Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kagus]

If you happen to let them build up too far (if you're on a big map with few players, for instance), then you start seeing more elites.  You start seeing every kind of magical creature they can get their hands on (saw one province that was being lorded over by a treelord, and the god wasn't a nature mage), as well as a few big critters that they just happen upon.  For instance, those twenty war elephants over there.

Lucky me, elephants don't really like the 'surrounded by enemies + scarifying spells' combination, and I got to see the effects of a full-on elephant stampede from the right direction.  Goodbye, useless priest.

But yeah...  Never play a 200-some province map with a master AI-controlled Arcosephale.  Even if you do happen to be playing as three different races.  

That spell cap sucks...   If they at least had the courtesy of extending it to the AI players, then things would even out a bit...  Or if I could find some way of hacking it out.

[Helmaroc]

Is it just me, or is this a real bug? When I look at certain things with command-click (I'm on a mac, playing the Dominions (1) demo) it gets stuck there, and enter, space, esc do nada. I have to restart.  

[DuncanFrost]

Success! Dominions has been ordered! Now I just gotta wait for it to arrive..

[gimli]

I gotta say that
1. singleplayer part is horrible, the AI plain sucks ass
2. multiplayer is not so fun. I dont like pbem games, and "blitz" games are not working very well at all, because of the turn based concept.
This game is rather simple if you play a lot with it, it might look like complicated at first, but there are "forced" strategies for all nations what you must play or else you will loose.
All in all, the game is good, but definitely nothing like "awesome".

PS. the mp community is very small, especially if you would like to play blitz games. Theres always a few pbem games going at least.
If you want to play singleplayer, forget about the game.

[Janne Joensuu]

The AI does have big flaws, and the official forums there's even a thread about how the game isn't that good in single-player. It seems like there's a difference between "hardcore" gamers who can quickly deduce how the AI works and how to exploit it, and gamers who aren't common with similar games and don't even know where to start. The former might like the game, but will find the single-player lacking. The latter might enjoy the game even in single-player. It's not always about beating the enemy as fast as you can; it can also be about fighting a war against the evil, trying to use the weak human commanders in melee, exploring the world, discovering new magic sites etc. This is a Dwarf Fortress forum, after all...

MP games are fun, but competitive multiplayer is another matter entirely. It's not about "is this good" any more, but "what is even better than good". Merely "good" stragies will lose to "very good" strategies, and e.g. some nations start at disadvantage between games played by those frequenting the official forums, because the forumite see those nations as easy to kill in early game and thus prime targets for a rush. Without that kind of bad karma, the nation could do much better, even though it probably isn't in the top-tier.

There are still many variations available for every nation. There aren't as many competitive strategies as it seems at first, but even at worst it's at the level of "because this nation can't counter 20+ elephants thrown at it before it has researched level X evocations, it should take a pretender that can stop elephants", leaving the kind of pretender open. Any size 6 pretender with protection will stop the elephants from trampling, Ghost King can be used to cast so many buff spells the elephants will die or run away without being able to deal any damage to him, Vampire Queen can do the same but is a flying immortal instead of ethereal (so she might need a few more items), a Prince of Death who isn't outright killed will scare the elephants away so quickly it isn't even funny, etc etc. Throwing dozens of elephants against the AI pretty much dooms it, though. Similarly, before the very endgame when the remaining nations have thoroughly researched several schools, insane, undead gods can be summoned, healed from their insanity and made mage-commanders of great power for "just" several dozen gems/piece. While the developers are slow on the balancing, the next patch will include new kind of insanity for these Tartarians, as well as introducing yet other three nations.

Sorry for the long post. I'm a long-time fan of the series, and even was a betatester, so I'm very biased.

[Kagus]

Hell, I've long since given up trying to win at the game.  I just mess around and see how cool I can make my empire, and how many new things I can find.  

And then I set up battles just because I think my army looks really cool when it's fighting.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by Janne Joensuu:
<STRONG>The AI does have big flaws, and the official forums there's even a thread about how the game isn't that good in single-player. It seems like there's a difference between "hardcore" gamers who can quickly deduce how the AI works and how to exploit it, and gamers who aren't common with similar games and don't even know where to start. The former might like the game, but will find the single-player lacking. The latter might enjoy the game even in single-player. It's not always about beating the enemy as fast as you can; it can also be about fighting a war against the evil, trying to use the weak human commanders in melee, exploring the world, discovering new magic sites etc. This is a Dwarf Fortress forum, after all...

MP games are fun, but competitive multiplayer is another matter entirely. It's not about "is this good" any more, but "what is even better than good". Merely "good" stragies will lose to "very good" strategies, and e.g. some nations start at disadvantage between games played by those frequenting the official forums, because the forumite see those nations as easy to kill in early game and thus prime targets for a rush. Without that kind of bad karma, the nation could do much better, even though it probably isn't in the top-tier.

