Warhammer Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus - 3D turn-based strategy based on Titan Legions tabletop game

[LESS T_T]

http://adeptustitanicus-dominus.com




https://af.gog.com/game/adeptus_titanicus_dominus?as=1649904300

Spoiler

Yes, it's yet another Warhammer video game!!!:

Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus, the 3D turn-based strategy PC game adaptation of Games Workshop’s classic Titan Legions tabletop game, puts you in control of the greatest weapons available to the Imperium of Man, the mighty Titans of the Adeptus Titanicus!

Coming soon to Steam Early Access, Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus features a Skirmish mode against an AI opponent for single-player and an online multi-player mode. Upon full release, the game will also offer an exciting single-player campaign.

Control a force of Titans
In Dominus, choose to control a force of Titans from the loyalist Legions of Astorum (Warp Runners), Gryphonicus (War Griffons), Crucius (Warmongers) or Osedax (The Cockatrices), or choose from the traitorous Chaos Legions of Mortis (Death Heads), Vulcanum (Dark Fire), Damnosus (Lords of Ruin) and Fureans (Tiger Eyes).
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Futuristic warfare
Utilising the tabletop Titan Legions rules system as its foundation, Dominus features an easy-to-play yet deep strategic and tactical experience via its streamlined command system, which sees you and your opponent giving activation orders to your Titans, resulting in fast-paced battles. It successfully marries this strategic play with action sequences as the gargantuan Titans exchange volleys of cannon shots, blistering laser blasts and other epic, super-powered weapons of the far off future!

Easy to play, challenging to master
While luck will play a part as you trade blows with your foe on the futuristic battlefields of the 41st Millennium, your path to victory lies in your army list building and how you manoeuvre your units upon the battlefield. As a commander, you will have access to the most classic, iconic Titan units from the Warhammer 40,000 universe: Warhounds, Reavers and the gigantic Warlord, for both the Imperial and Chaos factions. Each of these Titans will have multiple variants available, featuring different weapon configurations, thereby enabling your Titans to fulfil the battlefield role your strategy demands.

A living battlefield
Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus will feature a "living battlefield" that employs unit and battlefield animations to show players the Warhammer 40,000 universe they know and love.

ABOUT MEMBRAINE
Membraine Studios is a small indie team based in Sydney, Australia. The team is Glenn Osmond-McLeod and Mark Sheppard - both avid tabletop gamers and indie developers with more than 16 years game development experience between them. In recent years, Membraine has focused on the turn-based strategy genre.

CURRENTLY PLAYABLE
The current Early Access build of Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus features the following:

• A true-to-source adaptation of the Titan Legions tabletop rules, streamlined for PC
  
• Nine Titan variants, three each for the Warlord, Reaver and Warhound
  
• Four Loyalist Legios and four Chaos Legios to choose from
  
• Three battlefields, each with distinct environments
  
• Destructible terrain features - watch buildings collapse as stray weapons fire obliterates their structural integrity
  
• Several game modes with multiple victory conditions - there is more than one way to win
  
• Eight fixed-forces scenarios to challenge your skills as Legate of a Maniple of Titans
  
• Discover the strategic depth underlying the game, with points-based army list building in Skirmish and Multi-Player via the Detachment Builder

THE ROAD AHEAD
Over time, we plan to release a series of updates to the game as it progresses towards the full version of the title.
Update One (currently in development)
The first major update planned for Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus focuses on gameplay additions::

• Stress (suppression mechanics) - an additional layer of tactical concern that adds depth!
  
• Close Assault and Fire Fight - engage with your enemy in deadly close-quarters combat!
  
• Steam Achievements (first grouping)
  
• A loot-drop system (initial implementation)
  
• General quality-of-life improvements

Future updates
The scope of the next major updates has not yet been announced. Follow us for news about the next exciting instalment of Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus' Early Access journey!

Coming to Early Access with only skirmish scenarios and multiplayer. Singleplayer campaign is coming with the full release.

