Dominions 6 - Rise of the Pantokrator
In Dominions 6 you take control of a powerful being that rules a nation and aspires to godhood. The type of Pretender Gods can vary from magically powerful arch mages to old dragons or an enormous tree. Dominions is a deep 4x turn based strategy game with a very large variety of spells and units.
Dominions 6 - Rise of the Pantokrator is a strategy, 4x and turn-based strategy game
developed and published by Illwinter Game Design.
Released on January 17th 2024 is available in English on Windows, MacOS and Linux.
It has received 1,085 reviews of which 978 were positive and 107 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.5 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 28.59€ on Steam and has a 35% discount.
The Steam community has classified Dominions 6 - Rise of the Pantokrator into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Dominions 6 - Rise of the Pantokrator through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- Processor: 64-bit intel/amd cpu
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated graphics or better
- Storage: 750 MB available space
MacOS
- Requires an Apple processor
- OS: 13.0 or later
- Processor: Apple M1 or later (arm only)
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 750 MB available space
Linux
- OS: Any 64-bit distro
- Processor: 64-bit intel/amd cpu
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 1.4+
- Storage: 750 MB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
A solid and noticeable step up from Dom 5. Battles are bigger. Bigger battles are better. Visuals are prettier. Prettier visuals are better. New nations are cool. More nations are better. New magic path is well differentiated. More magic is better. You can put magic items on horses. Pimped out horses are better. That said, if you already have Dom5 and have less than 100 hours in it, you haven't scratched the surface of what this game has in terms of depth. You can probably get another 400 hours of that before the additional Dom6 content will offer a significant value proposition. If you don't have either, get Dom6. It adds a few hundred meters of depth to what was already the Mariana Trench of strategy games.
Read more
For starters, you can be a fountain. Yes, a fountain. The game offers an utterly unique experience. Especially in multiplayer. - One game you invest heavily in undead. You wipe out entire provinces and raise the dead into shambling armies. Your opponent tries to hold back the tide, but you simply out number them. Then they produce ghosts who can only be slain by magical enemies just before you crush their last province. Your undead swarm don't have magic weapons. You can't make any because you KILLED everyone. - One game you throw magical demons into the dreams of your opponents. They can't sleep. They keep selling their souls to hell. You recruit troops through mystical cross breeding of animals and blood sacrifice. Your opponent creates mystical forges. Their troops fly, throw lightening from hammers, and regenerate. Your strategies become increasingly ridiculous, at one stage someone turns off the sun. THEY TURN OFF THE SUN and attack you with EYELESS MONSTERS. The graphics are simple, the combat is somewhat hands off, the balance can be hit and miss... but each game will tell an interesting story. Building armies is similar to constructing elaborate auto battles but with a depth that out strips the majority of games in the genre. If you've played Total War or similar games and wished the battles had a little more to them than positioning and flanking, this game certainly offers that with an elaborate magic and item construction system. For those of us that like micro management, there simply isn't any. It's set strategy and watch the outcome. This isn't an RTS. The game is deceptively simple to learn once you understand the movement, economy, and magic system. Turns from veteran players can be swift making it an ideal multiplayer game. However, the sheer scope of options can lead to situations where your strategy can be hard countered by an opponent. You may find yourself in an unwinnable situation quite quickly and mistakes can be unforgiving. The largest downside to the auto-battle and elaborate magic system is that the AI will never give you the same competition as a human. The AI will often fall for specific strategies and, 6 games into the series, this is still a problem with Dominions 6. That said, mods and a great community are sure to follow this game. The developers also have a proven history of updating and patching their games. Highly recommended, especially if you have a small friend group to play with. It's a great game to play between lunch breaks as it offers a delayed turn system somewhat similar to chess. Watch some YouTube videos if you are uncertain, or find someone in the community to teach you if you're unsure. The game is FAR simpler to play than people let on with common sense working for most strategies. Slingers aren't great against armor. Mages don't like being stabbed. You should probably tell your Green Knight not to charge at the start of any given battle. Also... you should be a Fountain. A teleporting Fountain filled with blood that makes everyone age at an accelerated rate and constructs a Well of Misery. A sleeping Fountain that wakes up a year into the game and hungers for souls. Don't you want to be a Fountain yet? ... There's a Bone Dragon too. You can do that if you need to. Still... Fountain? Questions: What's multiplayer like? It has lobbies. You don't need to connect manually. What are the differences between 5 and 6? There is a list on the forum, but there are new features related to under ground areas, more units during battles, more races, some better balance features, trees for some reason... If you've never played Dominions before, you could play Dominions 5 and still be a fountain. If you are reading this, I have been a Fountain for over 17 hours. Review group: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34296370-Strategy-Tactics-and-Roleplayi/?appid=2511500
Read more