There are still many variations available for every nation. There aren't as many competitive strategies as it seems at first, but even at worst it's at the level of "because this nation can't counter 20+ elephants thrown at it before it has researched level X evocations, it should take a pretender that can stop elephants", leaving the kind of pretender open. Any size 6 pretender with protection will stop the elephants from trampling, Ghost King can be used to cast so many buff spells the elephants will die or run away without being able to deal any damage to him, Vampire Queen can do the same but is a flying immortal instead of ethereal (so she might need a few more items), a Prince of Death who isn't outright killed will scare the elephants away so quickly it isn't even funny, etc etc. Throwing dozens of elephants against the AI pretty much dooms it, though. Similarly, before the very endgame when the remaining nations have thoroughly researched several schools, insane, undead gods can be summoned, healed from their insanity and made mage-commanders of great power for "just" several dozen gems/piece. While the developers are slow on the balancing, the next patch will include new kind of insanity for these Tartarians, as well as introducing yet other three nations.

Sorry for the long post. I'm a long-time fan of the series, and even was a betatester, so I'm very biased.</STRONG>

..yet another 3 nations. Sounds like Blizzard and their expansions to be honest.  
Either way, turn based games are the past, those are not really good for mp, especially if you dislike pbem games. I dont like to play for 3 months in the same game, but I know that theres many who do.
Doms 3. is made for PBEM fans, thus the playerbase is very limited and small. Sorta like DF with the ASCII + bad UI as it is now. However DF will have a chance to change, Doms 3. wont since everything is hardcoded of course.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by gimli:
<STRONG>

..yet another 3 nations. Sounds like Blizzard and their expansions to be honest.    
Either way, turn based games are the past, those are not really good for mp, especially if you dislike pbem games. I dont like to play for 3 months in the same game, but I know that theres many who do.
Doms 3. is made for PBEM fans, thus the playerbase is very limited and small. Sorta like DF with the ASCII + bad UI as it is now. However DF will have a chance to change, Doms 3. wont since everything is hardcoded of course.</STRONG>

Dont be a Negative Nancy. If you don't like it, fine, but don't try to push your opinion on others who enjoy the game.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>

Dont be a Negative Nancy. If you don't like it, fine, but don't try to push your opinion on others who enjoy the game.</STRONG>

So basically this thread is made for praising the game, but others cant tell their subjective opinion?..in fact everything what I said is true, so its not even a subjective opinion.   :roll:

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by gimli:
<STRONG>

So basically this thread is made for praising the game, but others cant tell their subjective opinion?..in fact everything what I said is true, so its not even a subjective opinion.    :roll:</STRONG>

Saying "This game is held back by x" is fine, but not when you mention said flaws in every single post you make in the topic.

[Kagus]

I can't find CoEII for free, just the demo...  What am I missing?

[Gigalith]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>I can't find CoEII for free, just the demo...  What am I missing?</STRONG>

Look for it on Shrapnel Games. Better yet, just use this link: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/CoE2/6.htm

[ March 26, 2008: Message edited by: Gigalith ]

[Kagus]

Just realized I hadn't thanked you yet.  So, thanks.

Anyways, I've been playing CoEII for a while, and can say that I'm having a great deal of fun, even if there are a slew of things I don't like...

Such as losing the game because a herd of deer wandered through your citadel a couple turns into the game, and the inability to reassign items (which are lost completely if all the commanders in a particular area are killed), and the difficulty in obtaining enough sacrifices for great lord Baal, and the utter patheticness of the creatures brought forth by the elf king, and the boringness of the shaman, and the missing graphic for the Pale One oracle's spell, and the fact that I can't "take back" a move, which leads to said oracle going up against a mountainhold of dwarves by himself because the army back behind him had one movement point too few, and...

Y'know, with all that, you'd be surprised why I still play it...  The truth is, it's just too damn good not to play.  These gripes are balanced out by all the really cool stuff you get to do, like draining a lake to make an ice golem, and then using the resulting muddied pit to make a clay golem (mmmm...   Clay golems...), or summoning the ancient gods of the swamp by boiling a really huge amount of mushrooms, or summoning vast rabbit hordes for whatever purposes you might want to use them for, or buying more slave girls for your senator's favorite commanders.  

You've got to hand it to those two Swedes...   They certainly have a slew of ideas.

[Torak]

Note: Dont play Necromancers. They're pretty much useless is you actually try to summon undead, thanks to insanity.

[Kagus]

Heh heh, yeah, I'm aware of that.  I used to play as necromancers in the demo.

So far, my favorite seems to be the enchanter.  There's nothing quite like having a veritable wall of living smashiness in front of you, and clay golems are easily my favorite golem.  I guess I've just got a soft spot for regeneration.  That, and they even work in mutliple rows, thanks to that "clay" spell.

Demonologists and priestesses of Baal are fun and all, but I can never seem to get enough sacrifices to get the really cool stuff.  The most powerful critter I ever got with a priestess was an "Eye of the Gods", and that ate up all my sacrificial supplies.  Still though, that thing was EVIL...  I've never seen stuff die so fast.

The manual says they're "more common" (more powerful?) during the fallen empire period, but they need lots and lots of sacrificial people, and the most heavily populated period is that of the empire, which is when they're supposed to be at their weakest.  

Oh, one more thing.  Never ever ever ever tangle with a nature priest in a heavily wooded world.  You will die before you can say "What the hell is that thing?"  

You might be able to get away with it if it's a shaman, but witches and druids will laugh (or cackle) in your face and then obliterate you.

[ March 28, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]