New player guide: your first full game

This guide picks up where the six Start Here steps stop. Those steps teach what the screens are. This page is about playing a whole first game with them: what to decide before turn one, what the first ten turns are for, how to read the first fights, and when magic starts to matter. It does not repeat the steps, it links to them.

The text keeps two things apart. Plain text states a rule of the game and links to the page that sources it. The shaded blocks labelled Opinion are advice from one player, and another player could choose differently and do just as well. If the game changes, trust the rule over the advice.

Before turn one

Set the game up as step five describes: the smallest map, the Middle Age, two or three computer opponents on the lowest difficulty, and the Cataclysm unticked. The reasons for each are given there, so they are not repeated here.

Picking a nation

A nation gives your god its troops, commanders, mages, sacred units and the magic paths its mages can reach. Every nation belongs to one of three ages, and the age chosen at the start decides which nations you can play (First nation). The nations overview lists them all, and step four holds a short list of nations to start with. A nation’s own units are hired only in provinces with a fort, and you begin with one, in the capital (First nation). A few nations do not recruit all of their army; see Nations that get units without recruiting before choosing one of them.

A simple pretender

Your god is built from design points, 450 for each nation, spent on a physical form, magic paths, dominion strength and scales, with the awakening adding points back (Pretender design). The god is also a commander: it moves, fights, researches and casts. Each scale costs 40 points a click, and the manual discourages settings of 4 or more (Pretender design). Dominion strength is bought in candles, at 7, 14, 21 and so on for each one above the body’s own base (Pretender design). Bless points come from a path of skill 2 or more, one for each level above 1, and an effect costs the sum of its skill requirements (Blesses).

The first ten turns

The turn is the unit of everything. Orders go in for every nation, and the host then resolves them in a fixed order that you can read on the Turn order page. A few consequences of that order matter at once. Gold, gems and items sent in a message always arrive, because messages come first. Newly recruited units are always available, and a mage’s research always counts, even if the mage is killed later in the turn. A province you pillage pays less income that same turn, because pillage comes before income.

Expand

Provinces held by the independents are the first thing every nation takes. The manual’s only comment is that a high independent strength slows everyone’s expansion, because armies must be bigger to take the next province (Independents). Their defenders include the province’s PD, which fights when an army arrives, and the PD level of an enemy or independent province is not shown to a plain scout: a spy or a scrying spell reveals it (Province defence). A commander with troops under him can be given a move order, and troops with no commander cannot (Map movement). An army moves at the speed of its slowest member, and moving into an enemy or independent province costs more than moving into your own, as Map movement lists.

Each province you take adds income, resources and recruits (Province attributes), and the economy loop is on Economy. A province’s income is its population divided by 100, scaled by the factors on that page and cut by unrest, and at 100 unrest the province allows no new recruits (Province defence).

Recruit and pay for it

Recruitment draws on gold, resources and recruitment points, and the points limit how many a province can produce in a turn (Start Here, step five). Every unit then costs upkeep each turn, equal to its gold cost divided by 15 (half that for sacred units), paid after income is collected (Army management). Each unit also eats supplies by its size, and a province whose supply is exceeded starves some of its units (Army management).

Research, from the first turn

Research is a long investment. A mage ordered to Research adds points to a school, and the order appears only where your nation has a laboratory (Research). The seven schools advance separately, and a spell needs both the school level and the path skill (Research). Each level opens spells of rising power. A mage who studies is not doing anything else that turn, since a mage has one order a turn (Start Here, step five).

Province defence

PD is a garrison you pay for once and never feed. The first level is free, each level after costs as many gold as its number, there is no upkeep, you cannot lower it, and the ceiling is 100 (Province defence). It cannot exceed one point per 10 people, it fights alone when an enemy arrives, and it is back at full strength afterwards while you hold the province (Province defence). Every 10 PD removes 1 point of unrest a turn, and from level 15 it searches for hidden enemies on its own (Province defence).

Build

Three buildings do most of the work. A fort defends its province and makes your nation’s units available there. A laboratory is where mages research and forge. A temple is where priests preach, bless and push your dominion outwards (Start Here, step five). Fort levels replace one another, so a new level does not add to the one below (Forts). Your dominion spreads from four kinds of source: the pretender, the capital, each temple and the prophet (Dominion).

Your first battles

A battle plays out without your input once it starts. What you control is the army you set up the turn before: its squads, where they stand and the orders each is given (Army management). A blow is settled by an attack roll against a defence roll and then a damage roll against protection (Combat). A battle ends when one side’s nerve breaks: once three quarters of its combined hit points are gone, or when every commander on a side is dead or has fled (Combat, Morale and rout).

To read a battle, open it from the messages at the start of the next turn: a battle message links to its replay (Start Here, step six). In the replay, right-clicking a unit shows its card. What to look for is a short list the rules make for you:

• Who broke first, and why. A squad is tested on its average morale, and a failed test sends the whole squad away (Morale and rout).
• Whether the commanders lived. The loss of every commander ends the battle for that side.
• Whether the mages cast. A caster hit while preparing can lose the spell, and the chance depends on the damage taken (Combat magic).
• Who ran out of breath. Each attack adds fatigue equal to the unit’s encumbrance, and each full ten points costs a point of defence (Fatigue).

When magic starts to matter

Magic runs through the whole game from turn one, because research is slow, but it changes what you can do only after a few levels. Magic basics in the Start Here guide lists the ten paths, the seven schools and the jobs a mage can do. Three rules decide when it matters for you:

• A spell needs the school level and the path skill together (Research).
• A battle spell whose fatigue cost is high enough also needs gems (Battlefield enchantments), and gems come from magic sites and the other sources on Gems.
• Rituals are cast on the map and spend gems too (Rituals).

Common beginner mistakes

Each of these is a pattern, not a law. The rule behind each is linked.

What to read next

• For how the pieces combine over a whole game, the strategy article Why Dominions 6 is deeper than it looks.
• For building an army, Composing an army.
• For going online, How to join a multiplayer game.
• For the rules behind the fights, Combat, Morale and rout and Fatigue.

What this page does not cover

• It does not rate nations or units. For those, see the nations overview and the units tables.
• It gives no figures from our own testing. The pages it links to say where they carry measured results.
• It does not explain the setup screens or the pretender screens step by step; Start Here does.