Dominions 2: The Ascension Wars

Features:

• Gather armies, raise fortifications and lead the charge against false priests and prophets
• Use combat tactics and incredible magic together, to conquer new territories and hold them against reprisals
• Create prophets to spread your gospel to new lands -- and empower them to work miracles in your name
• Develop castles and forts to defend new conquests, and craft powerful magic items to give your strongest defenders
• Beware of your rivals - Other gods will create strange beasts and mighty heroes to stop you - the more they beat you, the stronger they get

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

The most addictive game since Civilization [Posted on 2005-01-20]
This is truly an amazing game, especially considering it's made by a small independent developer. There's a virtually infinite number of different unit types, spells and magic items so the game never gets repetitive (and this is possible *because* it doesn't rely on massive amounts of graphics). The different nations each have their own style of play. The AI is challenging even when set to "easy". You can download new maps and other modifications from the internet.

I only reduced the rating to 4 because of problems with the interface. It has a sort of unfinished feel to it. For example when the game ends, it always exits to windows rather than the main menu. Also, running a multiplayer game is very difficult and requires executing two instances of the game simultaneously.

Not the best [Posted on 2005-07-28]
I expected more from this game. It is not as interesting as one would have liked. For instance the game is too hands off, too high level. There is little control over the game. The terrain, and character you play determines a lot of what happens and there is not much need for skill, or ingenuity in the game play. Which kind of dumbs down the game play and makes the player a kind of slave to the game.

A turn based strategy game in a fantasy setting with no limits  [Posted on 2005-12-01]
If you have always wanted a turn based strategy game in a fantasy setting with no limits then Dominions II is really the only option out there. Its not perferct but its darn good.

The story, if you can really call it that, is that the world of Dominions once had one god. One day he just wasn't there all of a sudden and everybody and their brother decided to try and apply for his job. All of these "pretender gods" have to kill off all the other gods and put their religions out of commision in order to take over the world and become a true god. To start up a new game of Dominions II you need to choose from one of the 17 different empires and then pick your pretender god from dozens of different avatars. You can play as darn near anything you can imagine from the ordinary, like the arch-mage, to the outrageously exotic, like the fountain of blood. Every pretender god has strengths and weaknesses and some may be adept at only one or two paths of magic while others may learn many with ease. You also pick a castle and set up your own "dominion" which is the effect your god has on his followers as his religion spreads across the world.

But that isn't all, you still haven't actually started a game yet. Next you have to create the game by picking from one of nearly a dozen huge maps and setting all of the game settings such as victory conditions and the difficulty of neutral provinces. And lets not forget, you also choose which of the 17 empires will be playing and if they will be human or AI players.

The game itself is huge and has very few limits. Your empires unique units may be built in any province in which you have built a castle but every proince in the game also has its own units that may be built there to inculde many that none of the empires usually have access to. Plus units may be equiped with different armor and weapons and as such there may well be hundreds of unique units in the game with maybe even thousands of different equipment varaitions. Like the pretender gods, units come in a huge array from simple, like the light infantry, to the wild, like werewoles and vampires. Combine that with the fact that there are hundreds of spells in the game to research, hundreds of magic items to forge and find, and random events almost every turn, no two games will ever end the same way and the game has nearly unlimited replyability.

Combat is a bit unsual. All units, in order to move around the map or attack, have to be assigned to a commander. Commanders are built in the same way you recruit normal units but they can only lead so many men. However, you can assign units under a commander to as many squads as you like and each squad as well as the commander himself can be issued a specific order such as casting spells, using ranged weapons or attacking certain foes on the battle field. The downside of all this is that you have to set up all of this before hand during your turn. Combat occours in between turns and you have no control over the battle. Its entirely up to your units to follow the plan you laid out for them.For better or worse this system is certainly original.

But some things about the game really bother me. My biggest complaint with the game has to be the computer AI. Its not thats its too stupid or too smart. Its actually a bit like the terminator, it allways seems to know where you are and sends wave after wave of seemingly endless foes after you. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargined with and it won't stop until one of you is dead. With no diplomacy options and units like spys, assassins and scouts being extremely rare and expensive most games aginst the AI just deteroiate into massive rushing attacks with huge armies killing each other over and over with gods throwing spells at each other turn after turn.

