META THREAD: Warlock Wishlist - Post ALL your Suggestions here...

[romakin]

I really enjoy playing the game, already finished it on Challenging difficulty in a huge world, and the main problem I have is with the UI...

1. Biggest problem - no "fortify" action. You can sentry, but if you place units on the border during peace time, you have to give them a command every single turn, and on a huge world that can take a long time.
2. Related to the first, there are not enough hotkeys to quickly give orders. There is one for guard "G", but it doesn't even switch to the next unit... I'd like to be able to quickly give keyboard commands, such as the "space" key in firaxis games.
3. Peaceful units (belonging to a player you are not at war with) should not wake up sentried units.
4. Diplomacy is very lacking. Players you are at peace with can enter your territory and prevent you from using some buildings, and you can not ask them to withdraw.
5. Peaceful play is impossible. AI keep demanding tribute (or declaring war, on both normal and challenging difficulties) and breaking treaties, regardless of how strong I am. I can be 10 times stronger than them and they'll still demand tribute and declare war if I refuse... It's very hard to finish the game in any way other than conqueror.
6. Back to UI - you can see how much mana/food/gold each city produces, which is helpful to decide on which cities to cast some spells, but finding the city is annoying in a big world. You should be able to click it in the list and go there quickly
7. Moving into fog of war - the movement continues if you discover an enemy unit, and you can't click something to stop the movement. This means I have to walk hex by hex when I walk into fog of war.
8. Balance - I can create "super units" by giving them all upgrades and magic upgrades, which can cost a little but the unit becomes unbeatable... That would be OK if the AI used those too, but it doesn't seem to (even when its stronger than me) and I end up winning the game by capturing its capital with 2-3 unbeatable units.

Thanks for listening, looking forward for the first patch! hope for UI usability fixes...

[syzygy23]

Just a reminder.... This thread is mainly for Suggestions aimed at the devs for possible inclusion in DLCs or patches.

While some leeway will be given to replying & questioning points and discussing things, anything more than a post or two on the same subject should be siphoned off into its own thread.

So where you think your reply may encourage a debate to start, please create a thread in the main Warlock forum and post a link to it here. And viceversa.

Thank You.

Ah.

In that case, I'd like to suggest a couple of playable races:

1. Eldritch Things. Sort of a mind flayer type race, I guess you could say. Their units and cities would be of a very Lovecraftian bent. Dagonian Fish People could handle aquatic/amphibious warfare, Insane Cultists would make up the brunt of your footsoldiers, with shoggoth and shambler type things being your Heavy Hitters and Tanks. I would imagine that their units would rely on mana and Food for upkeep mostly, and would have moderate to high HP but mediocre damage reduction/resistance. Instad, most, if not all units would have some sort of special ability that would apply some sort of debilitating debuff to enemy units in order to even the odds. Y'know, things like spreading cantagions, mutations, inducing madness and insanity, that sort of thing.

2. A Machine race. Some race of rogue magitech clockwork automatons I would imagine fitting the setting nicely, these guys would be all about the heavy artillery and thick defenses, but have little to naught in terms of mobility or inherent magic defenses (This could be circumvented by a support unit[s] that generate "Anti-elemental/life/death/spirit fields" that would negate these weaknesses to all units within an X hex radius) But as far as ranged superiority goes, accept no substitutes!

[GeneralGonzo]

Ah.

In that case, I'd like to suggest a couple of playable races:

1. Eldritch Things. Sort of a mind flayer type race, I guess you could say. Their units and cities would be of a very Lovecraftian bent. Dagonian Fish People could handle aquatic/amphibious warfare, Insane Cultists would make up the brunt of your footsoldiers, with shoggoth and shambler type things being your Heavy Hitters and Tanks. I would imagine that their units would rely on mana and Food for upkeep mostly, and would have moderate to high HP but mediocre damage reduction/resistance. Instad, most, if not all units would have some sort of special ability that would apply some sort of debilitating debuff to enemy units in order to even the odds. Y'know, things like spreading cantagions, mutations, inducing madness and insanity, that sort of thing.

