Drafting a guide of sorts

[Alneyan]

What do you get when you mix insomnia and creative writing block? I have started trying to write a guide of sorts for Dominions, and would like to get some feedback, on either the contents or the presentation (clarity...). The draft can be browsed on a temporary site, available here . As you will notice soon, I have a "keep it simple stupid" approach to web designing... either that, or I flunked arts at kindergarten.

Disclaimer: this guide is not intended to deal with strategy, but simply tries to explain the ropes of the game. It is definitively not the most effective setup for Arcoscephale, especially in multiplayer, but it should be a worthwhile stepping stone.

The current savegame has only be checked with the demo: it may work with the full game without resulting in bogus battle reports, but I haven't checked that yet. I will either put up some savegames for the full game at a later date, or I will come up with another quickstart, this time dedicated to the full game.

The whole guide is currently planned to have a couple more chapters, dealing with Pretender creation, the economy, magic, and units... or something to that effect. It may even be finished before someone casts Burden of Time, Utterdark and Illwinter, but you shouldn't quote me on that.

[Agrajag]

Im still reading through the guide, but notice this:
"The second commander is your Pretender, and the third one is a scout."
In fact, in the screenshot, it is the pretender that is the third one, while the scout is the second one.

[ceremony]

One thing you might want focus on a bit is the actual battles, and show screenshots of the actual battle screens and maybe describe what is going on there. That's one aspect of the game that the current walkthrough doesn't really address, and if you're creating another walkthrough that would be a good hole to cover!

[Alneyan]

Good catch; thanks. That will teach me to change those numbers after changing the screenshot... and one of those days, I will learn to count all the way to 3.

[ceremony]

Another comment to add to the battles I mentioned above: maybe direct the reader to the F1 screen - that's something that a new player should become familiar with early. Show a screenshot of it and demonstrate its usefulness.

[Alneyan]

Looks like I just rammed into your first post, and didn't see it the first time around. I was thinking about putting a screenshot battle, but independents don't really make for the best foes in the game: usually, it's a matter of rolling over them, though what does the steamrolling varies quite a lot. The best example here would be the Phoenix I think, showing how those spells deal damage to the poor attacking independents (and there is a gap around turn 5/6 in screenshots).

Thanks for reminding me about F1, as I have never really used the Nation Overview screen (my middle name is "Glutton for Punishment". Does it show?). Most reasonable players will likely make good use of it, so it should definitively be included.

[Chazar]

I think that it might be worthwhile to delve into battle mechanics and e.g. to show effective use of elephants against independents as a non-pretender based expansion, i.e. how to combine with other high-moral troops, low-budget shield, archers, use of priests for sermon of courage, etc.

I recall that I started out with Caelum and my first successful expanding was once I got some Mammoths and Wingless with a prophetized Seraphine fanaticizing. These first successes were encouraging to proceed in learning the game. And I know that some friends of mine were pretty confused losing against independents with the inital troops only and poor setup. What are those inital troops good for after all? How could a player use those? etc.

I think thought about such questions could be helpful to a learing player and prevent some discouraging losses...

[Alneyan]

The problem, as I see it, is that battles against independents are seldom that exciting: a bunch of infantries charging works well (*heavy* infantry, that is), and so does a mass of archers firing at everything within range, or just a Pretender doing the standard "let's attack a province" job. Alone among all foes, independents do not have to be destroyed: they simply have to rout, and so survavibility is the key to these battles, rather than damage dealing or strategy. Incidentally, that was why I did not start with an elephant expansion: in my experience, those will take too many casualties to be worthwhile, even under Body Ethereal. Still, I will probably develop the elephant part in the "What next?" section: elephants can do the job against a real opponent, where the point is to deal damage, instead of just breaking the foe.

I was also reluctant to delve *too* much into the exact mechanisms of battle: that first chapter is supposed to be an introduction of sorts, with the other chapters being much more thorough with the various parts of the game (Pretender creation first of all). Battle should have its own section, with examples of "real" battles between two foes, where tactics can actually play a part: it would seem more interesting to me to fully describe battles where mages, thugs... are involved, rather than a slugfest of the poor independents.

A "the tools for expansion" annex could work however, with more concrete suggestions on what troops to use to take those provinces, mercenaries... I am reluctant to give too much away on what does work in the explanations themselves though, as some players may prefer to only have an average example, and come up with something better on their own.

Of course, we are also discussing that as already seasoned players. I really wish for more comments from the beginning players themselves, but I guess that's running in circles.

[magnate]

Fighting independents may not be exciting, but it is the first thing you have to do as a new player. So I do think it would merit a section or subsection of its own, before you go into detailed tactics about battles vs. other races. You don't need too much detail on the mechanisms of battles, just some tips for taking indy provinces without huge losses (the SC pretender, assassinating all the commanders, using very heavily armoured units, etc.).

If your guide is more of a reference encyclopaedia for dipping into, you probably don't need this, but if you intend it to be read through by new players, I'd think you'd want such a section somewhere near the beginning (after a brief intro to pretender creation and choosing a race - each of which, like battles, would have a more detailed section later).

Just my 2p.

CC