One of the things I love about Dom3
 

I'm waiting on a replacement disk, since I managed to lose my original disk.

I have other hobbies (e.g. tabletop miniatures gaming) where waiting for something always seems painfully interminable.

Now, don't get me wrong - I CAN'T WAIT for my disk to show up (tomorrow I think :) ) but in the meantime, I've been rediscovering one of the sheer pleasures of Dominions 3:

Sitting down with a cup of coffee and reading the manual for a few hours.

I really can't recall a manual that was such fun, so interesting, and so educational to read. If anyone ever read the game guide for Morrowind that was great too, and some of the manuals from waaaaay back were sort of like this. But everything from the writing style, to Bruce Geryk's tutorial, to the millions of ideas presented that hint at the millions of ideas you'll be having while you play and think about playing.

Seriously, if it's been a while - pick it up again. I read the whole thing when I first got the game, but I've learnt sooooooo much re-reading it.

Big round of applause to those who put it together - a job well done. :)

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

Indeed. And while CBM (which is on in about any MP game I'm in) does change some numbers around, the manual still is an useful tool as a reference to spells (and summoned units) and magic items.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

It's a good manual. It's pretty untrustworthy though. I certainly wouldn't believe something about a mechanic in the game just because it said so in the manual. It's wrong about plenty of things.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

Yeah, unfortunately there were some inaccuracies in the manual when it was first printed and patches have added countless others, even to the mechanics.

I still love my manual, and in fact it happens to be right next to me right now since I was a bit hazy on some details yesterday.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

It was one of my early pushes that a manual should not be written by the developers. Or even the experts. IMHO the manual that comes with the game does not have to be perfect in the experts territory down to the last spread-sheet calculation. It needs to be written for newbies. In fact, Im turned off by manuals that make it seem as if the game has already been so analyzed and laid out that there is nothing new to learn about it.

By the time developers, and even beta-testers, get to the point of writing a manual they tend to be too deep into the game to think of newbie questions and give newbie answers. The best manuals I have ever read involved (A) someone with decent writing skills, (B) that started the game fresh, (C) keeping notes with the intention of writing a manual from it.

I commend Illwinter and Shrapnel for going the right route and creating one of the best manuals Ive ever gotten with a game.
(and thats not just because Im in it) :)

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

I also-also agree that the Dom3 manual is great. I know this has been discussed more in-depth in other topics, but I love the overall mystique and mystery the game has surrounding it *because* there's so much to do and understand and create, even a 300-page manual can only scratch the surface and provide the basics. That, to me, is telling of the quality of the game when the manual basically says "Here's what you need to know to get started, now go nuts and have fun."

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

Glad to see I'm not alone :)

I for one will also forgive any inaccuracies, because the greater strength of the manual has been to aid the mystique of the game, inspire me to play, and catalyze my thinking about the game.

And nice Gandalf! I see you there on page v - hadn't realised you were in the beta testing :) And I agree with your sentiments. I'd played Dominions 2 (only offline), but I found the tutorial, and the general well-written easily understood text huge for learning the game.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

See, lack of accuracy is a major flaw in my eyes. its not that I want the manual to explain every possible interaction of effects, but it should give a fundamentally sound account of the rules so people playing the game understand the rules they are playing under. I realize in this game of computers where the player doesn't need to know the rules to move pawns around that its fashionable to hide rules from the player, but it really detracts from interesting play because it encourages players to do stupid things. Basically, it creates a barrier to entry that inhibits players from doing their best because they don't know what they're actually doing.

I like to know how rules of a game I am playing function, so I can plan strategies and work out tactics that work under those rules. Blind button mashing isn't very interesting in a fighting game. Running around shooting randomly isn't very interesting in a FPS. And buying units at random isn't very interesting in a war simulation game.

That fundamental aspects of the rules are poorly explained or wrongly explained in the manual only means that new players have to do the equivalent of blindly mashing buttons for their first couple of games before they have any clue what's going on - wasted time that could have been ameliorated by writing an accurate manual. So yes, i think the actual algorithms from the code for things like combat resolution should be represented in the manual somewhere, probably in an appendix, but they should be openly accessible so everyone can know.

Edit: The reference aspect of the manual is nice, but imho that should be *expected*. Call me old fashioned, but all the games I grew up with had full spell lists in the rule manual.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

My understanding is that the manual is only wrong about a few corner cases for the rules and for the stats which have been re-balanced since the printing. The basic combat rules are fully explained, and they even give you a handy chart for calculating the percentile chances with an open ended 2D6. Really, I think the thing that makes learning Dominions difficult isn't a lack of documentation, but rather the sheer amount of spells, items, units, and effects.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

Well, each to their own of course. Lack of accuracy seems a bit harsh - perhaps imperfect accuracy? But I take what you're saying on board. It's unfortunate that their are errors, but I'd say that the positives far outweigh the negatives. When you compare this to, say, perfectly functional manuals like those to other TBS, or RTS games etc, this wins hands down.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

Admiral Zhao - For example, the manual leads one to believe that blocking an arrow with a shield merely means you get to add the shield's protection against the arrow (based on how other combat works, where the only explanation is given), which is wrong. A parried arrow is actually totally negated, which is a critical difference when planning battle tactics, and yet is never mentioned in the manual. (see pgs 74-77 - the melee combat section is a necessary read because that's where the only description of actual shield effect is).