2. A Machine race. Some race of rogue magitech clockwork automatons I would imagine fitting the setting nicely, these guys would be all about the heavy artillery and thick defenses, but have little to naught in terms of mobility or inherent magic defenses (This could be circumvented by a support unit[s] that generate "Anti-elemental/life/death/spirit fields" that would negate these weaknesses to all units within an X hex radius) But as far as ranged superiority goes, accept no substitutes!

Just for you to remember:
Warlock is set in the world of Ardania, known by the Majesty series. So additional races should fit into that setting and I haven´t heard of any machine race yet....

[ZhukoDim]

I would like to see another balance in the game. Do not want to see a very expensive and powerful units on the temples, etc.
Better they will be cheaper and lesspowerful , but will add diversity to the army and strategy.
The same thing with different warriors and improved versions of these warriors. Do not like the fact that improved anywhere. This is illogical. Maybe they do not need much stronger? I think it is better to add interesting abilities. Leadership, different auras? Archers have too little hp. A storm kills all. Option to add it to hp and weakness to melee attacks.

I would like to see in the future, four separate elements of damage, and magic.

Resources give the armor but not weapons. I would like to see more alternative structures. In the case of iron. The choice of the building gives armor or upgraded weapons. But not in% please. Thus, in different cities can produce units with different objectives. The same goes for the reverse situation. Silver makes the weapon, but makes it impossible to construct a building for the production of armor. I think it will be interesting.


It also perks to increase damage levels and resources much more work for units with a high damage. It is best to do both MoM and AoW. Not in% and +1-2, etc. in place of damage. It is more correct in my opinion.

Individual approach to the many monsters and their levels in the perk. Dragons do not have to wear armor, and many monsters as well. These are issues to balance. Of course,most waiting for multiplayer . The game can be perfect for me and for many fans of turn-based wargames. Thank you very much. And sorry for my english.

[syzygy23]

Just for you to remember:
Warlock is set in the world of Ardania, known by the Majesty series. So additional races should fit into that setting and I haven´t heard of any machine race yet....

Don't worry, the guys at Ino'Co have an ace up their sleeve for just such an occasion ever since they introduced those Alternate Worlds/Dimensions. They can just say they came to Ardania from a portal to the Robo-verse. If they don't like that, maybe they're a race of self-replicating automatons built by dwarves for cheap labor long ago, they rebelled, escaped, and now they're back as a sovereign power.

[Pax Empyrean]

Here's a really simple one: give units experience for casting healing spells on wounded allies. Currently they get no XP for doing this, while fighting units always get XP for doing their jobs, either by attacking or defending.

[Munkles]

Don't worry, the guys at Ino'Co have an ace up their sleeve for just such an occasion ever since they introduced those Alternate Worlds/Dimensions. They can just say they came to Ardania from a portal to the Robo-verse. If they don't like that, maybe they're a race of self-replicating automatons built by dwarves for cheap labor long ago, they rebelled, escaped, and now they're back as a sovereign power.

If Blizzard has ever taught us anything its that lore will always take a backseat to content a developer wishes to bring to the table. Now Ino'Co isnt Blizzard but the point stands that developers can always find creative ways to implement just about anything they desire.

[camelotcrusade]

It would be nice to see some general bullets about what changes when the difficulty increases. I assume things are changing like:

*frequency and power level of the units trained
*frequency and power level of spells researched
*selection of spells cast
*whether or not AI will cast (or even research) Unity
*tendency to offer peace or alliance
*general aggressiveness of AI
*quality of spoils of war (I'm thinking uber-units that I find early on)

So some clues as to what actually happens (vs. the cute descriptions we see now) when we select difficulty would be nice. Also, +1 to XP for units casting heal spells.

[sagji]

When you capture a city - the ability to destroy buildings you don't want.

If you can't turn on a building because you don't have the pre-requisite the tooltip should tell what you are missing - currently it only tells what the building you have enables.

Buildings that are disabled because you lack the pre-requisite to be highlighted on the map - so you can easily see what is missing.
Buildings that you need to build to enable a building you already have to be highlighted on the list of buildings - even if several intermediates are needed.

Spell icons and and the spell's perk icon to be similar. They mostly look completely different.

[Talq]

Ability to write notes on the map. Once I get to 15 cities remembering which ones are specialised to what, and which city can build what unit starts to become difficult. Would prefer to do it without renaming all my cities gold1, gold2 etc etc.