Developed by Australia-based indie team Membraine Studios. They previously released this strategy game called Exodus Wars, which looks like a Warhammer 40K game without a licnese:



The game was removed from Steam for some reason and the reviews don't look good (mostly about how it's unfinished with the full release): https://steamcommunity.com/app/297270/reviews/?filterLanguage=english&p=1&browsefilter=mostrecent

Did they learn from their previous game's failure? Or is this going to forgotten in the pile of Warhammer video games? We will see, or not.

 

[razvedchiki]

.... and all of them look like mobile trash.

 

[Biscotti]

Looks cheap, and their track record is worrying to say the least. I've always wanted a proper Adeptus Titanicus game, but this isn't looking like it'll be the one.

 

[Galdred]

Actually, from what I had read about Exodus Wars, the game system was pretty decent, but the game itself was awfully short on content (very few units, and very few missions).

I wonder whether it will be based on the upcoming Titan Legion game or on the old one.
Stress and close combat/firefight make it sound like it is based on Epic Armageddon and not Adeptus Titanicus:
Adeptus Titanicus was a great ruleset. Much better than WH40k. But the latest iteration (epic Armageddon) is more interesting IMO, but it is focused on smaller forces, and rely too much on out activating your opponent.

 

[Galdred]

btw, this should be moved to Tactical.

 

[razvedchiki]

i wish someone made a warhammer 40k game where you control a marine chapter or a guard expeditionary force,fending off attacks in turn base mode and managing planets/forces you control.
doing missions for other imperial factions would net you their units/resources,but they should be mutually exclusive ie you cant get titans and skittarii from the mechanicus while you have stormtroopers and grey knights from the inquisition.(like you found some heresy era tech in some planet and decided to give it to the inquisition-that would piss off the mechanicum).

 

[Ebonsword]

A true-to-source adaptation of the Titan Legions tabletop rules, streamlined for PC.

So, when going from a boardgame (where you have to do all of the calculations manually and also keep track of all of the rules yourself) to a PC game (where the computer is able to handle all of that stuff for you) they had to streamline things? How the hell does that make any sense?

 

[Dayyālu]

i wish someone made a warhammer 40k game where you control a marine chapter or a guard expeditionary force,fending off attacks in turn base mode and managing planets/forces you control.
doing missions for other imperial factions would net you their units/resources,but they should be mutually exclusive ie you cant get titans and skittarii from the mechanicus while you have stormtroopers and grey knights from the inquisition.(like you found some heresy era tech in some planet and decided to give it to the inquisition-that would piss off the mechanicum).

So, Chapter Master with a tactical mission system.

Considering that CM was done by a guy with spaghetti code and stolen assets and it's still more deranged fun than 90% of the WH shovelware we get, one wonders....

 

[Citizen]

this and 40k mechanicus makes me wonder what they could have done if they had put the resources into a single project instead of two mobile games

One shitty mobile game, instead of two shitty mobile games. Yeah, that would be somewhat better.

 

[Elex]

i wish someone made a warhammer 40k game where you control a marine chapter or a guard expeditionary force,fending off attacks in turn base mode and managing planets/forces you control.
doing missions for other imperial factions would net you their units/resources,but they should be mutually exclusive ie you cant get titans and skittarii from the mechanicus while you have stormtroopers and grey knights from the inquisition.(like you found some heresy era tech in some planet and decided to give it to the inquisition-that would piss off the mechanicum).

it’s called chapter master.
it’s a fanmade game that was actually in development until the fear of GW copyright forced the dev to “convert” the game to a generic setting game (with a mod that restore the 40k setting).

so the game is “doable” and not a pure dream game, no idea why no real developer tried.

 

[razvedchiki]

yes something like chapter master but with actual planet management and turn based battles on maps with hexes.

 

[Beowulf]

If only there was a WH40k mod for Fading Suns...

 

[Citizen]

If only there was a WH40k mod for Fading Suns...

But Fading Suns setting is better then 40k. It's similar to Dune or 40k with their cool 'feudal high-tech barbarians' vibe, but it also has the orthodox church.

