Well, I'm through with the game

[Ballbarian]

As AI goes, Dom3 is no worse than any other friggin' game on the market. Give it a rest. It kicked my *** plenty in the first few months and probably still would if I cranked it up to impossible and gave it favorable settings. I am no Dominions master but I am certainly not a novice or pushover either.

Hmmm... That sounded a little harsh.
I will add a smiley.

[Rich]

What I'm going by is this thread. All you people who say the ai sucks and isn't worth it. I guess my post is bringing out the folks who didn't write before. I'll go back to getting into playing. It really looks like a lot of fun.

No, I don't think it's odd to complain after just doing the tutorial. Not after reading this thread.

And yes, I go by adverts by companies like Shrapnel. At least I did.

[sector24]

The complaints in this thread are blown wildly out of proportion. Even if you get to the point where you can defeat multiple Impossible level AIs, you've probably gotten your money's worth at that point. Plus the multiplayer is there even if you choose not to partake.

[Rathar]

Nod nod, the AI will obliterate you for the first few weeks/months. After that you have enough experience to learn where its amazingly dumb but then many games are like that.

[Endoperez]

Yeah, there are many strategies that the AI can't counter. Because multiplayer mostly revolves around these strategies, AI isn't a challenge if you use something meant to have a chance against other players. You'll get beaten by the AI a lot until you can figure out some effective counters against the AI hordes. If you start by reading advanced guides on how to beat the AI, the period where the AI is able to challenge you will be much shorter, of course.

[Tuidjy]

I you refrain from using mercs, thugs, supercombatants and battlefield enchantments
even normals AIs could give you a hard time. But why would you insist on playing
the AI? There are MP games for all skill levels. You've already found this forum,
so you are the right place to find a game.

[thejeff]

Why would you insist?

Because you can only play irregularly. Because you don't want to deal with diplomacy.

Because it's fun.

I tend to enjoy the lower levels, where there's less to deal with every turn. The first 2-3 years of a game. After that it usually becomes more work than I want to deal with. Less so in MP, but it still happens.

Luckily, those early years are where the AI does well. On impossible, it can throw huge decent armies at you from all sides. And you don't yet have the really abusive tactics to stop it cold. Thugs, but no real SCs (if you avoid SC pretender), battle magic is mostly evocations and the weaker buffs. Fighting the AI on something resembling it's own terms is not trivial.

[Renojustin]

That's such a good point Thejeff. In order to have a decent chance of imposing your game plan against Impossible AIs (which I like to play against most of the time), especially in early and midgame, you have to have great skill, knowledge, and maybe most importantly, not be unlucky.

If you start getting squeezed between 2 or more Impossible nations set to Aggressive (try setting them all to impossible and aggressive!) you're in a pretty scary position as they hurl army after army at all sides of your empire.

It's pretty good practice.

[Zeldor]

And you rather do not star beating AI before trying MP and learning MP tricks.

Now I would really want to get better AI after couple MP games. The worst thing in MP is that you get just one turn every 1-2 days. But sometimes you want to make 10 a day and sometimes you do not want to touch Dominions for a week. And you really don't have a choice when in MP.

[Wauthan]

I guess I could fit quite well into the SP crowd, having never played an MP game with anyone but my close friends. Online gaming simply takes way too much time to be of any interest to me.

And I fully agree that Dominions 3 can be mindnumblingy boring as the battle against the AI drags on and on. The lack of diplomacy means that the only interaction is war to the very last drop of blood. The ability to "win by pantheon" would be much appreciated.

Yet here I am, in spite of knowing Dominions 2 down to every last bolt and screw, and I can't see Dominions 3 as anything but one of the best fantasy TBS ever. For me the best part of the game is the customisation. I can't think of a game that's easier to mod.

Creating your own perfect enemy, tailormade to take advantage of the AIs strengths, is almost too much fun. The last mod made the CBM look like a tiny footnote in comparison. Heck, it got so bad that I couldn't remember what I hadn't changed. So I started over.