Dominions II review

[sachmo71]

Thanks to Calis dynasty, I decided to shell out the $49.95 asking price and get Dominions II:The Accension Wars for myself.

After having played the demo for a week, I was very much looking forward to getting my hands on the full version. I was not disappointed!

The game is very similar to Master of Magic, or games of that type. However, this game has a depth of options that blow even the old master away! For example, there are 16 (or more) races to choose from. Once you decide on a race, you create your pretender god. You can choose it's form, each of which has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Then, you can choose what types of magic the pretender weilds, what type of fortresses he can build, and how strong his dominion is. Depending on the dominion that you choose, the attributes and units avaliable to your race my change.

Gameplay itself is structured to allow play by email games. Each race gives it's orders for a turn, and they are all processed simultaneously. Battles are fought independant of the human player...your troops can be positioned and given rudimentary orders, but once the battle is joined, it's all on your local commander. All units have about 12 attributes which come into play in a battle, but in the end it's basically attack valuel + random number vs. defense value + random number. Units continue to batter each other until one side breaks and flees or is wiped out. Of course, special abilities come into play that can change all of this, and then there is the subject of magic.

I'm not sure how many spells there are in the game, but at a quick glance it seems to be more than Master of Magic has. You have your combat spells, summoning spells, protection spells, etc. Many spells cost nothing to cast, but the higher level spells take gems. Gems are collected in a variety of ways, but mostly they are collected at resource sites.

The object of the game is to defeat all of the other pretender gods and be the sole god of the planet, but the victory conditions can be changed to a number of other options, making the game longer or shorter as desired.

There aren't a ton of options for buildings, as there were in MOM. Only three types can be built...a fortress, a temple, and a lab. Each has different uses, but they all work the same.

Resources are determined for each province, and units cost both gold and resources to build. Thus if a province has a small supply of resources but your coffers are flowing with gold, you are out of luck. Each province also sends a percentage of it's resources to any adjacent province with a fortress, so if a player goes mad with defense he can quickly bankrupt his empire of it's resources.

Each province can produce a distinct type of unit, and once it's captured, those units can be produced by your armies. This means that as the game progresses, you can mix and match different unit types and create the combination that works best for you. But you have to be careful! Some units don't mix well together, and some special abilities of units can hurt other types.

The graphics are early 90's. For me, I don't give a fig, but many people find that important, so prepare to be underwhelmed in this area.
The sounds are very basic, also, although I still enjoy the music.

In the game I've been playing, the AI in battle seems to be ruthless. They use their units to the fullest advantage and manuver like a human player would. And so far I've only fought independants!!

Some say the game is complicated, but there is a decent walkthrough avaliable on the Shrapnel website that helps you get into the game quickly. After reading the manual and playing the walkthrough, you should be good to go.

As with most Shrapnel titles, the game has an excellent editor and already a nice number of mods. I haven't read up on them too much, as I am more of a downloader than a creator, but it seems easy enough to manipulate. Also, the developers spend a lot of time on the forums, talking about changes and listening to suggestions from players.

I would give this game an 8 out of 10, taking off points for graphics. I highly recommend this game!

Download the demo at www.shrapnelgames.com

[Godzilla Blitz]

Stop it.

I didn't read this. Really.

Must resist.

Leaving now.

Nice review! Does the game have a random map generator?

I didn't ask that.

Really, I'm leaving now.

[Blade6119]

what he said

[Qwikshot]

The game is addictive, and since I'm still a weak, poor strategic-use player, I could only stay competitive playing the death division Ermor-Soul Gate...the AI even at weak is difficult...

The game is made for modifications, tweaks, and the like...it also seems to have a rapid fan base dedicated to modding...

It's fun, it's challenging, and the replayablity is at its highest level...I can barely play and stop and do anything else...

[Calis]

I love this game. I don't know if I've mentioned that before.

I'm trying to pace myself playing it, so I don't get burnt out, but man. There is a TON of game here.

