Dom2: Questions and impressions

[Backov]

I recieved Dom2 from gogamer admirably quickly, just under 24 hours delivery time for a total of $54 US with the express shipping.

I've played a few games now, trouncing the Easy AI as I should. Some comments:

It's not a AAA title - they REALLY needed to get an UE (User Experience) guy on this project. I'd swear Derek Smart designed the game if it weren't also very good. Information is presented poorly in a lot of places, but after the curve is surmounted it's very playable.

Some things aren't very clear at the beginning, and I didn't really see them explained in the manual.. For instance, labs are just an empty building unless you recruit a mage leader and get him researching.

Do leaders with the proper amount of magical ability get the new spells your guys back at home base research automagically? I put my 9 level fire Pretender into battle, and had some fairly decent 3-4th level fire spells... And he didn't use any of them. He used "vine arrow" instead, which is some dinky level 1 nature spell if I am not mistaken. Does he need fire gems? The manual says that's just for spells that need them and boosting weenies levels.

What practical effect does the "defense" stat have? When someone attacks do they get faced by X militia units? If so, it seems like a pretty cost-effective way to avoid having too many armies.

Speaking of too many armies.. Other than maintenance, does having a bunch of huge stacks cost anything other than supply? (Which is brilliant btw)

Where do I download some interesting maps?

Who's going to start the next newb game.

That is all. Money well spent I think, although I still suck.

[Foom]

I agree, the documentation and the interface are ass. I was pretty reluctant to drop $50 on what looks like a shareware title from the 80s.

Do leaders with the proper amount of magical ability get the new spells your guys back at home base research automagically? I put my 9 level fire Pretender into battle, and had some fairly decent 3-4th level fire spells... And he didn't use any of them.

They get the spells automatically, but the spellcasting AI is terrible. You can write scripts for the casters in the battle orders screen, but once those run out they revert to their default idiocy.

What practical effect does the "defense" stat have? When someone attacks do they get faced by X militia units? If so, it seems like a pretty cost-effective way to avoid having too many armies.

If you buy 10 defense (which costs 55 gold) you get a small troupe of weak soldiers and a commander in that province. They can detect enemy spies and will fight attacking armies, and they don't cost any upkeep. Buying more defense will get you more troops, but I don't think it's worth the gold.

Speaking of too many armies.. Other than maintenance, does having a bunch of huge stacks cost anything other than supply? (Which is brilliant btw)

You pay gold. Something like 1/15th of the initial cost, less for holy troops and commanders. Your total upkeep cost is displayed in that window in the top left corner.

You can get some maps here: http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/maps.html

[Tortilla]

With no factual evidence to back me up, I'd be willing to bet at least one of the Dom2 game designers loves the vi text editor. The Dom2 interface reminds me so much of vi. Incredibly difficult to learn but amazingly usable once your fingers have memorized the right keys.

In terms of Dom2 being a "AAA" title, I guess it depends on the definition of "AAA" title. Dom2 doesn't have the slickest UI, the shiniest graphics, or the biggest development budget. It does offer more hours of fun gameplay than anything I've played since Diablo II.

Welcome to the Dom2 addicts club Backov. :evil

Now go get in a MP game ASAP.

[Rywill]

It's not a AAA title

I think most people use "AAA title" to mean a game that has a lot of polish, well-supported, lots of resources went into it. In that case, I'd agree that Dom2 is not a AAA title. The graphics are pretty bad, the music is limited, the manual is very lacking despite its large size, and the UI is difficult to master (although works pretty well once you learn it).

However, Dom2 is definitely a AAA title in the sense of having good dev support (patches, help for the community, etc.) and being well-designed. In fact, it's probably the best-designed strategy game I've ever played. It's incredibly addictive, has terrific replay value, and has amazing depth.

For instance, labs are just an empty building unless you recruit a mage leader and get him researching.

Correct. You have to have a lab in a province to enable mages to research or forge magic items. You also need one to access your magic treasury (to give your leaders gems and magic items), and to recruit certain units.

Do leaders with the proper amount of magical ability get the new spells your guys back at home base research automagically? [...] Does he need fire gems? The manual says that's just for spells that need them and boosting weenies levels.

Spells are learned by all units automatically. But most of the good battlefield spells require gems, which is probably why your Fire 9 guy isn't casting what you want. Since you can only get gems at a lab, you either need to take him back, or have some other leader (like a scout) ferry them out to the battlefront and then transfer them to the commander.

What practical effect does the "defense" stat have? When someone attacks do they get faced by X militia units? If so, it seems like a pretty cost-effective way to avoid having too many armies.

If you mean for a province, yeah, each point of defense gets you one defender. What kind of defender you get depends on your race, but they're all crappy. The computer will buy different types of crappy defenders depending on how much you spend (i.e., your first 10 might be crappy infantry, and your next 10 crappy archers). You also get one crappy leader for every 10 crappy defenders you buy.

It's much more cost-prohibitive than you think, because the cost of the defenders increases with each one you buy. So the first guy costs 1, the second guy costs 2, the third guy costs 3, etc. By the time you're buying 20 defense, you're spending like 175 gold or something. They're handy for deterring small probing attacks, and for beefing up a province where you have a regular army (like if you're defending a bottleneck *cough*Pythium*cough*). But there's no way you can buy enough defense to hold off a serious enemy stack (especially since you can't give orders or formations to those defenders).

