"How it started."

[atul]

A friend of mine had been asking me to join him and his friends in playing various games online. UO was one of them, some space strategy game (VGAPlanets? Some SE? Can't remembet) the other. I had told him I've got better things to do with my life than play computer games several times when he brought up Dominions. "Okay, how bad can it get?" I asked myself and joined their PBEM MP of demo version of Dominions1.

...If I only had known...

Every one of us was a total newb and if I remember correctly I hardly had played even a test game before creating my MP pretender. Okay, Marignon, those flagellants probably have a proper attitude. Hm, I'll pick a pretender who can kick ***... that flaming head looks like a tough one. I'll probably beat everyone up with him easily.

One of my first lessons was that the Baphomet is immobile and such units can't move. D-oh. Learning happened on the fly, we had six or seven players on the Urgaia map so there was quite a lot of action. On turn 2 C'tis had conquered the sole province separating our capitals. That time we agreed for a peace to last all ages, but as by turn 10 all the indies had been conquered I and Abysian player agreed to fight each other "just to find out how it is done".

While I was happily sieging Abysian capital, Caelum declared a "peace keeping" mission and landed on my capital (our capitals were a flight's distance apart). When my Baphomet swept the floor with the winged blue berets a cease fire was made with Abysia and I proceeded to drive the flying menace to the sea. Immediately after Caelum was purged from the map by the Righteous the treacherous saurolich of C'tis led his army on my capital and renewed Abysian forces blocked my army's way back home.

By turn 25 or so the skin of the slain saurolich decorated some public loo in Marignon, nearly all the mages of Abysia were kille by the lucky flagellants and we had to agree that none had any standing army to speak of anymore. So, we'd be better off starting a new game. Properly this time.

Those were the times. Hooked from the first try, several of us ordered the game right away.

We played, what, two or three games with that group. Then came Dom2, and as I was the only one of us to buy it, the move to international circles was an obligatory one. I was first put off by the graphics (what, no more possible for a chessboard view of the provinces?), but I've grown to like them. It just takes a bit time. (In other words, where are all the promo pics of Dom3?!?!?!!1 ;p) Besides, now it's even easier to order the game as I've got my visa, no more hassles with international money transactions (really, cheques. How... 70s...).

My first encounter was, what, in the early 2002? And it's 2006 now... geez.

[Boron]

I discovered Dominions in the Paradox-Forum .
There was a thread about "your desktop" and one of the guys had a Dominions 2 shortcut in his desktop and then a lot of ppl said wow Dominions 2 that's a really good game.
I then quickly looked up a review and got the demo and instantly fell in love with Dominions 2.
Before Dominions 2 i already liked fantasy strategy games a lot. I played much Lords of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic Series, Age of Wonders Series and the old MTG game from Microprose.
For me Dominions was what Age of Wonders and HoMM should have been. Dominions is quite similiar to them but much much better because it has real variety and some really cool unique features like the upkeep free summons.
If you remember when i was a newb i complained that summons should have upkeep but meanwhile i think the dominions system is better.
Now i am really looking forward to Dominions 3.
But in the meantime i am still very content with Dominions 2

[PDF]

For me it was in the Spring and summer of 2003.
In Spring I was, as often, seeking the Holy Grail of fantasy strategy games, as for some years before since MoM... I stumbled - don't remember where - on some web resource directing me to the deep buried IW site . It was Dom:PPP time still ! But as I read the game description I was mislead by all the religious references and thought it was some sort of "god game".. Quit without trying it !

Instead I bought AoW2... Played it some, then, in july or so, get bored by the lack of "epicness" of it. But I roamed the AoW2 forums, and some guy (can't remember who..) started a thread on other games, and talked about Dominions. The thread growed and other posted infos and bits about the game.
Now it looked better, I went back to IW and tried the demo.. I think I was hooked nearly instantly, the game smelled of untold deepness .
I played solo for a time, then quickly roamed csipg ng, contacted the smallish French speaking Dom community of the time (namely Fa, Nagot Gik Fel, Pocus and Sunray), and had my first MP game, still with the demo !
It acted as some permanent binding spell - I was crushed in this first MP but still remember the first big battles between my proud army of Arco hoplites and elephants and a much smaller Vanheim army... that had much more mages, my hoplites were decimated by Van lightning, my Elephants wounded by Dwarves'Wind Blades, then they routed and trampled my survivors ... ugly !
At that time I realized how deep and rich it was, and I voluntarily bought Dom:PPP just a couple months before Dom2 was released just to "help" IW .
Needless to say I wanted to get my hands on Dom2 as soon as possible ! I get it and immediately played it MP.
Since then I've always played Dom2, with 1 to 6 simultaneous Pbems going, never got bored.

Still enthralled and waiting for Dom3 !

[ceremony]

OG_Gleep said:
I remember how I heard about Dom2. I was actually really pissed. I read the last article in CGW, the one where they go head to head. That month, think it was last October, they played Dom2. It souned so cool, I went straight to EBGames.com and looked it up. Nada. Finally found the homepage and ordered it. I found out it had been out for months when I hit the forums. I had been fed up about the computer magazines for a while (I subscribe to 3), and their lack of proper coverage. Its often months before you see a review, even on big name releases.

