Open Dominion (text based online war game)

[Erix]

Hey everyone! Sorry if it’s not allowed, but this seems like the perfect place to recruit for math-strategy type games.

Back like 20 years ago there was a browser-text based war game called Dominion that was on a kamikazegames.com, which lasted for like 10-15 years, before being shut down in 2012. Since then, there has been a community project to remake the game, which has been live now for a couple years, at OpenDominion.net

It’s a pretty addicting game with a great community (and a very lively discord server as well), which has “rounds” that last for 47 days, then reset/restart. The game is in between rounds right now, so would be a perfect time to check it out if you have any interest.

We also have a decent sized group that have been playing webdiplomacy on and off for the last year or two, so you might have even encountered some of our OD (Open Dominion) players already.

If you do happen to check it out and/or go into the discord server, make sure you let me know!

-Erix

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

What exactly is the game about?

[Erix]

I’ll post a quick summary/basic description of the game from its homepage:

OpenDominion is a free online text-based strategy game in a medieval fantasy setting. You control a nation called a 'dominion', along with its resources, buildings, land and units. You are placed in a realm with other dominions and you must work together to make your realm the wealthiest and most powerful in the land and crush your enemies!

———-

Essentially you start with a little dominion/territory (like your own country) with some peasants (who can either produce resources or get drafted into your army), and you attempt to grow bigger and stronger, either through exploration on unclaimed land, or attacking other dominions (controlled by other players). Your dominion is in a larger “realm” with other players and you work together to make your realm and dominion as big as possible.

The round/game lasts for 47 days, and you can either be super diligent and play very actively (the game progresses every hour, essentially 1 turn), or you can play less active (maybe logging in only a few times a day). Then once the round is over the results are recorded in “Valhalla”, the admins make changes based on player suggestions and try to balance it/make more fair, then it restarts.

It’s honestly not a game for everyone, but seems like something a number of people in this web-diplomacy community could be interested in.

[DrFidelis]

Sounds like a lot of fun, I'll probably hop onto it later tonight.

[Erix]

It really is! Especially in conjunction with something like diplomacy! Check out the website and the discord server is super super helpful and friendly. That’s where a lot of conversations happen.

[DrFidelis]

Boutta play Dominion like Diplomacy and work with supports lmao

[Erix]

Some of the best players work in a support-type role and have great finishes (based on their size at the end of the round). Other people play kind of like… Austria? And go wild early game. It really has lots of different potential strategies for different personalities/preferences.

[DiplomacyandWarfare]

I do enjoy playing Dominion. Last time I checked, though, it was a board game...?

[Erix]

So that’s a different Dominion. This Dominion is a browser tick-based war game. Was online from 2000-2012 and at its peak had about 10,000 active players per round (per game).

[Pengwinja]

I swear if you get me into another online browser country/war game…

Oh no it looks interesting what have you done.

Im falling down the rabbit hole.

[Erix]

Join us! Now is the perfect time since we’re between rounds

[DrFidelis]

So, looking into OD a little bit more, it's this cooperative-competitive type game where YES, you can fight other dominions in the realm, but the overall goal is being the biggest realm WITH those other dominions. Honestly the revulsion of it being this coop-comp blend might make me think twice about playing, though I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and a single round before I entirely drop it...

[Erix]

You do not compete against others in your same realm. A realm is essentially a team and you cannot take negative actions against them, whereas you can attack, steal from, assassinate, fireball, etc people in other realms.

The individual goal is to get as large and strong as possible, but there is a subset of players that focus more on helping their realmmates succeed at their own expense (like investing heavily into intel-operations, at the expense of their own growth). A secondary goal is to try and get your realm as big as you can.

[Pengwinja]

Do you, Erix, have a recommended starting race?

[DrFidelis]

You do not compete against others in your same realm. A realm is essentially a team and you cannot take negative actions against them, whereas you can attack, steal from, assassinate, fireball, etc people in other realms.

The individual goal is to get as large and strong as possible, but there is a subset of players that focus more on helping their realmmates succeed at their own expense (like investing heavily into intel-operations, at the expense of their own growth). A secondary goal is to try and get your realm as big as you can.

oh, my bad, sorry, i come from this genre of games where intra-realm fighting occurs alongside inter-realm fighting, misinterpretation.

[Erix]

Back in the original version of the game 20+ years ago, there was inter-realm fighting. People stealing from their realmmates, attacking each other, etc.

But it got removed a long, long time ago, because of potential for abusing the system/cheating.

[Pengwinja]

Do you, Erix, have a recommended starting race?

Erix plz

[Erix]

Honestly, human is pretty straightforward. Or maybe Merfolk!

[sweetandcool]

I decided to try out this game, so here is a review:

I was going to write a pretty detailed review, but I don't have the time and I know I can be really long-winded. So I will just summarize.

I participated in a tester round, which meant the game was only 12 days long versus about 40ish days.

You play on a team. There was a nifty button you could click that entered you into a private discord server with your team. I really liked that.

I believe that anyone who is a fan of idle games would probably like the gameplay. I can imagine it would be really fun to coordinate info operations, black ops, and invasions with your teammates. I didn't get to experience that very much due to the strategy I chose at the beginning of the round (Exploring, which is the dullest strategy possible, unless you plan to do black ops, offensive spellcasting, and info ops).

Early on, I got massively invaded and was knocked out of being competitive. Consequently, I retooled my setup and starting training and building so that I could focus on supporting my team with ops and spellcasting.

This is when my experience went from okay to not fun at all: I told my team what I was doing. And when I was ready to help I practically begged for them to direct me towards a target that would help them. A couple times I got feedback, but generally it was crickets. One single time I experienced the rush of coordinating with a teammate, supporting their efforts to invade an opponent.

I'm still puzzled why I received such a tepid response. But later on in the game the players they were targeting were out of range (too big for me to be allowed to target), so at that point it was reasonable since I wasn't able to contribute.

This was massively disappointing, but I do want to mention that the community and my team seemed pretty friendly, and were generally willing to help with questions.

The only other notable thing to me, is that the community was very "immature" to me. Team names, usernames, a lot of them were gross and juvenile. I had to mute the main community page because it was just a stream of memes and such. Some people of course enjoy such things, but I prefer a more adult vibe.

TLDR: Open Dominion is fun if you like idle type games, like coordinating with teammates, and either have a lot of time to constantly check in (every hour) or don't mind being not competitive. Its community is a bit juvenile (but pleasantly friendly) but if you like constant memes you will fit in.

[DiplomacyandWarfare]

I also tried OpenDominion and had a slightly worse experience. I tried a more conservative approach than sweet, exploring and playing it like an idle game rather than attacking (which is supposed to be more newbie-friendly). I got attacked early on and more or less knocked out of the game. There were also cool mechanics like a research tree and a variety of buildings and spells, but the game was too short for me to get far in the research tree, and they were off meta and weak anyways. It's extremely meta-dominated and hard to play as a casual.