Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

That is always my recommendation, more blitz games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Having read and considered the posts so far, here are a few more thoughts:


1) Generally I like the idea of some sort of additional cost for summoned units. The more variety in how the costs are configured, the better.


2) On the idea of gem availability, how about the following?

Make gems “sticky” and mages “grabby.” Each turn, all mages in labs fill to a personal limit before any gems go into the general pool.

Say the limit is one gem per level per path. The “pool gem” command ignores these gems. Unless you want to shift them manually, they are used only for tactical combat or a few special orders like Blood Sacrifice. Maybe allow a “sticky on/sticky off” toggle.


3) Give gem-producing items a “shelf life” of 20 gems.

After that, the device fails and is automatically discarded, even if cursed. Basically make some sort of #maxeffects mod code for items. (This makes gem-producing entities correspondingly more valuable.)


4) One idea to limit the “free troop” aspect of summons would be to stress the caster more.

Say a summons costs 1 hit point per two spell levels (round down) that never comes back.

So a 10 hp mage casting a 5th level summons loses 2 hit points that cannot be restored by any means. A fifth summon of this type would be fatal to that mage, and you probably wouldn't want to commit the mage to battle after the second or third such summons.

Likewise, leaders that summon magical being allies might lose a hit point or more per creature summoned—this represents the loss of personal vitality as it is transferred to activate the ally. The exact number might vary according to the creature summoned.

If this doesn't go into Dom3 proper, maybe the modding commands might allow for its incorporation for purposes of further testing.


5) Start certain summoned creatures with experience levels and adjust their base stats so there is effectively no change in their initial numbers.

For example, the Arch Devils might already be at 5 experience levels—further experience for them is irrelevant. Maybe the Draconians summoned starts at 2-3.


6) Limit ritual summoning spells to one per laboratory per turn, in the same way that Blood Sacrifice is limited to one per temple.

[This is the idea I'd most like to test.]


7) Maybe make resources a little easier to come by.

Allow Alchemy to produce Resources from Earth gems as well—maybe 5 resource points at that location per gem. These would, of course, have to be used or they go away.


On empowering national troops with magic abilities.
I’m not sure I like the idea of giving troops intrinsic magical special abilities (such as fire resistance or regeneration). That’s too much like magical crossbreeding, IMO.

I think that the option to equip entire units with magical weapons and armor of various types is worth investigating, though.


On a 250%-300% income increase:
This looks like an interesting idea to me. The mad castling issue can be dealt with simply by increasing the cost of castles and other structures in direct proportion to the income increase.

Other adjustments might be needed, though—for example, province supply capacity might have to be increased, as might the supply effects of Nature magic and certain magic items.


On "blitz" games
Advice to play more blitz doesn't really solve anything, IMO. Also, some of us like the 80-to-100-turn solo games, and desire to have a better time with them.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

I heavily snipped this post, and only answered to things I disagreed with or would like to see made differently. I agreed in some of the things I snipped, but not with everything, and I don't know what to think of the rest of them yet.

The idea is interesting, but at least leading magical creatures shouldn't have an effect of that kind. That would force one to have more commanders with high hps that are able to lead magical units, which would mean summons, and actually make summons (especially commanders) MORE valuable and common.

Also, instead of "damage", maybe the summons caused "fatique" (increased encumberance instead of lowered hp).

I'm for this. It nerfs the skilled summons a little, but I don't mind that in this case...

I don't know if it would work. I think one is too slow a number. It would affect undead themes of Ermor dramatically, as they would be limited in the number of commanders they can summon, and don't have the money to build (huge numbers of) labs. But yes, it would be something I'd like to test. It would make for a really interesting alternate rule, but might make powerful summons and SCs even more important as you can't match Quality with Quantity.

VERY good idea, but there should be more than 5 resources. I quess 15 could work. It allows you to recruit one med-to-high infantry instead of militia, and (quite often) one med-to-high cavalry instead of med-to-high infantry. It couldn't, of course, be economical, but it would allow one to "burn" gems to speed up starting progress.

The supply effects can't be increased, but are unchanged from Dom:PPP, and it had twice the gold of DomII. Castle/building prices can't be changed yet, but might be in DomIII. The scales' effects and the general richness (in gold, resources, food...) can be modded even now. Zen's Complete Balance mods includes a Scale mod, and Saber Cherry released a scale mod as well. I'm not sure whether they aim for gameplay balance or useful national units.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

The other problem with the income idea is it makes the cheaper mages mostly obsolete.

