The Front Page - Review: Dominion 4

Single Issue XI (Written by Dante Von Hespburg)

Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

Dominions 4 'You are a God!' Those words seem to pique interest at the Gamers Gazette, and indeed why would they not! It panders to a dark, deep-seated need, an insatiable demand for adoration and worship (Preferably with sacrifice...and chocolate...) and the raising of mine glory... or is that just me?

Ehm. Anyway. These are the first words seen etched into the Illwinter website for their latest iteration of Dominions 4 Thrones of Ascension. A game, for those unfamiliar with it's previous incarnations (Pun central!) about ascending the greasy ladder of ultimate godhood. Hacking down pretenders who wish to sully your rightful throne of maleficence (ok, or benevolence).

The Glorious Empire of the Monolith Mono-ra arises! Praise be. (That’s right, I’m an over-sized rock…)

I’ll say from the start now. The graphics of Dominions is and always will be poor. If your the kind of person who needs a graphical extravaganza on the scale of Atillia or Skyrim (with mods), you’ll be outraged at the simplistic pixels of Dominions 4. But for me, this is where the strength of the game truly lies, it gets by on it’s sheer depth and complexity- it’s the kind of game you need to mentally prepare yourself to jump in on, the one you’ll be laying in your bed until the wee hours forming strategies for your next move.

Incidentally too the simplistic graphics make the game incredibly modable, like literally ‘Go into Paint and splash around’ modable. A key reason for the games vibrant and lively modding community.

The action takes place on a 'Grand Strategy' turn-based format, with both large-scale randomly generated campaign map (or picked scenario) and a 'battle' map. You expand and build up an empire by conquering provinces, dealing with taxes and resources (specifically for magic- more on that later) and raising and maintaining armies and Citadels, dealing with local populations and 'world events', and if your feeling particulars evil, corralling slaves for use in the arguably over-powered 'blood-magic'...filthy...

It's slightly different to your typical Total War or Age of Wonders experience in that battles play-out without your direct interaction during the engagement- instead much like Gratuitous Space battles- prior to the scrum, you form up your regiments, give them their suicidal tactics and dubious formations and then let them rip at the enemy, all in glorious pixelated carnage.

Going Ape with the ‘Lanka’, Mono-ra’s own Monkey soldiers (How could a monolith not inspire monkey worshipers?)

This is a model of combat that some may find off-putting, but one which after a few engagements i rather liked. It puts more emphasis on a more 'realistic' style of warfare in which you as a distant god (or pillar in my case...) have no control once your armies engage. Instead the onus is on your generals and armies prior tactics. Depth is added to the system on quite an unprecedented level with each individual unit (of which armies may contain thousands) having their own stats, their own age (Yep...veterans dying of old age is a very real issue), their own 'health' which is affected by things like being maimed, wounded, diseased or indeed, blessed to put some positive spin on things. Hit boxes are a thing for small and larger units, the weapons and armor displayed on each of your loyal chaps actually count stat wise- Atlantean basalt swords having a significantly different effects than the short swords of Ermor's Principes. Morale is also a major factor to be aware of.

Stats, Stats, and more stats. I mean Encumbrance!? I have at least 500 of these guys running around and I've only conquered two villages thus far...

It's the magic system where the game gets truly complex though and may put off those who feel there is such a thing as 'too much' micromanagement.

You may set your spells up for each individual mage, priest, demon, angel, magic user or strange alien space monster now living in the deep (The game has many many units depending upon race and 'era') prior to fighting, but this is very reliant on micromanagement Each individual caster will have their own level of casting, which gets better with experience, but also random spheres of magic, and individually how many resources (gems and the like)they require to have in their inventory to begin casting. This is further added to by the use of 'mage connections', several spell-users pooling together to empower one in certain situations with various styles of mind links. So here it gets rather interesting- depending upon your Race creation options where you choose spheres of magic for your empire and 'Pantokrator' (Your Aspiring God), and the research into those and other spheres you do- as the game progresses your mages will be able to use that and more, and will benefit or suffer depending upon their personal talents in the overall theme of your strategy of play.

Spells rain down fury. Ouch.

Overall the magic system is probably one of the most complex I've encountered in any strategy game of this scale, with truly world ending spells at your disposal towards the late game, of course surviving to that point in itself can be hard.

The Game is as you can probably tell by now is quite ‘niche’. Micromanagement on a vast scale is the order of the day, and while this is something i personally quite like, i can see it being a major turn-off for those who don’t particularly like having to watch over every single aspect (and then some!) of your Empire.

