Incline Dominions 4 announced

[Helly]

Dom4's release date has been officialy delayed until at least the end of september...
Preorderers should get access to the beta though.
On the other hand they added a teamplay option which allows for several players to play as disciples of a god. Definitely great lp material

 

[pakoito]

Beta was supposed to be out yesterday. Did anyone buy in?

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Preordered this but no beta yet.

 

[Agesilaus]

Beta is out, playing it now. Had to download it through the Desura webpage rather than client; accessed my serial number there, too.

 

[Helly]

Thanks for the info, I'm trying it too

 

[knightley]

how is it?

 

[Helly]

how is it?

As of now, quite bugged with lacking definitions, etc... but that's to be expected of a beta.
It's really more of the same (more nations, more monsters, more spells...), but the two main additions are quite the game changers in term of strategy. Playing as a pretender's hero with other dudes should prove LP worthy, though I've yet to try it. The thrones add a new way to win - to hold on to all the thrones regions in the map (you can only capture them with your prophet or your pretender it seems, there ain't no manual out yet)
More than 50% of the sprites have been redone, and most are an improvement over the old ones.
I'm still not sure what to think of the AI...

Probably worth the 25$ as far as I'm concerned.

 

[knightley]

Thanks, appreciate it.
Is the micromanagement the same or less or more?
And does the AI still produce a zillions of units?

 

[Helly]

There is much less micro management as you can at least auto-repeat unit production.
Didn't see much difference in how the AI works, but I've just started a real match, so I'll see.
You can also check Oscar's mini review: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/dominions-4-announced.84026/page-3#post-2795266

 

[knightley]

thanks

 

[Kane]

dominion 4 beta is live for those who preordered

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Not having to repeat production queues saves up a lot of clicking, even on small map. I find it especially handy for indy scouts since you just get constant stream of them. I also kinda like removal of tax adjustment. It's really hard to say anything other than obvious, especially since I can't claim to be any good at dominions at any point in time. This is really complex game and even something as simple as taking out option to adjust taxes has very profound consequences as it makes a lot harder to raid enemy territory since now you can't just burst in and keep on going so their army won't catch you, well you can but no 200% tax for you any more and it also affects blood economy since now you have to patrol to keep unrest in check and changes go a lot deeper than this.

Ps. There is this little thing I found that really sparked my interest, items that can act as elemental gem during battle (to summon elemental for instance without actually spending a gem), stack up forge bonuses, recruit a lot of mages... Sounds fun.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

I played a bunch of SP games and I have to say I like it a lot. There is a much more focus on troops (and regular summons like trolls) now instead of kited out thugs/sc's. They definitely are still a thing but it's a lot harder now to assemble all needed ingredients thanks to changes to tech tree (giant nations obviously will have it a bit easier since all they need are items/buffs) Also tartarians are whole lot harder to utilize since healer skill no longer works on undead. So while you still can create mass production line for undead titans it's really hard to do and since you'll have to rely on gift of health it's also whole lot easier for other players to fuck it up.

Once you play a bit you really start to appreciate improvements to UI. Things like newly recruited mages defaulting to research so you don't have to set fuckers manually every turn or not having to check magic paths manually (or rename mages) which helps with forging a lot. On topic of forging dwarven hammer (and forging skill it grants) no longer cuts % of cost but fixed number (1 in case of hammer), works the same for cheaper items but isn't necessary for expensive artefacts. Good change since instead of begin mandatory now it's an option.

From new nations I really like Ur. They can recruit their troops anywhere, forts (which btw are expensive so you probably won't be building them a lot) just let you recruit more armored variants and standards. Their sacred units are capital only so you probably don't want to invest in bless too much (though I do appreciate having lv3 priests for divine bless). Even if sirrushes are pretty nice you can recruit just one every other turn!

What is really interesting about them is that your basic researcher Gala priestess that you'll be recruiting a lot have special skill that makes them count as level 3 priest when calling back god, the kicker is that Ur god doesn't loose magic paths on death! Developers (un)fortunately were careful about not giving them most cheesy combat pretenders. Still my undead Sumerian giantess was pretty much invincible with some level 2/4 magic items, Invulnerability and Soul Vortex. Well I still managed to get her trampled by elephant since I got too aggressive and attacked with her in places with very strong enemy dominion. No biggie though since I had her back next turn.

I never got too much into Dom3, just a bunch of Ai games to see what's what. Late game it simply stopped begin fun, it was a chore to play and I just didn't see myself enjoying MP games like that. Dom4 on the other hand.. I suspect I'll be playing this a lot. Well I'm still waiting for proper release before diving into multiplayer.

EDIT:
I also love changes to commanders/formations. Makes it worthwhile to recruit your national commanders and makes it harder to sperg with multiple small units and weird formations/orders to exploit battle AI.

 

[Average Manatee]

What is really interesting about them is that your basic researcher Gala priestess that you'll be recruiting a lot have special skill that makes them count as level 3 priest when calling back god, the kicker is that Ur god doesn't loose magic paths on death! Developers (un)fortunately were careful about not giving them most cheesy combat pretenders. Still my undead Sumerian giantess was pretty much invincible with some level 2/4 magic items, Invulnerability and Soul Vortex. Well I still managed to get her trampled by elephant since I got too aggressive and attacked with her in places with very strong enemy dominion. No biggie though since I had her back next turn.

Sounds like a poor replacement for immortality. Does your god still take afflictions, or will they heal them up?

