divinity: dragon commander??

Why is there NOTHING about this game? It got released today if I'm not wrong but not a single post/news about it? Is it that terrible?

The reviews are very positive and the gameplay videos look amazing. I've got too much on my plate right now, but I do plan on buying it somewhere down the road.

Ill get it down the road forsure, played few rounds at my friends place during the beta.

I grabbed it during the D:OS kickstarter. Played 2 hours last night and so far am really enjoying the game. I think what I like most about it so far is the interaction with your crew. You have a handful of generals, advisers, an engineer, and some other personalities aboard your flying fortress. Every turn there will be some kind of dilemma, whether it be a political decision to make with your advisers or a general requesting a special request. These decisions are actually very well done and made me stop and sit there for 10-15 minutes deciding what to do.

For instance, one of your council will ask if you should provide healthcare to your citizens or something like enact conscription. Form there you can speak to the other council members and each will give you their perspective. These are all fully voiced and well done, and each council member represents a sorta current day political ideology (liberal, uber capitalist, church and state, etc). After consideration, you either vote thumbs up or down. What's cool is not only do these decisions effect your standing with those respective council member's races, but they also have gameplay implications. So voting yes on healthcare increases your population, but also reduces your gold per turn. I can't stress how cool this part of the game is...the dialog is great, the characters are extremely well animated, and the dilemmas presented (and argued over) are very interesting.

There's other things to do aboard the ship...you can upgrade your dragon with new skills. You can also research new units and upgrades. There seems to be a a good amount of each (4-5 tabs full).

Before I go further just a FYI I am not by any means a RTS expert...in fact it's one of my least favorite genres. I have played tons of the including Starcraft, DoW, CoH, C&C, Rise of Nations, etc etc. While I've enjoyed some of them, again, it's not my favorite genre and I'm not terribly good at them.

Anyways so yes, I've only described 1/2 the game so far. The second half is risk style world conquest and medium scale RTS battles. So far the strategy portion seems pretty simple. You move troops each turn in order to capture new territories...some of which have special buildings that provide bonuses or can produce new units. Obviously when two armies from two factions contest the same area it will be resolved by a RTS battle. You can have multiple battles per turn on multiple fronts, but the way they handle this is actually pretty clever. You, as the dragon, can only participate in a single battle per turn. So if you have 2-3 battles that turn you can only actually fight one...the other 2 you have to choose a general from your ship to handle. Each general has different specialties, wages, etc so choosing the right general is important.

The battles your generals handle are automatically decided based on troops strengths, any bonus cards you played, the general's specialties, and other things like bonuses from your racial standing with the owners of the area. The battles you fight personally in seem pretty standard RTS wise...aside from of course transforming as a dragon :P

Basically it plays out pretty similar to CoH. You start with a certain amount of troops (based on how many you moved in from the strategy map) and fight on a randomly (I think) generated map. On the map are neutral bases to capture and each base has 2-3 plots where you can build one of a handful of buildings. Some of the larger ones also have smaller perimeter plots you can build turrets on for defense. The more territory you hold, the faster you gain certain resources, and of course the more you can pump out new units. As far as units go there's a very heavy rock/paper/scissors element but there seems to be a nice variety of units.

After 45 seconds you can transfer into the dragon provided you have the resources. Playing as the dragon is very fun. At the start of each battle you can choose your skills, and actually flying/fighting is really fun. You can continue to command troops while a dragon too, but it's a bit harder to micro manage.  There's also 3 different types of dragons you choose at the start of the campaign, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Overall though it's very similar to playing the dragon in Divinity II.

 So that's about it...the game IMO is great but there are certain parts I enjoy than other parts of the game. The political intrigue stuff is awesome...really well done. The RTS just seems OK though. Anyways if anyone has any questions let me know.

*edit*

I'm a little surprised there's so little buzz for this game.  You hear people constantly whining that games are all the same and developers don't take chances...well here's that game. 

I'm a little surprised there's so little buzz for this game.  You here people constantly whining that games are all the same and developers don't take chances...well here's that game. 

Renevent42

Yep! Glad to read more positive impressions about it. I'm definitely gonna pick it up when I'll feel like playing that type of game.

7.8 on IGN

The game does look absolutly amazing. I was suprised how robust it is. I'm thinking of picking it up.

It sounds like a mix of traditional RTS, Total War, Civilization, and a dragon flying game and it seems to have amazingly high production values.

The game is well made with good RPG/Political Sim/RTS/Action/Strategy elements, combined into a pretty neat package :)

I've played it through on Hard(est) difficulty and I enjoyed it.

The characters and the voice acting is very good, atmospheric and sucked me right into the game. 

Playing the game feels alot like playing TW series, with a risk board for world map, and old school CnC tactical battles, the difference being the whole morph into a dragon (wiw a guddam jetpack!) during the RTS battles and assist your troops with bad breath and different spells.

With that said, TW games are better at the Strategy and RTS parts (no games beat them really imo, except maybe CIV/CK II with the strategy part), but Dragon commander has the added layer with RPG parts, where you level up your dragon and units (research points spend on the upgrading) as well as managing the empire through dialogues with your generals and ambassadors. 

All in all, I think the game was very fun and very different from other games I have played before. That it's placed in the divinity universe is a big plus as well, as I love the atmosphere and depth of lore it provides and I hope the story line in Dragon Commander will be connected to their (Larian, self publicing studio) next scheduled release (Original Sin (RPG)).