DomiNations Update 12.18 - Combat Rebalance pt.1

Greetings Leaders,

DomiNations Update 12.18 shapes up to be a massive release with the first wave of our Combat Rebalance initiative highlighted in our Road Ahead 2025 Post. We’re also implementing a second set of updates in our Replay rework! Both of these quality of life updates have a special write-up from the folks working directly on these projects to give insight into the process!
In that same vein of ‘Quality of Life’, we’re adding a faster way to utilize Speed Ups to complete your upgrades. Update 12.18 also introduces the next Councilor, and the Manufactory now allows you to purchase Materials. Then, finally, minor UI and Graphical fixes.

Replay Reliability pt. 2
If you missed our write-up on the current status of the Replay work that went into this update, catch up on the full details ‘here’. To highlight, Replays have been undergoing a massive overhaul to correct and implement the many changes that have arrived in DomiNations. While the current state of Replays with update 12.18 offers markedly improved results, there is still more to be done before we’re ready to say we’re 100% complete. Be sure to check out the post to see what improvements were made, how replays got to where they were, and what we’ll be doing for the future!

Combat Rebalance Initiative - Fighters & Defenders
In our Road Ahead 2025 post, we discussed our plans to introduce incremental steps for rebalancing combat within DomiNations. 12.18 releases some changes to Fighters and Defenders, and to share some insight on this process, we have our Game Designer, RAH-66, to talk about the upcoming changes!

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Hello Leaders!

Today, we’re going to talk about the new series of updates we are working on called the Combat Rebalance Initiative. We want the DomiNations battle experience to be what YOU make it. Do you love setting up a Museum loadout for several different army compositions? We want you to feel empowered to try multiple strategies and remove any gates that prohibit you from doing so. Do you love watching attackers fall to your horde of defenders and insatiable Air Defense? We want to see you thrive and be an asset to your Alliance in World War. Do you just think Assault Vehicles are neat? We want you to have an avenue to succeed with them.

Here are our goals for the Combat Rebalance Initiative as a whole:

1. Ensure there is a wide array of viable strategies that can be used to win battles.
2. Ensure defensive play is just as viable as offensive play.
3. Ensure that every unit, tactic, and building has a distinct reason to be invested in and brought to battle.

So, without further ado, let's talk about the problem areas tackled in the first wave of Combat Rebalances.

Fighters are the first Airstrip Troop players unlock. Their presence on the battlefield is felt the instant a player unlocks them. In earlier ages, the Fighter performed its role as a Defender Destroyer quite well. It is a moderately strong unit, with the best Population to Hitpoint ratio in the entire Airstrip and, with a bit of library research, even provides suppression on Defensive Buildings it strikes. It isn’t until later ages in the game that Fighters become a problem. Its role as a Defender Destroyer loosens as it gains levels and players unlock a second Airstrip. The Fighter becomes nigh unbeatable at very high levels of play, and can easily destroy Buildings and Defenders alike, leaving little room for defensive players to actually interact with the attacking strategy, especially when the attacker concentrates all of their Fighters on destroying the building that is meant to counter it - the Air Defense.

Defenders themselves also perform more desirably in earlier ages than later ages, but to a lesser degree. In later ages, they often clump together, resulting in one of two situations: either the entire defending Army gets destroyed immediately, or they form a completely impenetrable wall with no way to press forward as an attacker. There isn’t currently enough difference between the types of Defenders to force attackers to prioritize where they send their Defender Destroyers.

The following changes are being implemented to address these problems and better align the units with their intended roles.

1. Fighter
   • Changed “DPS vs Defenders” bonus text to say “DPS vs Cavalry and Heavy Tanks”
     • Fighters have always functioned this way in-game; we simply updated the text here to be more accurate.
   • Marginally increased Movement Speed
   • Slightly increased Turn Speed
   • Reduced base damage by 50%
   • Increased Damage vs Cavalry and Heavy Tanks by 100%
     • This neutralizes the 50% base damage reduction when damaging Cavalry and Heavy Tanks
   • Increased Damage vs Infantry by 100%
     • This neutralizes the 50% base damage reduction when damaging Infantry
   • Reduced Damage to Air Defense, Town Center, and Drone Command by 40%
2. Heavy Infantry Defender
   • Dramatically increased Movement Speed
3. Ranged Infantry Defender
   • Dramatically increased Movement Speed to match Heavy Infantry Defender
4. Bazooka Defender
   • Marginally increased Movement Speed
5. Machinegun Defender
   • Very slightly decreased Movement Speed to match Bazooka Defender
6. Heavy Tank Defender
   • Slightly decreased Movement Speed
7. Garrison and Tank Depot
   • All upgrades now require 4 Citizens instead of some requiring 6 Citizens
     