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

The thing is immortality isn't something you'd normally get on winged giant and immortality only works in your own dominion aaand you found the catch, no (national) healer skill and none of your pretenders have recuperation (I said they were careful, well there may be one or two exceptions I haven't tested though, I just played one game with them). That's why you'd probably would want to take something that isn't undead (since regeneration from items doesn't work on undead/lifeless), maybe a dragon would be nice since you don't rely on items as much and if you rack up some nasty afflictions you can always repurpose him as regular mage. I'm not sure how good this would be in competitive environment but I found it pretty interesting. More than anything you'd be pain to attack since you'll be fighting in your own dominion, especially early on. Things to consider: Moloch since there is lv3 B2 ritual that let's you heal up (considering his superb stats we could have a winner here) or anything that isn't undead with Faerie Court or just get the Gift of Health, you have really good out-of-fort nature mages so it shouldn't be too hard. You can deal with afflictions and if you plan on doing any SC's definitely something you'd want anyway. Like everything though it requires research and gems.

 

[Johannes]

I played a bunch of SP games and I have to say I like it a lot. There is a much more focus on troops (and regular summons like trolls) now instead of kited out thugs/sc's. They definitely are still a thing but it's a lot harder now to assemble all needed ingredients thanks to changes to tech tree (giant nations obviously will have it a bit easier since all they need are items/buffs) Also tartarians are whole lot harder to utilize since healer skill no longer works on undead. So while you still can create mass production line for undead titans it's really hard to do and since you'll have to rely on gift of health it's also whole lot easier for other players to fuck it up.

Healer skill never worked on undead. Only change is that Chalice doesn't heal them anymore. Thugs and SCs aren't any worse or harder to get than before, getting const-4 and some alteration isn't notably harder at all than in Dom3. Trolls are still not worth their gem cost, only reason to summon them is if you need the E3 Troll King mage. There's worthwhile troop summons of course, like in Dom3, but trolls are not among those.

I also love changes to commanders/formations. Makes it worthwhile to recruit your national commanders and makes it harder to sperg with multiple small units and weird formations/orders to exploit battle AI.

Recruiting national commanders is still a bad idea vast majority of time, if they take up fort recruitment. The ones with >40 leadership are actually costlier than in Dom3, the morale boost is not worth it to give up mage recruitment when you could just use the usual indie commanders. And many nations get 80 or 120 leadership commanders already in their mages.

 

[Raghar]

And now we would wait half year for a crack, or more.

 

[Malakal]

And now we would wait half year for a crack, or more.

I pirated Dom3 once to see whats the fuzz about and have to say its not worth pirating those kind of games. With atrocious AI there is no singleplayer fun to be found and pirated versions dont work in multi unless you already have friends to play with.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Healer skill never worked on undead. Only change is that Chalice doesn't heal them anymore. Thugs and SCs aren't any worse or harder to get than before, getting const-4 and some alteration isn't notably harder at all than in Dom3. Trolls are still not worth their gem cost, only reason to summon them is if you need the E3 Troll King mage. There's worthwhile troop summons of course, like in Dom3, but trolls are not among those.

Recruiting national commanders is still a bad idea vast majority of time, if they take up fort recruitment. The ones with >40 leadership are actually costlier than in Dom3, the morale boost is not worth it to give up mage recruitment when you could just use the usual indie commanders. And many nations get 80 or 120 leadership commanders already in their mages.

Huh? My memory must be playing tricks on me or maybe it was case in some earlier patches (or shitty pirated version I was demoing )? I couldn't have mixed it up with chalice.

Never said anything about SC's begin worse and if by harder you meant actually begin able to get them then ofc it isn't the case. All I'm saying is that high level stuff like elemental kings require way more research points which means you rely on regular (still mostly national) troops (trolls, ogres, wights or whatever, just a random example, and seriously I can't be bothered to calculate cost effectiveness of units in SP matches) longer and yes like you said nations with recruitable thug/sc chassis can start making them pretty fast but that's their gimmick. If you need to summon one, then well it gets longer and longer to actually get them. What's the earliest one? Bane? What's first good one you'd want to equip properly? Like level 5? Probably better idea to invest into stuff your nation is good at. BTW serious question. In case you didn't notice I'm new at this.

Whoa I didn't say anything about recruiting commanders instead of mages. However I think you should sneak in one or 2 when you can like in newly build fort or something, it's not like you'd have use for dozens of them anyway. Also many nations get low morale troops like elephants and you can't always give them lv2 priest to spam sermon to keep them from trampling your troops to give random example. It's an option (even if no one will go out of their way to use it) instead of begin identical to indie commanders.

 

[Mortmal]

yes you mixed it up with chalice, that was a very common tactic to make thugs out of tartarians, now hopefully it will make other summons more viable and bring more diversity on the board .You have to rely on regular troops much more now and things are still unbalanced, that is fun . We should make a multi game soon.

 

[coldcrow]

I am looking for a few gentlemen to play a Dominions 4 game. Since there is a high chance that some will jump ship, turns take ages or hell burns out, the more the better.
Post your preferred Age too.

 

[Mortmal]

I am up for it too, not tried once if it works yet . Could bring a friend too but shes not very reliable, and tend to forget things...

 

[Haba]

Git it on Steam already, gdamnit!

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

I'd play, don't really care what age.

Also, it should come to steam sooner or later, as that's pretty much the reason Dom 3 was greenlit.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Once you get this thing going I'll join too. As for age, dunno how bout late? I don't really care though, so whatever you choose.