RE: "Upgrade" options between Dominion series.

[Gandalf Parker]

Gooles said:
I'd also though, like to elaborate on my original statement in that my main concern was that we pay the same amount of money for a game in which many of the game's elements have been recycled from a game I already have paid for.

Personally I PREFER it that way. I get really irritated when I like a game and buy the next version only to discover that it has nothing at all to do with the previous game.

And the recycling has little to do with the cost anyway. Just about everything in the game went thru major changes. I dont think that any of the games code, interface, graphics, sound wasnt reworked and upgraded not to mention the tons of new things added. About the only "recycled" thing is the concept of the game which I am very happy they didnt change.

[Gooles]

meh, I feel like I'm getting mean here, but much of the game is recycled, and my point is that I've already paid for much of this code once.
Specific Changes:
*Outstanding soundtrack
*Main UI was ever-so-slightly changed, new color (though I downloaded a mod to make the UI a nice shade of blue)
*A few cool new pieces of eye candy (light effects, new spells =new spell graphics. New units received new sprites. Oh, and grass.)
*Great new race-specific spells add another feeling of customization
*A major blow to micromanagement with automatic tax adjustment
*(Not particularly fond of this one)Units are now shown in scaled down form to represent an army on a map instead of a scaled sized red square.
*Few new items
*Automatic "hosting" of turns when a turn is ended.
*In exchange for customizing race with "ages" and castle types, you can now play all ages with terrain dependent castles.
*Three new races
*Bug fixes from Dom2
*built in random map generator (which seldom places me in a home province in which you are unable to move out of via land units. Still an excellent feature though.)
*Aging (or at least more obvious)
*New age
*I believe there were new combat tactics options added
*Maybe some changes to multiplayer? Not sure, mostly stick to SP.

Things copied from Dom2 (non-specific for sake of my time):
*Majority of UI
*Combat mechanics
*Couple maps copied.... I think (Mods fix)
*Great majority of spells and their effects (Notably lack of additions to "wish" spell)
*Majority of pretenders (mods fix this again though, especially the one that updates pretenders' sprites that I can't seem to find anymore. If you know where it is, I'd really really appreciate a link to it)
*Sprites for old units
*Majority of the items
*Many special sites
*Arena matches are the same (less graphics, where light effects molest my PC on very high battle gfx setting)
*Nothing interesting added to alchemy
*Score chart & hall of fame almost completely the same (less how score chart works when a nation loses)
*random events for the most part, are the same
*diplomacy (ha.)
*Mercenaries
*Blood slaves

Now, these changes are great. Adding to an already good game only makes it better, but it doesn't make it a new game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sorry but I was on the beta team and watched a year of upgrading to those "copied" items. Such as combat mechanics, the old maps, pretenders, sprites, items, sites, events, mercs. We put our input in on it and things were changed.

The only ones you mentioned that I dont remember changes on are blood slaves, diplomacy (thank god), alchemy, wish (what in the world would you add to that?)

If you wanted a COMPLETE rewrite then it wouldnt be a new version. It would be a new game.

[llamabeast]

3 new races? I had thought there were more than that.