Disciples: Domination is the direct sequel to the previous incarnation, Disciples: Liberation. The Disciples franchise as a whole dates all the way back to the late 90s, with a few earlier titles. Disciples returned with Liberation in 2021, and now the next game in the series is here.
If you’ve played the older games or the more recent one you’ll be pretty familiar with the world and characters that appear in Domination. In a lot of ways, Domination seeks to be an improvement on Liberation while trying to make it a good jumping-on point for new players.
While Domination has some good parts, there’s a lot here that just doesn’t work on the whole, but it doesn’t prevent the game from being a good time. If you enjoyed Liberation, then you’ll probably enjoy continuing Avyanna’s story, but beyond that, this RPG may fall a little flat.
What is Disciples: Domination?
At its purest, Domination is an RPG. You’ll explore different maps and enter smaller dungeon-style spaces as you complete quests and make choices that affect the story. Along with getting some companions and raising an army of your choosing, you’ll take on turn-based combat against different kinds of enemies.
A big aspect of the game revolves around collecting resources, like gold, iron, and wood, to spend on different things back at your home base, Yllian. Avyanna is the Queen of Nevendaar, and not only is she responsible for saving it, but she’s also responsible for ruling it.
This means you’ll need to make choices that determine the fate of different races and the grievances they bring you. Each one can help or hurt your reputation with a given group, so it’s important to consider how you’ll handle the grievances.
You’ll also spend those resources on upgrading different troops with different kinds of advantages and disadvantages. To be able to upgrade or recruit higher-level troops, you’ll need to upgrade their buildings as well, which, of course, will cost even more resources.
There’s a lot to unpack in this game, for better or worse, so we’ll get a little more in the weeds later on. At its core, Domination is a turn-based RPG with a lot of moving parts for players to enjoy. Some feel a bit better than others, but the game does have an interesting story and world to explore.
A Story Continued
Disciples has a very long-running world to explore and a lot of characters to get to know. The game does try to explain the events of the previous game through a short cutscene at the beginning, which is pretty helpful.
The story is the driving factor in this game. You’ll want to understand what exactly happened to Avyanna when she took over the throne and why things went so terribly wrong. More than that, there’s a new kind of corruption plaguing the land, and understanding it to save the world is the overarching quest.
While the story is interesting and does offer some heavier tones reminiscent of the older Dragon Age titles for newer players, the story starts to fizzle a bit after the first chapter. The biggest reason for that is you’re no longer meeting new people. Every NPC you encounter seemingly knows Avyanna or was a member of her party in the previous game.
At its core, Domination is a turn-based RPG with a lot of moving parts for players to enjoy. Some feel a bit better than others, but the game does have an interesting story and world to explore.
It isn’t necessarily a bad thing since it’ll be a fun time for returning players to see their old friends again, but newer players won’t be as attached or even understand what transpired between Avyanna and them. It doesn’t detract from the story, but it does feel odd when they seemingly won’t discuss past events, assuming the player already knows what happened.
Overall, the story is pretty solid, offering a darker world with options to be cruel and unkind, something sorely missing in some games today. Though it does have its issue the story stays fairly interesting from chapter to chapter, giving you a good reason to see it through to the end.
An All-Combat Kind of Game
Combat is absolutely the highlight of Domination, in more ways than one. This is where you’ll end up having the most fun and enjoyment as you watch your recruited troops dominate the battlefield with strategy.
With a lot of mechanics to master and ways to push and pull enemies on the battlefield, strategy will be your best friend. Sometimes you’ll end up sacrificing a few of your troops for the greater good, which is fine since you can recruit more with the resources you manage to get.
The game offers a ton of strategy in combat, from choosing which troops to use in a fight to offering up some named troops that are improved versions of the regular ones. It’s a really interesting way to make combat a bit more enjoyable.
It isn’t necessarily a bad thing since it’ll be a fun time for returning players to see their old friends again, but newer players won’t be as attached or even understand what transpired between Avyanna and them. It doesn’t detract from the story, but it does feel odd when they seemingly won’t discuss past events, assuming the player already knows what happened.
The biggest problem with combat is that there’s just so much of it. While you can ignore some of it, like not clearing out the various resource points that help fill your coffers over time, the game basically consists of almost all combat.
I never thought a game could have too much combat, but it might be a little much in Domination. There isn’t an auto-combat system in place, so you’ll fight every combat manually for the most part. There is a way to auto-win a fight if you have a “more powerful” group compared to the one you’re fighting.
