Incline Dominions 6

[Sinilevä]

Scaled up armies.
Okay, that's nice, having more of everything is nice, but... truth be told, it doesn't seem to affect how I'm playing in any way.
And the summons don't seem to be scaled up like the number of soldiers are, so that's odd.

Yeah brother, and all that beauty also starts lagging like hell mid-late game. Turns take three billion years to complete.

Separation of mounts and riders.
A welcome little tidbit of simulation, makes battles seem a bit more alive.
But again, this doesn't affect how I play at all.
Yet they are praising this as a "massive change". Huh?

Instead of screwing around with one screen for the unit, now we have to screw around with two. lol
But yeah, it looks nice in battles.

And "some new nations", without even mentioning them on the store page

No dwarves or kobolds, but we get FEMENIE.

Well, at least there are dog men and horned hobbits, which is cool.

 

[Agesilaus]

It... feels like Dom 5 with improvements. I played a game as Arcos and conquered the world with a chicken headed god. Hadn't played in years so it was great fun. I think I noticed the changes, like the larger battlefields and some of the new shortcuts etc. Generally I like the UI improvements.

Anyway, I beat the AI into the dust with my super-combatant chicken man in the mid-game, it was very satisfying. Gave him silver arms (new item?) and an assortment of other high end gear, let him cast phoenix pyre, astral shield, and other buffs. Basically mopped the floor with every army he could catch. Then the end-game was a slow brutal slog through enormous infinite armies as I conquered the map fort by fort. Should have gone with the thrones of ascension and maybe the cataclysmic event ending, late game really was a drag.

I think I found a bug, but I"m not sure. Specifically, there's a unique item called the angry midget or something. I couldn't equip him in the miscellaneous/ring slot (or any slot for that matter).

 

[mondblut]

It... feels like Dom 5 with improvements.

You must be new to the series. In truth, it feels like Dom 2, Dom 3 and Dom 4 with improvements, too.

 

[Agesilaus]

It... feels like Dom 5 with improvements.

You must be new to the series. In truth, it feels like Dom 2, Dom 3 and Dom 4 with improvements, too.

I've been around since picking up CoE 2 for free off their website many years ago. Yes, it is like dom 2, 3, 4, whatever. CoE 3 was the only one that felt like a genuinely huge leap forward to me (compared to CoE2), but I have the vague sense that Dom 6 is closer than usual to the previous episode. But who knows, in a few months/years maybe we'll be sitting on a big pile of new races and features and this post will look ridiculous.

 

[mondblut]

But who knows, in a few months/years maybe we'll be sitting on a big pile of new races and features and this post will look ridiculous.

Eh, they've been whipping up new races with an occasional patch for 20 years, you don't need a new game for that. If anything, half of the new races this time are a crude hackjob of recycling Ind into three factions, completely with joo summons. Must be running out of mythologies to cannibalize.

Then again, they could have become an RTS. Gotta be grateful that some series stick to "more of the same" instead of reinventing the bycicle with square wheels and a spike for a saddle.

 

[mondblut]

The "big changes" they praise on the store page are... odd:

Scaled up armies.

That "big change" is puzzling to me either. Every Dom game could have scaled up armies. That's what money and resources scaling settings were for.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The "big changes" they praise on the store page are... odd:

Scaled up armies.

That "big change" is puzzling to me either. Every Dom game could have scaled up armies. That's what money and resources scaling settings were for.

I think part of the change was balancing spells around it though. Scaling up gold and resources is irrelevant if everyone is just throwing around Earthquake anyways. Supposedly that's more difficult now? I'm only a dabbler so I can't say.

Eh, they've been whipping up new races with an occasional patch for 20 years, you don't need a new game for that.

Honestly this feels like what I'm paying for. People are saying this is just like Dom 5... but was Dom 5 as of a month ago just like Dom 5 on release? I'd rather buy a new game where everyone is on equal footing every 5 years or so than buy DLC nations for a 20 year old game where any newcomer needs to spend 150$ to get all the nations like a Paradox or Total War game. And at least we're not backsliding and losing a ton of previously implemented features like CK3.

 

[mondblut]

I think part of the change was balancing spells around it though. Scaling up gold and resources is irrelevant if everyone is just throwing around Earthquake anyways. Supposedly that's more difficult now? I'm only a dabbler so I can't say.

I guess "scaled up armies" supposedly sounds better than "nerfed the shit out of your favorite cool spells", lol.

People are saying this is just like Dom 5... but was Dom 5 as of a month ago just like Dom 5 on release? I'd rather buy a new game where everyone is on equal footing every 5 years or so than buy DLC nations for a 20 year old game where any newcomer needs to spend 150$ to get all the nations like a Paradox or Total War game.

