Wishlist for September

[Stossel]

Well, instead of just responding to what others have written I though I might post a wishlist of my own, since even not-even-mediocre players have hopes and dreams.

* Items that apply bonuses to units lead by the item-holder (someone already suggested this but I'm lending my support to it) and more spells that buff troops. Seems odd to me that given the choice to help 1 unit or many units, especially in dealing with warfare, the emphasis is on 1 unit.

* Attach a small or at least a possibility for a small gain in morale from buffing units. If my troops aren't feeling too good about a battle and then all of a sudden they're all granted ironskin, they're going to feel better about their chances.
* This one is big and barring some miracle won't happen but it is a wish: Attacking a province from different directions should reflect itself on the battlefield. So this way the attacker can attempt to flank, use pincer movement, etc. Doesn't make sense to me that I can attack from both the east and the west and still have all my units on the same side. Of course there would be checks on this, perhaps the defending units leadership ability is compared with that of the attackers and through some calculation if the defender wins, he gets to face his opponents normally (would provide an interesting side effect for crown of command and similar items)

*Receive a message month before merc contract is up giving a prompt asking if you want to keep them on. Accepting would bring you to the bid screen, declining would set the bid to 0.

* The option to disallow Gods on the Hall of Fame.

[Thufir]

FM_Surrigon said:
* The option to disallow Gods on the Hall of Fame.

I like this one!!!

In the same vein (though perhaps a nit), I'd like it if Orion never showed up on the Hall of Fame, would it be reasonable just to greatly reduce his xp in the next patch?

Edit
I don't actually mean that Orion literally never shows up, just that he works like any other merc, and didn't have that insane amount of xp that leaves him permanently pegged at the top of the HoF

[Cainehill]

FM_Surrigon said:
Just to weigh in on the madcastling bit.

I am/was the Vanheim player that attemped to raid Cainehills territories and the most frustrating thing about it was...I accomplished absolutely nothing.

To me, there's no strategy in that. He didn't adeptly shepherd my raiders into a corner and kill them by out-guessing where I was going to go, or strategically place his forces so that when I got my intelligence reports he'd have forced me into a certain province, he just stuck some buildings up and never had to worry about it. Madcastling to me is not good gameplay, it is the death of it. It is too easy to get this sort of thing going, especially combined with the fact that hardly anyone spends money on troops, so all that cash is available for building temples and castles.

Ahem. First - my castles were up before you started raiding. Currently something like 9 castles out of 21 provinces, on turn 41. Not exactly mad castling, but the castles did what they were supposed to - protect labs and temples.

Then - it's difficult to herd raiders on a map with an average of something like 6 neighbors per province, not counting the sailing neighbors which you, as Vanheim, made use of.

I attempted to predict where you would go - frankly, I never expected you to go driving inland away from the sea, as that gave up one of your big advantages.

And several times, I would have balked your progress, except for two things. #1, Caelum's PD is more of a hindrance than a help, since they fly right up and then rout, meaning that I had to get troops with each response force.

#2, on one or two occasions, I did predict your movement, and believe I would have broken your army, except that the fortifications worked against me: My forces moved to where you moved, and sat on their arses inside the walls. If there had not been a fort, or if there was a "Move and Patrol" / "Move and Attack" order, you'd've have been hurting.

It seemed to me from the feel of the game that buildings like temples, libraries and castles shouldn't be *every province* buildings. There's a reason Pan and Man's temples are half the price, because the developers wanted to encourage mass temples for those two nations. At this point in time, it doesn't look like the money is an issue anymore.

As stated - 9 out of 21 provinces is hardly an "every province" situation. If raiders didn't have the huge advantages they currently do, I wouldn't _need_ to build a fortification on every temple. As it was, if I had left a couple of temples unguarded, I would have lost them.

If I had built the cheap forts (mausoleum / watch tower) I might have lost a couple of them, as you would have been able to storm the turn after arriving. As it was, the wizard towers were perfect - and frankly, paying 120 design points seems a strategic investment in those forts.

Money not being an issue? Obviously you don't have an inkling of what my upkeep is like. If I build so much as a temple, that's recruiting I can't afford to do, much less a temple and tower.

And finally, you say you accomplished nothing? Wrong. You didn't accomplish as much as you wanted to, obviously, but you cost me a number of mages, and a fair amount of gold spent on PD (which was between 5 and 11 in every province, I believe).

