Wish-List for Dominions 4

[CUnknown]

One silly little thing that I would like to see:

I like playing with the Score graphs off in multiplayer. But I'm always so curious about them at the same time. What's I'd like is a way to set them up so that the graphs would be visible like once every 20 turns or something. So everyone gets a report on all the other factions periodically.

Either that, or make it so that scouts can give you data by infiltrating the enemies capital, or something.

[lch]

CUnknown said:
One silly little thing that I would like to see:

I like playing with the Score graphs off in multiplayer. But I'm always so curious about them at the same time. What's I'd like is a way to set them up so that the graphs would be visible like once every 20 turns or something. So everyone gets a report on all the other factions periodically.

Either that, or make it so that scouts can give you data by infiltrating the enemies capital, or something.

I was contemplating with Velusion about nerfing graphs a little bit, by collecting the scores.html files from the turns and generating an overview of the nations which doesn't reveal too much information. It should only give a list of the top nations like in Civilization, and maybe show a trend aswell (rising/constant/declining). Thus you know who is outperforming the others, but you don't know by how much he's doing it. After the game the data could be used to generate exactly the same graphs as in the game, too.

Since we had other things too keep us busy with and didn't talk about this again I didn't pursue this any further, but if there is interest in it I could whip up a PHP script or something.

[Gandalf Parker]

I had a long write-up someplace on that subject. Collect the scores.html, import it into a spreadsheet, use a ghostscript or gnuplot routine to turn it into a graph, convert to .png

I hadnt considered the options for partial info or spaced out info which sound very interesting. I was hoping for single turn info in something abit more readable such as pie charts. Especially for really large games where the regular score info is hard to read.

Later I was considering how cool it would be to duplicate the in-game score screens for viewing on a webpage for that game. When I thought about trying to export them from inside the game it turned out easier to go with the build-from-scratch using the scores.html file.

Also, the same programming can be used to get around another complaint about the scores in the game. That they lose the info on a nation when its beat.

[lch]

So I take it that there's interest in the matter?

I have a little free time at the moment and it shouldn't be too hard to program a script for this. There are lots of free PHP packages ready (JpGraph for example) for generating graphs that I can use (column, line, pie, whatever you want), so all I'd have to do is to parse the scores.html files and prepare the data, and that's quite easy.

[purge383]

Off the top of my head:

1. ***Diplomacy*** that doesn't need to be too complex or it can be too.

-non-aggression pacts where you can set a penalty for breaking it and set a number of turns that must pass when the treaty is honorably nullified before attacks can begin.
- economic treaties that can boost income
- research treaties to boost research
- treaty to share fog of war
- alliances
- gem trading
- etc.

2. An improved GUI

- Place buttons that go to menus to manage all aspects of your empire next to each other. The point would be so you could simply click through each of these buttons to review/manage every aspect of your empire so you don't have to worry about forgetting something. Galactic Civs II uses this approach well.

3. Outposts that have little or no defense so they can be razed easy but are cost balanced.

supply outpost - provides supplies to surrounding provinces
mining outpost - boosts income in a mountain province
lumber mill - boosts income in a forest province
watch tower - reveals fog of war around the province with fairly inaccurate military details
etc.


4. set in map creation options the chance for special guarded inde provinces with one time instant rewards or interesting structures/objects

- item(s), gold
- ancient ruins, library, etc - one turn boost to RP
- dragon cave: enter to battle for the horde
- demon gate: Boosts RP of mages in the province through studying the gate but occasionally demons come through and attack or kidnap mages
- palantir: pay gems to scry
- wizards tower: boosts a magic skills by 1 for units in the province
- ancient forest: the sentient ancient trees will help defend the province, but first you have to take it from them
- volcano: slowly provides earth/fire gems but can erupt
- forgotten tomb: dare to enter to battle hordes of undead for the lost treasures.
- evil(demon,undead,cult) entity rules the province and demands living sacrifices from the population.
- the remnants of a lost civilization live in a fort in the province that can be taken over

5. counter spells in battle

[Sandman]

Please, please, please no waterwheels, lumbermills or mining for ore. Dominions is better for not having them.

[jutetrea]

Agreed, if any new buildings are ever introduced keep them minimal.

irregardless of that I'm still going to suggest one

Have a setting in game creation where no castles can be built beyond the capital. (or 1,2,3, etc beyond capital). At the same time have a "recruitment/training center" or somesuch where troops can be recruited.

Initially, sieging 50 AI castles in SP is a pain. I think it would also change MP by speeding it up a bit more and reducing castle grind on nations like LA Ermor. Give the benefits of a castle if it works (+resource %, +income %, +supply %, etc) there would just not be a siege phase. I'd probably still keep the same cost to limit them, or maybe 20% less...but it would speed up games a bit. Possibly upgrade castles at the same time as they're more valuable now..shrug.

If the above was ever implemented, possibly add a garrison command to an army. Garrison would just reduce income/supply needed to pay for turn by turn upkeep of the units. They would almost turn into PD, just not regenerating.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like all gems to be saleable, just worth different amounts-astral gems worth the least, then elemental gems, then death/nature.

Blood slaves should be unsaleable, this would improve the balance of the game, since producing gems would actually improve your economy, while producing blood slaves would reduce it.

It would also be nice if you could have something set up to let you auction off magical items blindly-you put them in the auction and whoever bids the highest automatically gets the item, but you'd never know who won the item. Artifacts would be exempt from this. This would also allow you to auction off items to the AI, who might have set prices for select items.

Thirdly, it would be nice if you had another Empowerment option. Like, you could have the choice to sacrifice nature gems to improve a unit's HP, and death gems to improve it's lifespan: 1 year/1 hp for 1 gem, increasing on the same scale as PD.

Just a thought.

[vfb]

I'd like it if insane commanders could be placed on 'Defend' when they recover their sanity, so the n key does not skip over ordinary commanders whose insanity made them research/preach the previous turn. An indicator on the F1 screen (maybe show orders in red) for insane commanders would also cut down on the micro.

[chrispedersen]

1. Ability for mercs to recruit. Issue a recruit order and gain a little strength back.
2. Ability for units/leaders to 'train' when they have nothing else to do.
3. Provide a small initial resource boost when you have extra points left over at the start of the game. For example 4pts = +100 gold +40 resources first turn.
8pts = 200 gold, +80 resources. Alternately, provide it as better starting units.
4. Provide more things to spend start points on.
5. Get rid of combat movies. Resolve combat and move on - I don't need to see it. Some sort of fast combat resolution.
6. Other buildings that can be built in a square. Think civ or other games where you have a building tree.

Best


Chris