But they are not on equal footing. Many nations have been untouched p.much since DomPPP, and there's always an unavoidable power creep with the drive to make new nations flashy and memorable. It's not that they are necessarily weak, but they grew stale and boring and need a serious revamp. I don't even consider any nations without a sufficiently large stable of unique summons to be playable nowadays. It is indeed like playing ye rune of the mille high middle age french catholic count after all the love byzantines, pagans, republics, nomads and shit have gotten, if you wanna keep the CK analogy. Now, revamping those Ulms and Mans and sheet would be an endeavor worthy of a proper sequel indeed.

 

[Damned Registrations]

But they are not on equal footing. Many nations have been untouched p.much since DomPPP, and there's always an unavoidable power creep with the drive to make new nations flashy and memorable. It's not that they are necessarily weak, but they grew stale and boring and need a serious revamp. I don't even consider any nations without a sufficiently large stable of unique summons to be playable nowadays. It is indeed like playing ye rune of the mille high middle age french catholic count after all the love byzantines, pagans, republics, nomads and shit have gotten, if you wanna keep the CK analogy. Now, revamping those Ulms and Mans and sheet would be an endeavor worthy of a proper sequel indeed.

I just meant between players. Trying to play something like Stellaris with a vanilla faction vs a player with the immortal ethereal zombie cyber psionic gestalt eradicators is a joke (or even co-op, BMX Bandit and angel summoner much?) I don't think all the nations need to be balanced in Dominions, but I'll agree older factions need some love to make them more interesting, or fix playstyles that stopped working. I heard Asphodel got a rework this time, and they're actually my favourite nation, theme wise, so I'm kinda stoked to give them a try. Between the rework and it being harder to just kill chaff without even trying, maybe they won't be the absolute worst nation in the game this time.

"Reworked a nation that became crappy over time" doesn't make as good a bullet point as "NEW NATIONS AND SPELLS OMG" but I do think they need to spend more time on reworks than new stuff. Games that do the content treadmill thing always end up with more bloat than they can manage, and Dominions hit that mark a while ago. Existing nations have tons of flavour and variety, if only more of them were at least vaguely balanced. I think the addition of the cave network helps a lot of the cave themed nations though, which should be interesting. I think that's the real biggest new feature honestly.

 

[Hag]

They probably couldn't push the UI upgrade (and probable engine changes) with a patch, so here we are anyway.
The new manual is also well organized, with a complete index, and much more pleasant to read than previous ones.

 

[Malakal]

They probably couldn't push the UI upgrade (and probable engine changes) with a patch, so here we are anyway.
The new manual is also well organized, with a complete index, and much more pleasant to read than previous ones.

Ah yes the proud tradition of manuals with hundreds and hundreds of pages but without actually important information in it...

For example: when a spell changes terrain type to wasteland does that influence population and income of the province? By how much? No such information in terrain section. Experience gain can now be boosted but we don't have experience tables for units or commanders. Experience effects are also inaccurate, previously at 4 stars you got 1 reinvigorate and think you also got something unique at 3 stars.

They drown you in spells instead...

 

[Andnjord]

Started a new game as TNN with an imprisoned rainbow bless and things went far better this time as I didn’t fuck up expansion like a real noob. Gotta say that the glamour school is feeling really nice, lots of good buffs for your army and ways to screw with the opponent army to the point that it feels like it would be very dangerous to send thugs out in TNN’s land without lots of MR. It feels much more thematic with more elven trickery than ever.

But about the mount changes, how does that work with commanders and summons when they lose their mounts?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I always play with Neutral Strength 9 as I am playing single player

Trying Caelum, so I guess expansion is just spamming Mamoth? But in province with Heavy Cav/Heavy Infantry they tend to die en masse and is actually expensive to recover. Their birdmen also died enmasse too easily too after the initial charge. I guess the Temple Guard Ice infantry will be better for long term?

 

[Optimist]

I always play with Neutral Strength 9 as I am playing single player

Trying Caelum, so I guess expansion is just spamming Mamoth? But in province with Heavy Cav/Heavy Infantry they tend to die en masse and is actually expensive to recover. Their birdmen also died enmasse too easily too after the initial charge. I guess the Temple Guard Ice infantry will be better for long term?

Caelum's go-to strat for expansion used to be hold & attack rear, to route the opponents by fragging commanders with their fliers.

 

[Catacombs]

Handy tool out now for Dom6: https://larzm42.github.io/dom6inspector/

 

[Mortmal]

And at least we're not backsliding and losing a ton of previously implemented features like CK3.

This convinced me... I remember how dreadfully easy CK3 was at release. Luckily, I could try it on Game Pass. Then, reading the forums, it's nowhere near CK2 yet, and there's no guarantee it will ever happen. Victoria 3? It's unredeemable shit. EU5 will be some watered-down version of EU4, with less content. So, what do I have to look forward to? I may as well get that DOM6.

 

[coldcrow]

The range for modding IDs got increased, so I am looking forward to a merge of Legendary and Confluence mods. This plus AI NAPs should suffice for a loooong time.

