Feature Requests Thread - Conquest of Elysium 3

This thread will function just like the bug rporting thread in the bug subforum, but this is the place to make feature requests. Note that the feature requests should be reasonable, more in the line of tweaks to the existing structure than redesigning it from the ground up (i.e. no initiative system for combat etc).

To start off with a few:

• --battlereports and --rename switches as checkboxes in game preferences
• Snake List: Add an overview menu to F3 that will show what squares you lost to enemies that turn, i.e. what they snaked from you. Right clicking on the listed item centers the map on it. This way the Messages menu doesn't get cluttered up with news of every lost farm and forest.
• Fortification icon for fortified structures (crenellated wall would be a good one)
• Show library and temple icons in the terrain info popup when mouse-overing the square (they show up in the recruitment menu if you own any)

Add your own, we'll hash out a shortlist later.

Here are a few that spring to mind:

• Tooltips - mousing over a unit in the army management or battle screen shows health and any buffs/status effects/wounds etc. 
• I don't like the crosses that cover up your selected units, maybe that should be done with different background colours for the units.
• With multiple commanders in the army management screen, a way to change to showing and selecting the troops for the different commanders without having to exit to the main map. Maybe the "next commander" key could work here to select the next commander in this location.
• Max/min/current zoom buttons - to get a quick overview of the whole map.
• Quit to main menu and Load game in the File menu.
• Speed the mouse wheel zoom up.

• Movement cost in terrain tooltip showing how many AP it would cost to move to an adjacent square. 
• Show the current Society you are playing with on the player summary screen. With a random Society selected I can't see which one I am actually playing anywhere.
• Option to turn off the red rectangular graphics in the background during the game.
• In the Recruit screen, right clicking the Recruit Location icons at the top of the window moves the map to that location. edit: it already does this lol

The shield shows a defensive bonus, eg. it also shows up on mountains and various things. I think he means something to show a structure that would fall under "siege" rules. Unless the citadel Crown icon covers this?

Edited by: profanicus

Make it optional, since I don't think moving and clearing Shroud/FoW should be undoable.

Change the terrain tile for hills to make them stand out against plains just a little more

A quit to menu button would be nice, right now you have to quit out of the game entirely. Also a load game button from the in game menu for the same reason.

Command line switch to indicate the directory for savegames and other writeable files (key, config and maps). This is so I can run it off of a USB key and have the savegames on the key instead on the hard drive (on Windows). I was able to accomplish this but I had to write a batch file and change an environment variable.

- an ability to customize keyboard shortcuts (the movement  keys 'qweasdzxc' do not make much sense for dworak or colemak users).

I agree on that. I played against the 5 AI (Baron), and always one of the AI is dead within turn 10.

The game always shows a small message, saying it´s my turn. I find it superfluous. It would be a necessity for hotseat, but for singleplayer or networked multiplayer I don´t see the point

Just a couple! THANK YOU for listening

- Make the green and white "X"s on the transfer troops grid smaller (so one can identify what troops are hidden behind them)
- Checkbox to disable keyboard unit movement (how often have I hit "a" by mistake sent my units off to doom...)
- Save / Load game interface: Easier, user-friendlier, standard-type with sortable options, e.g. sort by date, sort by name, sort by type, etc. (I KNOW that JK and JO have said it is a design choice to avoid "abuse", but I am still a paying customer and as one I claim that there is no real abuse in a single-player game)
- make terrain features more visible (mines, for example, look too much like standard mountains), perhaps even "flags" for unowned features (instead of colored background, a blinking white....)
- Nameable recruitable locations: All locations at which one can purchase recruitable units should be able to be named, e.g. instead of "city" or "guard tower", the player can click-select the tile and select "rename recruit location", and type in e.g. "Home Base" or "Necromantia" or "Southwest Tower" (so as to facilitate future purchases -- how often have I made purchases at the wrong castle...)
- AI should place units with "long" weapons in the second rank if there are 2 or more ranks of front-ranked units in an army (and not in the first rank)
- Opponent AI should give more weight to capturing undefended map resources, especially those it can use: The AI will often wander around, it appears aimlessly, often bypassing or even moving around totally undefended resources, instead of capturing them
- Unit descriptions (similarly to Dom2-3)!
- The description rollover of "strength" in the unit information screen is misleading - strength apparently also affects melee (and ranged?) damage (how much exactly?), but the rollover only mentions breaking out of bonds...
- There are surprisingly few spells in the game which give and surprisingly few units in the game which have resistance or vulnerability to damage type: pierce, slash, blunt. What a shame! Make armor types slightly more prevalent and give us a reason for caring whether a unit has a sword, a hammer, or a spear.
- Magic is wacky and random: Good! But spells with a range of 1-999 are actually less wacky, since most units in the game have less than a 0.1% chance of not insta-dying. Wouldn't 1-120 be more suitable?
- Units that "run away" in fear seem to be gone for good -- is that a feature or a bug? If a feature, then that seems suboptimal, since the spell is functionally equivalent to "kill: resistance negates" (instead of: fear: resistance negates). Make fearful troops show up next turn adjacent.
- Hotkeys: ctrl 1-9 assigns commanders or forts, 1-9 recalls them
- Pathing hints: I often cannot tell if my commander and her troops will be able to make it to a hex 2 spots away, sometimes after moving 1 turn I can, sometimes not, depending what troops the commander is commanding. Some form of visual clue (like tiny footprints on the neighboring hexes, or translucent coloring on neighboring hexes my commander can reach in that turn with the troops it has) would be great!
- Is it a feature that a lone stealthy assassin will automatically be attacked when an enemy enters its square? That seems bizarre.
- Upon game ending, a the ability to review the battlefield and perhaps check some stats before being kicked out of the game....

[\quote]
Nope, like profanicus said, that's just the defense bonus. It tells you nothing about whether siege weapons are usable in battles there. Places like cities, town, ports, magic libraries and guard towers allow the use of siege engines, which instantly changes the balance of power if one side has them and the other doesn't. Right now you need to know that.The crown icon only marks a citadel, but a citadel is not automatically a fortification. Some examples of non-fortification citadels are the Drui'd Hut, the Warlock's Magic Cave and the Barbarian Camp.
[\unquote]

I had no idea! How can you tell the difference currently?

Edited by: onomastikon

Just a couple as they come to mind...

-Would love it if on mouse over, the season at the top right also told you what year you were in.
- On map leader icons should also display unit experience like DOM3

Thanks much!
How do I use quotes here? My feeble attempt at using square brackets doesn't seem to work.

To comment on your helpful and good comments:
- I think that with a death wail of 1-100, most of your standard archers will be very lucky to survive (95% chance of insta-kill), and that is actually still a form of "chance", while a 99.9% chance of insta-kill (1-999) more like: well, why not just write "kills everything"? But it's only me I guess
- When ALL units in an army are stealthy, and when NO units with acute senses can detect them, then it seems to me as if the stealthy army should avoid engaging in combat, sort of Dominions-like. But of course if this is not the way the engine works, then c'est ca.

Edited by: onomastikon

I've had soulless survive 1d999 attacks and take only 1 point of damage, so it can happen. Most of the time the effect is instakill, which is as it should be, but there are the lucky (very) few who survive.