[Fyron]

I don't think the demo was supposed to give you a complete game so this isn't really a fair criticism.

It gives me the ability to seige and storm a castle, so it most certainly is. I seiged it for 4 turns before the gates were broken, then failed several times over the next 10 turns to take out the meagre defenses of the castle with seemingly overwhelming forces before hitting the demo turn limit.

Again, I think having all your guys into one or two really big squads helps with this.

That is silly. It makes separating them into multiple squads to have greater tactical flexibility a bad idea.

Pretty good review, but you really need to read a LOT of forum Posts to learn the hidden info to make truly informed opinions about many features.

Basic info on how to play a game successfully should not be hidden. Advanced features, maybe, but not the basics.

Friendly fire usually does more damage than good in my experience, so I don't even waste the resources on building ranged units.

Which is a really poor game design decision, and one of the reasons I will not be purchasing Dominions 2 at this time.

Between Machaka hoplites and Spider warriors/knights? Or between hoplites and normal warriors? For the spiders, it's because that spider comes with a ranged web attack, is fast, has two normal attacks, one of which has death poison. Then when the rider gets killed the spider hangs around for the rest of the fight. For the black hunters you get a spider that is blessable and hangs around even riderless for many turns. Spider knights are also almost twice as fast as infantry, which lets them outflank their enemies.

It is much more a problem with Jotunheim than with Machaka. And no, I was certainly not comparing infantry with cavalry there. That would be silly.

Remember that a single point difference can have a very large effect with the rolls as seen on the charts in this thread.

I would not call the differences from 1 point listed on that thread very large effects, certainly not for the extreme increase in cost to get that point.

* Assassinate the commanders.

I tried that, actually... my assassin with Machaka just got slaughtered by a centaur commander. Do those regular troops that look like the assassin commander participate in the assassination battles?

Maybe a matter of taste, or your particulars and inexperience. Having played a lot and watched all the battle replays, I think the morale system works really well.

Probably a matter of taste. I find it absurd that so many units will just run like hell after taking small losses when they are defending their homeland. Units should only very rarely be routed when defending their homeland (such as with independants), and even then it should just be a few units routed, not the entire army.

However I think you're probably just not aware of the reasons behind the costs. For example, holy units have major advantages such as being blessable and only costing half as much to maintain (so their true cost is nearly half-off if they survive).

Yes, and I was not really considering holy units, especially for Jotunheim. I haven't tried other nations than them and Machaka, but then, I can't try most of them in the demo.