To highlight a few things, these changes accomplish:

• Allows the Fighter to flourish as the on-demand Defender Destroyer, evading more S.A.M. Batteries and G.C.I. Radars with tighter turns and reach their target and redeployment zone faster.
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• Increases the viability of defensive strategies against Fighter-only army compositions.
• Allows defenders to spread out on the battlefield, resulting in a more complex defensive strategy.
• Increases the lethality of Heavy and Ranged Infantry Defenders, resulting in both more useful foot-troop defenders as well as more opportunities for attackers to exploit less-defended areas of the map.

You’ll also notice the Garrison and Tank Depot upgrades will no longer increase their Citizen requirement after a certain level. While not directly combat-related, we believe this change ungates defender-focused strategies and resolves a frustrating inconsistency in the game. Please note that this change only affects upgrades that start after downloading the latest update.

We will be carefully monitoring the results of these changes, and if need be, tweaking things in the future to ensure these units land in the right place. These are just the first steps to tackling our goals in making combat in DomiNations the best it can be, with more updates to come in future releases!

What would you like to see in future combat-based updates? We value your feedback. Thank you for reading, Leaders!

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Speed Up Auto Fill
We’re adding a new button for players to easily use their stores of Speed Ups. In Update 12.18, when speeding up an upgrade, you’ll now see the ‘Autofill Speed Ups’ option. Tapping this will use the Speed Ups you own to complete the Upgrade. The Speed Ups used will start with your highest (ex. 5d Speed Up) and use the minimum amount of Speed Ups possible to finish the upgrade or get as close to finishing it with the amount of Speed Ups available.

New Councilor - Charlemagne (Leader)

Charlemagne’s vision as the exclusive ruler of the Franks was to unite all Germanic people under Christianity. He pursued this goal by waging a three-decade long war against the Saxtons, eventually winning the conflict and putting in place extreme laws against all non-Christian people. At the same time as his conquest against the Saxtons, he conquered the kingdom of Lombards in northern Italy, as well as the Moors in northern Spain, instilling Christianity and supporting the Church anywhere he and his army went. Later, he would be crowned the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Leo III, thus creating a new empire that would remain in power for over 800 years. While Charlemagne did not gain any additional authority from this title, it did formalize his rule over his conquered territory, and allowed him to lay the foundations for the newly established Holy Roman Empire.

Charlemagne’s legacy lives on in many forms, not the least of which is through his sword he wielded in battle. His Joyeuse Sword has been on display in the Louvre Museum, and has also been used in numerous coronation ceremonies of French Kings since his death in 814 AD. His arm has also been preserved in a reliquary upon his canonization long after his death in 1481, however the modern catholic church does not formally recognize Charlemagne as a saint.

In DomiNations, his stats will increase the damage output of your Paratroopers and increase the HP of your Heavy Cavalry in both Primary and War Hall versions. You can start recruiting Charlemagne on 6/9!

Common	Uncommon	Rare	Epic	Legendary
Heavy Cavalry HP +6%	Heavy Cavalry HP +8%	Heavy Cavalry HP +11%	Heavy Cavalry HP +14%	Heavy Cavalry HP +18%
	Paratrooper DMG +6%	Paratrooper DMG +8%	Paratrooper DMG +10%	Paratrooper DMG +12%
		Enemy Tower DMG -15%	Enemy Tower DMG -18%	Enemy Tower DMG -24%
			Heavy Cavalry HP +14%	Heavy Cavalry HP +18%
				Paratrooper DMG +12%

Manufactory - Rush Materials
You’ll now be able to speed up your Manufactory Material production by spending Crowns. In the Manufactory Production screen, you’ll now see a button that will allow you to purchase 10 of a Material.

