Disciples: Domination is the direct sequel to the 2021’s turn-based strategy Disciples: Liberation. Nevendaar might be liberated, but things never stay put. Conflicts old and new arise, external supernatural threats loom over the world, and so it’s time for Avyanna the Nephilim to swing back into the saddle and get busy.
Domination does not require you to have beaten Liberation before it: the story is linear, there are no save imports, and the game will provide you with enough information for the new plot to make sense and not raise too many questions. However, if you are interested in worldbuilding, religion, geography and the general story of this saga and Avyanna herself, I’d recommend beating Liberation first.
Check out our review of Disciples: Liberation and its New Game+ (Liberation Mode and secret ending) if you are considering getting started. As our protagonist would say, “Regret later. Act now!”
Note that the review has spoilers to the very beginning of the game that are also outlined within the launch trailer and Steam information. There are no spoilers beyond that, whether for companion recruitment, personal quests, or the ending. I do share my overall impressions though.
It has been roughly 15 years since Avyanna and her companions led the war of Liberation, culminating in slaying the Goddess of Death, Mortis, and a few other equally impressive heroics, and Avyanna becoming the new Queen of Nevendaar.
As the new leader of the human Empire, Undead Hordes, Legion of the Damned and the unified Elven clans, she brought peace to these lands. However, as the years of her rule stretched, her heart grew restless and weary. Initially, she raised the banner to fight against tyranny of mortal rulers and gods alike – but how could she, a Nephilim, ensure that she’d never become the very evil she had sworn to destroy?
With her confidence shaken, Avyanna became more and more isolationist over the long years, rarely showing her face to the public or being involved in ruling matters. The peace brought by her leadership turned out to be an ephemeral thing, with old grievances and new dangers popping up around the kingdom abandoned by its queen.
The world could not wait for Avyanna to figure out her woes, and one by one her companions have left her side to attend to these matters in her stead. Some have quietly slipped away, no longer needed, others have fought with their queen viciously and tried to shake the malady out of her, but it was no use. Even her closest friend, Orion, the second half of the Twilight Twins that had been with her since the beginning of Liberation, had chosen to move on.
Yet, it is his unexpected return with a dire message of the newly emerging threat that snaps her out of the misery and forces her back on the road. Liberator, Queen, Nephilim, Endbringer – no matter what the world calls her, she is determined to find her old friend and get rid of the new evil endangering everything she’s fought for.
And thus begins the tale of Domination.
For the first half of the game, the writing and tone feel somewhat confusing. Avyanna is happy to be back in the saddle, traveling through Nevendaar and solving problems. But, while doing so, she does not carry herself as a mature queen of 20 years, a seasoned leader, or a Nephilim that others look to for hope. If anything, she acts like the youngest and most impulsive of the cast, often offering jarring remarks when you consider the context.
It doesn’t help that the main quest kicks off as a number of very vaguely related assignments, ranging from random to mundane to important. It is only at about halfway point that you will clearly see the thread connecting the events together. However, you still won’t be able to tackle the source until the very end, only cleaning up the consequences as you go.
It leaves the story in a somewhat uncomfortable place where you are making moves, tackling assignments, solving issues, doing quests, yet the main plot is barely moving forward. As you get deeper into the main conspiracy and finally figure out the threat you face, it becomes better – only to end abruptly with a pretty clear “To Be Continued”.
On this new journey, Avyanna is accompanied by 5 companions, while Liberation offers 9. Some of them are new characters, while others are returning from Liberation to take their place at her side again. However, not all companions are made equal. Of the original nine, some are not mentioned at all, others had a few dialogues about them but ultimately didn’t show up, and others still appear in the game but don’t join up for story reasons.
Sure, I did not expect all of the OGs to show up with the new blood in tow, but with all nine potentially being romance options, having lengthy character arcs and sticking by Avyanna for years before finally leaving, the absence of even a mention is felt extremely acutely. It also affects the way I am looking forward to the next installment: is there a point growing attached to this cast if it’s possible they are not going to be present in the next game?
