Dominions 4

Grimsark

Grimsark

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This game has been out for about 6 months, and its mod community has matured a bit.
Its currently 50% off on steam till June 2nd.

Its one of the few games with its depth that can be played on shitty PC's and multi-played via PBEM.

Dominions 4

A recent player made Nation 'Lets Play'.
(the first two videos are mostly planning and unit explanation)
Lets - Play: Playlist
 
Rathar

Rathar

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He's not wrong at all, this game is amazingly deep and hides itself in a crap graphics disguise.
Oddly enough I just bought it last week and am starting some games with friends. We used to play Dom3 a lot but got burnt out on that.
You can use LLamaserver.net to host games which is realllly handy.
 
V

velk

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Dammit, this thread prompted me to start it up again, and I got crushed mercilessly. Sigh ;p

I just can't resist playing the undead, even when I know it's going to end in 5 on 1 gangbang with more priests than vatican city.

Still, what other games can you field an army of 800 zombies supported by two wings of skeleton cavalry ? heh.
 
Fogel

Fogel

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Is this something that is entertaining to play against AI as well, or is it on release Civ 5 levels of steamroll?
 
Grimsark

Grimsark

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Fogel_sl said:
Is this something that is entertaining to play against AI as well, or is it on release Civ 5 levels of steamroll?
Click to expand...
If I understand you correctly, you are concerned that the game isn't challenging?

I suppose its like most good games in that its only as challenging as you want it to be. You can choose specific enemy nations that are antithetical to your nation so that its slightly harder to deal with them. You can increase the number of nations in the map (from my minimal experience, a good spread is about 1 nation for every 25 or so provinces in a map). You can also half-gimp yourself by choosing to play a specific nation in a strange way, as many of them can be pushed in radical directions based on the specs of your pretender and its domain details...

I suppose if there is one general warning I would give to the newb, it would be to prepare for a pretty massive amount of micromanagement. This game has ZERO automation, and sub-menu's in sub-menu's...
tongue.png

But then that could be considered part of the challenge like any game... Losing track of the late game, can cost you the whole game.
 
V

velk

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Fogel_sl said:
Is this something that is entertaining to play against AI as well, or is it on release Civ 5 levels of steamroll?
Click to expand...
I'd offer a different opinion to Grimsark - you need to learn a *LOT* of stuff to play even half competently. The AI isn't a match for a strong human player, but you are not going to be a strong human player for a very long time.

Plus, you can always plays Middle Ages and Ermor ( the undead ). Crank your dominion strength up and everyone is guaranteed to gang up to wipe you out. ( Ermor dominion kills everyone and blights the land until it's useless for everyone else after their dominion has had control of it for a while, so their very existence is offensive to every other race ;p )
 
Rathar

Rathar

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Until you really get a clue as to what in the hell is going on the AI can and frequently will do an entertaining job of slaying you off. One of the problems/fun with it is that there are waaaaay too many nations/options to learn at start and they are all pretty damn dissimilar (except for when they aren't..)
There's a bunch of folks out there who really obsess over this game. I give it a 8-9 score myself. They really cleaned up a lot of the micro believe it or not compared to the Dom 3.
 
Grimsark

Grimsark

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For those interested in what kind of depth the game can offer, this Lets Play is a reasonable example of it.
Late Age, Ulm. With a heavy emphasis on vampires and demon summoning.

It starts slow like most strategy games, but begins to show the diversity in the mechanics around the 7+ episodes.


I have to say that of all the AA and AAA budget strategy games I've played over the last few years, this B- indie title has sucked up more than twice the time of them all, COMBINED. And at a fraction of the price.
Its games like this that prove to me that flashy graphics and professional sound tracks are often an attempt to compensate for derivative, or downright BAD, game design.
 
Brand

Brand

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I picked this up on a Steam sale a few months ago. This game has such depth and variety. The graphics are crap and you need a manual to play, but if you like MoM/Civ turn based strategy games. A love for highly complex play is mandatory.
 
Agraza

Agraza

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Is there a mod without magic? Any civ style progression? any diplomacy? Looks like it's just about logistics.
 
cyrusreij

cyrusreij

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Agraza_sl said:
Is there a mod without magic? Any civ style progression? any diplomacy? Looks like it's just about logistics.
Click to expand...
Not to knock on you, but that is the complete opposite purpose of this series. Magic is your end game, all the research is for magic, there isn't really much for town infrastructure in this game, it is just about researching good magic, creating good artifacts, and setting good behaviors for your army to automate.
 
Agraza

Agraza

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I get that. There just isn't much to that. It's memorizing build queues and managing chokepoints.

How do you automate troop positioning and squad battle orders? They all come default, and I have to set up my squads similarly each time I create a new commander.

How do I send a commander across the map without individually moving him one move per turn? Like I want him to go 7 tiles across. Either I click to move, end turn, click to move, end turn, click to move end turn, OR click 7 tiles over, end turn, and in 7 turns, he arrives there (unless something happens along his path). I can't figure out how to do the latter.

So for me the game becomes micromanagement hell as my empire grows, and the entire game seems to revolve around logistics.
 
cyrusreij

cyrusreij

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Agraza_sl said:
I get that. There just isn't much to that. It's memorizing build queues and managing chokepoints.

How do you automate troop positioning and squad battle orders? They all come default, and I have to set up my squads similarly each time I create a new commander.

How do I send a commander across the map without individually moving him one move per turn? Like I want him to go 7 tiles across. Either I click to move, end turn, click to move, end turn, click to move end turn, OR click 7 tiles over, end turn, and in 7 turns, he arrives there (unless something happens along his path). I can't figure out how to do the latter.

So for me the game becomes micromanagement hell as my empire grows, and the entire game seems to revolve around logistics.
Click to expand...
Oh no, all of the above is correct, thats just the format of this game. Thats why people tend to just do big play by emails vs other players. You only have to do one turn, like once a week, makes the game way less micromanagey when you only have to do it only so often.
 
Conefed

Conefed

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I've been crushing Let's Plays on this since I saw this post.

Anybody have any favorite factions or mods?
 
Brand

Brand

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Dominions 5 is coming out early November according to the Illwinter site.
 
Byr

Byr

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I havnt played the series since early Dom 3 and I dont see a game specific forum anymore. Where do the MP games get organized these days?
 
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