I dunno, guys...

[Fyron]

Don't worry, they will be back once SE5 comes out...

The game has some really poor design decisions that make it not much fun to me... stuff like missile combat being poorly implemented (you mean my archers can't figure out how to aim at that single giant, and instead will pelt the ground for 100s of yards around him with arrows for no good reason?), a good chance of your units breaking morale and running away when they are handily winning the battle, the lack of empire-wide management, the lack of meaningful infrastructure development, etc. Not to the mention the lack of customization options during gameplay... The game just doesn't seem very polished... Sure, it has a ton of spells and items and whatnot, but the gameplay is lacking... It is certainly not as bad as Dominions I was though... Maybe Dominions III will be a good game.

[PvK]

I've been playing Dominions I and II for over a year (bought both), and am still loving them. Of course, it hasn't prevented me from continuing to play (and mod) SE4.

They are similar and different, and Fryon demonstrates that not every SE4 fan will love Dominions. Personally, I find it easier to say mean things about SE4 than D2, but I think both are great.

My one main gripe with D2 was the one Fryon mentioned first. They seem to have implemented pretty close to my suggestion for how to fix that issue, in a patch I assume Fryon hasn't tried. Friendly fire and wild missile dispersion is now much more under control than it was.

I like the morale system, and think it works well except for the case where someone tries to use only super-fighters with weak troops that get wiped out.

I also quite like the "infrastructure" system and find it interesting.

Fryon's "lack of customization" comment is only true if you expect the same kind of customization as in SE4. Personally, I find the "customization" in Dominions II quite rich and interesting. Certainly the characters in D2 can become at least as unique and interesting and storied as the ships in SE4.

Saying D2 isn't a good game is just Fryon's typical trademarked "egocentric truth" mode of expression. Of course everyone can dislike certain elements of a game, or the whole thing, but to say it's not a good game is trolling. Heaps of us have been enjoying the heck out of it. For every game, some people love it and some hate it. Both of these games have been loved by many. Give the demo a shot and see if you like it or not.

PvK

[Fyron]

PvK said:
My one main gripe with D2 was the one Fryon mentioned first. They seem to have implemented pretty close to my suggestion for how to fix that issue, in a patch I assume Fryon hasn't tried. Friendly fire and wild missile dispersion is now much more under control than it was.

That is good to hear. Of course, never having purchased the game, I am not privvy to patches...

I like the morale system, and think it works well except for the case where someone tries to use only super-fighters with weak troops that get wiped out.

All I am saying is that the extremes need smoothing out... too often my troops would begin to flee and run to different territories after having routed the enemy... When you have won or are about to win, half of your troops should never begin to flee.

Fryon's "lack of customization" comment is only true if you expect the same kind of customization as in SE4. Personally, I find the "customization" in Dominions II quite rich and interesting. Certainly the characters in D2 can become at least as unique and interesting and storied as the ships in SE4.

I was refering to the lack of ability to choose what your troops have... Who is to say that I can't train troops with slightly less than optimal equipment to save time and money? Why does every soldier have to have the exactly specified equipment? Why can't I give a particular soldier better equipment if I can afford it? Sure, I can train overall inferior or superior troops, but the grades come in big chunks (in terms of abilities), without any option to go into the middle ground...

Saying D2 isn't a good game is just Fryon's typical trademarked "egocentric truth" mode of expression. Of course everyone can dislike certain elements of a game, or the whole thing...

Slick asked for the opinions of others on the game, I posted mine. Due to the nature of this medium of communication, it should be assumed that pretty much anything posted is an opinion. Thus, it is pointless and a waste of time to type "in my opinion" in every sentence... There is no "egocentric truth" present. There is no assumption that because something is true for me, it is true for others... There is merely the expression of my opinion of the game. Are you saying that a positive assessment is not an "egocentric truth," but a negative one is?

...but to say it's not a good game is trolling.

Saying that it is not a good game for various valid reasons is not trolling in any way. Trolling would be posting something like, "Dominions 2 sucks." And that is it. "It is not a good game" is the same statement as "I do not like it." Why else would you not like a game than you believe it is not a good game? Other people enjoy the game and would say that it is a good game. This does not mean I have to lie and say it is a good game when I certainly do not think that it is. It would be entirely pointless to have a discussion forum if nobody ever posted a contrary opinion... Posting a negative assessment is not trolling by any measure of the word.

[Slick]

Imperator Fyron said:
...Of course, never having purchased the game, I am not privvy to patches...