TLDR for new players : Dominions is an outstanding game series, my favorite in fact, and it's pretty much what it says in the box. For a new player, if the list of contents seems even remotely interesting, then you'll almost certainly love it - its potential shortcomings are pretty apparent and no one should be surprised upon playing it that, for example, it has low production values - and within that series Dom6 is unquestionably the version you should be getting. What is Dominions? So, to be clear, Dominions is a fantasy wargame. It's not 4X: there's effectively no mechanics to model civilian economy or technological development or anything of the sort. Instead, it's purely focused on military operations, maneuvering forces and directing them in battle. For that matter, the player doesn't have direct control over their forces either: instead, you can deploy your forces and give them basic scripted orders, but no direct control over battles. If that doesn't sound exciting for you then that's unfortunate, but as a matter of fact I think that's one of key strengths of the game as this (as well as logistics), contrary to omniscient direct control seen in games like Total War, captures the essence of historical generalship. (And this enables simultaneous turns format, which works wonderfully for multiplayer) You might not be able to execute Cannae double envelopment, first of all because the unit scripting options aren't that powerful, but above all because this is a magical setting and the use of magic often is decisive. But you are absolutely trying to predict what the opponent will do, counter that in advance (often with magic, a key way tactics tie to strategy), and aim for robustness because everything might not go exactly as you envisioned. And this ties neatly to the operational-strategic layer: you can recruit all basic units since turn 1 but you don't start out with a full repertoire of magical capabilities and these spells need to be researched - magic research playing the role of a tech tree. But you use the same resource (mages) to both research and cast the magic which creates a strategic dilemma, and this is also responsible for many great dynamics like big defender's advantage: a player fighting for his life can suddenly deploy a huge force multiplier by mobilizing their research mages. I have a hunch most of this mechanical brilliance is unintentional, but since we're on topic of Dominions being a wargame, I'll take an opportunity to praise its "DRN" system of rolls (opposed rolls with exploding 2d6) that I consider the gold standard of dice-based systems: I'm an ardent critic of games like D&D and when asked about what you could do better, it's "basically just copy Dominions". One of the reasons why, despite having hundreds of combat factors, it remains surprisingly manageable and intuitive: all combat calculations use this same system. That's for the mechanics, but the strong point of Dominions is the fluff. It has various problems which often come down to the fact that the developers treat it as a sort of art project ignoring stuff like MP balance, but it's also its main selling point. Like, how can one not to be excited about a game where Undead Romans, Spanish Inquisition, Incan necrocracy and Biblical giants duke it out? In a high-magic setting in which you canWish for more wishes and it's not even very good compared to other endgame magics? And it's not just that this kind of Battle Royale is cool conceptually, it's actually well-researched, has outstanding mechanical implementation of fluff details, and makes for great emergent narratives within the matches, but curiously, thanks to the factions being split to three playable eras, there's also the history of the setting to be deciphered from these snapshots. Plus, despite their missteps sometimes the worldbuilding focus on the developers pays dividends by acting as a creative constraint: that happens to make unique mechanical designs, too. So what about Dominions 6? Okay, there's the criticism that Dom 6 is the same game as Dom 5. Well, that's kinda the point! It didn't get to its current state by reinventing the wheel five times, but iterating upon the previous version. In my opinion games by large don't do this nearly enough: strategy gamers for instance might appreciate the point about Civilization, where each of Civ 4, 5, and 6, were finally coming to their own with their final expansions, and in my opinion it's a tragedy that they didn't get one additional expansion each. Iteration is a reliable way, precondition even, to truly achieve greatness, and Illwinter's business model of releasing a major update every half a decade and then supporting it with free patches and content additions sure beats many alternatives like a game with its DLC bundle costing 300€. That being said, with the current price, for returning players (for new players it's like getting two decades worth of DLCs at price of the base game), it nevertheless has a taste of a raw deal because the game itself as it is now is a bit raw. The problems relating to current state include but are not limited to: [*] Entirely missing sprites [*] Lazily done hack job sprites like a horse sprite with rider's legs still there, or mounts that change appearance when dismounted [*]UI functionalities having disappeared (for instance, the button to load prepared pretenders is missing, although the hotkey C-l does work - pro tip for the new players, always press '?' on each new screen) [*]ZERO maps included with the game (the game might have been moving towards random maps, but come on) [*]Many interactions with e.g. new glamor path bugged [*]MP lobby has bugs like "wanted map got crap" when starting game (client restart fixes?) or all players being able to mess around with message This is in addition to various changes that aren't unfinished per se but aren't necessarily for the better, including things like: [*] Generic, unfitting music: Bring back Dråm! [*] A lot of the UI stuff. Some of the additions like drag selection in tactical screen or ritual movement mapmode are really good! And I can't tell from first principles of accessibility design if the UI elements moved around are just bad or if I'm looking at wrong places out of habit (although I suspect it's bad). But e.g. key features like magic research appearing as an unassuming icon in a row of a dozen at the corner of the screen is simply BAD. [*] Dom 5 meta wasn't fully settled even in the end, but I can make informed guesses, and I have a hunch that current tuning of indies requires too much early game investment from nations that aren't inherently strong at expanding, and that a lot of ritual spells are way overbuffed to create a good experience [*] Pretender balance has major issues. For example, pure imprisoned rainbow bless is gone and good riddance. But it's still more economical to gain bless points for big blesses from taking extra paths on Dom 1 chassis than to take the blesses on a chassis that has high access to that path. [*] Items often seem overnerfed, especially compared to many of the buffed ritual options. Right now, Dom 6 on account of these issues and others is preferable to Dom 5 mostly for the sake of novelty. Is this enough? I refuse to give a numerical rating, read the wall of text and decide for yourself.
