Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games

Ironhawk · #1 June 7th, 2005, 06:01 AM

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 · #2 June 7th, 2005, 07:51 AM

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).

Ironhawk · #3 June 7th, 2005, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Boron said:
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.

What is the turn-style for Combat Mission? All the other pure wargame type games I looked at actually turned out to be Serial-turn. Not so bad for those games because they are all 1v1, but you have no diplomacy and political intrigue like you do in a dom2 FFA.

djo · #4 June 7th, 2005, 07:17 PM

Combat Mission is 1-on-1 and low-level tactical (units=squad/single vehicle, totalling up to about a batallion per side). Each battle simulates about 1 hour of real-time, so no diplomacy, supply, etc. The turns are 1 minute sim time, orders then replay. The AI is not bad (buys more than militia), and you also have hotseat, PBEM, and network.

Battlefront.com has demos for all 3 variations (west, east, & Italy/Africa theaters) for PC and Mac (OS 9 only, alas).

Ironhawk · #5 June 7th, 2005, 07:39 PM

Thanks djo. I might take a look at it to solve the immediate need of something to play with this particular friend. Is it Simultaneous turns? Or Serial, like most of the other wargames I found. I'm also toying around with going back to Wesnoth for a little bit. But both of those games are so radically different from Empire-Building types of games. Those are my true pride and joy!

It is really distressing, tho, to have this realization - that there are for all intents and purposes no other MP turn-based games - confirmed by other veteran players :/

djo · #6 June 7th, 2005, 08:54 PM

If I understand what you mean, it's simultaneous, like dom2. Each player submits orders for a turn, the computer resolves them together, and then each player sees the replay.

Is that what you mean?

quantum_mechani · #7 June 7th, 2005, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Ironhawk said:

It is really distressing, tho, to have this realization - that there are for all intents and purposes no other MP turn-based games - confirmed by other veteran players :/

What do you expect? Those that bow to the One True Game will accept no other.

Chazar · #8 June 7th, 2005, 07:55 AM

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 · #9 June 7th, 2005, 08:14 AM

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 · #10 June 7th, 2005, 08:57 AM

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.