And why don't blitz games solve anything? Certainly everyone can agree that it would be ideal if long term games remained diverse and interesting for many games (and I have high hopes for this in dom3), but in the meantime there is no reason to ignore a game type that to a large degree avoids the problems.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Endoperez: Thanks for the response and analysis. I could use some clarification on a point or two.

"Leading magical creatures." Do you mean "most powerful magical creatures" or "magical creature Leaders"?

In my post, "leading" doesn't cost anything, "summoning" does. I expect the effect would be that this would divide the casters involved with summoned creatures into two categories--the slowly dying summoners and the magic-wielding field commanders who don't summon because that would gut their battlefield usefulness. Putting together a combination to yield a viable summoned field force would be a greater strain on resources than the current setup.

I can't see this as doing anything but slowing down the process of accumulating a game-winning mass of summoned troops.

Also, if you are burning through a major leader like an Air Queen in a multiplayer game, you risk not being able to get it back via resummoning when it dies if the other players are actively pursuing it.

If your resources are limited, this configuration gives you a basic strategic choice of whether to use a tough magic leader to summon or to fight. If you fight, it cuts down on the number of summoned units in play. If you summon a lot and are attacked, your combined group will be more vulnerable than currently, and you run the risk of losing an important battle because the leader is easier to kill.

Fatigue: I'm not certain how using fatigue would work. Most of the time when I use summons, these take place in a comparatively safe laboratory a turn or more from the action. If the fatigue effect is temporary, it's gone by the time the troops get into action. If the effect is permanent, then it would build up too fast, IMO, rendering the caster useless very quickly.

I could see fatigue being a function of leadership rather than summoning. In other words, if the fatigue effect is based on the number of magical beings led as some function of the leader's capacity for leading them, it might work.

Say 1-25% capacity = +1 encumbrance
26-50% = +2 encumbrance
51-75% = +3 encumbrance
76-100%= +4 encumbrance
These might double with armor, as with spell fatigue.

On Lab Limits
Good criticism on this point. If coding Dom3, there may be an easy fix. Some options:

1)Code two Labs:

Lab1: Unlimited summons. This configuration is assigned to the undead themes.

Lab2: One summon per turn. This configuration is assigned to other themes

2) Give undead themes cheaper labs.

3) Define a new structure "Shrine" which is enabled for undead themes only. This is a cheap structure whose only function is to enable undead summoning by an undead leader. Like a Temple, a Shrine is automatically destroyed by enemy troops. A shrine only enables one summoning, but can be constructed in the same province as a lab.

(BTW, just as a side note, I'm assuming this is a Dom3 discussion, so the possibility of applying any of these to Dom2 isn't on my radar screen.)

Cost and Supply
Was unaware of the Dom1 connection. At this point, I'm out of my depth--I never had the opportunity to play Dom1. I think a continuation of this part of the discussion by those who have might be instructive. Did reducing the gold of Dom1 improve Dom2--or did it just push the pendulum from ground troops to magic troops?



Quantum_Mech:

Cheaper Mages: I don't see why cheaper mages should become obsolete. Costs are mutable and relative. You could keep an equivalent effect by adjusting the costs. Yes, rebalancing would require additional time, and whether the use of developer time to do it would be cost effective is a viable concern. But the idea does not in itself render the concept of the cheap mage obsolete, IMO.

Blitz Games: I was unclear. Blitz games as a temporary patch for the situation for Dom2 is a great idea. We are better off for your having brought it up. Anyone who hasn't played blitz is missing a significant part of the Dom2 experience, and should be encouraged to sample it.

What I meant to say was that a patch for current Dom2 play is of limited utility in discussion about what might happen in Dom3. I just wanted to steer discussion back to an element that could use some help as Dom3 is being put together, and I'm happy that we are in agreement that the longer game could use some tweaks.

So, thanks for bringing up the point. I hope someone reading the thread benefits from it while we are waiting for Dom3. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

I'm not very good at balancing, or finding out the balance, or optimizing my strategy. However, I think it has been mentioned that in Dom:PPP, players bought just as many mages and summoned just as many units, but used the leftover money on troops. Troops made a difference, because you could get them without losing anything. They didn't have to be cost-effective, because the cost was mostly irrelevant.