Or perhaps the total absence of mention that fear reduces enemy morale each round of combat, which is really significant and the more important of its effects.

Other examples could of course be mentioned. In fact, there are entire threads on this board pointing out inaccuracies of the manual. Ie, http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39469.

James243: Maybe i'm showing my age, but I remember the manuals from the 80s and early 90s games, which were at least as good as the Dom3 manual if not better. In the 80s, RPG manuals had full spell listings with descriptions and game data, for example. So i don't consider inclusion of such things special - its a flaw with the product if it *doesn't* have such a manual.

(in the case of RTSes, the games are generally simple enough that the 'functional' manual is really all that could be expected. My copy of starcraft came with a perfectly good manual for the complexity of the game, including, most relevantly, a fold-out tech/building tree).

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

The manual is wrong about enough mechanics that I can't trust it without testing or asking someone who has first hand experience. So it's inaccurate in enough cases to no longer be useful to me. But when I first ordered the game I did enjoy reading it.

A particularly bad example not mentioned by squirreloid would be that the manual states quite clearly you can't retreat safely from a sieged castle. Which you can.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

It doesn't really say that. In the Break Siege section, it says, "Units which retreat are eliminated instead of being able to return to the fortress."

It doesn't say you can't retreat to a neighboring friendly province. It just says you cannot retreat to back inside the fortress. It's possible the author assumes that all neighboring provinces are not owned by the army breaking siege. He should have made that assumption clear though. Or maybe he just didn't understand the mechanics, and managed to accidentally leave himself some wriggle room.

In the Storm Castle section it says nothing at all about the consequences of retreat.

That said, the manual is completely wrong about several aspects of dominion spread. And it's a bit wrong about blood hunting, and the turn resolution sequence, and call god, and I'm sure a bunch of other things I just can't remember right now. Isn't there a manual erratta thread somewhere?

Also: MoM and Moo and Civ II had really great manuals.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

I think it's pretty clear what is meant. "Units which retreat are eliminated". Yes, they are under the normal non-siege-specific condition that there are no friendly provinces to retreat to. Something which is covered by the manual elsewhere. I guess it's /possible/ we are supposed to infer that the author assumes there are no bordering friendly provinces in a siege situation (which would just make it poorly written). But let's be real, the manual just has it wrong. You'll only find the statement ambiguous if you really go looking for ambiguity.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

It's questionable to rely on the manual for battle strategy on any case imo.
You might have a relatively good plan in "theory" i.e. worked out from the manual, that does fail completely in practice for reasons of battle placement and AI (as soon as you are into range your script runs out and the AI takes over for example or AI choosing the perfect target...).

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

There's a difference in the manual handing you strategies and the manual's description of game mechanics being accurate so you can make reasonable judgement calls based on it. (One might foolishly believe that morale 15+ units don't have much to worry about from Fear given the manual - and one would be horribly wrong). And one can make perfectly good strategy in Chess based on the 'manual' (ie, rules) - that computer games permit mathematically complicated rules doesn't mean that the players should be incapable of knowing them, nor does it mean that they can't form strategy based on those rules.

Also, the way in which the AI chooses targets and behaves should probably be covered in general terms, since that's an essential part of playing the game. (So, the manual should probably say things like "During combat the player has no control of targetting, and only limited control of scripting. Instead, the program chooses targets for spells and attacks, subject to any constraints of scripting. In general, the game tries to maximize x,y,z (number of units, hps of damage, etc... whatever the ordering is). Actions which have no appropriate target in range fail, and the game tends to replace those orders with other orders as follows: {list}. Some spells the AI will refuse to use if the opposition appears to weak to warrant it, or {specify other cases}, and will default to other spells as described previously.")

Also, the spell descriptions in game (and presumably in the manual) are aggravatingly vague about the effects of spells. This is not a selling point, strategy games should have transparent mechanics or they stop being about strategy. Spells should list precise definitions of what the spells do.

Also, an explanation of 'attack rearmost' which explains why it rarely attacks the actual rearmost units would be useful. I have no idea why sometimes this works but mostly it fails and just attacks the front-most unit on the side.

Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
 

Attack rearmost fails if theres units in the path or near the path so they "lure" or "taunt" your units to melee.
Theres a check. I dont know what checks but your units are not lured by commanders unless they are too close. But instead looks for "soldiers" or non commanders.
Perhaps checks morale or something in the enemys stats.

You can force the ai to go to one side placing your frontmost group un that side and flankers on the opposite. But human opponents can prevent that putting their own flankers on both sides so you cannot slip trough. Slow flankers are best to stop enemy cavalry so they dont venture too far ahead.