I'll admit this weekend I did try out a few new games, not using my Dynasty. Never really got past turn 30 or so, just kept fiddling around with different stuff. Every time I started though I used Ashen Empire for Ermor. When you figure that this is just one subset of 16 total races. I have no clue how many subsets there are, but this a huge variety of gameplay.

There's just so much different stuff you can do. Honestly, it deserves the 50 bucks it costs. I have no regrets about forking that over for it, I can tell it's going to be one I'll go back to time and time again.

Great review btw sachmo.

[Eilim]

Just wanted to chime in with another "This game has stolen all my free time" post.

Don't feel alone, Qwikshot. After 4 miserable attempts at playing the Tuatha and thinking I just would never get a handle on the game I played a few games as the Ashen Empire and rebuilt my confidence. Now back to my Tuatha to see if I can bring them to glory.

At this point the only thing that pulls me away from playing is doing research and tinkering for a mod idea that came to me before I found out there was a sub-dominion of Man based on the Tuatha de Danann.

Anyways, time to get back to playing.

[bamcgee]

nice review, except I'm unsure about one thing. When I played the demo, it seemed to me that building fortresses greatly increased the resources available for production. You're suggesting that it sucked resources out of neighboring provinces, but it seemed to me more like a multiplier effect, thus making them very valuable. Am I missing something?

Overall I agree with the recommendation. Is there anything in the full version that expands the gameplay (not just units or spells) beyond the demo, or have I already seen most everything?

[Calis]

You only actually receive half the resources in a province without a fort.

The fort allows you to pull in 100% and it also pulls in from the surrounding area as said.

I hope that makes sense. Really makes you think where you want to put up forts, and adds quite a bit of strategy to selecting the fort to begin with.

[sachmo71]

What Calis said.
If you build fortresses in every province, they will wind up robbing resources from each other, and can really cripple your resource production.


The full version give you all of the races, more spells, more maps, and some other things. I don't know if the demo has a turn limit. I don't think it does.

[Calis]

40 turn limit in the demo from what I hear.

Plenty enough to get a handle on the game though.

[NevStar]

I'm late with this, but here are my 2 cents:

Tried the demo last night & the UI is the most atrocious thing I've ever seen. The recruit units screen is just dying for a spreadsheet or table, but instead, I have to right-click to view each unit's stats & then click to go back to the unit screen. Add to that the fact that there are no single-player diplomacy options at all, you have to basically kill everybody. The gameplay kind of reminded me of Stars! -- really deep, geared for multiplayer, but without diplomacy, the single-player experience still feels sort of unfinished. I really liked Stars's interface, though.

It has lots of promise & definately has that addictive quality. I'll give the demo some more time, but I don't think I'll be spending $50 for this. Nevstar gives this a 3 ... out of 5.

[Calis]

Just out of curiousity NevStar, did you try out the walkthrough by Bruce Geryk when you first started the game?

Just curious, because the interface is probably the biggest complaint I hear from folks, so I'm guessing it's a pretty valid complaint. Strange thing is, I did the tutorial first off, and I guess through that I just got used to how it worked without getting frustrated by it, because I really don't have a problem with how the interface works. It is definitely not what I'd call a good one, but functional. I think first impressions are just REALLY important with a games interface and system.

Then again, I think I might be classified as a Dominions 2 fanboy, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Peregrine]

Calis, I ran through the walkthrough today and was very impressed. Though I do think the UI leaves much to be desired, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting to see after reading some posts on various boards. What I did find confusing was the lack of detail in the battle system. If you watch the battle, things happen but there's no explanation for them. Like in my very first battle in the walkthrough, my large unit of 8 giants just turned and fled after being hit by arrows on the first turn, and I guess they were gone permanently after that? But there was no explanation like a not on the screen "Unit X routs!" so I just had to guess what was going on. I guess units that rout are gone permanently? Weird.

Nevstar, I noticed there was no diplomacy too, but I kind of like it. It's more old-school to me, and as the walkthrough makes clear, this is a game of gods trying to destroy each other, not namby-pamby human kings who might do such things as "compromise" or "join forces"...for the pretenders, it's victory or death.

