Redpill me on Dominions

This. Someone give a good rundown, please.

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>You are a God! You are master and ruler of a loyal nation. You have unimaginable powers at your disposal. You have claimed this world as yours. But there are others who stand in your way. You must defeat and destroy these pretenders. Only then can you ascend to godhood and become the new Pantokrator.

Build up your armies, summon monsters and heroes and give them magical weapons and then go whack the other pretenders.
Multiplayer is over the email, one game can last from a few weeks to over year easily.
Or you can play quick (2-3hours) skirmishers during the evening if you feel like it.

You don't control the battles, you only give the orders for a first few turns of the battle, then the AI takes over. So you need to have a good plan, and anticipate what enemy is going to do, to battle to win.

You can trade and make alliances in the multiplayer freely, but there's nothing holding you, or your neighbor from backstabbing each other at any moment.
There's huge amount of content and different ways to win the game.

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Yeah there is no point playing 3 or 4 anymore, unless you want to try some ancient mods or play against AI.
5 Is way to go for multiplayer.

Mods scene is alive and well. People have made lots of different mod nations and we play pure mod nation games every now and then.
Pic related is one where I am Avernum/Exile, attacking Elves from warhammer fantasy.

There are also some mods that do more magic overhaul / more items and such or change the game rules.

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You play as a god trying to become the new Supreme God, leading your nation of worshippers. There's almost a hundred factions (divided to three playable ages, you don't advance from age to age during the game, some factions appear in some form in all ages, others get destroyed or absorbed or transformed in the lore), most of them based on a mix of history and real-world mythology (Spanish Inquisition, apemen enslaved by Hindu demon ogres, Yuan dynasty, Zoroastrian birdmen, Atlantian eskimos, undead Romans after they fuck up and release the death god that is you, ghost Romans after remnants of Western Empire fuck up again, Rephaite giants from Old Testament, etc), some 3k unit types, almost a thousand spells (from basic fireballs to reality-altering rituals like Burden of Time that causes everyone in the world to age and die at an accelerated rate - the age of individual units is tracked - or Astral Corruption that pollutes the source of magic and causes Lovecraftian Horrors to attack anyone who dares to cast a non-blood spell) and magical artifacts you can craft.

It's very much a wargame with little to no base-building and economy being very much abstracted. Instead, the focus is in operational and tactical level (you don't have direct control over battles but you can deploy your troops and mages and give them scripted orders, trying to counter what you predict your opponent is going to do: for example, you could counter Earthquake by casting Mass Flight, say). Strategical component comes into play in form of magical research that effectively is your tech tree.

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It's possible to develop extremely hard counters to the kind of tactics the AI uses (such as using magical equipment and buff spells to turn powerful units into so-called supercombatants that can wipe out armies single-handedly) and it won't change what it's doing. This limits SP potential for most people, but it does have a lot of longevity before you git gud, and some people like Dominions SP for roleplaying and shit. On the other hand, it's very well-suited to multiplayer with simultaneous turns (often played in PBEM format, but people also play shorter games with direct connect), free-for-all cutthroat diplomacy and waiting for a new turn to see if you managed to predict your opponent's moves and counter them is a huge thrill.

Well, endgame can be pretty nasty.
>Half of the provinces in the map changing hands each turn

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There's multiplayer???

>hoping that you die before late game, as I can't stop myself from planning every single fight
>I never die in early game
>late game is suffering

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That's what most people (those participating in online communities, anyway) play the game almost exclusively for while SP tends to be viewed as nothing more but practice for expansion strategies and figuring out early timings (ie. first 12-20 turns or so).

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How does it work?

Thank you for the insight user. How hard is to get the ropes of it compared to say, Victoria 2 or Paradox games?

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You can play Dominions MP in one of two ways. One is so-called blitzes, quick small games (

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NICE GRAPHICS FAG, HAHAHAHA!

You have graphics, I have 13000 skeletons.

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>Good luck finding me I'm behind 13000 skeletons

Does it ever start lagging in those larger battles? What's the largest size you can feasibly get without cheating?

man-eating demon summoning giant jews

This is one of my favorite "What I played" exploitable.

