Whats this...?

[licker]

Originally posted by Pocus:
MoM was civ 2 in a heroic fantasy setting, and with a very good amount of spell combos.

the civ2 part is rather obsolete now, and I would not want to play a civ2 clone.
the spell richness is present in dominions.

so the result is that :
1) doms will never be MoM
2) you wont have any clone of MoM being produced next year or the next ten, because game design has moved away from the issues that MoM have. Civ2 game model is old, tired, and must rest in peace.

I know that even the MoM creators said the game was based on the Civ II engine, but I think that was more of a sales ploy than reality... MoM played almost nothing like CiV II, the spell research was waaaay too different from the tech research in the CiV games, and the differences between the different races was what mattered. I know everyone likes to dredge up that comparision, but in my opinion its nearly baseless. MoM is as much like Civ II as AoW is for example.

There is talk of MoM 2, well there's been talk of it forever really. I think that Sid Meyer acquired the rights to MoM, or at least whatever company he was attached to Last did. There were even some conceptual shots around of MoM2, though that particular project was apparently scrapped. I also think that Brad Wardell (of GalCiv fame) is working on some sort of fantasy based game that apparently 'borrowed' alot of insperation from MoM (as much as GalCiv is Civ in space anyway...). So I'd not be too quick to say that MoM is dead, even if you don't get a true sequal, people are still looking at the elements that made MoM so addictive and fun and trying to work their own hand with them. Really Warlords IV was going to be very close to a MoM2, then they scrapped the tactical combat, and dumbed down the rest of the game.

There is also a fantasy themed mod for Civ III (yeah I know alot of strong opinions on Civ III), so it seems easilly possible for there to be a MoM 2 based off of the CiV III engine, well as much as MoM was based off of the Civ II engine anyway.

In the meantime we all have found Dom, which is better in many respects than MoM or any of the other current crop of fantasy TBS. In fact I had a pipe dream for a game called Pantheon, which in my mind would have been very similar to Dominions, with the main difference being that rather than being a single God, the player was incharge of an entire pantheon (gods of war, love, death, magic, ...) and the decisions as to how to build your empire would revolve around which particular demi-gods temples you would build. Its kinda like the scales really, but more controled for individual provinces. You could build up shrines and temples to your war god in one province to have a good military from there, shrines to the god of love (or fertility, whatever) to have a population center. Of course the individual gods in your pantheon would have 'issues' with each other, so you'd have to either ignore some (and take their wrath occasionally) or try to balance things out for everyone... Well anyway, that's a bit of a tangent... sorry

But the point was that the concept of province based game play (like in Birthright, or Imperialism) rather than hex based (ala AoW or HoMM) allows for massive simplifications in handleing AI, and adding more content. The only real addition I'd like added to Dom is some ability to interact with the combats directly. I understand that as Dom is intended to be a PBEM game that's not feasable for that portion of it, but it would be nice to be able to give out some specific orders during the combat itself, even if they are mostly the same as what your scripts do anyway... It could also allow for the leadership aspect to be more important. Not only would commanders with high leadership be able to lead more troops, but they could also be allowed to more frequently change the orders of troops in their vicinity. Well food for thought for a Dom3 maybe (though if its something that could be added in a patch... heh )

[Mortifer]

Hell yeah, there is an awesome fantasy mod for Civ3: Fantasy Empires by Balrog.
I played a lot with the mod.

If you check out civfanatics, you know that Balrog will make Fantasy empires II., after the release of the new expansion. I cant wait for it.

[Yojinbo]

I vastly prefer Dom to MOM, but Dom never felt like the successor to MOM to me (it’s just the closest thing we are likely to see). Dom reminds me of the old KOEI (ROM3K and Nobanaga’s Ambition) games by being province based. I can see where this makes AI simpler.

But a Civ-like ability to build new cities in proximity to interesting (and advantageous) terrain features would rock. The MOM ability to populate said cities with different races was very cool (SEIV allows this) too. I think there is room in today’s market for MOM2 with smaller controlled tactical battles, AND DomII with massive computer controlled battles. I have to believe that MOM2 will arise sooner or later – I just worry that it will suck when it does.

[Mortifer]

Aye, DoM is lot better.
I think that DOM is one of the best tbs strategy games, its very unique as well.

[licker]

Yes the KOEI games are probably the best comparison for Dom, though the KOEI games did have tactical combat. Heh, I can remember playing BKoAC for something like 60 hours over 3 days in college once... we'd skip classes, skip food, skip sleep, skip women, ... now that was the true sign of a great game. I can see that Dom is on that level for me, though I no longer have a group of friends to do something like that with... oh well, that's what PBEM is all about I suppose

LOL I can still remember most of the quotes the heros would give you when you worked them too hard (or at all...). Gemfire wasn't that good though, anyone else ever try that? I think KOEI also did something called Balor of the Evil Eye (or something like that) it was their standard game in Celtic times and trappings, never got it though so I can't really comment on it.

You can find alot of the older KOEI games at various AbandonWare sites, I won't mention any though, don't wanna get in trouble

[Mortifer]

WOW! I loved the old KOEI games, they had an excellent diplomacy system as well! [Bribe, alliances, joint attacks and many other options!]
Haha I remember that I was so happy, when I had ~ 1.3M troops ready for combat.
I think that was in RotK 4.
Too bad that RotK 7,8,9 are only released in the asian countries. There is no english Version from them.

[ September 25, 2003, 23:15: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

[Bard of Prey]

Originally posted by licker:
[QB]I think KOEI also did something called Balor of the Evil Eye (or something like that) it was their standard game in Celtic times and trappings, never got it though so I can't really comment on it.

Balor was a great game, very much like the RoTK series, but a little simpler, and of course with a Celtic theme. I think Dom reminds me more of this one than the RoTK games as well... probably because of the greater similarity in themes, and the use of magic. I'm pretty sure you can find it on the same 'unmentionable' sites...

Btw, if there are any Shrapnel staff hanging around, what is your policy on 'abandonware'? Do you consider it to be the same as software piracy (some publishers do, others don't)? Just curious...

[licker]

Another interesting game in the same genre is King of Dragon Pass. I only fooled around with the Demo though, so I don't really know if it got any more interesting or not, but it seemed to have alot of potential. Though it used a lot more story telling to drive along the game play (not that it was scripted or particularly linear) which made it not appeal to some people.

Hmm I wonder how many of these games the Dom devs have played or looked at

[Yojinbo]

I liked King of Dragon Pass, but the full game seemed repetitive to me. The feeling of tribal membership that game gave was wonderful.

I missed about 100 hours of university classes playing Nobanaga's Ambition - that was the best for me. I liked the ability to build-up provinces; it helped me emerce into the game. I know the Illwinter developers focus on research and expansion, but building up cities would appeal to certain personality types.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by Yojinbo:
I liked King of Dragon Pass, but the full game seemed repetitive to me. The feeling of tribal membership that game gave was wonderful.

I missed about 100 hours of university classes playing Nobanaga's Ambition - that was the best for me. I liked the ability to build-up provinces; it helped me emerce into the game. I know the Illwinter developers focus on research and expansion, but building up cities would appeal to certain personality types.

Wow how true, King of the Dragon Pass was awesome.
As for KOEI, I prefer the 3 kingdoms series.