should I buy it?

[Xavier]

Old Dom2 player here.... The last few days I dusted off my copy of Dom2 and thoroughly trounced the AI over and over again. I found myself wanting to play a more intelligent opponent (i.e., a real person) but it doesn't seem that ANYONE does Dom2 multiplayer (I'd happily host some games, though...).

So...how much do the most active multiplayer players play D3? How much different is the game, really? I always got fed up with the micromanagement around turn 100 against the AI. I could play against every single AI nation on impossible difficulty and maximum independent strength, and if something didn't go horribly wrong in the first 20 turns (like an earthquake in my capital), somewhere between turn 50 and 80 the game would become a boring and repetitive mopping up exercise.

So...tell me why I should buy the sequel

[Aezeal]

Well you should set the right victory conditions.. do not play for total map control.. usually 50% means you'll win unless the other 50% is all in hands of one player.

Most MP games have a limit on about 30-50% these days I think.

There are much MP games being started these days so if you want to play you should be able to join in on a game within a week. Personally I don't have time for more than 1 game but if you want to play a lot you could obviously spend a great deal of your day playing MP dominions.

I don't know dom 2 so I can't really help you there and personally I don't play dom 3 SP a lot anymore but it's a great MP game IMHO. (I think I've heard the game isn't that different form dom 2 though, just more of it)

[Lingchih]

-Because almost no one plays Dom2 anymore, and there are more people every day signing up to play Dom 3 MP games (look at the MP board to see how many active games are going... a lot. The SP is not much more interesting though. If you buy it, it will be to play MP)

-Many completely new, fascinating nations to play

-The game is constantly updated, often with full new nations

I could go on, but I definitely found it worth the price.

[Saulot]

There are a variety of reasons to buy Dom3, even if you have Dom2.

Like Aezeal And Lingchih mentioned, the MP community in Dom3 is lively and active. Sometimes there will be multiple new games starting in a single day.

The new nations are fun, and present different playing styles/tactics to keep the game fresh.

Dom3 also has pretty extensive modding capabilities, and there are many who take advantage of that to produce high quality mods, both in terms of nations, spells, balance, and other mods (like worthy heroes).

Dom3 also tweaks a few things to be more fun and fair. Like quickness not affecting spellcasting, or forts to be tied to terrains and nations.

Dom3 SP is also superior to a degree because the AI now builds forts, and some of the spellcasting AI has been updated. The SP experience can be further improved through modding (anything really to make the other nations tougher).

[Xavier]

Saulot said:
There are a variety of reasons to buy Dom3, even if you have Dom2.

Like Aezeal And Lingchih mentioned, the MP community in Dom3 is lively and active. Sometimes there will be multiple new games starting in a single day.

The new nations are fun, and present different playing styles/tactics to keep the game fresh.

Dom3 also has pretty extensive modding capabilities, and there are many who take advantage of that to produce high quality mods, both in terms of nations, spells, balance, and other mods (like worthy heroes).

Dom3 also tweaks a few things to be more fun and fair. Like quickness not affecting spellcasting, or forts to be tied to terrains and nations.

Dom3 SP is also superior to a degree because the AI now builds forts, and some of the spellcasting AI has been updated. The SP experience can be further improved through modding (anything really to make the other nations tougher).

"Forts died to terrains and nations" - can you explain? Not sure what you mean by this....

The fort building is good news - that's one of the most annoying parts of SP dom2. In all my games it's me with 30 forts and all AI nations with 2 or 3 by the time we hit turn 50 or 70 w/e.

Ok...so MP dom as alive and well. That is indeed a reason to buy...but how do I know that within a year they won't put out Dom4 and kill the Dom3 MP (which is exactly what happened to Dom2)?

[Saulot]

You should reread the quote. It said "or forts to be tied to terrains and nations."

In Dom2 you pick the fort when making a pretender. You get one fort.

In Dom3 your forts are picked for you. Each nation has up to 6 different forts that it can construct, depending on the terrain of a province in the game that you want to build on.

