Province attributes

What each number on the province screen means, from terrain and population to income, supplies and unrest, and what feeds it.

verified 6.37updated 2026-10-02 · Jake16 min read

Everything in Dominions 6 happens in a province. Armies march from one to the next, units are recruited in one at a time, and each province feeds your nation through a handful of numbers. Select a province and the box on the right shows them. This page goes through that box line by line, saying what each figure means and which other things push it up or down.

Everything here is a rule the manual states. We have not re-measured it, and where the manual disagrees with itself the final section says so. The money side is explained only as far as “where does this number come from”; a full treatment of the economy belongs on its own page.

What you get to see

How much of the box is filled in depends on how you know the province. With no information at all you see only its name and map number. A province you own shows everything.

The manual lists what each source of knowledge reveals:

• A scout reveals the owner, military information, fort construction and the province’s history, plus the temperature of the province and its neighbours.
• A priest adds the strength of the dominion and whose it is.
• A spy adds income, supplies, magic sites, unrest, the province defence level and better military detail than a scout gives.
• Dominion of yours in the province shows the owner, the income and the temperature, and the dominion strength of the neighbours. If you hold dominion over a province you can also see its income and scales without controlling it.
• Scrying shows nearly the whole list: very accurate military information, income, supplies, sites, defence, history, temperature, dominion, fort construction and unrest.

Once you have seen a province its name and place stay on your map for good.

Terrain

The terrain line sits at the top of the box and drives most of what follows. It sets how populated the province is, how many resources it yields, and how likely it is to hold magic sites. Farmland is crowded and rich in gold but poor in raw material and sites; highlands are the other way round. A province can have more than one terrain at once, and then the bonuses add together. River marks plentiful fresh water, and it applies to the lands next to the river.

The manual rates each terrain for population, resources and magic sites, on a scale from “extremely low” up to “excellent”. Where a rating is not listed, the terrain gives no bonus or penalty on that point.

• Plains: nothing in any column.
• Mountain: excellent resources, many sites.
• Forest: low population, high resources, many sites.
• Highlands: low population, high resources.
• Swamp: very low population, many sites.
• Waste: extremely low population, abundant sites.
• Farm: very high population, low resources, few sites.
• River: high population.
• Sea: low population.
• Deep sea: very low population, high resources, many sites.
• Kelp forest: high population.
• Gorge: low population, high resources, abundant sites.
• Cave: low population.
• Drip cave: excellent resources.
• Crystal cave: very low population, high resources, abundant sites.
• Forest cave: high population, many sites.

Terrain also decides who may go there. Underwater provinces cannot be entered by units that lack a special ability for it, such as being amphibious, aquatic or water-breathing. They add no resources to a fortress on land, and flying units cannot cross them. A unit with sailing may pass through a water province but must not end its turn there. The movement costs of each terrain are covered in Map movement.

Population

Population is the foundation. The manual says it is shaped by the Growth and Death scales, by patrolling, by dominion, by pillaging and by random events. The province’s population sets its base income:

base income = population / 100

Clicking the Population line shows the province’s current growth or death rate.

Population also caps two other things. Province defence needs at least 10 population for each point of it, and unrest cannot exceed one point per 10 population, so a province with no people cannot be in unrest at all.

Income

Each turn a province pays its owner its income, and the amount adds to the treasury. The number on the screen is already adjusted for everything that applies. The manual gives the calculation as:

modified income = population / 100, times the dominion scale modifiers, times (1 + fort administration / 200)

When the province has unrest, the final figure is the modified income divided by (1 + unrest x 0.02).

Three things in that line are worth separating.

• Scales. Order, Productivity and Growth raise income, and Turmoil, Sloth and Death lower it. The manual lists 3 percent per step for the first four, 1 percent for Growth and Death, and 5 percent per step of Heat or Cold away from a nation’s preferred temperature. The scale effects are set out under Scales in a province below.
• Fort administration. A fort adds half its administration value as a percentage to the income of the province it stands in. The manual’s example is a fort of administration 30 adding 15 percent.
• Unrest. It divides the whole thing, as the figures under Resources below show.

Income also needs a link to home. If a chain of friendly provinces does not reach back to one of your forts, the province yields nothing that turn; the manual’s shorthand is that collecting tax depends on being able to communicate. In disciple games the chain may run through allied territory.

Within a turn, pillaging happens before income is gathered, so a province you have just pillaged pays less, or nothing. Unit upkeep is settled afterwards. At the top of the screen your national summary gives the gross income and, in brackets, the upkeep bill. The manual puts upkeep at one fifteenth of a unit’s gold price per turn for most units, and one thirtieth for sacred units and slaves.

