Pros & Cons

[Sue]

I'm a fan of the Divinity games, have played and enjoyed them all. It would appear Dragon Commander moves the series into a very different league due to the strategy element. I don't generally enjoy strategy games of this nature but I'd be grateful if people would give thier opinion on the pros and cons of this new game style.

It would be a shame to miss something different and special (if that's what it is) because of not having enjoyed strategy games before.

So, tell me what you think works and doesn't work with this new game format in the Divinity series.

[MountTai]

I think everything blends really well together, how the decisions you make on the ship influence the actual battle on the map, it feels like playing a war game from a whole new perspective. It is as if you take care of all the diplomatics, strategy and the battles itself at the same time. This is a game where literally everything is in your control.

The only con I would be able to think of is that if you dislike reading/listening you will have trouble on the battlefield because what happens outside the battles impacts the game a lot. The skirmish option however should still be able to satisfy the people who prefer action.

I would atleast give it a shot if I were you.

[VaeSapiens]

I don't concider dragon commander as a game that coninues the divinity universe. Firstly it takes thousands of years before Divine Divinity. Secondly it's not an RPG. Honestly I like this move on larian. They expand the universe - for example we finally meet Maxos and other civilised races. We understand how the hell Damian (from Divinity II) could create those flying fortresses and besides that Larian can gather more fans and awarness of their series.

Pros:

-Dragon. It's really satisfying to swoop down onto the battlefield and turn the tides of battle to your favor. A battle lost could be won.
- Story archs are very interesting.
- Divinity humor is intact and continues.
- Soundtrack as always is wonderfull
- The design of the game is interesting and quite original, even tho it's steampunk.

Cons :

- Starcraft players will not be pleased by the simplicity of the RTS elements
- No Belegar
- They could done more, but we need to understand that this is not a AAA title.

[Knight]

The game will give you plenty of bang for your buck. Don't get me wrong, you'll get plenty of fun out of this series. There's an amazing amount of content and choices to be made. But that doesn't excuse the mess of mistakes you'll find.

Pros
-Great replay value, You can be evil or good.
-Easy to master rts elements that can maintain a challenge
-Visual presentation is great
-Voice acting is fluid
-There were some interesting characters and interesting story elements explored [futuristic war machines in a medieval fantasy world].
-There are plenty of surprises and mysteries that occur over the game such as: You start off conquering a small Country and once you complete that you conquer a continent.

I'll add details to the cons so I can specify my issues with them.

Cons
-painful repitition. They recycle the same landscapes over and over when you lead your armies.
-The game doesn't take itself seriously at all, even when it seems like it should. It has 1 serious moment for 30 comical moments. And I'm not going to spoil the ending, but it feels like a lazily put together a 20 second cutscene which in no way gratifies the experience of the game.
-The lack of gray morality in politics. There was the "good" or "evil" choice.
-quirky rts elements. It's weird that you and your opponent can build units when you lead an army, but it's impossible when an ally is leading an army.
-invisible characters. Characters introduced, but for the most part completely ignored across the span of the game. You will not see the face of your brothers or sister or negotiate politics with them. They are barely mentioned. I feel like the developers basically just told me, "who cares about those characters? Just play the game." It's strange that they'd give them personalities and quirks and completely avoid negotiations and general strategies.
-One sided characters. Some characters are for the most part represented by a singular agenda and this character will not change or be explored in any other way.
-British spelling. Reading words like "honour" instead of honor, and "colour" instead of color annoys me. It's small, but mentionable.

[Hupailija]

Pros
- it shares playstyle of some of my favorite games: Rise of Nations and Battle of Middle Earth
- it has every single steambunk cliche in it
- it has dragon with jetpacks

Cons
- while it shares playstyle it just doesn't reach to that level
- almost every part of game is as deep as say, Spores different game modes has... it just is way uglier than Spore
- awfully low replayability. Seriously, nothing really changes between games. All 3 dragons are same, Princesses doesn't really change, Your political decisions doesn't really matter, As long as you have main units and dragon researches you don't need anything else.

[hairyscotsman]

Sersafir: LOL. I found it makes a pleasant change especially considering the UK is in Europe where the game was made. Not that US spelling particularly bothers me (apart from aluminum, I find that particularly irksome, I mean the US has titanium not titanum). When I play scrabble I use both US and UK dictionaries (So we can have za (US official shortening of pizza) for example)

[Ravenholme]

Actually, I think the gray morality of the politics comes in only from the player's perspective. The issues are generally legislative, which boils down to "Allow/Disallow X", but there are consequences for your approval with other races for doing so, which in turn has effects on the strategy and combat layer when in territory belonging to those races, which can be really important on the harder difficulty levels. Do you compromise your own moral stance on an issue, such as, for example, public breastfeeding in a bid to win some more support in areas that you have previously alienated via other policies?

