Dominions 2: The Ascension Wars

🗃️ Specifications

📰 Title:	Dominions 2: The Ascension Wars	🕹️ / 🛠️ Type:	Game
🗃️ Genre:	Strategy	👁️ Visual:	Free-roaming camera
🏷️ Category:	Strategy ➤ Tactical RPG ➤ Dominions	🏝️ Perspective:	Bird's-eye view
🔖 Tags:	Strategy; Grand Strategy; 4X; Fantasy; Difficult	⏱️ Pacing:	Turn-Based
🐣️ Approx. start:	2003-10-27	👫️ Played:	Single & Multi
🐓️ Latest:	2003-10-27	🚦 Status:	04. Released (status)
📍️ Version:	Latest: 2.18	❤️ Like it:	9. ⏳️
🏛️ License type:	💰 Commercial	🎀️ Quality:	7. ⏳️
🏛️ License:	Commercial	✨️ (temporary):
🐛️ Created:	2010-08-20	🐜️ Updated:	2024-06-22

🚦 Entry status

📰 What's new?:		👻️ Temporary:
💡 Lights on:		🎨️ Significant improvement:
👔️ Already shown:		💭️ New version published (to be updated):
🎖️ This work:		🚧️ Some work remains to be done:
👫️ Contrib.:	goupildb & Louis	🦺️ Work in progress:
🎰️ ID:	10826

📖️ Summary

📜️[en]:	The sequel to Dominions: Priests, Prophets & Pretenders, a fantasy game in which players take the role of a pretending god. Each pretender is Lord and Master of one of 17 cultures, each with its own individual strengths and weaknesses. With the aid of soldiers and mages they will conquer the lands of their neighbors in a struggle for total domination. Priests and prophets will preach throughout the world to spread their dominion, the manifestation of their divine supremacy.	📜️[fr]:	La suite de "Dominions: Priests, Prophets & Pretenders", c'est un jeu de stratégie médiéval fantastique au tour par tour de type 4X, rappelant sous certains aspects des jeux tels que Risk ou Civilisation. Les joueurs y incarnent des prétendants au rôle de Dieu dans l'une des 17 nations du jeu, chacune avec ses propres forces et faiblesses individuelles. Avec l'aide de soldats et de mages ils iront conquérir les terres de leurs voisins dans une lutte pour la domination totale.

📕 Description [en]

📜️ "blabla" 📜️

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars is a turn based fantasy game in which you take the role of a pretending god. It's the sequel to Dominions: Priests, Prophets & Pretenders.

Each pretender is Lord and Master of one of seventeen cultures, each with its own individual strengths and weaknesses. With the aid of soldiers and mages you will conquer the lands of your neighbors in a struggle for total domination.

Priests and prophets will preach throughout the world to spread your dominion, the manifestation of your divine supremacy.

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars is a 4X turn-based, computer strategy game. It was developed by Illwinter Game Design and published by Shrapnel Games. The game was released on November 14, 2003 in North America[2] for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars was the sequel to Dominions: Priests, Prophets and Pretenders. It was followed by Dominions 3: The Awakening in 2006.

Gameplay

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars is a 4X turn-based, computer strategy game. The players play the role of the god of one out of 17 different nations and battle each other for the dominance of a fantasy world. At the most basic level, Dominions II is similar to Risk. It is also similar to Civilization. The world is divided into many provinces that change hands after a tactical battle. The players use armies of men and monsters to fight these battles.

Game planning and startup

The players and game host (who may also play) find each other through out-of-game channels and decide on game setup. These decisions include:

• which player will play which nation
• the map which will be used
• the game patch version and any modifications (mods)
• settings of adjustable game parameters, such as strength of independent forces, difficulty of magical research, and frequency of random events and magic sites
• how frequently players will expect turns to be played
• any house rules for the game

Each player then designs their god. Each god-type costs design points which can be spent on the god's dominion properties, his/her magical abilities, or on the national castle type. The god's initial magic levels also determine the effect of the god's blessing, a special ability which enhances certain types of sacred troops. A god who wields powerful fire magic will enhance the attack skill of such troops and even set their weapons ablaze, whereas a god who focuses on nature magic will instead allow them to go berserk. It is possible to make a god who excels at magic and magical research but is physically weak, as well as a near-unkillable warrior-god with barely any magical powers at all. Dominion effects are adjusted by using design points to 'tilt' 6 scales (graphically 6 balance scales), which represent the nature of the god which becomes manifest in territory under his dominion. The 6 scales are Order/Turmoil, Productivity/Sloth, Heat/Cold, Growth/Death, Luck/Misfortune, and Magic/Drain.

