Dominions 3: The Awakening

[kawaiku]

Hey I was just wondering if any has played this game?? I just came across it while looking up the Steel Panthers games and it caught my attention.

Dominions 3: The Awakening

Here is a review from Gamespot about it:

Dominions 3: The Awakening Review

Dominions 3 is a complex, deep, and incredibly rich strategy game that will reward those willing to invest in it with an almost unlimited variety of play.

The Good
* Practically unlimited variety of viable playing strategies
* Superb multiplayer experience
* Great 300-page, spiral-bound manual
* No two games will play the same.

The Bad
* Graphics are decidedly unimpressive
* Extreme depth equates to high learning curve.

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Dominions 3: The Awakening is a test of how much you are willing to invest in a strategy game. If you're the type who scoffs at reading manuals, who revels in state-of-the-art graphics, and who wants to be able to dive in and be successful in a game within minutes of installation, you'll be sorely disappointed. But if you are willing to invest the time to dig in and read a thick manual, experiment with more options and variations than you'll ever be able to completely explore in an average lifetime, and patiently learn a complex but well-designed game system, Dominions 3 will reward you with one of the richest strategy-gaming experiences available on the PC today.

A simple perusal of the features hints at the depth and level of options. You are the divine leader of one of more than 50 nations, set in three different eras. The nations span the gamut from Norse-mythological to Roman to Japanese, as well as everything in between. Your choice of nation results in very different options and playing styles. Each era provides a different gaming environment: The Early Era is a world emphasizing magic, the Middle Era blends magic and more conventional arms, and the Late Era represents a time when the magic arts have faded and thus emphasis is on standard (as defined by "standard" in a fantasy environment) military operations. Each era has a distinct feel and requires development of different strategies for success. In addition, there are more than 1,500 types of units, as well as 600-plus spells and 300-plus magic items, and note that these are not merely hundreds of slight variations on the same spell or troop. In the role of a god (here called pretender) attempting to establish yourself as the ultimate deity due to the vacuum left by the previous Big Guy, you get to design just what type of divine being you want to be. The types of creatures that can be used to represent you range from a wide and weird assortment of icons, such as a dragon, a grey-haired wizardlike character, a fountain of blood, and many others. You then decide how to distribute your magic points and your "dominion," which is essentially your divine influence (you win when the entire world worships at your altar).

The range of combinations that you can put together in creating your pretender produces very different results during the game, and thus you can spend a lot of time just experimenting with different types of pretenders. You also decide whether to start the game dormant, for a gain in points, or fully awake and active. Even that relatively simple decision results in strategic debate among Dominions 3 aficionados. Some will argue that not a lot happens in the first couple of dozen turns, so the extra points you gain by starting dormant is the way to go. Others contend that there's a lot you can do with your pretender being active from turn one. And yet others point out that the best decision depends upon whether your rivals start active or dormant, which you won't know when setting up the game. That's the way it is in every aspect of the game. There are an almost infinite number of choices and variations that provide an extreme breadth of approaches to victory.

Rest of Article Here

Granted the graphics seem a bit outdated but that's never stopped me from enjoying a game so I was curious if others have tried it and what were your impressions?

Some pictures:

[Corporal Kindel]

I thought Dominions 3 was a very good game. If you like 4x games, you'll like this. Conquer provinces, recruit armies, find gems which are tied to spell-casting & magic item production. As far as combat, you can set the parameters for your groups (such as frontal assault, charge flank, fire at archers, etc..) & actually position your groups and leaders on a pre-battle template, so if you want your cavalry to charge right you'd set that group on the right. You can also set the priorities for your spell-casters as far as what spells they cast.

As far as the actual battles go, you don't have direct control. Your groups & heroes fight according to the parameters you set pre-battle, so it's not a real-time game in that sense, even though the tactical combat is real-time. Each of your groups has a separate morale & break and run if they fail morale checks. Morale is very well-done in this game, and the game also allows units to level up, so your group survivors will get stronger & gain more veteran status as the game goes along.