I'm not sure how correct this memory of mine is.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

cost & supply

Do the math yourself:
- the sites didn't change (much)
- gold 'production' was halved
- ... and seemingly no-one really noticed: the province sizes where heavily reduced; while pop range was 5k-50k in DomPPP, now we have 500..15k pop

And taking away a strategic/tactical option is never good IMHO...

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

What kind of population randomization would be better? As the whole province/terrain system was changed for DomII, that changing of population numbers might have been accidental. Now provinces can be Small or Large, and (Plains or Underwater) or any combination of Forest/Farmlands/Mountain/Swamp/Waste. Large Farmlands could be up to 50 000 range, but what about Small Farmlands? Or Large Forest/Swamps? Would each terrain hold a multiplier (e.g., being a Farm gives 2.0 times the population, being a Swmap gives 0.5 times the population, Farm/Swamp has (2.0*0.5= 1) about the same population a plains would have.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

.. oh, great, forum ate a lengthy post of mine again.. so I'll keep it short this time:

Large Farmland: av. 18782pop, max 21.5k pop
Normal Farmland: av. 121250 pop, max. 14.4k pop
Small Farmland: av. 5557 pop, max. 7.2k pop

=> "Large" is +50% pop, "Small" is -50%

Normal Plains: av. 7921 pop, max. 9.1k pop

=> "Farm" is +50% pop

I'll add more numbers as I get to it ... .


And if that was a question, Endo, ye, those modifiers are cumulative. So with a small swamp/waste province you can get really ridiculous low pop levels..

What we can see from the above is - there's no way to get near the pop numbers of DomPPP, and something like that should only occure deliberatly .. should have been very obvious in the very first test game at the latest.

And check the maps which come with the game - lots of 'normal plains' and worse provinces. No, I don't think the devs ruined the gold economy by accident. Very much like they didn't overlook that there are no events which generate pop, but many which kill it. It's their/the games attitude.

What gets me back to the topic:
I don't like that. As I don't like the fact that the AI still cannot build castles and commanders from sites, chooses heavy death scale to often and has no clue about supplies - therefore crippling itself very effectivly. What I don't like even more is the fact, that the devs know about this very well but are not willing to fix it ... .
What that tells about me purchasing DOM3? Oh well, guess yourself ...

edit: typo

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Interesting and incredibly close-minded thought.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Now, now, boys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

While I think we can all agree with Arralen that the AI in dom2 is quite poor, saying that the devs are unwilling to fix it is unfair. In programming, sometimes problems which appear very simple on the face of it, are actually exceptionally difficult to make a program do properly. That could be the case here. Or the devs may just feel that the real meat of dom2 is in the MP aspects. So when they look at the list of issues to fix in a patch, MP issues trump all the SP/AI ones and the AI just ends up never getting fixed by default.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

@Zen
Sorry, but I don't get the "close-minded" part. Could you please elaborate ?

@Ironhawk
It's a stated fact from the devs that they want the endgame to be heavily focused on (summond) magic creatures, that it's not a bug that you'll end up with less than starting pop if you go with turmoil-3, growth-3, luck-3. They say it's a big war, and the pop will have to suffer. That the national units get superflous is just a side-effect of diminishing pop and ridiculous powerful LvL 8+9 magic.

And I don't say the AI is bad. In fact, I've seen lots worse AIs in games with 100x the budged for sure.
But the AI not building castles or commanders from (found) sites .. hey, even I could program that. (check my old thread about the suggested very easy recruiting/bulding alghorithm).
Pretender design might be a bit trickier, but the easy solution would be to restrict death scale to certain nations/pretender combos.
I agree that the supply issue might be unsolvalbe in Dom2. I'm not sure though, but I think it worked in DomPPP. As the castle building did, btw.

But the point is - if they arent't willing to even try to fix this, and even if it's (e.g.) with some randomly issued build order for the castles, how can't I assume that it will be the same with Dom3 ?