[Calis]

Yeah, I honestly think one of the biggest mistakes they made on the game was to not have a tutorial of some sorts in the game itself. A game like this HAS to have one. Bad move.

I'm not sure what happened on your battle Peregrine. It will give a note when your armies route usually, it'll say the armies of whatever nation have routed. You don't lose armies that rout also as long as they have a place to retreat to. I'm not sure what went on during your battle, sounds odd.

I sorta wish there was diplomacy, but I do also kinda like how it works. The folks who make the game are quite clear that it's a multiplayer game, the SP portion isn't overly important to them, but I think they still threw together a pretty good SP game. There's options for diplomacy in Multi from what I read, although nothing too big. I agree though, with the way the story of the game is, diplomacy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Peregrine]

Yeah I was confused too. I followed the instructions in the walkthrough and had my 8 giant squad under my "hero" and then three under the pretender. The 8 giants fled off the screen at the start of the battle, and then my pretender, hero and the three remaining guys managed to win the battle (and the rest of the provinces you take over in the walkthrough) but the original squad seemed to have been gone permanently.

[Calis]

Not sure on that, very strange.

Unfortunately I've spent all my time playing as Undead, so I don't get to deal with routing.

I don't know enough about the game to explain that one, maybe someone else can come along who knows what the heck is going on.

[Godzilla Blitz]

I'm was wondering, does the game have a random map generator? Or are games always played on the same map? Or are there a number of different maps that come with the game? Couldn't seem to find this on the website.

[Calis]

No random map generator as of yet, although there was one for the first game, so I imagine it's just a matter of time..no clue on that though.

There are a number of maps with the game, and even more downloadable. There's plenty to go around, of varying sizes.

[Peregrine]

GB, on the Shapnel Games forum there is a random map project, I know one guy has a program which is creating a bunch of random maps offline and then you can import them into the game. There are also a bunch of other map mods, such as a real earth one, etc.

[bamcgee]

Whenever I got routed, I would find some of the cowards hiding in an adjacent province's garrison. Sometimes they would not all retreat to the same province either. But if that's not the case, I don't know what else it could be.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Calis, Peregrine: Thanks! I was concerned that there might not be so much replayability if there is only one map, but that doesn't sound like it should be a problem.

So much for that reason not to buy. Running out of excuses. Willpower breaking down.

[Blade6119]

i know the feelin godzilla...the demo was a lot of fun, and playing as the other races is very tempting

[NevStar]

Originally Posted by Calis

Just out of curiousity NevStar, did you try out the walkthrough by Bruce Geryk when you first started the game?

I did and it helped a lot. But just because I _knew_ where things were, doesn't mean I have to like it. I hate to harp on one screen, but regarding the recruit unit screen: who in there right mind actually thought it was a good decision to make the screen display 10+ very similar human-looking unit type. Let's say I'm new & I want to recruit the unit with the best attack skill. 20 clicks later, I've finally found him. As you gain experience, you'd memorize the units, unless you wanted to switch races, & then you'd have to do it all over again. I suppose I could fulfill my irrational need for a list by printing out a couple of spreadsheets, but that seems too much like work when I'm supposed to be playing a game.

I'll soften my original impression a bit, though. They do have hotkeys for almost every command. For advanced users, it's decent, but the learning curve is severe.

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Nevstar, I noticed there was no diplomacy too, but I kind of like it. It's more old-school to me, and as the walkthrough makes clear, this is a game of gods trying to destroy each other, not namby-pamby human kings who might do such things as "compromise" or "join forces"...for the pretenders, it's victory or death.

Bah! I read 2 or 3 more role-playing justifications for things in the walkthru, too. Just because they thought up a good excuse doesn't mean it's ok.

This has great play-by-email potential though & I might pick it up just to see what the undead & underwater races are like. *sigh*

I think routing is mostly based on morale & morale decreases when your forces are outnumbered. I attacked about 40 indy militia & crossbowmen with 10 giants. They were mowing through the militia when the crossbowmen killed one unit. At that point, they all turned & ran. My theory is whenever one of your units dies, they do a morale check & if they're greatly outnumbered (even if it's puny humans to your giants) there's a bigger chance they'll run.