Anyway, of the few PC games I've bought over the past couple of years, I thought Dominions III and Distant Worlds were the best. I'd rate the AI capability as good but not great on both of these games. As far as strategy type PC games go, the norm these days for AIs is weak, so if a new game actually has an average or good AI that's saying a lot (I don't even expect very good or excellent AI because it doesn’t happen anymore in strategy PC type games).

I'd rate both these games mentioned as a strong 8.5 out of 10. They're both 4x genre, one in a fantasy setting the other is space (and Distant Worlds is probably the best 4x space game since MOO2, IMO).

By the way, the manual in Dom III is excellent. You don’t find manuals done like this anymore in modern PC games, not since the 80s early 90s. The manual will actually cover 99% of everything you need to know, even covers all mods taking place in the blow-by-blow resolution of melee and archery combat which is a rich system in this game. The manual has some typos, but what the hell; they did a 10 out of 10 job on the manual as far as coverage. Graphics in this game are old school, but it’s a strategy game, so graphics aren’t a priority. AI always has to be a priority in strategy games. Dom 3 is capable of multiplayer, but Distant worlds is designed as a single player only game.

[SkaterMcgee]

Isn't this a graphic computer version of that ASL thing??

[Scott Tortorice]

I tried the demo for this game about a year ago and I was *floored* by the complexity. It is very much a wargamer's fantasy game. The things this game tries to accomplish are really fantastic with the combat, magic and diplomacy being all incredibly intricate. The problem for me with it, though, are the graphics and UI. While I could live with the poor 16-bit graphics (and, truth be told, I think they might be closer to 8-bit at times), the UI was just far too primitive for such a complex game. I might have persisted longer with it, but seeing that the price tag was a high $55, I just shelved it.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like about this game, but for $55 I expect a lot more polish (there's a limit to the "gameplay over graphics" argument ). If it was $30, I would probably snap it up.

[Corporal Kindel]

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like about this game, but for $55 I expect a lot more polish (there's a limit to the "gameplay over graphics" argument ). If it was $30, I would probably snap it up.

I loved the deep combat mechanism in this game, especially the morale & bow modeling. It was an incredibly refreshing thing to me. The spell effects & world-changing spells were awsome as were the monster summons. Frankly, I could care less about graphics. Graphics are waayyyyy overated these days. Stick & cartoon figures on gif images are good enough for me, as long as I can differentiate the sides and unit types I'm happy. If I was able to choose a gif of Snoopy or Charlie Brown as my pretender in that game, I'd choose that in a hearbeat, and I'm not kidding. I play PC games 1) to be challenged, which requires a good AI (unfortunately the trend is for AI ability has been on the decline for more than a decade) 2) gameplay immersion & replayability.

I'm not one of those players that picks up a game because of the nice images on the box so that I can admire the texture of the green fungus that some game artist painted on the cavern walls while I'm moving my troops through cave corridors trying to get to that treasure, color/texture means nothing to me unless it has some functionality associated with it.

Frankly, graphics are overated. They just don't add anything to the game other than diminishing the quality of the game via 1) slowing/bogging performance (even causing game memory crashes) 2) eating up huge chunks of cache & ram (which results in 1) 3) unecessary large files. The first thing I do with any new game is lower the resolution or other unecessary resource-hoarding features (if the game/manual provides for that function under the options menu) so I can speed up the game up, even if the change is not perceptable to me.

btw, I'm not trying to be an A-hole or anything, so if I came off that way it wasn't my intention. I just wish modern devs would put as much energy in PC games these days as to AI and gameplay as they do with graphics, and them maybe the quality of PC games overall would improve 100%. It's like they're putting all their energy into the least important category, which also happens to be the most counter-productive category (in the sense of performance inhibiting/bogging).

You're exactly right, Dominions III is a wargamer's fantasy game. If you're from the RPG crowd you probably won't like it much. But, I'm not an RPGr. I'm pretty firmly in the strategy & 4x strategy genre. Those are the types of games I enjoy. I enjoyed the game, It had a good AI, but only as good as you can expect from modern AI sw devs, which unfortunatly isn't much.