When you start the game, Disciples: Domination will offer you to choose a difficulty to match your preferences. There are four presets: Story, Standard, Hard and Brutal, and the custom difficulty where you can change such things as enemy health and power, healing fountains’ refresh timer, and more.
After sitting in her self-imposed banishment for 20 years, Avyanna has to start her leveling and gearing journey anew by choosing one of the four classes:
- Warmaster – Melee fighter that can spec either into Physical DPS or a tank, uses swords;
- Primordial Ruler – using Primal magic of Nevendaar, Avyanna can take advantage of the new push & pull mechanic and toss her enemies around like ragdolls, uses swords;
- Holy Regent – embracing her Angelic ascendancy, Avyanna becomes a support that uses Divine Magic and staves;
- Witch Queen – Avy masters dark arts and necromancy and exploits another new battle feature, corpses, uses a staff;
The choice of class will affect your gameplay going onward as well as Avy’s stats and gear, but don’t worry: you can swap and respec at any time at the cost of a little gold. Note that Avyanna also has a spellbook that lets you learn a variety of spells – and these do become extremely important in combat, both in terms of offense and defense, arguably more so than your class abilities.
In addition to the weapon and a set of armor, Avyanna uses an amulet, an Emotion Shard, a ring and a talisman. Low level gear serves as a stat stick, but at higher rarity items start providing unique passive effects such as increasing adjacent Allies’ resistances by 10%. The companions can use a fitting weapon and a Shard, with their personal quests awarding a unique weapon only usable by that companion. Note that getting a certain reputation level with a faction also provides you with a free unique Shard that generally works well with the companion of that faction.
Normal units can only use a Shard, however, it’s worth using those, especially on the higher levels of difficulty. For example, I had been using a Celestial Blade unit in my backline through the entirety of the game. At the end of the turn, it automatically attacks the enemy with the lowest HP, and, if the target is killed, swaps to the next one. Empowered by the Shard of Hope for Divine damage, my trusty Celestial Blade would wipe out 3-4 wounded enemies each turn.
The general approach to gameplay has not changed much compared to Disciples: Liberation, especially when it comes to exploration. For the detailed overview of exploration, base-building, and combat please check out our Liberation review. Below, I’ll give a short overview and outline the changes.
The exploration is still done in real-time, with Avyanna riding her horse through the plains, peaks and forests of Nevendaar and swapping to running on her own in various dungeons and instances. On your journey, you will come across plenty of chests (some of which require specific companions to be recruited), puzzles, enemies, resources and mines.
There are 7 resources to keep in mind, from the most common gold, wood and stone, to the less available essences. Your main source of these will be the mines scattered around the world, usually protected by an enemy force. Simply defeat the guards, capture the mine, and it will start providing a trickle of resources to your treasury. You can spend the treasury’s contents on building your base, Yllian, hiring or training your units, upgrading your gear, or on addressing Grievances and Crises – the new system introduced in Domination. Before, Avyanna had to build her relationship with the factions of Nevendaar from zero, usually by doing quests.
However, such matters are now below the Queen of Nevendaar. Instead, factions will come to you with their problems or you will unlock Grievances by interacting with NPCs around the world. Bandits attacking traders, mysterious plagues ravaging the countryside, factions bickering like children, and much more. Overall, this system reminded me of the Kingdom Events from Pathfinder: Kingmaker and the Judgements from Dragon Age: Inquisition.
This will be your main source of reputation and arguably the main resource sink as well.
Previously, you had to choose which buildings of which factions to build in Yllian, having a total of four slots. However, such matters are in the past as well, all five factions have their respective buildings present in Yllian from the beginning since they are all your subjects. You still have to manually upgrade them, though.
All faction units are now produced by a single building, with stronger ones hidden behind the higher tier. But now you don’t have to drag your Soldiers with you till the end of the game, you can spend some gold and upgrade them to a Paladin, which, in return can be upgraded to Martyr, and so on.