Material	Cost (Crowns)
Carbon	15
Titanium	30
Iron	40
Thermic Brass	75
Plastic	25
Glass	45
Polycarbonate	20
Fiber Mesh	80
Siliconite	50
Biofoil	70
Platinum	250

Additional Updates

• Multiple Localization updates
• Minor UI Graphical tweaks
• Changed Library Tech level based Troop names to generic Troop Names
  • EX. Spearhead Machine Gun II DMG should now read as Machine Gun Infantry DMG
    • Plans are underway to also do the same to University. We’re hoping to create consistency with descriptions throughout the game.
• Fixed a crash caused by upgrading the Alliance Gate with reduced citizen requirements researched.
• Updated Tournament of Glory Encyclopedia entry for better understanding with the Glory Decay system.

 

COC has many more units than your game units, and there are more types of troops to play and match. What other types of troops are currently available for you to play? Originally, there were very few types of troops in this game, and the powerful guards forced the attacking side to only play mortars. If you don't strengthen the heavy tank, the helicopters will continue to weaken the fighter jets and further encircle the attacking side's habitat. What does this mean? Do all players play on the defensive side? Do you want to see how much the World War numbers have inflated? Mortars cannot be used in daily life, but they are very powerful in world wars, including fighter jets? What kind of balance is this?

 

You seem to have made this decision without careful and detailed thinking, making the already limited choices even more monotonous. We welcome some changes to the game, but it is unhealthy to kill a unit like this.

 

In addition, you won’t need fighter debuffs from museum any longer.

 

rhe mortars and artillery need a little downgrade too

mortars: reduce their range by 1 and change the mongols coalition to artillery and mortar atk speed to artillery and assault vehicles attack speed to give them some love.

artillery: maybe slower attacking speed and a little cut to its damage.

 

Those 2 comments are the most spot on concerning the rebalance:

The real problem is not having enough strategies that can counter coming troops every 10 second only mortars can do it.

Helis were good but you managed to duck it too.
Heavy tank are too feeble to cover all the base and can't take defenders.
Guerilla, new tech of spawning machine gun from tower killed this strategy. Archers can be blown by one shot of anything.
Assault vehicle as mass number are of no use . Most of factory too.
You have to give us more options and a way to counter the tsunami of defenders. Not be downplaying defence but giving edge to other troops.

The changes, particularly the significant reduction in base damage and damage to key defensive structures, risk rendering another fighter-based attack strategy ineffective. At present, only a small number of highly skilled players (with maxed-out fighter stats and optimized museum) are able to clear top-tier defensive (3D) bases using fighters. Even then, these attacks often fall short. With the new changes, it’s likely that no fighter strategy will remain viable against these top-end defenses.

This makes the substantial investment of time and money into upgrading fighter museums feel wasted. It also narrows the diversity of viable attack strategies even further, leaving mainly mortar/paratrooper and bomber compositions as reliable options.

Additionally, it’s disappointing to see that this rebalance does not attempt to elevate underused troop types like MRLs, Bazookas, or Infiltrators into viable standalone strategies.

We can all agree that dominations is stagnant now. Up to digital age, players can use many troop combos with varying degrees of success. From info and drone age and up, things are VERY tough. Defence is strong and the waves of defenders are coming non stop. No problem so far. The problem is that there is no way to kill those defenders unless you either:
- play Lego with 3 weapons and drum/caesar/gemini legendary artifacts and you are evading all bastions through the constant use of assault rally and normal rally.
- play bombers. This is unstoppable now because strikers use commandos to take down all air defences prior to the first bomber run. Even bases with strong bomber debuffs are falling to this strategy. This needs rebalance
- play fighters. As @witCat already said, it is a viable strategy but only for the best out there.
So, to sum up, with this rebalance, you are making defenders faster thus making things for Lego tougher, while at the same time you are eliminating one attacking strategy - fighters!! So how are you achieving diversity?