And that it's a MP game is no excuse. Actually, it's sold with the tag "1-17 players". So it should work correctly in SP as well. And Dom2 still sells well. But there aren't hundreds of players here. So I guess Dom2 is actually played SP by 60-70% of it's owners.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Arralen: I remember your thread. It inspired me to do a little experimenting with a castle-building algorithm of my own awhile back (all general theory, my actual knowledge of coding is rudimentary).

If I can dig out my notes, I'll post them as a new thread next week, and we can talk more about AI castle-building there.

Thanks very much for your work on this.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Wow, I just realized that provinces can be neither Small or Large... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif Thanks for the enlightement.

What would be better option, then, than the current cumulative multipliers? Would multiplying only the biggest and the smallest multipliers work better? And what about the multipliers themselves, how much better than Plains should Farmlands be?

I'd like to get different opinions on this as well.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

> @Zen
> Sorry, but I don't get the "close-minded" part. Could you please elaborate ?


He happens to know that the AI in dom3 builds castles and that you get more gold in dom3. Now you know as well and may want buy dom3 when it comes out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

So Arralen was wrong on that score, but I am not sure that gets us to "close-minded."

Will the viscous ad hominem never end??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Yeah, I like the runny ad hominem a lot better. Easier to digest, too... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

It's great on crackers, especially those little baked ones with seasame seeds on them. Mmmmmm!

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

I think any broad statements saying that the "Dev's are not going to do X" are pretty close-minded. Because as far as I know there are only 2 devs that would know whether or not they are going to do any particular desire that anyone may have. Also they may have any number of reasons that you may or may not feel are reasonable for doing or not doing what it is you don't like.

I just think it's very close-minded to get into wailing and gnashing of teeth that you have no idea is or is not going to be changed.

Obviously this thread is to talk about why people would or wouldn't purchase Dom3, but making up reasoning for the Developers that you have no idea are true or not is giving IW almost no credit. And I think they do deserve some, obviously they want to make as good a game as they can with the resources they have availiable.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

I agree that Dom2 is pretty poor for single player, and it would be nice if this could be fixed somehow.

Allowing for some form of scripted AI might be nice, in that people could create scenarios and AIs that were fairly challenging for the average player.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Thanks for the info,
but what the AI in Dom3 does or does not is besides the point.

I have paid .. what, $40 .. for a game I would normally play >80% in SP, but it's more or less useless for that. So I'm forced to play MP, what I can only sparingly do because of time constraints (and time zone).
Atm, if I want a SP game that makes some sense, I have to edit the map to pre-place castles and make pretenders for every nation to hand over to the AI. What gets tedious work and takes a good part of the fun away from the game.
I even started writing an app to do exactly that for me - I'm not sure if it will get finished before Dom3 comes out, as I'm learning a new programming language especially for this.

So all I want is the game I already paid for in a state that it is not 'completely' (no software ever is, I guess), but at least 'sufficiently' finished. But it doesn't look like this will ever happen.

And can anyone assure that the same wouldn't happen with Dom3? That this or that will not work and I will be told to buy Dom4? I had that happen with too much games from the big labels already, and I really hoped this wouldn't happen again. That's what it takes to make me purchase Dom 3 !

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Huh, things are pretty hot here... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

...nevertheless I'd like to comment that the AI is also important for MP games, since most of my MP games ended with someone sadly suddenly turning into AI. It would be furthermore more nice if players could set a basic AI guidline (including "do nothing") for themselevs in case of an unexpected stale turn. Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Now THAT is a good idea! We would need few AI templates (I don't know if they already exist), but it would be very useful.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

And I can see what Arralen is saying - it doesn't bother me too much because I am capable of playing MP games, but if I wasn't, I'd be unhappy as hades : I find the SP almost totally unplayable.

Not just the lack of AI, but the things that AI does which are blatant cheating, or diplomatically insane. Example : Even on the World map with 4 players, by turn 15 the AI is hitting me with Seeking Arrows, Fires from Afar, Call of the Winds, etc. Blatant cheating which adds immeasurably to my level of irritation with the game.

Or the way the AI declares war against the human players - diplomatic insanity, as it does so regardless of strength, location, levels of threat, etc.

