Dominions 3 is a turn based strategy game taking place in a fantasy world with world altering magic rituals and horrors capable of destroying nations.
Mostly Positive
125 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
A bloated autobattler on sprite engine (early Total Wars look better) melted into a simplified map-coloring simulator (no building) with funny quantity of races & magic spells. All sequels in the series are the same, UI in this one is cooked, buy #5.
If i played this in 1990 it would have been a good game
Exactly what I was looking for in a game. Depth and detail unparalleled. Love the retro feel and throwback graphics.
Meh- Fun game, but very very slow. Also the newer versions seem to be the same thing but better.
This game has so much depth, don't let its oldschool graphic style trick you. The beauty of this is in the depth, variety of options, and strategy. The reference booklet is almost 300 pages. And its fun to read because you begin to realize how many factors are at play here.
I know the newest one just came out, Dom 6, but I wanted to start with an older version, and get to know, before progressing forward through them.
I've never seen a strategy fantasy game with this much depth that is from this vantage point of kingdoms.
There are so many unique units, spells, gems, items, buildings.
My favorite part was in completing the tutorial save, there was one troll that I had surrounded, he had mages that summon spectral wolves, and he's nearly immune to my damage, so I lost 4 battles against him. It was like 120 units on 5, but he was the last bastion in the west. Eventually, I overwhelmed him but the theme of this Troll holding back my armies was very cool.
it's good, but buy dominions 5 instead, or wait for dominions 6.
what a price
Fantastic, bit buggy with windows 10 and 1440 res but still works.
Get Dominions 4 runs better and is worth the extra few $. :)
There are a lot of fantasy kingdom managing/strategy games. Too many. This one seems harder than most. During my 30 plus hours of play I never came close to winning. Play a god any way you want. Clunky controls and ancient graphics nearly killed the game for me. A decent tutorial would have helped, but I don't usually read tutorials. Playing god my way resurrected my interest in the game.
Love this beautiful game gives 49fps with my 4090 and i9 1950 :)
This is a strategic fantasy war game with RPG elements where players assume the role of a pretender god. It has great depth, fantastic lore and immense replay given the huge diversity of factions, pretenders, and units. Random maps, many different commander types, spells, rituals, it's full of good stuff to explore and it keeps me coming back.
The game is really unique in many ways, so it's hard to compare it with others. The pretenders, factions, and units are mostly based on ancient historical myths, not Tolkien or traditional fantasy stereo types. I found this extremely interesting and fun to learn about. These old forgotten legends come to life in this game. An age of when Titans walked the earth, Krakens rose from the seas, and the giant great wolf howled in the north.
Games can be setup with many different options, including eras which change many aspects of the game. The main objective in all though is to spread you're faith all over the world. This mechanic has several methods but ultimately when you're pretender has full world faith, he/she becomes the god.
Spreading faith will require a military with soldiers, priests, mages and monsters. Or for the more diabolical pretenders, demons and the undead. Magic may be a tool that you can source, and with nine levels in each of the eight schools, you could write a book on the different tactics you can use.
The artwork, music and overall style generates a pleasant themed atmosphere. The game can suffer from heavy micromanaging late game as you allocate armies with many commanders and soldiers. But its turn based, and there are tools to aid in managing things, and notifications.
Yeah so this is an old game now and there is a version 4, and 5. So what. Doesn't change anything that i listed here. It's still worth you're massively devalued currency. One more turn, at its finest.
Très intéressant, mais pas simple. Ça fourmille de détails hallucinants. Il faut prendre son temps, bien assimiler le tuto et finir par lire tranquillement les 400 pages du manuel. Jeu riche.
Bit older and has crude graphics, but those aside, good strategy game
Clearly outdated compared to Dominions 4 & 5, but still good.
The game plays extremely well on modern systems and is a joy to play. Turn based wargaming
I really struggle to understand everything that is going on here and tutorials are not as helpful as I would like. This is the kind of game that I would typically enjoy, but I am at a loss on what good strategy is for this game. Sometimes, it looks like I'm doing well, but something outlandish happens and I instantly lose with no real explanation. Maybe if someone sat me down and walked me through every aspect, I could get better, but that shouldn't be the threshold for simply being able to play the game! The lack of decent graphics and sound doesn't do the game any favors either. You'll need to invest lots of time to learn the game, and by then, you may find out that you don't enjoy it very much.
Overall: 2/5
multiplayer doesn't work read the hilarious guide. Seems accurate after doing following another guide intended to help. Opened ports, turned off firewall, was not able to connect to friends game. THIS GAME IS PROBABLY NOT MULTIPLAYER. I also should mention that after trying to get it set up in multiplayer, the game bugged so when I opened it the only button was to close it, WOW. TERRIBLE!
Ainda hoje vale a pena
It's a fun mix of Risk and Heroes of Might and Magic with just a touch of Medieval Total War. Way too much micro management late game in really large maps. And definitely a time sink. But, a pleasing one at that, with a fairy original concept closest in style to Masters of Magic. Might not be a 10/10 but glad to buy it on a sale any day and spend hours on it in a lazy Saturday.
PS: really really easy to mod. Great thumbs up for their support for easy mods, and generally great documentation!
Writing far from the future, this was the game that got me into the Dominions series; now at iteration 5. It's still a good game that holds up well in single player. If you haven't played any game in the series and want to try them out in single player, this is definitely a good option. A lot of fun can be had exploring the mechanics, which are deep and multi-faceted. In hindsight there's a bit of jankiness that later games solve, but I still prefer this to most 4x/GS games out there.
Despite it's minimalistic approach to design, this game is one of the best fantasy TBS out there full of little details and soul. Not to mention the great amount of playable races and creatures available.
