Wishlist for 1.3 (and beyond)

I would like to see a complete overhaul of the UI to make it more intuitive, informative, customizable, and mod-able.

I heartily endorse Kapeman's wish list and would also like to see melee fighters placed first on the combat screen ahead of ranged attackers. That would also greatly improve the game.

This is a small wish, but with enough battles this issue can get annoying.  I would like to wish for setting formations (similar to Gaston_DAoust's wish) because I want my most heavily armoured (defense wise) troops in the front, which are usually my champions, instead of having to rearrange every battle.

i would really like some more of the spells to be put (back?) in. as essential as all the other stuff is, i'm starting to get bored seeing all the same stuff over and over again. what happened to the fire giants and elementals i could summon? i can't seem to find them anymore. in my last game i actually managed to research every spell in the game i wanted by the midgame, using only the research from my arcane temple (ie, no scholar buildings). some more quests would help too.

4 man minimum unit size cannot come quick enough though.

This is probably more of a 1.5 thing but I would like to see:

-AI using ships

-Trade Ships and sea trade routes

-Fish, can only be harvested/buiilt near a city with a harbour

-Sea combat, Tactical combat between armies when ships meet.

-Sea lanes, like trade roads on ocean that allow units to move over water without building boats.

-Pirates and merfolk or something that can attack boats.

@Dsraider, i would really love to see the maritime side of the game get some love, but there's so much cool stuff that can be done there (as you mentioned) that i think it's better left to an expansion, and done altogether (and really well), rather than  in drips and drabs in patches. too many unbalanced, unintegrated mechanics in the game already.

1. During the set up of the game the sbility to control the frequency of creature spawning as well as the maximum level for spawned creatures.

2. More magic item variety in loot.

3. The ability to craft magic items.

4. More spells.

5. The ability to combine individual and/or small units into larger units. (that should require both cost and training time.)

on a related note, how difficult would it be to add a "Craft" button to the merchant screen, that allows you to buy things for your sovereigns using resources instead of gold? it would then be very simple to add magic item crafting recipes to the store - these would essentially be items you could only buy with resources (including midnight stones or whatever).

just seems like an elegant way to do it.

I don't think any of the things I discussed would be to hard too implement. From a coding perspective there is nothing really new. Models and tactical battleground would take a little work. Hardest part would be the AI probably.

Agree with OPs list and most of the above, including ability to craft magic items and desire for more spells.

My own requests / complaints are:

1:  In most of my campaigns on max-sized maps, I end up running out of spells to research, especially if I don't have all 4 starting elemental books.  Either add more level 6++ spells, or some refined spellcasting that increases the effect of some spells, similar to what intelligence does.  Or both.

1a:  Maybe also let those who don't start with th 4 elemental magic books research them later.

2:  Re shop interface improvements:  I'd like the ability to cycle thru units in a stack without leaving the shop.  And of course ability to filter the items it offers to sell me.  Only high-level items, only armor, only rings, etc. 

2a:  I wouldn't mind some items in the shop to enhance archery and magic resistance.

3:  How about cutting down on the near-duplicate items?  Healing potions & salted pork both give the same benefit for the same price -- why not have one give more benefit for a higher price?  Or maybe make one give a random boost or a percent of the user's hit points instead of a fixed benefit.

4:  Why have 2 multiple mounts that differ only in color?  How about more expensive mounts that are faster, or give extra attack because they kick & bite?

5:  Nuke Solon the Gladiator.  His special ability applies only to sovies.  He doesn't get it.

6:  Give us a way to speed up movement / animations in tactical combat.

7:  In tactical combat, make sure the resulting damage is reflected on the target's unit tab immediately.  It used to be like that, but now it usually doesn't show until the next thing happens.

8:  Fix autoresolve to use special abilities and understand that it takes time for melee troops to get in range of archers. Currently it seriously undervalues special abiltities like "crushing blow", archery (especially mobile mounted archers) and any non-retaliate attack like Xander's (from the book extra content) feint ability.  This may be a hard one to program, but it is my most important request.  I've seen threads complaining about boring tactical combat, and I think the best way to make tactical combat less boring is to make autoresolve work well enough so we won't need to fight so many battles ourselves.

1. Get rid of the store altogether. It does't make sense that I'm going to this store to buy uber equipment. I'm the damned King. Where did they get it from? I had to research it now they're selling it to me? Doesn't make sense. Items should be something you create with metal / magic crystals. Equipment for heroes should suffer the same restrictions as equipment for troops.

2. Get rid of "Adventure" tech tree. Adventuring is not something you research, it's something you *do*. Explorable dungeons were axed from the game because they 'distract from the game play'. That's right, can't be out exploring dungeons when there's adventure to research. The game should be about going out and doing things in the world, not building hundreds of studies and madly rushing down the tech tree. Unfortunately that's the meat of the game.

3. Balance magic tech so that it's a viable alternative to military tech, or at least somewhat competitive. This might involve recruiting units with magical abilities, or allowing enough early enchantments that you can buff your troops (magic arrows, flaming weapons, etc), or temporarily imbuing units to gain some limitied form of spell casting, it's war of magic but there's not a lot of magic being used. Even for a hero it's more effective to get a big sword and go around whacking things than it is to cast spells. Worse yet you can do both on the same character without any sacrifice.

Strategic AI + Tactical AI.

Nothing else matters until the AI can actually attack and threaten the player.

For my strategic skill the strategic AI is....hmm...ok. But that means nothing, if i can win every battle, because its quite impossible not to exploit the tactical battles/ai.

Overall... i would really like to see an overhaul for tactical battles. They are so boring and the biggest cooldown for me.

(sry for my bad english)

 Not only that, but I hate the store for being so fiddly. I'll have a group of champs in armor and then research a better armor, but rather than visit the store and upgrade them all then have to sell the obsolete pieces, I'll think, maybe I'll just wait until the next armor advancement so I don't have to go through that whole process again. Maybe I'm just lazy?

I would like the Sovereign and the Spouse to be a different colour square on the left hand side pane.

Currently all units are red squares and buildings blue squares (or is it the other way round?).  Anyhow, I think the Soveriegn should be say green and the Spouse yellow.  All heroes should be purple or make the colours user definable.  This way I can tell where my heroes and Sovereign are at a glance.

What I've tried to do to make the game harder is only to use family members for offense. Once I get Legendary plate is it (The armor from the magic line) I'm pretty much invincible. I find it odd that it costs Elementium for regular troops but a big bag of cash works for royalty (might want to add resource costs for heroes too).

If you notice Brad never has the AI gear normal units or champions with top tier armor. So basically what this means is that if you survive until end-game magic armor and weapons it's game over for the AI. It's probably a balance issue across AI difficulty levels (would devastate novice players) or the current attack/defense numbers would make endgame battles extremely boring slugfests (blockedx20 with an intermittent damage thrown in). Just something I've noticed from constant playing/testing.

And recipes/crafting materials could be goodie hut loot.