Dominion Wars is a PvP Tug-Of-War style game similar to Desert Strike, Nexus Wars, and more notably Civ Wars (WC3).
Currently Released on U.S. Server, on the First Page under "Tug-Of-War".
What's it about?
Dominion Wars is a game that uses a 3v3 format in 3 unique lanes. It is technology driven and emphasizes on proper counters.
- Top Lane: Between Space Combat (Completely different units from the other lanes) and Air Unit Mechanics gives top lane a very different feel from both middle and bottom. For being the dominant force on the top lane, your entire team will gain bonus minerals every income period.
- Middle Lane: This lane has naturally high defense (4 turrets all in close proximity allowing you to fend off larger forces that bottom / top couldn't handle) that being said, it makes Middle Lane an excellent choice for tech lovers. Giving you that extra wiggle room to be able to spend more resources on technology rather than your army. However Middle Lane also has the most valuable bonus for holding it, extra supply for your entire team to increase their army size without having to sacrifice their minerals to do so.
- Bottom Lane: With both Top and Middle having pretty unique features this in turn makes Bottom lane unique, do to the fact its very straight forward in terms of combat, making it very important to watch what type of units your enemy is pumping out so you can counter effectively. Controlling Bottom is also very important as well since its the ONLY way to increase your teams Trinashi income (Trinashi = Gas), which is used to make markets. on a side note holding the center of bottom lane unlocks a few special units (you still have to upgrade to them) for your entire team.
Marketing is also a VERY important feature in this game, and I feel that it's extremely interesting since it's not a flat amount, but rather dynamic. There are 3 ways (as of now) to make extra income.
- Controlling Top lane will increase the entire teams base income per round.
- Markets are the only type of building that requires Trinashi (Gas) ATM. There are 3 different kinds of markets, Mineral (Top), Power (Middle), and Trinashi (Bottom). As you'd probably guess, each market gives EXTRA income per round, based on how much you control of that lane. Ex. if you have 1 Mineral Market, and your team controls the entire top lane, at the end of the round (when you receive the next income) you'll get the FULL bonus from the mineral market, however if your only controls 1 node in top lane you'll only receive 1/3 of the bonus from the market, so marketing in all 3 lanes may work for you, and investing heavily in 1 lane may seem like a good idea and yield high profits but if the other team notices and focuses on taking out your income supply it could make you crash and burn.
- Investment Buildings are available in later tiers of the game which give you income based on how much minerals you have left over (capped at 2000, which gives +100 for Colonial and +250 for Belmont). Which may not seem that interesting but if you want the most profit you can get out of an investment office you have to "sacrifice" 2000 minerals which could end up with you losing the game specially if the enemies are keeping the pressure up forcing you to either spend it in army, defense or technology so you don't fall behind.
That is enough ranting, so I'm not going to go into the types of units and the rock paper scissors of the game, or how large and in depth the technology tree is.
Gameplay
Dominion Wars is geared strongly towards strategy: being able to come up with quick counters to enemy strategies, and balancing out your resources accordingly. You can't neglect your technology, nor can you neglect your army. Dom Wars is a very team based game; even though we do have 1v1 and 2v2 modes, they aren't balanced and the game is made for 3v3 which delivers the best experience. Everyone has their role to play, and with the market and laning systems it is very important to help out your team mates if you have the extra time/resources to do it.
Hopes for the Future
Please note Dominion Wars IS still in BETA, so there are bugs and minor balancing issues and some (meta-game) content that isn't available yet, but this is a short list of things we wish to add to the game.
- Achievements
- Builder Rewards (Different Builder Models that you have to unlock)
- A very comprehensive Technology tree with a "Focus" panel to go with it (Focus, meaning set yourself a goal and it'll tell you the shortest path to achieve it (step by step))
- Player Stats; Wins / Losses, Achievements, Most Played Lane, etc etc (Anyone able to view them [in-game])
- Team Creation; setting up and creating teams within the game teams will have their own score similar to Player stats (Wins / Losses, etc).
- Wonders!!, are a very special type of building which haven't been added yet but plan to be very soon. Wonders are very strong and have very unique bonuses (also very expensive). A very important feature to note with wonders is that, there can only be ONE wonder of its type in the game, meaning if someone built a Cybernetic Motivator, NO one else in the game could have it.