Что ты такое?
Dominions 3 is a fun and interesting turn-based strategy game where you play as a pre-made god or one of your creation. In spite of the primitive art there's a tremendous amount of depth to the gameplay, particularly in which age you start in, the map, your faction and their prefered biome and units, and your god. The art is serviceable and the game runs very smoothly, even late game with tens or even hundreds of thousands of units moving around in stacks.
Lots of inputs are bound to hotkeys, but there's no tutorial or guide (other than looking through the Options menu) to find this, such as "building units" (which you'll be doing a LOT). I'd recommend checking these out, as they'll save you a lot of clicking, especially over longer games/larger maps.
The biggest two detriments I found was: late game tedium of building units, especially mass-rallying units you're building at territories and advancing them up to a certain chokepoint. It sounds trite, but when you're managing 10 stacks of units being made each turn, at 10 different territories, every turn for each front, it gets really tedious. The other big issue is the water/land transition. Water empires tend to be inferior to land ones because, and frequently dominate their lakes/oceans but cannot expand aside from raiding the coasts. This leads to them building tens or even hundreds of thousands of units on every single inch of water, and being basically unconquorerable, by land armies trying to invade in spite of the "famine" mechanic making them lose unit HP for being too congested.
Another concern might be the similarities of Dominions 3 to "Dominions 4", which appears to be more an upgraded version of D3 than a full-on new game. If you're interested in this, I'd recommend checking out that instead, or perhaps even Dominions 5.
Set up your dream apocalyptic battle-to-the-death between a skyscraper-sized leviathan and a little old lady. [spoiler] Put your money on granny. [/spoiler] No joke.
This is a very complicated game that is so simply basic. To explain this contradiction: the rules book is 294 pages, but game play is boringly simple. What's complicated about it is learning about the 1000 different types of units and the complicated magic system, The combat and build system is very simple. I became very bored with it after 8 hours. Gave it a good try, but I wish I could have those hours back. 4/10
it's good
I tried to like this game but keep coming to a overwhelming feeling i wasted the 80% off of 19.99 to 4.99$ on sell price since i don`t even want it in my tittles list... Screw pay 20$ for it. It may be unique in its way of game content (not game play) but constantly you will find yourself learning by mistakes with lost games, which i was fine with till winning with no real feeling of reward. When its all said and done, this games easily forgetable.. Seriously guys, i recommend a real Grand Strategy or RTS worth the price of 20$. You might as well go for 4-5 cheap games like Darkest Hour on sell or get something at the 30$ range like Crusader Kings II but anything but this my friends.
meow
Bardzo dobra gra
Steam may claim that I've only played a few hours of this, but that's because I originally bought it from Shrapnel games back in the day, to sink hundreds of hours into local multiplayer. In all that time it never got stale - the gameplay was consistently engaging, but that was just a tiny part of it. The far larger part is that it's a fantasy game written by two Ph.D. professors of mythology, and it shows. There's no Tolkien elves, there's no generic fantasy Europe (lots of nations which are much more specific fantasy in part of Europe, but nothing vague), the tropes of the genre aren't there. Instead you get mythology through a fantasy lens, from cultures all over the world, expressed in detail. There's even tiny little mechanical details that almost don't matter, but serve as neat little easter eggs for the lore.
Plus, the core format is just so fun. Make a god (with a system both unique and incredibly capable of diverse options), take over a nation, then pound the rest of the gods into the dirt until you get to be the new overgod. It just never gets old.
top
Strategico a turni di ambientazione Fantasy.
Gioco dalla grafica povera ma dai contenuti profondi e ben curati.
Si può giocare sia in single player contro I.A. che contro altri giocatori umani.
Lo scopo del gioco è conquistare tutti i territori, lo si può fare o con le armate o diffondendo la propria fede.
Ha dare più spessore al prodotto, ci sono un ampio sistema di magie da ricercare, un sistema economico basato sulle tasse delle varie provincie ed un sistema di risorse per produrre le armate. Non mancano i vari oggetti magici da ritrovare o da craftare.
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Really fun game
to be honest i wish i has my money back
if you havent played the other dominion games dont buy it
its ridiculously expensive, and the game fails to be unique in anything.
it needs a campaign, the tutorial is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and if you do figure it out it is strangley addiciting at first but it quickly fades...
tumbs down for me :(
love it like its a child until you forget about it when you buy the new one
trash
Ребз, игра шикарнейшая, но один момент: как поставить большую букву, а то как-то такое себе звать бога с маленькой буквы.
Пы.Сы. Капс работет только после хрен пойми каких обстоятельств, а шифт не работает впринципе.
Excellent little game well worth the money. By now, they have just released Dominions 5, I found this series with Dominons 2, and have enjoyed all of them through 4. I have yet to pick up 5, but so far it looks promising. I just need more hours in my life.
Absolutely excellent game with much content and complexity.
The internal game engine rules are perfect and absolutely logic.
This game was made as abstract as possible but is still very complex. No micro management and time wasters.
You have an enormous amount of units and spells as well as an easy to use random map generator.
Replayability until eternity. Have only played the demo (using the PDF Tutorial; very good) and then my own random maps.
Every single unit you buy and use for your army has it's own life and fate in the big army and has age (living units die of increasing afflictions, if too old), action points, experience and many other things. Although they work in a group, every unit acts independently like a RPG character in a turn based game.
Commanders are mostly only slightly better than regulars but have an inventory. Watch them as they bravely and crazily fight amogst their brave grunts. (Always according to your battle orders.)
The interface and graphics are absolutely enough to bring the complexity to enjoying visual life.
Only stupid little kiddies won't like this.
