Dominions 3: The Awakening/Playing Dom3 like Dom4

Although many substantial changes have been made to the newer version of the game by the developer, it is still possible to play Dominions 3 in such a way that the macro-game strategy closely resembles that of Dominions 4.


 * When creating a new game, after god design you will be taken to the Game Settings screen. Make sure the following changes are enabled:
 * change Magic Research from Standard to Very Difficult. Magic research in Dom4 is substantially slower than Dom3 beyond level 4 in each school. This setting still only requires about 2/3 the total rp to get to level 9 in any school as required by Dom4, but it does reflect the major research effort needed to get to higher levels of magic.
 * change Victory Conditions from Standard to Victory by victory points. Then set the sliders so that:
 * Nbr of 1 vp provinces = ~ 50% of number of players in the game (minimum 6).
 * Nbr of 2 vp provinces = ~ 1/3 of number of 1 vp provinces (minimum 2).
 * Nbr of 3 vp provinces = ~ 1/6 of number of 1 vp provinces (minimum 1).
 * enable 1 vp per capital.
 * Now total up the number of possible vps present in the game (ie. all the weighted 1/2/3 vp provinces and the # of capitals) and set Required victory points slider to = 50% (total possible vps) + 1.
 * Don't use gem gens. In SP this is as easy as never forging any. For MP you might consider downloading the CBM mod (Community Balanced Mod) that became the de-facto Dom3 MP-adopted standard for years. CBM eliminated all gem gens.
 * Only use standard communions (where the masters cast and the slaves don't). Communions have been revamped in Dom4 and reversed communions are no longer possible.