Resources

The resources figure stands for the raw materials that weapons and armour are made from. It is cut by unrest in the same way income is, but more gently. The manual gives:

final resources = resources / (1 + unrest x 0.01)

A province without a fort produces only half of its potential resources for its own use. The figure shown is what is actually produced, not the potential. On the capsule map (Ctrl-4) resources appear as hammers, and the hammers grey out as you spend them on recruitment.

The manual prints what a few unrest levels leave of income and resources:

• unrest 10: 83 percent of income, 91 percent of resources;
• unrest 25: 67 and 80;
• unrest 50: 50 and 67;
• unrest 75: 40 and 57;
• unrest 100: 33 and 50;
• unrest 150: 25 and 40;
• unrest 200: 20 and 33.

How a fort changes this

A fort in the province lifts it to its full potential. On top of that, the fort pulls in a share of the potential resources of each adjacent province, equal to its administration as a percentage. A palisade with administration 15 takes 15 percent. Three limits apply:

• a land fort cannot draw from an adjacent sea province, and a sea fort cannot draw from land;
• a fort cannot draw from an adjacent province that has a fort of its own;
• a fort cannot draw from an adjacent enemy province.

The manual stresses that the fort takes a share of the neighbour’s total potential, not of the half that the neighbour would use itself. Its worked example has a province going from 31 resources to 125 after a palisade appears (full potential plus the pulled-in shares), and then dropping to 112 when a neighbour also gets a fort. A river does not stop the flow: boats are enough.

Recruitment points

Recruitment points measure how much a populated area can equip in one turn. They come from population in bands, added together until the province’s population is reached:

• a flat 20 for any province;
• for population from 1 to 5,000: population / 100;
• from 5,001 to 10,000: population / 200;
• from 10,001 to 20,000: population / 300;
• from 20,001 to 40,000: population / 400;
• above 40,000: population / 500.

The manual’s example is a province of 6,000 people, which gets 20, plus 5,000 / 100, plus 1,000 / 200. After that, the bonus from a fort is applied (for example +50 percent for palisades), and the Order scale adds 10 percent per step. The standards on the capsule map show recruitment points and grey out as you use them.

Dominion, in the box

The dominion line shows the religious pull your god exerts on the province. Only one pretender can hold dominion in a province. A positive figure is yours and is drawn as a white candle; a negative one belongs to somebody else and is a black candle. A priest in a province under hostile dominion will learn whose it is. The full rules of spread, strength and effect are in Dominion.

Scales in a province

The scales icons on the box show the state of the province, which is not the same as the scales you picked for your pretender. A province drifts toward the scales of the dominion that covers it more slowly than the dominion itself grows, so a province may take several turns of strong dominion to tip over. A province’s own temperature also moves with the seasons: summer is one step warmer and winter one step colder, except in caves and outer planes. Deep seas stay neutral and other seas can only go one step either way.

The manual’s table of what each scale does, per step, in provinces under your dominion:

• Order adds 3 percent income, 2 percent resources and 10 percent recruitment, reduces unrest by 1, and removes 2 percent of random events. Turmoil does the reverse.
• Productivity adds 3 percent income and 15 percent resources. Sloth does the reverse.
• Growth adds 0.2 percent a month to population growth, 10 percent to supplies and 1 percent to income. Death does the reverse.
• Heat and Cold: every step away from a race’s ideal level cuts tax by 5 percent and supplies by 10 percent.
• Fortune and Misfortune change how many random events occur and how many of them are good. Magic and Drain change spell resistance, fatigue and research.

Values of 4 or higher come with extra effects. They include population loss from extreme heat or cold, unrest from high Productivity or Magic, and slow terrain change from Growth and Death. The Dominion page covers those.

Unrest

Unrest is the discontent of the people. It lowers income and resources, and once it reaches 100 no units or commanders can be recruited in the province. The manual says it tops out at 500, or one point per 10 population if that is lower.

What raises it, according to the manual:

• the province being ruled by one nation while another nation’s dominion covers it;
• blood hunting;
• enemy spies and bards;
• random events such as ill omens;
• certain magic sites, certain targeted spells, and global enchantments;
• pillaging.

What lowers it:

• patrol orders. Each point of unrest removed by patrollers costs the province 10 population, which the manual describes as the troublemakers being permanently removed. A province with no unrest loses nobody;
• province defence: every 10 points of defence take away 1 point of unrest per turn, so 53 points of defence remove 5 each turn;
• the Order scale and some sites and events.

Unrest also lowers the chance of capturing blood slaves and the chance of finding stealthy units by patrolling. The turn order puts “unrest alterations” (dominion, scales and patrolling) after income and pillage and before starvation, and site effects such as unrest-spreading sites later in the turn.

Because unrest of 100 or more shuts down recruitment, spies and spreading unrest are a way to hobble an enemy’s production without fighting.

Supplies

The supply rating says how many units a province can feed. Each unit eats an amount that depends on its physical size, and if the units present eat more than the province supplies, starvation follows. The number is built from two parts.

