What the hell is up with Dominions 3???

[Kristoffer O]

shovah said:
1500 provinces? ARE YOU MAD!?!?!

Probably only Gandalf and perhaps Boron (IIRC) would play with 1500 provinces

JK reports that scrolling is a bit slow with 1500 provinces, but otherwise it seems to work fine.

[Cainehill]

DominionsFAN said:
I know that doms 3 will be a slow paced game, like Doms 2, its like chess. However the same is true about Civilization 3-4, 1 turn can take 3-6 mins even, or more if the game is big. There you can save the MP game, and all players just load it back, and continue playing.

May I point out that with Dom2, turns sometimes take hours? The civilization games, all you do is build a tile for each city, pick a unit to make, move your units, bang you're done - I can't imagine a Civ turn taking more than 5 or 10 minutes, ever, and that's mid-to-late game - the opening turns are more like ... 5 seconds.

Dom2, I've seen people take 10 minutes a turn in the first 5 turns, and by turn 15 or 20, there's always someone taking 15-20 minutes, and occasionally half an hour or more. Scripting and positioning mages, determining items to forge, what to research, watching at least some of the battles, changing the scripts for 5-20 mages, etc.

And this is in the blitzes organized on IRC, where everyone is defintaly there and present. If you're one of the ones who can manage to get a turn done in 5 turns (perhaps because it's a turn of all the mages researching), it's no fun waiting 25 minutes for everyone else to get their turns done.

This is why a fair quantity of the blitz-players get antsy by around turn 15-25 - the amount of time sometimes required to do a turn, and the amount of time conversely required to wait, both get to be too much, unlike the 24 hour server & pbem games.

[DominionsFan]

Cainehill said:

May I point out that with Dom2, turns sometimes take hours? The civilization games, all you do is build a tile for each city, pick a unit to make, move your units, bang you're done - I can't imagine a Civ turn taking more than 5 or 10 minutes, ever, and that's mid-to-late game - the opening turns are more like ... 5 seconds.

Dom2, I've seen people take 10 minutes a turn in the first 5 turns, and by turn 15 or 20, there's always someone taking 15-20 minutes, and occasionally half an hour or more. Scripting and positioning mages, determining items to forge, what to research, watching at least some of the battles, changing the scripts for 5-20 mages, etc.

And this is in the blitzes organized on IRC, where everyone is defintaly there and present. If you're one of the ones who can manage to get a turn done in 5 turns (perhaps because it's a turn of all the mages researching), it's no fun waiting 25 minutes for everyone else to get their turns done.

This is why a fair quantity of the blitz-players get antsy by around turn 15-25 - the amount of time sometimes required to do a turn, and the amount of time conversely required to wait, both get to be too much, unlike the 24 hour server & pbem games.

Yes you are right, it can take enormous amount of time in certain games. However on small maps the games are much faster, imo those could be hosted nicely from a game lobby rather then playing those games PBEM.

[PDF]

10 mins a turn in the first 5 turns of Dom2 means they don't know what they should do. You just have to fill a recruiting queue, change a couple tax sliders, modify one or 2 armies, possibly a couple scripts, and move your 1-2 armies.
Less than 2 minutes for me since after my first 20 games

[Nerfix]

Hey, PDF, did you get permission to post the interview?

[PDF]

Nerfix said:
Hey, PDF, did you get permission to post the interview?

I was waiting for someone to ask !
And the answer is ... Yes ! I'll let some more heat accumulate and post it - no seriously I'll do that in a couple hours

[Cainehill]

PDF said:
10 mins a turn in the first 5 turns of Dom2 means they don't know what they should do. You just have to fill a recruiting queue, change a couple tax sliders, modify one or 2 armies, possibly a couple scripts, and move your 1-2 armies.
Less than 2 minutes for me since after my first 20 games

While I would personally agree, and have about the same speed taking those first few turns, these are experienced players, regulars on the forums and in the blitz games. I have pretty much no clue why the first turn or two could possibly take so long, but... shrug It's like they're scripting their mages before they have any.

[quantum_mechani]

Cainehill said:

While I would personally agree, and have about the same speed taking those first few turns, these are experienced players, regulars on the forums and in the blitz games. I have pretty much no clue why the first turn or two could possibly take so long, but... shrug It's like they're scripting their mages before they have any.

*Deploying decoys

*Arranging the rest of the troops to one side of the map and usually as far forward as possible (just slightly farther back than the decoy)

*Rescripting them depending what indies you are facing (for instance vs. barbarians or lizards you usually want to set all your troops halfway back, and have your melee troops on hold while your ranged support whittles them down a bit)

*Setting plain military commanders in the back to(hold)(hold)(hold)(hold)(hold) Stay behind troops

*Optimizing taxes and patrolling

*Setting research

*Optimizing resources and gold to come as close to zero each turn as possible

*'Scout probing' indies

*Scripting prophet/priests (and rescripting them and all the troops each time you hit an undead province)

*Scripting and possibly equipping pretender

*Planning the best order in which to take indies, reevaluating it based on losing a battle or taking heavy losses

*Deciding how much to bid on what mercs, and where to place them

*Recruit indy commanders to shuffle new troops to your expanding armies

*Checking the graphs and HoF (optional)

*Watching battles (optional for most)

I must admit for me what probably takes me the most time is evaluating indies. It can be very complex to deploy the minimum force to take the best provinces, and then also have it planned out how the army should move and be resupplied with troops in order to continue to take new provinces every turn with no breaks for the maximum amount of time.

