Dominions 4

[Bison]

Dom 4 received an amazing update today.  I admit I haven't been following future developments too much, but man is this an awesome surprise.

From the Steam page:
This version has revised costs for all pretenders and the amount of
design points available has been increased by 150 for pretenders and
100 for disciples. There are also a bunch of new pretenders to choose
from and the dominion spread mechanic has been tweaked to make it
easier to play with a low dominion score. There are also various
performance improvements, bug fixes, new mod commands and new random
events.


Game
More varied pretender costs and +150/+100 design points
Pretender cost auto calculation
Dominion spread chance changed to 50% + dom str*5%
Shape changing units can die in one strike if it's powerful enough to kill the next shape too.
Auto kill occurs 20 rounds later to give more time for auto rout.
Rainbow didn't affect allies, fixed
New monster pretenders
Some new pretender titles
Changed the selection of pretenders for some nations
New graphics/sounds for some spells
Adding thrones to .map files automatically adds ascension points too
Independent wizards got more spells researched
Can select players with only 1 nation in era
New throne effect 'Dominion conflict bonus'
Mercenaries no longer drown when unhired
Siren's lure didn't work, fixed
Monolith could blink and use stygian paths
Wish fix
Nicer handling of corrupted turn files
Geoglyph didn't reduce MR properly
Supaya reanimation changes
Print 'defence negates' on those weapons
Void Lord cannot have helmet
Serpent tailed pretenderws can wear armor
Battle performance improvement
Host performance improvement
uw stat, spells and item fixes
Dragons did not use ammo for breath weapon in melee
Slash/Pierce weapons only gets -1 penalty under water
Underwater non pierce penalty fix
Stone beings not affected by plague or disease
New magic item for Nazca
Crumble was way too effective
Send horror resulted in one horror too many
Theft of the Sun now affects resources too
Don't auto summon units when you have fled the field
Max number of commanders increased 9990 -> 20000
Max number of units increased 160000 -> 250000
New option: --maxunits to limit number of units
Disease effect on death blessed arrows didn't work
Ethereal did not offer protection against some non damaging spells
Xibablba UW defence fix
Improved gem cheat detection
Cheat detection fix for mercs
Random map generation speedup
Improved dirt generation on random maps
New switches for random maps: --mapdirt, --mapdirtcol, --mapdirtsize
Minor memory leak fixed
Game info says whether story event are enabled or not
Snow/Rain/Sea graphics performance improvement
Altered snow and rain fall
Site power that kills undead & demons only affected undead
Swamp survival boots didn't help against miasma
Azi and Drakon have 3 head slots
Demonic Locusts
Dementia didn't heal correctly
Gossamer Cloth etc didn't give properly rounded scout reports
Bug fix for shape shifting units starting with magic items
Flying raiders needed 10000 patrollers to get caught
Xibalba dart throwers in towers has dmg value 12 instead of 0
Corpse Eater icon
Pretender discounts can now be set per nation
Stat fixes
Site fixes
Events updated
Typos fixed


AI
AI lab building improvements
AI Mictlan more likely to blood sacrifice
AI gem usage fix


Modding
New poptype mod commands: #defunit1, #defmult1, #defcom1, etc.
New mod commands: #disableoldnations, #clearallevents
New mod commands: #batstartsum6d6 ... sum9d9
New mod commands: #req_targitem, #req_gold, #killpop, #removesite
Event mod command renamed #newsite -> #addsite
New unlimited always event (rarity 5) for modding
Rarity 13 events also happens at low population levels
New nation mod commands: #cheapgod20, #cheapgod40

[LongBlade]

That is a nice patch list. Good to see there's life in the dev team.

[Huw the Poo]

Yeah and as far as I know these games are still just what the devs do in their spare time.

I've been playing Dom4 recently as it happens.  It never ceases to amaze me how much there is to it, it really is one of the finest strategy games ever made in my opinion.

[Boggit]

I have the non-steam version from Gamersgate. I'll check out the new patch. Thanks.

[Tpek]

I have the non-steam version from Gamersgate. I'll check out the new patch. Thanks.

I believe Gamersgate now provides you with a Steam key, you might want to check it out.

[Nefaro]

Sexcellent.   O0

[Skwerl]

I love Dominions 3 - in fact I played a couple of hours Wednesday night.  Is Dominions 4 enough of an improvement over Dominions 3 to make it worth the investment?

[Huw the Poo]

On my phone so, being brief: yes.  Absolutely.

[Nefaro]

I love Dominions 3 - in fact I played a couple of hours Wednesday night.  Is Dominions 4 enough of an improvement over Dominions 3 to make it worth the investment?

I think it is.

The game is still the same, in general, but there were a huge amount of little tweaks, balancing, and interface improvements along with new factions & such.  This patch looks like it made even more tweaks. 

[Huw the Poo]

Oh I forgot to come back to this.  Yeah, what Nefaro said.  Countless small improvements that, combined, make it a superior game.  Not to mention the interface is a bit nicer too - plus there's even more Stuff(tm)!

[Bison]

I'm think it's worth the upgrade too, if you enjoy the game. 

[airboy]

I love Dominions 3 - in fact I played a couple of hours Wednesday night.  Is Dominions 4 enough of an improvement over Dominions 3 to make it worth the investment?

Disadvantage - fewer nation profiles on play style on the internet compared to Dominions 3.  Dominions 3 has a massive internet database of pretender design combos with different nations in different eras.

Biggest Advantage - The combat system is more sophisticated.  You can issue more combat commands prior to the start of battles, which opens up yet another set of options on how to play.  The usefulness of archers and fast troops are better than in D3, and various combinations of combat commands, troop formations, and spell choices can add even more play elements.

[Bison]

The game is discounted 50% this week on Steam. 

[Boggit]

I have the non-steam version from Gamersgate. I'll check out the new patch. Thanks.

I believe Gamersgate now provides you with a Steam key, you might want to check it out.

I'll go and check. Thanks for the heads up. :)

[Boggit]

I just put in the activation code from Gamersgate, and it's downloading now on Steam. Thanks Tpek! One thing I really do like about Steam is the autoupdate facility.

The only downside is restarting my Machaka campaign. Anyone else play them?