Dominions 4 Reviews & Previews Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

I'll be posting links to various previews at gaming sites in this thread, so keep an eye on it.

REVIEWS

• Rock, Paper, Shotgun - The Complex God
• Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Wot I Think (Single Player Review)
• Strategy Informer review
• One Guy, Too Many Games review (by RobC04)
• Dominions 4: Gods at War (SP review at Indie Game Magazine)
• Liquid Electron review
• Gizorama review
• Twinfinite review
• The Shelter Network review (Italian) - He also wrote one of the best previews, to which this is the sequel
• VGnetwork (Italian)
• Gamerscritic.it (Italian)
• Gameglobal.de (German)

PREVIEWS:

• Dominions 4 preview at Space-BIFF!
• What's New in Dominions 4 at Matchsticks for My Eyes
• Dominions 4 at Gaming Shogun
• James Allen's Video at Out of Eight (almost half an hour long and not really worth the time)
• Preview at Clannofgamers.com
• Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension – Il godgame con la bestemmia attorno - A preview in Italian at theindieshelter.com, for those who know the language or have the patience to use Google Translate. Good stuff.
• Dominions 4: Deo Optimo Maximo - Preview at Gazette du Wargamer (French)

OTHER MEDIA

• Interview with Matchstickeyes
• Three Moves Ahead Podcast

Edited by: Edirr

That video is a bit unfair really and at times he's saying things that are just false. I guess that happens when you have minimal Dominions experience and try to play without a manual. Nice to see some of the new features in action though.

Yeah, I linked the video before I had watched it. And I will take the link down as soon as we have a better video available. My cats could have put together a better representation on their own without supervision and the worst part is that the reviewer actually knows Dominions from doing a review of Dominions 3 so it's more like he didn't even try. I was not impressed.

The first two are good.

The third is useless...copy paste of Illwinter's site except for a paragraph.

The video is awful..the guy doesn't even choose his nation and his pretender ? Wtf

There's a preview up at Clannofgamers.com If you're looking for more details of specific nations etc, that's not there, it's more like general impressions of someone completely new to Dominions.

Tibbit wrote: Playability

I am sure that if you are a Dominions fan you will have no trouble navigating the menus and getting on with the gameplay, but one thing that is very important is that the game is available to new players. And I can say that with the simple UI and the 'first time player guide' that was given to me this game was easy to get a hold of. I can not say that I am a master of the game now, but that's ok. The game is very easy to understand, but if you truly want to learn this game you will have to spend time learning it. The phrase "Easy to learn, difficult to master" fits this game to a key. As someone who doesn't play a lot of 4x strategy games I can say that this was one of the easiest games to get into.

If you are interested in 4x strategy games that I would say that you should pick this game up. It is quite a bit of fun. If you are new to the genre but would like to learn then this is the best one I have found.

Emphasis in the quotes mine.

That's the first time I've seen Dominions characterized as "easy to get into", but there it is. It should also give some indication of just how useful the manual is going to be, since the new player guide, like the manual, is written by Bruce Geryk.

Edirr wrote: That's the first time I've seen Dominions characterized as "easy to get into", but there it is. It should also give some indication of just how useful the manual is going to be, since the new player guide, like the manual, is written by Bruce Geryk.

I'm inclined to say Dom3 is pretty easy to get into. As in "being able to get things done". Even someone without experience in strategy/tactics games can recruit units, set up a formation (even if it's actually less efficient than not giving them formations at all) and conquer some independent provinces or fight AI on even ground without much trouble. Conversely, even in games like Civilization you can completely fuck up and hit the brick wall (like prioritizing hammers in citizen screen to the point where you are left with minimal population and unable to produce anything, the thing that you tried to prevent by focusing on hammers) and get ravaged by the AI or even neutrals.

Added the preview at theindieshelter.com to the opening post. Knowledge of Italian or patience to use Google Translate required, but the writing style is an absolute blast.

