[HoneyBadger]

Not another appreciation post! Ok, it's another appreciation post, but not *just* an appreciation post.

Lately, we've had a few posts complaining about the cost of the game, the instability of various servers, problems with the forum, etc. *****, *****, *****, go whine to your mommies, says I.

Johan and Kristoffer and the (very few!) other folks connected to Illwinter have done an extraordinary job, in partnership with Shrapnel Games, who also deserves some amount of thanks.

We've got...what is it now, 56 out of the box nations? (with patches, ofcourse, but for one price that I consider very low). Each with over a score of units. Plus all the independents (which usually have atleast 4 units a piece), all the summonable units, all the horrors, Bogus and his crew, and it goes on and on. And that's just one broad facet of the game. How many games-computer or otherwise-give you this much content, period? Let alone to make it very mod friendly, let alone to make it balanced, let alone to make it multiplayer, let alone to have a great forum, and they still work their day-jobs. And they still give us regular updates every few months. And it's relatively bug free. It's a masterwork by *any* definition.

And on top of the candy mountain of everything good that they've provided us, the new content they're adding gets better and better. Still free, and keeps getting better.

Warhammer, by Games Workshop, has been around for decades. It requires no computer programming. It doesn't even require that the creators or players even own a computer. It does require that they hold down a steady job or other means of income, and devote a significant portion of their time and income to the game. Each army piece is something you can hold in your hand-it's modifiable, it's paintable, it's versatile beyond the normal tin soldier and is definitely an elite wargame of fine quality, but Warhammer gives you an absolute maximum of 20 nations, two of which have been discontinued. It's only got 1 worldmap. It's been around since 1983! It's moddable, in that you can rewrite the rules, but how many of us can make good quality miniatures, from scratch? You can buy new ones, true, but there's the expense of that, the expense of buying the rulebooks, the expense of painting pieces, custom modification, buying extra sets of armies, etc. Cost on top of cost.

Dominions 3 gives you more bang for your buck, for far less, than any other complex hobby that I'm familiar with-and don't fool yourself-Dominions 3 isn't just a game, it's a hobby.

You can make mods with it-we've got about as many mod nations as we do out of the box nations (which is impressive, considering we've got a whole crew of folks who make great nations, compared to two people who've made 56 or more nations, and THE WHOLE REST OF THE GAME!). You can become involved with the forum-I've gone months without even playing Dom3, and still entertained myself by just writing about the game. You can talk to the Devs, and they talk back. They pant alot when they talk, because they're tired! There's even a Dom3 Wiki.

It's more fun than Daggerfall, more accessible than Space Empires (has become), cooler than Civilization, friendlier than Spore, and healthier than Grand Theft Auto.

You can work 10 hours bagging groceries at minimum wage and earn enough money to purchase Dom 3. You can mow the lawns of the elderly and earn it in maybe 3 days, if you're lazy. You can collect cans and loose change and scrapmetal for a week, and probably come up with 60 bucks. For 60 bucks, you can buy a really nice shirt, or take your family out to dinner. It's more money than you're likely to find in the cushions of your couch, or else you really need to clean your couch, but it's not a lot of money. It's not a mortgage payment, or an engagement ring. Nobody's asking that you sell a kidney.

In 10 years I'll still be playing Dominions. Or atleast still writing about it. Hopefully I'll have a new computer before then... It'll still be entertaining, it'll still be fun. Hopefully by then the Devs will have relented and created Dom4? Maybe? Please? Pretty please, with a cherry on top? Because this isn't just another computer game. This isn't Tetris or Doom, or even StarCraft. It's far bigger, far more versatile, far more alive and growing, and-unlike any other computer game of my experience-it can give you back more than you put into it.