Dominions 3 the awakening vs. Master of Magic vs. Age of wonders

Dom3 is a bit different from the others.

It has simultaneous turns and no tactical combat. In MoM and AoW, the tactical combat was an integral part of the game. (I still hold the opinion that the first, original AoW had the best combat, especially during sieges).

Dom3 allows you to forge items to equip your heroes, where AoW only lets you find them in dungeons.

Basically Dom3 focuses on a much larger scale than AoW.

MoM and AoW have a parallel plane of existence, where Dom3 only has the normal world.


Also MoM, being the oldest, is kind of the Grandfather of all fantasy strategy games. AoW is currently the one closest to it, but IMO fails in certain parts (tactical combat in the later games). Dom3 is a different take on the subject, with MASSIVE armies, but only indirect control. If you like Dom3, there is no guarantee that you like the AoW series and vice versa.

While AoW is moddable and features an editor, Dom3 has easier modding and you can basically use and graphic you have as a map with only little editing.

so i guess the three are really different creatures, while AoW and MoM are a bit similar. Thanks

Dom3 allows you to forge items to equip your heroes, where AoW only lets you find them in dungeons.


In AoW Shadow Magic you can forge items, just like in MoM.

Really? I admit that it's some time since I've played Shadow Magic (or MoM), but I didn't recall that. The only items I remember were from special locations or quests.

I only played Master of Magic. And there you can forge items for your heroes.



In MoM you could create armies. Each had 9 slots for units and/or hereos.
Since you always had to planes with the same size, I had the feeling that the map was quite large.
The game sessions could also be very long (like in Civ), depending on how many enemies you had.

Everything you wanted to know about Dominions 3 is in my review:

WWW Link

I prefer Age of WondersII.I just couldn't get into Dom3 it seemed to lack soul.

Actually I think the descriptions and stories of Dom3 are more in-depth than AoW. It also comes with one of the best game manuals I've ever seen (wire-o, 300+ pages, detailed game mechanics and just about any useful reference table you could conceive. And some you couldn't but are vital nonetheless.)

Also, you can't judge Dom3 on it's demo. The demo ends more or less before the real fun begins.

Fantasy general was great in its time.

Hard to compare, but all 3 are very good games.

Master of Magic was the absolute classic for its time. Great game, innovative and absolutely captivating portrayal of a 4x TBS fantasy game. The player-vs-environment aspect of MoM was perhaps the best of any game I've ever played. The varied schools of magic and racial bonuses gave it great replay value.

Age of Wonders was a very promising system, but it only really reached its fruition after multiple patches to Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. AoW: SM was a great game system, but the game play wasn't really that different from a number of similar predecessors--just smoother and more satisfying. I made it a good chunk of the way through the campaign, but found each scenario seemed to be playing itself out in a very similar way and eventually moved on to other games.

The Dominions series is an entirely different type of game. It really represents a clean break from the "tried and true" 4x strategy genre, and in that sense, it's a very worthy investment. Being developed almost exclusively by 2 Swedish brothers, it doesn't have the graphics or polish of the other games, but the "one more turn" effect is outstanding.

The game is so open-ended, there's a bit of a learning curve. But once you learn to master all the competing demands and opportunities, it's a GREAT game system. The various different types of "gods", the dramatically different schools of magic, and the wide divergence of strengths and weaknesses for all the various factions gave it great replay value, even as a single-player game.

The MP following for MP completely dwarfs the MP following of any of the other games mentioned here.

So long as we're discussing Master of Magic and it's successors, I will throw out one other recommendation that has captivated my attention for the last 3 months or so and still seems to be going strong. It's the free Civilization 4 mod, "Fall From Heaven 2".

Best darn mod I've ever run across, and it revived a once-favored game that had been sitting inert on my hard drive for about 2 years! If you have either the original Civ IV game, or if you have the expansion, "Beyond the Sword", check out FfH2 at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398.

Dom3 is just the best fantasy strategy game for multiplayer games! You can make you turn whenever you want (in a timeline between the hosts) send it and got you new turnfile. That mechanisme works far better than a "real" online MP turnbased game.

How's the AI in Dom 3? In Dom 2 it was a bit on the weak side, and once you finally got past the "playing against the game mechanics" thing and really understood the game (which took eons, incidentally) it largely lost its appeal.

I haven't played MoM or AoW, but I can't recommend Dominions 3 highly enough - I think it is my favourite game ever (even beating GalCivII), which is really saying a lot (I have played a _lot_ of games in my time). I've been playing it non-stop for a year now, and the multiplayer is brilliant. Play-by-email is a great way to play - in general people have one turn per day, which means you can play whenever suits you, and then really look forward to receiving the next turn.

Vinraith: Apparently the AI in dom3 is a great deal better than dom2, but still it isn't as good as GalCiv's.

Probably still not worth it, I guess. $50 for a game that's strongest in MP is always a bad investment, as I never play MP.

Well, it is worse for me: as I live in Europe, I want to have a download version to avoid shipping costs and possible custom taxes. Sadly there isn't any download version. And the fact that on the official dom3 forums there is a post explaining that won't be a downloadable manuel gives me little hope for a download version of dom3

Dom3 is available in Europe. At least in Germany, through ixsoft. Granted, it's still 55 Euros, but for me it was well worth it. And I'm a SP player almost exclusively.

They're also still working on it, patching and adding new nations.

Sadly, I don't see how I can pay with an international credit card ...

I have played all three.

Master of Magic is like a sequel to the original Civilisation, by Sid Meier. But it has a fantasy setting, loads of spells and units, and tactical combat. It is really good. Gameplay a lot like any of the Civ games. Looks a bit dated now ... it was very low resolution.

Age of Wonders is like Master of Magic only with hexagons instead of squares. The most recent game in the series is Age of Wonders - Shadow Magic. I really liked Shadow Magic but it is still not quite so much fun as MoM.

Dominions 3 is like really complicated fantasy Risk. It's good fun, and I like it, but it is a very different game from the first two.

Dom3 is also the only really MP oriented of the three games. That said, I find myself in a gigantic, 22 nations, 1200 provinces game... And it's fun!

There are also quite some nice looking maps out there, some of them made with the AoW editor and then converted to .tga
If you're interested, this site has links to most maps on the Shrapnel forums.

MoM is the oldest so has an awful AI.

Dom3 interface is a killer, it requires so much unnesesary micro. It should have been ok for a 10-15 years old game, but for a one year old game it's unacceptable. AI plays ok but it's too simple. This game should be very simple for an AI so i guess they made some simple set of rules how AI should behave but i didn't see something intelligent in it's actions.

AoW felt like a simplified MoM to me so i didn't really like it.

Overall, i prefer MoM.

Overall, I prefer MoM too.

The AI did cheat though. And it sucked. I almost never saw it build a boat. Almost every game was set on a single continent no matter what settings you chose ... just to hide that fact.

(I hope the devs take note and make a game as good as MoM).

I just started playing Dom3 and am enjoying myself. Haven't tried MP yet, but will as soon as I can.

I think Dom3 has something in common with Nethack, oddly enough: underneath the admittedly unimpressive aesthetics is a very complex game. It's not pretty, but there's a lot to it!

Yeah, there are a LOT of things to find out and discover. The GUI may not be ideal but other than wishing for a way to queue up movement orders over several turns I find it refreshingly minimalistic and easy to understand.