Dominions 2 Demo - Manual petition to Illwinter

[Boron]

I started a Dominions 2 AAR in the german Paradox-Forum with the hope to recruit a few more german Fans .
http://www.si-games.com/forums/showt...7&page=1&pp=20

Now 2 guys downloaded the demo but were disappointed by the complete lack of a manual for the demo .

Nebukadnezar said that he played the demo for 4 days and read this forum but he didn't find much useful information and so to him Dominion 2 seems just like another 4-X game .
He just recruits troops and sends them to the other province but he does not know why they win or lose or what to do at all .

Therlun also said that there are huge interface weaknesses and there is no feedback why something happens and what kills troops and what not .

I can understand them and think that the dominions 2 Demo was really made poorly because instead making Dominions attractive for players it makes dominions look like a bad but complicated game .

You start the demo with no information at all , you can only play till turn 40 , the AIs only rush with troopmasses and you can only research up to lvl 4 .
So you can never try out a SC at all or a nice spell like Wrathful skies etc. .

So if you judge Dominions 2 only after the demo you think it is not a good game .

So for Dominions 3 the demo should rather be either like the dominion 1 demo again or maybe 2 nations and 2 of the 7 ? magic schools are completely play/researchable without a timelimit and 3 additional nations for the AI Opponents .
Then you could try out a few highlevel things but would still have to buy the full game .

I have finally a petition : May i send Therlun and Nebukadnezar the Dominions Manual ? They both play Paradox-Games so they are the ideal Dominion 2 potential buyers group . But especially (most) germans are always rather careful and curmudgeonly . Though they like to play hardcoregames like Dominions because of the very poorly done Dominions 2 Demo they don't buy Dominions 2 then because they can't get a detailed enough impression or even worse a wrong impression from it .

[Boron]

As a positive example i will mention Combat mission 2 - Berlin to Barbarossa .

They provide a 18 page long Word - Readme doc and a 10 page long how to win the tutorial pdf together with the demo .
And it is really urgently needed there as well

[Endoperez]

Some time ago I asked in this forum if there is a need for tutorial. I got no comments. Are you sure Illwinter wants to waste effort to something no one is interested in?


How would your friends think about a pre-set game (Ulm, good scales, Oracle) on a small map (Clash of Titans), with some thematic messages in the first turn, special prophet and some general guidelines to using national troops and units? That's what I proposed, and what I have done to a point.

I am currently playing one turn of the game, sending messages to everyone (that will arrive on the turn *they* will play) and making a named Master Smith my prophet. In the messages I tell some story and what kind of an army should be recruited.

[Boron]

The main problem is that they want to know everything .
They play normally mainly Victoria , for this game there is an excellent online manual available at http://victoria.nsen.ch/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

If something like this exists for Dominions 2 they would be very pleased . I don't know something like that though .
Sunrays site is excellent but the most essential parts , the 30 pages basics from the manual are not covered .

They want to know exactly that though in order to judge how Dominions 2 is compared to e.g. Victoria or Hoi II .

They don't like Roleplaying too much so they would prefer facts instead of a guide what to do that they can make their own strats .
If you want you can publish your helpfiles though maybe they like them also

[Alneyan]

Endoperez, I believe you did not get many answers (this post got nominated for "Understatement of the year") because most readers of your post were already seasoned players and frequent forum users: the players least likely to benefit from your proposal. Getting the opinion of the players beginning playing Dominions would be best... but they may be daunted by the sheer scope of the game.

Something I considered setting up was a sort of "training" game, with beginning players and a more seasoned player, who would be able to give pointers and to explain odd things. It could either be a game against the AI (with a few players sharing the same nation, and thinking of strategies), or a small multiplayer game with a nation per player. But the problem is the same as for your own proposal: is there truly any interest? Good question, and I will thank anyone answering it.

Boron, a Wiki was started for Dominions, but very little was written in it. I do not know what was the intended scope of the Dominions Wiki though, but I suspect it is another case of "lack of interest". The Wiki is available here.

I also have this problem. I have tried to teach several of my friends how to play dom2. And they just couldn't figure out why I liked it so much since it seemed to them a recruit unit attack recruit attack... stlye game. I even brought my friends over so I could teach them on my game.

[Therlun]

hiho, i'm the Therlun Boron spoke of.

and indeed, the demo did not make a very good impression on me (i even remembered playing it a loooong time ago, with the same result).

while i'm pretty sure not all of what i disliked is linked to missing game-knowledge, several things certainly are.
i dont think the manual alone will help much, though.

personally i dont need to see advanced game content (e.g. high level summons) to buy a game. i want to know what makes it a good game. and the demo completely fails here.

if it glances at PBEM-MP games-> great! but how should i know that before buying, if it is a real pain to arrange/start a MP session? (if it is possible with the demo at all)

if it has a very complex battle system with a distinctive balancing offering endless possibilities for army composition -> fantastic! but how shall i see that if in the most cases i dont even know if an attack/spell did any damage/use at all?

this and a hundred other little issues prevent me from liking dom2, simply because i dont understand/know them, and it is very difficult to find them out "by hand".

many of my problems with the game could probably be solved by playing a few sessions(full game) and the complete game documentation.
the point is, i cant be sure! perhaps the game is the confusing, fiddly mess the demo was (for me).

i dont know for sure how to solve the demo issue.
however i know it is pretty uninviting right now.

[liga]

I have tryed and asked the devs if I could include the original manual in the addenda to provide an electronic full (or at lesat with the top of knowledge) version that could be give to people an idea of the deep of the game ... but i got not a real answer .. i think that they prefer to keep the original manual just only in the official game.

I'm be able to get new adept (at the moment we are in 14 in my group playing dom2) making lan party and introducing the game to the new player in hot seat sessions.

Anyway as soon as we got permission form the devs I will be really happy to help in preparing a manual for beginner and one for advanced players!

good luck and good play
Liga

[bone_daddy]

Hmm. It was the demo that got me interested in the game. The 40 turn limit only acted as a hook. I quit playing the demo because the game really starts to take form at about that time. Sort of like reading a really good book and finding that only half of it's there.

[BigDaddy]

I remeber when I first played the demo, and recruited mages like crazy just to try the coolest sounding spell. Darn demo spell level cap, got me hooked.

I thought the game was impossible of course.