OT - Dominions: Preists, Prophets & Pretenders

[MythicalMino]

Has anyone ever heard of this game before? Has anyone ever tried it?

What are your thoughts on it?

It is a very complex (and I hear, deep) tbs fantasy game....I have the demo....tough to figure out though....thnking of buying the full Version of the sequal....

[Alneyan]

Are you a Psychics by chance? I planned on making a subject on that very subject just a few hours ago.

So, here is my thoughs on this game: an impressive spell list, a very interesting aspect of having a Pretender to the status of God, Pretender who has special abilities on its own, but there are a few things which bothers me.

1) Virtually no building to... erh... build. There are only forts, temples and special buildings you can come across in some provinces. This aspect is truly missing when you have played SE:IV just before.

2) The combats are automatically resolved, which isn't really a problem if there was more decisions to make with regards to building. (Like in SE:IV) I find the game to become almost boring as there is little variety in the game after that. These would be my main complains about Dominions, which is really enjoyable if these two aspects aren't an annoyance for you. (And if you can cope with very outdated graphisms that is)

Just my two mineral cents worth.

[MythicalMino]

I agree with both points....but as for graphics...the next installment (Dominions II) looks really good....the battlefields are colorful...and the strat map looks real good too.

It is hard for me to get used to the game though becuase you don't build any buildings....plus, the immensity of the whole game....I just recently bought Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, and even though that is a good game....I can only stand a few turns, then the game gets boring for me...but Dominions keeps calling me back...

If only they would add buildings to build...but then again, maybe that would change the gameplay....it does seem that the ppl that have the game and play it says that there is tons of deep strategy in it...

I don't know....I think I could like the game if i gave it a chance though....

oh, yeah...the combat reminds me so much of Legions (i think that is the game)....but i guess this game probably came out before that one, so Legion should remind me of Dominions...

[ September 09, 2003, 18:05: Message edited by: cpbeller ]

[PvK]

Is there a sequel??

I got hooked on the demo and bought the game right away. I think it's outstanding, and well-suited to my tastes. I particularly like that each soldier is tracked for experience and Lasting injuries, and that the combat system is realistically deadly and fair, and not based on the abominable D&D-esque patterns of most fantasy computer games (where experienced characters take 500 times as many blows to kill as a regular soldier).

The spells are quite varied and imaginitive, as are the different magical and non-magical units. Combat is automated but the tactics of arranging units into Groups with different positions and orders is quite good, I think.

I don't really wish there were much more to build. I think it's quite appropriate that a wizard leader would not find many RTS-esque "buildings" to construct in a medieval world, although more castle options would be good.

I don't have very many quibbles, though. The AI has remained quite difficult to overcome (at least not without a lot of tough fights). Tons of stuff to discover. Massive battles. Great magic widgets and varied strategies and techniques to play with.

PvK

[MythicalMino]

pvk you bring up the things i do like about the game so far....the thing i thought was missing from AoW:SM, was it had small battles....relative to what I wanted...i want to see massive armies colliding...not 24 soldiers vs 24 soldiers....

And like i said, perhaps adding buildings to build would change the gameplay too much....

As for checking out the sequel, here is the link that has some info and screenshots:

http://www.freewebz.com/sunraybe/

oh, forgot, i read an AAR for this game...and it does appear to be very dynamic, ever-changing during the game....

sounds real good....now really debating on buying it Thursday, or just waiting for the sequel

[ September 09, 2003, 18:19: Message edited by: cpbeller ]

[Alneyan]

PvK, it is obviously a matter of taste, I know I would enjoy the game better if there was more options related to building the Dominion. The game has great strategical depth, granted, but I admit there is something lacking in Dominions for me.

I will check the sequel though, more for changes as for the gameplay rather than the improvments made to the graphisms. (This aspect might make Dominions more appealling to the average gamer, as Dominions is a niche game like SE:IV or even worse.)