All of which is apparently considered acceptable because Dom2 is intended mainly as a MP game - but nothing in the game's description indicates that it's _only_ suitable for MP gaming. I can see where Arralen and players like him might be a tad bit bitter.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Maybe what you categorize 'sufficiently' and what others categorize 'sufficiently' are two different things. It's impossible to argue that you want 'What you paid for'. There was a demo that was availiable which gave you a pretty decent representation of the game. For whatever reasoning you decided that it was worth the purchase alot of people didn't and not for the reasons you stated. You control what you buy. End point, there is no fault of the developer on what you considered was worth your money. For my $40.00 Dom2 has been well worth it though you may disagree and you are perfectly entitled too.

You can't blame IW for fixing things in a new version of the game that allows them the ability to add to all aspects of the game (and the desires of other people that play the game, other than yourself) the easiest way possible (by massively rewriting coding, placing modding where it wasn't originally planned, etc) with an entire new version and thus a new game.

There will be a demo and release notes for Dom3 just like Dom2 I expect. You don't even have to try the demo if you don't want to, you can not play Dom3 for whatever reason you like. However if the Demo gives you enough reason to buy it, then it will. There are no assurances for your personal preference, unfortunately or the future possibilities.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

And I would like to add finally the great truism of the Internet.

Even if you give people what they want, they still feel the need to complain. Kristoffer just told you that 2 of your list of X were already fixed. While that may not mean they are doing everything you want, it certainly does mean that you are being heard and implementing changes they feel are appropriate and within their ability/resources to change.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Of course, outside the software world, when you're sold a car that turns out that only the wheels on the right spin, people don't get surprised and upset when you're not willing to simply buy next years model because "it'll be fixed in the next (model/version/release)". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Don't get me wrong - I like Dom2, and will almost certainly get Dom3. But if I hadn't been able to play lots of MP games, I probably would've shelved the game among all the others that I've bought and been dissatisfied with over the years. The SP game has immense flaws, which would be almost impossible to ascertain simply from playing the demo. (Players would be extremely unlikely to figure out that the AI never builds castles and has no clue about starvation. It'd also take someone willing to play the demo an awful lots for them to figure out the diplomatic blundering and blatant cheating going on.)

And, outside the software world, yes, people probably would have reasonable expectations that their car would work with or without passengers or whatnot. Only with games and other software (and possibly real estate development) can the seller consistently get away with a WYGIWYG (What You Got Is What You Got) attitude. Intel had to replace people's faulty Pentiums, even though the flaw was a lot less noticeable. Car manufacturers do recalls all the time - not just for exploding gas tanks, but for things arguably more trivial than the flaws in Dominions2. People don't have to suck it up and buy the next model to get the flaws fixed.

J and K have done a lot in supporting the game - I'm not saying they're guilty of that. But I can see how people are frustrated and disappointed in never getting a viable single player game out of their purchase.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Does not what just happened mean anything?

This isn't a car, this is an extended movie. You get your entertainment value out of it as well as everything else involved. You may like it for different qualities that other people do or do not enjoy. However, there are themes in the good movies just like there are themes in the 'good' games of a genre.

At the end of a particular movie you may like the movie but it indubidably it has flaws. In Dom2 (which is not what we're talking about in this thread, we're talking about Dom3) those flaws might have been bad ending and some shaky performances by actors.

Does that mean the sequel could be a stinker? Sure. Does it mean a sequel can be a hit? Yeah. But you can't determine that yet because there is no real information except what we've seen. If IW is addressing concerns in the production of the next Dominions, why are you bashing them for Dom2? Even to the point of idiocy to say "and they have no intention of changing this issue" which OBVIOUSLY is not the case by admission.

Maybe since I've played Dom2 from when it was released and know and agree with a big number of flaws. I have a different perception. Any improvements are good and if they can make a great game including as many really good ideas from the wishlist as well as correcting major flaws in Dom2 that they are aware of (micromanagement, UI, tutorial, balance, SP, etc) then why spit in the face of progress?

I'm glad this thread was started with by a newcomer who just threw his opinion out there and gave IW some perspective of people who are fresh to Dom2. Something they didn't have since it was released a few years ago and is a niche title.

Edit:

I may have not clearly expressed my point Cainehill. My point is you can't unwatch a movie. You spent the time and the money (or the bandwith) that you can never get back because you are enjoying a recreation.

