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 1,119 reviews of which 1,010 were positive and 109 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.5 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 43.99€ on Steam.
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.
Okay, let's not beat around the bush - Dominions is the hobby project of two Swedish professors, and it shows. It's clunky, the UI is unfriendly, the graphics are beyond dated even speaking as someone who prefers a strong aesthetic over high fidelity, and it's generally bad at onboarding new players. It's a game where instead of a tutorial there's a 449 page manual. In fairness, ~350 of those are appendices and nation overviews, but still - you're really going to want to join the Nexus discord so the veteran players can help teach you. So why is this a positive review, then? A few reasons. One of my recurring issues with a lot of fantasy settings is the way they tend to treat race as the big distinction between factions – more than just having stock fantasy races like dwarves and orcs and elves, the factions are so often sorted into The Dwarfholds, The Human Kingdoms, The Elf Havens, The Orc Horde, etc, and it just feels kind of… thin? Life is messier than that. Terry Pratchett (GNU Pterry) wrote Ankh-Morpork in the 80's as a cosmopolitan melting pot that's really just an authentic portrayal of what cities are like, and it still feels fresh because the contrast is so poor. I said above that Dominions is the hobby project of Swedish professors, and when I said it shows, that wasn't entirely a bad thing. At least one of them teaches religion and social sciences, and you can see that in the strong emphasis on culture rather than race as the defining influence on factions. Caelum, for example, is primarily populated by a race of bird-people, but it's not ABOUT "bird people" the way fantasy dwarfs tend to be so strongly defined by Being Dwarfs. Instead Caelum is about the internal tensions and religious schisms between its clans, and the path that story charts produces offshoots like Nazca and Ragha through cross-pollination with other cultures, and it feels so much more rich and satisfying. Second, I'm a big fan of the sheer breadth of Stuff you can do with the game's mechanics. There are so many moving parts here, and yes the balance is all over the place, but that just means running into something potent is usually cause to rummage through the vast array of possibilities for One Weird Trick to solve it, and that rummaging is great fun. Third, the multiplayer has a lovely setup for asynchronous PBEM play, similar to Solium Infernum; everybody logs their orders sometime in the day, then once everybody's finished, the game resolves all those orders at once. I find it works a lot better than simultaneous play, because it means I don't have to commit an entire evening to play with friends, and it sidesteps the problems about arranging timeslots with people in different timezones – but at the same time, because everybody can log their orders at once rather than going in sequence like a classic IGOUGO structure, games progress reasonably fast by the standards of multiplayer PBEM. My last reasons get deeper into mechanics, so indulge me for a moment yet; most strategy games encourage decisive battle theory. If you recruit combat units you want them out on the map fighting things, and if you recruit utility units (harvesters/workers/settlers/etc), their combat power is negligible if they have any at all. So when two players fight, almost always the outcome is decided by a single decisive engagement, because whoever wins will have crushed the great majority of all the military strength their opponent has in existence. Especially because any halfway savvy player knows this, and knows there's little mileage in fighting the tide. Holding good stuff in reserve just invites defeat in detail. This is not, I should point out, necessarily a bad thing; big decisive clashes make for big, satisfying spectacles. But it is a default, and getting away from it is refreshing. See in Dominions', spellcasting wins wars. Past the early stage, troops without mage support are basically targets of opportunity to a couple of mages who can cast some good spells, but unlocking the good spells requires research – and the game's innovation is that research isn't generated directly by cities. Rather, cities recruit mages, and mages can be ordered to spend their turn generating research. So, mages are not just your best combat units, they're also how you generate resources. So, if you invade someone you might smash an army at the border, you might flip some of their countryside and claim the attendant taxpayers, but they WILL have a deep reserve of mages who can be retasked from research to fighting off a serious threat, and simply by dint of being A Bunch Of Mages they're a big deal. This works really well to encourage actual back-and-forth gameplay – you still have those decisive battles, but you're not hurried into it as the only way wars go, there's room for comebacks and raiding the countryside and sneaky shenanigans, and it feels so much more open. Lastly, related to the above, is the importance of intel and mind games. Because there's so much more scope for comebacks, and because spellcasting is so powerful, it's important to know what your enemy is deploying. The game gives you only limited information on what your opponent has without a battle report, you can't just select enemy units to examine them in detail, and you can't know for sure what the enemy will do this turn, so there's a strong incentive to fight wide raiding campaigns, both to gain territory, and also to fight small skirmishes to get glimpses of what troops they're using, what spells they've unlocked, what magic items they've forged, whether they have hidden tricks in reserve, etc. How many strategy games can you name where the mechanics encourage honest-to-gods strategic reserves, probing attacks, and recon-by-force? Is the game a clunky, dated mess? Yes. Is it heaps of fucking fun anyway? Absolutely.
Read more
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
Most people will likely get turned off by the graphics in this game. This is unfortunate as I believe this to be the best fantasy strategy game out there. The amount of content is staggering. There are over 100 nations to play across 3 eras and they all really do play differently. A wide variety of pretender gods of different types. Over 1000 spells and an astonishing number of magic items to forge. There is so much content, I find it helpful to use the dominions 6 data inspector website in order to help plan a way forward. This game is complex. The learning curve is very steep. So much so that watching beginner youtube videos is a must (check out dastactic, chazzyburger or lucidtactics). Going over the manual is very useful as well. The user interface is a bit archaic and those youtube videos will help clear that up. You will be using key commands a lot of the time. If you can handle the commitment, the game is very rewarding. There will be challenges ahead and you will look at the many tools at your disposal from your units, spells, magic items and what you choose to research to put together a harebrained scheme to take out your opponent. I highly recommend it.