 

[Beowulf]

I know, I actually like it.

 

[Galdred]

First preview of the pre-alpha:


The UI seems to be quite misleading (I found it hard to guess whether a Titan would get a shot or not when chosing move+attack).
The Chance to Hit seems to be faithful to the TT (4+ with the multi launcher, 2+ with the Volcano cannon). The number of voidshields too.
The alternating activations and retain initiative makes me believe it is based on Epic Armageddon.
The lack of combined arms is really sad.
Overall, it is hard to form an opinion as it is a very early build, but them trying to remain faithful to the latest ruleset is certainly a good thing at least.
But it seems rather limited at the moment, and the decisions didn't seem very interesting.
Also, I am not sure the EA ruleset is the best one: it simplified titans by giving them hitpoints instead of locations (before you could damage each location independantly). It did make their durability more reliable (no more 1 hit kill from an assault cannon to the reactor), but the streamlining might be unecessary if the game only has Titans (not having to track damage on each individual titan part is not that great of an advantage when there are only 3).

 

[Anthedon]

First preview of the pre-alpha:


The UI seems to be quite misleading (I found it hard to guess whether a Titan would get a shot or not when chosing move+attack).
The Chance to Hit seems to be faithful to the TT (4+ with the multi launcher, 2+ with the Volcano cannon). The number of voidshields too.
The alternating activations and retain initiative makes me believe it is based on Epic Armageddon.
The lack of combined arms is really sad.
Overall, it is hard to form an opinion as it is a very early build, but them trying to remain faithful to the latest ruleset is certainly a good thing at least.
But it seems rather limited at the moment, and the decisions didn't seem very interesting.
Also, I am not sure the EA ruleset is the best one: it simplified titans by giving them hitpoints instead of locations (before you could damage each location independantly). It did make their durability more reliable (no more 1 hit kill from an assault cannon to the reactor), but the streamlining might be unecessary if the game only has Titans (not having to track damage on each individual titan part is not that great of an advantage when there are only 3).

So, it's like the recent Battletech game but with Titans and mobile origins?

 

[razvedchiki]

no muh skitarii running along no party.

 

[Galdred]

First preview of the pre-alpha:


The UI seems to be quite misleading (I found it hard to guess whether a Titan would get a shot or not when chosing move+attack).
The Chance to Hit seems to be faithful to the TT (4+ with the multi launcher, 2+ with the Volcano cannon). The number of voidshields too.
The alternating activations and retain initiative makes me believe it is based on Epic Armageddon.
The lack of combined arms is really sad.
Overall, it is hard to form an opinion as it is a very early build, but them trying to remain faithful to the latest ruleset is certainly a good thing at least.
But it seems rather limited at the moment, and the decisions didn't seem very interesting.
Also, I am not sure the EA ruleset is the best one: it simplified titans by giving them hitpoints instead of locations (before you could damage each location independantly). It did make their durability more reliable (no more 1 hit kill from an assault cannon to the reactor), but the streamlining might be unecessary if the game only has Titans (not having to track damage on each individual titan part is not that great of an advantage when there are only 3).

So, it's like the recent Battletech game but with Titans and mobile origins?

Not sure about mobile origins, but yes, battletech without pilot skills and 5% of the customization functions.

 

[Galdred]

You can always play Final Liberation if you haven't. It is flawed(because they butchered the Steel Panthers engine), but very enjoyable.

 

[BrotherFrank]

So this is like a worst version of battletech which in itself is a worst version of most games of the front mission series.
The decline is real.

Also Freeblade (40k mobile freenium game) seems to capture the feeling of titans better, despite the game being pretty much an on rail shooter (well finger clicker more like) and starring knights instead of titans. In there the levels have your freeblade knight waltz through battlefields full of enemies to kill en masse, with the occasional big enemy to deal with. For all its faults and freenium mobile bs, that game at least made you feel like you were commanding a mighty weapon of war that was capable of turning the tides of conventional battles and that you were a real strategical asset being deployed to important hotspots instead of being exiled to fight in dbz wastelands.
A game that has you controlling a titan should convey that sense of power to even more ridiculous levels yet that's not the vibe I get here at all.