Where perhaps though this can be forgiven though is in the sheer wealth and variety of knowledge and races on offer. 51 nations spread over 3 distinct eras. Each one with it’s own completely individual ‘theme’ taken from our real-world mythology and history from all corners of the globe. I’m not talking your typical Orcs and Goblins here, but Empires like Niefelheim- based on Norse mythology from Edda and later conceptions of Iron Age Scandinavia, or perhaps the Lanka, inspired from Hindu myths- or if we HAVE to be mainstream Pythium- The Byzantine Empire...if they suddenly developed a snake fetish.

The three Era’s coincide with the waning of magic. The Late Era will see a reliance on good old fashioned blood and steel, while earlier Era's require a more mystical approach- Some nations like Pythium which is a direct successor of Ermor (Rome), follow a ‘historical’ progression, staying familiar but with a new twist over the ages. But many nations, R’lyeah for instance, inspired by Cthulhu mythos of sea-peoples from a stellar void uniquely have a new level of complexity- their denizens going quite literally insane, their dreams every turn causing reality to bend for good or ill, and whose population will be in a constant process of chaos. Others like Lemuria, another successor state of Emor has issues with a population that will consistently die off and whose lands will be blighted forcing necromancy to be the order of the day (Wait..why is that bad!).

The god designer itself is extensive, your pretender being represented from many different types of potential avatar- from rocks, to fountains, a giant female headed Griffin, a serpent, Zeus, a well-endowed lady or even a pile of bones on the floor. Their ability in different spheres of magic and the Nations ‘personality’ also being customisable.

Yep from all those epic Gods...i chose the rock...

Again things can get quite complicated here. Put the icy nation of Jotunheim under your sunny pretender god and watch the negative attributes role in as your people wilt under your radiant blaze. Matching a God's stats or 'Build' to a nation is something in itself that can take a while to master. A key rule I've found is to not fiddle with the more unique nations and stick with old reliable humans...or monkeys… for the first few games to get a grip on things.

My noble menhir in the flesh...so to speak...

Dominions 4 supports both single and multi-player gameplay of up to 32 players or AI nations. The more the merrier, but also the longer turns will take to process! The AI is quite capable in it’s own right, but does take an ‘Occam's Razor’ approach, playing along very vanilla lines of conquest and army bashing to grind you into dust. Diplomacy is almost non-existent with the AI, the best you’ll get is when sharing a border not to attack them or position your own powerful armies as a deterrent while they deal with someone else. Unless of course playing the ‘Disciples’ game-mode in which you may start under or ruling several other AI nations who will be in eternal alliance with you.

It’s going up against fellow humans though where the game truly comes alive. Not only will cut-throat diplomacy and Game of Thrones style betrayals be the order of the day, but also nefarious strategies will be employed making use of the games complexities to the max. Some players may sit all game in their starting Citadel, playing the nice guy, only to suddenly unleash late game an apocalyptic spell on everyone else, raising all the worlds dead thus far to wreak havoc and killing off populations by the thousand each turn with pestilence. There are a myriad ways and schemes one may use to come out on top which will make for some truly memorable moments.

The downsides being the community isn't too large (darn those niche games), commitment to a time-scale is a key (Some large games can go on for months) and also unless specifically joining a ‘newbie’ game, the learning curve can be absolutely brutal with players taking a ‘no mercy’ approach. Which means player retention may be an issue- no one likes getting totally slaughtered while knowing nothing. For someone like me who thus far hasn't gone too deep into the magic system and who has absolutely no knowledge of the intricate spell combinations or any other fey subtleties, i saw my monkey armies mown down by the thousand by the 7th turn from far-away sorcery, which i had, and still have no idea how to counter. It made for a brutal, but fun struggle.

All in all, Dominions 4 is no game for the faint of heart. It’s a graphically basic, yet brutally complex turn-based strategy that will have you reeling from the onslaught, and reaching for the Manuel (quite constantly). It’s not a ‘casual’ game that you can load up for a half-hour play around, but as i found one where you have to set aside time to get properly stuck in. Multi-player is it’s key strength, but it suffers from a small, quite close-knit community which i know can be intimidating for some to partake in. An easy way around is rope in some friends to join you on the trail of tears. A very unique experience overall.

Now...back to the glorious Ape armies, Mono-Ra’s name shall rise again

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Review: Dominion 4

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