Problems in demo exist in regular game?

[TruePurple]

I downloaded and installed the demo in attempts to decide if I wanted the full game having heard often enough of D3 on the Age of Wonders: shadow magic forum.

A short list of the more serious problems I found in the demo so I can find out if they exist in full game or have been fixed.

750 thunderbird athlon with 384mb ram (issue with full 756mb ram detection on win98) Win98se. 7200rpm HDD with over a gig free space.

RMG buggy
1. It takes 10+ minutes to generate a map. Most of this time is drawing borders.(which it does twice for some reason) Especially as it gets closer and closer to the end of the bar. One time it froze up, I went to bed having it drawing borders and woke up 8 hours latter to the same. The program froze up requiring a hard reset.

Despite this it can draw horrible borders and other placement problems(first I didnt know what it meant by drawing borders till I saw it draw borders so bad) One map it made a land district for recruiting sea creatures. Units I purchased simply never appeared.(dont know if I still payed for em) Captains "drowned" the next turn instead of appearing.

But that was nothing compared to the latest map, land borders on what look like water, no idea where to click to go where. A mismatch of twisted borders, and drawn borders relating in no way to actual borders.

I'd look this up in bug reporting but thread too long to check it all out.(glanced through first page)

1.b
Its also placed me two spaces away from enemy cap with only one enemy on a medium size map.

----------------------------
2. Enemy unit data needs to be readily available on map.

You can always check out your own unit data and usually check out enemy unit data on battle view (though sometimes units can be so close to each other you can't click on one since its like on the same square, a problem if a commander)

But I want to be able to check out unit stats for units I see names of in enemy domain. I'm sure the manual lists them all, but I don't want to have to memorize all those units or be forced to be continuously thumbing through a manual. Plus what if a mod changes the units? Then manuals no good for that.

--------------------------------------

3. Useless scouts/too powerful hidden-invisable.

Scout units seem to give very little more information about areas they are on more then you can tell just by being next to the terrain.(maybe priest helps, some message of scrying sometimes)

But if units are invisable, hidden it seems no way to detect them. Ok maybe theres units that can do that.

But there should be a way for scouts to be able to search for such units with greatly increased risk of their own detection(but good odds of getting the information before they are killed)

Also a option to scout out land type with moderate risk of detection.

-----------------------------------

4. Information in unit stats about what they cost per turn.

I understand each unit costs gold each turn to maintain right?(units with half cost from being holy so I can only assume) Does the actual game with patches tell you that in unit stats? If not, why not? Seems kinda simple to do.

--------------------------------------

5. Dismissing troops.
There should be some option to dismiss troops who have gotten too injured or you otherwise don't need/want/can't afford.

----------------------------
6. Targeting.
Needs to be some option to have troops target magic units. Also the options to have unit target specific troop types doesn't always seem to work, they seem to just go after closest troops they encounter along the way anyways unless they can fly.

6.b Would be nice to be able to order troops to either prioritize a target but get other stuff too or to avoid combat with other troops altogether and go around them specificially chasing target types if on field.

--------------------------
7. Stay together
Options of having troops stay together would be awesome too. As I've seen faster troops will simply rush ahead from slower troops and split the army.

Options like keeping in a certain range of slowest friendly troops till withing reasonable enemy range of fire(where enemy isn't mostly missing in its range attack/spells would be nice.)

Keeping in range of friendly wizards spells and having wizards possible move a little bit so they they stay in range would be nice. There is a enchanting distance limit right?

What improvements have been made to unit command options?
--------------------------
8.
Would be nice if spell caster AI was a little smarter,
Like having wizards not buff themselves with combat spells if nowhere in range of enemy. Or maybe thats because the army got too far ahead of them to cast spells on friendly troops or enemy. Also general options of commands of "buff friendly troops" "Buff self" "offensive spells" and so on would be nice.

Improvements to such in regular game?

-------------------------
Questions

What I don't know of the game is volumes since the manual that comes with the demo doesn't tell you alot. I admit I combed through it by catagory and not read it line by line but I feel relatively certain it didn't answer these.

Of biggest interest/concerns is..
Q1. How does the game decide what order to put moves? If your moving troops out of a square and the enemy is attacking the square your moving from.. or to.. and another army is attacking the nation they are attacking from. How does it decide order of resolution?

