Dom-III discussion at GalCiv

[alexti]

I've seen it in Dom2 few times too. Something surprising happens and your army faces totally unexpected opposition. Your scripts make no sense anymore, but AI switches the plan and score the victory using tactics you have not even thought about. Unforgettable feeling! Unfortunately it doesn't happen often

[Agrajag]

BigJMoney said:
I'm sure even the largely disappointing Radiant AI of Oblivion achieves this sometimes.

I'm sure that woman standing in the middle of the road and staring into a brick wall is up to some serious, tricky, intelligble trouble.

[BigJMoney]

Hells, yeah. While you sit there laughing at her, her partner in crime just picked your pocket.


...maybe.

=$=

[Frostmourne27]

What I know about the Oblivion AI development was that 'supposedly' they had to nerf it, otherwise all the A.I. controlled creatures were too unpredictable. i.e. if you left the goblin cave for late game, the goblins would have all move out, or attacked a town and been slaughtered by the rediculously overpowered guards that beat anything the touch
Too bad, since it could have been a great game, though it has a few other problems (compass too powerful, fedex quests, fast travel reduced imersion etc) It's still an okay game though, just not dominions quality. And the graphics are sweet.

[Fremen]

Well, I was reading the discussion over at the GalCiv2 forums, and it made me concerned that Dom III wouldn't be a good fit for me seeing as how I'm most likely to be playing it SP due to time constraints. I was going to pose this question here to get a feeling for what people thought about DOM III as a purely SP game.

However having read this thread here, I think I've answered my own question.

I'm currently playing GalCiv2 and I enjoy the game quite a lot. Have I found ways to thwart the AI there in an exploitive way? I think I have once or twice. But that hasn’t prevented me from enjoying the game; it’s human nature to figure these things out. It hasn’t broken the game for me.

So if the AI in DOM III isn’t perfect, I’m not worried. I think I’ll get my money’s worth, and from the comments here from people who have far more DOM experience than I do, I believe I’ll have a lot of fun along the way. I’ve only played the DOMII demo, and I love the flavor and balance so far. I have not found it overly complicated in any way, but I’m ravenous to get into some of its depths which is absent in so many other games.

Brad and the developers over at Stardock go out of their way to keep their game fresh and to keep their customers happy. However on that forum I find an unfortunately high percentage of people who seem incredibly unhappy no matter what support they get and seem unappreciative and demanding. I’m not in anyway labeling everyone that way, but there are times when I can’t help but wonder how moral isn’t impacted some days. So I take the DOM criticisms there with a grain of salt, and give kudos to the Stardock team.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im almost entirely a solo player. Most games I wear out in a month. Dominions is one of the few games that has lived for years on my machines.

I really have to get back into GalCiv

[JaydedOne]

Welcome!

I think you'll find yourself loving this game. For what it's worth, I never really figured out how to exploit the single-player AI. Oftentimes it would roll over me with little difficulty, but perhaps my skills are just that negligible. ;-)

But the depth of the game is incredible and I love the way the themes have little touches that you discover over the course of playing the game. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

[alexti]

Fremen said:
Well, I was reading the discussion over at the GalCiv2 forums, and it made me concerned that Dom III wouldn't be a good fit for me seeing as how I'm most likely to be playing it SP due to time constraints.

It may be worth mentioning that there're kind of 2 modes of MP in Dom2 (and, I expect, in Dom3). Regular games with 24/48 hour hosting that are played on massive scale and usually take months and blitz games that are usually done in one sitting (3-6 hours) and tend to concentrate in the early-to-mid game. If you get hooked on Dom3 you may [*have*] to find time for at least blitzes

[Daynarr]

Fremen said:
Well, I was reading the discussion over at the GalCiv2 forums, and it made me concerned that Dom III wouldn't be a good fit for me seeing as how I'm most likely to be playing it SP due to time constraints. I was going to pose this question here to get a feeling for what people thought about DOM III as a purely SP game.

Well, as beta tester I can say that Dom3 is much more SP oriented then Dom2 was. Changes for SP improvement range from GUI improvements that allow you to start SP games easy and fast. In Dom2 you needed to first make game, then leave to main menu so you can chose another option in order to play it. In Dom3 you just select 'create new game' and you can chose nations, make pretender, chose map (you can generate random maps of 3 different sizes from there as well), set game settings and start playing immediately. Basically you can setup and start playing game only with one option.

Another notable SP change is AI improvements where AI is less predictable then it used to be. Also, it will build castles, and it will build labs too so if you leave AI enough it will develop and start overwhelming you with forces of mostly national troops. Additional difficulty level is another change with levels mighty and insane now. For the reference, mighty level is now harder then insane was in Dom2. Insane is just that - insane.

Game also has additional tools that allow you to design and save random maps, battlefields, pretenders (you can have more then 1 for each nation now), and map editor that is much improved over Dom2 one. All this helps SP crowd to setup and enjoy this game.

Of course, all this doesn't mean that MP aspect of the game is neglected.

[PDF]

Even if there hasn't been a huge rewrite of the AI codewise between Dom2 and 3, it has been improved significantly (the AI build castles, doesn't take scales as destructive, builds better troops also), and the Dom3 setting is much more AI-friendly : more gold, more resources mean more conventional armies, that play a bigger role up to the mid-game. PD is also usually bigger and allows for a defensive boost in the early stages also.
In my few Dom3 test games I've had difficulties to just survive the 20 first turns vs "difficult" AIs when playing on a crowded map (Silent seas with 5-7 nations).
Very good so far