Dominions Three

[sum1won]

Anybody checked out the demo? The game itself is absurdly expensive, no matter how good it is, though I found the demo to be a great deal of fun.

[Redpossum]

Anybody checked out the demo? The game itself is absurdly expensive, no matter how good it is, though I found the demo to be a great deal of fun.

Oh, yeah, I've seen the banners for that over at Shrapnel Games. I frequent the Space Empires forums over there, and have for years.

Shrapnel is very different from Slitherine in that they design nothing, they are just publishers. But still cool folks.

IIRC, I looked at the demo for the last game in that series, but the graphics were just so incredibly lame that I was turned off and never really gave it a chance. Unfortunately, that's the case with a lot of the games that Shrapnel publishes. GOOD games, but with such primitive graphics that most people never give them a fair chance.

[duncan]

I have downloaded the Linux demo, I'll try it now, but I need to print the tutorial manual and I haven't got printer (I go back to work on friday)..It looks good and it's nice to have native linux games out there.....

[therlun]

It is very much like Dominions 2.
That can be a good or bad thing depending on how you liked that game.

The core game itself is pretty much unchanged, with lots of added stuff (races, units, spells etc.) and rebalancing (or better call it re-unbalancing for Dom ).

[duncan]

Temptation has been strong (once again) and, after playing around the demo for several days, I have just ordered it. The 300 + pages manual is oh so sexy...

Pros

1.) lots of choices: ages, nations, lots of different units (+1500 or so they say...I know, I know, they're only statistics, but it is cool to command some hydras or even hastatii), magic schools, civ bonus tweaking via your god
2.) WEGO turns. I first didn't like those turns (or I liked "IGOUGO" more), but since I played Birth Of America (see my review) I have seen the light, WEGO is great too
3.) Fantasy setting...it is weird: no elves, no dwarves...but I like it...and it's moddable (ah, the middle earth again...)
4.) You don't have to play one hour long battles, I haven't got the "Oh, another peasant army to fight" feeling I got from Rome Total War (MTW 2 seems to follow this path: lots and lots of useless, long, disrupting battles and poor campaign map). Spartan had those short, great battles too.
5.) Linux native: call me a nerd
6.)"Just onemore turn" ole feeling
7.) 300+ pages PRINTED manual!
8.) Great fantasy/medieval music!

Cons

1.) Expensive as hell. Ships from USA (Ok, European point of view here)
2.) Dom 3 graphics make Iain-designed Warhammer game look like Far Cry.
3.) Interface is a little tricky at first.
4.) No campaign (I loved Age Of Wonders 2: Shadow Wars campaign and I was expecting something like this): only random maps and scenarios.
5.) People say it's Dominions 2.5 instead, but I don't have Dominions II and it is out of print, so...


I haven't tested the AI fully, but I'm usually a clumsy gamer/strategist, so bad AI won't spoil the game too much for me. It supports PBEM and LAN, anyway.

It reminds me a lot of Age Of Wonders 2: SM, Lords Of The Realm II and all those games.