This was rarely ever an option; even when I spent the time and resources on getting some higher-tiered troops, it seemed like the conquer option was totally level-based. This meant you couldn’t use it for a majority of fights since the game never really gives you a way to level up quickly beyond completing quests.
A Slow Start
The first chapter of the game will probably take you around eight hours to finish, including finishing the prologue. It’s relatively long, but mostly because you spend so much of your time moving from combat to combat.
Sometimes it can be a good thing to give players time with the world and to ease them into it, but in Domination, it just takes such a long time to get going. The real issue is that you’re mostly stuck with the basic troops, and enemy variety doesn’t really kick up until the middle chapters.
So every combat starts to feel more or less the same, while you keep hoping for more interesting things to show up. Eventually, it does get to a point where the game starts really moving forward, but it takes so many hours that I doubt too many people will stick around for that long.
What Kind of Ruler Will You Be?
The game actually does a fairly good job of putting the choice in players’ hands when it comes to some quests. You can always choose to just pick a fight, or you can do a little investigating to see if maybe there’s another way.
This was a big positive to me personally, as it broke up the monotony of the early game with some real decisions to make. The only problem is that this doesn’t seem to extend to the Grievance system built into the game.
Every so often, you’ll receive new grievances to work out, and they are pretty interesting. Some are based on quests you’ve completed or items you’ve found while exploring, and some are randomly populated.
So every combat starts to feel more or less the same, while you keep hoping for more interesting things to show up. Eventually, it does get to a point where the game starts really moving forward, but it takes so many hours that I doubt too many people will stick around for that long.
This was a pretty neat way to flesh out the world and give some interesting information to players that they may not have already had. Grievances create an intriguing way to treat the factions, as you’ll get various bonuses for reaching new levels of reputation with each faction.
Each choice will cost resources and either increase or decrease your reputation with a faction. It doesn’t exactly get super deep, and for the most part, you can just always choose whichever option gets you the most reputation if you have the resources for it.
Most of the choices didn’t seem to matter, while some of the more quest-specific ones did have some impact on how your companions would act and what would happen next in the game. It did feel a bit odd having so many choices that didn’t really seem to go anywhere, but regardless, it was a nice addition that helped the game world feel alive.
A World Worth Exploring
Where I had the most fun was running around the various maps and enjoying the different environments and side quests available there. Since there is fast travel, it’s really no big deal to run off in a direction just to see what you can find.
It often led me to find some interesting equipment or some resources I may have desperately needed. There were lots of places to explore, and many held some secret quests or some interactbles that would give me new grievances to work out.
The only issue with exploration I ever had is that some areas feel like you should be able to move past them, but can’t. Maybe a gap in some trees or what looks like a small road leads off somewhere else, and you can’t follow them.
Beyond that, exploration was enjoyable, and there were a lot of good reasons to explore, which made it even more fun. You can also make your horse run pretty quickly, which wasn’t super necessary given the map structure, but it was still nice to speed things up while backtracking.
An Improvement in Most Cases
Disciples: Domination is, by all accounts, an improvement on the original game. Many of the things that were complained about in Liberation seem to be fixed here. There are still some issues that seem to persist, but for what it is, Domination does a good job.
Along with some annoying bugs, like combat just lagging out, so you have to close the game and restart, the game still has the same issues with resources from the original. Since resources are accumulated in real time, an argument can be made that the most optimal way to play the game is to simply leave it running.
Everything in the game seems to cost resources, but most importantly, everything costs some amount of gold. The only issue with this is that it’s not exactly a small amount of gold. Grievances and upgrades to buildings typically cost a few thousand gold, meaning you’ll need to be pretty stingy until that supply can restock.
As you unlock new maps and start racking up the resource generators in the game, it becomes pretty inconsequential, but in those first hours, it’ll feel like every choice leaves you exceedingly poor.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, Disciples: Domination is a good game. It does the things it needs to do to find success, although I wish it were a little better. If you enjoyed Disciples: Liberation than you’ll find yourself right at home in Domination. If you didn’t enjoy Liberation, you may be put off by how similar the two games are.
Regardless of all of that, Domination is a solid game with a few dozen hours worth of gameplay and a story that will keep you guessing and keep you entertained. It isn’t going to make you into a Disciples fanatic, but it will keep you entertained if you can get through the first chunk of the game.
Reviewed on PC. Game code provided by the publisher.
Disciples: Domination is a good game that has its bumps in the road. With a good story and some interesting mechanics the game has a lot worth enjoying if you can get through the slow introduction.
Pros
- Strategic Combat Scenarios
- An Engaging Story
- Interesting Choice Mechanics
Cons
- Slow Starting Out
- Poor Combat Variety Early On
