The Old God has left the world and the pretenders are awakening and coming out from hiding. You start the game by designing one of the pretender gods that will compete for true ascension to godhood. The type of god can range from a magically powerful arch mage to an ancient kraken or a mystic monolith that people pray to. Your pretender controls one of over sixty different nations and with the help of that nation he will spread his word and battle the other pretenders. Dominions 3 is a turn based strategy game. You can play single- or multiplayer (1 - 23 players) with simultaneous turns. There are more than 1500 different units, 600 spells and 300 magic items in the game. The game also features a medieval musical score by Erik Ask Uppmark and Anna Rynefors, both awarded the title of Musicians of the Realm by the Swedish Zornmärkeskommiten. Dominions 3 is a highly detailed game and a 300 page pdf manual is included in the download.
I rate this third in my greatest games of all time (behind Morrowind and Skyrim for what it's worth, and ahead of Warcraft 3 in 4th).
Utterly engrossing, hours and hours of fun. My three favorite things about Dom3:
- it's incredibly deep, and for me that's usually prohibitive. But in this case, it's incredibly deep for perhaps half an hour a day (if you're playing multiplayer). That level of depth would be a barrier to entry in a continuous game, but in the small chunks it's fantastic. This is a hardcore game that's accessible to the not-quite-as-hardcore players out there.
- when I play Dominions 3, I spend my spare time thinking about my game, about strategies etc - it's not just the time you spend in front of your computer.
- the atmosphere. People tend to look at the game and say "ugh...what's with the graphics?". But every unit has a writeup, each has different types of armor and weapons and nuances that give the game a deep feel. Your pretender has half a dozen titles. Provinces have different races. And the music is beautifully atmospheric.