Re: One of the things I love about Dom3
There's a difference in the manual handing you strategies and the manual's description of game mechanics being accurate so you can make reasonable judgement calls based on it. (One might foolishly believe that morale 15+ units don't have much to worry about from Fear given the manual - and one would be horribly wrong). And one can make perfectly good strategy in Chess based on the 'manual' (ie, rules) - that computer games permit mathematically complicated rules doesn't mean that the players should be incapable of knowing them, nor does it mean that they can't form strategy based on those rules.
Also, the way in which the AI chooses targets and behaves should probably be covered in general terms, since that's an essential part of playing the game. (So, the manual should probably say things like "During combat the player has no control of targetting, and only limited control of scripting. Instead, the program chooses targets for spells and attacks, subject to any constraints of scripting. In general, the game tries to maximize x,y,z (number of units, hps of damage, etc... whatever the ordering is). Actions which have no appropriate target in range fail, and the game tends to replace those orders with other orders as follows: {list}. Some spells the AI will refuse to use if the opposition appears to weak to warrant it, or {specify other cases}, and will default to other spells as described previously.")
Also, the spell descriptions in game (and presumably in the manual) are aggravatingly vague about the effects of spells. This is not a selling point, strategy games should have transparent mechanics or they stop being about strategy. Spells should list precise definitions of what the spells do.
Also, an explanation of 'attack rearmost' which explains why it rarely attacks the actual rearmost units would be useful. I have no idea why sometimes this works but mostly it fails and just attacks the front-most unit on the side.
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