Dominions 2: King of Turn-Based MP Games

Boron · #1 June 7th, 2005, 07:51 AM

If you play only with your friend combat mission b2b and combat mission ak are the turn based games you are looking for

. You can download the demos and try a game against your friend. You will probably like it.

Apart from CM which is only a 2 player game i know no other game that is so good in mp like dominions.
I fully agree that it is simply the best, despite it's small flaws (main problem is the low unit limit).

Ironhawk · #2 June 7th, 2005, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Boron said:
If you play only with your friend combat mission b2b and combat mission ak are the turn based games you are looking for

. You can download the demos and try a game against your friend. You will probably like it.

What is the turn-style for Combat Mission? All the other pure wargame type games I looked at actually turned out to be Serial-turn. Not so bad for those games because they are all 1v1, but you have no diplomacy and political intrigue like you do in a dom2 FFA.

djo · #3 June 7th, 2005, 07:17 PM

Combat Mission is 1-on-1 and low-level tactical (units=squad/single vehicle, totalling up to about a batallion per side). Each battle simulates about 1 hour of real-time, so no diplomacy, supply, etc. The turns are 1 minute sim time, orders then replay. The AI is not bad (buys more than militia), and you also have hotseat, PBEM, and network.

Battlefront.com has demos for all 3 variations (west, east, & Italy/Africa theaters) for PC and Mac (OS 9 only, alas).

Ironhawk · #4 June 7th, 2005, 07:39 PM

Thanks djo. I might take a look at it to solve the immediate need of something to play with this particular friend. Is it Simultaneous turns? Or Serial, like most of the other wargames I found. I'm also toying around with going back to Wesnoth for a little bit. But both of those games are so radically different from Empire-Building types of games. Those are my true pride and joy!

It is really distressing, tho, to have this realization - that there are for all intents and purposes no other MP turn-based games - confirmed by other veteran players :/

djo · #5 June 7th, 2005, 08:54 PM

If I understand what you mean, it's simultaneous, like dom2. Each player submits orders for a turn, the computer resolves them together, and then each player sees the replay.

Is that what you mean?

quantum_mechani · #6 June 7th, 2005, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Ironhawk said:

It is really distressing, tho, to have this realization - that there are for all intents and purposes no other MP turn-based games - confirmed by other veteran players :/

What do you expect? Those that bow to the One True Game will accept no other.

Ironhawk · #7 June 8th, 2005, 04:02 PM

Hahhaha, just so!!

So, hey - about SE4: what are people's opinions on it? When I played the demo so many moons ago I thought there was just way, WAY too much MicroManagement, even for a PBEM-style game? Was I doing something wrong?

Alneyan · #8 June 8th, 2005, 04:22 PM

SE4 doesn't have much micromanagement. Really! Well, yes it does, though you can elect to play a slightly less optimal game and save yourself a lot of micromanagement.

Heavy use of retrofits or fighters are the kind of things that can result in micromanagement hell, but even then, most turns do take a while to play: one hour per turn was my average in the middle game, and two hours in harder situations, and some players have claimed to spend several hours per turn, without paying much attention to some details.

My other main complaint with the game is balance: there is really no widespread balancing mod, and the standard game is not exactly balanced; or rather, there are simply options that cannot be bypassed, and only one working Empire setup with a couple of variations. Don't even think of seeing something half as varied and half as balanced (relatively speaking) as Dominions 2; I'm afraid it won't be the case.

I believe the game does shine with certain mods, and in multiplayer if you like diplomacy and the like. I am personally quite fond of Proportions, where micromanagement goes down to manageable levels, and where all the good stuff is all of a sudden just a bit harder to reach. That would be the difference between playing Easy research and Magic 3 and Very Hard research and Drain 3: in the latter case, research choices actually matter. Proportions is fun, really.

Now PvK, feel free to send me that check for the free ad, will ya?

Hubris · #9 June 20th, 2005, 09:05 PM

Stars! was an excellent game. After a couple hours (literally) of searching, I managed to find a download of it both in English and German. Now I have to get a serial number... again... I should really keep these things somewhere.