[sachmo71]

The more units in your squad, the less chance they will route when a unit dies. Moral of the story...make bigger platoons. In pratice, I usually only split up platoons between melee units, fast units, and missile units.

As for diplomacy...this may sound like a cop-out, but it makes total sense to me. THe premise of the game is that the Main God has left the land. All of his underlings are vying for power. There is no diplomacy, nor do I think there should be. You are either activly fighting, or waiting to fight. That's my opinion on it, anyway.

The graphics suck. The battle screen is overly graphic intensive and short on infomation. These are the trade-offs that I am willing to accept, although I am hoping that in a later patch they add more info to the battle screen.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

The battle screen is overly graphic intensive and short on infomation.

You might know all this already, but I found this in another thread about the game...

"You can actually tell quite a bit about what is going on in battles - just right-click on any unit and you can find a lot of information. For example, hit points are updated dynamically, so you can keep track of how fast units are being killed. You can see each unit's damage sustained and fatigue incurred as two bars (red and blue) beneath each unit in a grid square when you right-click. You can get individual details on the units in a square just by clicking on the icons at the bottom. If you further click on something like Morale, you can find the pertinent modifiers: the screen will list things like +1 for friendly dominion, -5 for battle fright, etc. if you have a pretender with a large number of hit points fighting in an unfriendly dominion, he'll have a lot fewer hit points (Tinkerbell Effect!) and this will be spelled out if you just click on his hit points - it will list the exact negative penalty incurred. When units get paralyzed, or go berserk, you can find those things out, too. Look at the icons. There is actually lot more information available in the game than it first appears."

[Vince]

I need to just never come to this forum. I can't tell you how many purchases I have based on this forum alone. Argh.

[Eaglesfan27]

Reading this forum is making me consider this game too and I just got a new game recently, but this sounds like it might be really great.

[sachmo71]

It is now avaliable at gogamer.com for $39.90.

[condors]

i got the game saturday and while i was less than impressed initially, after i won the walkthru senerio then proceded to lose to weak ai's i finally got a win without assistance (aran map 1 weak ai mithican(sp)) there are just so many different ways to build a better mousetrap in this game. Thinking of something and then trying to get it to work the options seem overwhelming but i am getting the hang of it.

Once you get by a bit of a learning curve for me the game has become one i wouldn't hesitate to anyone who like turn based games.

[sachmo71]

Glad you found the "charm", condors!

I can't stress enough that if you are looking for a deep, fantasy strategy game, this is your thing.

[Godzilla Blitz]

I have a question for people who have the game.

Is the "challenging AI" more a factor of the human player not having learned the nuances of the game system, or is the AI truly good even if you get a grasp on how to play the game? As an example, I've played a bunch of wargames that seemed challenging at first, but once you figure out how everything works, you realize that the AI is actually pretty inept. Any thoughts from those that have spent a lot of time with the game?

[sachmo71]

GB...I haven't been able to complete an entire game, as I have restarted a few times as I learn things. But I can tell you that in battles, the AI is rather adept at using it's forces to their maximum potential. It will cast spells on it's troops when the time is right. From what I have seen, it's not an exploiter as much as it is good AI programming.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

GB...I haven't been able to complete an entire game, as I have restarted a few times as I learn things. But I can tell you that in battles, the AI is rather adept at using it's forces to their maximum potential. It will cast spells on it's troops when the time is right. From what I have seen, it's not an exploiter as much as it is good AI programming.

Thanks. That just about does it. Game added to my list of games to buy. I'm really trying to hold off until X-COM is done, though.