[Stormbinder]

I recieved Dom2 from gogamer admirably quickly, just under 24 hours delivery time for a total of $54 US with the express shipping.

I've played a few games now, trouncing the Easy AI as I should. Some comments:

It's not a AAA title - they REALLY needed to get an UE (User Experience) guy on this project. I'd swear Derek Smart designed the game if it weren't also very good. Information is presented poorly in a lot of places, but after the curve is surmounted it's very playable.

Some things aren't very clear at the beginning, and I didn't really see them explained in the manual.. For instance, labs are just an empty building unless you recruit a mage leader and get him researching.

Do leaders with the proper amount of magical ability get the new spells your guys back at home base research automagically? I put my 9 level fire Pretender into battle, and had some fairly decent 3-4th level fire spells... And he didn't use any of them. He used "vine arrow" instead, which is some dinky level 1 nature spell if I am not mistaken. Does he need fire gems? The manual says that's just for spells that need them and boosting weenies levels.

What practical effect does the "defense" stat have? When someone attacks do they get faced by X militia units? If so, it seems like a pretty cost-effective way to avoid having too many armies.

Speaking of too many armies.. Other than maintenance, does having a bunch of huge stacks cost anything other than supply? (Which is brilliant btw)

Where do I download some interesting maps?

Who's going to start the next newb game.

That is all. Money well spent I think, although I still suck.

Yes, game manual suck. The game itself is one of the best strategy games that I ever played, and trust me, I've played a lot. ;)

Go to http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/docs.html

Download Walkthrough and play it. It will get you up to speed very quickly.

Than download Strategy guide. Good luck!

[Kalle]

Someone let me know when the game drops in price. Or when it can be shipped from within the EU.

Yes, I'm still annoyed that I can't afford to import the game.

[Foom]

You can order it from Germany.

Or from this place in the UK.

[MikeOberly]

I might just be weird,but I really like the graphics.I prefer the hand drawn,cartoonish look over the hyper high res 'realistic' look of some of the so-called AAA fantasy strategy titles.A few of the maps look almost hand drawn on parchment,and are beautiful.

[Rywill]

You are weird. Although I'm not talking about the maps, which I agree are very nice. I'm talking about the battles. I understand that something like 3D units can't be done because there's such an amazing variety of units (and given the choice of one or the other, I'll take Dom2's variety any day). But I don't think people would consider it a "AAA title" unless it had nicer sprites with better movement and attack animations, etc.

[Brian Rucker]

I can see if that's what folks generally mean by AAA but it's kind of sad when graphics are seen as more important than gameplay. Ideally you'd like both but what's most important should be, well, the game IMHO.

[Rywill]

I totally agree with you. I'll take Dom2 over UT2k4 in a heartbeat. I just think when people refer to a title as "AAA," they're talking not about how good a game it is, but how high the production values are. There's no question that Dom2's production values are middle-of-the-road, at least in my mind. That doesn't mean it isn't a good game. It's a great game. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

Maybe I'm totally crazy and that's not what people mean by "AAA." I dunno. That's always what I took it to mean, though: a game that had major money put in to making the look, sound and feel of the game as good as it could be. Dom2 is more like a home-grown masterpiece.

[MikeOberly]

Maybe I'm totally crazy and that's not what people mean by "AAA." I dunno. That's always what I took it to mean, though: a game that had major money put in to making the look, sound and feel of the game as good as it could be.

Yeah,I think that's what people mean when they say 'AAA game'--i.e.,a 'AAA' game is one that has a lot of money and 'push' behind it,but I don't think the 'AAA' tag is very useful.A lot of the 'AAA' games I've played were major bores after the initial impression wore thin.

Dom2 might be the best multiplayer strategy computer game ever made.It's the best email multiplayer game I've ever seen,for certain.I don't see any reason why I won't be playing Dom2 for years--I can't say that about a lot of the games I buy.

[Backov]

Dom2 seems to be designed to be a MP game, so I definitely have to try that out.

As for the AAA bit again.. That's not just graphics, although that's part of it. It's also (in the case of Dom2) - severely lacking in the interface and audio portions as well (mostly interface.)

Unfortunately even if they had spent more money on the graphics/audio and got a non-programmer to do the interface, they probably still wouldn't do any better than they are now.

Good game though, I am starting to get the hang of it.

So who's starting the next Q23Noob, or do I have to?

[Tortilla]

So who's starting the next Q23Noob, or do I have to?

I'm toying with the idea of setting up my linux server to host a network game. It's already a 24/7 machine for webserver anyway. It's got a bum CD drive at the moment that is slated for repair this weekend, so I might install Dom2 and start something next week if there is enough interested players.

P.S. I only have one copy of Dom2. Anyone know if a Dom2 network server will reject a client with same CD-KEY? (I.E. my windows box). I'd hate to have to play my turns from the linux server desktop since I'd have to get X + SDL configured right on a system with weak horsepower and a crappy video card.

[Johan O]

It only checks if there are identical cd keyes from computers where turns have been made, the cd key of the game on the server is not checked unless a turn has been played upon it.

[Tortilla]

It only checks if there are identical cd keyes from computers where turns have been made, the cd key of the game on the server is not checked unless a turn has been played upon it.

Thank you for the info Johan.

I guess I'll plan to host the next game then. I'll start a thread for signups once I have dom2 installed on my linux box and running properly.