[Gandalf Parker]

I agree with KissBlade. Boron you surprise me. I thought you were one of the "mp blitz is the whole game" people. I apologize for that.

Boron said:
But because the game is so deep most players will focus on parts of the game only and develop certain specific stragies and specialise on some nations. This is okay of course .

I totally have no problem with that. I recommend people find their niche. As long as they dont declare that to define the game and start talking in hard "facts" about what is broken and absolutely must be fixed. Im old, and diplomatic in the way I word things. The closest to an absolute I will let myself get in this game is "in my opinion", or maybe "for the way I play" something seems less than useful. If something works, I dont declare it broken just because it doesnt work the way I want. (there are some map commands and command-line switches I consider broken though)

But in this specialization the problem is that potentially there is the rub:
After you have discovered a playstyle you love and "mastered" one or a few nations you might think that you have mastered dominions. But you are too focused on some nations/strats and this can then hamper you more than you think when you try to play other nations that need very different approachs.

Yeah I try to warn about that. Find the nation that matches your style and you will kick tail. But dont be surprised when you go into multiplayer games to discover that other people settled just as comfortably into nations you thought were weak.

This is imho the most important factor (in a no-diplomacy game) in a Dom MP game. The player who sums up the situation best during the whole game and then reacts accordingly usually wins. This is true for most strategy games, but in no pc-strategy game i know as hard to do as in Dominions, especially because the situation needs to be revaluated every turn and you have to try to be as open minded as possible.

Ive had mixed results with that. Some people have so memorized the formulas and perfected their strategies that they simply HATE surprises. And others start out with no strategy at all but a large toolbox of tactics based on what shows up. Of course, abit of both is probably best, but I admit that Im more tactics than strategy.

This makes Dominions so unique and great, but everything has it's pros and cons, so occasionally this deepness can also be frustrating or leads to the situation that you say nation XYZ sucks, but it sucks probably only with the approach with which you tried to play this nation.

THANK YOU
I admit that some things "break" MP blitz games abit. And Im not against fixing those if its possible as long as it doesnt improve that game by poisoning others. Im also all for settings and map commands that can help balance MP games. I know that some prefer to KNOW that their game was won by strategy and not luck so something to turn down or remove events, maybe heroes, and then create chessboard-balanced maps for those games. (that way it wont affect my playing)