Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hi, and welcome! 4 and 6 have been improved - routing mechanics were re-done, and AI now builds castles. It still won't fare against strategies that an average player with Dom2 experience doesn't stand a chance against, but it is more challenging, and builds castles (which alone improves late game a lot).
If by 5 you mean fliers and light cavalry, there still isn't a "harass enemy and stay out of reach" command.
1 and 3 aren't changed, but you can see damage numbers in combat with few different colors for very basic damage sources. As in Dom2, you can also right-click on any unit if you've paused the battle.
I don't know what you mean by 2. There are few battle inconsistencies, but they should be rare. Battle inconsistencies mean that the battle is replayed differently on different machines or differently during the hosting and the replay in-game. Have you patched Dom2 yet? Quite a many battle incosistency bugs were fixed with the various patches.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Did you patch the gane? There were some combat inconsistencies in the early versions.

More detailed combat reports could be a good idea indeed.

The strategic AI has been improved in Dominions 3. It now builds castles and labs.

Oh, and welcome!

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Good to hear about 4 & 6.
By 5 I mainly meant spellcasters and multipurpose spellcasters/warriors, though I suppose it applies even better to high mobility units since it's harder (more like impossible) to "script" decent behavior out of those than casters or fighter/casters.
I suppose that's probably an improvement to battle playbacks, though I was actually complaining about the battle summary in the messages rather than the full playback.
For 2, I include a wide variety of... strange happenings... which I think are bugs, but I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, I patched to 2.16 as soon as I switched to the full game from the demo (ie before any of the observations that my current complaints are based upon). Here's the strangeness lumped under #2 that I saw happen in my most recent game, where I was Neifelheim on the Orania map against 16 "Difficult" AI players, playing on dom2 2.16 on win32.
2A. Around turn 50 or so, I couldn't find my prophet. My last recollection of him placed him underwater in Atlantis' capital (he was a Jotun Scout w/ a sea kings goblet). My temple conversion info screen said I had no prophet, but I didn't notice him die. I was never allowed to declare another prophet for the rest of the game (which ended on turn 162). Actually, I guess there's not necessarily any combat involved, so maybe this isn't properly under #2, but it's still under "bugs", most of which are vaguely combat related.
2B. A while later, I had a force of one Neifel Jarl SC and 400 Vine Ogres attacking a castle... I think it was a Man castle... after a while all of the VOs routed (actually dissolved) for a reason unknown to me. My impression is that mindless units are not supposed to route unless their commander dies. The SC continued attacking, but was killed. He appeared to have been killed by either a human militia man or a sea troll - they were the only units within range of him at the time of his death, but a fraction of a second before dieing he was at 70+ health, and by my understanding of the mechanics they should have had less than a 1 in a million chance of killing him (19 protection, 70+ hit points, 26 defense... vs the sea troll of 23 strength, -2 damage and 12 attack... the militia is even worse). I watched the battle several times watching the scrolling text for a spell that could be responsible for either the route or the SC death, but couldn't find anything. Save available.
2C. A while later, I attacked a province with 102 vampires and a few commanders. They were led by a VL w/ sea kings goblet & barrel of air. They attacked from the ocean. The vampires routed but the commanders won the battle anyway. It was within friendly dominion, and the battle summary said that they lived (well, that most lived, but I've found that the battle summary seems to often make up a few spurious deaths for no reason). The only adjacent friendly territory was the ocean province that I attacked from. So where did the routing vampires end up? Answer: nowhere, so far as I can tell. There were no vampires left in the province that I took, and none in adjacent territories. Some vampires were in my capital, but only 68, too few to account for my 100-odd missing vampires. Save available.
2D. A while later, I decided that I had enough spare resources to try to make an ultimate unbeatable combat squad. I figured that I'd build it around the principle of making SCs be communion slaves, and sharing powerful self-buffing spells with them via the communion-slaves-share-self-buffs principle. Unfortunately, I found that communion slaves behave somewhat oddly in battle. I had 4 pure slaves, 3 master/slaves, and 2 pure masters. That is, a pure slave had a slave matrix, a pure master had a crystal matrix, and a hybrid had both. All were mages. All were set to cast spells for the first round, and the 4 pure-slaves were set to attack for the rest of the battle while the pure-masters and hybrids cast self-buffs. However in combat, the 2 hybrids and 3 of the 4 pure-slaves did nothing. The 4 pure slaves each had identical orders, identical equipment, identical unit type etc, and yet one of them cast while the other 3 just stood there. Even the one that cast stopped following his script after the first round, even when it told him to attack at the same time he was bezerked. I end up with the impression that the combat AI has communion slaves stand still and disregard normal orders, but every once in a while a bug causes one to do what it's told for a turn instead. Save available.
2E. One of my Ivy Kings found a lychantropos amulet and stupidly put it on. Since the item description says something about turning the wearer into a "beast" eventually, I figured it wouldn't be too terribly suprising if he became a wolf for some portion of a battle. I didn't pay much attention to him for a while, and he went through a few battles. I was fairly suprised when I noticed him next and found that on the strategic me map he'd been transformed not into a wolf, but into a human! Okay, maybe it's not a bug, he was changed into a skinshifter, one of those vanheim national werewolves that are humans blessed w/ the ability to be wolves. Except he wasn't supposed to be human! Save available.

