Dominions 5: Warriors of the Faith

Combat Mission introduced me to WEGO system and that’s already a pretty hardcore wargame, if tactical instead of strategic.So there is precedent.

Back in 1992, I played Global Conquest. Probably one of my favorite WEGO games. Sadly, I don’t think the graphics hold up, but it was a great little game.

Never got the recognition it deserved.

I think it would work even better in a grand strategy game, because the turn scales are presumably longer, a week or a month. Lotta things can happen in a week or month! Some of the AGEOD games straddle the line between operational and strategic, don’t they?

In my opinion the great strength of WEGO is the ability to surprise the player, to force them to confront situations they did not anticipate and probably could not have. In this respect I don’t think Into the Breach truly counts because there is no fog of war: you know precisely what the other side is going to do and when.

Another mechanic that I am extremely fond of is some kind of limitation on what the player can do each turn, since after all in a real situation attention is limited, as the ability of the command chain to process orders. This systems like that in Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm or the more recent Old World that restrict the player to a certain number of moves appeal to me a great deal.

Yet another mechanic dear to my heart, though I can’t immediately see how it would apply here, is one where order delay is modeled in the system. Off the top of my head I can think of three examples: Command Ops 2 and Campaigns on the Danube (which is a true masterpiece of fog of war implementation) on the computer, where the mechanics of it are understandably opaque, and in the tabletop sphere Redvers’ Reverse, where it is more transparent.

Also if this is a wishlist, something like the semi-King of Dragon Pass personality system in Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa would be just swell. Shadow Empire makes a pass at it but it’s nowhere near as well done in that game, which is probably because it was largely Cameron Harris’s work, as I understand it. Too bad because in every other respect I’d rather play Shadow Empire.

Thanks for your replies, everyone! Lots of great ideas there. I’ve also enjoyed a number of WEGO games: War in the Pacific and WITP/Admirals Edition; a couple of Grigsby’s earlier games; the old Operation Crusader and V for Victory games; and Dominions, of course.

@Kolbex , I like your wishlist. I also prefer Shadow Empire to Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa. The latter had an interesting event/relationship system, but it was bolted on a pretty traditional Eastern Front game that didn’t grab me.

I’ve started rustling up a new WEGO prototype for fun. (I made one last year for a game jam. It had the world’s worst UI.) We’ll see how far I get!

Regarding end game micro, I just had a game end at turn 120, and it was indeed a nightmare. I lost, but mostly because I missprepared for cataclysm.
That said, I think cataclysm is not a very good mechanism, because it encourages people to camp their own thrones (because you need to kill horrors every turn), so it doesn’t really make the game end faster. It also gives a free boost to blood nations that don’t really need it.
@TurinTur There were quite a few Blitz game of Dominions, so it would work with your chess timer idea. They were played live, and would usually last a few hours.
On the minus side, you have to take a hellbless nation, because they also tend to be quite brutal, and involve little diplomacy (because you sure cannot do much diplo with 5 minut turns).

I think wego is the best for multiplayer, especially in longer games. Games like Civilization or Age of Wonders end up getting played in simultaneous form even though they were never designed for that, and Total War coop could maybe be playable if it were in WeGo.
However, granularity can be an issue, because the less “collision” possible the better IMO.
I think something more granular than the old Gary Grigsby World At War: A World Divided would be perfect (ie something like 4 times the number of regions?).
I also think it works even better for sea and air than for ground.

Thanks for your thoughts on WEGO. I especially appreciate your insight about WEGO working better for air and sea than on ground. As I think about it, Gary Grigsby’s “War in the Pacific” and “Uncommon Valor” games demonstrate that well. Those WEGO games work great for air-naval stuff, but not so great for ground warfare.

Someone has figured out how to mod Blesses! Finally.

I’m curious if Dominions 6 will have this table as an external file.

If anyone’s into a new game, let me know and i’ll set one up. Also, let me know about any preferences of age/rules/etc.

Pinging the usual suspects: @dfs @Evil_Steve @akaoni @Strato @Kelan @Valambrian @Kolbex

You cant go more than a month, can you? The shakes, the muttering, the obsessive scrolling through theorycrafting threads, falling asleep to youtube 'lets play" videos…

Oh wait, thats me.

someone asked, so i’m seeing if there’s any interest. I’m…ambivalent atm tbh…i could play, or i could just set one up, or both…lol, or neither.

I’m just recovering from the knowledge that Kolbex and I have the same cat…

He gets around.

I’m down to be irrelevant again!

Unfortunately, I’ll have to sit the next game out. I’ll be lurking in the thread and cheering you up from time to time. Thanks for asking!

So I propose same method of choosing factions, same settings, same mods,but MIDDLE age,and no Ermor ( skews the entire game if choosen) .

Whenever… I know that @strato needs another month at least…time goes differently in the Ozzie lands…

Yeah sorry, not in the best of mindsets right now, to both do Pretender testing, and to do daily turns, and to commit atrocities/war crimes.

Not to interfere with anyone’s plans, but it looks like Lucid is preparing another tournament:

The Wheel turns again, and we are pleased to announce the latest installment of the annual tournament! This year, contestants will compete in twelve randomly assigned games of twelve (gross!), with the victors of each making their way into the Baker’s Dozen Final Round!
As usual, this event is open to all players who have won at least one victory in a public game.

OMG! I totally forgot that @Kolbex and I have the same cat!

The call goes forth - is it time to fire up the forge? Dust of the whiskey? Crack open the refreshing summer lagers? Is it time for Dominions again?

@Akaoni @Valambrian @strato @Kelan @dfs and @ anyone else interested…

Hoo, boy. Not for a couple of weeks for me. In the middle of moving.

Usually games here take some time to set up as folks choose the nation they want to play and such. I will be doing some traveling where I won’t have internet access this summer, but I’m always interested in finding new ways to lose these games.

Of course these games often take 6 months to play out as well.

Yeah sure. I’m in the midst of exams, seriously procrastinating (which means re-organising my board gaming collection that surrounds me) and it’s probably time to fire up Dominions and offer myself up to the perils of bad decision making, ill-thought strategy and bad luck. Good news is that exams finish end of next week, and I’ll have about 4 weeks to intensely prepare.