I am playing both as a striker and a defender at various stages of the game. In my opinion, rebalance in dominations means:

- Reduce base fighter damage by 15%. Increase the damage done to defenders by 50% if they are under protect status, otherwise no change. Why it should be -50% and +100%? That's way too much of a change. Try for a more conservative change of stats.
- make factory troops relevant again. Buff them, give them new abilities, do something... A little brainstorming:
* Make HTs fire over walls, change their firing rate.
* Make bazookas have splash damage of 1
* Give MRLs 2 more rockets and the ability to have an untargeted status for 10 secs (like HTs are unbetrayable)
- change the Attack heli range to 6 for main weapon and 5 for supression weapon so that they are somewhat viable and have one more strategy in offence
- change the coding of bastions that act as magnets to land armies. Even engineers prefer to blow up bastions instead of wall segments. It is ridiculous that we have to micromanage our armies to this extent...
- reduce base bomber hp by 10-15% to make it harder to stay alive till end of battle.
- increase the Air capacity by 1 or even 2. That way strikers will prefer to take a few planes to deal with defenders and thus make land armies viable.
- increase overall army capacity by 40
- extend Quick Victory time by 15%. The bases are way bigger now than 5 years ago. We still have the same timings.
- extend battle time to 3:50
- Assault vehicles will never become viable unless you incorporate them in museum and cut their Troop space by 30-40%. They will act as part of an army and not on their own.

Additional improvements

1. NTGs. This system is obsolete. It worked fine before the museum came out. Nobody had a specific role back then. The national goods were cycling every week to have a variety. But now, going forward, dominations requires players to be either defenders or strikers. This means that we need the same NTGs every damn war and we are all depleted!! It is impossible to target specific bases for their NTG and get it. Everything is random now. So fix this at a high priority pls.

2. Council. Fusion and probability of getting your preferred councilor even in blue or purple is almost close to zero with that many of them. Change the odds, introduce "council only" events like you do for museum.

3. Museum crafting. This is maybe the biggest (and less rewarding) time waster. The easiest solution is to give us the option to reroll a second line and be done with it. The other solution is to create a search tool that the player will setup with his own parameters and the tool will search only for the specified artifacts with the specified lines, as long as the player has the game running i.e. WW equipment with 2 lines of ADTD and 2 lines of ADTH.

sorry for the long post

 

BHG marketers did a great job.
In early May, they released a legendary artifact for Fighters. Hundreds of players spent thousands of crowns to get it. And at the end of May, Fighterswill be nerfed. This is very disrespectful, because you knew in advance that Fighters were going to be rebalanced.
Now you will get a lot of negative feedback...

For some reason, many of the solutions that are released in updates are very short-sighted...
This happens quite often.
Your analysts do not think ahead enough about the consequences of the update in a month or a year.
This results in depressing consequences for players.

 

I will just leave this here as proof that bombers are unstoppable. Watch till the end where museums are being shown.
For those that do not see it, the striker has ZERO OFFENSIVE COALITIONS

 

This is the worst solution that can be made.

It's very difficult now to play with fighters and you decided to nerf them signicantly. What the hell?

Shame on you, BHG. Your analytics did their job poorly and it's obvious that they don't play in dominations themselves....

And let me remind you that according to the recent survey all agreed that defenders are too strong but for some stupid reason you decided to cap attackers. Where is the logic here? It's absent.

 

I will just leave this here as proof that bombers are unstoppable. Watch till the end where museums are being shown.
For those that do not see it, the striker has ZERO OFFENSIVE COALITIONS

I don‘t know if its a visual glitch but without coalitions this is not possible. Not with those 3D defender stats. Did you report the players in question?

 

I don‘t know if its a visual glitch but without coalitions this is not possible. Not with those 3D defender stats. Did you report the players in question?

This is normal, any defense is ineffective under the attack of 5 B2, two Tu-160 and three reconnaissance aircraft

 

This is normal, any defense is ineffective under the attack of 5 B2, two Tu-160 and three reconnaissance aircraft

No its not normal, the attacking player has no offensive coalitions.

 

No its not normal, the attacking player has no offensive coalitions.

The bomber was so powerful that it didn't need any of this

 

How the heck do you get five bombers and three recons?

 

- change the Attack heli range to 6 for main weapon and 5 for supression weapon so that they are somewhat viable and have one more strategy in offence

Agree with pretty much everything you said. But on this one point - don't you know that bhg think this IS the range that the heli shoots at?
Why else have they done f*ck all about fixing the range?