Other ones I've seen include immortals sometimes respawning but sometimes not respawning after dieing in a battle where the dominion was friendly when the attack order was issued but hostile after it completed, or mindless units dissolving when the last enemy killed was a mage who respawns with that pheonix respawning spell.
Hello.
Yep, patched long before starting that game, didn't fix any problems that I had noticed except the bizarre jotun fire theme that didn't match its description at all.
Will look forward to having more meaningul games against the AI.
Didn't see your post until after most of this one was written.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Welcome on the forum cthulhu. The AI will be upgraded in Dominions 3. Large maps with 10+ AIs on the hardest setting will give you some challenge, trust me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
Also with modding its possible to make the AI uber strong in a total conversion mod. [Example: give them stronger units for the same resource cost, cheaper national spells etc.] Anyways maybe it won't be needed at all, since the AI will be much better.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

2E is actually working as designed...

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

I answered your post in Dominions 2 bug thread.

Some of those were bugs, mostly known ones. This must be one of the most informative posts a new player has posted in these forums. Quite an introduction! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hm.... my problem isn't that AIs are too weak - in 16 AI Orania games vs "Difficult" my win rate is less than 50% so far - my problem is *when* the difficulty is. If I survive until late game, the AIs become a joke. They don't horde clams, vampire lords, or juggernoughts. They rarely do globals. They don't concentrate forces enough in late-game. Once I have 10 vampire lords or so, it doesn't matter if I have only one province left and a handful of AIs control everything else in the world, my victory is still inevitable. It would be even worse if I horded clams.
I suppose it might be fixable in that manner if I could give them things that were only useful when they reached late-game. Perhaps spells that need to be researched or units that are uberpowerful only in combination with spells that require lots of research.
I was afraid of that. Silly. I am not a human, I am a free Ivy King!
Glad I can be informative. I'll respond in that thread.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

It's true, there comes a point eventually, where no matter how much advantage the AI has, the human players has enough options they can out perform it. It can be improved of course (and I think dom3 has) but I don't see it going away.

Anyway, I hope you're planning to try some mp... your grasp of powerful strategies seems very good for someone who has only done sp.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Yes, the late game AI had many problems. Hopefully in Doms 3. the late game AI will be better. Maybe the AI will summon and equip SCs also. Also keep in mind, the IW devs are always reading this forum, and we can make suggestions that what should the devs try to fix or upgrade in the AI.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hullo again folks!

37, male, live in Northern Virginia with a wife and two daughters ages 4 and 8.

I was active around here a few years back, but now only pop in from time to time to read up on strategy. I have a group of eight buddies in the Eastern US that I got hooked onto Dom2, so I have never really gotten into the multiplayer scene here.

The nostalgia computer game thread is both amusing and deeply, deeply depressing as I can remember the days of playing games on a computer that used a cassette tape drive for ROM storage....