Dom2 was released in the middle of November 2003. The review of Dom2 in CGW and the head-to-head article were both in the issue that shipped to subscribers in December. That's very fast coverage, especially for a small game from an independent publisher, and considering that the magazine has to be put together a month before readers can even see it.

[OG_Gleep]

Thats right I got my months wrong. When I came to the boards, I asked someone when it was released when I first came to the forum. I am pretty sure I was told October, though I can't be sure.

Although I can't check, my wife made me throw out every magazine older than 1 year, I did a search cuz I remember participating in one of the magazine threads.

Heres a quote from it:

Yes, Computer Games (aka CG), and Computer Gaming World (aka CGW) are similar magazines, both excellent, and often confused for each other. The CGW review (4.5 stars, by Bruce Geryk) is on page 67 of their Feb 04 issue (and a game between Bruce and Tom Chick is on pages 120-122 of the same issue), the CG review (4.5 stars, by Tom Chick) is on pages 82-83 of their Feb 04 issue. The CGW articles are what prompted me to download the demo, fall in love with the game almost instantly, order it a week ago, receive it 3 days ago and lose much sleep ever since.

It doesn't help confusion-avoidance that Tom Chick, who's reviews I think are great, writes for both. He also lurks in these forums.


Cheers!

I am one of those types of guys that likes to get things on the day its released. Very seldom will you see a computer game reviewed prior to release, while for Console games, they are reviewed often weeks before release. Honestly the only reason I subscribe to computer magazines is for the previews. If that quote is right, which I assume it is because I came to the forums right after I read the article, Nov 03 - Feb 04 is a long time to wait to see if a game is worth buying or not. At the time I wasn't subscribing to magazines, but even so, its not uncommon to see a 5 month old game reviewed, and even some big releases can be 2-3 months in the wind.

Edit: One interesting note...I just got my Xbox 360 tonight...and after the intial buzz wore off, I found myself back at my computer playing just one more turn.

[Fate]

I am still playing the demo, can I qualify?

I know how I first saw this game. I am what you could call a game junkie. I love to look at them all, computer games, board games, word games, socking your friend, whatever (what can I say, I'm 15). Anyway, I know what I like in game (sort of). The thing that always tickles me pink is listening to people talk about strategies and interesting facts, like in history books. But they are always long and, of course, they don't really involve you (it has already happened).

So I find games provide the same story telling plus interaction, so you can find out if a different set-up would really make a difference. Board games are one thing I have looked into, but it has nothing to do with Dominions, I will leave that aside.

I have learned the hard way what kind of game I like. I have many different kinds (mostly strategies, though. I knew that from the start). I have a lot of big-shot games, too. And I have played them a good deal, for a while. But there a couple small name games that just bring me back everytime. One is nemesis of the roman empire, great game, rts, look it up. The other wasn't really Dominions until recently.

I have a hobby that I like to do if I got bored, and that is to drift around downloading demos for any game I can find (it doesn't really work anymore, as I have played all the demos I can find that look even remotely interesting). One day I downloaded the Dominions II demo (note: this is how I have gotten every one of my favorite games. All the worst ones were bought before playing the demo.)

So I looked at the interface. I pride myself in how many games I have played and how quickly I can pick up on the controls to a game, so it only took me one or two play-throughs to understand most of what the buttons did (though I had to read the guide to understand the background equations and why everything mattered). I looked at it and I knew it was a good game. I never really lost, as I played easy AIs. I also did not play it night and day. It just ins't my style, I guess. But it was there, in my mind, for a month or so.

Then I went to a friend's house. We didn't know what to do, so I suggested we play Dominions II demo hotseat. We loved it, fell head over heels for it. By the turn limit, we had just been about to fight our first battles (on the second, wrap around map in the demo, rather big for 2 people). He had an incredibly large battle and I had just resummoned my god (who had died to indys around turn 10-15). But we did hit the limit. Neither of us had money, so that was it, game over.

But I can't forget perfection like that, so I found this forum. I saw the N6's and BN's (I am making the shortenings up) and I knew I had to know what you guys were talking about. Had spent ages reading this, and have finally begun to understand some of it. But I knew there had to be another way.

I found the Dominions 1 demo, no turn limit! I sent my friend an email, and we were lost to it again. Again, we don't play it day and night. We are not organized or whatever else you call it to do that. But we agree that it is one of the best games either of us has ever played, and we plan to get Dominions II asap (we considered delaying for Dom III, but who has that much patience?).

I liked reading your stories, btw.

[ceremony]

OG_Gleep said:If that quote is right, which I assume it is because I came to the forums right after I read the article, Nov 03 - Feb 04 is a long time to wait to see if a game is worth buying or not.

The Feb 04 issue did not come out in February 2004 - it came out in December 2003. The date on a magazine is generally the date the newsstand is supposed to take it off the shelf. Nov to Dec 2003 is a little over one month.

The review was in that particular issue because the magazine waits until they can play the game in its final form. If you would like reviews of unfinished games (betas) so that you can see the review the day the game hits store shelves, that's a preference that has been debated endlessly.