Preparing small and big army battles is much fun and you see the results in the fights. As you maybe would not expect, only watching your battles is very very satisfying and you can gather much tactical info from them. The joy when your plan worked out as expected is fantastic.
Smallest battle can be 1 on 1 when an assasin tries to kill the hostile commander on enemy terrain. Same battle engine used. Very good.
There is much much more, but see for yourself.
Thanks for this very nice game.
Graphics beyond functionality is mostly unimportant. Internal game engine and logics are more important for a real good game. Chess with Unreal Engine will still be Chess, idiots :D Go get yourself complex games.
Everyone who likes HoMM3, XCom Apocalypse and Dark Omen come get this now. Excellent stuff.
As I said in the Conquest of Elysium 3 review, in spite of being a strategy and open-world game fan, I've just never been able to enjoy the 4X genre. All of the promise of customizing your civilization to suit your own fantasy gives way to cold calculations and optimization strategies, and all the exploration is just for finding more resources to exploit. Worse, by the end game, 4X games are just bogged down in micromanagement to maintain your war machine. It's just as the armies of my enemies are broken and victory is assured that I find myself entirely bored of the game and unwilling to bother completing it.
Dominions manages to be something of a split between a 4X and... well, the best I can come up with is a deck-building style of game. Compared to a game like Civilization, where all cultures are basically the same except for a couple unique units and one bonus or two, Dominions pits a stand-in for ancient Greece, led by Zeus or Athena or Aphrodite or some other Greek god with hoplites and such up against a stand-in for ancient Egypt filled with lizard-people and led by a dracolich against R'Lyeh, an entirely subaqueous civilization of D&D aboleths and Lovecraftian horrors.
Although the game definitely pushes you to optimize your god, the game's god-creation system is also probably its best and most interesting feature. You can be anything from an obvious stand-in for mythic deities like Thor or Kali or Quetzcoatl to some of the monsters of myth, like Tiamat or a gorgon or a straight-up demon from Hell, to a stone statue or fountain that pours the blood of virgins and demands blood sacrifice through taking possession of mortals, to just some jerk human Caeser of Rome claiming he's God-Emperor of Mankind, and out to make that claim real. Deities can craft and wear magical items based upon their magical powers, and in deity creation, you can set their magical talents (I.E. standard fire/water/air/earth, but also "death" (necromancy), "astral" ('pure' magic stuff like counterspells and magic resistance), "nature" ("druid" magic like growing plants or barkskin or regeneration or summoning fairies), and "blood" (murder slaves for magical power - based upon Aztec blood sacrifice). Beyond this, there is dominion power (higher means your religion evangelizes more successfully) and "scales", which are an alignment with different factors that affect your lands. ("Order" gives income bonuses and reduces random events, while "Turmoil" gives penalties and increased randomness. You gain more points to spend on other things taking Turmoil scales, so "Order" is always better.)
In spite of the fact that you can play as a fountain of blood that demands blood sacrifices so that you can twist the souls of your followers into horrible abominations to throw at your enemies or a straight-up angel with a flaming sword set up to bless her followers with peace and prosperity, there isn't any real acknowledgement of morality in this game (beyond "might makes right"), and there is no real sense of whether any particular cultures or peoples you conquer have any particular opinions of your religion, outside of a randomized chance of revolt (which seems to have more to do with your "misfortune" scale than anything to do with how you reign, other than pillaging the land to take slaves for blood sacrifices.)
Gameplay is basically "stack mashing", where you pile up a giant glob of units and lob it at the enemy and hope for the best. This doesn't mean it lacks strategy, however. Unlike many games like this, it actually simulates the battle. This is outside your direct control, although you can set a very basic script of actions for your units, like "attack archers" or "attack rearmost", or script up to 5 specific spells for casters, so that you can tell a gish to cast stoneskin and quicken before rushing the enemy in melee. Combat is fairly deep, with some units having light or heavy armor, weapons having bonuses against shields (which boost dodge chance rather than armor), morale and terror attacks being common, elemental attacks, and effects on the battlefield from dominion scales all taking place, there is a lot of strategy in battle.
Combat is somewhere between an RPG and a traditional RTS. Units gain experience and leaders can gain special abilities, but they can also gain permanent injuries. Leaders can also be given magical items you forge to greatly improve their combat performance, and can gain permanent (as long as they live) improvements to their magic-casting capabilities. On the other hand, death is super-cheap in this game, and you basically just churn out units as fast as your castles can muster them to throw into the meatgrinder. Common infantry units, in particular, tend to die by the dozens even in victory (and there's tons of friendly fire in this game, since friendly archers tend to aim at enemies in melee, and have poor aim).
Empire management is massively streamlined to the point of practically nonexistent compared to most 4X games. The only thing you build are castles (which dramatically increase how many units you can build), temples (which spread your religion - "Dominion" is the area where your religion is dominant), and laboratories (which let you transfer magic items). None of these need to be unlocked through research, so what you see at the start is what you get (although high-level magic can let you magically create castles where you otherwise couldn't, such as underwater if you are a land-based civ).
Those who love empire management in Civilization or even Total War may be disappointed in being "dumbed down to just combat", but there's something to reccomend it in the fact that, once you're up to "steamrolling" power levels, you can just stop caring and steamroll away instead of having an ever-more-complex empire to manage as you attain more lands. In this sense, this balance between a 4X and RTS actually appeals to me more than either those those genres do on their own.
