Dominions

Dominions is a fantasy game about gods wanting to become the supreme lord of creation. And not the lazy, stay-at-home gods that getting fat off prayer and amborisia. No, it's about angry gods who are willing to take a shit on the entire world to become head honcho. Much like the Soviet Union, the various nations despised each other but were held together by a powerful leader known as the Pantokrator until he disappeared.

Anyways, what's unique about these gods and the factions they lead is that they tend to be more based upon world mythology and culture than your Tolkien-esque elves and dorfs (though it could be argued he stole it from Norse myth anyways). So there's your Irish Fae, Greek Hoplites, Roman Legionaries, German barbarians, Egyptian er...Lizardmen and mummies, Irish giants, Norse giants, Biblical giants, Sumerian giants, Japanese oni, and more! The exception being most noticeably R'lyeh and their Aboleths and Illithids.

And yes, you can have totally ridiculous battles like Cthulhu vs Spanish Inquisition vs Monkeys vs Zombie Jesus. And yes, you can cast totally ridiculous spells like making a second sun (or turning it off), freezing the oceans, accelerating time so everyone ages to death, poisoning all the magic in the world so horrible horrors eat all mages, etc. Battles in the game tend to start off pretty tame with small armies hitting each other with weapons, then big armies throwing magic at each other, and then huge armies led by insane undead gods. A logical progression in a war of gods.

It's primarily a multiplayer game, since the AI is to dumb-dumb to comprehend what to do, so it just throws shitty units at you.

The Magic

There's 8 (techinically 9) paths of magic and 9 schools of magic.

The Paths

Conjurgation

Summoning magical monsters mainly. They vary from fire drakes to bane lords to otherworldy abominations. Most notably, the spell Tartarian Gate is in this school, allowing you to summon insane undead gods to fight for you.

Alteration

Changing yourself, the battlefield, or reality itself to fit your needs. Many buffs and debuffs are located in this school, like Ironskin and Petrify. The absolute gamebreaker spell is Wish, which has a rather wide utility. No, you can't wish to win. But you can wish for girls!

Construction

One of the schools that is pretty much mandatory, though getting it up to level 8 is sort of a give or take. It primarily deals in the forging of magical tools, weapons, and armor. There's also your giant golems and mecha dragons, which make pretty decent combatants.

Enchantment

Sorta a brother to Conjurgation and Alteration, this school is notable for letting you flip the bird to all the other player through the use of global spells like flooding all the coastal provinces or drilling a hole to the earth's core to harvest its riches. Many mass defensive spells are also included from keeping your guys safe from fire, or shielding an entire province from enemy spells.

Evocation

The school of zapping, burning, and icing motherfuckas. Start out shooting sparks and end with lighting the entire battlefield on fire. Ritual spells include making volcanoes erupt, hurricanes rage, and tidals waves wipe out population.

Thaumaturgy

The "gimmick" school. A lot of it is based upon fucking over or seizing another faction's magical or undead creatures and fucking units with low magic resistance. Most famous for the Communion spells, that allow your mages to combine their powers to become one mega mage.

Blood

Both a school and a path, it deals with mainly the summoning of demons. Demons are nothing to sneeze at and are a LOT harder to banish than undead due to having generally higher health and magic resistance. There are also spells that can completely fuck a nation's production through Rain of Toads or Send Horror.

Divine

The only school you can't research, as all the spells are researched already. While some nations have their own unique Divine spells, divine spells are generally casting blessings, banishments, and smites. Blessings are the real thing here, as depending on what your Pretender has for magic, it can either be a minor aid or the focus of your nation.

Factions

There are three ages in the game: early, middle, and late. They progressively get more grimdark and less magical as time goes on, though the legions of undead and void horrors might make you think otherwise.

Early

Ermor

The "main character" of the game they're Rome right after they adopted Christianity as a state religion. The fire worshippers from before got kicked out and were replaced by the church of Eldregate. They tend to have better infantry than average, so they can mow through the early game pretty well. Their priests are pretty strong, and their mages have access to mainly fire and astral magic.