[Agrajag]

onomastikon said:
- Priests and preaching. Did Priests get nerfed? I *loved* the preaching element of Dom2, but Dom3 preaching seems nerfed, since priests all have 1 level lower. (I saw that priest spells are all lowered one level, makes sense, but I dont understand when you "cannot raise the dominion of this province by preaching". Obviously, the rules have changed, but the demo doesnt say how.)
Well, checking the manual, there's no mention of a maximum dominion to which priests can preach, but if you did get the "cannot raise the dominion of this province by preaching", and that province wasn't already on max dominion, then maybe the limit is in. (which would mean the manual needs a small fix)

- Balance.
1) I couldnt tell from the demo, since there was no info and it is very short, and you can't research past level 4, I was never able to make Life Stealing items: How does life steal work now? I heard it was different?
IIRC: Life stealing weapons are capped at 4 hp. (They also give back damage/2 HP and damage*2 fatigue, don't remember how it was in 2
2) Summons. Like I said, the demo is very limited, I couldnt really tell if at higher levels Summons was just as (over)powered as in Dom2.
Well, I haven't tried all the uberstuff yet, but generaly, especially with the increase in abundance of money, SCs were weakened quite a bit.
3) Economy. In the demo, on regular settings, it seemed I had tons and tons of cash, but the prices for units were similar to Dom2. The prices of buildings were much higher, however. Is this an "Age" thing? (Are buildings cheaper later, gold less common?) Is gold supposed to be so common?
Yep, its supposed to be that common, its a major change from dom2, but I think it is a good one

- Buildings. Do starting forts have to do with your starting nation or the starting terrain? Some forts just seem so much better than others (I saw one with Admin 60, while a different one had Admin 20). I thought at first that I would build forts my nation started with, but it seems terrain-dependent. So is starting province terrain mean a whole random bunch of luck with which free fort you get at the beginning?
Forts depend on terrain, choice of forts depends on nation.

- UI. When I click "view battle", my screen would go dark for about 5-8 seconds before playing. Is that normal? And "e" now automatically generates a turn instead of giving that secondary screen -- did everyone else *want* that? I can't see how far along a saved game now is (I think in Dom2 you could see "turn 30" or whatever, now I have no idea).
That's a fade-in effect, its supposed to look cool
And a lot of people aren't happy with the new function of the 'e' button and End Turn in SP.
You can still quit with Save and Quite though

- Random Map Generator. Does everybody like this? I thought it was a nice idea, but the maps I got were just no comparison to the good, human-made maps I had for Dom2 (strange borders, chokepoints, etc.).
(And it looked like Jason Lutes made that small map that came with the demo -- awesome map! I love his maps.)
Does the full version come with some more human-made maps? Or did I just have bad luck with the randomness dealt me?
Random maps are always a good thing, but obviously they have a hard time against human-made maps.
Also, there are nine man-made maps that come with the game. 7 if you don't count different versions of the same base map.

- AI. Like I said, I will mostly be playing SP. I know this is an MP game, and MP Dom2 was awesome, but I found other games better in SP. Dom3 is supposed to have better AI. I couldnt see this in the demo. It still prefers chaff, it still flails about aimlessly without a real plan, and it still builds weird pretenders.
OK, it seems to make forts, but even these are put in the strangest of places, seemingly at random, without regard for strategic need.
Well I just goofed about without really trying much, and even with the 40-turn limit I trounced the "Mighty AI" easily. Maybe it was just luck, I don't know, but I don't suppose the AI will be upgraded in patches. I know that Stardock really tries to work on that for their GC2, but I doubt that JK and JO have time or interest for Dom3 (what with it being a multiplayer game and their RL jobs).
So: Are there any SP players out there with any opinions from the full version? (Please, please, if possible, a critical view -- I know this is a fan site and everybody wants to support Illwinter (me too), but I am hoping for a tiny bit of objectivity, thanks.)
I play quite a bit of SP, but I'm not that good, so I don't think I qualify for comments in this regard.
However, just going by the feeling I get from reading the forums, most people are quite happy with the new AI, while there are still a few that don't think its any good.