Wished for and other people don't. That makes it unfair. Frankly, the list of high-quality wishes should be published with the game. It's fine if not everyone knows about wishing for Vastnesses, but at the very least everyone should know about:

*Gems
*Magic Power
*Doom Horror
*Gold
*Girls

Those are the standard wishes, and everyone should have access at least to those. The more specialized wishes, like Arena Fight and Lord of Hell can be Easter Eggs, but all the "raw power" wishes should be available to everyone.

-Frank

[Endoperez]

Well, considering that the in-game wishes one is most probably going to try will be 'gems', 'gold' or 'magic'. The ones trying it out for the first time won't know just *how* the Wish will carry that out. In the case of "magic" (I think that should give the same as "magic power" if it already doesn't, for the reason FrankTrollman listed above), the surprise will be quite positive, I think. And as Doom Horrors will be unique in DomIII, they will be less of a problem as well.

Wishing for at least some spells should also work. I'm mainly thinking of the high-level summons, the ones that give you uniques. Newbies might not now the creature types of the summonable creatures, but they can find the spells from the manual.

[Nerfix]

What does "Girls" do?

I was thinking about Vastness too. Maybe it should give something along the lines of "The *caster* started to grow in size. He crushed the entire province! Then he grew so large he sank into the earth, never to be seen again!"

Oh yeah,

*wishes*

Move and Pillage
Skirmish

[Endoperez]

Maybe wishing for any of the void monsters, the Void itself or the Void Gate should act as a mage had just entered a void gate, with some pre-defined summoning bonus and lesser (only 80% or so) chance of insanity thanks to the wish. That would be more in line with how the game works.

[Nerfix]

"Reverend Bob the Arch Theurg wished for Vastness. Azatoth ate his brain. Tasted like chicken."

[FrankTrollman]

Wish costs 100 Astral Pearls and requires a ginormous investment just to make the path requirements. Casting it should be good.

Let's face it, two castings and 120 gems to get a Doom Horror or Vastness as a leader just isn't all that titanic compared to the 95 gems and 6 castings it takes to get an Air Queen off the ground.

The only thing that is a problem with Wish is that not everyone knows how it works.

-Frank

[sushiboat]

For multiplayer games, there should be a "no staling" option, which means that the AI plays one turn for the nation that would have staled. It is usually better than nothing for the would-be staler and for opponents who want competition. It would also allow another player to substitute for one who has dropped out because the AI could just play on a turn-by-turn basis instead of taking over for the rest of the game.

If this option is implemented, there should be a revised message to indicate that the AI took over temporarily. For example, "Rumors say that Ulm's Grand Vizier has been exercising greater authority recently."

[Cainehill]

Or at least something that _says_ "Ulm's pretender slept for the 7th straight month", etc, so people could know when to complain to the player, set him AI, swear to never get into another game with them again, etc.