Q2. Whats with indepedants numbers varying so much? They don't seem to move around since a nation could be surrounded by types totally different from it and I never see that nations type appear in the other nations from what I can recall. Do independant nation numbers ever change between the the time you give the order to attack them to the time you do?

Q3. Sometimes I'll get units without combat who develop wounds without disease. Why/how? Is there any way to mitigate disease risk other then feeding troops well? Is there any way to cure disease or for a unit to recover from disease like real people do?

Speaking of... Too much permanent stuff. Like there should be a blessing counter for curse.(I dont know if blessed units get cursed but thats not blessing I mean) I guess I understand permanent wounds but I kinda wish there was a little more ways you could fix those up too. I mean it is a world of magic after all.

Maybe a overland spell thats high end that could allow you to repair troops a bit each turn.

Q.4
Do spell casters need to be on a domain with a lab or something before they can pick up most recently researched spells?

Q.5
Can you change prophet unit latter on if your prophet becomes too decrepit?

So whats been fixed or improved from demo? What should I know that addresses my concerns or otherwise gives me reason to buy (or not) the game? Is there going to be an expansion?

[Ironhawk]

To address your specific points:

1) Dunno, I hardly ever use random maps. The player-made maps look better and provide a more balanced MP game.

2) Not entirely sure what you mean here

3)
Scouts: The purpose of scouts is to detect troop movements deep in enemy territory, not near your borders where you get free intelligence. Use them to locate key enemy provs: forts provs, high income provs, low pd provs, etc.
PatrollingYou can detect stealth units via the Patrol command. Fast units and flying units get bonuses to patrol. Additionally, Province Defense above 10 has an increasing chance to detect hidden units moving through your province.

4) Nope. Probably should be there, but its not that big a deal since you dont care too much about individual soldiers in dominions. In case you were wondering, unit upkeep is directly proportional to the unit cost (1/15th for regulars, 1/30th for sacreds).

5) Nope. Put them at the front of your army as fodder

6a) Do you mean target spell casters? If so, that option was available in Dom1, but removed because it was far too powerful. As for squad orders "not working": squads normally try to carry out their orders as best they can, but orders and morale have a subtle interplay which effects the result. Too long to go into here.

6b) Too much micromanagement

7) I have this gripe also - Unfortunately no way to do this. Best bet is to just organize squads with like movement speeds and then arrange your formation appropriately.

8) Spellcasting AI same in demo and full game. It is not good, but given the amazing number and variety of spells available in Dom3 it does a tolerable job once you understand its limitations.

Q1) Generally speaking, all moves into a friendly provs occur before any moves into enemy provs. In a contested situation (where two armies attempt to move into each other provs) the result is random - tho it is unknown if things like army size influence it.

Q2) Independent strength is set at via the option when you create a game. Each particular province has some randomness as to troop makeup and amount (tho provs with powerful units like Knights will usually have less). Indys never move.

Q3) The most likely cause is Old Age (you are probably seeing this on your mages, right?). Healing wounds is possible via the global Gift of Health, the artifact The Chalice, and some units in the game which you are not likely to see in the demo.

Q4) No. Newly researched spells are available to all your mages anywhere, instantly.

[Shovah32]

Q3-Old age, maybe burden of time(though it may just speed up aging), disease(miamasa dominion, starvation ect), marignon flagellants, misbreds and possibly other units come with random afflictions.
Q5-You cant prophetise a new commander until your old prophet dies(even then you must wait a few turns)

[TruePurple]

1. Maybe, but play AoWsm I appreciate how fun it can be in RMG to explore and find stuff. Of course AoWsm looks much better and had more interesting stuff to find, AoWsm also had much more risk to scouts(indies can kill scouts in AoWsm, they see through concealment/invisability ) And AoWsm the map is black till you explore it. But regardless a good RMG can be real fun, just about all AoWsm games are played in RMG for this reason. (not that their RMG is perfect, and I understand how hard it can be to make a good RMG)

2. What I mean is unit stats, like you get when you click on them in battle, or recruitment screen. Except also when you see their name in a area your considering attacking so you know exactly what your going to face if you do so you can guess what your odds are. Without having to memorize things or dig out a manual (useless if a mod)

3. I'd also like a chance for you to be able to check out invisible/hidden units in terrain you don't control. So you don't get wiped out by troop strength you did not expect when you went in. You can't patrol land you don't control of course.