The game continues feeling very “safe” since Yllian itself is never in danger, and you can teleport back and replenish your forces at virtually any time, limited only by your resources. Admittedly, there will frequently be times when you are short if you aim to maximize the reputation through Grievances, but Domination also provides plenty of free units to join your ranks through quests, grievances, and more. While they might not be your favorites or just what you’d like in the fight you’re about to face, it beats going into battle short on firepower.
Much like in the previous installment, you can bring up to 10 units to join you in combat, depending on your Leadership Points vs their Leadership score. Generally speaking, the stronger the unit, the higher the Leadership it requires to be employed. Companions don’t require Leadership costs, which automatically makes New Game+ / Domination Mode that much more comfier. Likewise, the three Backline units do not consume Leadership.
Note that Domination reshuffled certain units, adding new ones and taking out old ones, such as the Dragons in the Elven faction.
When it comes to combat, Domination uses the model introduced in Liberation but with some noticeable additions. Much like in the previous installment, all units besides Avyanna have two Action Points that come in three varieties:
- Blue can only be spent on movement
- Red can only be spent on action: attacking or using a spell/ability
- Orange can be spent on movement or action
Usually, regular units possess one blue and one red AP that allows them to move and attack during a single turn. Companions and named unique units usually feature two orange APs, which allows them to do double movement or double attack. Not spending one or more points of AP heals your unit for a certain percent of their health.
In addition to her own class-dictated abilities, Avyanna also has spells that require not only the corresponding AP, but also Mana. Last but not least, companions have their ultimates that cost 2 AP and bring a lot of pain to the battlefield.
The combat in Disciples: Domination is less about raw power and more about positioning and status effects: poisoned, bleeding, burning, blind, resilient, radiance, etc. Surrounding enemy units and preventing them from doing the same to you by taunting or blocking and then stacking as many debuffs as you can is a sure way to victory.
Another thing that will help you with disturbing enemy plans is the new feature that lets you push and pull units from their grid placement, mostly utilized by the Dwarven units and the Primordial Ruler class of Avyanna. Units crashing into each other this way also deal additional damage, so why not play the game of turn-based bowling and utilize Collision damage to its max?
But even that is not all, as another Domination combat feature aims to make all Necromancers happy: corpses. Whenever a unit is killed, it will leave a Corpse on the tile of its death that does not prevent other units from occupying this tile. Many units and effects will interact with those, usually consuming them to create Runes or Skeletal remains. Avyanna’s class Witch Queen is all about playing with Corpses, but she’s not the only one – the Undead Hordes are utilizing necromancy as well.
Between the 250% animation speed being present in the game baseline, skipping most of the Backline animations, the new additions in the form of Collision and Corpses, the battle feels familiar yet fresh. As usually happens with turn-based strategies, you are likely to come to a point where you’ve leveled both your army and heroes enough to simply play each battle the same or a very similar way. This is where boss battles come in to shake things up a little – I simply wish the game had more of them.
In my eyes, Disciples: Domination is less of a completely new game, and more of a major expansion. We’re talking the likes of Heroes of Might & Magic 3: Armageddon’s Blade or The Shadow of Death compared to the base game, Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening or, say, Diablo IV: The Vessel of Hatred.
Disciples: Domination offers a massive new campaign that spans anywhere between 30 and 50 hours depending on your level of difficulty and style of play, plenty of major new features with their own spin on systems and combat, baseline enhancements and QoL features that were patched into Liberation over time. However, ultimately, it is largely the same game.
If you were looking to experience more of Nevendaar from Avyanna’s PoV or want to spend several evenings in a solid turn-based strategy, you will enjoy the new installment. But if you are waiting for the second coming of Disciples 2, Domination features vastly different vibes and aesthetics.
Stay tuned for a separate article regarding the New Game+ / Domination mode that features some quality of life additions compared to the first playthrough and, perhaps more importantly, the secret ending!
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Note: the Steam key was received for free for the purposes of this review.
