[Cainehill]

Playing a first game in the demo, I agree that the interface has seen a number of upgrades, and it definately looks like the new nations will once again provide lots of variety and play styles.

But - disappointments as well. You still can't see what afflictions a unit has without right-clicking it - many of us were hoping for mouseover information so we could quickly figure out which troops were crippled and which merely scratched, but instead it's the same micromanagement for wounded troops. You can't seem to hide researchers from the commanders as you could in Dom2 (hopefully this will be fixed via an early patch).

SP AI is still disappointing. Nations _still_ declare war on human players before they can possibly have seen them, and the AI is still very lacking in judgement. Watching a battle in which Abysia sends their prophet (simple Warlord) and 5 infantry against 60-70 barbarians led to very predictable results, as the barbarians killed all troops and quickly dispatched the heroic Prophet as he continued to Smite after all troops were gone.

So, once again it looks like a game only seriously played in MP mode. And it looks like it needs another Conceptual Balance right out of the gate, as many Pretender chassis's are once again unbalanced - for example, the Witch King still has 20 point magic paths, just like stock unmodded Dom2 where it was one of the handful of no-brainer pretenders.

Then there's the minor things, like it still defaulting to "Renaming Turned Off", when 99% of the MP games I've been in have wanted renaming on, and people posted time and again asking for this simple change, mostly after getting to turn 3-10 in an MP game and realizing with horror that renaming accidently didn't get turned on.

Suspect I'm still glad I ordered last night before the demo came out - but I'm not as delighted as I thought I would be.