The gray morality sneaks in on whether or not you will make those choices for those ultimately cynical reasons, and the fact that doing so is not necessarily wrong - After all, this is a war for the survival of several peoples.

[Knight]

Originally posted by hairyscotsman:

Sersafir: LOL. I found it makes a pleasant change especially considering the UK is in Europe where the game was made. Not that US spelling particularly bothers me (apart from aluminum, I find that particularly irksome, I mean the US has titanium not titanum). When I play scrabble I use both US and UK dictionaries (So we can have za (US official shortening of pizza) for example)

Yes, the game may not have been written by Americans, and obviously the UK would appreciate UK spelling over American, however, would it really be so hard for the American sold versions to simply use the American dictionary? I'm sure editing a handful of subtitles wouldn't have been so hard.

[Knight]

Originally posted by Ravenholme:

Actually, I think the gray morality of the politics comes in only from the player's perspective. The issues are generally legislative, which boils down to "Allow/Disallow X", but there are consequences for your approval with other races for doing so, which in turn has effects on the strategy and combat layer when in territory belonging to those races, which can be really important on the harder difficulty levels. Do you compromise your own moral stance on an issue, such as, for example, public breastfeeding in a bid to win some more support in areas that you have previously alienated via other policies?

The gray morality sneaks in on whether or not you will make those choices for those ultimately cynical reasons, and the fact that doing so is not necessarily wrong - After all, this is a war for the survival of several peoples.

That's not what I'm talking about. With the exception of "Make warmachines environmentally safe" I don't remember a Good guy choice that didn't have obvious benefits.

In my "make evil choices only" playthrough, the zelous feminist demanded I require the consent of the girl in marriages. I pointed out she did the same with her princes, but she made it clear that this meant I was only enabling evil under my throne. Next, she demanded I stop my army from raping and pillaging, to which, I said, "no." She later demanded I allow a drug that would cause abortion so that women would be free of the pain of childbirth from the result of my army. I said, I'll need them to give birth so I can raise future armies. The blatantly evil choice.

What changed? My populations mood went down, no positive benefits.

Project megabomb, requires you to desecrate an elven tomb, use their ashes as gunpowder and worse things too... Granted you can argue it's for the sake of saving the world, it really isn't. You have alternatives. And It's obvious what decisions a "good" or "evil" tyrant would make.

The morality felt completely black in white on most issues.

[Nals]

Originally posted by sersafir:

Originally posted by Ravenholme:

Actually, I think the gray morality of the politics comes in only from the player's perspective. The issues are generally legislative, which boils down to "Allow/Disallow X", but there are consequences for your approval with other races for doing so, which in turn has effects on the strategy and combat layer when in territory belonging to those races, which can be really important on the harder difficulty levels. Do you compromise your own moral stance on an issue, such as, for example, public breastfeeding in a bid to win some more support in areas that you have previously alienated via other policies?

The gray morality sneaks in on whether or not you will make those choices for those ultimately cynical reasons, and the fact that doing so is not necessarily wrong - After all, this is a war for the survival of several peoples.

That's not what I'm talking about. With the exception of "Make warmachines environmentally safe" I don't remember a Good guy choice that didn't have obvious benefits.

In my "make evil choices only" playthrough, the zelous feminist demanded I require the consent of the girl in marriages. I pointed out she did the same with her princes, but she made it clear that this meant I was only enabling evil under my throne. Next, she demanded I stop my army from raping and pillaging, to which, I said, "no." She later demanded I allow a drug that would cause abortion so that women would be free of the pain of childbirth from the result of my army. I said, I'll need them to give birth so I can raise future armies. The blatantly evil choice.

What changed? My populations mood went down, no positive benefits.

Project megabomb, requires you to desecrate an elven tomb, use their ashes as gunpowder and worse things too... Granted you can argue it's for the sake of saving the world, it really isn't. You have alternatives. And It's obvious what decisions a "good" or "evil" tyrant would make.

The morality felt completely black in white on most issues.

You have to look at it globally.

