Pol wrote:The game is relatively fresh but I found
one. And some
smallers.
Have try to find some official reviews but failed,so thanks for the effort,however second link is sort of short reviews left by the ppl who bought the game,fans and not gaming site or magazine,so i guess that does not fit into official...
Two reviews,one in
German and one in
Italian language
For those of you already familiar with Dominion,here is
What’s new
Pol wrote:And modding support, all included for a friendly price.
There was great amount of mods for Dom 3,but since i dont have that version of the game,cant really post any usefull comment...
Price used to be 50$ when game was sold through Sharpnel Games,so its much better now with 35$,i get descount for preordering so it was 30$
As for comparison with other games,its different then other fantasy strategies out there...
Fallen Enchantress is similar to Age of Wonders and Master of Magic,but with a bit simplistic battles and more focussed of building and researching,somehow closer to Civilisation in that department.Imho of course,didnt try the new versions,actually i played when it was still Elemental,maybe its different now
In Dominion,building is minimal,you are more focused on building your army.Army is composed of heroes leading the troops and fighting in battles if you want them to and magicians casting the spells,so quite similar to any fantasy strategy,however big difference is the fact you dont actually control anything in the battle,you just give general orders and watch the battle.So you can order your cavalry to go for the archers,your archers to fire arrows on opponents infantry and so on,but you cant tell this swordman to go and attack that opponent pikeman.Heroes can be scripted a bit more then common soldiers,but its still limited...must admit i didnt like this very much when i started playing,but you get used to it.
Game is really deep and offers many options to fight your opponents.Even when playing against same race or faction,you can meet very different armies and magicians casting completely different spells on battlefield.how is that possible ? Unlike Heroes games,you dont have weekly growth or anything similar.You can get as many soldiers as you like limited only with amount of money and resources you have(some troops do have daily limit but thats just most powerfull few).So one player will build its strategy around archers,buying 50 of them every turn and researching spells that improve precision.Player number two can ignore archers and build only pikemens,20 of them each turn and developing spells that offer extra protection and hit points increase to make them more durable in battle and third player can get only angels,5 of those every turn and research offensive spells to help them kill the opponents army in battle...you can also win battles using fear spells and abilities that will lower the moral of your enemy and make them flee,since every unit is slowly getting tired when fighting and casting spells,you can also try to use magic that reinvigorate your troops and you will win simply by being able to move on the battlefield while your enemys troops are too exhausted to defend...am talking here about various ways to win single battle,there are multiply ways to win war too,one being to kill your opponents by force and magic,but you can also kill them with your religious infuence,better known as your Dominion,if you spread it in his kingdom and he dont have a single province left where he is dominant,he will be vanished,new addition are Thrones of Ascesion,if you conquer and keep certain number of them,you can also win that way...many options and different strategies at your disposal.
Important and very interesting aspect of the game is you as God.You are present in the game and how you build your God,so called pretender, is very important.For example,if you are playing nation that likes cold,snow and ice,you will pick Gods ability cold and make it strong and he will spread cold weather whenever he goes and all provincies that are under his religious influence will slowly become cold,too.Your God also can be good fighter,great magician or he can be good blacksmith,forging artifacts for your heroes...again,many different choices.
Magic is another interesting part of the game with more then 800 spells available.You need to reasearch spells to be able to use them,then you need to have magician that is actually able to cast it,since all spells requiere some sort of magical knowledge.Magic is used not only on battlefield, but also to summon powerfull monsters,various heroes,build magic equipment or even affect the whole world.For example,if you have troops that can see in the dark,you can cast spells that will cover the world in total darkness,giving all others great penalties.
Eveny single unit in game is individual,you can put your soldiers in squads,but game will remember if some of them have wounds,scars,loose some body parts or if they are experienced veterans from many battles.Every soldier and hero have many stats like attack,strenght,defence,protection,hit points,fatigue...good news is you can click on any word and you will get explanation what does that perticular statistics do,even check why does hero have that value,for example his natural attack is 9,great sword he is using atm add +3 so his attack is 12,you can find all that with just one click,bad news is, there is plenty of places to click,lots of informations to read and understand.
Am sure i forgot many other things game have to offer,but those are most important highlights for me,let me just add that number of nations available for play is really big and they are devided into 3 ages,some nations disappear in certain age,some just change a bit, but number is still bigger then in the any other game i know of.
There will be no demo for Dominions 4 soon,but you can try demo for Dominion 3 and while its a different game,it will give you pretty good idea whats going on and what you can expect.
Hope this helps somehow,am not good in writing reviews