[Arralen]

onomastikon said:
Would anybody mind answering these last couple of questions of mine? .... 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.)

Now, I do most of my Dom playing in SP mode. And I am surely not known for my fanboyish attitude .. more for being overly negative, maybe

Would I buy Dom3 as it is now? Yes, I think I would.
(I don't have too, though .. I'm still playing the "go-gold"-beta-version..)

- 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.)

This message was already there in Dom2 .. check Dom2 manual p.23 "9.1 Priests" - if you "hit the ceiling" with your dom in that province, any more preaching won't have any effect. Judging from the Dom3 manual, the dominions cap from priest level for preaching might has been removed, but temples are still +1 priest levels for preaching purposes.
Actually, the lowered priest levels might be more due to game engine issues or for aesthetical reasons then anything else.

- Balance.
1) life steal?
2) Summons.
3) Economy.Is gold supposed to be so common?
4) Units.

1. already answered
2. Still too good to be true, but most of them are harder to come by now. And in SP, you just needn't use them.
3. Yes. To make 'mundane' troops more common.
4. yes, its confusing. Balancing has only begun ... and sometimes its hard to tell if something is actually a bug or a balancing issue

- Buildings. Do starting forts have to do with your starting nation or the starting terrain?

Every nation has a fixed starting fort, which you'll get no matter what terrain you start in. However, some nations have a strong preference for a certain terrain in their home province, e.g. EA Yomi mostly starts in mountains, LA Atlantis in a coastal province etc. . Furthermore, every nation has it's set of forts it will be able to build, depending on terrain.

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).

- going dark: no, thats not how it is intended. There should be a slow, fading zoom-in on the province, the a switch to the battle view. At least, thats how it works for me. Maybe you machine is a bit slow, or you're using an ATI card, or both ...
- there where some very vocal whiners who complained that every other game had an "end turn" button which takes one to the next turn .. now we have that button, and everyone else complains about it. Maybe you should have spoken up when that old discussion was about on the Dom2 forum Chances are not bad, though, that the button remains but the shortcut will be gone with the next patch .. it's all to easy to accidently hit the "e" key. At least, I hope so...
- turn number: no more turn numbers. you can still check the month, though, but clicking on that little graphic in the top right .. says "late summer of the first year" .. year has 12 month, and starts with early spring.

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.). .. Does the full version come with some more human-made maps? Or did I just have bad luck with the randomness dealt me?

I think the RMG does quite a good job. If you mark "impassable mountains", you will get impassable border mountains in provinces, which will effectilvy create chokepoints.
And you can always copy over the old Dom2 maps - they'll work in Dom3 as well.

AI. Like I said, I will mostly be playing 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.

Yes, yes, and sadly, yes.

OK, it seems to make forts, but even these are put in the strangest of places, seemingly at random, without regard for strategic need.

Can't second this. In contrary, I've seen it fortify it's border quite effectivly at times.

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.

Sadly, to be realistic, there's little hope we see an AI that can really play Dominions within our livetime. Chess is rather simple, compared with Dominions, and that's giving the so-called AIs a hard time.
I have some ideas how to do a decent AI for Dominions, but that would maybe require more manpower and -years than the whole Dominion series from PPP to 3.

.. but I doubt that JK and JO have time or interest for Dom3 (what with it being a multiplayer game and their RL jobs).

Minor flaws will be corrected, I think, but more than that is "out of scope" I fear.

But I have quite some fun playing SP dominions, nevertheless, by avoiding the more 'abusive' tactics the AI can't cope with, running very difficult research etc.