I'd also like scouts to be able to be told to check out terrain their on with increased risk of detection so you can know the value of land and whether to try to take it.

4. I care how much over all they are costing me and what troops I need to get ride of in order to free up resources for other things. Also how much do units who join your troops through events, seduction, avatar unit etc cost?

5. Which goes around to the annoying lack of an option to dismiss units. Which is just asinine if you ask me. How hard would it be to put in such a command? I can't imagine that hard. What possible downside would it be for it to be there?

How amaturish to not have that, even heroes of might and magic games have a option to dismiss troops. And those troops don't have upkeep costs.

6. Give magic users guards, make them have better defenses. Don't take away the option to target them.
6.b Not really more micromanaging. Just more options in existing micromanaging.

7. No way to program this? I find that hard to believe. Its my gripe in many a game, it can't be that hard to to have units keep pace with slower units. Its just a matter of them self adjusting speed or stopping and starting depending on unit closeness

Q2. Then how come indie strength various from one turn to the next? One turn it tells me there are 20, another turn 50, then 30 and so on. BTW to the game is each turn a month?

Q3. There needs to be more options for healing such wounds then the very rare and or limited race specific. Maybe spells like regeneration could also help with permanent wounds if cast ritualistically with gem cost. And if some of those "wounds" were the old age of magic users then it should show as increased age penalty, not "battle wounds" which is just confusing.

Q6. A new one,
Whats the little house on certain lands indicate? or is that decorative?

I like the complexity of the game.. to a point and find the approach to simultanous turns novel. I gripe at graphics so poor it can be work just differentiating units. Though I've always been one who feels gameplay should come first (though it is pretty extreme in its low grade graphics quality sometimes)

But if none of these issues were addressed in the official game or its patches.. I don't know its worth some $40-$50 bucks.

[paradoxharbinger]

in no particular order:

Q2. the count changes because they are estimates, if you REALLY want to know what exactly is in there, send a cheap commander to attack on his lonesome. with a scout in th province or scrying the estimate becomes more accurate, but is still just an estimate.each round is a month iirc.

5. this i think is another point where it is a bit too much micromanagement. use them for fodder, like ironhawk said, if you want to get rid of them any way they may as well serve a purpose. not amaturish, just not too useful in my opinion, but that's just me

3. the whole point of invisibilty / glamour is to make them undetectable by scouts. there are a few item iirc that will reveal invisible units, but i do not know whether that will make them visible to scouts. if that is not the case i think it ought to be

7. i would like to see the possible orders and combat ai beefed up a bit too, but not too far. the game goes on the premise that once battle starts, orders be damned, the average joe is just trying to stay alive and i like that

1. the RMG does have a few large holes in it, but it does an ok job on default sized maps and as long as you don't ask it to put in rivers. check the link in my sig, i'm working on one of my own

Q6. some of the icons suggest a known low level magic sit in a province, for the RMG any way. not sure if the house have any meaning. if you are looking at a hand crafted map, it completely depends on the creators preference whether they mean anything further than decor

[Micah]

The answer to your second question is because the scouting reports aren't completely accurate. The number of indies doesn't change, your scouting report does. If it's going from 30-80 troops over a few turns there are probably about 50 guys there. If you keep track of it from turn to turn you'll get a good idea of the true strength as you gather intelligence, otherwise you're relying on a small amount of time, so you shouldn't be completely sure what you're going up against, it's one of the judgement calls you have to make.

[Endoperez]

In Dominions: Priest, Prophets and Pretenders, the first in the series, you could order troops to Attack either Magic Users or Commanders, and also Fire at either. It caused a lot of problems (the only way to protect yourself from both archers and fliers was Storm, and the nation best at its use (Caelum) had flying Air mages whothe Storm made more powerful AND units capable of flying in the storm).

1) The random maps are adequate. It doesn't do beautiful maps, but the maps it does work. The map in which borders didn't match the provinces is in fact product of a bug, but the bug isn't in the map generator. You generated a new game with the same name as an earlier game, both used random maps. Unless you restart, you'll see the second map's coordinates and provinces over the first map's graphic.