From population. The first 15,000 population gives 1 supply per 30 people. The population above that gives 1 per 60. The Growth or Death scale then modifies the result, and after that the Heat or Cold scale does.

From a nearby fort. A province within four provinces of a fort adds fort supply, which the manual gives as (administration x 6) / (distance + 1), and only the best fort counts. The manual’s worked example is a province of 21,000 people: 500 supply for the first 15,000 and 100 for the other 6,000, making 600; a Growth 1 dominion adds 20 percent and a Heat 3 dominion removes 30 percent of that, leaving 540; a castle of administration 30 three provinces away adds 30, for 570. Its numbers do not all fit its own formulas, which the last section describes.

The box also shows Supply Usage, the amount your units there are consuming. When usage exceeds supply, about as many troops starve as are needed to make up the shortfall. A starving unit gets a -4 morale penalty in its first month and a 5 percent chance of disease. A unit that is already starving and is hit again has a 50 percent chance of disease instead. Units with a suitable survival skill have a 50 percent chance of being unaffected, and a further 50 percent chance of not catching the disease. Starvation ends once the shortfall does, but disease stays. In the turn order starvation is applied after battles, so an army without supplies fights its first turn without the penalty. See Army management for how supply bears on armies.

Pillaging lowers a province’s supplies, and the supplies the pillagers gain last for one month only.

Buildings in the province

A province can hold three kinds of building, and the box shows which it has.

• Fort. Gathers resources, passes supply to the provinces around it, and shelters troops during a siege. The fort levels, in order, are palisades (administration 15), fortress (30), castle (45), citadel (60) and grand citadel (70), and each level replaces the one before rather than adding to it. The recruitment bonus rises from +50 percent for a palisade through +75, +100 and +125 to +150 percent for a grand citadel. The standard level for an era is fortress in the early age, castle in the middle and citadel in the late. The Fortification button, or the f key, shows a fort’s statistics.
• Temple. One per province, built in a friendly province for 600 gold with a few exceptions. A temple helps spread dominion and gives priests a bonus when they preach. If an enemy takes the province, the temple is razed at once.
• Laboratory. Collects gems, allows the Research order, allows gem transfers from the national inventory and is required for casting ritual spells. It also costs 600 gold, with some nations paying less.

All three are built in a province you control.

Province defence

Province defence is protection bought with gold instead of troops. Its cost, how it sets up the defending force, and when it fails are covered on Province defence. What belongs on this page is how it touches the other attributes: it cannot exceed one point per 10 population, it reduces unrest by 1 for every 10 points, and from level 15 it begins to detect stealthy units, with each point above 15 counting as one point of patrol strength. At the end of a turn, defence the population cannot sustain is cut down automatically.

Magic sites and searching

A magic site is a spot within a province that carries a special property, such as producing gems or letting you recruit particular units. Forests, wastes and deep seas tend to hold them, while plains and farmland seldom do. A few sites are harmful and spread unrest or disease even if nobody has discovered them. One province may contain several, and you may see only some.

Capturing a province does not reveal its sites. They have to be found with the Search for Magic Sites order, and every site has a difficulty from 1 to 4. A mage must have a skill in the site’s path at least equal to its difficulty: a level 3 Nature mage finds sites of difficulty 1, 2 and 3 but not 4. Level 4 is the most that is ever required. Certain spells reveal all sites of a path, such as Haruspex for Nature, or every site at all, such as Acashic Knowledge. A spy or scrying also reveals sites. Searches are resolved as step 14 of the turn.

Finding a site does not mean you can use it. A site that lets you recruit a nation’s own units only works for that nation; others who capture it still get its gems. Some sites need a laboratory first, and some need a mage of the right path. For what a site record holds, see How magic sites work.

Corpses

Corpses are the number of unburied bodies. They matter for spells such as Raven Feast and for raising undead. You see the figure only with a death mage or undead priest in the province, or with a priest whose nation can reanimate.

What the manual does not say

These are the places where the manual’s own figures disagree, or where it says nothing:

• Fort supply. The formula (administration x 6) / (distance + 1) gives 150 for a fort of administration 50 at distance 1, matching the manual’s own sentence. But the distance table printed beside it lists 400, 200, 133, 100 and 80 percent for distances 0 to 4, which is four times the administration over (distance + 1), and the castle example gives 30 at distance 3, which also fits four, not six.
• Growth and supplies. The scale table gives 10 percent supplies per step of Growth, but the worked supply example applies 20 percent for Growth 1.
• Order and income. The table gives 3 percent income per step of Order, but the scales passage says two steps of Order increase income by a total of 4 percent.
• Magic site searches. The manual does not say whether a search finds every eligible site at once or can miss one.
• Nothing is said about how terrains combine beyond adding their bonuses, what exact numbers lie behind “low” or “excellent”, how fast scales drift in a province, or how pillage amounts are decided.