To buy, or not to buy...

[Jazzepi]

sector24 said:
The battle orders are the same in the full version. I find them severely limiting too, and when you're not using thugs and SCs, it barely makes any difference what orders you give to your standard troops.

This is extremely untrue. Battlefield position and placement of normal units is crucial in larger battles. even beyond the "flankers at the top and bottom."

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

I am a cheapskate. I almost never buy a game new. I almost never buy a game for more than $10. I say almost never because I bought Dominions 2 and 3 new at full price I I dont regret a thing.

Buy the game. Its worth it. If you don't like the AI there are plenty of real world player who will open a can for you.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I believe its possible to get used to the GUI to such an extent most of the issues become irrelevant, especially if you ever played Master of Magic without a keyboard. Also, in multiplayer, these interface issues are much less pronounced than in singleplayer. If you're doing a turn every 12 or 48 hours, in three very different games, you're going to be checking over most of your empire anyways. In singleplayer, though, you'll will feel the lack of automation.

I believe there is some key to hide researchers, but I'm afraid I don't use it or remember what it is.

Also, the developers aren't afraid to make signficant changes such as new content, but they have mentioned how the dominions engine has become unwieldy, so it's not likely you'll see huge changes into interface and the like.

The empire overview screen isn't as effective as what you might find in some 4x space conquest games, but it will do a lot for reducing some of those problems for you. Try looking at it every turn in the demo, for ten or twenty turns early and late game, and see whether frequent use is enough to reduce your issues to an acceptable level.

I think shift+? can bring up a list of hotkeys, many easy to remember that can assist in play. As well, the virtually undocumented but simple control grouping can help you manage armies.

The manual covers quite a few timesavers at the end, but there are a few shortcuts I don't even know how I learned about, that I haven't seen in the shift-? or the list of hotkeys back in the manual, though I will admit I don't have my manual on hand to doublecheck right now.

[Sombre]

I won't address your list of points, because other people have that in hand.

I just thought I'd say on the subject of 'getting bang for your buck' that Dominions 3 has a pretty active modding community which has produced well over 20 new nations (I've lost count) of varying quality and content. There are also balance mods, pretender mods, some minor graphical mods,...

Modding dom3 I have found both easy to learn and very rewarding. I spend more time tinkering and building new nations than playing the game most of the time. I also leave 3 mods on every time I play the game, namely...

Conceptual Balance Mod (A huge balancing mod)
Streamers and Standards (Spruces up the Dom3 flag graphics)
Worthy Heroes (Adds more heroes to the game and increases their power / utility)

Anyway, as with games like Half Life and Total Annihilation and whanot, you get a lot of customisation and user made mods for your money, on top of what comes in the box.

It's also worth mentioning that these forums, for the most part, kick ***. Useful information, helpful people and very active. They beat using the manual by a mile most of the time.

[Meglobob]

Best $55 I have ever spent.

[HolyFire]

Thank you for all the replies. I will be happy to hear more if anyone has something to add.

I would also like to know about the following:

5) I have heard some talk about a "Dominions 4" of some sort, in particular,

HoneyBadger said:
Dominions 3 is a wonderful game, but there are quite a few people lately (including myself) who have expressed ideas for the future of Dominions that go beyond the current form of the game. Rather than lose track of what people want when the time comes, I thought I'd establish a thread just for the purpose of posting ideas for the next generation of Dominions.

I am interested in information regarding what this is all about, possibly in the form of links to relevant forum threads.

6) Should a sequel, expansion or any other major upgrade be made, is it likely to be available at a discounted price to those who have purchased Dominions 3?

7) Seeing that bringing this game to perfection seems to exceed the time constraints of the developers, is it possible that the development model of the game will be changed in the future (for example, with the developers working on the engine, and volunteers improving the UI and creating content for the non-modded game)?

8) Is the price of the game expected to drop in the forseeable future?

Thanks again for your help.

[Gandalf Parker]

I would have to say that all of those are unlikely. From comments by the developers, and the way things have been done in the past here.

[Endoperez]

5) Sequel

It seems that the game engine doesn't really allow for that, and as rewriting all the same mechanics doesn't interest the programmer, the next Illwinter project won't be Dominions 4. The other Illwinter project has been mentioned once, thus far, and we have no idea what it's about.


6) Should a sequel, expansion or any other major upgrade be made, is it likely to be available at a discounted price to those who have purchased Dominions 3?
No. Dom3 costed just as much for those who bought DomII, and that was just as expensive for those who had Dom:PPP as for those new to the game. The patches have added three nations thus far (Lanka, Eriu and Tir Na Nog), and the next patch (which might already be available if not for a badly timed hardware failure) will add at least two more (Fomoria, LA Serpent Cult). Modding capabilities have been slowly but steadily improved via patches, nations have received new spells, heroes and other goodies, etc. Bugfixing hasn't been as active as some people would like, so it isn't all milk and honey, but I doubt there will be expansions or major updates outside of patches.

7) I don't think the development is going to change radically. The community here helps on balance-related issues, and most MP games seem to use community-made Conceptual Balance mod. There are also few visual mods available. However, the actual user interface can't be changed, nor do I have any knowledge of this changing anytime soon.

8) Dominions II is still sold for its original price, so I doubt Dom3's price is going down. Shrapnel Games periodically holds some kind of a sale, with games available for varying discounts. The last such event gave Dominions 3 a hefty 9 $ discount, but I don't know if there will be any such events before Christmas, and I'm not even sure if their holiday sales are annual...


You should remember that everyone here likes this game VERY MUCH, though, and those who didn't like it aren't found here. The gameplay won't change from what you had in the demo, but there will be so many nations, each with its own story, that playing even to find all of those out will be a pleasure. The manual is also a big help, listing all summons and all spells via path requirements, and quite often giving more detail that the nice in-game descriptions.