I tried Age of Wonders 2 (Wizard Throne) and the sequel Shadow Magic, but I didn't really enjoy these games. They are beautiful and the music isn't bad either, but these aspects are the only things I like in AOW. I would rather watch at AOW for a little while than actually playing the game.

I'm not sure what I dislike in AOW though. The lack of very important battles? The issues with PBEM, as tactical combat is much more important in this series than in SE:IV for instance? (No option for the automatic combat for instance, so the battles are only resolved by pure figures) Or perhaps the fact that there are races with only one or two really useful units?

Edit: by "I would like to see more building choices", I am not speaking of a hundred of buildings available. Instead, I would rather see a few different Temples available for instance, and Fort upgrades like you said PvK, or something around these lines.

[ September 09, 2003, 18:41: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

[PvK]

Actually there are quite a few rather neat local "facilities", but instead of building them, you have to find them. It's harder than in looks (or maybe I need to study the rules a bit more, but), often magical sites don't get found by one character, but will be found by another, and it's a trade-off whether to send various characters to various locations looking for magic sites or not. You can also develop "infrastructure" with magic and units, by building up different kinds of magical armies that don't need food, or food-creation devices, or by building magic items which create magical resources constantly, or spells which do the same thing.

Edit: There are also ritual spells which create infrastructure like magic forges or various other improvements for your dominion, and items like magic forging hammers which help produce magic items, etc etc etc... tons of stuff to develop.

I too played AOW a bit, but wasn't particularly impressed or hooked. It's ok, but the AI seemed like a pushover unless it had a big head start, the armies were small, the characters were the D&D-esque super-hierarchical levels of toughness (bleh), research was unvaried and resources and research were too linearly additive. Too many gamey rehash elements. Dominions is at least a hundred times more appealing to my own tastes.

Are there any other sites about the sequel, or a way to fix that link? It wasn't working for me.

PvK

[ September 11, 2003, 04:56: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Alneyan]

Yes, the basic principe behind these sites is that a few are automatically discovered (very few though) while most of them need a character having one or two books in a given school of Magic. Some other sites requires no less than three or even four books, making them much harder to discover. The frequency of these sites can be changed at the beginning of the game. It is a very good idea IMO.

I didn't know about the spells and items you mentioned in your post. I guess I will have to play again Dominions, this game is so rich that it is very hard to know everything. I wish I could buy the full Version, even if the demo offers more content than any other demo in history or so. If anyone is interested by a summary of Dominions, I could cut and paste one I wrote on another forum a few months ago.

As for AOW, the aspect of the game is much better than its gameplay, which is quite annoying obviously. I love to watch AOW or to listen to the musics, but when it comes to actually playing the game... I could not find the interest of this game in PBEM, but maybe that's just me. (While Dominions has been designed with PBEM in mind)

PvK, strange that the link isn't working. Here is the link to the Progress Page: http://www.illwinter.com/dom2progress.html (The beginning of the page isn't in English though, but the history is)
And a few screenshots: http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/dom2preview.html

These links are from the official site so they *should* be working fine.

[johan osterman]

Hello I am semi involved in the development of dom 2. Dom 2 will be published by shrapnelgames, in a matter of weeks if everything works out. The gameplay will be very similar, but with more polished user interace graphics etc, there will also be several new features. But if you did not like the gameplay in dom chances are you will not like it in dom 2 either. There will for example not be more buildings to build. Nor will the control of the tactical battles be significantly changed. If you liked dom 1 on the other hand, chances are you will like dom 2 even better, just dont expect a whole new sort of gameplay.

[MythicalMino]

Johan, this is probably one of the best things to happen to you guys, getting Shrapnel to publish it....I have dealt with Shrapnel in buying Space Empires 4 Gold, and I had no problem with them....perhaps you can get an official forum here too?

Dominions is possibly one of my favorite games ever, and I don't even have the full Version yet...just bought it (I emailed you about it, at least I think it was you that answered)...

Age of Wonders Shadow Magic was a good "concept"...but gameplay just was not interesting to me....it really lacked something...but, with Dominions....all I can say is wow...incredible gameplay....