OT - Dominions: Preists, Prophets & Pretenders

[Pocus]

As I'm a dominions I junkie, if you have any question about it, I will do my best to answer you.

some points which need clarifications (dominions I) :

- battles are very fine tunable, contrary to the affirmation of one of the forumer. Each leader can have a script, and each of the formation he commands can also have a script (hold and attack, fire at archers, attack the rear, etc.)

- it is true that there is few buildings in dominions, but frankly you are not playing civilization either. On the other hands you will get more than 500 different magical sites (which must be searched by a mage to be found on the map), more than 5 hundreds differents creatures, several hundreds spells, which are , believe me, more varied and combo-able than in AOW 2.

So wait some weeks for doms II, and grab the demo. If you are strategy gamers, there is a good chance that you will get hooked. I had shown the game so far to 12 friends or so. 11 bought the game or are still playing with the demo.

the Last one is a MMORPG junkie, so he is apart of others

[Nerfix]

Regarding Dominions II, i have a list of new and changed stuff in Dominions II:

-More spells, units and nations
-National themes:customise your nation!
-Unique Blood summons
-National overview:Less micromanagement
-Tax scales redesigned
-Bless effect dependant on pretender's starting magic
-Rainbow mages cheaper in desing points
-Resereach pool

...and now for the direct-market-terrorism:
Visit www.dominionsx.tk and Dominions X Boards
(the Boards are more stable now)

-Nerfix

[johan osterman]

Dom 2 is supposed to go to the print on monday, I have no idea how long it is between the printing of the CD's til it will be publicly available though. The manual still needs some tinkering as well.

[Alneyan]

Pocus, if you spoke about me concerning the battles being not controllable enough, you have either misread it or I wasn't clear enough, more likely the latter. The AI resolving the battles is very able and you can give it almost any instruction you want (save for a few ones, but that is due to gameplay balances), but I have to admit I love to play the battles myself. (That about the only thing I really enjoy in AOW, or rather, I would enjoy as I am not fond of the game) But contrary to what I wrote earlier, the lack of Tactical Combat is not what really matters for me, but the weakness of the Combat Replay. I would love to be able to actually see what is going on, like the Combat Replay for SE:IV. Is that going to be changed in Dominions 2? Thanks.

On the other hand, auto-combat in AOW is poorly managed, maybe that is what confused you Pocus? I don't imagine playing a game for a long while just to see the final battle resolved by a rather poor fast combat feature. (Unlike SE:IV once again where the AI is fine in Strategical Battles, except if you planned the worst strategy ever, but that is *your* fault. )

I am looking forward to play Dominions 2, even if the gameplay isn't exactly what I like, it is still far better than AOW for me.

[Nerfix]

There is no tactical combat for two simple reasons:
1)Up to 1.000 or even more untis to control. Doesn't sound so good to me.
2)Insta-Kill spells, Magic Duel and Soul Slay more specificaly. If we have tactical combat, we can aim spells and we can Sould Slay enemy commanders and make the actual 500+ units army to rout...
When i started playing Dominions, i thougt that the auto-combat sucked until i realised those issues...

[Alneyan]

The first point would be quite a problem, and your second point is why you cannot ask your Spellcasters to target a specific kind of units. ( Mages would also target Mages, leading in an artillery battle) There is also a third point, tactical combat would be impossible in PBEM against other players.

I admit I would rather see a working auto-combat feature without tactical combat instead of tactical combat but virtually no Fast Combat/Strategic Combat or other names. (Like in AOW for instance)

As I wrote in my earliest (below I believe) post, I would like to see improvements to the combat replay feature though. I have a lot of problems to see what is going on, but according to the screenshots, the representation of the battles has changed quite a lot.

Edited because of my silliness.

[ September 11, 2003, 17:27: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

[Nerfix]

BTW, looking at the screenshots, Dominions II looks like fantasy Version of Total War...

Quite bit of things have changed in Dominions II.
Micromanagement has been reduced, National Themes that allow you to customise your nation and Dominions effects...