For some people, abortion is a serious sin. It's not the "evil" choice for them to choose to criminalize it, it's their "good" choice. Same with things like deciding to tax the church, gay marriage, recreational drug use, etc. For every choice you thought of as "pure evil", somebody else thought that was the only rational choice they could make.

Yeah, many of these choices don't turn you into a dark evil overlord man, with better evil powers, because that would be politically biasing, and saying liberalism/socialism is inherently "better". Larian doesn't want to do that, instead most of the choices are just for popularity.

Popularity however does matter. In my game I stuck to my personal beliefs, and by the end of it, had next to 0% reputation with the Undead, and only 30% with the Dwarves/Imps. That meant every time I had to fight a battle in Undead, Dwarf, or Imp lands, I had to go in with overwhelming force from the overworld, as my recruits ticker was always ~250. That's because the population of that province hated me so much, they refused to join my army. That's a HUGE thing to have to deal with, and makes the politics matter quite a bit.

As Raven said, it adds in an additional dilema, do you make decisions you poltically can't support, in favor of an easier RTS campaign. Is it morally right to give the Undead some concessions you can't believe in, if it means you can actually fight through the Undead lands? Or is it better to stick to your guns, damn the short term consequences.

That's not even counting the fact the game does actually give pros or cons based on your choices. Oking UHC takes 5 gold from you per turn. If you increase worker wages to livable levels, that's another 10 gold per turn. Giving females equal pay makes it cost more to use those Generals. Agreeing or disagreeing with people gives them stat buffs, etc.

[Sue]

A big thank you to all of you. My main concern was being an RPG fan, that the RTS element would not be my cup of tea at all (Yes - I'm British :D).

I get the idea of the political side of the game and it sounds as if despite there being a distinct polarity between Good & Evil, shades of grey can and do creep into the game due to the resulting consequences of your choices.

It's good to hear the RTS aspect is easily grasped as if this is overly complex I tend to become frustrated with it. In addition it sounds as if the game is well structured in relation to the RTS and that completing the game is relatively strightforward.

Most Larian games are fulll of humour and I enjoy this, but their AI characters can sometimes lack depth. However, usually their games have some characters and features that balance this out.

As for being a dragon, I loved this in DDII Ego Draconis. A dragon with Jet Packs? Gimmie!

May we move on to some other aspects of the game? For instance, how do the controls and gameplay compare? Just how much RPG is there is this game? Aso, what is the balance between RPG and the RTS elements like?

[Hupailija]

May we move on to some other aspects of the game? For instance, how do the controls and gameplay compare? Just how much RPG is there is this game? Aso, what is the balance between RPG and the RTS elements like?

controls and gameplay in most of the cases is good, it's easy to learn and rather friendly

How much rpg? it depends what you mean about RPG... if you mean: "can my character progress and become stronger?" then no, there isn't any rpg at all. If you mean: "does game tell story and can you affect to it?" then again not that much.

Balance between RPG and RTS elements? uhm, well both plays rather minimum part of game. I would say that rts is more important since rpg doesn't really exist.

All in all, IF you look RTS with RPG elements I would point you towards Dawn of Fantasy, Sins of Solar Empire, Starcraft 2, Spellforce serie and so on...

if you on the otherhand look RPG with RTS elements I do recommend wonderful game called: Spacerangers 2

[Sue]

Thanks Hupailija, this is helpful feedback. I didn't get on with Spellforce at all and many of the games you detail here just don't interest me - I'm an RPG girl when all is said and done. I'll have a look at Spacerangers " tho'

[Hupailija]

Funnily enough I right now have problem that I just don't know what to play .

I did grow bored to this game quite quickly (as said, my problem really is that this game lacks rpg part).

I really wish that there would be RPG game with strategy elements which I wouldn't have been playd yet.... sadly, those are really rare.

Aaanyway when all else falls there is always Nintendo DS and it's wonderful games :D

Aaanyway wonderful games coming on this month:
Bureau (I really hope that it does have rpg elements... it would be soo great)
Space Hulk
and of course
Final Fantasy 14

[Mighty Poo]

Originally posted by sersafir:

Reading words like "honour" instead of honor, and "colour" instead of color annoys me. It's small, but mentionable.

I can't understand why people would get annoyed at seeing words spelled correctly...

[Wywern]

Originally posted by Mighty Poo:

Originally posted by sersafir:

Reading words like "honour" instead of honor, and "colour" instead of color annoys me. It's small, but mentionable.

I can't understand why people would get annoyed at seeing words spelled correctly...

Ikr?