A beginner’s guide to villages, armies, castles, battles and vassals.
Dominus is a free multiplayer browser strategy game. You start with one castle and grow by building villages, hiring soldiers and conquering other players. This guide covers everything you need to go from your first village to becoming the Dominus.
Become the Dominus to win the game.
Dominus /doˈ-mi-nus/ — Latin for emperor, master or owner.
To become the Dominus, everyone else in the game must be your vassal.
Vassal /va'-səl/ — A person in the past who received protection and land from a lord in return for loyalty and service.
To gain a vassal, attack someone's castle. If you win then you become their lord and they become your vassal. Lords receive extra income for having vassals.
Dominus is a slow strategy game that does not require a lot of time to play. Give your armies their orders then come back in a few hours to check on them.
Games last anywhere from a day to a month. When someone wins, the game ends and everyone can start a new game from scratch.
When you start playing you should focus on building up your income. The best way to do that in the early game is to build villages. A village collects resources from the ring of hexes surrounding it. Villages are built using armies.
When your army reaches their destination they will have a "Build Village" button which you can click on to build your village.
Continue building villages to gain more income. You can have up to 5 villages at one time. Hire soldiers to protect your castle and villages. After you have an army, try attacking a capital or someone's castle.
There are six different types of resources: grain, lumber, ore, wool, clay and glass. Resources are used to hire soldiers and build villages. Each hex produces a different type of resource.
Resources are collected at your castle and villages.
Your castle collects 30 gold and 20 of each resource. Everyone's castle collects the same resources. Villages collect resources from the 6 hexes surrounding them. Resources are collected every 20 minutes.
Villages collect from the surrounding hexes even if there is another building on the hex. It is fine to build villages next to each other or next to a castle, capital or other village.
Some hexes produce 2x the resources of a normal hex. These hexes have small buildings on them.
The market is where you can exchange resources and gold. Prices for resources go up and down based on demand. If grain is in high demand because many people bought grain then the price will go up. Taxes from the market are evenly distributed to castles every resource update.
Your castle is the center of your kingdom. Everyone has one castle and they cannot be destroyed.
Castles are very defensive. They have a 2x defense bonus.
If you attack someone's castle and win then you become their lord and they become your vassal.
If your army stops on the same hex as your castle then they will join your castle's garrison.
Castles produce 30 gold and 20 of each resource, and collect vassal income, every 20 minutes.
Villages give you resources. They produce resources from the 6 surrounding hexes every 20 minutes. You can build up to 5 villages at one time.
Building a village costs 200 of each resource. Level 1 villages can hire only archers. They can be upgraded to produce more types of soldiers.
Upgrading a village to level 2 costs 20 of each resource. Level 2 villages can hire footmen, archers and pikemen.
Upgrading a village to level 3 costs 20 of each resource. Level 3 villages can hire soldiers of any type.
While upgrading, villages do not receive resources and cannot hire soldiers.
Villages have a 2x defense bonus. If an army of yours is stopped on the same hex as your village then they will join the village's garrison.
Use armies to protect your buildings and to gain vassals. There are five kinds of soldier.
If your army enters a hex that is also occupied by an enemy army, village or castle then they will attack it.
Footmen receive a bonus against pikemen. Archers receive a bonus against footmen. Pikemen receive a bonus against cavalry. Cavalry receive a bonus against archers and footmen. Catapults receive a bonus against buildings.
When an archer fights a footman, because the archer has a bonus against footmen, the archer is 1.5x as powerful. Your army's base power is multiplied by 1.5, multiplied by the percentage of the opposing army composed of soldiers you get a bonus against. The in-game calculator will do this math for you.
Army speed is measured in hexes per hour, and an army moves at the speed of its slowest unit. An army of cavalry travels 22 hexes per hour, but an army of cavalry and footmen travels at 10 hexes per hour.
Armies on the same hex as your vassal's castle or village get a 1.5x location bonus.
Capitals are another way to gain income.
The map is divided into countries. Each country has one capital. To capture a country, send an army to its capital building. If there is an army there then they will battle. If you win you become the ruler of that country.
Unlike other hexes, any army on a capital building will battle any other army even if they are allies.
If you are ruler of a country then you get 10% of each village's income in that country, plus resources every 20 minutes.
Capital buildings give a 1.5x location bonus to their ruler's armies.
When a unit is on the same hex as an enemy they will battle. Every 4 minutes all units in the battle lose soldiers. Losers lose 500 power worth of soldiers. Winners lose 40% of what losers lose. Larger armies and more people in a battle cause losses to go up.
In battle, units are either attackers or defenders. Buildings are always defenders. If an army is on the same hex as their castle or village, or their ally's castle or village, then they are a defender. Otherwise the defender is the first army to arrive at the hex.
Every round, if your units' power plus your allies' power is greater than your enemies' combined power then you are a winner that round. Defenders use their defense power; attackers use their offense power.
Armies inside a castle receive a 2x bonus. Armies inside a village receive a 2x bonus. Armies on a vassal's castle or village receive a 1.5x bonus, as do armies on the same hex as their own castle or village but outside it.
Multiple armies can attack a castle at the same time. If they win, the castle goes to the first army to arrive that is still alive.
If you attack someone's castle and win then you become their lord and they become your vassal.
Lords receive 6% of their vassals' income. If a vassal has more than 5 people above them, each lord gets 30% of the vassal's income divided by the number of lords that vassal has.
Vassals do not lose the resources that their lords receive. If someone takes your castle and becomes your lord then your income stays the same.
You can send gold or soldiers to your vassals, but not to enemies or anyone above you in the tree. Gold transfers and buying soldiers for vassals are public — everyone can see alerts for these in the global alerts panel.
If you do not have a lord then you are a king. If you have a lord and you attack their castle and win, then their lord becomes your lord. If you attack your king's castle and win then they become your vassal and you become the king.
You cannot attack anyone below you in the tree. You can attack the castle of people above you in the tree, but not their armies or villages.
The color of a unit's flag or square is based on its relationship to you.
When someone becomes the Dominus a countdown starts. If nobody else becomes the Dominus before the countdown ends then the last person who was the Dominus wins the game. If someone new becomes the Dominus then the countdown restarts. The current countdown is shown in a panel in the top right of the screen.
While you are the Dominus your armies can attack anyone else's armies, but you cannot attack their villages or castles.
After someone wins, the game ends and everything is deleted after a few days. You can start a new game from the game list.
Duplicate accounts are not allowed. If you wish to start another account, please first delete your current account.
To delete your account in a single game, open the settings panel by clicking the wrench on the left side of the screen, then click "Delete Account". To delete your entire account across all games, use the Settings link in the top right of the screen.
Email verification is required to join a game when an account is created with a password. It is not required for Google or Facebook logins.