[syzygy23]

If Blizzard has ever taught us anything its that lore will always take a backseat to content a developer wishes to bring to the table. Now Ino'Co isnt Blizzard but the point stands that developers can always find creative ways to implement just about anything they desire.

Exactly, design focused around the Rule of Cool is the best kind.

[bificommander]

I would second the 'don't make me set my defensive units to defense every single turn'.
I would also second the expansion of the diplomacy side of the AI. Thus far only one AI ever talked to me for any other reason than to demand half my gold or mana while giving me no options except accept or declare war, where the blademaster from my perk would wreck another couple of their cities before the peace agreement. But I suppose 'make the AI strategically smart' is one of the harder fixes to do.
And if it hasn't been mentioned yet, there's an easier AI fix possible: Don't let the AI attack creatures it can't hurt, especially in melee. Hordes of mobs have killed themselves when I parked a unit of ghosts in their middle and the entire group died of my ghost retaliation while they were unable to even touch the ghosts.

[camelotcrusade]

More uses for iron mines. They are very common right now and all we can do with it is a foundry. Foundries are great, but you don't need more than one. Some ideas for iron mines...

*Iron Plating - Missile/melee defense bonus for ships and machines
*Iron Gates - Missile/melee defense bonus for towns and/or forts
*Iron Fortress - Enhanced tower that can only be built on an iron mine. Stronger version of a regular fort.

[Spyre2000]

More Bonus VS .... type perks. Right now the only one I recall ever seeing is the bonus vs City (Demolisher). It would be nice to see some others to perhaps make more of a counter strategy feel to things. Right now even with different damage types it hardly feels like much of move and counter move setup. The first few points of resistance are easy enough to get so most things, especially late game, have 50% resist all with maybe 1-2 at 75%+ and maybe an Immunity. Combine that with the fact that with the equipment and level up perks a unit can get and most units have 2-3 damage types or more. So it's mostly a mix of damages vs a mix of resist that breaks do more into a straight power vs power setup instead of a paper/rock/scissors setup.

[camelotcrusade]

I'd like to be able to tag spells as favorites, then click a filter that shows me only those spells.

[metatoaster]

1) I don't want to have to click on the button on the right hand side of the screen to go to the next spot on my "to do list". Similar to civ 5, it should automatically cycle to the next thing of the list. For example, at the start of my turn, it should automatically prompt me to choose my next spell to research. Then it should ask what buildings to build. And then it should cycle through the idle units.

I strongly disagree with this, since I dislike Civ's habit of forcing me to go to whichever next task it thinks I should be doing. Most of the time when Civ brings me to a city screen to build something I need to exit to check the situation nearby to make an informed decision, and boom, Civ understands that it should auto-scroll me to the next task. It's horribly disruptive. I found this game much more respectful of my in-game thought process.

Clicking the button in Warlock does get annoying, but having an easily accessible keyboard shortcut like the spacebar to manually go to the next task (as well as one to skip the task) would be much more flexible and useful.

[DancerMan]

I love the game, though it definitely could be improved with some tweaks and some tasty, tasty expansions. A few things I've noticed:

