General Dominions 3 comparison...

[Drudge]

Hi all,

How would you compare the strategy and depth of this game to say, CIV 4 or GalCiv2? I'm trying to get a friend who enjoys strategy games to give this one a shot. I'm not very familiar with CIV4 and GalCiv2 but those are his main games.

Regards

[Morkilus]

It's more of a wargame and/or board game than a 4X, which you seem to be looking to compare. I'm pretty confident in saying it's like nothing you've ever played in terms of complexity and depth. People are still trying to figure out how to beat each other consistently. If you can get over the UI and learning curve (and any hardcore strategy gamer will), you'll find plenty of gaming goodness. It's by far the most-played multiplayer game in my gaming history.

[Aapeli]

You know my friend plays civ4 also. He always keeps saying how civ4 is much better than dom3 (wich is untolerable). He always says about how cool it is in civ that the time keeps going to future. I generally think, having played civ4, not much tough, that in civ4 if you play it enough the games tend to be all pretty much the same. In dom every nation has it own troops, own strenghts and own weaknesses. Every strategy has a counter strategy, and pretty much everything can happen. There are countless of maps and mods to make the games very different and interesting. Also the super combatants and other rpg stuff makes the world of dom a fantasy wich is, in my opinion, better than the civ4 world wich is a bit more historic.
I must say that I havent played civ4 lot cause I got bored pretty quickly and so may not be the best judge (and plus I never were good at civ4 )

[Meglobob]

I think Civ4 and GalCiv2 are excellent games, which I have played alot.

However, Dom 3 is better, it has far more strategy and depth than either of those. Well basic playing mechanics stays the same, different nations can have completely different strategies.

Civ 4 90%/100%
Gal Civ 2 95%/100%
Dom 3 99%/100%

[Zeldor]

Drudge:

In terms of tactics, depth and so on Civ4 is like bike while Dom3 is a car. You really cannot compare both of them. Civ4 is for people that think they like strategies. Dominions is for people that really love them.

[NTJedi]

Drudge said:
Hi all,

How would you compare the strategy and depth of this game to say, CIV 4 or GalCiv2? I'm trying to get a friend who enjoys strategy games to give this one a shot. I'm not very familiar with CIV4 and GalCiv2 but those are his main games.

Regards

If he enjoys playing CIV_4, he will enjoy playing Dominions_3.

[LDiCesare]

I love Civ 4 and loved galciv. Nowadays, I play Civ 4 and Dom 3 almost exclusively (with some NetHack in between).
Galciv shone with its great ai. Dom 3 ai is totally dumb in comparison.

Depending on what your friend is looking for, the game has great strengths and some weaknesses:
-Dom 3 has enormous strategic depth, far more than Civ 4 and Galciv 2.
-It's just the best mp game that I know.
-There is no turn where you just push 'end turn' or long phases of waiting to get tech X before you can start doing something. There's always something interesting to do each turn. You're not waiting one more turn because something cool will be built/happen next turn. You already had tons of cool stuff happen this turn.
-You can customize your heroes with items in a way that's much more fun than Galciv 2's ship design.
-God customisation is way way richer than your race customisation in Galciv 2 or Civ 4's traits and unique units/buildings.

However
-The ai is poor.
-Beating the ai doesn't help you much when you start playing mp.
-It takes a lot of time learning the ropes of the game.
-The user interface may repel many.

As Morkilus said, Dom 3 isn't about building stuff. There are only temples and labs, though site searching has some similarities with buildings in civ (compare a +25%gold market in civ to +gold sites for example).
Also, you have to balance the use of your mages (researching, site searching, forging, fighting), and that the scarcity of mages means you'll have to build forts and labs to get more of them, which requires some strategic thinking.

[Morkilus]

One thing I don't think has been said is the combat. GalCiv and Civ 4 have absolutely NOTHING on the combat model. Who cares about a simple stack of spearmen duking it out for a city compared to watching hundreds of lamias, zombies, werewolves, and horrors, each in squads placed meticulously clash and burn in a torrent of magefire while summoned imps and elementals ravage the rear guard? And to think that the combat model would fit well into a fantasy RPG. It's a beautiful work of art, all in a game.

[Saulot]

Comparing Civ games to Dom 3 is like comparing a swimming pool to an ocean. You can have fun in both, but you're very aware of the bottom/edges in the pool. In Dom 3, you choose how far out you want to go.

[jimkehn]

Saulot hit the nail on the head. This is the deepest game I have ever seen. And the most fun. The game has been very stable for me, in terms of crashes and freezes, also. I've not had one crash/freeze and have been playing for over a year.

But my opponents all tell me you'd never know I've been playing that long.

8^)