A few very newbish questions

[tylertoo]

Thanks to everyone for the detailed replies. They help a lot.

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Kristoffer Osterman , Johan Karlsson. Both are here in this group. Also Johan Osterman which is a brother will often field questions. Southern Sweden near Lund I believe.

Age of Wonders is also from Sweden, is it not? Is there something in the Scandanavian air that lends itself to the creation of turn-based strategy games?

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Understanding the PBEM structure tends to exaplain alot. Such as why combat cant be managed.

Not to get into a game-to-game comparison, but AoW2 gives you the option to manage combat for SP (though not, of course, PBEM). Why not here? My guess -- the devs would face a huge amount of additional work to allow player-managed tactical combat for SP.

Originally posted by PvK:
I generally wouldn't recommend "returning to a saved game" in cases when later play goes wrong, because in my opinion that's just cheating yourself. This game is rich enough not to need that kind of cop out,

Over the years I've ended up in many a debate over whether multiple save games are "cheating." I understand where you're coming from and don't care to debate it here. But I need multiple save games because my love of strategy gaming far outstrips my meager abilities. In many other games I have found going back to earlier saves allows the opportunity to try new things, to examine closely where I went wrong. The lack of this feature for Dom II is, IMHO, a drawback.

In fairness, though, I will add that the inclusion of multiple save games in AoW2 made PBEM a real *****. In the few I played it seemed that players were not always certain they were receiving the right file from the Last to post.

[Gandalf Parker]

Building a multiplayer game around PBEM is a major project. And building a solo play game is also a major project. To do both at once is like trying to build a car thats also a boat. There are lots of cars, and lots of boats, but few carboats. And generally they arent very good at being either.
Im not saying it cant be done (in computers nothing is impossible) but it cant be done easily. IMHO

[ January 10, 2004, 18:41: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[ceremony]

Originally posted by tylertoo:
Thanks to everyone for the detailed replies. They help a lot.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Kristoffer Osterman , Johan Karlsson. Both are here in this group. Also Johan Osterman which is a brother will often field questions. Southern Sweden near Lund I believe.

Age of Wonders is also from Sweden, is it not? Is there something in the Scandanavian air that lends itself to the creation of turn-based strategy games?

---

No, Lennart Sas and most of the team at Triumph Studios, who did the Age of Wonders series, are Dutch.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by tylertoo:
My guess -- the devs would face a huge amount of additional work to allow player-managed tactical combat for SP.

It is the other way around. The game begun (1997) as a tactical battle simulator where you gave individual orders to every soldier. This was not feasible in a strategic multiplayer game with simultaneous hosting and hundreds of units. Thus it was removed when we made a game out of it.

- This was in the ancient times when there were only two nations. Pythium and Man. Pythium and Arcoscephale had not yet been separated and there was only one monster - the hydra. Spells did not exist and neither did arrows.

[tylertoo]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Building a multiplayer game around PBEM is a major project. And building a solo play game is also a major project. To do both at once is like trying to build a car thats also a boat. There are lots of cars, and lots of boats, but few carboats. And generally they arent very good at being either.
Im not saying it cant be done (in computers nothing is impossible) but it cant be done easily. IMHO

So its finally starting to sink in (I'm pretty dense) that Dom II is primarily designed as MP. Is this correct? Is SP enjoyable once you're beyond total newb level? How is the AI? Am I asking too many questions?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by tylertoo:
So its finally starting to sink in (I'm pretty dense) that Dom II is primarily designed as MP. Is this correct? Is SP enjoyable once you're beyond total newb level? How is the AI? Am I asking too many questions?

Well the Devs are nice guys who dont really want to leave anyone out but Ive always gotten the impression that MultiPlay was the goal and SoloPlay was nice if it doesnt get in the way of MP. Personally Im very much an SP person. I rarely bother getting into the MP of any of the games Ive owned. But Dominions has hooked me there also.

As a mostly SoloPlay person Im still enjoying Dominions after 3 years. The AI's are bothersome for long enough to make the game worth the money. Yes it does get old after a year or so but I never quite deleted it and I always went back when there was a lag in any other games I wanted. Well worth the price.

And if the soloplay ever gets boring for you, and you dont feel like joining MP games, let me know. I always have some pretty extreme random-generated maps available to spice things up. There are even ways to make the AI's harder.