Dominions 3: The Awakening

Dominions III: The Awakening is a turn-based fantasy strategy game with strategic planning phase and automated tactical combat. It has been released as of September 29, 2006. It is the third part of the Dominions series from Illwinter.

The game provides both scenarios and randomized play; however, it does not include a campaign. Dominions 3 is designed for multiplayer including both PBEM and TCP/IP, although it does provide AI opponents for single-player.

See story for a more atmospheric text about Dominions 3.

The world of Dominions is a magical world and magic will be of great importance to the Pretender's aspirations of godhood. The magic energies ultimately derives from the celestial bodies. The spheres predestine the fates and lives of priests and peasants.

The power of the spheres, the Arcana, empowers the nature in all its forms. It makes fires burn with heat and blaze, plants to grow and lightning to strike during storms. The Arcana is shattered into a spectrum of powers upon entry into the atmosphere. The six forms of lesser arcana are the Four Elements, Nature and Death.

But Arcana is not the sole source of magic power. The life-blood of the living is inherently magical. It is the magic in the blood that allows heroes to perform great feats, babies to be born and emotions to stir. Blood magic is the mastery of this power. Unfortunately the magic in the blood is diluted at best. Few mages can tap enough strength from their own blood to be able to perform magic feats. To do so the blood mage must spill the blood of other people.

Table of Contents

 * Complete Table of Contents

The Basics

 * God Design
 * Magic
 * Units (Commanders & Troops)
 * Treasury
 * Buildings
 * Magic Items
 * Logistics and Movement

Gameplay

 * Nations
 * Eras
 * Things to know
 * Expansion Strategies
 * Tactical Battles
 * Special Tactics
 * Walkthrough
 * Frequently Asked Questions

Official links

 * Illwinter Game Design - Homepage of Illwinter Game Design (developers)
 * Shrapnel Games, Inc. - Distributor, official Web-Forum, official Downloads (patches, demo)
 * Actual 3.06 Patch Download at Shrapnelgames
 * Dominions 3: The Awakening - Downloads - Demo Download page


 * Conceptual Balance Mod 1.0 - The successor to a popular mod for Dominions 2. Look also on the Shrapnelboards - Map and Mod Forum for comments and newer versions.

Fan sites

 * Dom3minions.com - Dominions 3 Fan Site
 * Sunray's Virtual Library - Many Dom2 and Dom3 documents (the best ones being the complete "national" unit lists !)
 * Dominions 3, wallpapers &logos - Dominions 3. wallpapers made by DFan (Christian Norbert Tassy)
 * orkut Community about Dominions3 You have to be a member of the orkut Web-Community to join this group.
 * Research Calculator from Maltrease for the first turns. See also this thread at shrapnelboards.