1) There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to explore the alternate dimensions-- or at least the benefits do not outweigh the huge costs, because the monsters simply breed and breed and breed and breed to the point where it becomes impractical to bash your way in there. There definitely should be some serious carrots to warrant all the sharp pointy sticks.
1a) The monsters breed like crazy if left unchecked. I imagine this is working as designed, but this does make certain areas impassable.
2) You should be able to direct your research more actively. At the moment, it seems the spells you are offered to research are more or less random. I loved Master of Magic's spell book mechanic, which directed and restricted the spells you were able to research. Furthermore, it meant that there were those glorious moments when you defeated an epic monster and were rewarded with a spell book, opening up a whole new field of magic.
3) Diplomacy feels quite stilted at the moment. As I've discovered, what tends to happen is the AI tries to extort mana or gold out of you until you inevitably declare war. It would be very nice if it were a little more sophisticated-- more options for cooperation or shivving each other under the table short of all-out war.
4) The religion game at the moment feels very stripped down. I went in expecting to play with religion significantly, but so far, have only ever been given one quest by my chosen god: build a temple. I can't afford any paladins-- and they seem to hate the death paladins which were my reward for building the temple (?!?!?!), so I'm not sure if that opens more avenues. A wider variety of quests for competing, petty gods, and being able to earn minor or major blessings-- being able to earn heavenly units to wreak death upon your enemies, but which return to their celestial palaces after a set number of turns elapse-- and if they die (or, perhaps in certain cases, if they dont' die), you lose favour with the god who provided them.
4a) Being able to build minor buildings for your deity which give you a small amount of favour. Quests from your god to destroy the minor/major temples of other Gods.
4b) More variety in quests in general, especially in the later game. I have found myself in a rut of 'build city' and 'capture city' quests. It feels a little boring.
5) A more obvious way to cancel the magic spell you are currently casting. I can't figure it out.
6) More races. Please.
7) For the humans, there is a way for a city to (more or less) infinitely specialise as a money-making or food-producing city through building more farms or markets. However, there is no way to further specialise as a mana-producer. This may be by design, but it feels like an oversight.
8) For the humans, some kind of upgrade building that branches from the rogues guild and the rangers guild like the smithy does from the warrior's guild.
9) Some kind of reflection that building and walking across lava fields is actually mighty dangerous. At the moment I can build lots of happy sheep farms on fields of streaming lava, which seems really odd.
10) A choice to pillage/raze a city upon capture, with some kind of benefit to doing so. I originally intended to play a humans-only crusader who destroyed the cities of each other race, but not only was there no benefit at all to doing so, but there were many reasons not to (most of all being the upgrades you get from the other races which work on your races super-units).
10a) Missions from gods to raze cities-- the life gods should want to destroy the undead, no?
11) Undead and monstrous Stubbord Knights, or removing the option to build them from that node.
11a) I howled with laughter when I discovered the 'casino' option. You bad, bad people.
12) Mages that can be customised with more perks and weaknesses both upfront and over the course of the game, and power that scales in a more linear way than just casting the +100% casting time spell later in the game.
13) More summoning spells.
14) Banishing spells--- or spells which send a unit (friendly or enemy) to a random compatible tile on another plane.

That's all I can think of for now. Keep up the good work! If this turns out to be anything like Magicka (which I loved), I look forward to heaps of exciting content in the future.

[ScottWAR]

Make the game moddable and this long list of suggestions would most likely be halfway finished..................................

[jdxhero]

Suggestion for Patch

In Game Creation Options:
1) Ability for no alternate Worlds - Reason why is cause AI does not seem to understand how to take advantage of this and ends up getting stalled fighting Earth Elementals instead of expanding.
2) Options to Turn on or off specific Quests:
Economic: Build Cities, Farms, Harbor, Craftsmen District (This is an issue with game balance especially if it were pvp)
Conquest: Take Neutral Cities, Great Mage Cities, and random strong creatures to kill.
Theological: Build Temples or kill fanatics (the random paladins or w/e) Only occurs when affection is 20+ (maybe 30?)
2a) Neutral Creature Spawns should not spawn in opponents territory to kill.
2b) Economic needs more variety or requires advanced buildings to be added after X amount of turns.
3) Customizations and map settings need to stay same after previous play. Annoying to remake over and over.
4) Customizations to name, race, and perks of selected Great Mage should be saveable so you can reuse again. I already have 3 favorite settings, but occasionally goof it up setting the perks or race.
5) In info select of size of world it should say how many holy sites there are. M/Normal have 2 apparently.
6) Victory Conditions Selection / Update
7) Add a King of the World Option. Basicly a scenario where you are vs only neutral cities and have to conquer the map.
8) Add Worlder Jumper Option. Basicly a scenario where everyone starts off in there own small world and meet in the alternate world and do battle and conquer all and so on.

