(OT) Do you prefer to know game formulas?

[Cainehill]

I prefer not to have a clue - takes me back to the joyful old days, when I didn't have the faintest idea of whether a heavy crossbow or a wardog was any good, but I have the most vivid memory of opening fire on a hydra in my first ever game of AD&D, back in 80 or so.

Heh. Actually, I prefer to have a good idea of what things are supposed to do though. I mean - I read all the books cover to cover back then, and would lay awake at nights thinking of unconventional ways to use spells or items. Hard to do that if you don't have a good idea of what they're supposed to do. If things had had as ... vague a text description in RPGs as some things do in Dominions, it would have been difficult to rules lawyer my way to success and gory, er, glory.

Then again, in a computer game it's okay to have things a little less cut and dried, as long as you can still determine the deal via a reasonable amount of experimentation. This isn't always true of Dominions 2, in part because of the way the battles are resolved / shown.