Newbie's first impressions

[Cainehill]

PCarroll said:
Anyhow, it was a pretty good game even with all the computer problems I had. And on our downstairs computer, the game runs perfectly. (Well, except for the time I was viewing a battle and had to switch to the desktop momentarily; when I returned, all the soldiers and commanders on the battlefield had turned to letters of the alphabet!)

Heh. To avoid that, never run Dominions in full screen mode; instead add "-w" to the command line / short cut, and then resize the window as large as you want it.

[Ed Kolis]

[quote]
PCarroll said:

(Well, except for the time I was viewing a battle and had to switch to the desktop momentarily; when I returned, all the soldiers and commanders on the battlefield had turned to letters of the alphabet!)

Ah yes, the legendary nethack mode

[Cainehill]

Ed Kolis said:
Ah yes, the legendary nethack mode

Bah! Angband / Moria mode, not Nethack!

[Ed Kolis]

I prefer angband as well; I just thought nethack would be a bit more recognizable

[quantum_mechani]

Ed Kolis said:
I prefer angband as well; I just thought nethack would be a bit more recognizable

Meh, Nethack is obviously superior. Or ADOM. Or anything that remembers levels and has a non-insane combat system.

[Zooko]

Illwinter recommended Dungeon Crawl on their web site one time, and I got hooked on it. I really prefer it to the others that I have briefly tried, because

a. It has balance.
b. It has a consistent world (not a myriad of independently developed levels, each one attempting to be sillier than the last).
c. It has a pleasurable skill system.

Also I've written several patches to Dungeon Crawl, mostly to re-invent the personality of the god Xom.

[PCarroll]

PCarroll said:
. . . I guess I've been away from board games for so many years that I'd forgotten how they're played; I've been spoiled by the blinking units and drag-and-drop features of modern computer games. . . .

Played a little more Dom2 last night, and it's growing on me. I'm now convinced that what I said above is true: I've been spoiled by computer games over the past decade or two. Dom2 is bringing back some of the old board-wargame feel that I didn't even know I was missing.

I remember when I first started playing wargames on the computer, I didn't like them. I didn't like the computer handling so many of the things I used to have to do manually, because it separated me too much from the "game engine" and tended to make playing the game a more mindless activity.

But then again, it always took way too long to set up a board wargame; I rarely had a opponent, so I ended up playing both sides against each other; and the process of playing was kind of slow and laborious. . . . So, pretty soon I decided computer games were OK after all.

Dom2 demands a little more from the player than many other computer games. There aren't many prompts; you're expected to know what you're doing. And now that I've played awhile, I'm finding that refreshing.

--Patrick

[Tals]

I love Dominions 2 - although I don't like playing it against the AI - go figure The network game (if you can persuade some poor mug (hands in air) to have there PC on the whole time is very nice and if not then the pbem option is also good. I'd recommend having a go at that to really see where this game rocks.

Tals

[Endoperez]

EDIT: missed page 3.

I also found Dungeon Crawl through Illwinter's recommendation. They also like ADOM. I enjoy both.

And Crawl has lately seen some development, both "independent" patches and "official" upgrading. The newest beta has added some interesting stuff, and reworked old stats, and you can play as a Giant Fighter (debugging option for new big characters, will be gone from future versions).

I would like to add that Crawl handles religions wonderfully. Character worshipping certain god has to follow its principles, so priest of the Shining One shouldn't backstab or poison, healer god Elyvelon's worshippers should never kill anything while praying, warrior gods prefer killing creatures in their name and accept their corpses as sacrifices (you need a sharp tool to buthcer them, but not an altar)... And you can worship the RNG: Xom! Demonspawn Chaos Knights of Xom are crazy fun, one of mine was dying, and got healed, was ambushed and got few devils to help him, found mace of protection and armor +1 and got to level 3 in first 3 rooms, when he was hungry and wanted to butcher a corpse a magical broad axe just appeared... And then he stepped into a Zot trap that appeared too early due to a bug in the beta, *kaboom!*, dead. If that's not The random-number generator, it comes very close.

[spirokeat]

It sounds like your getting the bug anyway !. I agree with what you said about being spoiled by modern games, many lack gameplay and concept and instead rely on trashy graphics and mouse acrobatics rather than genre gripping themes.

For me DOM2 holds a cherished place alongside games that I can honestly say fired my imagination. The diversity is astounding. I've had the game over a year now and had two significant play periods with a break inbetween. I play pretty much only against the AI (though I wouldnt mind a shot at MP) and usually only on Orania with about 7 nations. Yet i've still only really played Mictlan. I know Machaka would be interesting too, but the play style between them is so different I know I would need to refocus how I'm playing.

Even within a single empire there seems to be loads of ways of playing. Im currently in a devil and fallen angel mood. The last one was a lots of magic bless troops game. The one before, Vine Ogres, Dark vines and Crossbreeding with Vampires swooping around to slay any who entered my domain. I'm gonna give a using Horrors a shot soon too. It's just endless.

If you liked MoM, I'm sure you will like this. The lack of diplomacy is odd initially, but to be honest, once you got good an MoM, you knew it was a sham in that anyway.

I'm looking forward to Dom3. I'm hoping that the the few things that annoy me, which is vastly outweighed by what makes me smile will be lessened.

Spirokeat.