combat

[Edi]

Argitoth said:

Dominions is extremely limited compared to real life. Just think about it.

*watches point whoosh past Argitoth's head*

That's one of those "Ya think, Sherlock?" Captain Obvious comments you just posted there. Doesn't affect the damned point at all that the Dominions combat model is, in the control of the battlefield aspect, much more realistic than e.g. the tactical combat in Age of Wonders where the commander can use all of his units like puppets down to the last step they take.

The same is true of real world battlefields, commanding officers give orders and the troops execute them to the best of their ability, but the CO is not there hovering over each individual soldier's shoulder telling them "Step there! Fire on that enemy NOW, sprint there, fire some more, now hold position until that particular enemy goes there" etc.

Edi

[Gandalf Parker]

I think Dominions has it more correct than most games I play.

I am not playing a commander, I am playing my pretender. So I can give my commanders general orders such as "Goul's horsemen should charge up and fire, then retreat leading them thru your positions. So Arnig and Boldu are positioned on the flanks and should hold, then attack the rearmost. I want Westhold's archers to concentrate on cavalry if any show up."

Such instructions are good for about 5 events into a battle and then they just need to wing it. And all Im going to get is a play-by-play report of the battle afterwards.

True, if I take my pretender into battle then I should maybe get more control. But the limits of a PbEM game kick in then. Maybe they should offer the pretender a longer commands list.

Gandalf Parker

[Agrajag]

Actually, I think that dominions has more potential to be one of those games where you control every single unit, thematically that is.
Unlike most fantasy games, you get to play a god. If you want to, you should use your omniscience to view the battlefield and your omnipotence to telepathically control your units like puppets.

Scifi games, and near-future games can explain it away with advanced sattelites and communication systems.

[Edi]

But there's the rub: You're not a god yet, or not an omniscient, omnipotent one at least. You're trying getto that point, but in the meanwhile you're still stuck with some limitations like not being able to zombify your units with mental domination.

Edi

[Agrajag]

If you can't send telepathic messages, then how can you run an entire multi-nation kingdom?
Even the month it takes to make a turn is not enough to get a message to attack all the way from your capitol to your borderline provinces.

[Edi]

Sending messages via telepathy != total mind control puppeteering.

Edi

[Agrajag]

Sending messages via telepathy == The ability to instruct individual soldiers during battle.

[Cainehill]

Nope - that would require omniscience, to know and understand the situation of hundreds of individuals and send them instructions all at the same time?

The pretender would probably be catatonic, if not from overload then from the amount of agony/pain/fear coming along those telepathic links to all the soldiers.

But in any case - it's _still_ going to be a PBEM game. HTF do you propose to instruct all the individual soldiers in a battle as you watch it going along?

[Gandalf Parker]

There are games that do both but they are setup so that you have to select at the beginning of the game. Basically, you are selecting PbEM (Play by Email, save a turn, send it, its hosted, turn comes back) or doing it as a direct interactive game.

As far as I know, programming that means you program in two complete ways of handling the game. Its not a simple switch. Its a full module to run the game one way, and a full module to run it another way. That might be ok for some corporate team of programers but not fun for one guy Im thinking.

Maybe (a BIG maybe) if Illwinter programs a direct-action game next, then they might down the road do a version of Dominions with both.

[Edi]

The original AoW and the sequels had a system where you could do a PBEM game where combat between players was automatically auto-resolved in quick combat but you could whack indies in normal tactical combat as much as you pleased. Of course, it didn't have simultaneous turns for PBEM, but the old fashioned turn structure where things happened in sequence.

Dominions can't be made to run that way without massively changing the simultaneous turn structure, which is a rather damned important cornerstone in the architecture.

Edi