That is why this is more akin to games. While they have the benefit of being modified while they are being watched (and is expected in this day and age of seeming incompleteness, bugs, hardware crap, etc) this particular movie is made like the any lowbudget B movie. You might have a Bruce Campbell who is the God of B-Movie actors but you can't spend much money on the set or special effects.

Also any movie that can keep my interest for more than 2 years I count it a pretty good movie, maybe not for everyone out there. I count the same for games. If a game can keep me for more than two years enjoying playing it (however limited) then I think it's a pretty good game by the standard of early 2000's.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

I fail to see how people didn't get a viable single player game. The game functions properly, and the AI will beat a new player most of the time. What I've seen so far is complaints that the AI is inferior to a human player and can't give a human a challenge without cheating. That's no surprise since there is no single stretegy game more complicated than Chess where that statement isn't true. I can't think of any complex strategy game where the AI isn't a pushover without massive cheating once the player has learned the game rules.

As an aside, even if you only played the single player game for 20 hours you got more than your money's worth out of the game considering that any non-strategy game has about that much actual gameplay.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

When I'm more wide awake I may address the first part of what you wrote, but for now : "Any non-strategy game has about ... 20 hours of gameplay"??? I'd love to be able to say, "Ad hominem!" or whatever ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) but I'll have to settle for saying, patently untrue. Diablo and its clones certainly aren't strategy games, agreed? Not true RPGs, but hack-and-slash beer-and-bloodshed games aren't strategy titles.

Yet lots of people have gotten hundreds or thousands of hours of gaming experience out of them. Similarly, a game genre I don't play but whose players seem to manage to get hundreds or thousands of hours out of : First Person Shooters - okay, admittedly that's because of the MP thrills, but still - that's more than 20 hours.

Any numbers of RPGs have given players hundreds of hours of gameplay, as they restart with a different party, a different alignment choice, a 3 member party vice 6, etc. Hades - how many hours have people gotten out of driving games, golf games, or (gag) Dance Dance Revolution? More than 20.

You and Zen are comparing the game to movies - sorry, but that's comparing .... *shrug* Whiskey to milk. We drink both - but we don't expect milk to last as long as whiskey, and we don't expect as much fun out of it.

When we go to a movie, we expect at most around 2 hours entertainment. There's totally different expectations between the two entertainment choices / commodities, so please, just stop comparing the two. I doubt if many people would argue that (most) games are a better value, weighed in terms of money divided by time. I also doubt if many reasonable, intelligent people would say that a game was a life-changing experience, while people do sometimes feel that way about movies.

Even more pointedly : saying, "You got more gameplay for your dollar than you would've for a non-strategy title" is crap. Know anyone in recent years who ever bought a strategy game expecting 20 hours of play? How about a chess game that, because the AI is bad, occasionally removes one of your pieces from the board? That's what the Seeking Arrow from 30 provinces away on turn 12 is. "But they both make the game more challenging in the absence of better AI!" Gee - thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And yes, I can think of a number of strategy games that had a much more solid, satisfying SP gameplay, without blatant cheating (sometimes without cheating, period) than Dominions 2. The original Warlords - just one map, 100s of hours of play. Sword of Aragon - not exactly scripted, but early battles were easy; to win the later battles you really had to improve your game, to the point of replaying once you'd improved, in order to build up your armies / cities better through the course of the game. Again - 100s of hours of play. Stars! ( The one by Stardock.) Master of Orion. Master of Magic. Anacreon, even.

(Note : Moo / MoM gave huge bonuses to the computer players. That isn't "blatant cheating", just as the AI getting huge bonuses in pretender creation isn't in Dominions.)

And again - I'm not unhappy with Dominions. I'm not unhappy with J & K. Quite the opposite. What I'm unhappy with is the knee-jerk response of calling someone's reply "close minded" just because they're not nearly as happy with Dominions as you are (or for that matter, as I am). People can have legitimate complaints, regardless of how wonderful a _MP_ game Dominions is. After all - it's designed and meant to be a MP (and PBEM at that) game.

But it wasn't really marketed that way. Not that it was particularly marketed in the modern sense http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif but - Shrapnel never put a blurb out, "By PBEM gamers, for PBEM gamers - if you're not womanly enough for MP, you're not woman enough for this game", nor anything like it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Dominions has been a life changing experience. Before, I was was depressed. I wondered what was the meaning of it all. I stepped on plants.