2) The manual only lists summonable units. National units are only detailed in-game, and only when viewing that nation.
I suggest creating three games for just viewing the different nations: choose some big map with both water and land, press and hold 'n' to add new nations until you've added all nations of an Age, press 'Shift+H' to set all nations to Human, then alternate between 'Enter' (for getting past every screen except accepting a pretender design) and a mouseclik (Ready in the pretender design - you don't have to move the mouse). Repeat for the two other ages. This won't take more than few minutes, and lets you quickly check out any nation.

When viewing units in battle, you can change view between units that are in the same grid. You can press 'g' to make the grid visible, that should help with finding the commanders.


3) How can Scouts be useless when they are just as invisible as units with Glamour? There are two kinds of "invisibility" in the game: Stealth, which makes the unit capable of moving through enemy territories as long as it isn't found, and Glamour, which allows the unit not to show up in the army report screen. Ethereal, True Ethereal etc abilities just protect the unit from weapons.

Scouts can move into enemy territories, find out where and how strong his province defense and conventional armies are, where is his capital and what are his richest provinces, etc. about the province he is in, so you'll have to recruit multiple scouts if you want to know what your enemy is doing.
Spies are more expensive than scouts, give more accurate reports and actually show the income, resource, unrest, PD etc numbers of the province and the possible magic sites. Spies can also generate unrest. One scout or spy will only give information

Arcoscephale's dominion has the special ability to giving out as much detail of the enemy lands as if they had a spy in every province where they have dominion. However, they also need spies to get a warning of enemy moving armies into their direction.

[Sandman]

But there should be a way for scouts to be able to search for such units with greatly increased risk of their own detection(but good odds of getting the information before they are killed)

There is a way. Just set your scout to attack the province, with orders to retreat.

That said, an in-game database about units and so on would be quite handy. And the huge difference between a (perfect) battle report and a scout report is disconcerting.

[Nightblade]

It takes 10+ minutes to generate a map. Most of this time is drawing borders.(which it does twice for some reason) Especially as it gets closer and closer to the end of the bar. One time it froze up, I went to bed having it drawing borders and woke up 8 hours latter to the same. The program froze up requiring a hard reset.

I have the regular game patched to 3.04, but the generating time problem is always present, it is very long, too much for me as i frankly prefer to not have to wait so many minutes before being able to play when launch D3. That's why i don't play random maps anymore after 2 tries.

Fortunately the stock and user created maps are superb and well thought enough to provide all the entertainment i need with D3.

But it would be really nice if it was possible for the map generator to work a lot quicker.

[PhilD]

TruePurple said:
I downloaded and installed the demo in attempts to decide if I wanted the full game having heard often enough of D3 on the Age of Wonders: shadow magic forum.

A short list of the more serious problems I found in the demo so I can find out if they exist in full game or have been fixed.

Short answer is, the full game is the same as the demo, except you get to play more: more nations, more eras, more research. Features, though, are the same, and the patches don't change gameplay (that I know of).

Basically, the Illwinter devs are real nice guys, but they're a bit headstrong. If they don't like your idea, or they don't feel like doing it, they don't. There are a lot of UI features like the ones you suggest that would be a great thing to have, but that have been suggested since at least Dom2 (probably the very first even, though I wasn't really around in these days) and that I'm not holding my breath for.

750 thunderbird athlon with 384mb ram (issue with full 756mb ram detection on win98) Win98se. 7200rpm HDD with over a gig free space.

RMG buggy

Dominions isnt' resource-hungry, but the map generator might be memory-happy. Maybe your RAM is a little low.

The full game comes with more maps, and there are others available on the 'net, including this forum's "mods and maps" section - I'm pretty sure you can use them in the demo, too. Random maps are good if you're bored with the others and want some change for a quick multi game; then hopefully you can get your opponents to generate them (or use Gandalf's, if he still has his page with "fresh" random maps).

But that was nothing compared to the latest map, land borders on what look like water, no idea where to click to go where. A mismatch of twisted borders, and drawn borders relating in no way to actual borders.

In the early days of the demo, I noticed this: if you played two different random maps one after the other in the same game session, I think the game used the older map's .map file (the one which describes province centers and neighborhoods) with the new one's .tga file (the one with the map picture in it). Or something like that. Maybe the current demo still has the bug (and maybe the current full game too; like many others, I don't tend to use random maps too much now that I have the full game and more maps).

