I guess someone has to compile a list of important changes, because somehow developer, publisher and marketing team failed to do so. Result: very, very few Dominions3 reviews, less than Dominions2 reviews.
- All nations split into eras: early, middle, late. No longer you have seemingly weak* nations placed against devastating war engines, such as Tien Chi: Barbarian Kings against Arcoscephale in Dominions2.
Eras also serve a bit like difficulty setting.
Early era has lots of magic (6 from capitol), few archers, no crossbows, no knights and few units with lances, and heavy infantry has 10 protection. There are some very powerful mages to recruit in early era, or even divine beings.
Mid era is quite similar to Dominions2 and most of your old friends are there.
Late era is quite decadent, having nations like TC:Barbarian Kings, Black Forest/Iron Faith Ulm, C'tis: Desert Tombs, a bit corrupted Marignon, R'lyeh
reamlands etc. Late era has fewer magic, lots of heavy armor, and crossbows are possibly as common as bows in early age.
- There are no special themes, each nation is independent. As a result, you're no longer forced to take any scales to play any nation (except common sense - preferred heat etc). You can experiment more.
- Some new nations: Japanese-ish Jomon/Shinuyama/SomethingElse, Sauromatia, Kailasa/Bandar Log/Patala, Marverni (Celts-Gauls), Agartha(subterrean/troglodytes/etc), Helheim, Lanka (last patch),
Some nations/themes gone and are now national global spells:
Carrion Woods, Soul Gate...
- There's 2x more supplies, 2x more gold income, and research is 2x harder by default. National units see much more play. Buildings are 2x more expensive, too.
- There are very varied and defined random magic picks now, for example machakan mages have FEDN in addition to their static paths. This means nations have certain magical identity they never had before.
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all independent mages became weaker, to promote use of national ones.
- no one seems to be complaining about SC's anymore. They complain about bless strategies, which are more powerful than ever.
- At the start of game, pretender may be awake, dormant, or imprisoned for extra design points. They wake after some time. Scales and blesses aren't bothered by sleeping pretenders.
- old age mechanic: some more powerful mages (and few regular units) start old, resulting in penalties to stats, and occasionally causing aflictions, eventually disease and death. Many ways to remove aflictions won't remove ones caused by old age.
Growth scale reduces chance of getting old age afliction, as opposed to Death. Nature magic greatly increases mage's lifespan. Death magic reduces chance of getting old age aflictions. Fire magic users live slightly shorter (5 years/level ?)
- much, much more national spells. In extreme cases, like new nation Lanka, around 15 spells exclusively available to one nation.
- interface improvements. Scouts now visible on map. Same for commanders with gems or aflictions.
- suprisingly good random map editor. And maps generated by it are visually much prettier than I expected.
- Ghost Riders now level9 and requires around DDDDDD.
- You can no longer choose your fort type. Fort type now depends on province's terrain. This makes many provinces strategically important, and makes watchtower spam impossible. And people actually use other forts now.