Dominion Scenario Review

                        Warlords II Scenario Review

DOMINIO.ZIP, 133,181 bytes: 6 players, 77 cities, 22 ruins (including 3
temples).  Ninjas, nomads, cyclops, and lizards battle for "Dominion" of
an entirely new fantasy world.  Author: Joshua Rasey.

Rating summary, scale of 1 to 10:
Wt Area          Score Comments
10 Army set          7 (fairly well balanced and interesting)
 7 Map design        8 (excellent ideas, very creative)
 5 Army pics         7 (good modifications of the defaults)
 5 City pics         1 (should NOT have been included)
 3 Background info   1 (nothing whatsoever)
 2 Cities/ruins      2 (almost all random drek)
 2 Items/heroes      3 (defaults, which fit fairly well)
   OVERALL RATING  179

A really good map and a really good army set makes a good scenario, as
I've said before, and this scenario proves it.  This would have been a
GREAT scenario if it hadn't been a total let-down in all other ways.
It's worth playing, and probably replaying sometime later, but there are
other better scenarios to play first.

This is a battle between the Chang Dynasty, the Khalla-Hadeen Nomads
(abbreviated K'allah Nomads elsewhere), the evil Lord Drakul of the
swamps, and some cyclops, elves, and dwarves thrown into the chaos.
You get some idea of who they are from the city production capabilities
and the very few cities with descriptions, but mostly the author didn't
flesh out the scenario very well.

The city set is the default set you get when you first create a new one:
it looks just like the default cities except the encampments and razed
cities are all the same one.  There is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for including
this city set in the scenario!  Immediately after installing it, delete
the files DOMINIO\CITYNAME.DAT and CITY\CESTISI.PCK.  That way you'll save
disk space AND get better-looking razed cities.

The army capabilities are quite well balanced.  Light and heavy infantry
are stronger and faster than the normal army set, or they'd be left behind
by the rest of the units.  Bats are a little slower, which I appreciate,
since so many scenarios are ruined by making them twice as fast.  Lizard
warriors and archers are cool, and the rest of the units all seem to have
their trade-offs on production time, movement speed, and strength.  The
changes to the default pictures are nice.  There is no unit type to cancel
city bonus, which I think is a major defect in this army set, however.

The map is creative and interesting, with many strategically important
cities, some unusual geography, and a few surprises to discover.

Play with hidden map the first time, quests on or off as you please, and
diplomacy on.  Quick start works well with this map, giving each side the
cities producing the units it is "supposed" to have.

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This review is copyrighted by myself, but may be distributed in any
UNMODIFIED form as long as NO CHARGE is made for distribution (such
as a per-minute charge for online time) and it is not included in any
copyrighted "compilation" (such as claimed by certain online services
I will not name).  Dirk Pellett
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