In Game Issues:
1) The Other World - Question, why are there no Neutral Cities there. It would be nice if there were at least 1 Neutral City there. I wouldn't care if it belonged to the dragons or not. It would at least make going there more interesting.
2) While having a unit selected (your own Unit), have the ability to see the distance they can go and still attack. I swear its a gamble sometimes whether or not your unit can attack when they move to X position or not.
3) Above city where it shows what is building on main map, add either or both, what building is being built and turns to unit/building is built. Could have one below and one above or just have the picture of the unit with a number on it.
4) The Other World - I find most of them are better created than the world I start in. Random luck or is their a better map design for them?
5) Take out lava tiles, a few around a volcano would be ok, but when i have to cross 10 tiles of lava to get out to atk someone... please
6) Starting points of towns for AI and Player alike should never start off in a swamp or lava tile, makes it too easy to conquer or be conquered.
7) Emblems(exitable Window) of opponent Great Mages Icons with 2 small circles of pics, 1 of the spell they are trying to cast and 1 if you are at war/peace/ally
8) Counter Spell Fix. Unity Spell is counterable, which is fine, but this needs to be fixed like this. Counter spell should have its cost + 10% of the cost of the spell being Countered. Also I would like to know who counter spelled my spell. I want to get revenge.
9) Constructable Telepoints. If playing on the largest size map, it can be an issue of keeping all your units here or there.
10) Court Werewolves upgrading to Wolves of Helia. Its more like you are paying to nerf your own unit, but okay.
11) *Very Important* Fix War Diplomacy Max Gold Mana Bug. Upon meeting an opponent or just having peaceful relations, you can go to diplomacy window and declare war along with all their resources. Computer has no choice but to accept.

End Game Stats Please

Thank you, please contact if you would like more info on suggestions.

[marianojoey]

Ok, I just finished reading all the posts, and there are a LOT of interesting (and repeated) ideas... but what surprises me the most is how everybody talks about civ5 and MoM. I own both, and I really thought Warlock was a fresher MoM in a Civ 5 suit... but it isn't. This is Ardania, and we must think of Majesty when playing at it. And that's where my ideas go:

* In Majesty one and two, when we build a guild, we hire heroes. Except for the really OP (they should cost 6 perk points instead of 5) mega destroyers of the pre-order DLC, everything else are just armies. I like the way the combat is made, but I'd like to see more heroes, either because you "buy" them with perk points, or because you win them by doing really difficult and special quests.
* Again, following Majesty's path, lets see at the economy. When you get to build/conquer a lot of cities, you can specialize them in order to get gold, mana or food. I won't bitch about the different races and their strong points in the matter, but lets go to the other side. Most of the time, by the end of my campaign over the poor sods that draw the short straws when the game decided who to put in front of my armies, the map has one color (all over it, even in the Island setting): mine. No neutral cities, no other world access, no nothing, just my own banner. And then, I find that most of my cities, even with a market built in, are loosing gold (except for 2 or 3 that are sustaining the whole economy). That can't be right. If the frontiers of your cities are in contact, you should get a "trade" bonus (like in the civs games). This isn't just because it's there, but because you had it too in Majesty (I and II). You had a Marketplace in town, and several outposts everywhere around to send donkeys with goods to get better funds in the Market.
* When you heard "The Dwarves just joined your Kingdom, Your Majesty", you could build the überpowerfull Ballista Tower. But here, even if you have access to a dwarven settlement, you get squat (oh, yes, the ability to build dwarves is nice, but most of the time, I rather get the +10 gold AND weapon upgrade). The fact that you have access to dwaves in your kingdom (not in the city), should add the chance to upgrade the punny towers to ballista towers, and the city defenses too (which as of now, they suck big time). Oh, yeah, they are ok (barely) for most rats and bats, but when an elemental comes down bashing, you get flattened in 3 turns. Not to mention when upgraded/OP units appear outside your gate just because. City defenses should be dangerous for armies, and cities should be take down by several armies simultaneously (not just one troll with nice upgrades).
* There is a serious balance issue with the races. Clerics (and their "enhanced" forms) are useless. Trolls are OP (Old trolls don't even qualify for that definition, they just need a new term). Stubborn Knights NEED an upgraded form (they are ok against most enemies in the lower tiers, but against the upper tiers, they are as usefull as warriors, which is nothing). Ghosts are somehow OP, if you train/enhance them right. I had a ghost unit that by itself took 3 Monster cities in one Normal game.
* Overall, the early game is dominated by food and mana, but the ending game is dominated by gold, which means if you are playing humans, you suck up till the end (if you manage to get there). One way to balance this isn't just nerfing/pumping units, but by making the upgrades more expensive as more units have them (because you get to deplete the resources). Also, if the resources deplete after 1d6+4 units upgraded, having another source of the material makes sense, and makes us think carefully which unit gets which upgrade (and the units built in the city that has the resource don't get the upgrade for free).
* My personal favorite are the Undead, but I'd love to see another races or even units (how come the Monsters don't have gorgons or arpies???!!! They were SO common in Majesty I...). The Monsters are Ok as a secondary race, for the trolls, mostly, and for the food (for the special units, since there are none which consume mana instead of food).
* On that last point, and begining with the magic part of this post: add a spell of alchemy, to transform food/money/mana on another resource as needed.
* I know a lot of people already said this but: This is a game about magic and warlocks, and we can only throw 1 spell at a time (sometimes less), and we can't channel or powers through our troops... that must change.
* I get the idea about not needing "terraforming" spells in the city, since everytime we build a structure over hazarduous terrain, that piece of terrain becomes "normal plain" and even has a road, but it could be nice to transform the terrain around us (maybe lowering an unpassable mountain, or raising the sea floor to build something else there...).
* Following the last entries, let's talk about the magic itself. Jus for maintaing balance (I'm a big fan of it), but also making the game already more interesting, all NON-GLOBAL spells should have their casting time reduced to half what they have now, but also cost 50% MORE mana.
* Ah, also, there are lots of elemental damaging spells, a couple of death damaging ones, but there are no Life or Spirit damaging spells. That's a serious lack there, since undead are totally immune to Death, and you have really cheap ways to improve elemental resistance (armor upgrades and spells). Perhaps, the "Ghost Wolves" could change their damage to "spiritual", and ghosts too (which would make them the most dangerous creature out there, since no creature is resistant to spiritual and they are virtually untouchable).
* Speaking about immunities... I know this has been said, but... How come Fire Elementals suffer elemental damage??!! Seriously, I destroyed one with a fireball. Perhaps is too difficult to separate de different elements and have units more resistant to one or two, instead of just "elements", but hey, at least put their resistance in 100 (also, drop the Death Immunity to 50 or 75 resistance, there is no reason for them to be immune to death magic).
* Summons cost too little, both in casting and maintenance. That's the principal reason the other warlocks create a lot of ghost wolves and rats (the second is one of the most useless spells in the whole game). Rats are just annoying, specially by endgame.
* Which brings us to AI. The opponents only use lower tier units, usually depend a lot on towers (which are SERIOUSLY useless) and summons (as I said above). They never build dragons, nor summon elementals. They totally should.
* Yes, the diplomacy sucks. I really don't understand the way it works. If I just met one, and I have some gold/mana, they usually ask, for about half of what I have. When they propose non-agression pacts, or even alliances, they tend to ask for a lot less "tribute" and sometimes even offer trade (not that you can change what they offer, but still is nice to see I don't have to obliterate them just because). It's funny to see they declare war at me after I took 3 of their cities and I'm camping with the same 3 units that just destroyed them outside their capital. The AI should know when is overpowered and try to play "nice" long enough to regain strenght (I did it a couple of times, so I know it could work).
* I don't agree with the idea of having portals in the cities to travel around, since we have a super-teleport spell, but we need a "group teleport" spell for moving lots of units at once.
* About city management, since I touched that subject, I agree with all them out there that asked for a way to: demolish buildings (make it cost money and twice the time to build the next one), construct upgrades of buildings on the same spot (like instead of having a granary, a mill and I don't remember the other building, we use only one spot for that building, and for a bit of gold (and perhaps when the city reaches a predetermined level) we upgrade it to the next. Obviously, we do the same with the mana and money buildings. This way, when a city is conquered, you don't get to have "greyed" buildings since you won't loose the previous tiers, but all together.
* On this note: upgrades for buildings don't get to be constructed when the city grows, but whenever a city is iddle (not recruiting, either).
* Some military buildings can use the previous rule, but others (most of them, I recon) can't.
* The inteface ideas everyone's been giving are ok, they have my vote.

Ok, since it's already 2 AM and I have to work in the morning, I'm leaving. Please, excuse any errors I might have commited, but english isn't my birth tongue, and it's been a long week. If I get any more ideas or comments, I'll edit this here.