[PDF]

Here's the full, uncut original version of the interview granted by Kristoffer O. for Cyberstratege, the French strategy game mag (go see us at www.cyberstratege.com !).
With kind permission of Kristoffer and Théophile Monnier, Cyberstratege founder/chief redactor

Screenshots to come soon !

Cyber - We've had Dominions:PPP in 2000, Dominions II in 2003, now Dominions 3 : what keeps you continuing to develop this title ?

KO : The fun of it. Positive feedback on our games. When I hear that people
like what I do I feel inspired and want to add more stuff.


Cyber - Tell us briefly what will be the main changes/new stuff in Dom3 !

KO : Dominions 3 is called the Awakening. Awakening? Yep. When ou create your pretender he/she is dormant, bound or imprisoned by the previous pantocrator. With his departure the demigods and spirits of the world are awakening to don his mantle. When you design your pretender you must choose whether your god is already awake or if he/she is still asleep or bound.

There are new pretenders, new spells, new items and approximately 1500 units. New national summons for several nations. There is a random map generator that generates nice maps with mountain ranges and special sites. Some nations build cave cities. Modding will be easier and more elements in the game will be accessible to modding. Nations, recruitment queues, special dominion effects etc will be moddable. Graphics are better with nicer battle fields. The AI builds forts. Super combattants are nerfed, or rather life drain is. The economy is more generous to allow bigger armies. We have also tried to decrease micromanagement and make the UI more accessible.

Cyber - We've heard of the new nations and the era concept replacing Dom2 themes... Who are the newcomers ? How will eras work ?

KO : Nations and themes are remade and organized in three eras. The first one is a more mythological/low tech/magic rich era. Most of the old nations had themes that are now remade into nations of the three eras. For example Jotunheim changed into the three nations Niefelheim, Jotunheim
and Utgård. No big change here. Other nations do not exist in all eras. Marignon emerges in the middle era. Another nation named Marverni could be viewed as their predecessors. Marverni is a nation of tribes led by druids and vergobrets. The nation is influenced by the celts as described in Caesars war commentaries. Early Ermor is not at all what
they will become in later eras. It is a nation before the fall, with pontifices, flamen and augurs. There are also nations influenced by hindu and japanese history, myth and folklore. There are about 20 nations in each era.

Cyber - Beginners to Dom2 were hurt be the steep learning curve and lack of tutorial and in-game advice : has anything been done for them ?

KO : We are trying to make the game more accessible. The manual will be a lot better (not written by us) and more game mechanics will be explained.

Cyber - Again for newcomers, there is no real "campaign" in Dom2 (as for example in the HoMM series), allowing a more easy way to play solo and learn the game. Why that ? It's a difficult work but gratifying for solo players (and a commercial argument !). Is something like this in Dom3 ?

KO : Not currently, but if we decide to make a campaign for the game it is something that will be added when the game is nearly finished I believe.

Cyber - On the other hand Veterans rumbled about the AI weaknesses : poor recruiting choices (hordes of cheap ineffective troops starving eventually, no castle building), reliance on buffs and cheap summons in tactical battles : did you improve the AI ? One thing that I would have seen is the possibility to give specific AI advantages (x% more gold/ressources/design points/supply...) on a "game" basis without having to resort to map editing

KO : There have been some changes. The AI now builds castles. I'm not sure what other changes are implemented.


Cyber - Another frequent issue was the huge micromanagement in middle-end game, when it was very hard to properly keep track of item and gems allocation : something new here ?

KO : I barely remember what changes has been made here (I haven't played dom2 for almost 2 years). There are changes, but there will probably still be some issues left when beta testing starts. Dominions is a complex game and some micro management will always be there. Hopefully Dominions 3 will not scare too many players away. Hmm, I just remembered a nice feature. All commanders has small icons representing items in his possession.

Cyber- Dominions 2 is a mostly-MP game, yet has no provision at all for diplomacy between players, even at its simplest form (AI nations can be declared allied though). It can be seen as a feature - after all the pretenders are all enemies- but some players play team games, and in nearly all games there are temporary alliances...

KO : The feature remains at the moment. I'm not certain about how this will develop.

Cyber - Fans did make serious rebalance work (spells, scales, creatures and items) through mods, did you take that as an input (or at least an influence) for Dom3 ? In particular, there's the question of the nearly-complete domination of big blood summons in the end game, has it been addressed or do you consider it a "feature"?

KO : It might have been considered a feature, but dom3 features another story. Blood summons will not be as dominant as in dom2.

Cyber - Speaking about mods and map editing, what will be the new features ? Will it be possible to create new spells and items ?

KO : The modding part is not yet finished, but the code has been remade so that modding will be easier to implement. Nation modding will definitely be more developed. Creation of new spells and items seem unlikely.


Cyber - What is the plan now for Illwinter ? Dominions 4, CoE 3, something else, or will you fall into slumber as the Rimtursar did ?

KO : Sleep seems fine. Actually I have no idea. The last couple of years have been incredibly fun and rewarding, but I'm not sure where to go now. I work as a teacher and that is also quite rewarding from time to time.
I'll probably continue having fun. Fun might lead to another game title.
Who knows?

Cyber - Lastly, will we still get "Nagot Gick Fell" in Dom3 ?

KO : Always

[alexti]

I agree with quantum_mechanic. There's a lot of important stuff to do in the first turns. Evaluating indies, planning future army movement and scripting for the battles are probably most time consuming for me.