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Frictionless Insight has posted a new review of Dominions 3: The Awakening, the latest in the turn-based fantasy war game series from Illwinter Game Design and Shrapnel Games. D3 offers would-be conquerers a choice of over fifty nations and a wide array of spells and units. FI gave the game a score of 4 out of 5 stars.

The incredible variety in gambits is the game's strength, and what makes it so fascinating as a multiplayer experience. But with such complexity, a lot of balance issues remained in Dominions II. The greatest strength of Dominions 3 lies in its many tweaks to make game strategies and effects more even-handed. Some strategies that were simply overpowered have been brought into balance, and even more counters have been added into the mix. For example, there are lots of new ways to deal with demons and blood magic, mages now need more skill to farm pearls, and it's harder to emerge victorious using only a few powerful beings dressed to the nines in magic items.

These improvements are really the key point. While they have little impact on single-player games – the AI still isn't impressive enough for these changes to be significant – these changes transform the multiplayer game. As intended, basic national troops are a lot more important and lone supercombatants are more vulnerable. But what's good for a multiplayer game may be bad for your friends' pocketbooks. Convincing everyone in your community to upgrade to the latest version of Dominions will improve your multiplayer games.

Frictionless Insight: Dominions 3 Review

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Dominions III: The Awakening (add to watch list)

Buy Dominions III: The Awakening

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