Read more
For new players: This is a deep and complex war game, focusing on the titanic struggle between gods for supremacy of a fantasy world. The nations are mostly based on real-world mythologies and histories, and while there are similar themes and a few shared units between some of them, each one is and feels like a unique nation, with the aforementioned similarities being an enhancement of the flavor and storytelling. The options for gods are many, and there are innumerable strategies for victory - but there are only a few paths to victory, all of them conflict oriented. This is not like Civilization, this is not like Stellaris - this is War, brutal and terrible. Your soldiers will get lasting injuries. If you're lucky, your mages will grow old and die. Your population will be decimated by horrible magic. Your heroes will be killed by assassins or horrors from beyond. Your God may also be slain, but like Innana, may be risen from the dead to continue the fight. A "Cultural Victory" is extinguishing belief in your enemies, and a "Technology victory" is having the most powerful magic and using it effectively. There is no peaceful option in the contest for all possible chips. There are more than 100 nations across three distinct ages, and several thousand units and commanders, many with special abilities. Careful consideration will be required, as will studying your opponent's forces to glean their weaknesses, and then you will need to find ways to exploit those weaknesses. There is a ton of stuff to go through - more spells than you will ever cast, more items than you will ever forge, and combined with the variety of units, there are a technically calculable but incomprehensibly large number of options for you and your opponents to choose from, and your strategy will have to evolve and change to meet the latest threat. There isn't a clear optimal order of operations, nor are all options equally valid - everything is in a constant state of flux, as gods awaken and their blessings grow stronger, as new magic sites are found, as new spells are rediscovered. The manual to this game is hundreds of pages long, and it still doesn't cover every last thing in extreme detail - which for some is a negative, but for me is a positive, as learning through experience is what I find fun. You will need to think on your toes, and you will probably lose several times before you win your first game, but it is a rich and rewarding experience. The game itself is a grand strategy auto-battler, and consists of a campaign map (which can have several layers and planes) and battle maps, and is based on concurrent turns. In battle, you will position your troops, and give them general orders to follow. You will script your commanders and mages with more granularity, but after the first five rounds, the AI will determine their movements and actions, and it generally does a good job, if not always doing what you would want. Coming from a total war background, it can be frustrating to not have your soldiers capitalize on every gap you can see, but it is a different system, and you get to spend your time fretting the innumerable possibilities beforehand and you get to sit back and actually watch the battle. For experienced players: Dominions 6 is similar enough to feel familiar, but different enough to make you rethink your go-to strategies. Gameplay: From my experience, the game seems to be shifted more in favor of a slower expansion, expecting you to field larger armies than before, and to consider your targets more carefully. The Fog of War is a nice addition, and encourages you to send out more scouts to determine which direction to focus your war machine on. Features like Auto-searching for magic sites, inventory sorting, and commander loadout search by magic item are all welcome QoL improvements. Spells and Magic items have been shuffled around, and there are plenty of new options to consider as well. I haven't had much interaction with the new mount mechanics as yet, but seeing riders thrown from their dying horses is a nice touch. In a similar vein, Assassinations have been greatly improved by the wholesale slaughter of taverngoers. Almost as excitingly, there's now an in-built multiplayer lobby! The new bless system may take some time to come to grips with, as it separates bless points from path points to some degree, but I think it's a positive change, especially for multiplayer. Effectively, bless points are determined by each non-native path level of 3 or higher, while the bless options are based on path strength. It should allow for greater variety, and less predictability - if you want several smaller blesses in the same path, for instance, you no longer have to sink tons of design points into a "tall" path build, and can instead broaden into other paths and still meet the requirements. The new Scales system is interesting. You can't dump/max scales as readily as before, as they are bounded within a more narrow range depending on your nation and pretender. That said, the total possible strength of scales have been increased from +/-3 to +/-5, allowing