----------------------------
2. Enemy unit data needs to be readily available on map.

You can always check out your own unit data and usually check out enemy unit data on battle view (though sometimes units can be so close to each other you can't click on one since its like on the same square, a problem if a commander)

But I want to be able to check out unit stats for units I see names of in enemy domain. I'm sure the manual lists them all, but I don't want to have to memorize all those units or be forced to be continuously thumbing through a manual. Plus what if a mod changes the units? Then manuals no good for that.

Excellent suggestion (even worse: the manual is far from giving the stats of all units in the game; there are Excel files around here that give the stats for most of them, but I'm not even sure if they are complete). Unlikely to happen.

--------------------------------------

3. Useless scouts/too powerful hidden-invisable.

Scout units seem to give very little more information about areas they are on more then you can tell just by being next to the terrain.(maybe priest helps, some message of scrying sometimes)

But if units are invisable, hidden it seems no way to detect them. Ok maybe theres units that can do that.

But there should be a way for scouts to be able to search for such units with greatly increased risk of their own detection(but good odds of getting the information before they are killed)

Also a option to scout out land type with moderate risk of detection.

Scout reports are of little usefulness in solo play, but I can tell you, they are invaluable in multiplayer. They are always inaccurate, but they can still tell you that a large army is moving your way, AND they let you watch the enemy's battles (which shows you their mages, formations, blessings).

As for Glamour units, yes, they are very strong in that. Watch out for Helheim and Vanheim, which can field whole armies of national glamour troops.

-----------------------------------

4. Information in unit stats about what they cost per turn.

Rule is simple, unless it changed since Dom2: each unit costs 1/15 of its initial cost in monthly upkeep (no rounding taking place, IIRC); sacreds cost half of that (1/30). But yes, having this kind of information available in-game, by clicking on a unit, would be useful. One more useful feature that probably won't ever appear.

Oh, and unless I'm mistaken, summoned units don't cost upkeep, UNLESS they are the same unit as something that can be recruited normally (possibly through a site).

--------------------------------------

5. Dismissing troops.
There should be some option to dismiss troops who have gotten too injured or you otherwise don't need/want/can't afford.

As has been said, you can always send them on suicide missions - this lets you scout for "almost free".

Plus, you can have a "real-life" rationale for this - you can't just dismiss your soldiers, you have to pay their pensions. Or find them a real heroic mission for the fatherland that they might not come back from

----------------------------
6. Targeting.
Needs to be some option to have troops target magic units. Also the options to have unit target specific troop types doesn't always seem to work, they seem to just go after closest troops they encounter along the way anyways unless they can fly.

Targeting isn't perfect - other units blocking the line of sight on the battlefield tend to make your units "miss" their real targets - especially when ordered to "attack rearmost". Placing your cavalry/flyers on the far flanks tends to help a little, but targeting is never perfect.

As for targeting options - you can't target enemy commanders, and that's a good thing for their survivability. "Attack rearmost" by flyers is often the best tactic to kill those pesky mages who like to stay in the back - unless they have strong bodyguards of course.

6.b Would be nice to be able to order troops to either prioritize a target but get other stuff too or to avoid combat with other troops altogether and go around them specificially chasing target types if on field.

At some point, it's nice not to have too many options, as that would increase the amount of micromanagement exponentially. Yes, sometimes I also wish I could give my troops more detailed instructions - actually, a completely revamped tactical scripting system is my major wish for Dom4 or Dom5.

7. Stay together

More options, yeah. But this has a cost in micromanagement.

There is a enchanting distance limit right?

More precisely, each spell has its own range, which you can check in its ingame description.

What improvements have been made to unit command options?

None whatsoever - as I said, gameplay is the same in the demo and full versions.

--------------------------
8.
Would be nice if spell caster AI was a little smarter,
Like having wizards not buff themselves with combat spells if nowhere in range of enemy. Or maybe thats because the army got too far ahead of them to cast spells on friendly troops or enemy. Also general options of commands of "buff friendly troops" "Buff self" "offensive spells" and so on would be nice.

Improvements to such in regular game?

