I'm evaluating to buy Dom3

Valgua · #1 March 5th, 2007, 05:03 AM

Hi! I've read a lot of good things about Dominion 3 but many different opinions about the AI. If I buy the game I'll play it mainly in single player so a good AI is a must. It would be nice if you also gave me you impressions about the game in general (level of fun, replayability and so on). Thank you,

Filippo

Meglobob · #2 March 5th, 2007, 05:20 AM

Download and play the demo. Then make your mind up.

Valgua · #3 March 5th, 2007, 05:24 AM

It's a good advice but the I've learned by experience that the evaluation of the AI requires a lot of play time in different situations.

Filippo

Nick_K · #4 March 5th, 2007, 08:29 AM

Dominions is a massively complex game and it would therefore be very difficult indeed to write an AI that can take all the possible tactics into account.

Because of this an experienced player can easily beat the AI using tactics that it is unable to deal with. Sometimes this is very obvious and hinders gameplay (e.g. LE ermor) and sometimes it is very much the player's choice whether to use exploits (e.g. supercombatants).

The AI has strategic weaknesses and is generally not a match for a player 1-on-1. It also tends to have poor pretender design. Its use of magic was very poor in Doms2 but this seems to have improved a bit, although obviously not to the level of a human.

That said, it is easy to criticise the AI. If you visit boards for almost any strategy game you'll find such criticism. This is generally misplaced, a product of naive expectations that want a human-level challenge. After all, it is not realistic to code an AI that will equal an experienced, intelligent player.

For a new player the dominions AI can be very challenging. It has a simple aggressive attitude and it is easy for players to get crushed by multiple AIs early on. The AI does not target human players as such, but most new players need time to learn how to discourage attacks. On higher difficulty levels the AI has more gold and thus larger armies. This gives it an edge, but is unlikely to give it victory against an experienced player after the early game.

If you feel that you want an AI that will seriously challenge you at first then dominions is fine. If you want one that will challenge you after you have become skilled at the game then it is not; but I have trouble thinking of a strategy game to recommend in this case.

I play single-player exclusively and I enjoy dominions. I generally expect to win, but I do occasionally have difficulty, generally when playing a nation that does not match my play-style. The Ai is not a strong point of the game, but I don't find it distressingly weak. When you start playing you can expect to have difficulty even if you are used to playing strategy games.

As for dominions in general... The graphics are, of course, poor, but no doubt you have already seen screenshots. The key selling point is the massive variety of spells, units and items. This gives it a huge amount of replay value - it will take many games before you've tried most of the spells, nations and so on.
I find the gmae very fun, although I don't consider challenge as the key element in my enjoyment of a game. For me immersion is most important.
The user-interface and level of micromanagement is much improved over the previous game, but there is still improvement to be made IMO. The demo is fine for seeing what you think about the interface.

I recommend that you try the demo and see if you find the interface ok, and whether you find the game world interesting. If you find yourself eager to try advanced magics and so on then I think the game is well worth buying. It is immersive, fun, and has significant replay value. The AI is not a match for a human, but I can't think of a highly challenging strategy game AI for a complex game so I don't consider this to be a huge problem for Dominions.

Meglobob · #5 March 5th, 2007, 09:17 AM

I personally struggled to beat the AI for the first 2 months or so. So its reasonably good. I lost about a dozen+ games, some very, very badly.

Of course now I win with my eyes closed and hands tied behind my back, I hit the keys with my nose...

I could not say the same about alot of other strategy games, which I have been able to walk over after only a few days play.

So overall the AI is reasonable.

Exploring the game design, different nations, strategies etc... will still keep you playing long after you have mastered impossible difficulty.

Also I am currently getting a good, challenging SP game by designing the AI's gods for them, doing there first 10 turns to get them off to a good start, well handicapping myself by not moving out of my home province for the first 10 turns. Produces a challenging game for more experienced players.

CharonJr · #6 March 5th, 2007, 10:10 AM

I have to second what has been said before.

Basically once you understand the "rules" nearly as good as the AI does you will have no problem to win most of the times unless you seriously handicap yourself.

An AI which is able to play a game of this depth even at close to human level is years away IMHO (I think chess is fairly easy compared to the complexity of a game like this).

But the great depth of the game (due to the large number of spells, nations, units) will give you a very good value over time IMO.

And since you can play this game via email or online I can find no reason why you should not be able to play vs. others players as long as you both can agree on the pace of the game.

CharonJr

PvK · #7 March 6th, 2007, 08:24 PM

AI isn't brilliant but I find it plenty fun to play against (after years of playing the previous versions of Dominions, too), and challenging with the right settings. I think it mainly disappoints players who for some reason want to be impressed with its intelligence even after analyzing what it does. I'm actually pretty impressed with how well the AI plays, considering how complex the game is! Certainly it does some dumb things and could in theory be improved in many ways. I just make the scenario as challenging as I want it and then apply a little imagination and suspension of disbelief, and I have great fun playing against the AI, especially from a roleplaying perspective rather than a chess-like analytical problem-solving perspective.

PvK

Gandalf Parker · #8 March 6th, 2007, 08:59 PM

Most of the problems with the AI seem to be its linear code. Its basically one AI for all of the nations with very few "if" routines slowing it down checking for every unique nation situation. Most of the "better AI" games are ones where all of the nations are basically the same wearing different colors.

Improving the AI in Dom3 would be very difficult without going external with lots of hooks written into the code, or writing a complete AI for each nation plus various subthemes. Maybe Dom4

Sombre · #9 March 6th, 2007, 11:36 PM

One thing to remember is that there are a lot of mods already for Doms3 and more around the corner. These add new spells, units, nations etc to the already massive lineup.

From what I understand MP dominions is not something that you're likely to get tired of and with all the original content and mods it's unlikely that the game will get stale for you any time. In my opinion if you're getting it purely for SP then you have to consider how much value you're going to be able to get out of it. You can certainly create a more challenging game by giving the AI more resources, having maps where they're allied, giving them overpowered mod nations etc, but you're still not going to have the fun of a human player using a trick like stealthy troops or coordinated overland spells on you.

This is true of many games, although Dom3 is missing a big SP feature in that there's no 'campaign' structure to play through.

It's an expensive game, so read the reviews and play the demo first. But you knew that.