Hi all. Yes my name really is Merlin. (I had slightly counterculture parents in the 70s; my Dad is a poet, although not successful enough for any of you to have actually seen any of his work, and has a beard which is nearly as good as Gandalf Parker's.
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I'm 31, live in London, work for a Dutch bank as a UNIX C++ analyst programmer. I'm getting married in June. My fiancee is a doctor and works shifts, which is great for me as I get to spend the occasional weekend playing computer games! She doesn't mind. Well, not that much, anyway.
I've been playing role playing and strategy games for as long as I can remember. Age 7? Certainly since I was 10. Basic Dungeons and Dragons red book, Avalon Hill board games, that kind of thing (and I can definitely relate to the cat knocking over all your stacks of counters). Computer games are a more recent interest as I didn't have a computer when I was a kid, but I've been making up for lost time since. I played "X-Com: Terror from the Deep" all night once when I was at university and missed an appointment. Main limiting factor these days is need for sleep and/or physical discomfort (I spend all day at work using a VDU so my neck, back and mouse wrist all get sore. Yes I have seen physios etc., it's manageable but my neck in particular does have problems if I play computer games all day. And I have been known to play computer games from 8am to 3am, with breaks for food. Yes I know I'm an addict.) Other interests include singing in a choir, writing fantasy novels, reading fantasy novels (and other things, I'm reading the "Unbearable Lightness of Being" at the moment), I take part in a triathlon once a year, I love dancing in clubs, and I listen to lots of indie music. I took 6 months off last year to finish my novel, which I did, and one of these days I hope to see it published. I'm currently writing my second novel. I helped support myself while I wasn't working by playing internet poker. However I stopped when I stopped making money from it (I think because everyone else got better). I made about £1,000 from it in those six months though. Maybe I could make money from it again, but to be honest playing 90 hands an hour and folding 65 of them gets pretty boring.
Games I've been playing recently include Oblivion and Hearts of Iron 2, and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic (I found Heroes of Might and Magic V rather disappointing, although I may go back to it). I'm also a big fan of the Total War series. I don't play multiplayer, I quite like the sense of satisfaction from crushing the computer in single player and completing a game.
I discovered Dominions 3 on Metacritic when I was looking for a new game, and thought it sounded perfect for me. I haven't really had a chance to play it properly yet; I've completed the tutorial and I'm about six hours into my first proper game.
Initial impressions: the battle graphics and sound are pretty awful and the game definitely has its user unfriendly quirks. However it's clearly a labour of love, and some of the actual mechanics (e.g. the length of weapon is a factor in combat, becoming less so after the initial attack) are the best thought through I've ever seen. I can't really comment on the AI at the moment; it seems to be functional rather than outstanding, but then writing good AI is a very difficult job. One of the things which would be nice is if the developers put as many options as possible into config and then let people play with them. There have been some quite significant improvements made to Hearts of Iron 2 AI using this approach. The Dominions 3 AI does seem to be particularly bad at assessing odds; it attacks far too often when it has no chance of success.
However bearing in mind this is my first game and there's no inbuilt reload feature, the AI is giving me a run for my money at the moment. I managed to lose my entire initial army by being too aggressive in the first few turns and not understanding the strength of the independents. I'm currently fighting a war on two fronts, and although I've pushed the AI back, it's coming back at me with fairly massive armies, so I'm currently rebuilding, pushing up Province Defence and hoping I can get a big enough army together to make some progress. I'm playing Arcoscephale (randomly assigned). My AI main opponent is Jotunheim, and I have some respect for those giants; they're tough and fast, so even if you win their commanders and a significant number of their troops usually survive. My initial attempt at pretender design was pretty rubbish (6 Nature, 4 Water, Lady of Love I think she was called; she has Awe 4, so if I can give her some decent magic and protection she should be ok in battles, if not a game winner). I've been targeting Conjuration (because Nature seems to be strong there) and COnstruction (because I've got a hero who has a bonus constructing Clockwork Warriors). I've had problems finding Nature gems which hasn't helped. After spending five turns building Vine Ogres (with a Crown of Thorns) I lost them all in one battle against independents, and came to the conclusion they're pretty rubbish, unless perhaps you have poison or protection magic to back them up. This is a bit worrying given that I've spent so much time building them, as I now need a plan B!
One thing I have noticed is that the game seems to reward patient buildups, every time I've tried an attack without quite enough troops I've just taken casualties; overwhelming force seems to be the way forward. And you seem to need a helluva lot of troops for sieges.
It's all been very interesting, and I'm looking to put in some serious hours this weekend. Given the number of mistakes I've made I'm not completely sure I can beat all the AI opponents, but then I like a challenge. (My only real gripe with Total War is that it is a bit easy, except perhaps if you play the Western Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion. Now that was hard.) Depending on how I get on with the game (and if I find the AI too limiting) I may get involved with online multiplayer, if time (and my fiancee) allow. However I quite like the roleplaying fantasy side of things, and by the sound of it multiplayer is fast and furious with most of the action over by the time you get interesting magic. So I'll see how it goes.
Gosh that was a long post! Anyway nice to meet you all.
merlin