That said, I do have to warn prospective players that there ARE things that need a form of micromanagement: Leaders (like wizards and army generals) default to "defend province/castle", but that's basically the order of last resort because it's never useful. If you have wizards you want researching magic any time you're not making magic items, then you have to remember to babysit the wizard's tower to make sure anyone who just finished a magic item goes back to research. Remember where the priest searching for holy sites is, and give new search or move orders every turn. As with a 4X, this starts to become somewhat tedious the larger your empire, and the more laboratories with wizards to manage you have to keep track of, although it's thankfully not as terrible as constantly managing a build queue since you tend to have relatively few major centers to check.
Like with "defend" as a default, I also get annoyed with how the game has a lot of bad default options, forcing a lot of constantly needing to click the same commands. Army management suffers from this frequently. The UI could be brushed up in just plain telling me how many soldiers I have total in a province, rather than making me add it up per leader. (Sure, there's consumed supply, but some troops don't eat, giants eat more than humans, and units that provide supply subtract from supply consumed rather than add to total supply, making that a false image for many circumstances. I might have 500 troops but only see 200 supply consumed.) This leads to it being rather difficult to tell just HOW strong a very large army actually is.
In all, it's far from the best strategy game I've played, but it's a very interesting one, and on sale, it's definitely worth picking up just to see what it does differently from other strategy games. (Especially since its sequels are more expensive, but better-polished games, buying this on sale makes for a good way to test the series out on the cheap.)
good.
I own Dominions 3 and 4. Started playing Dominions 3, few monts later Dom 4 came out - moved to it.
Now I'm playing Dominions 3 and enormousely enjoying it. Less spells, less magical items than in Dom 4 - somehow even more fun.
Why I like Dominions:
1. Very interesting fantasy setting (not just elfes and other copies of Tolkien imagination) with Valkiries, armoured gorillas, ghouls, giants, chariots, eagle-men, bat-men, spider riders, raptor riders, fiery salamanders, armoured or undead elephants, giant ants, tiny dragonflies, barechested warriors, tritons with amber armour, hydras, halfblind cyclopes, nagas, twoheaded giants, liches, krakens, dragons, mechanical dragons, trolls, tengu, ghosts, lamias, jaguars, werejaguars, powerfull but insane gods, mages of various kinds,assasins, shark knights, Vikings with glamour, Aztects with flying ability and many, many more...
2. Ingenious balancing of nations. Other games do balancing + variety this way: one side gets a sword and shield the other axe and a shield. Dominions does it like this: one side gets a sword and a shield the other gets a catapult and a sharpened stick :-) and it works!
3. No researching of buildings, basically there are only 3 buildings you can build in a province: castle, magical reaserch lab and a temple. Less hasle with buildings and a refreshing change from the industry standard.
4. Spells, spells, spells :-) starting from minor ones like fire flies (weak and available with no reaserch) to fire storm (burns everything on the battlefield that does not have full fire protection, requires a lot of reaserch and a powerfull fire mage).
5. IT'S DIFFRENT.
6. Challenging single player even after hundreds of hours of play.
7. Great and athmosferic music.
8. The battle set up: give orders to commanders, mages and units before battle; later during the battle you just watch how your orders interplay with orders given by your oponent: surprises guaranteed, especially in multiplayer battles. Many a time I was watching biting the nails, seeing how my main force was pummeling the enemy but my oponents flanking party was going for my commander - battle of Gaugamela all over again.
9. Great community - higher IQ average than the many other games out there :-)
10. Small developer firm with dedicated staff. Basically like Creative Assembly before they were bought with Total War series by Sega. Upgrades are free and regular, game works like a clock on day one, patches fix some mechanics you never even new existed, developers behave on forums like your friends: nice, profesional, informative and surprisingly patient towards the odd troll or idiot :-)
11. Depth. 3 eras with circa 20 nations in each one, every nation has different soldiers (is hydra a soldier?) and commanders, some very usfull, some meh and some ridiculosly usless until that day when you find a use for them :-) Hundreds of spells that can be divided in 3 categories: battlefield spells that have effect on a particular battle (relevant mage has to be present), rituals used on strategical map (for example ritual that summons wywern or mechanical men that you can use in later battles) and global rituals that have a major effect on the strategical map and the battles (for example global ritual that calls darkness and gives penalty to all units in battle that don't have the special ability darkvision). Hundreds of magical items (dwarven hammer is so much better in Dom 3 than in Dom 4).
12. The distinction between strategical map and tactical map and how both are working.
13. The ideas inherent to the game and seen nowhere else e.g.:
A. units get tired on battlefield and that makes possible for an army of pitchfork fielding peasants to overwhelm a small group of knights (even though initially the knights cut them in heaps) IF (very big if) there is enough of the peasants.
B. bless effect that changes sacred units into even stronger ones and you can choose the bless effect at the start of the game.
C. Dominion which is like the population strenght of faith in you, the Pretender God. Has effect on how many sacred units you can buy, how strong some global rituals are and on morale of your troops. Also as you are pretending to be a God (one of many) in the game, the added benefit is that no fundamentalist muslim can play the game :-)
D. the way afflictions affect the units - especially extremal cases when you see a unit that is blind, cripled, weakened, with a chest wound and battle fright but still on the battle rooster.
Could go on and on but 13 is my lucky number so...
Here http://www.illwinter.com/dom3/ you can find link to a manual - try to read a few pages at least.
Here http://www.moddb.com/games/dominions-3-the-awakening/forum/thread/dominions-3-demo1 you can find link to OLD DEMO OF DOMINIONS 3 - not sure if still works but it was great back in the days to get a taste of the game. Word of warning: do not play Kaliasa as nation unless you looking to get frustrated ALL the time, Arcosceptale is much better (chariots, massed chariots until you meet some giants)
Dominions 5 is going to be available from November so try Dominions 3 and if you like it, buy Dominions 5 in November and see you in multiplayer - watch out for my chariots :-)
One of the best games ever!!!!