But I realized the error of my ways, I invited the Carrion Dragon into my life. Suddenly, it made sense. I knew I was doing the right thing.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Let me bold it for you since apparently it's knee jerk:

If you have already decided what the Dev's are going to do about something why are you waiting around for them to make the game? You should be Nostradamus and get a cult together with such prognostication abilities.

Or maybe that is being open minded.

And let me say for the record I agree with most of Arralen's points, reasoning, cause for concern, and desire for change. What I don't agree with is a blatent lie about something that someone has no clue about as far as IW's intentions. They have even changed their minds about things throughout the course of Dom2 so even if some grand statement that gave a certain impression it might only applicable to Dom2 and not Dom3 in terms of being able to change it.

I'm sure we would all like a patch right now for alot of things for Dom2 (morale, etc) but if the choice is between continued support of Dom2 or the development of Dom3, at this point in Dom2's life I would probably lean towards Dom3.

Especially if alot of the things that were to be patched would be much easier to do under a Dom3 framework thus allowing IW to further push the game in whatever direction they are going with it.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

No, when you buy a game you are basically saying it is going to entertain you for X hours before you consider it a reasonable purchase. Some people might put that number at 1000 hours, others might put it at 200. It depends on the person and type of gamer they are.

Games are entertainment, luxury, non-neccessary consumables.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

I'd like to add few obsevations into these recent "is Dominions worth playing Single-Player" and "Dominions vs all the others" posts:

Dominions' AI cheats. It knows where you are. However, it doesn't become blatant except in few exceptional circumstances, e.g. FOUR PLAYERS ON THE WORLD MAP! In most games I would play, versus AI or humans, there would be much less distance between enemies. And I think it's better that every AI player knows the location of all other nations (NB: this also includes other AIs!), because they can't communicate with each other and share information like humans could.

Re: AI starting wars against humans without reason: AFAIK, AI considers the threat of a nation before going into war against it. E.g. AI doesn't attack nation which has strong armies next to its own provinces, or even player who has lots of PD in his provinces. However, I think AI also follows the graphs, and starts war against someone who is in the lead. And I know that AIs war between each other, so I think this isn't limited to human players. I think that the only reason for AIs to pick out humans is because they are designed to attack the nation in the position humans most often acquire: the leading one, or in the case of a new player: weakly defended lands.

Re: other games giving more enjoyment than Dominions:
Roguelike games and their ilk (including Diablo and its clones) are games based very much on luck. Good equipment is critical for survival in hardcore roguelikes, and for enjoyment in low-risk games like Diablo (from this on, D&Co). I don't know if D&Co games give tactical options like roguelikes do, but I doubt it. From what I have seen, the AI in D&Co is very stupid. The AI in driving games was also quite stupid the last time I played one, but that was in year '97 or so. I'd say that it's easy to do a game where the player can challenge himself. The other drivers are there just to get him interested in the first place. After that, he competes against his own records, and to improve his skills. I don't know if D&Co work like slot machines, where players continue playing in the hope of better items, or if it's more like roguelikes, where the player's skill is needed to overcome all the obstacles until something the player OR character isn't able to cope with comes up and the player can start again, having learned something.
In Dominions, the players' skill should be the biggest variable. If AI could just get lucky, and its army of 300 militia, light infantry and longdead could defeat the 200-strong army of summons and sacreed units lead by the Fire 9 Moloch, protected, boosted and supported by dozen mages, there would be no reason to play. And it's not possible to make a "ghost driver" of your own strategy. An AI that scriptable would be awesome, of course, especially if it could "learn" your playstyle (research priority: Enchantment 1, Evocation 3, Alteration 2, Evocation 5, Construction 4, Conjuration 5, etc) from just observing your choices few times. But in driving games the "ghost" doesn't need to avoid other cars. You can't tackle the ghost. Similarly, the "ghost" in strategy games is more often a score list, where you get points for speed and might, for luck and skill, and you can see your improvement.
They are listening. Writing a good AI is very challenging, and it's hard, impossible to copy the ways with which games of other genres achieve replayability (?), or in some cases it makes the game less fulfilling. I have enojyed DomII in singple-player. The best memories are often from those times I lost. Try playing Mictlan, with non-SC pretender, in a map too small and with too many enemies. It's like insta-death roguelike converted into strategy game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Right, but (I don't know either, but it could be that) Arralen may have just worded it that way to provoke a response from the devs?! Since we're left without a dev's diary, a patch or something else for quite some time, people are getting more anxious to know how Dom3 is going to be. We all made wishes, but we dont know whether they might come true. And provoking some responses worked before (e.g. I recall a part in the original Zen's Balance Mod-Thread about life drainers in DomIII...) and seems like it worked here too. So I would really hate if DomIII would not implement my wish for... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

