Illwinter's next project

[brxbrx]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Questions about the new project will work much better if they are comparisons to CoE2 than comparisons with Dom3. The only Dom3isms I see so far in CoE3 are some imports of graphics.

Not so. The game world will also have similarities, and to people like me, that's the most important part!

Originally Posted by Johan K

The cosmology will be similar to Dominions, at least the void and horrors will make it into CoE3. Nations are not the same though. CoE is more about a powerful character like the necromancer, he does not rule a large nation like the pretender gods in Dominions.

[Gandalf Parker]

Like I said, most of what Im seeing so far are imports of units and some nations. But most of the game play so far is more like CoE2 than Dom3. Maybe when we try some network play we will see more Dom3isms

[Edi]

The cosmology may be similar, but the game mechanics and gameplay are obviously much closer to CoE2.

It can safely be said that Dominions had a lot of CoE2 imports and CoE3 has a lot of Dominions imports, but Gandalf is correct about the way one should go about the comparisons.

[LDiCesare]

Thanks Edi for the hints on what to expect.
Map zooming or minimap would help because in CoE2, when you have sent most of your troops to take out that last enemy, you may very well not see that one of his scouts is taking out all of your villages way back because you'd have to move with the arrow keys for a long time every turn, just to see if something isn't happening in your backyard. A minimap/zoom would avoid that problem, which is why I think it would be important. It would also help navigation a lot.
Also, commander move and selection use the same button. So, if you left click on the commander you want to move and the currently selected commander is just next to him, you move that guy instead. This really sucks. It would be much better to left-click for select, right-click for move, for instance.

[sector24]

I would really love to see a demo before I buy if that is an option. Dominions 3 is one of the best games ever made and CoE2 is a lot of fun too, but if the game is going to retail for $50 or $60 then I'm going to want to try it first. That's just the way mama raised her boy.

[Edi]

LDiCesare:

Map zooming exists in the game. It works by the mouse scroll wheel and the Page Up (in) and Page Down (out) keys. On an enormous map (biggest in the game), maximally zoomed out view covers one quarter of the map.

One key difference between CoE3 and Dominions is that units do not cost upkeep (that I have seen anyway), so building garrisons is actually a viable option. It is even necessary and unavoidable to an extent, since roaming independent monsters (and in the instance of certain events, hordes of special monsters too) will make mincemeat of your economy if your back country is unguarded.

As far as commander selection is concerned, CoE3 uses more of a Dom3 convention. Commanders and squares are selected by right-clicking on them and movement is by left-click.

The entire interface is going to be very familiar to anyone who has played Dominions and will not take a long time to learn. Especially once the manual is done.

[Edi]

An addition to above: Once a square with commanders has been selected, left-clicking a different commander will make that commander active, but as long as GUI opacity is at maximum, it should not cause movement problems. Especially if you have centered the view on the square, because the commander box is off to the side.

[LDiCesare]

Thanks for your answers Edi. That's all good to know.
It's nice to see Illwinter's new project advancing and that they learnt from their previous games to make this one better.

[sidhos]

I couldn't find the download for CoE2 at the website. Maybe they have removed it?

[Gandalf Parker]

Its on Shrapnels front page.

But here is a link to a page with all of their free games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Our_Games/Free_Games.html