[Taqwus]

Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but Illwinter was no slouch about supporting the first Dominions game; patches not only fixed bugs as they were discovered, but also addressed balance issues and added features e.g. Move-and-Patrol. The Last Dom I patch, 1.15, was released Feb 4, 2003; not at all bad for a game released July 2, 2001.

I've only owned one previous Shrapnel-published, "Space Empires IV", but that went through something like... up to Version 1.44 or 1.45 or so before the Gold Version release, and a LOT of feature tweaks and additions happened if memory serves. Shrapnel does not seem to be a "one patch and abandon" company.

For a game with as much replayability as Dom 2 should have -- the 17 sides needing different playing styles, for instance -- and the amount of support I'd suspect that Illwinter and Shrapnel are likely to give, the price seems fair.