Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

After a great deal of research I have come to the conclusion that Dom2 is the King of turn-based MP strategy games.

What prompted the research was that a friend of mine was playing dom2 with me for a while now, but eventually gave up cause it was too complicated for him. So, we both spent the past week or so, scouring the net and various gaming archives, desperately searching for a replacement. And the result? There are none!

Perhaps the single most defining feature that made dom2 stand out was its Turn-Style. As I am sure we all know, Dom2 employs an Offline-Simultaneous turn method. This method allows you to play a game at a reasonable pace, scaling all the way from 2 to 16 players without any problems whatsoever. Most of the other defining features of dom2 as an MP TBS game (high game completion rate, smoothness of handling dropout players, less prone to connection probs) all came as a result of the turn-style choice.

For reasons I can't fathom, almost all the games out thier offer either online/synchronized Simultaneous turns or some form of Serial turns. Both of which are just horrendous! Online-Simultaneous: because you have to have everyone online at the same time and just pray they dont drop in mid game. Serial turns: because it doesn't scale AT ALL with the number of players in the game and will consequently take you forever to play a game.

Additional bonuses of dom2 over other games were 1) The distinct lack of cheating in MP dom2 and 2) The tolerable level of micromanagement as the game progressed. These I simply attribute to the skill of the programmers.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif Has anyone out there found a game that can rival dom2 in terms of Turn-based Strategy multiplayer play?

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

If you play only with your friend combat mission b2b and combat mission ak are the turn based games you are looking for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif. You can download the demos and try a game against your friend. You will probably like it.

Apart from CM which is only a 2 player game i know no other game that is so good in mp like dominions.
I fully agree that it is simply the best, despite it's small flaws (main problem is the low unit limit).

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Mostly agreed. However, the micromanagement is killing Dom2-games for me with maps having 150+ provinces. The game needs several imrpovements there! I've made a lot of suggestions in the wishlist and other have, too, so let's hope that these things get better in DomIII...

For the turn-based stuff: This is really the selling point for me! I recall starting several PBEM WarlordsIII games (having a serial turn mechanism) and none of them ever finished. The simultaneous turns are good for me since I am stuck with PBEM (I call it PBEM although I am not sending emails and connect to a host via TCP/IP as if doing an online game).

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Agreed. Heroes is plain awful in multiplayer (even with only two players), Age of Wonders in online play is just slightly better, and Age of Wonders in PBEM results in watered down battles between the human players. *Sighs* And don't get me started on Civ III.

Another game where I am very annoyed by the multiplayer part is Europa Universalis (and related games from Paradox). A PBEM option would have been so nice there, though I am not sure how it would work. Ain't gonna happen though.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

I want to second what Boron said: Battlefront's Combat Mission is an excellent turn-based game. It's a tactical (squad/single vehicle) WWII game, almost a simulator in its detail. And like Dom2, the graphics are secondary to game play.

I can only say it's lucky for me that both these games (CM and Dom) are available for the Mac! If only CM were OS X...waiting for CM2, we are.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

PBEM definately creates a turn-based strategy game of excellence. I wish that some would make more use of its advantages in that you can have much larger maps than real-time games

Others that I feel excelled in that area were Stars!, VGAPlanets 3, and Space Empires IV. Particually the SEIV since I still bounce back and forth between that and Dom2. Ive also noticed that all of those games plus some other "not sure why its so popular" games like Master of Magic, all use a nation level rock-paper-scissors form of balancing (which is very difficult to do).

What really bugs me is that in all of the forums for such games there are always a large number people who dont understand what makes those games good, and try to suggest "improvments" toward unit balance or which would undo the PBEM. It can even feel as if those are the majority. I wonder how many possibly decent games were nerfed early in beta tests by developers who listened to the good meaning people who suggested it out of those areas.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Except when playing cooperatively with a friend in hotseat mod, against AIs.
This way you get a rest between turns and enjoy watching your friend play.
Though other than that, MP is terrible in HoMM.

