[CUnknown]

Yeah Zen--

You're definitely in the minority of the minority that is Dominions 2 fans. CivIII can't hold a candle to Dom2, despite the vastly larger budget and huge popularity. Or, actually, because of the vastly larger budget and huge popularity. Any game with such a huge budget is going to be marketed at a large audience so it can make money (or someone is getting fired, right?). Any game marketed at a large audience is going to be hindered by the "common-denominator" factor, therefore probably not as good as dom2 because it isn't limited in that way.

Also--most of that budget is going towards graphics, which any true gamer knows is mostly irrelevant to a good game-playing experience.

So, mass marketed games are a large number of people making decisions about the game with regards more or less only to profits, not to a good gaming experience, and on top of that, they're wasting most of their money on a less-important part of the game (graphics). These games are just bound to be worse than a small project done by gamers for gamers. I'm not saying they -have- to be worse, but if they're not, it's pretty damn awesome. Get me a copy of that game.