[condors]

i don't know if this will hold true in the long run but i played a small map vs 1 oppenent (talis i believe its called) its the humans that use spiders as mounts(forget their name). In my first game things went poorly and i really needed to summon a few siege golems to crack his fortresses. I replay the game with a pretender able to do the summoning. In the last game he had hordes of fodder. This game against the same oppenent on the same map there were mages everywhere he had 7 commanders in his main fortresses and all of them were mages this time very different game(although all the settings were the same as the last one). Last time he had a bunch of fortresses in this game i don't think he built any but he did go heavy reasearch.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Did the walkthrough, and then just kept playing that game for a couple of hours tonight.

About halfway through the walkthrough, I was fairly non-plussed with the game. Although I really don't care a bit about beautiful graphics, I found the graphics bad enough that I had trouble making sense of the various information on the map. The gameplay also seemed fairly repetetive, and the interface seemed to get in the way al lot. Stealing an idea from Bill Harris over at Gone Gold, my interest meter after one hour was only at a "3" out of "10".

Kept going though, and started getting a better feel for things as I played more. A lot of things on the map became more apparent. However, I started getting a bit frustrated with the interface and the lack of information on the map (no way to tell where you've got commanders, unless I am missing something). Then I found the hotkeys, and things are much better now. They help get at information much quicker, and you can skip a lot of the nesting through screens to get to stuff. Still, the interface is quite sloppy. Anyway, I was having fun.

As I was playing more I started to realize that I know nothing about how to win this game. There is incredible depth to the game, and I'm just starting to learn about magic, magic items, dominion, etc. Wow. So much to figure out.

I'm not sure, after the two hours that I've played so far, how much I'm going to like the game. So far, it's "ok". My interest meter after two hours is at a "6" out of "10".

Gamewise, I've grabbed a slew of provinces, but the world is running out of independent provinces. I've noticed, at least in this game anyway, that rival nations don't seem to be coming after my empty provinces yet. They are also leaving a lot of their provinces empty. Looks like everyone is gobbling up the independents first. Anyway, I'm trying to clean up a section of independent provinces in the northeast corner of the map, then I'm hoping to turn all my attention to crushing Ulm, who are trapped against the east side of the map. That's if some of the nations to my west don't come hunting for me first. I'm kind of in the middle here, and that never seems like a good place to be on a square map with no diplomacy options.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Dola...

Played about another hour tonight.

I learned about province defense, which seems to help solve a lot of the micromanagement issues I was dealing with last night. Basically, instead of raising province defense, I was trying to place units in all of my border provinces. Cranking on the province defense is so much easier.

Still largely clueless as to what I'm doing, though. I've just been trying to build lots of bad-ass units, but I haven't really been able to use magic effectively, and only recently started delving into magic items. Magic items, by the way, looks like a lot of fun. I just got my conjuration up to level 2, which allows me to make better stuff.

I started an offensive against Ulm, with some success. I'm now one province away from cutting their nation in half, which I would think is a very good thing for me and a very bad thing for them. I've got one other army up north trying to finish off the independents up there, but otherwise we're focused on trashing Ulm.

Interest meter still rising, now at 7 out of 10. There were a number of times when caught myself thinking how cool the game is, and the more I play the easier I am finding it to move around the interface and get the information I want.

[Peregrine]

GB, I liked this game somewhat, when playing the demo, but my interest rating never got to the point where I'd buy the game. Of course I try to buy very few games these days, and though it is a good one, I felt there was enough confusion in the interface and general lack of polish in the play to take the excellent racial designs and depth down a notch.

[condors]

I have been playing this game as much as i can for the last month and i still am learning new things. I beat 16 impossible ai's and thought i was king of the world (although it took me over 400 turns). I was abused in multiplayer.
There is a whole lot more to the game than just get best units and attack.

There is nothing like having a province defense turn the battle your way.
Getting it to 21 i think is a no brainer asap and in single player its not uncommon for me to put it at 125 on critical places. Its just too much fun to watch

[Godzilla Blitz]

Peregrine: I can understand where you're coming from about the interface. I almost gave up on the tutorial because of that. I'm not sure about the polish in the play, though. I think the interface gives that impression, but the play feels more polished as I play more.

condors:16 impossible AIs! Eek. And you won? *crosses condors of possible PBEM player*. Very impressive.

