Star Trek: Dominion War

I
know a lot of people who like Star Trek (ST) and love to play
Civilization. At the same time there are only a few Star Trek scenarios
out there that meet the challenge of being a Star Trek scenario. You
see, writing a scenario is one thing, writing a Star Trek scenario is
another. ST scenarios are best suited as either mission based scenarios
or usually modpacks. This is because ST is not about colonization or
building a civilization; it is about missions. That is just a fact.
Therefore, to build a good ST scenario, you have to have a story in
mind or at least a relatively loose mission that a player can
experience. In addition to this challenge, the author must also be
concerned with making things work within the limits of the Civilization
game itself. Certain bits of trivia or logistical situations sometimes
need to be addressed in such a way that the author must have all his
(her) creative juices flowing at peak velocity. As you will see in the
following review, this scenario met those requirements.

I
played the Star Trek: Dominion Wars by Kobayashi. This particular
scenario is based on the DS9 series, and the events that took place
during the war with the Dominion. The scenario starts with a Title.gif
that is appropriate and fitting for the type of scenario showing
several Federation ships getting blasted. A selection of ST music is
played to kick off the atmosphere. Before playing a scenario, I
generally observe the events, graphics and other .txt files to get a
feel for what the author is trying to accomplish. In this particular
instance, Kobayashi specifically requested that I do not perform this
ritual, but instead, he wanted my reaction to the surprises and events
as a first time player. I agreed to this and played the scenario cold.

What
I found was a very complete scenario with well prepared events–so much
so, that Kobayashi had even included sound clips for some of the
situations of the game. In fact, the scenario is split into "Acts" and
"scenes" that match the titles of episodes (a nice touch). I should
also point out that the scenes do not necessarily reflect the TV shows,
so that people who are not familiar with ST can play this scenario
without a knowledge of ST:DS9. As a reviewer, I found the graphics
superior to most ST scenarios. I have not played a scenario this good
for a long time. Generally, I experience let down from promises in the
readme.txt of scenarios that fail to deliver what the scenario author
presents. In this case, I would say the author was modest in the
readme.

As
far as the units go, I think Kobayashi has established himself as a
cutting kind o’ guy. His units are excellent. The units were very clear
and worked well in the game. I found the units to perform as expected
in the game. I did find that the author replicated the power and
precision of the Dominion ships perfectly. I can only say that I intend
to ask Kobayashi for help on some scenarios that I am working on so
that I can replicate this same effect.

I
didn’t have much interaction with the Breen in any game that I played.
It is possible that I was too prepared for them and was able to hold
them back simply from experience. I thought their ships might have been
made more powerful. Mostly, I found them a bit hard to see against the
dark background. As this may be unavoidable, it can influence your
perception of what is going on. Perhaps they could be outlined or
lightened a little.

Well
planned and organized. Just by looking at the technologies you could
tell it was a ST scenario and that you would have to check to see what
you should research (expected for a theme scenario). There didn’t seem
to be any out of place techs like "radio" or "explosives". Everything
seemed to fit the 24th century. There are some excellent, well designed
city improvements, but I have to admit that I only built two
(propaganda machine and gravity dynamo).

What
can I say about the map…it is…unusual. I mean, it’s got one big
wormhole in one corner and the Federation smack dab in the middle
surrounded by bad guys. It is designed with some radical changes (I
presume) to the terrain parameters and that makes all the ships respond
to the terrain in a certain way. The terrain graphics are appropriate
and done well. It looks like a ST map of the Alpha/Gamma Quadrants.

Also,
the terrain had been substantially modified to accommodate both the
appearance and response of a "wormhole" in the custom map. I found the
attention to planet (city) names outstanding. The city names were damn
good. I for one know that typing city names into the city.txt file can
be quite a task. Then again, having to make up the city names can be
even worse when you are trying to stay consistent with the spirit of a
theme. Kobayashi really did a good job on this part of the game. I
think the graphics of his cities and the planet terrain accomplish the
"feel" of being in space. Once again, this was unique and well planned.

I
found almost no mistakes or anomalies in the programming for the
scenario which is highly unusual for a ST scenario. The text was quite
readable and there were some really good messages. I like Kobayashi’s
style of writing for the programming (a little humor involved) and a
lot of the text is absolutely necessary to the experience. On one note,
I would say that the intro text is just too long. It really doesn’t fit
on the screen. While this isn’t such a big deal, it doesn’t look as
neat.

There were virtually no
"inappropriate" sounds. Inappropriate sounds are the sounds that occur
which don’t fit the unit or game play. Kobayashi took great care in
changing the sound parameters. I rate the sounds as "excellent".

I
know for a fact, the author spent two months or more working out all
the details for this scenario, and believe me it shows. I would
challenge anyone to find anything wrong with this scenario, simply
because it is so good. ST: Dominion Wars is probably the best ST
scenario made. In my opinion, everyone should download this scenario,
just to have fun playing it.

The
author was attentive enough to include a great deal of new sounds and
units in the scenario that I thought took a substantial effort to
create. I particularly liked the "Sisko" unit and the design for which
it was used in the game play. As I will not give away the scenario, I
can say that innovations such as the way this unit was used is what
prompts me to give a higher score.

The
events worked for me. There was only one thing that didn’t seem exactly
right but I feel almost too dang nit-picky to even mention it. During
the taking of bases, the same Act/scenario box pops up each time, even
though you have moved on. Actually, I understand the event programming
that makes this happen and by adding the line "JUSTONCE" in the events
file, it would fix this.