As far as MP goes, the best I've seen is Dominions.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

I'll second what Gandalf Said. SEIV is a great "Offline-Simultaneous turn" game. The SEIV mods are really help the game shine, just like dom2.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Dom2 rocks.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

I've always done HOMM_3 over a home LAN... which works fine. HOMM_4 had so many problems it only lasted about 3 weeks on the computer. HOMM_3 still lives on my computer.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

What is the turn-style for Combat Mission? All the other pure wargame type games I looked at actually turned out to be Serial-turn. Not so bad for those games because they are all 1v1, but you have no diplomacy and political intrigue like you do in a dom2 FFA.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Combat Mission is 1-on-1 and low-level tactical (units=squad/single vehicle, totalling up to about a batallion per side). Each battle simulates about 1 hour of real-time, so no diplomacy, supply, etc. The turns are 1 minute sim time, orders then replay. The AI is not bad (buys more than militia), and you also have hotseat, PBEM, and network.

Battlefront.com has demos for all 3 variations (west, east, & Italy/Africa theaters) for PC and Mac (OS 9 only, alas).

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Thanks djo. I might take a look at it to solve the immediate need of something to play with this particular friend. Is it Simultaneous turns? Or Serial, like most of the other wargames I found. I'm also toying around with going back to Wesnoth for a little bit. But both of those games are so radically different from Empire-Building types of games. Those are my true pride and joy!

It is really distressing, tho, to have this realization - that there are for all intents and purposes no other MP turn-based games - confirmed by other veteran players :/

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

If I understand what you mean, it's simultaneous, like dom2. Each player submits orders for a turn, the computer resolves them together, and then each player sees the replay.

Is that what you mean?

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

What do you expect? Those that bow to the One True Game will accept no other. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Hahhaha, just so!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So, hey - about SE4: what are people's opinions on it? When I played the demo so many moons ago I thought there was just way, WAY too much MicroManagement, even for a PBEM-style game? Was I doing something wrong?

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

SE4 doesn't have much micromanagement. Really! Well, yes it does, though you can elect to play a slightly less optimal game and save yourself a lot of micromanagement.

Heavy use of retrofits or fighters are the kind of things that can result in micromanagement hell, but even then, most turns do take a while to play: one hour per turn was my average in the middle game, and two hours in harder situations, and some players have claimed to spend several hours per turn, without paying much attention to some details.

My other main complaint with the game is balance: there is really no widespread balancing mod, and the standard game is not exactly balanced; or rather, there are simply options that cannot be bypassed, and only one working Empire setup with a couple of variations. Don't even think of seeing something half as varied and half as balanced (relatively speaking) as Dominions 2; I'm afraid it won't be the case.

I believe the game does shine with certain mods, and in multiplayer if you like diplomacy and the like. I am personally quite fond of Proportions, where micromanagement goes down to manageable levels, and where all the good stuff is all of a sudden just a bit harder to reach. That would be the difference between playing Easy research and Magic 3 and Very Hard research and Drain 3: in the latter case, research choices actually matter. Proportions is fun, really. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Now PvK, feel free to send me that check for the free ad, will ya? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

SEIV can have a lot of micromanagement, but they have a lot of time saving shortcuts - saving build queues, waypoints, etc. Overall the micromanagement was never a game killer for me. Do you remember what specifically you had problems with?

I agree with Alneyan, the base game is somewhat constrained (like life-draining weapons, wrathful skies, can be in dom2).

The SEIV AI can be dumb, but because the ai can be modded to an extent (illwinter: hint hint http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif) you can find many mods that improve the sp aspect as well.

I havn't played seiv awhile but I really liked the devnull mod. I don't think people use that anymore, though.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

The thing I liked most about SEIV was how the MODding totally made it. The original game feels like a demo now. Small galaxy, 8 races, few random graphics, no random space monsters or pirates or nomads or... well anyway, the players made mods that changed ALL of that. Now the galaxys are huge, full of surprises, hundreds of races covering just about any space movie, tv show or novel you can thing of.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Hmmmmm... maybe I need to reload SEIV onto my computer. I never tried the mods. Are they as easy to install as on Dominions 2?

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

no they are abit of a headache but I consider it well worth the effort now that I can kick off a game with no errors. I like SEIV for alot of the same reasons that I like Dom2. LOTS of different ways to play and win. Barbarian horde, defensive, stealth, diplomat, trader, rush to research a particular set of technologies. None of which are absolute winners. Especially when you try it in multiplayer.

Re: Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games
 

Stars! was an excellent game. After a couple hours (literally) of searching, I managed to find a download of it both in English and German. Now I have to get a serial number... again... I should really keep these things somewhere.