2023 edit: it's actually crap same as the whole series.
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JUST JOKING!!! Dominions are f.... best !!!
Dominions 3, the predecessor to dominions 4, also has many good goods.
However, I am not sure if there even is a large spider.
0 / a few
Tags: TBGS - Turn Based Grand Strategy
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library
TLDR: No real resolution option. No tutorial. Obscure control scheme. High learning curve. Handmade looking sprites with dubious production values. Music too epic at times(e.g. bagpipes while looking at overland map)
pourri
A game of master strategy... Played for about 10 hours straight and I barely scatched the surface of this game.
On first glance, This game have sloopy graphics and looped music. They can be quickly overlooked once you get past the learning curve of the very basis of the game.
Everything you heard about or seen in other fantasy based strategy games are featured in this game. Magic, Ranged combat, autocast spells by unit, wound, exp leveling, leadership(command army size), summoning creatures, under sea combat, worship war and many more features are involved hidden behind this mask of basic interface for you to discover.
Many races of people to choose from with unique feature for each race. This well hidden strategy gem and I am sure I will discover a lot more interesting things in the days to come. Each games are not short at all once you setup on a balanced map with some AI or even human players.
9/10 for a wonderful strategy game and it only lost score on graphics, interface and music.
There is a pretty cool strategy game hidden in here somewhere but I couldn't find it underneath the hideous graphics and god-awful user interface.
This is a very enjoyable fantasy strategy-sim. It's plays very similar to a Total War series game, but with a more hands off approach to the battles (you don't directly control units, but you can give them pre battle formations and priorities, like telling your cavalry to wait a turn before going to attack the enemies archer units).
There is kind of a big lack of explaination for a lot of things in the game itself, so you'll have to refer to the manual or the wiki, but I figured out 95% of it on my own. One example is the game lets you give magic gems (that are a resource for casting global spells and making magic items) to your commanders, but it doesn't explain anywhere ingame the benefits of doing that. Turns out it improves their magic casting abilities of the associated gem/magic type by 1 level for having the gem equiped. But some characters also generate magic gems for you and they get put in their inventory until you retrieve them.
It took me about 4-5 games to explore how the various mechanics work, like how faith spreads, how you research magic, how building good armies and giving them the right orders to increase their effectivness. Experiment and read the ingame hints about the things that are described and it's easy enough to catch on.
If you don't have dominions 4 and don't plan on waiting for that to go on sale, this is still a solid entry to the strategy genre. There are quite a few ui improvements absent from 3 as opposed to 4, and the win conditions are more simplistic, but you still won't find a better strategy pick if you're willing to overlook the old-looking graphics.
Also, as I understand it, the multiplayer scene has moved on from 3 to 4, so it may be better for playing alone.
One of the worst experiences of my life. What ♥♥♥♥ is going on, what kind of a game is that? Why so much positive?
Notes from the future : Simplex sigillum veri. With that being said i must inform you i am an enthusiast of old school hardcore keyboard operated ascii roguelikes. I don't care about the game's complexity or hardness. I am only mad about the makers' negligence about the "gamer" at the other end and that user-hostile attitude almost asking the gamer "guess what have i got here in my pocket?" which seems like arrogance and a lack of the skill of presenting eager people with easy to use game mechanics. You must give me at least that trait with that much crappy graphics and no-interface.
The learning curve is similar to dwarf fortress, and like dwarf fortress once you've passed the barrier for entry it's entirely worth the trouble.
当初玩了至少几百小时，买了正版后只开了一局，情怀！
>Download warhammer nation pack
>For Skaven Blight!
>Start a game on a 1500x1500 map with 1000 provinces and max nations (Game crashes several times just rendering)
>Early game micro, min maxing armies to steal land from independents.
>Encounter first oposition, some purple guys with fancy armour
>Push army groups into land rush along newly developing border
>Ratmen sneak sneak into enemy territory for deep strike attacks
>Launch premetive stike against stupid man things
>Stupid man things suffocated under waves of clan rats
>Begin sending armies to their stolen provinces
>Assassins hound commanders every step of the way
>First real battles of the war kick off with my armies of clan rats scattering to the wind in face of their Heavy Infantry
>Hurl more ratmen, delay enemy, lose more battles, push them back, more enemies appear, rinse and repeat
>This continues on for hours, about 68 of them
>Finally drown their capital under the bodies of tens of thousands of ratmen.
>Decisive Victory.jpeg
>Only 1/20th of the map is under my control
>Scoregraph put me at 7th place among the 19 remaining nations.
10/10 Would never finish a single game again.
This game is a bit too tedious for my tastes. Too much luck involved in the game as a whole for it too be worth having any true strategy shine through. Some classes are grossly overpowered and having my survival or success hinge on class choice is fairly biased. Province defenses don't make any sense in the sense that I shouldn't have an army of 50 units be wiped out by a single weak unit ever. Forts, labs, and temples are interesting concepts, but the concepts aren't introduced well enough from the outset to maximize usage of the mechanics. If I have to read a 20+ page manual to play a game its not worth the effort, especially when a tutorial is lacking.
(5/10) I'm glad I got this on sale, because it wasn't worth the full price. Try Conquest of Elysium 3 if you are looking for something more manageable and less tedious.
Oooohhh god, why I haven't play this before ....
It's a MUST play for any old school gamer that love strategy games!
Beside that battles are automated and you do not have direct control of units, gameplay and concept are near perfection!
Graphic is neat retro loking, along with awesome music will give you full nostalgy pleasure.
I can write a wall of text hyping this game, but Il just say if you are in strategy games, you must own this gem!
