Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

10/10

Dominions is a wonderful game that brings my love for strategy, mythology, and robust magic systems all under one roof. I have over 30 hours on Dominions 3 and around 15 on Dominions 4, and while it’s a great series, the game is a literal pill to pick up. While it’s very clearly a passion project, the amount of micromanagement can be painful and a lot of it could be simplified or removed altogether, especially in regard to AI. You don’t have direct control over your units or commanders in battle but you still have to set formations and orders, which becomes outrageously tedious in the later game when you have to do this for *every single unit* in your massive army. And this is a necessity, otherwise you will end up losing what should be landslides because your idiot armies weren’t optimized. You also have to be mindful of each territory’s defenses, unrest, random events, and if they’re at risk of being attacked. The micromanagement gets worse and worse with each new territory and army so it’s very easy for things to slip through the cracks, especially during long winded campaigns. If this were a Total War game, I would feel much different, but there simply isn’t enough depth to the main gameplay loop to keep me invested in micromanaging my nation for a 10+ hour campaign. The magic system in this game is robust and had me salivating at first glance, but it is sadly a prime example of quantity over quality. The *vast* majority of spells are useless in one form or another and you’ll quickly identify the small pool of spells worth utilizing. There are some really nifty late game spells but require so much research, I rarely get to use them. My only other criticism is how Dominions 3 and 4 are basically identical games, especially in terms of visual design, and the fact they’re sold as separate games instead of one game that received patches, fixes, updates, and DLC is hard for me to wrap my brain around. It’s not a $40 game, I can promise you that. Get it on sale or buy Dominions 3.

Horror marks are not fun. They should at least be optional in sp. Otherwise it's a great game.

Surprisingly good 4x game with deep mechanics. I was bored and bought it on a heavy discount at a whim with no real expectations and it completely hit me out of nowhere.

Easily one of the best games I playd.

great alltime game

Honestly don't know what I am doing most of the time. 10/10