Read more
This is an incremental build over Dominions 5 (and backwards through the game's revisions). If you own the previous game, you're essentially buying the changelog for the 6.x version of the game readable here: [url=https://www.illwinter.com/dom6/changes.html]https://www.illwinter.com/dom6/changes.html Some standouts compared to 5 that I like: * Official network game lobby: this is a very nice QoL change compared to running network games in 5. * The overall AI is definitely better, though there are still quirks that need to be ironed out. * Some of the new pretender and nation options are nice, and some of the slight mechanical changes (splitting out illusion spells, splitting horseback units to mount and horse) make for more dynamic battles where these come up. * The unit counts in battles being raised makes things a bit livelier, and makes supply chain matter a bit more. Otherwise, it's dom5 with new music, slightly updated visuals, and mechanical changes mostly felt by the most technical of players. For those wholly unfamiliar with the series, any set of dom5 reviews will catch you up to speed here. But to save you a click: this is a mechanically deep 4X in the vein of Might and Magic, with a rich simulated battle system and a very steep learning curve and skill ceiling. The devs keep their documentation up to date (which is great in the era of documentation-by-Discord, and can be found [url=https://www.illwinter.com/dom6/docs.html]here ), the unofficial wiki is great, and the AI is good enough to put up a fight if multiplayer isn't your jam. But if it is, multiplayer is pretty good, too. Starting from no version of this game or if you want to support the developers, just buy it, it's great. But if you're coming in from dom5, maybe wait for the next batch of Steam sales, as that'll be around the time new bugs are ironed out and the game has had a chance to differentiate itself a bit more.
Read more
Every time I do what on the surface of it is a dumb thing and buy the next iteration of Dominions to get the launch discount despite the game tending to look almost exactly the same as the previous iteration, I ask myself, "just how good is Dominions?" The answer remains "very good" - and I still don't dare step into the world of PBEM multiplayer, and exclusively play singleplayer, despite multiplayer being allegedly where Dominions *truly* shines. Others can and will speak to MP - a few reviews seem to be saying that there's some work to be done there. For a single player Dominions fan, the UI changes alone make it very difficult for me to even think about going back to Dominions 5. I haven't toyed around with the new magic realm yet, but it's there for me to get to eventually, and the focus on larger battles makes even the early game more interesting - moreso with the "no longer just a flat plain" terrain changes which can throw an occasional spanner into your battle plans. It still has a learning curve like a cliff if you're coming into it new. But the cliff's got a few more handholds this time. Most of the stuff you'll find on the Internet about how to play this series is some *serious* min/maxing turbo number crunching stuff which makes the game seem a lot more intimidating than it actually is (unless you're a hardcore MP'er, I suppose!). You don't have to play perfectly to have a ton of fun in single player. Minor edit after 15 hours: I do agree with the reviews calling out that the music isn't as good as previous iterations, but that's a minor quibble.
Read more
Similar games
View all
Dominions 5 - Warriors of the Faith
In Dominions 5 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 huge titans or large monuments. Dominions is a deep 4x turn based strategy game with a very large variety of spells and units.
Fantasy General II
The fantasy wargaming classic is back! Lead powerful heroes and mighty armies into battle in this critically acclaimed turn-based strategy milestone. Level up and train your units and guide them through a gripping story campaign to decide the fate of a world on the brink of destruction.
Conquest of Elysium 5
Conquest of Elysium 5 is a quick turn based fantasy strategy game with a touch of rogue-like. The game is full of depth, details and monsters. There are also a huge number of factions, each with its own unique gameplay and magic rituals.
Shadow Empire
Shadow Empire is a deep turn-based 4X wargame with a unique blend of military focus, procedurally generated content and role-playing features.
Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
You are a God! You are master and ruler of a loyal nation. You have unimaginable powers at your disposal. You have claimed this world as yours. But there are others who stand in your way. You must defeat and destroy these pretenders. Only then can you ascend to godhood and become the new Pantokrator.
Wargroove 2
Trouble stirs on the shores of Aurania. An ambitious new faction has unearthed forbidden relics capable of catastrophic consequences. But how far will they go to achieve glory? Take to the battlefield, sea, and sky with a cast of new Commanders, using your wits to wage turn-based war!
Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim
Build an empire in a single sitting. All the strategy of a classic 4X in a faster format, which also shines in multiplayer.
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War brings you to a world of terror and violence. Four factions will engage in a brutal war for dominance over the planet’s resources. In the first turn-based 4X strategy game set in Warhammer 40,000 you will lead one of four unique factions.
CountryBalls Heroes
CountryBalls Heroes is a game where you get to play as your favorite Countryball. Become a legend by leading massive Countryball armies. Create your forces, build master-planned cities, gather powerful artifacts and prove that your Countryball is the most powerful.
Deity Empires
Deity Empires is a 4X, turn-based strategy game with a powerful “just one more turn” feel! Enter an intricate fantasy world as one of many deities posed to become ruler of the world.
Age of Wonders 4
Rule a fantasy realm of your own design! Explore new magical realms in Age of Wonders’ signature blend of 4X strategy and turn-based tactical combat. Control a faction that grows and changes as you expand your empire with each turn!
A Total War Saga: TROY
Inspired by The Iliad and brought to life through the award-winning strategy game series, A Total War Saga: TROY brings a blend of grand, turn-based empire management and spectacular real-time battles to the heart of the Trojan War.
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 | 17 January 2025 14:26 |
| Steam price | 22 January 2025 20:18 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 12:07 |
Online players
316
Developer
Illwinter Game Design
Publisher
Illwinter Game Design
Release
17 Jan 2024
Platforms