I disagree. Not so much because cheating is annoying as because they don't seem to benefit from it. How is casting the occasional Fires from Afar halfway across the map anything but a waste of gems? How does declaring war preferentially on the strongest player lead toward victory? They should concentrate on eating their neighbors, weakest first. That way they might amount to a challenge by the time I get to them.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

JK mentioned in a previous post that there were further patches in the works for Dom II. I hope they'll see the light of day.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Being close-minded for a purpose doesn't make much of a difference and my response was as far as Cainehill's objection to me calling someone close-minded willy nilly or without proof.

But perhaps you are right. Some people may be very anxious for any news on Dom2 or Dom3 and resort to whatever kind of tactics they think might work no matter how low. I don't have an opinion either way, I myself might have been anxious enough for a game or two in my time to try something like that too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I certainly wouldn't feel bad about adding my own elbow to the nudge for another Dev Diary release.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

Thought I'd throw in another word here.

I find, as I discover various game exploits and work-arounds, that the vanilla SP game does tend to fade with time. At these times, a break from play, fiddling with mods, cranking the difficulty in various ways, and occasionally using self-imposed house rules that rely on personal discipline all work to freshen things up for me.

I've also been advancing myself slowly enough that I have barely scratched the surface of Impossible level play, and extremely low-magic play with nonstandard victory conditions. Perhaps Forum-based cooperation would be another avenue for investigation.

I have great expectations for Dom 3, especially when receiving news like the fact the AI will definitely build forts in the new edition. I have full confidence that the devs will be giving us significant advances and greatly extended play in the product to come.

As for this particular thread, perhaps we might shift to a new thread titled:

"What it will take for me to continue playing Dom II."

Perhaps the ball might be started rolling by Arralen, who voiced specific concerns here, or by Zen, who has taken one of the most significant steps toward addressing this issue with the Conceptual Balance mod.

Takers?

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

A suggestion on Dom III:

If my guy with the 2-handed flail loses an arm, could he have a backup dagger for when I throw him into the maw of battle again? Because seeing a guy in Ulm's finest platemail attacking with "Fist" is just pathetic.

Re: What it will take for me to purchase Dom III
 

My first post on this thread, so for the thread topic, I'll buy Dominions III as long as it was made by Illwinter.

Above all, Dominions PPP and II are some of the games I've enjoyed the most over the decades I've been playing computer games. I've played literally thousands of computer games, and these are some of the very best, for my tastes. Still addictively fun after years of play, which is rare.

However I do agree with much of the desires of BigJMoney, Arralen, et al, that I would have even more fun if the mortal units were more viable and the powerful magics (summons, spells) less so.

I'm really sorry I haven't yet had or made the time to finish my Hard Magic mod. I think it would probably be able to mod Dom II to my own taste in ways that could well-satisfy these desires.

At the risk of having someone else mod something that does the same thing before me, so I never get inspired enough to finish my own, I'll throw out what I'd like to see as a solution.

First, I agree with some earlier posts that it's good that Dom II has very powerful magic that should be very hard for mortals to overcome. Where I see the main problem coming in, is that it's so easy and cheap to deploy these powers. Simply put, much of the magic seems much too cheap and easy to me for what it does.

So, my mod-in-the-works increases the path requirements and cost of all magic that is better than on-par with mortal non-magic costs. One can still cast an army-blasting spell or create a super-powerful combattant, but it costs a ton to do and requires seriously powerful mages to do it. So magic is still very useful, but it takes serious investment. Less-used magic also becomes more viable because its cost isn't increased as much (or at all, for things like Corpse Man Construction).

As Arralen pointed out though, the main obstacle to completing a mod that changes the whole economy, is that there is so much content to mod.

PvK