Again, none. A "smart" battle AI is something very difficult to make, because the smartness of using a given spell is very dependent on the overall tactics of the army - sometimes a "mage" is actually a melee combatant just buffing himself up before rushing on the attack, sometimes he's a battlemage who's more supposed to hurl fireballs at the enemy, sometimes he's a support mage whose role is to cast short range buffs at nearby troops. The best that could be done, IMHO, would be to let the player categorize a small number of "roles" and assign relevant spells to each category. But again, this suggest a complete revamping of the scripting system - something that would be very nice to have, but something that is unlikely to appear in a Dom3 patch.

Of biggest interest/concerns is..
Q1. How does the game decide what order to put moves? If your moving troops out of a square and the enemy is attacking the square your moving from.. or to.. and another army is attacking the nation they are attacking from. How does it decide order of resolution?

Small enough armies (no numbers given) can actually cross and not meet sometimes. Otherwise, the order is, according to the manual, random.

Q2. Whats with indepedants numbers varying so much? They don't seem to move around since a nation could be surrounded by types totally different from it and I never see that nations type appear in the other nations from what I can recall. Do independant nation numbers ever change between the the time you give the order to attack them to the time you do?

Numbers don't change (unless some effect kills them, or they get random events reinforcing them), but scout reports and the like are wildly inaccurate - if you keep the numbers from several turns, you should be able to triangulate on more precise numbers (of course, the best way of scouting an independant province is to send a lone commander scripted to "retreat" and placed very far to the back - flyers will get him, but otherwise he's mostly safe from harm, and you can see the exact army then).

Q3. Sometimes I'll get units without combat who develop wounds without disease. Why/how? Is there any way to mitigate disease risk other then feeding troops well? Is there any way to cure disease or for a unit to recover from disease like real people do?

Old age (either natural, or through global enchantment "burden of time") can cause this. Other than that, there's a rather common (though unique, I think) site that spreads disease: Inkpot End. And "diseased" is fatal over time, there is no widely available cure.

Some possible cures: global enchantment "Gift of Health" (level 5, so you won't get it in the demo), Arcoscephale priestesses set to "heal troops", a few other healing commanders (including some high-level Nature summons), and units with Recuperation. But basically, diseased units are toast.

Speaking of... Too much permanent stuff. Like there should be a blessing counter for curse.(I dont know if blessed units get cursed but thats not blessing I mean) I guess I understand permanent wounds but I kinda wish there was a little more ways you could fix those up too. I mean it is a world of magic after all.

Now wait until you are attacked by fully-equiped supercombatants - then you'll be happy that there are a few really unremovable ways to hurt them permanently, like Curse or Horror Mark.

Maybe a overland spell thats high end that could allow you to repair troops a bit each turn.

If you're thinking of permanent wounds, Gift of Health is what you're looking for. One of the good global enchantments that the AI tends to fight over; rarely seen for more than one turn in multiplayer (it boosts friendly units hit points in dominion, plus it lets them slowly recover from wounds in dominion; very strong).

Q.4
Do spell casters need to be on a domain with a lab or something before they can pick up most recently researched spells?

No. Even, since research takes place before almost everything else in the turn sequence (only "recruiting" comes before it), they get the newly researched spells for the turn's battles, though of course you cannot script for them in advance.

Q.5
Can you change prophet unit latter on if your prophet becomes too decrepit?

No. Prophethood is for life (what kind of god would you be if you changed your mind about who your prophet is?). If you don't like your prophet anymore, make him die in some battle, and a few turns later you'll be able to make a new one.

So whats been fixed or improved from demo? What should I know that addresses my concerns or otherwise gives me reason to buy (or not) the game? Is there going to be an expansion?

As I said, patches change extremely little to gameplay, so what you see in the demo is basically what you'll get (or not) in the full game.

As for expansions - this is the kind of thing that the good folks at Illwinter like to do in patches. The latest patch (3.04) added a new nation to the game. The thing is, since the patches are free, it's hard to press them for things we'd like, but they wouldn't like to code...

Basically, I'm afraid my answers don't go in the direction of making you buy the full game. This would be too bad, really - the game isn't perfect, but it's a great load of fun, both solo and multiplayer (and this is almost the only PC game I've ever played multi - if you discount Dom2).