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.

 

we did not report the player. This happened again. Against our top defenders. They all went down without the need of offensive coalitions from the opposition. I do not think this is a bug or cheat. I think that it is a legit fight. It just proves how OP bombers are at this point with the use of detachments and commandos.

This isnt doable by anyone. The player that does that is absolutely a machine.

Agree - there are only 2-3 players in the game that can do this, but I've played with 2 of them and have seen how it is done. It's beyond my capabilities but these are legit attacks. In particular for bombers the ONLY thing that coals add to the attack is Bomber HP from American's. Mongols and Aztecs (which normal players would also bring) don't add anything to an attack that relies on sabotage and commandos to take down air defense. So if you can do this attack with the 76% HP from American's, a more skilled player can almost certainly do it with just the 183% HP they have in Museum and Council.

 

I tested it and can confirm the attack is legit. It’s not that bombers are OP’d, since the introduction of detachments, bomber attacks are just easier to execute. You still need to gave a good plan and then execute accordingly. But it seems the current state of the game is flawed. This is what we seeing in the video you posted.

Focus in tupolevs, not in bombers . C'mon guys, so obvious

 

1. Heavy Infantry Defender
   • Dramatically increased Movement Speed
2. Ranged Infantry Defender
   • Dramatically increased Movement Speed to match Heavy Infantry Defender
3. Bazooka Defender
   • Marginally increased Movement Speed
4. Machinegun Defender
   • Very slightly decreased Movement Speed to match Bazooka Defender
5. Heavy Tank Defender
   • Slightly decreased Movement Speed

Please explain the % for each increase / decrease in movement speed.

We don’t know what the terminology means for Dramatically, Marginally, and Slightly.

The % are provide for all the fighter changes. The same should be provided for defender changes.

@Harlems369th

Movement speed is something we don't have as a player facing stat, exact numbers on this is something that we unfortunately are unable to share.

 

Movement speed is something we don't have as a player facing stat, exact numbers on this is something that we unfortunately are unable to share.

That doesn’t make any sense, Harlem.

Look - you guys have Māori that gives a percentage for movement speed of defenders. You can’t tell us what the increase in percentage format for the defenders? It’s not like you put on Māori. Defenders go up drastically as you level it up.

Are you saying you guys don’t know how to calculate this value for us to view from changing the algorithm or your team is not allowed to share the data with us with what has been changed?

Most developers for their games should be able to easily tell us what a change in values for movement speed or how much it will equate to

I.E. Old value - Defenders moved at 10% speed. We adjusted it by 5%.

New value - Defenders changed to 15% movement speed.

 

this is possible with premium offensive buildings.

What premium offensive buildings? How do you acquire them?

 

Focus in tupolevs, not in bombers . C'mon guys, so obvious

That's right. I just watched the video again and saw it too. Hit points 170+ and the Filipino coalition. Tupolev calmly kills the Tower without a Reconnaissance Plane.

 

Well with the current fighter and bomber set ups available in this game they might as well change the name of game to Ground Strike cause ground troops have became secondary and this nerf is just first step I am sure some will happen on defense and to bombers in future.

 

I’d like to share some concerns about the proposed fighter rebalance detailed in the recent update preview.

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.

I strongly urge the team to reconsider this rebalance or at least provide alternative adjustments that support greater strategic variety and retain the viability of fighter-based tactics.

This is the best response by far to these "rebalance" announcements. Well said!

Just to add to it, not only are attack options being limited further by this, but already struggling attackers hitting 3D bases will likely now face more of a struggle given the buff to defenders.

Waves and waves of defenders was already the main reason most attackers failed their hits, so it's hard to understand why buffing defenders move speed felt necessary?

Hopefully some more justification behind these changes can be shared before the update rolls out. Seems there are many players very unhappy and confused as to why this is the direction being taken by the dev team.

I'm all for "diversifying" attack strategies, this just feels like the opposite of that though.

 

also it stops buying wins .

Exactly what BHG doesn't want. That's why they do things like this

Don’t put alll your eggs in one combo.

Exactly why players are complaining

 

What premium offensive buildings? How do you acquire them?

money or server... but anyways money. the second option is not legal.

 

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

I urge the Devs to consider the 3 points Adittional improvements here. This is most urgent!

 

I urge the Devs to consider the 3 points Adittional improvements here. This is most urgent!

We can all agree it would be great QOL improvements but If it makes them money 'as is' they'll leave it - despite all their rhetoric about wanting to improve the gameplay experience.
Prove me wrong bhg ...

 

Background: playing for like 8 years, have spent a lot of time and some decent $$s. I am close to fully upgrading *everything* in Automation age. Have a ton invested in boosts to Fighters in museum & everywhere else.