Another problem with the game is the manual which is huge but contains no information that isn't easily available in the game. Its the same problem Evil Genius had, the manual is awful and all the hints that should hae been in the manual are hidden in the games loading screens. I hope you can read fast. The grapics obviously aren't exactly on par with Half Life 2 or Doom 3 but they work, however I've got to take issue with the music and sound which is downright AWFUL. You better get used to hearing the same three music tracks over and over.

Over all, Dominions II is by far the best turn based fantasy game I've ever played. Room for improvement is obviously here but this game should keep you occupied for a long time.

Excellent strategy game [Posted on 2006-01-19]
There aren't many games now-a-days that can get me interested enough to play regularly, but Dominions 2 is one that definitely does.

It's a multiplayer, multi-platform (Mac, Windows, Linux), turn-based strategy game. There is a tun of different strategies to go with, many nations, magic items, spells, different units. Excellent game for a hardcore strategy person.

The only drawback is the interface. It's certainly not perfect and takes a bit to get used to. But there is lots of documentation online to help with that kind of stuff.

I'd highly recommend this game to anyone who likes a good multiplayer turn-based strategy. It's the best I've ever played (and I've played quite a few)

Complex & Unpolished [Posted on 2006-11-15]
First let me say that I've been playing this game for 3 months now. This is a turn based fantasy strategy game loosly similar to Master of Magic. It is quite complex and a little klunky. It feels like it was made in some guys garauge. You start off by choosing to play a specific race of beings. The game gives you very little information about these races and almost nothing about thier strengths and weaknessess. Some races like the ambient temperature to be hot, others cold. Each race has different army troops which can vary widely in thier abilities from race to race. You have to figure them out through trial and error. After choosing a race, you then have to design a "pretender God" (i.e. you). The game gives you a bunch of different choices in body types and initial stats but doesn't let you design a mage completely from scratch. This is kind of lame. Why not just give everything a point value and let you take what you want? Once you have designed your mage, you are sent back to the beginning. Why? It can be quite confusing and makes you think you hit a glitch in the game. Then you have to "create a new game" You are told to pick which players will be in the game and are given a list of the different races available. If you don't know anything about the game, it's time for trial and error again. So you pick an assortment but don't forget to include the race that you just picked earlier (you). Here is one of the problems with this game. It is unbalanced. There are about 15 different races that you can pick. These races can't be modified except for their leader (the pretender god). Some of them are much stronger than others. Some of them are laughable in their simplicity. It's like the programmers put all of their effort into about 6 of the races and then just made up a bunch of garbage races to make it look like there were lots of choices. Now that you have chosen who your opponents will be, you have to choose a map to play on. There are about 4 real choices here; 2 small and 2 medium. There are a couple of huge maps but if you try to play a game on them, you will get a few hours into the game and the game will freeze/crash. You cannot randomly generate a map. You apparently can make your own map using the editor but I haven't tried that. Each map is "reccomended" for a certain number of players but remember that you have already chosen the number of players so the order of the setup just limits your choices if you follow the "reccomendation". After you have chosen a map, you are once again returned to the beggining. You then have to "continue a game in progress" You see, you started your game and then left (by finishing the setup) so you have to go back to the game you just designed before you can even play the first turn. Klunky. Once you start playing the game, you will find that each turn is autosaved and you may not save the game manually or go back to an earlier save. You are stuck with playing the game as is. It is especially frustrating when you are more than 6 hours into a game and it freezes. Try to reload and you will probably find yourself in the same position. I have played games where I was obviously dominating and lost because the computer got to the last victory province that it needed to win the game.
With all that said, I am still enjoying this game. I have muddled through with much trial and error and have discovered strategies that I like. If you do decide to buy this game, visit the Forums and read about some of the different strategies and the FAQ section. This game could have been much better but it is playable and it is fun.

Click here for more details and discount information...