Overall: 9/10
If you can get this cheaper than it is I'd totally buy it but boy. It is mighty expensive for what you get, even if what you get is a rather well balanced game with tons of research lovingly put in. I just don't think it's worth full price.
Huge learning curve and in my opinion not worth the time to get good at it. I played offline so that's why I don't have much playtime. Civilization is much better if you want an in depth strategy game with a much nicer learning curve, and there are free strategy games that are better than this.
I had to hide this game from myself so that I don't lose the rest of my time.
Grand strategies matters, and minute details win the battles.
Armies fight and run.
Pretenders spread their domain.
Super-combatants rout whole armies.
Give permanent curses.
Wish for a hero.
Make everyone age rapidly.
This is a plastic army men simulator for fantasy based figures instead of regular army men.
Flying to the rescue along with 7 bodyguards on his magic carpet, my immortalized lich god attempted to break a siege of boulder-chucking giants today. He failed, but being immortal his bones were reassimilated back at the capital without a scratch. The 50 soldiers left in the castle were ground to a pulp, however.
I have spent nearly 95 hours in this game. The gui and simple aesthetics are off-puting at first. But I've played Dwarf Fortress. Nothing looks bad or is too difficult to learn after Dwarf Fortress. For those who haven't, I think you'll quickly forget how simple it looks after your imagination helps to fill in the gaps of its graphical limitations.
If you are willing to invest a few hours learning how to play, and are able to overlook the graphics and the poor sounds quality (I suggest this mod: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=37761 to replace some of the most ear-piercing sounds of the game) you will likely have hundreds of hours of entertainment.
Even after all this time, I am still too much of a scrub to survive some of the most difficult races. I have also never won a game on a large map. I like the challenge and depth, it is what makes Dominions 3 and 4 special.
pregnant plant lady statue with earth magic as a pretender god
nuff said
10/10
Although Dominions 4 kinda makes Dom3 obsolete, for a cheaper price you can get essentially the same intricately complex game. It's not pretty and it's UI is at best painful, but it's still easily the best "4X" game ever developed for die-hard fans of the genre. It takes a long time to get used to but it's intensely rewarding, I mean when else do you get to be a god commanding an army of lizardmen?
--Destroyed Aphrodite with a Cthulu 10/10--
Cons:
- The worst flaw of this game is that most of the cryptic game mechanics cannot be accessed in game and you have to rely on google search to find out. For example, while researching the "construction" school of magic, you are given no clue on what you can craft from it. Even after researching the spell, you have no idea what you can craft because many of the craftable items are not visible because the mage you select do not have the required paths in magic.
When summoning a monster, you have no idea what stat and abilities that monster will have and will need to trial and error to find out. To make an informed decision in a strategy game like this you really need detail info that the game does not provide. Is a summoning a giant turtle better or a sea serpent? Who knows? Just toss a coin to decide!
- Really dated graphics
- No control over the actual battle itself. You really need good understanding of the games' mechanics (which are cryptic and inaccessible) to script your troops to do combos and perform desirably.
Pros
- Huge variety of customizations.
You can design your avatar, a pretender god in multiple ways that will drastically affect your game. Your god might be good at combat, single handedly defeating whole armies, support your faction by providing various faction wide bonus or give your troops powerful buffs in battle. The possibilities are endless.
Not only can you customize your avatar, you can customize your heroes by giving them various crafted artifacts while a variety of effects. The kind of artifacts that you can create are limited by your god's and your mages' power in the different schools of magic, so careful planning is needed.
- The game mechanics is excellent once you grasps the basics. The the variety of tactics and combos that can be pulled off are almost limitless.
- Many factions to choose from that play very differently from one another. The lore of the game is refreshingly different from standard fantasies.
don't be fooled by the graphics, this is an epic, epic game that you should definetly get if you enjoy fantasy and/or strategy games. tons of units and interesting factions
I am the type of gamer who loves complexity and choice over graphics. With that in mind, this is one of the best civilization type games I have ever played. Its similar to the old 'Master of Magic' but WAY beefed up. Random world generation, different elemental magics, different races, hundreds... thousands? of different units. Each with their own stats page, armors, weapons, etc. Cast global enchantments, combat spells, or ritual spells. immensly complex magic item forging system, massive spell books, great hero and levelling systems. Endless opportunities with the right Pretender God, using the right spells. Like I said, the graphics are... basic, but it's the content I am focused on. If you like civilization, Master of Magic, and Dwarf Fortress, sign up.
The game is awesome
Всем привет ! В сегоднешнем обзоре я расскажу про игру DOMINIONS 3!
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Dominions 3: The Awakening — пошаговая стратегия, созданная
разработчиками Illwinter (eng) и изданная 29 сентября 2006 года Shrapnel
Games.
В игре соединяются простой внешний вид и очень большое количество
стратегических возможностей, включая 1500 юнитов, 600 заклинаний
и 300 магических предметов. Игроки обычно планируют битвы, а не
управляют ими.
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Но давайте отбросим фармальности и перейдём к моему личному мнению:
я скажу, что в этой игре нет смысла и это не какая не стратегия!
Эту игру вообще нет смысла покупать и играть! Я не хочу обижать
разработчиков,но это не игра го*но!
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Вооооооооообщем: я не доволен и нерекомендую эту игру никому !
Игра скучная и не стоит своих денег.
Игре я ставлю: 1/10.
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Если вам понравился мой обзор почему бы не поставить ему лайк и если вы
не у меня в друзьях то добавляйтесь!!!
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Einfach nur Müll
The interface is kludgy. There are lots of choices for units, but no easy way to compare or manage them. The lack of combat control makes the extra effort into the variety of units moot anyway.
