OT - Dominions: Preists, Prophets & Pretenders

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by cpbeller:
Johan, this is probably one of the best things to happen to you guys, getting Shrapnel to publish it....I have dealt with Shrapnel in buying Space Empires 4 Gold, and I had no problem with them....perhaps you can get an official forum here too?

Dominions is possibly one of my favorite games ever, and I don't even have the full Version yet...just bought it (I emailed you about it, at least I think it was you that answered)...

Age of Wonders Shadow Magic was a good "concept"...but gameplay just was not interesting to me....it really lacked something...but, with Dominions....all I can say is wow...incredible gameplay....

Actually that was Johan Karlsson, the programmer. I just write the occasional description or try to pester JK or Kristoffer into using my ideas, or try to talk them out of using any ideas of their own I dont like.

[Pocus]

As I'm a dominions I junkie, if you have any question about it, I will do my best to answer you.

some points which need clarifications (dominions I) :

- battles are very fine tunable, contrary to the affirmation of one of the forumer. Each leader can have a script, and each of the formation he commands can also have a script (hold and attack, fire at archers, attack the rear, etc.)

- it is true that there is few buildings in dominions, but frankly you are not playing civilization either. On the other hands you will get more than 500 different magical sites (which must be searched by a mage to be found on the map), more than 5 hundreds differents creatures, several hundreds spells, which are , believe me, more varied and combo-able than in AOW 2.

So wait some weeks for doms II, and grab the demo. If you are strategy gamers, there is a good chance that you will get hooked. I had shown the game so far to 12 friends or so. 11 bought the game or are still playing with the demo.

the Last one is a MMORPG junkie, so he is apart of others

[Nerfix]

Regarding Dominions II, i have a list of new and changed stuff in Dominions II:

-More spells, units and nations
-National themes:customise your nation!
-Unique Blood summons
-National overview:Less micromanagement
-Tax scales redesigned
-Bless effect dependant on pretender's starting magic
-Rainbow mages cheaper in desing points
-Resereach pool

...and now for the direct-market-terrorism:
Visit www.dominionsx.tk and Dominions X Boards
(the Boards are more stable now)

-Nerfix

[johan osterman]

Dom 2 is supposed to go to the print on monday, I have no idea how long it is between the printing of the CD's til it will be publicly available though. The manual still needs some tinkering as well.

[Alneyan]

Pocus, if you spoke about me concerning the battles being not controllable enough, you have either misread it or I wasn't clear enough, more likely the latter. The AI resolving the battles is very able and you can give it almost any instruction you want (save for a few ones, but that is due to gameplay balances), but I have to admit I love to play the battles myself. (That about the only thing I really enjoy in AOW, or rather, I would enjoy as I am not fond of the game) But contrary to what I wrote earlier, the lack of Tactical Combat is not what really matters for me, but the weakness of the Combat Replay. I would love to be able to actually see what is going on, like the Combat Replay for SE:IV. Is that going to be changed in Dominions 2? Thanks.

On the other hand, auto-combat in AOW is poorly managed, maybe that is what confused you Pocus? I don't imagine playing a game for a long while just to see the final battle resolved by a rather poor fast combat feature. (Unlike SE:IV once again where the AI is fine in Strategical Battles, except if you planned the worst strategy ever, but that is *your* fault. )

I am looking forward to play Dominions 2, even if the gameplay isn't exactly what I like, it is still far better than AOW for me.

[Nerfix]

There is no tactical combat for two simple reasons:
1)Up to 1.000 or even more untis to control. Doesn't sound so good to me.
2)Insta-Kill spells, Magic Duel and Soul Slay more specificaly. If we have tactical combat, we can aim spells and we can Sould Slay enemy commanders and make the actual 500+ units army to rout...
When i started playing Dominions, i thougt that the auto-combat sucked until i realised those issues...

[Alneyan]

The first point would be quite a problem, and your second point is why you cannot ask your Spellcasters to target a specific kind of units. ( Mages would also target Mages, leading in an artillery battle) There is also a third point, tactical combat would be impossible in PBEM against other players.

I admit I would rather see a working auto-combat feature without tactical combat instead of tactical combat but virtually no Fast Combat/Strategic Combat or other names. (Like in AOW for instance)

As I wrote in my earliest (below I believe) post, I would like to see improvements to the combat replay feature though. I have a lot of problems to see what is going on, but according to the screenshots, the representation of the battles has changed quite a lot.

Edited because of my silliness.

[ September 11, 2003, 17:27: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

[Nerfix]

BTW, looking at the screenshots, Dominions II looks like fantasy Version of Total War...

Quite bit of things have changed in Dominions II.
Micromanagement has been reduced, National Themes that allow you to customise your nation and Dominions effects...

[PvK]

Actually, you can order units to target types of enemy units - IIRC the categories are:

closest
missile units
commanders
magic Users

So you can have your assassins, cavalry, flyers, heroes with deadly enchanted missile attacks, etc., try to assassinate the enemy leaders and wizards. You can also assign Groups of bodyguards to each leader.

This was how I dealt with Esaglia the Golden Naga when she kept sending armies against me which we could defeat, but then my men would surround her but mostly fall victim to the Soul Vortex spell she'd cast (very deadly to human-sized mortal melee attackers). So I sent my pretender in dragon form with Attack Commanders orders, and finished her off.

It might tend to be more effective under human tactical control against the AI, of course.

I think my main criticism is the lack of a good way to tell ranged-attack units to not endanger their own men when firing. Far too often, archers (and fireball- or boulder-hurlers, etc.) are taking out their own men unless I have them just "fire and flee" (or often, fire at enemy commanders, since they usually hang back).

Another nice thing would be to be able to authorize one's heroes and Groups to withdraw when heavily beat up, and/or to order other Groups to stand in reserve (engage only after another group retreats). You can fudge this by having them "hold, then attack" and starting them out further to the rear, but it's not quite the same thing.

PvK

[PvK]

oh, and one can also choose:

cavalry
fliers

as targets, and a good thing too, because my leaders were getting wiped out by the AI's fliers until I made sure my troops started around them and set to attack fliers first.

PvK