[condors]

its not that impressive...

the ai for weak and impossible is the same after the game starts, just impossible gets more points to create there pretender, set scales etc.

There are tactics you can learn(took me a few weeks) that will work over and over and over again against the ai. These same tactics may work against humans but they will take action to stop it from happening over and over.

For me this game is forcing itself into my favorite of all time group of games, the more i play the more i want to play(i have easily played it for over 100 hours already way past the lifespan of most other games i have bought)

I am not a good player yet as i am a one trick pony i have yet to be able to adjust when a thinking person adjusts to what i am doing.(i have ideas but implementing them effectively is different from saying well i whip out a snake charm and a fire ring and cast foul vapors and heat from hell...)

spoiler alert:if you do a search on the dom2 board at the shrapnel site for the word alexander you will see his tricks and tips, these things not only give you things to try but also shows gives information on how to set up other possibilities.

[WSUCougar]

New patch is out, FYI.

[hukarez]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but this game is now available online for $19.95 at http://www.trygames.com

[Eaglesfan27]

under which category? I can't find it.

[hukarez]

Huh...that's weird. Could've sworn I just saw it there. Let me check again...

[Calis]

Sure you weren't looking at Disciples 2?

I can't imagine Shrapnel doing something like that..not their style.

Have to try out this patch this weekend probably, a couple of neat changes in it.

[hukarez]

I may have mistaken it for another website, where I had seen some kind of special. Unfortunately, the link is at my home machine, as I'm at work right now. Arg! Now I'm very curious about this myself...

I was browsing about all day yesterday, and for sure took note of a 'Dominions' game for $19.99 - whether or not it was via download, or via CD-ROM, I can't recall. Maybe it was a different 'Dominions' game...eh, I'll have to check one way or another.

[Marc Vaughan]

If FM is delayed you can blame this review

[Vince]

So I just tried out the demo...wow, this game is amazing. I was a little overwhelmed at first, but I'm going to delve into some of the written material for the game to get myself oriented tonight when I dive in again. So far I am impressed...though the graphics are pretty bad and the interface IS a little clunky...there's SO much stuff here. I mean, it took me 15 minutes just to set up my pretender! PBEM would be an absolute blast with this game...

Two things real quick I was having problems with:

1) How do you build stuff? In the first turn, we had an earthquake and my temple was destroyed. I couldn't figure out how to rebuild it (I only played for like 15 minutes...I probably missed something real easy).

2) How do you research things? Over the course of the 5 to 10 turns I played, I didn't seem to gain ANY ground in research. Again, I probably overlooked something simple, and I'll figure it out in two seconds if I actually look...but I have to go

[WSUCougar]

Vince, both of those (building and research) are functions of your characters. Buildings are dependent on the type of character (priests build temples, for example), and research is dependent upon magic ability. These are missions for your characters, just like any other thing.

Did you patch the game up to 2.11?

Sachmo has a MP game setting up in the discussion section, so be sure to join up.

[Calis]

Originally Posted by Vince

So I just tried out the demo...wow, this game is amazing. I was a little overwhelmed at first, but I'm going to delve into some of the written material for the game to get myself oriented tonight when I dive in again. So far I am impressed...though the graphics are pretty bad and the interface IS a little clunky...there's SO much stuff here. I mean, it took me 15 minutes just to set up my pretender! PBEM would be an absolute blast with this game...

Two things real quick I was having problems with:

1) How do you build stuff? In the first turn, we had an earthquake and my temple was destroyed. I couldn't figure out how to rebuild it (I only played for like 15 minutes...I probably missed something real easy).

2) How do you research things? Over the course of the 5 to 10 turns I played, I didn't seem to gain ANY ground in research. Again, I probably overlooked something simple, and I'll figure it out in two seconds if I actually look...but I have to go

I imagine your problem with research is that you're setting people to research but not actually setting what they're researching? Or vice versa. Been a while since I played, so can't remember exactly, but you can set them to research like a normal command, and there's a button for setting magic research also. I'm drawing a blank right now, and am at work so can't look it up.