For example;
Sauromatia has Ramparts as a default fort (terrain with no special qualities), Fortification in a Farmland, Hillfort in mountain, Swamp Fort in swamp, and Forest Ramparts in a Forest province.

Each nation has differing selections, some superior, some inferior, but it all adds a layer of strategy and decision making as to where to build forts.

[Juzza]

In answer to your very simple question, yes, yes you should buy it.

[Endoperez]

You have twice as much gold, resources and supplies. This means that you can recruit a mage/turn, AND lots of troops/turn. This means that you will always have national armies.

Independents and research have also been doubled. Essentially, this means that early conquest isn't quite as easy for pretenders that take lot of buff spells.

Castles were explained already.

Random paths are restricted. Ulm's Master Smiths have 10% chance of getting one of AEFS, in addition to their E2F1, and only Loremasters have full randoms. Most nations have trouble branching out into several paths.

Taxes are automatically adjusted to remove unrest. Manual is a bit faster in that regard (AI never puts tax under 50%), but it's good enough.
You can see and give order to all armies moving into province X at the same time, by selecting province X and pressing 'y'. You can set site-searching spells to be monthly cast, and they'll cycle through all your unsearched provinces (unfortunately, it includes your capital, but what are few gems for less micro?).

In the next patch, militia events will be made rare. New events that give nation-spesific units have been added for several nations.

No more themes; instead, there are three Eras into which nations are divided. The Eras are Early, Middle and Late, and are shortened as EA (for Age) or ME (for Era) interchangeably. EA Caelum before Raptors left shares the same space with EA Niefelheim, EA Helheim and new EA Vanheim; MA has most of the base theme human nations, while LA has most of the "corrupted" and "fallen" themes/nations. In some cases, two or more themes were mixed together to produce LA Marignon with Goetic Masters and sailing, and LA Ulm with Black Priests, stealthy blood mages and Vampire Count national spell. Early has more and Late less magic than you're used to (e.g. 6 vs 5 vs 4 base gem income).

[Dedas]

Jooooooin uuuus... jooooin uuuus... *zombie groaning*

[Xavier]

Endoperez said:
You have twice as much gold, resources and supplies. This means that you can recruit a mage/turn, AND lots of troops/turn. This means that you will always have national armies.

Independents and research have also been doubled. Essentially, this means that early conquest isn't quite as easy for pretenders that take lot of buff spells.

Castles were explained already.

Random paths are restricted. Ulm's Master Smiths have 10% chance of getting one of AEFS, in addition to their E2F1, and only Loremasters have full randoms. Most nations have trouble branching out into several paths.

Taxes are automatically adjusted to remove unrest. Manual is a bit faster in that regard (AI never puts tax under 50%), but it's good enough.
You can see and give order to all armies moving into province X at the same time, by selecting province X and pressing 'y'. You can set site-searching spells to be monthly cast, and they'll cycle through all your unsearched provinces (unfortunately, it includes your capital, but what are few gems for less micro?).

In the next patch, militia events will be made rare. New events that give nation-spesific units have been added for several nations.

No more themes; instead, there are three Eras into which nations are divided. The Eras are Early, Middle and Late, and are shortened as EA (for Age) or ME (for Era) interchangeably. EA Caelum before Raptors left shares the same space with EA Niefelheim, EA Helheim and new EA Vanheim; MA has most of the base theme human nations, while LA has most of the "corrupted" and "fallen" themes/nations. In some cases, two or more themes were mixed together to produce LA Marignon with Goetic Masters and sailing, and LA Ulm with Black Priests, stealthy blood mages and Vampire Count national spell. Early has more and Late less magic than you're used to (e.g. 6 vs 5 vs 4 base gem income).

very useful post, thanks much. those all sound like positive changes (auto adjusting taxes, THANK YOU), although i never did really use the site-search rituals...I'm too greedy with my gems

the gold/resource/independent changes sound interesting. I was definately one to either use mercenaries or a buffing pretend for all my early conquests - recruiting an army both took too long and was WAY too costly to maintain, unless you had a good buff for your sacred troops.

I'll most likely order it tomorrow...once I cut my teeth on a couple SP games to get the feel for it, look for me in the MP section