Why I love this game

[sourdust]

I only play single-player (not enough consistent time available to commit to a multi-player game), and still finding my way around to some extent.

In my current game, I'm playing Fomoria and have committed significant time into the game. Suddenly the hero Balor shows up - a size six, jet black, cursed, ugly cyclops thing who can strip you flesh from your bones JUST BY LOOKING AT YOU!

I gave him a few equips and started chomping through indies with him. He just has a look around with his single dark, diseased eye, and things just fall into melted piles all around him. Most indies never ever got an attack off against him before routing.

OK, so he's kicking a**, gets to the top of the Hall of Fame without even sneezing. I decide to have him take on a tough indie province that I know has six or seven elephants, with lots of heavy infantry backing them up.

I know he's a bad bad man, but taking on six elephants? By himself? I was nervous indeed clicking on the battle report...

Watching the battle was riveting. The elephants advance, but huge hunks of flesh start falling off of several of them as Balor decides to, you know, STARE HARD AT THEM. One of the elephants collapses, his ribs showing through immense holes in his massive abdomen. The others, enraged and injured, hold it together long enough to get close to Balor. But their tusks and trunks strike impotently as Balor's misty form, while in return his massive ice brand cleaves huge gashes in their faces.

Howling in fear and rage, the three mortally stricken surviving elephants flee ... right into the mass of advancing heavy infantry. Confusion reigns as the armored men struggle to get out of the way of the fleeing elephants. Many fail to move quick enough.

A scattered group of infantry close with Balor, but a single glance blasts the flesh off of a group of three in a mere second, convincing the rest to leave - if they can. Five of the infantry, desperately striking out at Balor, are entangled in the writhing vines of his shield, and he dispatches them in seconds with the frost brand. A final few glances gouges holes in some of the retreating humans.

Balor is saddened, and a single viscous black tear streams down his cheek, oozing like tar. But he settles down to feast on the remains anyway, being careful not to look at what he is eating....

Dominions 3 might not have state of the art graphics, but this is one of the most evocative scenes I have witnessed in fantasy gaming in a long time.