Ok. Here it is:
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Dominions 3 (PC, Linux, Mac)
Wanted: A god. Job description includes taking care of running an empire, expanding its borders and eliminating the competition. Applicant is required to possess endless patience and a knack for illogical thinking. Remuneration: Life eternal.
Dominions 3 is truly a god simulator, but not in the beer and pretzels manner. The Dominions vision of godhood is born when a pack of board game freaks get to realize their dreams. The result is a game that can only be understood after hours of poring over a 300-page manual. If this sounds promising, read on.
Dreams of a light weight strategy in the style of Master of Magic can be forgotten right at the start, because Dominions 3 is a serious game strongly reminiscent of the role playing and board games of two decades ago. The already mentioned manual is not included just to lend weight to the box, and includes not only the instructions essential to play the game, but hundreds of pages of tables of different spells, creatures and abilities.
To Become a Caliph in the Caliph's Place
The player steps into the boots, roots or clay bowl of an ambitious pretender to the title of overgod. There is a horde of premade pretender gods and with the god generator you can create precisely the kind of god and religion you want. There is am abundance of parameters, so creating Cthulhu himself is no problem at all. Just as easily you can create the world's smartest shrub that dispenses love and understanding to its followers from a hut on the mountain.
When the god and its followers are generated, the great journey to become the One True Religion begins, hampered by dozens of rival newborn faiths. Territorial conquest can be pursued by the power of weapons, diplomacy or faith. Where one religion equips its heroes with magical items and sets them at the head of a vast legion to conquer foreign lands, another will send its humble preachers to spread the Truth to enemy lands.
The size, shape and content of the game area varies greatly depending on the scenario. In quicker scenarios, the world to conquer contains only a few dozen provinces. The larger ones will occupy your time for weeks on end. The game includes excellent editors and capabilities that allow you to modify everything, from units to world to scenarios.
The actual combat engine follows in the footsteps of the earlier Dominions titles and is pure math. The player sets tactics, routes and formations for his armies. After this is done, the computer will determine what happens in battles. The player watches a battle replay afterward to witness a mountain-sized blob of good destroy hundreds of enemy spearmen. Oh how I wish this basic idea could be combined to a battle engine of the Total War type!
The Heavenly Legion
Like the previous Dominions titles, in addition to the gods, Dominions 3 includes hundreds of different units, each with its pros and cons, even if the only pro is sometimes "dirt cheap". Besides the common grunts, the game is full of different types of heroes who gather experience, scars and new items from battlefields like the god they follow. There are hundreds of spells, magic items, rituals and other methods to help climb the ladder of life and godhood.
Under correct supervision, the weakling hedge wizard of the beginning can transform into a legendary messenger of evil whose spells bring the world to eternal darkness and drown half the planet. On the other hand, the mighty god of the player can just as easily get creamed at the hour of his victory by an enemy hero who has discovered a legendary magic sword, which means a quick retreat back to the swamp to nurse wounds and plot revenge. Both examples are also possible in the game.
The best parts of the game are its open-ended playability and incredible depth. The replay value is absolutely staggering, because every single game is different with regard to what the computer does, but additionally the player can radically change his own experience by creating a different sort of god than the last time.
Despite its immense depth, Dominions 3 is not without its problems. The almost amateurish development team can be seen and felt in the dull appearance and clumsy user interface. Even though you learn it in time, the illogical combination clicks and endless menus will be confusing for a long while.
Dominions 3 will undoubtedly also not please all players, or even many. It requires a massive amount of immersion and time to become entertaining. Yet the effort is ultimately rewarded, because gamers of Ye Olde Board Game School and strategy fans will hardly find a better game of this genre very quickly.
Developer: Illwinter Game Design
Publisher: Shrapnel Games
Tested on: Intel Core2Duo E6600, Geforce 8800 GTS, 2 Gt DDR2-800
Available for: PC, Mac OSX, Linux
System requirements: 600 Mhz Pentium II, 256 MB RAM, 500 MB hard drive space, GeForce or equivalent OpenGL-compatible graphics card
Multiplayer: 21 players over LAN, PbeM or hotseat
Other: Sold only through the home pages of the game
Home page:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/Dom3/
by Miikka Lehtonen, eDome (Original review in Finnish)
Translation to English by Esko Halttunen (Edi)