I don't buy PC games as much anymore these days, mainly because the AIs are always sadly underdeveloped, but I can appreciate games that otherwise would be great with an excellent AI. I think the AI here is average or good at best (which is the best I can expect from modern PC strategy games) which makes the game good or very good overall, since I weight AI heavier than other catagories, especially more so than graphics which rate a 10 (or last) on a scale of 1 to 10 on "PC game essential features".

Graphics are superficial, it's the depth of a game which gives that game its value or not.

[Scott Tortorice]

I was gonna post this out front, but I am tired of editing Shrapnel's long-winded PRs :

New Dominions 3 Patch + Our Lowest Price Ever = Party In Your Pants!
Summer Just Got Hotter Thanks To Illwinter Game Design!

Is it? Could it be? Why, it is! Just six months after releasing version 3.26 of Dominions 3: The Awakening (aka The World’s Bestest Fantasy Game EVAR) developer Illwinter Game Design has readied version 3.27 for your consumption. As always you get some new toys, a few fixes, and the highlight of the patch: more support for modders.

The list of changes found in the version 3.27 are as follows:

General changes:

Utterdark did far too many attacks, fixed.
Recruitment queues are automatically reset once a fort is under siege.
Support for new fullscreen resolutions e.g. 1920*1080.
2 x Crash during turn generation fixed.
Fixed bug where AI would cast Vengeance of the Dead on empty provinces.
Added Jack sound support for Linux version.
Improved Linux pulseaudio support.
Modding changes:

Maximum number of mods increased.
Maximum number of mod sprites increased 1000 -> 2000.
Modding: New monster mod commands: #clearweapons, #cleararmor, #drainimmune, homesick.
Modding: #armor accepts numbers too.
Modding: #custommagic can be used to created linked random magic.
Modding: New site mod commands: #conjcost, #altcost, #evocost, #constcost, #enchcost, #thaucost, #bloodcost.
Modding: New site mod commands: #holyfire, #holypower, #heal, #curse, #disease, #horrormark, #lab.
The patch is available for immediate download from publisher Shrapnel Games. Windows, Mac, and Linux, whatever you’re playing Dominions 3 on is covered. Go forth and patch! You’ll find the patch here.

In a world in which games often are assembled by committee, vomited out without souls, and forgotten soon thereafter the genuine love behind Dominions 3: The Awakening hopefully shines through for all to see. This is a game created by a small team, forged in their beliefs, and supported years later because of that belief. We think that’s special, and looking at the vast Dominions community, you guys and gals probably think so too.

Here at Shrapnel Games we want to use the release of this latest patch as an opportunity to invite even more players into the fold. And so we’re kicking off a very special Dominions 3: The Awakening sale that will run through July 4th.

From now until July 4th the download version (and only the download version) of Dominions 3: The Awakening is on sale for only $39.95. That’s $15.00 off its normal retail price, and the absolutely lowest price we’ve ever offered. This is a unique discount that may never be repeated again, so if you’ve been on the fence now is the time to make your decision!

Want to get your friends into the game? Tell them about the sale. Want to make new friends? Tell strangers about the sale and unleash the full power of Dominions 3 upon the world. Save humanity from the eldritch horrors that lurk beyond the veil? You got it, tell them about the sale.

Again, the sale only lasts until July 4th and won’t be repeated again, so don’t wait to take advantage of this very special discount! You can read more about the game, download a demo, and order it by visiting its official product page.

Dominions 3: The Awakening is the multi-award winning turn-based fantasy strategy game made just the way they used to make games once upon a time. Developed by the mad Swedes of Illwinter Game Design and published by Shrapnel Games, we dare you to find a similar game as rich with content and gameplay possibilities as Dominions 3: The Awakening. From official content to the numerous mods available, Dominions 3 is an embarrassment of riches. Combined with the ability to support up to twenty-one players in a multiplayer match and Dominions 3: The Awakening is truly the last game anyone ever needs.

For information and demos on other great titles please visit us at www.shrapnelgames.com and browse our complete catalog. Delivering the very best in independent strategy games since 1999 our recent releases include Bronze and World Supremacy.

I look forward to the day when Dominions 4 is announced. The content of this game, combined with a good gfx engine, such as Torque or Unity, would make it one heck of an indy game with far more curbside appeal.