 

Those 2 comments are the most spot on concerning the rebalance:






We can all agree that dominations is stagnant now. Up to digital age, players can use many troop combos with varying degrees of success. From info and drone age and up, things are VERY tough. Defence is strong and the waves of defenders are coming non stop. No problem so far. The problem is that there is no way to kill those defenders unless you either:
- play Lego with 3 weapons and drum/caesar/gemini legendary artifacts and you are evading all bastions through the constant use of assault rally and normal rally.
- play bombers. This is unstoppable now because strikers use commandos to take down all air defences prior to the first bomber run. Even bases with strong bomber debuffs are falling to this strategy. This needs rebalance
- play fighters. As @witCat already said, it is a viable strategy but only for the best out there.
So, to sum up, with this rebalance, you are making defenders faster thus making things for Lego tougher, while at the same time you are eliminating one attacking strategy - fighters!! So how are you achieving diversity?

I am playing both as a striker and a defender at various stages of the game. In my opinion, rebalance in dominations means:

- Reduce base fighter damage by 15%. Increase the damage done to defenders by 50% if they are under protect status, otherwise no change. Why it should be -50% and +100%? That's way too much of a change. Try for a more conservative change of stats.
- make factory troops relevant again. Buff them, give them new abilities, do something... A little brainstorming:
* Make HTs fire over walls, change their firing rate.
* Make bazookas have splash damage of 1
* Give MRLs 2 more rockets and the ability to have an untargeted status for 10 secs (like HTs are unbetrayable)
- change the Attack heli range to 6 for main weapon and 5 for supression weapon so that they are somewhat viable and have one more strategy in offence
- change the coding of bastions that act as magnets to land armies. Even engineers prefer to blow up bastions instead of wall segments. It is ridiculous that we have to micromanage our armies to this extent...
- reduce base bomber hp by 10-15% to make it harder to stay alive till end of battle.
- increase the Air capacity by 1 or even 2. That way strikers will prefer to take a few planes to deal with defenders and thus make land armies viable.
- increase overall army capacity by 40
- extend Quick Victory time by 15%. The bases are way bigger now than 5 years ago. We still have the same timings.
- extend battle time to 3:50
- Assault vehicles will never become viable unless you incorporate them in museum and cut their Troop space by 30-40%. They will act as part of an army and not on their own.

Additional improvements

1. NTGs. This system is obsolete. It worked fine before the museum came out. Nobody had a specific role back then. The national goods were cycling every week to have a variety. But now, going forward, dominations requires players to be either defenders or strikers. This means that we need the same NTGs every damn war and we are all depleted!! It is impossible to target specific bases for their NTG and get it. Everything is random now. So fix this at a high priority pls.

2. Council. Fusion and probability of getting your preferred councilor even in blue or purple is almost close to zero with that many of them. Change the odds, introduce "council only" events like you do for museum.

3. Museum crafting. This is maybe the biggest (and less rewarding) time waster. The easiest solution is to give us the option to reroll a second line and be done with it. The other solution is to create a search tool that the player will setup with his own parameters and the tool will search only for the specified artifacts with the specified lines, as long as the player has the game running i.e. WW equipment with 2 lines of ADTD and 2 lines of ADTH.

sorry for the long post

my barrack troop change: adding a 4th barrack to contribute to space available hence another set of expertise.

wall sapper from 5 to 3,

tanks space of 10 but deploy 4 heavy infantry on death and give them 30% reduced damage from defensive buildings like the wall sapper and multiplier to defensive buildings 2x to 3x.

supply vehicle after tech space should be 8. maybe a tech or future comittee bonus that gives them a chance to cast first aid (equal to tactic level) per heal or plague doctor poison damage

assault vehicle have the same space at 10 but have that multiplier to walls too and move faster and boost damage and multipler goes from 3x to 4x and deploy 4 heavy infantry on death.

for 1 space heavy and ranged infantry get a "marksman/critical hit" bonus where they get a 5-10% chance for them to deal double damage.

attack heli and artillery space of 10.

my factory troop changes

factories contribute 5 space each for just 10 more space and they too get an expertise boost called "mechanisation"

gatling gun: space to 2, increase range from 3 to 4, move a bit faster and have their multiplier against defenders be 10x damage.