Amazing turn based strat with tons of units and different races. Very Deep and can be a lot to take in but it's very do able as long as you enjoy a challenge. Casual Strat gamers need not apply!
ONLY for the hardcore imo.
ORIGINALITY in the way this turn based strat game is presented
OUTRAGEOUS amount of content
Get Dom4 instead = 9/10
dom 3 = 8/10
its kinda fun
I had fun while I learning mechanics of the game.After I get how to use magic properly I stopped playing :) -which cost 70hrs on steam and more on my old machine. Totally worth it as a strategy addicted gamer.
A very percious advise from me ; Easy Ai is not easy , only parameter they are in disadvantage is resources and gold, their gameplay are all same: Perilious , rat , cruel :(
This game has it all...many different races, lots of units and spells.
Huge amount of research and some building mixed with turn based action..i love it.
I allready bought next one, but im still learning new thing from this game everyday.
This is one of my favorite strategy games. I absolutely love it. But look out.
The game isn't easy to learn.
Nothing in the way of a tutorial leaves this very complex looking game impossible to learn. hard to give it a thumbs up if i cant even play it.
This game is not for everyone, but those who enjoy it will really love it. [b] Your Mileage May Vary! [/b] If you're not sure, try the demo and read the tutorial section in the manual first.
Do you feel that fancy graphics are an important part of games? If so, Dominions is probably [b] NOT [/b] for you. The graphics in the Dominions series are adequate to convey necessary information to the player. I find they have a certain charm, but many disagree.
Do you enjoy reading hundreds of pages of manual and forum discussions, and spending dozens of hours experimenting, to try to understand deeply complex systems? If so, you might enjoy the Dominions series. The basics (building units, moving them around the world, setting up formations, giving initial battle orders, casting a few spells, crafting enchanted equipment) aren't too hard to learn, though you will need to read the manual. Designing thugs and super-combatants (units specially outfitted and/or buffed to be able to single-handedly wipe out armies and kill gods) takes a bit longer. After a hundred hours, I'm barely sarting to get a handle on how to really use magic effectively.
If you like your strategy games deep and complicated, and you've got some spare time, try the Dominions series.
I'd only recommend this game to a certain kind of gamer. There's quite a learning curve..I still don't really know what I'm doing. Virtually no tutorial, and a 150+ page instruction book. Having said that, this game is very fun once you get a modest understanding of it. Definitely not a game for everyone, but if you're into hardcore tabletop strategy, this game is for you.
A good game for the amateurs of strategy/religion. However, the AI is pretty dumb, so it's better (and I believe intended) to play with friends.
I actually had no fun in this game what-so-ever. I thought it was an RTS, but its not, its a dated turn-based let the pc do everything strategy game. You "view" the battles, so you can't actually real time control the fights. You can build the troops, manage states, and conquer the map, but without any real fighting it feels more like a fancy chessgame that you could really invest alot of time, unfortunately I don't love grinding and if you are one of those 90's Risk-esk gaming type go ahead and give it a go, but for me, this game just didn't catch my eye. I normally don't give negative reviews but even if its discounted this game really didn't have much to offer in terms of fun.
GOOD!NICE
Petit jeu de stratégie sympathique, mais maitrise de l'Anglais recommandé.
Par contre c'est trop cher pour ce que c'est.
BLUF: This game's pretty awesome, if you can get past the ancient graphics and focus on the creative/imaginative aspects.
I loved the game. Yes, it is complex, but I think the complexities are actually exagerated. It's basically raise armies, research spells, invade provinces, collect gold, etc. But somehow I find it 20x more engrossing than any other "4x" game (which I don't think it quite is). There are little quirks, like that it is turn-based, but then all the movement happens at once for everyone, seasons affect gold income, but they also affect how many mushrooms grow in the forest for your witches to collect, and it's all these quirks and the plethora of races to play that make the game world feel alive. I love how you are slowly introduced to the lore; it never feels like a chore to read it to get into the game, you just pick up some of it as your priests randomly summon some ultra-powerful seraphim that then randomly gets itself killed by wandering around the map.
Sure, there's certain techniques that are pretty powerful, and certain races in certain ages are far stronger than others, but it's a game you can learn, and like life not everything has to be balanced. It's fun to learn, fun to play, and fun to experiment with. Enjoy, especially if it's on sale (though I get all my games on sale :)). Also, check out Conquest of Elysium. Same developers, also very interesting game, and generally much cheaper.
I have purchased this game a while ago but only recently I had a chance to play it.
While HoMM, AoW, and Disciples series may have their own merits, this is the game that I was looking for. Namely, a Fantasy strategic WAR game.
In this game, logistics and grand planning matter.
This is a very rare game that handles grand warfare in a fantasy world very well.
* Learning the game might take some time. But tutorial is good. And play a small game with only one AI. Then move to medium map with 3 AI. After several games, you know what to do.
This game really doesnt costs its money. And really needs at least tutorial.
Dominions III > Civ V.
Brilliant. If "Fall From Heaven" (Civ IV mod) met grand strategy simulation.
Glorious & wicked: if the graphics were realistic the game would be illegal.
Imaginationless megalomaniacs need not apply.
Im not really quite sure what a dominion is, but Im sure its got a few, though three of them might be pushing it. 1/2
I've vastly enjoyed this game.
I'll expand this reveiw at some point, but the short version is:
Tons of Units
Lots of Customizability
A rather interesting game where you attempt to rule over the land with your new diety and wipe out all opposing gods. Simplistic in its design, it still has some veriety with loads of magical items, lots of magic spells, and insane amounts of troop types.
