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I got the game on Saturday. Spent Saturday and Sunday reading the manual and tutorials while watching football. Finally installed it last night and played. Here's what I think so far (as if anyone cares):
The Manual Sucks. No surpirse here. It is mostly the spells and items in the game, which there are a ton of. They attempt to tell you the workings of the game, but it is a complicated game and really doesn't scratch the surface about what is needed to know in order to play.
Interface Convienently omitted from the manual is every thing you need to know to navigate on the screen. Not only that, but it is not all entirely intuitive. Took me about an hour of hit and miss as well as searching through the tutorial to understand it all. Still, they expect some things to be obvious by a picture, and guess what, it's not.
Graphics Takes me back to the day of MoM. Very DOS like, but the simpel appearance is a nice mislead to the game. The 3D animation during the fight scenes is alright.
Battles What battles? Basically, you set up the fight as best as you can and then hit enter and the computer takes care of the rest. I thought this would totally suck, but it totally doesn't. Why? There is already a lot to do in the game that also requiring the fighting could make one turn take a day. Besides the control you have over what to cast, how to fight, who to attack, etc. seems to be enough to vary the outcome of each battle enough to make it challenging.
Magic Huge and complex, the way it should be.
Item Creation Much like MoM, but with more.
Provinces You can only build a fort, temple, and lab in each of your zones. Yet, whether to build these is really the question. Also, sending priests or mages of varying levels of varying paths may unlock "magic sources" which can give you more gems (their mana), money, production points, units, etc... This makes up for the lack of buildings.
Units Tons of units including scouts, priests, commanders, and mages whom all hold special uses apart from fighting. You can use them to research while your "god" goes out to war, recruit units, cast spells, use to them to spread your dominion to preach the word of your god, use them to build, or search for magic, or even to lead comabt units to war. Each unit is unique and awesome.
Random Events Well, they have them. No better or worse than other games with such events.
Diplomacy There is none. The game is about domination, not making friends.
Gods Your main character is a pretender god, or some one trying to be a god. When you begin the game you can chose from varying body types, each type comes with bonus' and stats of a specific kind. You then chose your magic paths, and then your fort (which will determine production and unit capacity). This is all on a point based system, and while there seems to be less to chose from, compared to MoM, there really isn't. It is almost as limitedless in starting strats as in MoM.
Overall
Ugly looking game with an o-kay soundtrack and a very difficult interface to get accustomed to (maybe about twice as hard to get use to as CIV games). No battle like action, not even a little title moving over to girate next to another one as the computer determines your fate.
Still, the game is addictive, vast, and I am sure I will have many hours of fun with it. Has the air of MoM without the battlefield. So if you liked everything else about MoM and micromanagement you like this game, if not love it.
So, to who ever recommended it to me, thanks. It is one of the best turn based games I have yet to play.
The Manual Sucks. No surpirse here. It is mostly the spells and items in the game, which there are a ton of. They attempt to tell you the workings of the game, but it is a complicated game and really doesn't scratch the surface about what is needed to know in order to play.
Interface Convienently omitted from the manual is every thing you need to know to navigate on the screen. Not only that, but it is not all entirely intuitive. Took me about an hour of hit and miss as well as searching through the tutorial to understand it all. Still, they expect some things to be obvious by a picture, and guess what, it's not.
Graphics Takes me back to the day of MoM. Very DOS like, but the simpel appearance is a nice mislead to the game. The 3D animation during the fight scenes is alright.
Battles What battles? Basically, you set up the fight as best as you can and then hit enter and the computer takes care of the rest. I thought this would totally suck, but it totally doesn't. Why? There is already a lot to do in the game that also requiring the fighting could make one turn take a day. Besides the control you have over what to cast, how to fight, who to attack, etc. seems to be enough to vary the outcome of each battle enough to make it challenging.
Magic Huge and complex, the way it should be.
Item Creation Much like MoM, but with more.
Provinces You can only build a fort, temple, and lab in each of your zones. Yet, whether to build these is really the question. Also, sending priests or mages of varying levels of varying paths may unlock "magic sources" which can give you more gems (their mana), money, production points, units, etc... This makes up for the lack of buildings.
Units Tons of units including scouts, priests, commanders, and mages whom all hold special uses apart from fighting. You can use them to research while your "god" goes out to war, recruit units, cast spells, use to them to spread your dominion to preach the word of your god, use them to build, or search for magic, or even to lead comabt units to war. Each unit is unique and awesome.
Random Events Well, they have them. No better or worse than other games with such events.
Diplomacy There is none. The game is about domination, not making friends.
Gods Your main character is a pretender god, or some one trying to be a god. When you begin the game you can chose from varying body types, each type comes with bonus' and stats of a specific kind. You then chose your magic paths, and then your fort (which will determine production and unit capacity). This is all on a point based system, and while there seems to be less to chose from, compared to MoM, there really isn't. It is almost as limitedless in starting strats as in MoM.
Overall
Ugly looking game with an o-kay soundtrack and a very difficult interface to get accustomed to (maybe about twice as hard to get use to as CIV games). No battle like action, not even a little title moving over to girate next to another one as the computer determines your fate.
Still, the game is addictive, vast, and I am sure I will have many hours of fun with it. Has the air of MoM without the battlefield. So if you liked everything else about MoM and micromanagement you like this game, if not love it.
So, to who ever recommended it to me, thanks. It is one of the best turn based games I have yet to play.
... Some one even bother to give me a rating of one star (5 being the best) to show how much they hated me... I still pop in over there and tick them off with my awesome sarcasm!
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