Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

In Dominions, there are only few spells that can affect normal units, and none permanently (besides killing/harming them, of course). However, you can get spells that offer your whole side an advantage, Battle Fortune, Fog Warriors, Armor of Lead and AoGold, all in alteration, offer your whole side pretty hefty bonuses. Also, there are Global spells with big effects (Wrathful Skies, Ecovation), and others that can harm an army badly from across the world (Murdering Winter and Flames from the Sky at Evocation 9), and those with big but not so direct effects (Haunted Forest at Enchantment 8).
While it's impossible to cast spells on commanders, giving them items and making them cast buff spells and then wading in and killing whole armies can be done with most tough commanders, although recruitable ones rarely qualify. I think you will find some very interesting spells when you become more comfortable with how the game plays.

And while it would help to know the effects of the spells, the more common ones you will probably learn quite quickly as you research them. Press F5 to visit research screen, and click on the name of the researched school to see the spells, and again, click on the spells to see their descriptions.

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

Wrathful Skies affects the whole battlefield in one battle, but it's not a global spell. Perhaps you are thinking of Wrath of God.

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

Yes, indeed. Wrath of God is what I meant, but Wrathful skies might also interest PCarroll.

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

on the subject of getting big fast, I've found expanding slowly to be better, defensively. you move to fast and your enemies will sweep in behind you and take the unprotected provinces. so you end up playing cat and mouse.... but at the same time if your enemy gets to big then they can muscle your dominion out from under you.

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

OK, I'm back--and this time I know what I'm talking about. I've read the manual, and yesterday I played (and won) my first full game of Dom2.

At this point, I'm wondering why it was such a hurdle to get used to the UI; actually it's pretty straightforward. I guess I've been away from board games for so many years that I'd forgotten how they're played; I've been spoiled by the blinking units and drag-and-drop features of modern computer games. But now that I've played my way through a whole game, the Dom2 UI makes sense and works just fine (though I'm still annoyed by the extra "Host" click required due to its being geared to multiplayer).

Is it good? Well, it captivated me enough that I spent most of the day yesterday playing it. Furthermore, I played it on our upstairs computer, because my wife had the other one tied up all day. Our upstairs computer is older and slower and evidently needs a new video card. I was unable to view any battles (because they play at a frame rate of less than 1 per second even with resolution set to its lowest), and there were serious delays in scrolling (which made me wish there were a strategic thumbnail map I could click on to quickly see some other part of the world).

I played Caelum, with Mictlan as an "Easy AI" enemy. After reading the manual, I finally found out how to choose a regular map instead of a scenario (my earlier attempts were all scenarios, unbeknownst to me). I chose a map with a "bottleneck," and I made a point of racing to that bottleneck and fortifying it--which left me free for the rest of the game to take my time conquering independent provinces and learning the magic system. The end of the game was anticlimactic; Mictlan was a pushover by then.

So, it's a good game. Kinda long, though. And I'm surprised how tough some of those independent provinces can be to conquer. Some highlights were hiring a mercenary assassin who managed to kill the enemy God; casting Hurricane on enemy provinces; summoning some army-enhancing creatures; and as a sidelight, building a "fish" army to conquer the surrounding oceans.

More later. My wife needs the computer again.

--Patrick

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

There is not necessarily any problem with the graphics card itself. If you're running Windows XP with native drivers, no wonder you have it slow, because those drivers do not support OpenGL. You need to update the drivers with the manufacturer's own instead of Micro**** ones, and then you also probably need to run a program called Refresh Force to take care of the refresh rate synching. That should fix things.

My own rig is a Celeron 500 one, five years old, and no problems running Dom2 as long as the detail is set to lowest.

You should find the thread where I wrestled with the same problem by running a forum search about display problems. It has all the links you need.

Edi

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

The AI performs worst with mictlan and best with ermor.

Shame that you couldn't see the battles, I like watching large battles.

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

You can use the Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys to zoom the map in and out. Insert will zoom so that the entire map fits on the screen.

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

Hmm--guess I accidentally picked the easiest AI of all, then. Probably for the best, since I had aborted a few lost-hope games before this one.

Re: Newbie\'s first impressions
 

Yeah, if my video drivers (or whatever) would cooperate. But zooming is as slow as scrolling. Maybe I'll try Insert next time and see if the map is too tiny to play on.

Anyhow, it was a pretty good game even with all the computer problems I had. And on our downstairs computer, the game runs perfectly. (Well, except for the time I was viewing a battle and had to switch to the desktop momentarily; when I returned, all the soldiers and commanders on the battlefield had turned to letters of the alphabet!)

Thanks.