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It's quite easy to get the basics, MP is another matter, but it doesn't get truly ridiculous until lategame, when you have so many options and strategy to consider. Most games shouldn't last that long, however.

It does lag with thousands of units, realistically most armies won't get more than a few hundred units each in lategame since living units require supply and they will starve if too many are in the same place. Once things that don't require supplies start getting summoned en masse, putting everything into one doomstack as seen there is not really the best idea since spells that attack everything in a battle exist and you will get out maneuvered anyway. MA Ermor, one of the factions composed entirely of undead, is an exception since they get a lot of skeletons for free, but even then skeletons are pretty easy to kill.

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Graphics whoring aside, they really could benefit from better sprite artwork in terms of attracting more players. I know from personal experience that's a barrier to a lot of people, even if that makes them casual shits.

They're like that so a lot of stuff can happen. Besides it's only made by 2 guys

I don't mean 3D models or anything like that, just better 2D art. And there's no shame in hiring more people, especially if it means more sales.

It's a fucking great game series, one of my favorites, but it sure as shit ain't pretty.

>that entire chain of messages

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It's pretty much pick up and play: doing the basic things like recruiting units and sending them to capture enemy provinces is straightforward. Now, knowing the general capabilities of enemy factions and having some understanding about options you might be able to use (never mind being able to come up with novel strategies and tactics) obviously doesn't come to you instantly given the breadth of the game but I don't think it's the kind of game where novices would feel completely lost. Overwhelmed perhaps, but I don't think it's particularly hard to pick up.

Also, while you should have some basic grasp of the mechanics before jumping into the multiplayer (being able to expand 12+ provinces during the first year with your chosen nation is a benchmark that tends to be used), the game works remarkably well in mixed skill games. For starters, since there's a bunch of players and only one victor, most players lose - even an expert player could be ganged up on early (indeed, while deliberately doing poorly isn't a winning strategy, having early success is a way to paint a target on your head) and a rookie not managing to make a splash doesn't imbalance the game too much. Secondly, while getting good with tactics only come to you with experience, I think you can do pretty well with strong strategical fundamentals (simply being decisive instead of accepting your place as small and irrelevant puts you ahead of many players) and diplomacy is a skill where experience doesn't even matter much at all. A lot of things can happen in free-for-all game and while strong players are heavily favored, it's not inconceivable for a novice to do well.

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Well, the developers have stated they don't want to hire new people because then it wouldn't be "their game". At the end of the day, while they do ask money for it because might as well, it's a personal passion project for them, not their main job.

Besides, I actually like the sprites.

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If you don't always get random mages from events that just happen to cover up the holes in your magic diversity every game you're a confirmed scrub tbqh

Yeah up to them of course, gotta respect someone sticking to their guns I guess.

>Console pleb detected

It's an awesome multiplayer strategy game focused on divine and magical wars with awesome sprites and great variety of Greek nations.

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It's not complex at all, it just has a lot of units, spells, items, and factions so the sheer number of strategies and counter strategies puts the skill ceiling very high for multiplayer

>Tfw playing Asphodel in multiplayer
Man, I get that nobody plays them, but people have really forgotten what this nation does. You'd think people would be less salty when they don't bother contesting the cancer nation known for strangling its neighbours to death early game and then paying the price for it.

>contesting the cancer nation
Yeah yeah you are feeling lonely and playing attention whoring nations like Ermor to force people to pay attention to you for once

>Actually complaining about cancer nations that aren't Ermor
Yikes.

Gotta pick the game up again I quess, I never got around to play Asphodel, someone else always took it first.

>how to make your enemy rage quit
>on a single turn, assassinate all his commanders in main army, capture the surrounding provinces with sneaky troops and just auto-rout his main force

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Ermor is old and busted. Lemuria is the new hotness.

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Did something change about Asphodel or is it still a gold relying nation that eventually loses it all?

Yeah but Lemuria has sick ass ghosts and doesn't force a lose-lose situation that makes everybody have less fun.
>Oh, you started next to Ermor?
>Get fucked. You either stomp him out immediately and lose because you wasted your early game and only have dead useless land to show for it, or don't and Ermor fucks everyone with his skeledick