Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

The April '04 issue of CG has an in-depth preview of the Pirates! 2 game currently in development, in which Sid is taking an active hand.


Tuna,

With regards to AC and Sid's role in it, I suggest you read Brian Reynolds' Designer's Notes for AC (page 236 of the game manual) which gives a detailed description of what portions of AC Sid was responsible for. And also read the credits page (p246). Before you spout opinions, it might help to actually know the facts. BTW, I've met both Sid and Brian, FWIW. If you knew them better than just what you're read in some slanted report you might actually give Sid some of the respect he deserves.

[ March 09, 2004, 12:38: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">MoM, for its time, had better graphics and a diplomacy system (human and AI that is. And understandbly simple but again lets take into account the time it was released.)
[/QB]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I played MOM Last week, and I noticed that the hero portraits and the battle graphics are actually superior to Dom2's - let alone Dom1.

The units are colourful, very well-drawn and despite the much lower resolution you get a better idea of what is going on (e.g. a paralysed unit turns grey. In Dom2 you have to guess why it is not moving).
And the global spell pix are funky! (Zombie Mastery anyone?).

Mom's map graphix are worse though; the AI cheats like nobody's business - and has to since it is braindead. GUI is perhaps a bit better than Dom's.

But the diplomacy is useless since the AI's all tend to be psycho's. 'We have the same outlook on life; we are both at war against the evil Shrraaa; you've paid tribute for the Last 10 turns. Of course, you know this means war. DIE!'.

Better to have no diplo to having useless diplo.

von Schmidt

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Paralyzed units turn gray in Dom2, also. Guess you haven't seen terribly many paralyzed units!

And Dominions II beats out MoM in one important aspect: People can be ON FIRE! That was totally awesome! How many games do you actually see people running around and fleeing the battlefield while ON FIRE?!?

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, that is pretty, er, cool. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Speaking of "cool", it'd be neat to see the opposite effect, that of semi-frozen uints dripping icicles ...

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

Frozen units turn bluish.

[ March 10, 2004, 19:38: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

I still play MoM (I have an old Win98 disk partition just to re-play regularly MoM or other vintage games like fantasy general) and love it.
Aside from the obvious differences in screen resolution and world map, there are two graphical features I really miss in DOM 2, compared to MoM : the individualized portraits of heroes and the actual representation of *units* with multiple figures.
I am assuming that "one" ulm infantry little guy in the battle report is the abstraction of a squad or regiment or such (depending on the scale of the map), but actual representation of multiple figures in formation (like MoM did, even with the limited resolution and the very limited stack size) would help convey the feeling of "epic battles" (vs small skirmishes featuring a few dozen of people at most).

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

Kjeld: I must say I find your view a bit odd. IIRC MoM had a maximum of units a squad and 8 squads a stack. Maxing out ar something like 64 units. In dominions you can have hundreds or even thousands of units in the tactical battle. MoM gave me a much more skirmishy feel than dominions does.

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why there's no pools of water when the heat radiating demon moves near the frozen unit? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: The inteface of Dom2 is great
 

Johan, I do completely agree (and thanks for the answer), but I think I didn't explain accurately what I really meant (english is not my primary language).

I didn't want to imply that MoM did give a more "large army" feeling than DoM2, but that using, for each single unit in DoM2 a representation like in MoM (allowing us to actually see a higher number of figures in formation per "unit") would be a nifty improvement. Hope it clears things a bit. In fact, I shouldn't have made a comparison with MoM : what I had in mind is more like MTW http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Well, after thinking twice about what I really wanted to mean, I think the problem is not so much with the number of individual units, but the absence of ordered units in formation. Pythium legions in ordered rank would be awesome http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Actually, it is more like a "wish list" suggestion than a real gripe with the awesome game.