Let me add one, it's in french but with google translate you should get it.And there is a lot of picture that anyone would like to see...Wargamer.fr

@varsovie-pat

Gem Gens like clam of pearls working only for battle purpose? No more Astral pearl accumulation? interesting........

Not interesting, awesome!

It may solve one problem, that led to CBM......and these are still useful magical items. And we can see at the screenshots some magical items, that helps hiding the real strengh of an army....

I told you the pics worth it. ^^I love the new item, IMHO it's a little bit more powerful because it allows you to "fuel" an army without lab, and worth even more gem if you fight every turns.But it also remove the strategic impact and its imbalances (the strong get stronger effect) and take one of your rare misc sloth on your frail warmages.So far I like the new items, and also the fact that their effects are much clearer than in dom 3.

Thanks for linking the Gazette du Wargamer preview! Just read that using Google Translate, atrocious as it is. The screenshots there are particularly excellent, so everyone interested in some of the new stuff should take a look.

yup the screenshot are pretty nifty, the gems generators new editions are cool as well as the new "inspiring" trait (even if I hope that "inspiring researcher doesn't stack), the various deception magical items also look like it can allow you to make some great misinformation,

With the pushed back release date , do you think its possible we could get a preview of the teamplay ? ( even if its just a person who has a bunch of AI teammates vs a team of AI ).....and please pick someone who knows what they are doing so they know whats different from the SP game.

Actually yeah, a preview video or screenshots of a teamplay game would be just great.

From what I remember, the disciples in the team get to pick a leader chassis that is different from the line-up of pretenders? I'm very curious about this.

HangPhyr wrote: Actually yeah, a preview video or screenshots of a teamplay game would be just great.

From what I remember, the disciples in the team get to pick a leader chassis that is different from the line-up of pretenders? I'm very curious about this.

I believe there is a fair amount of info out on the pretender design in team play that I can share ( feel free to correct if not completely accurate )
.....Leader gets more points ( assuming this is because he has to put points in dominion while the rest dont )
.....If the Leader chooses to be sleeping or imprisoned it affected the disciples. The disciples can make this affect worse than the leader for extra points and it will just affect them.
...... Everyone can build their own pretender with their own points.

Also Known : no team battles ( will always be 1v1 )

What Im mostly concerned about is how teams interact with each other in game.

No three or four faction battle royales? That is a pretty awful limitation. Dominions megagames on megamaps are the most fun.

hairrorist wrote: No three or four faction battle royales? That is a pretty awful limitation. Dominions megagames on megamaps are the most fun.

I think what he meant was the battles themselves. From what I remember in videos, there can be several teams in the game.

Thank God! Can we get a confirmation on that?

HangPhyr wrote:

hairrorist wrote: No three or four faction battle royales? That is a pretty awful limitation. Dominions megagames on megamaps are the most fun.

I think what he meant was the battles themselves. From what I remember in videos, there can be several teams in the game.

*she....and yes, thats what I meant.....several teams, but battles are reported as being one nation vs one nation, nothing like 2 teammates vs 3 teammates in battles ( makes me sad but I can get over it. )

Yeah honestly 3-faction battles would change -everything- about orders and troop placement, and really, three-faction battles just don't really happen.
Multiple nations on the same side vs multiple nations on another side, yes.
Battles with three armies each trying to destroy the other two? No. I'm not going to say never, obviously, and there's grey areas, but in general they are very rare. If you count guerrilla groups I can think of more but still two sides generally form an ad-hoc alliance or are marching under the banner of a previously arranged long term alliance.

well being able to use my mages in battles to help out my teammates armies may be something that has to wait for another day, but it sure would be fun.

Edited by: josieKatt

Only the most incompetent commanders would place an army in a situation with that much entropy.

Just found this video by a dude who had done an LP of Dominions 3, where he compares the differences between Dominions 3 and 4 which I found interesting. Kind of lengthy at 45 minutes, and not the same in depth knowledge as maerlande's videos, but still enjoyable!