commandos: space after research 7

heavy tank: increase hp by 100%, after research final space is 20. give it multiplier bonus to walls alongside its others to and like atk heli give it a gatling gun damage and supression (can shoot over walls for defenders and work like the super tank shooting both once in combat with enemy troops but this could apply to the bunker defenders too) and on death release 3 gatling guns (sally ride gives 2 more) will apply to defensive HT.

bazooka: space to 3, bigger splash radius move faster and +1 to their multipliers.

armored car: change damage multiplier to resources and defenders and make it 4x over 3x.

apc:10 space and the damage is same but can supress troops no multipliers.

tactical heli: 10 space the recent uni leader does alot for them already

mrl: every 2 levels increases rocket number by 1 so the mrl level 2 has 12 rockers per volley. rockets have a bigger splash area and deal 2x damage to defenders and +1 range and move faster. which does get weird since the captains mrl is moddled after the HIMARS system which has 6 rockets

my airstrip balance

airstrip gets an expertise boost too to insentivise upgrading both and later on each one gives an extra +1 so an additional 2 air space.

airplane: idk? with their rebance, make the normal damage a bit smaller but nowhere near this rebalance so they harras and supress buildings, bigger multiplier to defenders. 1 space.

bomber and transport: swap their hp around to me.

transport: cooldown to 20second and 4 paratroopes a deployment if shot down 4more on death and move faster.

general buff-

their multiplier affects heavy tanks too.

 

some tactics need a change too.

barrage: range of 4, if troops are targeted has a 10x miltiplier to defending troops and supress them too permanently as long as barrage hit them. and their penalty to storage and town centre is smaller from 6x deduction to 5x apploes to town centre and economy buildings.

demolition: damage to one building has the penalty if its the town centre and economy buildings. has multiplier on defensive buildings by 3x and if demolition destroys building then surrounding defensive buildings get permanent supression if they are near it = to range of maybe 4 on centre square of building blown up

first aid: percent healing to 5% and later ages a range increase of +1.

betrayal: +1 range and generals in radius have permanent supression so 50% deduction to movement speed and attack damage like gatling guns supression.

sabotage: +1 range?

 

.. Wir möchten, dass ihr euch in der Lage fühlt, verschiedene Strategien auszuprobieren und alle Hindernisse zu beseitigen, die euch daran hindern.

JA, das möchte Ihr! Aber Ihr könnt es nicht verwirklichen. Ich muss dazu garnichts anführen oder meine Meinung kundtun. Der Aufruhr den Ihr unter den Spielern verursacht gleicht einem Tornado des Aufbegehrens. Ihr möchtet, dass wir im Weltkrieg Erfolg haben und unsere Allianz-Bereichern!!! .. was für einen schlau konstruierter und dennoch billigerer, verblendender Satz. Wow.

Würdet Ihr eine Tüfftlerwerkstatt für Verbrennermotoren besitzen liegt die Vermutung nahe, dass der Kunde nach einer Durchsicht Eure Werkstatt anstatt seines Motors mit einem Wasserstoff--Aggregat verlässt. Mit Eurer festen Überzeugung, dass er sich jetzt "bereichert" fühlt und eine völlig neues Fahrerlebnis bekommt. DAS wird er haben ähnlich dem Spiel hier. Er wird im Vorankommen gebremst und Gas geben ist Vergangenheit.

 

How the heck do you get five bombers and three recons?

Can somebody answer this. It’s not possible to have these air units without cheatin?

 

Is there any point being an offence player anymore? What i would have welcomed is a troop rebalance that makes offensive troops effective but what we get is more and more defence. Yes fighters and bombers are overpowered, yes they need some sort of rebalance but you haven't given any other way to fight these already incredibly strong defences we are faced with.

What about rebalance on ht or mrl, now that would be something I could get behind. Currently lego is the only viable option so defenders stack their museum to block them. If we had a choice where we look at defender museum, see they are invading lego troops heavy we swap to another attack method giving both attackers and defenders an element of strategy and fu . Mrl and ht junk atm.

 

When do you at BHG start playing a WW game at auto age, I bet not one of your developers did, shame on you all!