It amazes me how you could have such a negative opinion of a game that you never purchased - and that you didn't mention that in your response. That fact certainly is important to me. My fault, I guess I didn't ask for opinions from people who owned the game. But thanks for the opinion anyway. From what I have played so far, the jury is still out. Looks to me like there is a lot of the game I have yet to experience. I'll give the demo a fair shot, even if that means a steep learning curve.

Slick.

[Fyron]

Slick said:
It amazes me how you could have such a negative opinion of a game that you never purchased - and that you didn't mention that in your response. That fact certainly is important to me. My fault, I guess I didn't ask for opinions from people who owned the game. But thanks for the opinion anyway. From what I have played so far, the jury is still out. Looks to me like there is a lot of the game I have yet to experience. I'll give the demo a fair shot, even if that means a steep learning curve.

Well I would only have purchased it if I had a positive impression from the demo... While not having the full game precludes one from experiencing everything, the demo is good enough to get a grasp on the fundamentals of the game.

[deccan]

Imperator Fyron said:
I was refering to the lack of ability to choose what your troops have... Who is to say that I can't train troops with slightly less than optimal equipment to save time and money? Why does every soldier have to have the exactly specified equipment? Why can't I give a particular soldier better equipment if I can afford it? Sure, I can train overall inferior or superior troops, but the grades come in big chunks (in terms of abilities), without any option to go into the middle ground...

Hmm? I never played the demo so I don't know how it is different. But in the game, for Ulm for example, you get to choose whether to build infantry with chainmail (lighter, less resource intensive) or plate (heavier, more resource intensive), and you get to choose whether they carry mauls, morningstars, flails etc.

If anything, the problem with national troops is not that you can't choose how to outfit them, it's that it doesn't matter how you outfit them except in the very early game, because after that they will all get owned by magic and summons and supercombatants no matter what gear they have.

[Suicide Junkie]

I'm pretty sure Fyron was looking for a finer level of control than that, perhaps training in boot camp for 4 months instead of 6, say.

But if the details get stomped out by the big beasties, I suppose it dosen't really matter in most games.

If you were trying for a more conventional tech mod/map, with little to no magic available, I imagine the fine training detail would be useful though.

[PvK]

Suicide Junkie said:
...
But if the details get stomped out by the big beasties, I suppose it dosen't really matter in most games.

If you were trying for a more conventional tech mod/map, with little to no magic available, I imagine the fine training detail would be useful though.

The players who say things like that tend to be exaggerating, or playing certain styles of games. As in SE4, if you play low-magic sites and/or slow research rate, or if you play smaller maps or use an early conflict strategy, the mortal troops can be very important. Conversely, if you play with big maps, lots of magic sites, fast research, and/or wait till you have all the most powerful magic before starting to fight seriously, etc., then the magic can dominate and make mortal units seem fairly unimportant.

Many of the D2 forum posters though tend to get fixated and opinionated and will post massively overstated and often contradictory opinions about something being super-great or super-lame or broken or the best thing or whatever, because something worked well or badly in a specific instance. Generally, they just don't have enough experience and are used to simpler games that are much easier to analyze.

PvK

[deccan]

PvK said:
Many of the D2 forum posters though tend to get fixated and opinionated and will post massively overstated and often contradictory opinions about something being super-great or super-lame or broken or the best thing or whatever, because something worked well or badly in a specific instance. Generally, they just don't have enough experience and are used to simpler games that are much easier to analyze.

Ouch. It's one thing to claim that something is super-great in the sense that it's a guaranteed game winner. No one seriously claims that. On the other hand, as Zen's pretender and spell balance mods have indicated, there are clearly things (pretender chassis, SC chassis, battlefield spells) that are super-great in the sense that they render competing options of roughly equal resource costs / difficulty of obtaining invalid because choosing the super-great thing is such a no-brainer, in the same way that in stock SEIV choosing the beserker trait is a no-brainer (and that you've tried to address in your own balance mod).

I'm ok with your statement that the usefulness / uselessness of national troops depends heavily on game settings, but it would be nice if the army buffer spells were easier and less expensive to cast and resistance wards could stack properly.

[Atrocities]

I bought the game. It is a fun demo, but the game itself lacks a lot of the control that we enjoy in SEIV. I do hope the developers for Dominions take note of this lack of control and build in some master que and other unit managment and construction tools. Then again there are those who will argue that the game is better playd on the micro-managment level.

For me, having to tell each and every province what to do each and every turn was way to much. A master build que, or unit managment tools would have been god sends.