This would have been a lot better than dominions!

[Aezeal]

Hmm I'd say the point that dominions equalized mid-end game through use of summons if often correct. My suggestion for improvement would be the addition of a few "buildings" (al civ or even better master of magic (not so much of em)) which give the option to produce stronger units with a little better power/cost (either cash or resource) ratio OR (and this would be best) nice special attacks. More specialized units coudl have a role there too.

In the end it'll still end up with all nations taking the most powerfull mages and summons but there would be more steps towards that making the games more varied. Also making more national summons and or other spells and making them more powerfull OR giving them more special abilities would also help a lot in differentiating end game play.

Give some nations strong melee summons, others stronger mages, others weaker summons which summon other special troops that sort of thing.

Making more STRONG unique summons would help too, sure it would be a bit of a race towards the strongest of them but if they cost a lot then the runner up could always take nr 2 and still not be far behind. Or he could focus on killing the summon and then taking it himself.. or wishing for it

Aez

[WraithLord]

I was quietly following this thread and I'd like to say that I find most of the observations made here to be true. I think dominions is by far better than AOW-SM for example in the "generic multiple races" department but still lacking as was put so eloquently in this thread.

I'm very happy that KO has a similar perspective, so hopefully some resulting goodness will trickle to dominions.

All those references to a future project make me quite giddy - a new game by IW is sure to be deep and entertaining experience (given that this project is indeed a game and not a new 3d engine or some such ).

[Argitoth]

Funny thing about Dominions is that the strategies you can use are many. If you were to add strategies that would cause people to "rush to a summon or unit" people would counter that. That is a good thing.

The "rush to a summon or unit" in other games (real-time stratgies) make the game boring because there's nothing to counter it. You either get the best units or you are not as powerful. In dominions, it's not that way.

However, remember thant the best thing about Dominions is multiplayer. If Conquest of Elysium has no multiplayer, I'd never play it.

[Endoperez]

You should try it out because it's made by Illwinter if not for anything else. It's very different from Dominions thanks to the maps being tile-based: seasons are visible and have much greater effect, forests can be burned down, mines depleted etc to harm your enemies or to create golems, etc etc. Besides, it's much more fun in SP that Dominions, IMO. It's much more random, and because it uses the I-go-You-go turn-based system both in map and in battles, it's inherently unbalanced, and thus much less fun in multiplayer than it is in SP where you can mostly disregard that.

[Argitoth]

Playing a single player game, IMO, is like going to the movie theaters alone. Doesn't matter how great a game is, there's no point in playing by yourself IMO. Just like movies, no matter how great the movie is, I'd never go alone.

[Kristoffer O]

Just like reading a book by yourself. I would never do it

[Gandalf Parker]

Excellent sarcasm Kristoffer.
And good point also.

[Argitoth]

Kristoffer O said:
Just like reading a book by yourself. I would never do it

Some activities were meant to be done solo, such as taking a shower. Gaming just isn't one of those activities, IMO.