Audible eXtension For Dominions 5: Warriors Of The Faith

Join Nate, Troy and Micah as they discuss the Dominions 5: warriors of the Faith review. We discuss what was left on the cutting-room floor and where this game is headed. Come and listen to what we think about Dominions 5: Warriors of the Faith.

Music for eXplorminate by Mangadrive

Notes:

Dominions 5: Warriors of the Faith e4X Review
Galactic Civilizations III Steam page
Dominions 5 Multiplayer Series Let’s Play by DasTactic
Endless Space 2 Steam page
Endless Legend Steam page
Stellaris Steam page
Bejeweled 3 Steam page
Distant Worlds: Universe Steam page
Dominions 5 Documentation at Illwinter Game Design (including manuals and Tutorial videos by DasTactic)

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11 Comments

Cullster 7 years ago

Great to see this finally! Thanks Micah for the great review and audible addition. Several thoughts… of course:
1) Of course a few days after this is recorded a major balance update comes out…
2) Battle viewer is essential for understanding why a player wins a fight, to figure out what strategy your opponents are using, and to develop/test counter tactics. Also, because you have so much control over the battle setup but no actual micromanagement to deal with, it can be super exciting/tense to see how your battles played out. IMO this is key to making Dominions better than EL and other turn-based tactical games because you don’t have to deal with micromanagement so you can have epic scale battles and still be invested in the outcome. You are the coach, you call the plays, but the players have to carry it out. The AI is pretty predictable but against real people this can be very intense. I think this is the one thing you could emphasize more Micah.
3) I am still up for an explorminate multiplayer match up. 1 turn a day would seem reasonable!
4) Nate – not sure you can maintain your claim that you are a graphics whore if you played and liked Dungeon of the Endless (which I believe you did). The graphics are not 1/2 as good as Dom5. Think you might need to revisit your biases. BTW – not saying Dungeon of the Endless is bad… but good graphics it has not.
5) I liked the theater of the mind/radio show idea. I think that would work for Dominions… you can imagine an old-timey radio broadcaster announcing Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima type moments in Dominions and the drama they would evoke. Not something I could do but it would be a neat idea….
Cheers!

eXplorminate 7 years ago

I rate Dominions 5 as probably my favourite MP experience (outside of Blood Bowl) going. I rarely play it but it’s the human diplomacy that really makes it special. There can be only one, but you won’t survive long if you don’t get on Discord and start making deals with people fast.

eXplorminate 7 years ago

I should add as an addendum, the only reason I rarely play it is because of how time consuming it is: I’d regularly spend several hours a day on my turns and in diplomacy and that really got a bit much to handle!

eXplorminate 7 years ago

Oh, I don’t think I am, but I have been labelled as such. So, I’ve decided to own it!!!
I think the update came as a celebration of out AudiX…. Probably… Well, I like to tell myself that.

Cullster 7 years ago

Nate – I am honestly curious – when you refer to not wanting to have to fill in any gaps when you play a game (17:30 or so in the recording) – what gaps are you referring to? What gaps are there in Dominions that have you concerned, say, compared to Gladius?

eXplorminate 7 years ago

I hope you’re looking forward to the next weekly exchange, because I addressed them there.

Causk 7 years ago

Incase there are some potential converts to the dominions cult to be had:
Dominions MP community is not as fractured as you make it sound. Sadly forums arent a big thing anymore, but there at least 2 very active Discord servers. You can find invite links on the steam mp forum (https://steamcommunity.com/app/722060/discussions/3/1489992080520108104/). Someone even provided a mp hosting bot that makes playing a little easier than the old school playbyemail. So there is a very active and generally friendly playerbase waiting to crush your dreams of apotheosis.

Qubix 7 years ago

Very nice discussion. I’ve tried Dom5 a number of times and have bounced off of it, not because of the graphics but because of the poor UI. Over the years I have found that I can tolerate poor graphics if the game mechanics are good, but I have very low tolerance for subpar UI’s no matter how good the underlying gameplay mechanics are. Life is too short for that kind of frustration, IMHO!

Cullster 7 years ago

I had the same experience Qubix, bouncing off the game several times until it clicked. The UI is not the best (though Dom5 is better than the earlier iterations) but it does have a lot of short cuts that, once you know about them and learn to use them, make the game fairly easy to work with even past mid-game when the number of units, provinces, and magic items get large. Could the UI be better, definitely! But like almost anything, it does take some getting used to.
Did you think the tutorials by Das helped with the UI? I never watched those but maybe he did it justice.

Qubix 7 years ago

Quite possible I just need to put a little more effort into learning it. I like Das’s tutorials in general, but not sure I ever watched the Dom5 ones.

eXplorminate 7 years ago

If you want very in-depth Dominions 5 analysis, strategy guides and Let’s Plays, General Confusion is a good go-to on Youtube. I find some of the multiplayer videos a bit long but he’s an intelligent guy and he’s entertaining too. I also rate DasTactic, if it wasn’t for him I’d have bounced right off Dominions 5.

Audible eXtension For Dominions 5: Warriors Of The Faith