Twilight of the Arnor requires Dark Avatar?

[backblast]

It appears that Stardock's new expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, requires the consumer to buy Dark Avatar first.

Isn't this a bit unusual? The other games I am aware with multiple expansions: NWN, Civ3, and Civ4 did not require purchasing the first expansion in order to install the second.

I didn't buy Dark Avatar because the features were not compelling enough, but the tech tree redesign + map editor make Twilight of the Arnor more attractive.

I don't see how this is a good business decision for Stardock. They are leaving $ on the table. Sure there might be technical issues-- but can't the key Dark Avatar features, like Super Abilities, already be disabled when starting a new game (not sure of this, I don't have the expansion)?

 

[vmxa]

Yes you can turn of the super abilities in Avatar. Not sure if ToA requires DA or not. DA seems a bit better to me, just the ability to have the cursor give the name of the symbols in the mini map helps me as a noobie.

 

[bonscott]

You can buy the combo of Dread Lords and DA (Gold Edition) for the same price of Dread Lords.

 

[Draginol]

The key parts of Dark Avatar are essential to Twilight of the Arnor.

For instance, Dark Avatar introduced unique planet types which are a pretty big deal.

Also, the addition of asteroid fields are really important as well to the game mechanics in Twilight of the Arnor which Dark Avatar introduced.

The super abilities can be turned off btw. You don't have to use them if you don't want. Moreover, you can create your own custom opponents and assign them whatever super ability (or none) that you want. That's another feature that Dark Avatar added.

 

[vmxa]

Yes that is what I did, got the gold edition.