 

[Riddler]

And at least we're not backsliding and losing a ton of previously implemented features like CK3.

This convinced me... I remember how dreadfully easy CK3 was at release. Luckily, I could try it on Game Pass. Then, reading the forums, it's nowhere near CK2 yet, and there's no guarantee it will ever happen. Victoria 3? It's unredeemable shit. EU5 will be some watered-down version of EU4, with less content. So, what do I have to look forward to? I may as well get that DOM6.

What would be the point of dumbing down eu4? It's already dumb as hell.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I always play with Neutral Strength 9 as I am playing single player

Trying Caelum, so I guess expansion is just spamming Mamoth? But in province with Heavy Cav/Heavy Infantry they tend to die en masse and is actually expensive to recover. Their birdmen also died enmasse too easily too after the initial charge. I guess the Temple Guard Ice infantry will be better for long term?

Caelum's go-to strat for expansion used to be hold & attack rear, to route the opponents by fragging commanders with their fliers.

I tried that but it's not that the enemy instantly retreat after that

With enemy in the hundreds I am losing a lot of birdmen men every province doing this

Dunno I will experiment more and see I guess

 

[Johannes]

I have a bad feeling about this separate mount shit, seems more an annoyance than anything. Constant messages of steeds/riders running back home when the other died. Guys dragging their crippled horse along instead of going home for a replacement (and possibly dying on march together with their crippled horse, but not sure how that works). Possibly making most cavalry into a joke unit once MR-resists stuff can be thrown to fuck with the mind of their horse. And don't really see a clear upside, cavalry units are more complex but not more interesting.

If you could add/switch mounts for commanders, that could be interesting at least, but no such luck.

 

[Mortmal]

And at least we're not backsliding and losing a ton of previously implemented features like CK3.

This convinced me... I remember how dreadfully easy CK3 was at release. Luckily, I could try it on Game Pass. Then, reading the forums, it's nowhere near CK2 yet, and there's no guarantee it will ever happen. Victoria 3? It's unredeemable shit. EU5 will be some watered-down version of EU4, with less content. So, what do I have to look forward to? I may as well get that DOM6.

What would be the point of dumbing down eu4? It's already dumb as hell.

Same thing as every new title with Paradox, an arguably prettier 3D engine with 3D characters who are good for memes, a skeleton of gameplay to sell DLC, and trying to catch a mainstream audience interested in such a dumbed-down 4X game. Such audience do not even exist in my opinion.

 

[Agesilaus]

If you could add/switch mounts for commanders, that could be interesting at least, but no such luck.

Yes, this would be a great feature. Imagine being able to mount a decent fighter or caster on the back of a monster pretender, for example. I also find myself after battle with a bunch of horseless cavalry commanders... who I guess are just doomed to be infantry commanders now? Didn't try solving the problem tbh, but also not sure if there is an actual solution.

 

[mondblut]

I have a bad feeling about this separate mount shit, seems more an annoyance than anything. Constant messages of steeds/riders running back home when the other died. Guys dragging their crippled horse along instead of going home for a replacement (and possibly dying on march together with their crippled horse, but not sure how that works).

Didn't they already have sort of this stuff with Ragha sacred gryphon riders? When killed, they transformed into riderless gryphons, who would then restore back to gryphon riders upon being transported back to the capital.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I have a bad feeling about this separate mount shit, seems more an annoyance than anything. Constant messages of steeds/riders running back home when the other died. Guys dragging their crippled horse along instead of going home for a replacement (and possibly dying on march together with their crippled horse, but not sure how that works).

Didn't they already have sort of this stuff with Ragha sacred gryphon riders? When killed, they transformed into riderless gryphons, who would then restore back to gryphon riders upon being transported back to the capital.

Yeah I was expecting something more from the whole mount/rider thing. If one cav loses the rider and the other a horse, can the survivors pair up into a whole unit again? That'd be neat... but still not really worth it. Maybe they're planning on adding spells that can change mounts? That'd be cool. Turn all your horse cav into bear cav or something.

Seems mostly like a big nerf to cavalry... which was probably deserved, since they basically functioned like super fast giants with heavy armour. I suppose centaurs still do. OTOH, now you can throw stoneskin on the cavalry and have it buff the horses, I guess? That still just kinda brings them back to where they used to be. There's also a bunch of animal only spells that would be applicable... I'm not sure how useful berserking a mount, or enslaving it, would be though. If druids can now do something like panic all the horses that'd be pretty cool and in theme.

There's definitely potential with the mechanic, but I'm not seeing it so far. Maybe they wanted to do more but struggled with the coding and put it off for a later update.

 

[mondblut]

Welp, there's this thing:

Sounds like the "smart" mounts return to the cap automatically to provide recruitment bonus, and I suppose the non-smart ones just disappear after combat. Kinda lame.

Still no word on what happens to the rider losing a mount. Is that even a thing? I doubt they'd do a "dismounted" sprite for each of like 500 riders in the game.