Anybody else dislike the endgame?

[tinkthank]

Maybe it's just me, but I dont like the end game in comparison to the start and midgame. Under normal victory conditions, it seems to drag on, and depending on what nation I play, I just have way too many commanders.
Maybe it is the interface, but I even have problems remembering who is where and who has what item. If god forbid I should click on someone and see he has an item, transfer it, I usually have to go back and reset his action command because it resets to "defend", but sometimes I forget that if I have 20 commanders in that province.
I get sloppy -- and the bad thing is, it doesnt seem to matter. I like the game because of the attention to detail, and at a certain point it doesnt seem to matter much anymore.
The economy seems so weird, too -- I usually have way too much gold, so I then ignore all of the bizarre events -- who cares about hurricanes and all that. Which means that all the great spells you finally get to use at that point but couldnt before because you hadnt researched em -- they become much less meaningful.
When games go to about turn 100 or so, I usually have two schools fully completed researched -- but rarely find the spells useful anymore.
Maybe I should try different victory conditions? Or make the world "poor"? Or play smaller maps? Or what is my problem?

[diamondspider]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Maybe it's just me, but I dont like the end game in comparison to the start and midgame. ...

I agree and only play on smaller maps. Works for me

On the other hand, IF you happen to like the PBEM option, I can see some players WANTING to get an hour worth of play out of each turn. If it is only one turn a day, it might get just as frustrating to have only 10 minutes of "twiddling" to do with your troops. I don't know since I don't like PBEM, but I can see it...

[ February 04, 2004, 12:46: Message edited by: diamondspider ]

[Gandalf Parker]

The game is mostly built around PBEM so its true that solo-play makes it feel like its too much micromanage. Sometimes I wish the game had an option where the AI would surrender.

There are ways to make solo-play more interesting. Smaller maps, or randomized independents. Try the Poke in the Eye map.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...2/Poke_Eye.map

Or if you have the Miirunst map downloaded you can try the randomized Version of that.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion.../MiirunstX.map
Both are re-randomized every day.

[ February 04, 2004, 13:35: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Teraswaerto]

SP endgame isn't much fun, since there's too much stuff to do each turn. I never finish SP games on big maps.

In MP, it's a whole different matter. At a turn a day at the most, there (usually) is plenty of time to fine tune commanders, make battle plans. etc.

Solution: play smaller maps, or start getting into PBEMs.

[tinkthank]

OK.

How do I get into those MP games, btw? I don't know any gamers, my RL friends / wife / etc. do NOT game. Is there a matchmaking thingy anywhere? I suppose some layer of trust is required too, if we are mailing each other attachments all the time -- any tips here? thanks

[Targa]

Makes me think of Medieval: Total War. There's just not many ways to keep a player happy toward end-game in SP. It's similar to Dom2, and the way the programmers decided to "make it more interesting" toward the end of the game was to wait until you owned about 90% of the map, then all of a sudden nearly every province on the map would spring into revolt, and half a dozen of your enemies would reappear (an heir was in hiding or some such). While the logic behind it was to prevent you from becoming bored, knowing that winning is inevitable, it really became annoying to be thrust right back almost to a starting position by these events. I don't see how it would be possible to make end-game in SP a more fun experience. Probably a victory condition of owning 75% of the provinces or some such would be a good idea.