Dominions 6 - Rise of the Pantokrator announced for end of year!!!

[Zenn7]

My favorite game series, Dominions, announced in July (I missed it then), is targeted for the end of the year.

2 of the major changes announced so far:
- They want conventional armies to be stronger vs magic - more gold/resources, mages cost more, more cost for the big battlefield spells
- New magic path - illusions are being moved into the new path called Glamour (along with many new spells, sites, stuff)

First game I've been truly excited about in a while!

We played a few games of PBEM of Dominions 4/5 here (usually us against the AI, but we did try 1-2 PvP against each other).

Love this game series! Just finished another game of Dom5 a couple days ago.
If you have not played Dom5 in a while, they made some significant changes to the blessing system.
- Don't know if it's a new option or something they had before I never discovered, but normally you need 4 points in a path to get good stuff. Found out you get some bonus blessing stuff if you take 3 in all 4 of the elemental or all 4 of the sorcerer paths (the 4 non-elemental).
- They broke blessings up into lesser blessing and incarnate blessings - the major blessings are incarnate, require your pretender to be awake

[Zenn7]

Release date was announced this week.

1/17/2024 - My xmas present will be a little late this year, but I'm OK with that.

Time to wrap up my current game and check out Diablo 4 before it comes out.

[Zarathud]

I will play this just to see where they’ve tweaked the system.

[Zenn7]

This was released today.

Supposed to have a launch discount from what I've seen, but it's not active yet, so might want to wait.

$44.99 if you aren't waiting for the discount (I love the game, but I'm waiting for that... probably only be 10% or $5 or something but it's a couple bucks anyhow).

[Zenn7]

Launch discount is on now, 15% off ($38.24 w/ discount).

[baelthazar]

Launch discount is on now, 15% off ($38.24 w/ discount).

Oh that sucks since I got it the moment it dropped. Oh well, I don't mind giving Illwinter the extra few bucks.

[Madmarcus]

I assume it is more of the same? I loved Dom 4 and liked Dom 5 but I've learned that I'm bad at multiplayer and don't really have the desire to get better. As a flavorful 4X against the computer they are fun but I'm still on the fence.

[Zenn7]

I assume it is more of the same? I loved Dom 4 and liked Dom 5 but I've learned that I'm bad at multiplayer and don't really have the desire to get better. As a flavorful 4X against the computer they are fun but I'm still on the fence.

Yes. There are no radical changes here. If you played older versions and did not enjoy them at all, you wouldn't enjoy this one.

They added more factions, more units/spells, a new school of spells (glamour, moved all the illusion/charm/etc spells here as well as many new ones), new pretender chassis.

Had to modify existing stuff to account for glamour.
Changed up blessings some (they do that every release), added new blessings.
You can recruit more troops for larger armies of non-magical troops.

Added a few new mechanics (riders and mounts are now separate is probably the biggest one - you can kill them separately, the survivors will pair up, if any oddballs left - riders and smart mounts will return to the place they were recruited from and give you a discount (1/2 off?) for how many of the survivors make it back).

They added some QoL improvements including an auto-site-search (set that as an order, the mage will go to wherever he can close by that you control that he can potentially search for new sites (won't try to search someplace that's already been searched for everything the mage could find). Next place has to be close though. Had one who stopped and wouldn't do it again because there were none close by (no neighboring provinces, there was one 2-3 provinces away).

PD always starts at 1. MA Ermor (the undead faction) can now get undead PD. Provinces can have other features. Found a couple that have "friendly" - they are the same troop types as my capital (EA Argatha for my first game - pale ones) - get a discount on PD.

Other little things like that.

If you enjoy it some, but not a huge deal, I'd probably wait for a big sale. If you just want to support the developer or it one of (if not most) favorite game series, can't go wrong! (yes, it's at or near my fav game series and yes I'm happy with my purchase)

[Zarathud]

I bought it, and saw there were some changes to creating a pretender god. Going to make some decisions on how I want to play then jump in.

[baelthazar]

This page has a list of all the changes:

http://www.illwinter.com/dom6/changes.html

They are subtle but needed, IMHO. I am finding the AI far more of a challenge than ever before. I also like the fog of war, which prevents bee-lines to the thrones. Glamour is interesting because it splits off certain fey and illusion spells and balances the spell tree a bit. The option for AI diplomacy, albeit simplistic, is also nice. I also like that mounts are their own unit, which allows for some additional nuance for mounted commanders.

If you consider it has been six years since Dom 5 and - if you played the heck out of that - it is well worth the upgrade.

[Zenn7]

This page has a list of all the changes:

http://www.illwinter.com/dom6/changes.html

They are subtle but needed, IMHO. I am finding the AI far more of a challenge than ever before. I also like the fog of war, which prevents bee-lines to the thrones. Glamour is interesting because it splits off certain fey and illusion spells and balances the spell tree a bit. The option for AI diplomacy, albeit simplistic, is also nice. I also like that mounts are their own unit, which allows for some additional nuance for mounted commanders.

If you consider it has been six years since Dom 5 and - if you played the heck out of that - it is well worth the upgrade.

Forgot to mention diplomacy! They finally added some basic diplomacy! You can do NAP's - and you can decide before the game starts if they are enforced or not.

I've read a couple others thought the AI was a little better as well, though some thought it wasn't AI improvement, just the changes to the game worked better in favor of the AI.

I'm in my first game (Argatha, EA - went for a regeneration bless with enlarge (new bless, 30% more HP - great with large/high HP units and regeneration!) - last couple points for 2 points of reduce fatigue every round. Got into my first war. Going great, went to hit their first real army... <SMACK> Wiped out my army. BADLY! Granted they had numbers on their side and summoned a ton of undead chaff, but most of their units were cheap/chaff, not good units. Outnumbering me 4:1 was enough apparently (not counting their summons).