Well, I'm through with the game

[jscott]

quantum_mechani said:

This is not really true for MP. And as far SP goes, it could improve the AI in a lot ways, to lock it's pretender choices, but it would also make them much more boring. If you truly feel strongly about it you could always start them as human players and set them AI on the first turn. As has been said though, the easy fix for most of the problem is simply to up the world supply level.

As I said above, I've already tried that. It sets the AI to the normal difficulty level. It won't let you pick anything harder than that. Normal AI is even easier than the higher levels, so its a net result of about zero improvement to give them intelligently designed domains, but force them to be a low difficulty level.

Also as I said above, supply isn't the only issue. Gold is a huge factor as well. If the AI nation is gold-dependent to produce its units, but set at Death 3, then its completely screwed. I've seen this repeatedly. I'll take over 40% of the map or so, be 100 turns into the game or whatever, and run into AI nations with no units because they've killed their own population completely and can't produce any income. Increasing supply is a band-aid that fixes only one aspect of the problem.

The game is perfectly set up to allow no solution to this problem without elaborate mods to create a scenario map for EVERY GAME YOU START. That's a ridiculous way to work around a very simple problem that everyone can see; the designers should just simply limit when the AI takes death scales on its domain to very few circumstances. How hard could that possibly for them?

[quantum_mechani]

The thing is though, the AI is pretty much a pushover by turn 100 in any case, and no meddling with death scale is going to change that.

[Aezeal]

play MP, I don't play SP either... did it, saw I woul'dn't learn much from playing SP (to advance my MP skills) and so I just play MP now..

I maybe have played 5 finished SP games... 10 max... who needs it anyway

[sector24]

I'm surprised you got to turn 100. In single player I find the micromanagement after turn 50-60 to border on the unbearable. Who wants to recruit from 12+ castles and attack on 8 different fronts while bloodhunting from 12 different provinces? Once you start making SCs, you know you've won because the AI has no counter and automatically loses. It doesn't matter if all their scales are 3, you can wipe out thousands of units with a single commander.

Just like in Galactic Civ II, there's a point at which you know you've won, but you may have to spend a hundred boring turns to prove it. It's not unique to Dominions, I think it happens in most turn based strategy games. Instead, you have to find the enjoyment in fighting the first or 2nd war to establish dominance. That may be deliberately taking less than ideal scales, or just sitting in your capital doing nothing for 5 turns to give the AI a head start. In the end you just have to find a way to make the game enjoyable.

[B0rsuk]

sector24 said:
I'm surprised you got to turn 100. In single player I find the micromanagement after turn 50-60 to border on the unbearable. Who wants to recruit from 12+ castles and attack on 8 different fronts while bloodhunting from 12 different provinces?

Zeldor and Gandalf Parker come to mind.

[AreaOfEffect]

Single player is a suitable testing ground for testing out your first year of a new strategy or for testing out a modded faction. Aside from that, its all about the multi-player.

[Foodstamp]

If your gripe is the death scale, why are you not playing against enough opponents to insure that atleast a few of them have a growth scale?

[DonCorazon]

I agree that MP is the only way to go. I have only just this weekend played an SP game long enough to get to a Wish spell and that SP game was only played because some of my MP games that started back in November are getting to the point where my lack of end game knowledge was killing me so I needed a dry run.

But in the end the SP experience is dry and tends to lead to speedy, thoughtless turns. MP in comparison is quite juicy and fun.

I had avoided MP games til Dom3 (after logging into Diablo battlenet and getting annihilated the second I set foot in the dungeon), but the community here is great and the games a blast. It has caused me to wonder whether other games from my past (AoW maybe) might not have received more of my love had I only given the MP experience a chance...

[Lingchih]

I can think of no other game where the SP is more different than the MP game. This is almost purely a multi-player game. I think the devs threw in SP mainly as a testing field. There has been very little dev work put into the AI since early on.

But the multi-player... oh my. That is a different world. I have yet to win an MP game (although I keep trying). Methinks maybe I am too dumb to win in MP versus the great minds that play this game.

[Ballbarian]

I cannot resist any longer.

/* Begin Rant...
Thank god that I did not see post after post beating the single player portion of dominions to a bloody and unrecognizable pulp before I had already purchased the game or it is very likely that I would have simply moved on to something else. Yes I enjoy multiplayer, but I still find the single player game to be quite enjoyable as well. Everybody has their own tastes. Perhaps I am just a mindless weasel that just enjoys bullying the helpless AI nations into predestined submission. Truth is, I happily struggle through the early stages of the game without backing up turns or any such nonsense and then, if I get the upper hand, I reward myself with the relentless massacre of any who remain to oppose my rightful rule! If this takes 100 turns then so be it sayest Ballbarian!!!
...End Rant*\

-Edit:
Wow. Just noticed that this was my 666th post. This does not bode well for humanity...