The Dominions series is back, once again bringing along its deep, engrossing, and incredibly detailed turn-based fantasy strategy. Fans of the series can rejoice, as Dominions 3: The Awakening continues to improve on the franchise, smoothing out some of the rough edges of the earlier titles. However, Dominions 3 is not much more newbie-friendly than its predecessors, and with the enormous amount of information to be processed each turn, and the novel-sized manual (which is actually helpful), the learning curve can be frighteningly steep. Still, there’s a very good game under all the number-crunching and years-old graphics, for those willing to dedicate the time and effort to find it.

Story-wise, not much has changed since Dominions 2. Once again, special beings (called Pretender Gods) are awakening, and they’ve decided that they’d really like to become a bona fide god. Unfortunately, there’s only room for one god in this particular universe, and most are willing to fight to gain that particular position. The only way to godhood is to convince the mortal population of the world that, in fact, you are the real god, and the rest are all just a bunch of phonies. This can be done is several ways, but the most straightforward is a nice show of strength. Gods are puny, after all. So players build up armies to capture and convince neighboring provinces of the Truth. Priests and temples are helpful in converting the minds of the peoples, and flashy displays of magic and strength help, too. Once enough folks are willing to follow a particular Pretender (which usually means the rest of the Pretenders are beaten into submission), that lucky being is able to ascend to whatever higher plane/fiery pit/slimy dimension might be appropriate for their deity.

As in the rest of the Dominions series, the early choice of nation and Pretender is probably the most important in the game. It can also be incredibly time-consuming, with hundreds if not thousands of different abilities, schools of magic, and various qualities to choose for the burgeoning god. Often the entire strategy of the game is set out in the initial choices, so these are quite important. The developers give some good starting strategies for each of the races involved, but those are only helpful hints. Players can choose to have a terrifying Fire-based Pretender, wrapped in the physical form of a mighty dragon. Or they could choose a puny, mysterious human Pretender, wielding Cthulhu-like powers from beyond the world of the sane. Or, they could be a rock. A rock with aspirations to godhood, mind you.

Play is turn based, and turns are simultaneous. Orders are given to each province and unit, and all carried out when the turn is ended. Dominions uses the hero/army concept found in many strategy games, meaning armies need a hero-type unit to lead them around, and they fall apart should the hero fall. While setting up orders for these units, orders and battle positions are also set in place, as battles themselves take place during the mid-turn number-crunching. While players can watch the battles unfold, they have no control once the fighting starts, which means careful planning is a must. Each unit in every army can be preset with an entire battle queue, from spell-casting to charging forward to meet the enemy.

Magic is also a very important concept in Dominions 3, and there are hundreds of spells to bring to bear. Part of every turn is dedicated to researchin...