Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games

[Ironhawk]

After a great deal of research I have come to the conclusion that Dom2 is the King of turn-based MP strategy games.

What prompted the research was that a friend of mine was playing dom2 with me for a while now, but eventually gave up cause it was too complicated for him. So, we both spent the past week or so, scouring the net and various gaming archives, desperately searching for a replacement. And the result? There are none!

Perhaps the single most defining feature that made dom2 stand out was its Turn-Style. As I am sure we all know, Dom2 employs an Offline-Simultaneous turn method. This method allows you to play a game at a reasonable pace, scaling all the way from 2 to 16 players without any problems whatsoever. Most of the other defining features of dom2 as an MP TBS game (high game completion rate, smoothness of handling dropout players, less prone to connection probs) all came as a result of the turn-style choice.

For reasons I can't fathom, almost all the games out thier offer either online/synchronized Simultaneous turns or some form of Serial turns. Both of which are just horrendous! Online-Simultaneous: because you have to have everyone online at the same time and just pray they dont drop in mid game. Serial turns: because it doesn't scale AT ALL with the number of players in the game and will consequently take you forever to play a game.

Additional bonuses of dom2 over other games were 1) The distinct lack of cheating in MP dom2 and 2) The tolerable level of micromanagement as the game progressed. These I simply attribute to the skill of the programmers.

Has anyone out there found a game that can rival dom2 in terms of Turn-based Strategy multiplayer play?

[Boron]

If you play only with your friend combat mission b2b and combat mission ak are the turn based games you are looking for . You can download the demos and try a game against your friend. You will probably like it.

Apart from CM which is only a 2 player game i know no other game that is so good in mp like dominions.
I fully agree that it is simply the best, despite it's small flaws (main problem is the low unit limit).

[Chazar]

Mostly agreed. However, the micromanagement is killing Dom2-games for me with maps having 150+ provinces. The game needs several imrpovements there! I've made a lot of suggestions in the wishlist and other have, too, so let's hope that these things get better in DomIII...

For the turn-based stuff: This is really the selling point for me! I recall starting several PBEM WarlordsIII games (having a serial turn mechanism) and none of them ever finished. The simultaneous turns are good for me since I am stuck with PBEM (I call it PBEM although I am not sending emails and connect to a host via TCP/IP as if doing an online game).

[Alneyan]

Agreed. Heroes is plain awful in multiplayer (even with only two players), Age of Wonders in online play is just slightly better, and Age of Wonders in PBEM results in watered down battles between the human players. *Sighs* And don't get me started on Civ III.

Another game where I am very annoyed by the multiplayer part is Europa Universalis (and related games from Paradox). A PBEM option would have been so nice there, though I am not sure how it would work. Ain't gonna happen though.

[djo]

I want to second what Boron said: Battlefront's Combat Mission is an excellent turn-based game. It's a tactical (squad/single vehicle) WWII game, almost a simulator in its detail. And like Dom2, the graphics are secondary to game play.

I can only say it's lucky for me that both these games (CM and Dom) are available for the Mac! If only CM were OS X...waiting for CM2, we are.

[Gandalf Parker]

PBEM definately creates a turn-based strategy game of excellence. I wish that some would make more use of its advantages in that you can have much larger maps than real-time games

Others that I feel excelled in that area were Stars!, VGAPlanets 3, and Space Empires IV. Particually the SEIV since I still bounce back and forth between that and Dom2. Ive also noticed that all of those games plus some other "not sure why its so popular" games like Master of Magic, all use a nation level rock-paper-scissors form of balancing (which is very difficult to do).

What really bugs me is that in all of the forums for such games there are always a large number people who dont understand what makes those games good, and try to suggest "improvments" toward unit balance or which would undo the PBEM. It can even feel as if those are the majority. I wonder how many possibly decent games were nerfed early in beta tests by developers who listened to the good meaning people who suggested it out of those areas.

[Agrajag]

Alneyan said:
Agreed. Heroes is plain awful in multiplayer (even with only two players)

Except when playing cooperatively with a friend in hotseat mod, against AIs.
This way you get a rest between turns and enjoy watching your friend play.
Though other than that, MP is terrible in HoMM.

As far as MP goes, the best I've seen is Dominions.

[Oversway]

Space Empires IV. Particually the SEIV since I still bounce back and forth between that and Dom2

I'll second what Gandalf Said. SEIV is a great "Offline-Simultaneous turn" game. The SEIV mods are really help the game shine, just like dom2.

[RibbonBlue]

Dom2 rocks.

[NTJedi]

I've always done HOMM_3 over a home LAN... which works fine. HOMM_4 had so many problems it only lasted about 3 weeks on the computer. HOMM_3 still lives on my computer.