Nerfing of the fighters by 50% might be like the end of line for me. Certainly even if I continue to play, it will likely be at a significantly reduced engagement level. And of course I wouldn't consider spending more money.

Would need to spend a ton of time grinding to rebuild museum artifacts to support either bombers or transports. Time I am unwilling to invest especially as at the drop of a dime those could be nerfed & ruined too.

Way to go BHG to suck the remaining fun out of the game and create so much uncertainty about the future which will crush engagement even for those players not fighter-centric.

 

Focus in tupolevs, not in bombers . C'mon guys, so obvious

It’s 100% possible against a base without ASDIC. You can test it by yourself in your WW.

 

Background: playing for like 8 years, have spent a lot of time and some decent $$s. I am close to fully upgrading *everything* in Automation age. Have a ton invested in boosts to Fighters in museum & everywhere else.

Nerfing of the fighters by 50% might be like the end of line for me. Certainly even if I continue to play, it will likely be at a significantly reduced engagement level. And of course I wouldn't consider spending more money.

Would need to spend a ton of time grinding to rebuild museum artifacts to support either bombers or transports. Time I am unwilling to invest especially as at the drop of a dime those could be nerfed & ruined too.

Way to go BHG to suck the remaining fun out of the game and create so much uncertainty about the future which will crush engagement even for those players not fighter-centric.

Pepin I get your upset and understand fully, This happened to allot of players that built AH muses and then they cut range.

At same time I see that fighters have been for along time getting bonus damage they should not have had. I also don’t agree with doing it same way hel was done right after people spent money for artifacts. It comes across as bait and switch in both cases. I do agree nerf was need long ago but timing is bit wrong.

Why I tell folks never put all ur eggs in 1 basket. ESP if anything other mortar/seige

 

I can’t believe I’ve wasted 5 years preparing an attack strategy based on fighter planes (museum, councilors). I’ve even spent around 10,000 crowns rolling dice to enhance artifacts focused on these specific upgrades, and now they’re nerfed by 50%??? Seriously?? I’ve also spent $100 a month on edition accelerators and buying crowns!! ALL OF IT, ABSOLUTELY ALL OF IT, FOR NOTHING??? The same thing happened with helicopters; I even got rid of legendary artifacts because of those rebalances!!! I’m giving the game to my 5-year-old niece. PLUS: It’s super obvious that the councilor draw is rigged. Now we only get women? Pretty suspicious for a so-called random algorithm, right? And the fusions are another scam! Statistically, automation players should have 10-12 legendaries, but after endless fusions, we only have 5-6, and 2 of them are duplicates! What a joke.

 

Trasfondo: Llevo jugando unos 8 años, he invertido mucho tiempo y bastante dinero. Estoy a punto de mejorar *todo* en la era de la automatización. He invertido muchísimo en mejoras para los luchadores del museo y en todas partes.

Reducir el número de luchadores al 50% podría ser el fin para mí. Incluso si sigo jugando, probablemente será con un nivel de participación significativamente menor. Y, por supuesto, no consideraría gastar más dinero.

Tendría que dedicar muchísimo tiempo a reconstruir artefactos del museo para apoyar a los bombarderos o transportes. Tiempo que no estoy dispuesto a invertir, sobre todo porque, en un abrir y cerrar de ojos, también podrían debilitarse y arruinarse.

Buen trabajo, BHG, por quitarle la diversión restante al juego y crear tanta incertidumbre sobre el futuro que aplastará el compromiso incluso para aquellos jugadores que no se centran en los luchadores.

I 100% agree. I don’t have the energy to overhaul an entire game. I’ve spent hours grinding artifacts to specifically counter towers and air defenses, chasing that holy grail artifact with dual fighter plane HP options or Health, only to get halfway there. I’m just drained. Back during COVID, I had all the time in the world to sink into this, and now what—do I need another pandemic to keep up? Unreal.

 

During COVID, I sank so much time and money into optimizing my fighter attack. To completely redesign my strategy, I’d need another global pandemic.


I’ve upgraded every single building to the max, to the point where I’ve got 9999+ in several factory materials. My 28 villagers are playing poker because they’re bored out of their minds.


I just don’t have the will to keep playing anymore…

 

What does ASDIC have to do with it? The museum does not work for Tupolev, only for the Coalition.

It’s 100% possible against a base without ASDIC. You can test it by yourself in your WW.

 

What does ASDIC have to do with it? The museum does not work for Tupolev, only for the Coalition.

ASDIC provides -19% Tup damage nerf. Without recon and Welrod, Tups sometimes can even take out 180+ adth Filipino base’s tower if the defender doesn’t use ASDIC. (Also suppose the defender has around 20 adth in museum) Bomber-type aircraft damage to buildings is variable, depending on the size of the building and where you click on it. That’s why I use sometimes not always.