So not only did they go with titan legions (so combined arms is out except as a token presence) they went with the most basic streamlined rules possible which is a massive missed opportunity as a videogame would have been the perfect format to keep the older complex rules with hit locations in (only reason that got dropped is because it slowed down play time dramatically, but this is not a problem when the computer is doing the work for you ffs) and even spruce it up a bit, go into autistic detail on titan internals right down to knowing how many members of your crew you lost when enemy scores a penetrating hit. Heck maybe throw in some rpg flavor, between the princeps and his/her crew and the titan's machine spirit, there was room for something interesting here.

Why bother really? What does it matter that we are playing titans when none of the cool shit titans do or any of their quirks will come into play and it seems you are playing a simpler version of other mecha games and tactical games in general? So much missed opportunity for awesomness, I can't say I have high hopes for this at all.

 

[Elex]

First preview of the pre-alpha:


The UI seems to be quite misleading (I found it hard to guess whether a Titan would get a shot or not when chosing move+attack).
The Chance to Hit seems to be faithful to the TT (4+ with the multi launcher, 2+ with the Volcano cannon). The number of voidshields too.
The alternating activations and retain initiative makes me believe it is based on Epic Armageddon.
The lack of combined arms is really sad.
Overall, it is hard to form an opinion as it is a very early build, but them trying to remain faithful to the latest ruleset is certainly a good thing at least.
But it seems rather limited at the moment, and the decisions didn't seem very interesting.
Also, I am not sure the EA ruleset is the best one: it simplified titans by giving them hitpoints instead of locations (before you could damage each location independantly). It did make their durability more reliable (no more 1 hit kill from an assault cannon to the reactor), but the streamlining might be unecessary if the game only has Titans (not having to track damage on each individual titan part is not that great of an advantage when there are only 3).

So, it's like the recent Battletech game but with Titans and mobile origins?

the game is probally based on the new upcoming tabletop Titanicus game.
It can be closer to a tabletop simulator than a videogame.

Expect the game release close to the tabletop game annoucement/release.

 

[Galdred]

the game is probally based on the new upcoming tabletop Titanicus game.
It can be closer to a tabletop simulator than a videogame.

Expect the game release close to the tabletop game annoucement/release.

That would make sense:
The new Adeptus Titanicus game has no combined arms. Only Titans and Knights (at least, if Knights are present, that would make things more varied).
Do they have a publisher?
The main problem with the studio seemed to be the lack funding (hence the very little content in their previous game).

 

[Galdred]

From the Steam Forum Page:

Introducing ourselves and Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus
We know some of you will be interested to see a little bit "behind the curtain", so we thought we might take a moment to introduce ourselves and discuss where Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus has come from.

ABOUT US
My name is Mark and I'm the game designer/coder. The other half of Membraine Studios is Glenn, who is the artist. Membraine was started back in 2009. Being mad gamers, both tabletop and computer, and Games Workshop fans in particular, Glenn and I developed our knowledge and skills in the hope we would eventually be ready to make a computer game set in our favourite universe: Warhammer 40,000. We are both big fans of 40K's 6mm tabletop rules, too, so Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus is kind of our "love letter" to both Warhammer 40,000 and the 6mm scale.

ABOUT THE GAME
Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus is intended to play as close to the 4th edition of Games Workshop's 6mm rules as we can get on a computer. We really wanted to capture the tabletop feel of the original 6mm game, from the army list-building aspect (something with which tabletop Warhammer players will be very familiar) to how you move your units around the battlefield and conduct attacks, while also making for a streamlined player experience. All the dice rolling, calculating of hits, saves and damage are handled by the computer, of course, making everything play out much faster in Dominus than it ever could on the tabletop. It is our sincere hope that we've managed to capture the essence of the tabletop game and its depth in Dominus, yet still making it a quick-playing and fun computer game.