Players each send the file with their pretender design to the host, who starts the game.

Game phases

Each turn of the game is split into two phases:

The planning phase

Each player's turn is a process of assessing the apparent opportunities and risks, and acting to advance their plans for world domination. Recruiting new units, sending messages to other players, reviewing the provinces' tax and unrest levels, and directing magic research are all ways of directing the nation overall.

Players also give specific orders to each of their commanders at the strategic level, such as attacking enemy territory (with any troops under their command); casting a ritual magic spell; forging a magical object; assassinating an enemy commander while hiding in enemy domain; or constructing a building (temple, laboratory, or castle). Planning for combat involves organizing troops under commanders and issuing up to five tactical battle instructions (such as magic spells to cast) to the commanders, and simpler orders to troop squads. Each commander can control up to 5 squads and his leadership skills limit the total and kinds of troops he can command. Leading magical, undead, or demonic troops requires appropriate magical skills. Troops and commanders are organized and a simple overhead-view grid can be used to place them in specific starting locations for combat.

Once all orders are set, the player sends his turn-file by email or by TCP/IP-connection to the host-computer.

The execution phase

The host-computer calculates the results of all battles and random events simultaneously and sends the result-files back to the players. The players can now view the results of last turn's orders and events, watch the replays of the battles and proceed with the planning phase of the next turn.

Features

Dominions II also includes AI for single player games.

Supply and morale are modeled in the game world and play an important role. Dominion (how much a province believes in your god versus another player's) affects not only combat morale but also the local settings of the province such as climate, richness, luck/bad events or available supply. Strategic preaching can not only shift the outcome of future battles; it can allow an "theological" bloodless victory: if a player loses his dominion in all his provinces, he also loses the game, however mighty his armies may be.

Each nation and theme also have a set of national heroes, which may appear and volunteer to serve as leaders as the game progresses, unless that nation is unlucky.

Different maps are available as well as (player-made) mods. Much of the game is customizable with the help of a simple text editor and paint program.

Tactics

Dominions allows the player to make some tactical decisions for your units in battle, by setting the combat behaviour of each of their combat units ahead of time. When battle is processed, the player's troops will follow the orders they have been given.

The kinds of tactical commands include whether to attack, delay an attack, retreat, fire missile weapons, use melee weapons or which kind of enemy to target. For commanders, more control is possible. Players can tell them exactly what spells to cast, or exactly how long to wait before performing another kind of action.

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📕 Description [fr]

Un jeu de stratégie médiéval fantastique au tour par tour dans lequel le joueur incarne un prétendant au rôle de Dieu, par le studio Illwinter Game Design.

Dominions 2 : The Ascension Wars est la suite de "Dominions: Priests, Prophets & Pretenders", c'est un jeu de stratégie médiéval fantastique au tour par tour de type 4X, rappelant sous certains aspects des jeux tels que Risk ou Civilisation. Les joueurs y incarnent des prétendants au rôle de Dieu dans l'une des 17 nations du jeu, chacune avec ses propres forces et faiblesses individuelles. Avec l'aide de soldats et de mages ils iront conquérir les terres de leurs voisins dans une lutte pour la domination totale.

Dominions 2 : The Ascension Wars est un jeu de stratégie médiéval fantastique au tour par tour dans lequel le joueur incarne un prétendant au rôle de Dieu. C'est la suite de "Dominions: Priests, Prophets & Pretenders"

Chacun des prétendants est le Seigneur et Maître de l'une des dix-sept cultures, chacune avec ses propres forces et faiblesses individuelles. Avec l'aide de soldats et de mages vous irez conquérir les terres de vos voisins dans une lutte pour la domination totale.

Les prêtres et les prophètes prêcheront à travers le monde pour répandre votre domination, la manifestation de votre suprématie divine.

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars est un jeu vidéo de stratégie au tour par tour développé par Illwinter Game Design et édité par Shrapnel Games, sorti en 2003 sur Windows, Mac et Linux.

Dominions 2: The Ascension Wars

🗃️ Specifications

🚦 Entry status

📖️ Summary

🕸️ Links

📕 Description [en]

📕 Description [fr]