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Ah, I thought that I am the only one who never got into the MP scene here becuase of the TCP/IP games with my friends. We have a nice little Doms 2. "fanclub" with 21 active players at the moment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
lol eh..I just realized that I am the only active member on the forum from our little fanclub. Well my 2 brothers were active on this forum a long time ago...
Anyways welcome back Unwise! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Well, I'm an official Dom II newbie, downloaded the demo and just got my shorts handed to me (3 times). 4th game went better till I found out just how far back magically I had become, etc ...
I see where a lot of people could really get into this, after I purchase the game, I plan on showing Dom 3 to my friends and in a few months maybe one of them will be introducing himself here.
All I needed was another addictive game (I was sooo close to solving that world peace problem) and The Dominions line looks to fill that need for quite some time.
P.S. My daughter wants to know if there are any Lions or Tigers in the Demo I'm playing (Or in Dom 3 for that matter). She thought I was very funny when I made an "UUerkk' noise the time my capital provence got attacked when nobody was near and only then did I realize that one of the Water races was active and .... (I guess they call it a learning experience). She laughed and laughed.
I'll also try to find how to build another temple in the PDFs I've downloaded. Onward to game 5 !!!

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

There are national summon spells, and one of the most common ones calls forth big animals of some kind. All of the three eras of monkeys have Ambush of Tigers IIRC, and MA sacred units ride tigers. There are also lions here and there. I'm not 100% sure if there's a spesific summon for lions, but I'm quite positive.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

There are normal lions, magical summer lions, magical kithaironic lions, and sea lions (and three lion headed gods). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

I was thinking of the spell 'Pride of Lions', which was already present in Dom2 it seems... It seems I forgot "some" of the other spells.
Aren't there Great Lions too? Bigger ones one of the lion-headed gods gets? Or are those the only ones? Nah, I should just test it.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hello and welcome, I am a newbie as well exploring the demo just like yr self. However I know how to get basic ordinary lions.

Play as Arcosephale, research conjuration to lvl 2, make sure u have a lvl 2 nature mage, then cast summon animals (need 20 nature gems), u get loads of animals for yr army bats, wolves, bears and lions. U can do this very easily by turn 5 - 10. The creatures r not that powerful but u get alot of them.

Enjoy the game.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

It's not only Arco, I think Summon Animals cast on certain terrain types yields lions.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

I'm a 36 year old, male living in Corpus Christi, Texas (on the coast). I work for the government as an occupational safety and health officer. I spent 5 years in the Army where I lived in Germany for 2.5 years and loved Europe. I've been playing video games since Pong. Played the demo for Dominions 2, but it seemed really hard so I didn't buy it. I wished I had and I've preordered Dom 3 and am really looking forward to it. I'm really looking forward to getting the hang of the game and then playing in multiplayer.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hey! My family is in Corpus Christi, TX. Little brother and both parents. Grew up there from 3 to 18 and still go back for the holidays. Love the beach there. Small world. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Welcome to the board!

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Yep, it is a small world. I constantly meet people either from here in CC or close by like Houston, while gaming. It currently is, and has been for the past 4 days, raining. I'm really hoping you guys can school me in MP as I really don't have a clue to playing past the 40th turn in the game.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Welcome on the forum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hey desertdawgs and JaydedOne, the white sands of Port Aransas(doesn't look right?) and Corpus Christi is where I went every other weekend while doing Medical and 300F1(SF) training. We brought a Pick-up truck load of sand and dumped it by a creek running by barracks in Ft. Sam and stold (er .. temperarily appropriated) two of the Life guard 'Ladder' chairs from the Pentathalon pool and we had a beach party that was beyond belief - remember that Ft. Sam is only 1 of a few Posts where there are over 33% females, hehehe. I hope the Texas coast (or any of the seacoast states doesn't get a big hit during this hurricane season. We all need a break from that kind of misery.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hm. Don't think I've replied to this thread yet.

I'm a 30-yr-old software engineer currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area after spending a non-trivial amount of time in graduate school studying feature selection, nonlinear scaling and function fitting. *shrug* Got a fairly weird sense of humor, a somewhat retro game-playing habit (recently joined a still-running Hack-n-Slash game... which is normally run on *Amiga* CNET BBSes), and an odd relationship with tentacles (read some Lovecraft, played CoC RPG and 'Cults across America', and generally avoid eating tentacled things -- not fond of ultra-chewy food).