All i can say is that this is an amazing game, i recommend it to everyone
Dominions 3: The Awakening is a simple-looking strategy game with poor graphics. It does certainly have poor graphics, however it is not simple, as you get intot he game things cam become very complex (especially on larger maps), but the game is straightfoward. Sometimes confusing, but that is because there are a wide range of spells and abilities that can do very complex and damaging things. All in all I heartily reccomend this game; 9/10 (as there are some annoying problems in the game, and very rarely is a gmae perfect, i\I cannot give it a 10/10).
You can make people age fast n ♥♥♥♥ i give it five thumbs up out of yes
Если вы из России, то прочитайте этот обзор.
1. У меня руссификатор ♥♥♥♥♥ крашнул игру перевел весь текст на инопланетный язык.
2. Игра очень скучная и однообразная, бесполезная и бессмысленная.
3. Собирая значки в Steam на нее очень часто выподают купоны на 90,75,66 % скидки. Даже если у вас есть купон на 99% не покупайте игру, если никогда не играли в подобные жанры игры.
4. Я не понимаю кто эти люди, кто пишет положительные отзывы к этому выблюю в стиме, игра действительно не играбельна. Это стратегией то назвать нельзя. Это просто совокупность изображений на экране, которые не имеют анимаций. Блин про боёвку вообше нечего говорить....я даже не смог поучавствовать в сражениях.
ДЛЯ МЕНЯ ИГРА ПОЛНОЕ УНЫЛОЕ, СЕРО-КОРИЧНЕВОЕ ГОВНО. Если вам не жалко денег, то покупайте и плачте.
Si te gusta la estrategia de verdad y no tienes miedo a disfrutar de multitud de opciones diferentes, este es tu juego. Sólo puedo decir una cosa, cómpralo! Hace falta incentivar maravillas como ésta.
非常厚重的一款奇幻架空世界策略游戏。大陆的每个国家，每一段历史，每一个民族的细节都有严谨详实的设定，从接触游戏的第一分钟起，一股宏达的历史感便扑面而来。就好像你真的是大陆上的一份子，背负几千年的历史，整个国家的兴衰荣辱。游戏的类型是大战场即时战斗，就是全战那样的（虽然画面非常简陋）。
游戏里的国家和现实也有一定的关系，比如东方国家到了后期会有虾兵蟹将龙女等两期兵种，也会有河童等怪物，特性和现实中的神话也有一定的关联。再比如说北方某个国家有一种野猪，没有任何攻击力但是被杀了每天都能复活，还可以供给100人的补给。据说就是北欧神话中的一种猪，我也不太懂。
本游戏一直是个小众游戏，但是无论国内外也都有一些忠诚的FANS。可惜的是国内一直没人汉化，所以英语水平不是特别好的人就不要接触了，内容实在太浩大了，啃不下去的。实在是太可惜了。
Dwarf Fortress in global strategies genre. Thousands (literary) of units, hundreds of spells, tens of nations, infinite number of [winning] strategies. Really, the scope of what you can do in this game is astonishing.
The only real problem with this game is getting through a steep learning curve - manual for this game is 300 pages, it's highly recommended to read it (and you'd certainly refer to it time to time) and even manual doesn't cover all the things there are in the game.
Many turn based games try to blend high strategy with RPG elements but they fall short when compared to Dominions. With such a dizzying array of nations, units, spells and commanders coupled with a massive number of player made maps and an engine that provides real strategic play, dominions contains an eternity of replay value for those who can grasp its juicy offerings.
I enjoy this game but for once I would like a diplomatic system added to future dominions and maybe a kingdom based on vampires and undead since you won't base on race but this game to me gets an 8 out of 10 mainly thanks to the gameplay and the fun you can have.
If you aren't sure - find the demo, which blocks technology progress at something like level 5. This game has a very long (but not too steep) learning curve. I'm just now beginning to read the manual that goes along with it.
So what do you want from a game?
If you want a way to spend your time which is compelling: maybe sitting in front of the computer looking at the game itself and going through some grand strategy plan, or it might be reading the book that will gently unfold "every byte in the game" for you. If this sounds like fun (and it is!) then trust me, you won't regret buying this game.
Every "square" on the board begins at the start of the game as neutral (except for starting cities). As armies conquer squares, they contribute to your economy, but they are also then easily conquered unless you station vast defending armies (which you're rather use for conquering new squares). So it eventually becomes a land-grab game that I still haven't quite gotten my head around. It's quite difficult.
The depth in the game is an insane amount of content. Every time I play I'll discover some new item I didn't know could be forged. I'm sure there are people who know all this stuff, but it's quite something discovering new items or spells and the possibility of new strategies as a result.
There are also placement and timing strategies to look at.
And afflictions. I LOVE that heroes in the game can have afflictions!
Religion plays a big role adding flavor to the game and I still haven't quite grasped the historical references other than resemblences to myth. It's almost alien almost familiar - I like how they did it.
Dominions 3 also seems to be designed to play multiplayer by e-mail, so all moves by all players are concurrent (rather than taking turns) - this is one of the few turn-based games I'm aware of which uses concurrent moves - which is why battles are auto-resolved (they have to be). Even though battles are auto-resolved, as already mentioned, there are troop placement and timing strategies which will make a huge difference in battle outcomes (guaranteeing that troops arive at the front line all at the same time becomes a consideration).
[EDIT]
Cons:
The game does have a downside, which is the lack of automating some very repetitive tasks, such as what actions you always want a specific unit to use. My impression is that the game designers are really good at designing gameplay and background, but horrible at designing "workflow", which are repetitive tasks that eventually wear down the player. In it's defense, the game seems to be designed for multiplayer via e-mail - where you might make a few moves a day and games could go on for a very long time - rather than single player versus AI where you're making several moves every few minutes.