for magic and thrones to push a province well outside safe levels of a given scale. The AI also seems to be significantly improved, using a much stronger mix of national troops, supplementing with a variety of summons and (to a much lesser degree) independent soldiers - meaning that AI opponents feel more thematic. The UI is going to take some getting used to, but I'll get there in a few days. Most screens are now found in a tiny bar of icons at the top of the screen, and everything is accessible through key commands ("?" to view key commands for each window). This decision opens the screen up greatly, and most of it is taken up by the campaign map, rather than being hidden behind the UI on smaller devices. The Map: Uploading a blueprint and having the game generate a map based on it is really cool, as is its support of an absurd number of provinces (1985). So far I've only played with the Overworld and Cavern layers, but I can't wait for the custom maps with elemental planes, alternate dimensions, etc. The province connections in created maps are still sometimes a little wonky, but seem significantly better than previous installments. I haven't yet seen terraforming in action, but it is a new mechanic, and I am excited to play with it. The Music: It's pretty good. At the moment, I don't like it as much as Dom 5's - which I am certain I and others said at the release of Dom 5 in comparison to Dom 4's music. I think it will grow on me, as Dom 5's did (which I now listen to at work). It's capable, and I appreciate the fading shift when entering battles. If you want to play with other music, unfortunately for the moment you are relegated to replacing the in-game music entirely, and this is rigidly locked. I hope that this is addressed at some point, as I would like to be able to throw the music from the other games into folders and have it pull from there. ~~~ Unfortunately I have to get ready for work, and have already spent too much time on this review, so it will have to do. My overall takeaway is that if you enjoy auto-battlers, deep strategic gameplay, and deep mythological lore, you will likely find this to be a worthwhile purchase.
Read more
First the good things. -> Multiple planes/realms are going to be a game changer. The kinds of maps that will come from this have the potential to be the best ever. It's making me think of old Age of Wonders or Civ 2 Test of Time. (A more modern example is how one could 'thematically' take the ideas of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and have the game play out over a sky world, underworld, and regular surface simultaneously). Give the community some time and we're going to get some good stuff. -> New magic domain, very interesting and tricky. Some of the concepts (False Food in particular) I'm not sure how it would work outside of super situational issues, but it's cool as an idea. New nations are also cool, though once Dominions Enhanced gets ported to this we're going to be drowned for content once more. -> Horse Armor! Okay, paying a lot for this one, but I like it. I am disappointed it's just barding, magical horse shoes are too cool of an idea and I super want to see that added by a mod or maybe later. But as is the changes to cavalry units in general will likely make them much more fun to play with. Plus some new tactical command options are helping as well. -> Map generation improved, though I prefer the fun maps we're going to get soon enough. The terraform powers are going to be cool... and make me curious if there's anyway to implement that with custom maps if someone wanted to be extremely extra. -> The new blessing/creator tweaks are very neat. Common blessing points, reducing/changing how the scales balance... it's going to take some time to wrap my head around it but it does feel like a way to make builds bit less super gimmicky while also allowing for more variety that can work. This feels like a wait and see. -> New magic item balance is interesting... I might like it more once I play with it some. Bad. -> Okay, so what happened here? Did the rights expire? Why no 'Lady of the Dawn'? I've been vibing to that song for years now. The new music is okay, but I really want the old stuff back and mixed in with it. -> Spellcasting AI feels a bit wonky at the moment. A communion killed all the other mages because they kept casting the same self-buff spell over and over and over. I do not remember this being an issue in D5 so something is up. Anyhow, thanks once more for making one of the few games here or elsewhere that I actually feel is worth getting day one and for full price. Here's hoping to many more years of content, community and developer to come!
Read more
Similar games
View all
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates
| Steam data | 20 November 2024 18:01 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 22 December 2024 13:40 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 12:18 |
| Steam reviews | 21 December 2024 14:08 |
Online players
315
Developer
Illwinter Game Design
Publisher
Illwinter Game Design
Release
17 Jan 2024
Platforms