As my 'Reged' date shows, I've been on this forum for a while -- having started with Space Empires IV and Dominions:PPP, after seeing both games discussed quite favorably on USENET (csipgs, specifically).

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

You joined only slightly after Jesus was born :O

A secret agent then? Working under cover?
We have no national secrets here, try someplace else http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Actually, it reads 0002. The forum writes numbers from left to right for some reason, and lacks the setting to change it to the norm. I've been confused a few times myself. Just barbaric. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hey Vander, so thats why the Port Aransas beaches are so low on sand and that poor little girl drowned at the pool because there wasn't anywhere for the lifeguard to sit. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
No, but really, that sounds like a true soldier roughing it by making a field expedient beach by a creek. And Agrajag, the government feels that this game is possibly a terrorist program to train new recruits on how to take over the, uh, world and I've been assigned to infiltrate this organization.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

hihi

i finally registered after ogod i have no idea how long of lurking...

I downloaded the dom2 demo forever ago, and played it for a bit then got distracted by something... recently i picked it up again and have become obsessed -- i've gotten more gameplay out of that demo than MOST full games i've purchased.

With Dom3 just a few weeks away, I figure its about time to make an account to blab at folk instead of just thinking about what i would post if i could be bothered to register.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Welcome aboard. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

I'm 59 young, a gamer since I was in 7th grade, short time ago http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif, have extensive wargame collection including board and compters, I'm retired, tho still work part time, usually am found in the SEIV forum or in the SEIV chat Room, Been playing Dom2 for the last 3 months, love the game, look foreward to 3 coming out, play hotseat with friends usually every sunday, they also play Dom2, currently playing several pbem games of war in the pacific and several pbw games of SEIV specifically the carrier mod. some hobbies are, reading sci-fi, military history, tactics and strategy, sports and other things. 2 sons, both are gamers tho not always the same games as I am, 1 daughter, 1 granddaughter age 6.

just thought i'd finally say hello

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Glad to see you Mac. I was an SEIV crossover from the Dom side. I think its kindof interesting that the largest crossover we have (back and forth) is from Space Empires. I think it has something to do with the wealth of creation options at the beginning of the game (and the pbem turn system probably).

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

.. and they are both great strategy games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Welcome mac5732 to these forums. I saw you in SE4 forums. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Well, bad news for me today. Seems I'm going to New Orleans for a month. Starting Oct. 2nd! I hope my preorder comes through the US mail service and I don't have to sign for the package. If it goes well they'll deliver the game through my mail slot and I'll get when I come home. If it goes badly then they'll return the game to the sender as "undeliverable". Any body ordered a Shrapnel Game and know how it will be delivered. If the package is small enough they'll slip through the mail slot and into my house.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Bad luck.

I believe it will be the size of the manual (Cd's r inside), unfortunately the manual is 300 pages. So it sounds pretty big.

Don't know if u have this in the US but in the Uk we have a postal service called, keepsafe. It is very cheap, if u go away or on holiday the postal service store all yr mail at the sorting office. They then deliver it all on a pre-arranged date, I always say the day after I get back, just to be safe.

Worth checking out perhaps?

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Ah, yes SE:IV, I'm sure that MOO2, or even Civ2 and Civ3 combined have less logged time than SE:IV on my computers over the years. Looks like Dom3 has chance to usurp the champ, although only time will tell. That SE:V and Dom3 are so closely released will keep me very busy during my upcomming free-time and keep my wife mad at me for some time into 2007 I believe. (because her and my definitions of free-time a kind of different, hehehe.)
P.S. Daughter now likes Lions and Tigers and Hydra (guess which Nation I've been playing in the Dom2 Demo ?

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Maybe you can request shrapnel to send your copy to you in New Orleans!!

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hi there Daynar, was wondering where you wandered off to, havn't seen you in the forum for quite awhile, now I know your out gathering Behemoths, pale riders, and searching for gems for world domination http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Good to see your still around,

Gandolf, hows it going? I see you still drop in over at the seiv forum now and then, nice to see you again to.

