Will there be a Dominions 4

[Alderanas]

A very cool idea I think would be make a dominions game like the total war series but that would be very hard and time consuming.

[Trumanator]

That would be interesting. more doable than an RTS for example. However, it would also make games exponentially longer. Imagine Kingmaker with people having to fight every single battle! And it would kinda stink if they went with the current TW multiplayer, there wouldn't be any metagame

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

That would be interesting. more doable than an RTS for example. However, it would also make games exponentially longer. Imagine Kingmaker with people having to fight every single battle! And it would kinda stink if they went with the current TW multiplayer, there wouldn't be any metagame

I think the best way, would be to make the gameplay somewhat modular.

That is, leave the tactical battles there for SP play, and for MP skirmishes like in Total War now.

But provide an enhanced interface for automated battles, to allow MP to work just as it already does in Dom3. One of the weak points of recent iterations of TW is that automating battles seems to just simulate "everyone rush to center and brawl", as evidenced by the propensity for generals to become seriously injured or dead. Adding the ability to script out smaller battles at 1/10 the time of playing them out (less if you win and use the same script), but keeping the ability to have the epic tactical battles, would accentuate the good parts of both, and make them both useful.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im not much interested in a video game version. But I would be thrilled with a flash version that could be played on cell phones and iPods.

[Dectilon]

I think a major graphical improvement is the only thing this game is lacking. It might even break into mainstream if it had TW's graphics

However, I think we all know that's not an option for a team of two people

The only chance I can think of is if there'd be some kind of collaboration with the TW-guys, but that's not exactly likely to happen :P

[Gandalf Parker]

It might hook-in the shoppers that are convinced by pretty images. But then, like some games Ive bought, that could be done by just having a sales image that looks like its cooler than it is.

But everything has its pros and cons. It would likely shift the game into a game that does not share the computer well with other programs (not as easy to shell out and check your mail etc). And one not so friendly with laptops. Not to mention the headaches of getting such graphics to work on Windows AND Mac AND Linux. Plus it would make the possibility of digital download even less of an option to be considered. Lastly, many games that shifted to higher level graphics and sound formats killed off 90% of its base of player-modders.

Im not saying that its completely a bad thing. Just that it has its pros and cons.

[JimMorrison]

The modding issue is the biggest problem that I see, for a possible "modernization" of Dominions. I'm of the mind that everything else could and should be an acceptable trade-off (especially if there were TW style tactical battles, with Tartarians and Dragons and Illithids.... DROOL), but the hit to the ability of Joe the Plumber (hah!) to actually produce mod units/nations without extremely expensive and complicated 3D rendering software, would be a horrible shame.

But honestly, would we care if the engine were designed to accept fully rendered characters, as well as 2D sprites? I think that I could live with it. And if the conversion (read: addition) broadened the community much, I bet you'd find a few people who took great pride in doing graphics for mods that they were inspired by. They might just be students, or amateurs, but they'd do what they could, likely with similar degrees of competence that we generally see with the sprite art as it is.

[Dectilon]

It's often a conscious decision whether or not to make a game mod friendly (apparently), so a powerful game editor would of course be nice

It really takes tons of resources to make something like that work really well. Take Warcraft 3 for instance. It's probably one of the most mod-friendly games on that graphical level, but then it WAS developed by Blizzard :P

[Illuminated One]

I wouldn't see the modding problem as that big. There are many mods for TW that contain new/overworked models.
Although it would be madness to try and make all 1500 (?) existing dom 3 units in TW graphic. And if the engine could handle the units individually and still get some fps...

(But of course it would be awesome )

[rdonj]

Just for the sake of discussion, if you used the medieval total war engine the sprite quality would be pretty similar, I think. Now, fitting magic into total war, that's a whole different kettle of fish.