Hm. I might give it a try playing Dom3, but my worry here is that it might be
too boring for a 5 year old. He got interested while seeing an action packed battle replay, but playing Dom3 actually means spending very little time on replays (at least for me).
Wesnoth appears to be better suited at first glance, since each decision is immediately followed by a feedback: if you click on the knight to fight, the fight happens immediately and is even animated so that a child can understand what is happening. This is a problem with Dom3: I think he did not even understand that a battle replay is just a
replay, i.e. without interaction, that you cannot just play and "retry the level" by having a different battle setup, etc. Also, in Dom3 one plans several battles at once, and keeping all that is going on simultaneously in mind is hard enough for me already.
However, the drawback with Wesnoth is the unintuitive graphics: they are cute, but much harder to understand than those found in the battle replays of Dom3. In Wesnoth, every unit is drawn same size and you do not see a difference between an archer and a knight attacking. The animation is pretty much the same. If you cannot read, you do not understand the advantages and disadvantages of different units. In Dom3, you easily see that a Tarrasque is a huge mighty monster, how an archer shoots his arrows from a safe place in the far back, or that a mage's lightning bolt is pretty destructive force. It's not only impressive, but there is no reading required.
It is intuitive to understand in Dom3! So I guess I am looking for a game with Dom3-like Battle graphics, but with Wesnoth-like immediate turn based movements, and not simultaneous turns (which is why I love Dom3 for myself, incidentally).
From the screenshots,
Land of Legends, which I do not know, might fit the bill well, but apparently it is impossible to get hold of the game right now
(not listed in the Shrapnel Webshop and posts on the forum say it is not available).
CoE2 does not seem to fit what I am looking for either, for a child might have trouble understanding the crude graphics.
I am not worried about what he sees in Dom3 or what he might blubber about it elsewhere. I am worried that he is turned off because Dom3 is too complex and slow (or non-interactive) for him to play. I want him to understand the flavor of these games and why I find them interesting; I got one chance, and I want to have some chance of success.