[Maltrease]

I don't think there can be much reconciliation between the type of gamers that want

Every mechanic explicitly stated and equation defined. Maps out income over time in a spreadsheet to see effects of growth or death. Etc..

vs

Keep everything a mystery and just let me get a "feel" for the game after playing it several times. Eventually I will learn what works through enough trial, error and exploration.


I fall into the first school and it is completely infeasible to me why someone would desire the second (but of course many people do). I imagine those the second school can’t imagine why someone would want to “waste” all of their time calculating out all the details. I doubt there is any reason to debate it as you are not going to change anyone’s mind about it.

The simple fact is that the first school of thought will absolutely win more games and be more competitive then the second group.

I'll admit that I have killed many "shallow" games by going to GAMEFAQs and reading every rule, spell and mechanic then deciding that "I know everything about the game now... no reason to play it.". There are a lot of games that hide "boring, obscure or easily abuse-able" mechanics behind this "mystery".

Dominions has enough depth and already is EXTREMELY transparent in how the mechanics work that I have little worry there will every be a master document that would make be bored with the game after I read it. You may end up with something like the chess books have where you have some optimum openings and counters to them… but once you get a few turns in (or through in a few more variables) all bets are off.

So does an easy to use battle simulator help the 1st school or the 2nd school more? I don't know?

If there was an easy way to test how well 100 netted Merman (how do nets affect glamour) vs. 20 Helheim PD would the "mystery" player want to find out before they committed the action in their MULTIPLAYER game… that they have already spent countless hours on over weeks or months?

For me (if it was a critical component of my strategy)... falling into the first camp I would setup a 2 player game, build up the armies and test it manually. So maybe this takes me 10 minutes... way to much time for the player from the second school.

BUT... if running that test only took 2 minute due to a semi-automated way to build the map files and start with all the needed troops would that be easy enough for the "mystery" player to play out the situation.

BTW, I ran this test a few days ago and the merman netters didn't have the slightest chance of victory. (due to javelins and no protection)

To me the challenge and FUN is finding the solution to the problem. What can Oceania do vs. Helheim that is effective? (nothing I’ve found yet) So if someone comes at me with a specific army that is destroying me… I want to find the counter to it. And I don’t want to lose the game trying to find that counter… or lose the game without finding the counter.

Tools to help me with this research are greatly desired. The great thing about Dominions is there is so much variety that their will never be “Turn 1 to 40, Complete path to Victory” document. Even if you wrote 200 articles (one for each nation vs. another) it still isn’t going to be comprehensive as you don’t know what independent troops, lucky magic sites, pretender designs, scales, actually recruited troops are… they are just guides.

Is Chess boring because of the 100’s of strategy guides and books made for it? Its fun because all the rules are transparent and how you apply them determines your victory or success.

And you are never going to have a simulator that makes things like the effectiveness of raiding with stealth troops broken down into spreadsheet format.

Gah… guess I didn’t listen to my “no point to debate it” comment at the beginning. Nor have I spent the last hour on WORK that I need to do.

Anyways… my chapter is complete.