Yeah, Dominions is a game ripefor reducing micro introducing some smart automation done through UI. If you think about it, half of the time playing a turn in Dominions is wasted doing repetitive actions, like ferrying troops from capital to the front, or putting every unit in their place (commanders/mages/archers in the back, pikemen on the front, selecting the correct spell script for each mage), equipping research items to mages, etc etc. I wish there was a ‘default starting battle location’ for each type of unit a nation can recruit, and ‘default spell script’ for mages.
Sometimes I think a more radical approach to Pretender design would be good. Selecting a pretender body, what magical paths, what bless, etc before starting the game is too much for non-veterans. What would happen if you just select the nation, and if it’s awake/dormant/imprisoned, and in turns 5/10/15 you pick bit a bit the rest? It also would allow to pick some magical paths or blesses as informed decisions, once you see you have a UW nation as neighbor, or stuff like that.
Just going to note that some of these already exist (or are being integrated into dom5).
There’s an option in dom4 in-game preferences to “automatically assign” commands - which mostly means that mages are recruited set to “research.”
There’s also the “n” hotkey, which goes to the “next commander without orders,” and has existed since dom3 at least.
Likewise, ctrl-clicking makes it possible to mass assign certain orders.
Some commands can be automated in dom4: Ctrl-O (for monthly forging of an item) and Ctrl-M (for monthly ritual casting - used for summons and sitesearch spells).
Setting up battle formations will be easier in dom5. Still a lot of room for improvement, but its a couple steps in the right direction.
APPARENTLY base recruitment points for a province are 10 +:
1 per 100 population up to 5k pop
1 per 200 population up to 10k pop
1 per 400 population thereafter
Then you apply fort and Order modifiers (multiplicatively)
o a fortless capital province with neutral scales should have 135 points.
Some rituals are ‘limited’ and can only be cast once/month per target province. Examples include: Breath of the Desert & Wolven Winter, Murdering Winter, Baleful Star, Rain of Toads.
To be clear, spells such as Hurricane can be cast multiple times at once at a single province.
New Celtic pretender. poison/disease resist 15/100%, full healer 1, 1d6 sacred hounds, “Sirona”
edit
Flag highlight when selecting group of commanders, showing to what provinces are possible to move (no need to click and see what provinces are allowed).
Yeah I knew all of that when I was still playing (although it’d been long enough I couldn’t remember what was and wasn’t there besides monthly forging/cast). It’s still quite a hassle though since if I recall right you couldn’t really mass select easily, and even still your interface is mostly menus of menus. It’s not Dwarf Fortress/Aurora bad but it’s still in that realm when looking at number of options mixed with unintuitive displays.
And to be fair i’m super glad to hear any progress being made on that front. UI always sucks like hell and I can’t imagine it’s any easier in Dominions.
Hell everything already sounds great in Dom V to me, but I don’t think it’s suddenly going to pick up much more casual appeal. Individual unit logs for example are a godsend, but also something that most people only even started caring about once they were over the initial hump.
Another UI improvement:
Holding TAB in the army setup screen will show a series of hearts on top of the head of the units with afflictions, to quickly determine what units from your army are not at 100% condition.
-Banishment doesn’t affect demons anymore, only undead.
I’m looking forward to the new edition. Real time combat makes so much sense in this game. Makes watching the battles more interesting as all spellcasters cast spells at the same time. The blessing system seems so much more fun.
I’ve always enjoyed the idea of assasins in Dominions, but never got them going for me. Part of the reason is cuz, a mage is often better. Now, you can, if I understand it correctly, reqruit 3 of them a round in a citadel, or 1 mage and 1 assasin. Go go!
Another thing I like, is that with the new reqruitment points, is that it seems like the capitol would have a bigger impact compared to previous? That the capitol would be in a larger time your main reqruitment center? I’m I correct?
A few question…
On blesses…
If I take nature 6 and earth 4, I unluck the blesses and can spend 6 points on nature and 4 in earth?
Which of the weapon blesses works on archery?
Heh, Michigan. I suppose that was Mictlan but it was autocorrected by your smartphone. Nothing for them, I fear. Except the changes in Blood and the new blesses will affect them.
For the rest, you are right on point: the capital will be the biggest recruitment point, unless until you upgrade another fort, and yeah, blesses should work like that, it will give you 6 point for Nature blesses and 4 for Earth.
The is a new game option (should I say victory condition?) called Cataclysm. After x turns, an even starts and horrors appear and start eating Thrones of Ascension, until someone wins or all thrones are destroyed.
This is potentially good idea. Though by their very nature, some nations are more turtle-y than others, so this may take some tuning or community feedback on optimal game settings.
The lion pelt seems like a cool item. But what’s the main use of it?
15 in protection for -1 defence and 1 encumbrance is not bad, but it’s not great either. It is cheap though.
It being an armor slot which gives you both protection for both head and body is neat though.
EA Machaka has a 20% discount on it. Though I’m not sure if you are supposed to round up or down in these cases? it costs 3 N gems and 2 E gems, with the discount it will be 2 N gems and 1 E gem? That’s basically nothing, so at least it some protection against arrows for your mages.
If rounded down that IS dirt cheap, and it gives some protection. Just a bit currious, as many regular none-magical armor seems better.
On another note, I like the new stats layout. It gives information that was atleast harder to spot previously. For example leadership was previusly one stats and you could see the different types if you clicked on leadership. Now all three are on the main stats. Also size, XP and age is printed. Don’t know if I saw that previously.