More significantly, you totally disrupted my research and forging, as something like 2/3 or 3/4 of my mages were either patroling, or flying around trying to intercept you for half a dozen or more turns.

It didn't seem like nothing to me. And for this, I will crush Vanheim.

[Arryn]

Cainehill said:
It didn't seem like nothing to me. And for this, I will crush Vanheim.

Go get 'im! Spite is such a wonderful thing.

Oh, and be sure you build a tower in each of his provinces, just to demonstrate what "madcastling" actually looks like.

[Stossel]

Well Cainehill if that's not even close what what "madcastling" is, then I'm REALLY against it.

Though to be honest I'm really just bitter and at a loss at how to counter the type of units I went up against.

[Arryn]

FM_Surrigon said:
Though to be honest I'm really just bitter

It shows. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif[/img]

FM_Surrigon said:
and at a loss at how to counter the type of units I went up against.

There have been several threads over the past months regarding countering Caelum. I suggest doing a forum search on Caelum and (re)reading them. And also doing a search on Vanheim, so that you can play to its strengths. Vanheim is a strong nation and one of the better ones for countering Caelum.

[Cainehill]

FM_Surrigon said:
Well Cainehill if that's not even close what what "madcastling" is, then I'm REALLY against it.

Though to be honest I'm really just bitter and at a loss at how to counter the type of units I went up against.

That's part of what Dom2 is all about: going through phases where you're frustrated because you can't figure out anything to do against cavalry, then being frustrated because you can't deal with devils, then being frustrated because you can't deal with SCs - there's always a new frustration around the corner.

Frankly - you shouldn't have done as well as you did. Leading an army of troops that are all starving and half diseased isn't exactly a great strategy. Worse, you brought a bunch of non-stealthy troops, and you refused to abandon them, thus saving your Vanjarls and whatnot. (Note that your prophet got killed, not by my native troops and commanders, but by an army of mostly water trolls and ichythids, with a few mages mixed in.)

You could have brought (bought or forged) supply items, which would have allowed your troops to do much better. There's a number of other things that would have helped and been wise for you to do - but since I've no doubt this isn't over, I'm not going to tell you what you should do to have a fighting chance against me.

Well, except for one tip: Try not to start wars if you don't have a plan for how to win.

[Cainehill]

FM_Surrigon said:
Well Cainehill if that's not even close what what "madcastling" is, then I'm REALLY against it.

Though to be honest I'm really just bitter and at a loss at how to counter the type of units I went up against.

Oh - my apologies to everyone.

FM_Surrigon - if you wish to continue this, feel free to start a new thread. What we've done is a prime example of how to drag a thread further and further from its intended subject matter.

[Graeme Dice]

Cainehill said:
If there had not been a fort, or if there was a "Move and Patrol" / "Move and Attack" order, you'd've have been hurting.

There is actually. Have the army move into the province, then click on their order bar and change it to "Move and patrol."

[Endoperez]

Not perfect, but if someone has a suggestion please only post it in short format. If you have to explain it, try to do it in some other thread or link to a thread in which it was discussed. Also, if you post an idea that was mentioned between the Last and most recent update of this list, please also post a link to the thread it was mentioned on. Well, except if it the Bug thread...

18.9.04

-make bloodmages more willing to use their slaves than gem-using mages their gems Post#274072
-make the game show the Version network host is using
-summon XXX (unique summoning spells) should have chance of changing ownership of a unit when all of them are already summoned (thread)
-new dome that does not block spells but tells you from which province the spell originated, possibly would only work if the spell got through other domes
-shapechanging activated by thing other than death/command (thread)


-one-way shapechange activated when unit is made prophet
-artifact pretender granting artifact-status to the wielder or the ability to mod it (thread)
-new pretenders (thread)
-make "pool slaves" -command not take slaves from commanders making blood sacrifice or let them take their slaves straight from lab
-decay affects more units than seems appopriate by description, it should say that decay effects non-living creatures too
-rebalance vampire lords', wraith lords' and maybe Fallen Angels' abilities to summon allies (eg. by population death) (thread)
-warning when commander's orders are canceled (list of situations)
-more random casting/moving etc. order (for DomIII)
-mod command #stoneform making unit immune to petrification (Bug: Origenes is petrified when going from stone to stone)


Also, the guides and readme's seem to be unavailable/still in writing. Updated Modding Guide is high on the list, and readme-files should say which Version you need to update to the newest patch.