PS. are there any brewskis in this here forum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

I read the seiv forum every day but I dont post much. The reactions just dont feel the same there as in other forums.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

its quieted down somewhat over time... i would guess it'll pick up again after V comes out. BUt there are still a lot of us there, even some of the old timers still post and hang out there and we still see new members and players showing up, that says a lot and its very generous of Shrapnel to leave the forum up and running, says a lot about their company and the type of people they are (terrific, even if Tim likes Chain Mail Ladies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) You can't ask for a better game company, that not only supports its games but encourages its players. Its more of a family type atmosphere there and here... You don't find that in most companies these days. They are just beautiful people....

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Actually it is not only Shrapnel, but the community. I haven't seen such a mature gaming board like this ever in my life. All gaming related forums are full with childish posts, but not this forum...well at least not the Dominions forums. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
This is why I like the people on these forums, they are helpful and mature.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Kind of reminds me of how the Internet used to be.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Heehee... (taking on his old geezer voice)
It used to be that you had to learn DOS to get to and learn UNIX to get
to and learn Internet. We had some rude people but no stupid ones. Then
Windows created "user friendly" connections and we got "users" who could
only use a computer but knew nothing about it. Then AOL created
foolproof connections for those who couldnt figure out Windows and we
got fools. Then WebTV created idiot-proof connections and it seems to be
doing a great job of it. Now we have Xbox on the net
but Ive run out of words.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Oh, don't hate me for using Windows, all the cool games work only on it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

It's bizarre to me to think that a little over ten years ago, I was dialing into BBSes to play Drug Wars and read bulletin board posts at a blazing 2400 bps.

How the world has changed so radically in such a short span of time, I'm not sure. Those days feel like a dream.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Hey, atl east you got all cool stuff like BNS connectors, yellow cables and transceivers. We modern people just get boring CAT-5 cables and hybrid active devices. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

And what about ... Dominions?! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Dominions is obviously several levels beyond cool http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

In levels of coolnes Dominions is the epicenter of a Niefel Flame.

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Jumping on the bandwagon:

Hi, I'm 34, portuguese living in Lisboa, Portugal, Europe, World, Universe. Although I have done the odd programming job (Python/C++) I am a research mathematician - working on several stuff, but, in case anyone cares to know, currently working mainly on "Banach 2-modules" and "direct integrals of functors". Due to health reasons, I am stuck at home, which has the nice advantage of giving me more time to play dominions.

Have several other interests, but mainly I am a music listener and an avid omnivorous reader, chewing everything from poetry to theology (I am also a long-time christian, thus the theology thingy).

Been familiar with computers from the time of the infamous ZX Spectrum - ahh fond memories I have. And the games: Elite, Heavy on the magick, Lords of midnight, ... My prefered genres are RPG and Strategy, turn-based mostly. Among my all-time favourites I would list Baldur's Gate II, Final Fantasy VII, Battle Isles III, Warcraft II and Heroes of Might and Magic IV (am I the only one who actually prefered the IV to the III?).

I can't remember exactly how I arrived at dominions. Initially, I was put off by the low-fi graphics, and, especially, the lack of control over tactical battles. It slowly dawned on me that controling battles with armies that can have hundreds of units of tens of different types with a fine-grain control is simply a no-no and, really, a disaster waiting to happen - although I still wished that we had *some* more control, a few more script options and more ways to combine them.

I am regular reader of the this forum - the community is very friendly - but not much of a poster/writer (though the length of this particular post betrays me). I have only played SP and I am definitely a dominions newbie. I am continuously amazed by the depth of the game and the availability of different strategies, as evidenced by the several helpful posts here by the Pointy Hats.

Btw, a somewhat OT question: for a long time I have been nurturing the idea of writing an AAR. Anyone knows how to take screenshots? I am on win2k (and/or linux/ubuntu).

Best regards,
G. Rodrigues

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Welcome!

As for screenshots, the common way to do it is pressing Print Screen, opening up paint and then using "Paste".

Re: Introduce yourself!! :-)
 

Pretty much...
Although the real hard core HoMMers know that II is the best (and not III. And definitely not IV)

BTW, V is quite a lot of fun. A lot of people are unhappy with it, but personaly I think V is a good and fun game.