To that gameplay and that tabletop look-and-feel, we added a layer of visceral action—something only a computer game can add to the experience. The Titans lumber around with real weight and the gravitas you'd expect of what amounts to a walking battleship. Similarly, we've worked hard to making the weapons feel as powerful as they are in the 40K lore.

ABOUT MULTI-PLAYER
Multi-player was a crucial feature for us to include, and the game has been built from the ground up with multi-player in mind. Right now, before our initial Early Access launch, we don't know what kind of player base the game will achieve, so we've intentionally streamlined the interface to only auto-match players. This should give you the best chance of finding an online opponent at any given time.

In another effort to maximise the playerbase, we've also turned off region-blocking for now, so at launch you will be able to play against other Dominus players globally. This may occasionally mean you will be facing off against players at high latency, but turn-based strategy games are uniquely able to survive massive pings, so you should find even very high latency almost unnoticeable. Hopefully.

To ensure players do not have long waits before their game starts, we have taken all army list-building offline, so you can build your maniple of Titans on your own time, and then start looking for a multi-player game. You won't know what map you'll be playing on, and it's likely you won't know who you will be playing against, which should encourage development of flexible forces that can take on all comers rather than one-dimensional forces.

ABOUT SINGLE-PLAYER
At this initial release, we wanted to ensure there was a good amount of single-player content to enjoy. The focus couldn't be entirely on multi-player, after all. To achieve this, we created a Skirmish mode that would allow people to practice their army-list construction strategies and their on-battlefield tactics, so they would have some experience before they tackled multi-player.

Given the absence of a campaign at this stage, we also decided to create a handful of stand-alone scenarios featuring fixed forces—and not necessarily always symmetrical challenges. We intend to change the available scenarios as we add more and more content to the game, to give you new challenges.

ABOUT BALANCE
We are fortunate with the 4th edition 6mm system that the forces were finely tuned for balance. Dominus benefits greatly to that inherent balance, and multi-player combatants should discover that their maniple choices and their ability to manoeuvre effectively on the battlefield will decide who wins and loses far more so than lucky or unlucky dice rolls.

ABOUT THE BATTLEFIELDS
At this time of writing, there are three battlefields in the game. Each features a different environment theme. We will be adding more battlefields throughout our Early Access journey, but until then these three should provide for reasonable replayability.

WRAPPING UP
We hope this post has provided some interesting background to Dominus, as well as to Membraine, Glenn and me. While we are of course very busy making Dominus, particularly since it's just the two of us, we will stop in these forums every chance we get to read your feedback and discuss the game with you.

 

[LESS T_T]

Early Access on May 31th:

 

[Galdred]

So, being an Epic 40K player with a Titan army, and the game being 5 euros, I had to give it a shot.
The system is pretty good, it follows the ruleset to the letter (Epic 40K or Armageddon, or maybe a bit of both):

Some weapons are good against shields, other are good against armor. Shields can regenerate between turn (33% chance).
Some of the best weapons can only fire every other turn.
Unlike in Battletech, getting your target in a cross fire is a big deal (because it doesn't depelte a separate armor pool).
Also scout titans make it much easier to capture objectives, and pack quite a punch for their price, but they die pretty fast.

It uses free movement. You move one unit at a time and can retain initiative during your turn (ie move 2 units in a row).
It emphasizes the number of activations a lot, but that gives another purpose to scout titans, so it is not too bad here.

So overall, the system has potential, but it is too barebones yet:

That said, it is a bit limited for now when it comes to SP content: a tutorial, skirmishes, a few set missions, and that's it. It is a shame, because one of the former edition of Adeptus Titanicus (the 2nd edition) had rules for Titan crew experience.
Some combined arms warfare would be nice (especially since the devs already did just that in Exodus Wars).

But there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the UI:
I have a hard time knowing which weapons are in range of the target, and which have LoS.
Also titans more or less negate the terrain, as they usually tower over the hills and buildings provided.