The goal
You rule one kingdom in Maddog Productions Online Dominion, among every other kingdom on this site. A round runs 45 days. When it ends, the kingdom with the highest net worth is champion, the standings are carved into the Hall of Fame, and everyone begins again on equal ground.
Net worth counts everything you hold: land, buildings, peasants, your army and your treasury. There is no way to win by hiding. A large, rich, undefended kingdom is simply a target, and the ranking that makes you proud is the same ranking that tells your neighbours what you are worth taking.
What you are trying to do
- Claim land. Send settlers into the wilderness. Every acre is somewhere to build.
- Build on it. Buildings are the only things that produce anything. Bare land is worth little.
- Feed your people. Peasants pay your taxes and become your soldiers. Starve them and you lose both.
- Raise an army. Troops to hold what is yours, and troops to take what is not.
- Trade. Other rulers sell what you are short of, at prices they set themselves.
- Make war. Past a certain size, taking a neighbour's acres is cheaper than settling your own.
- Climb. Rise through the titles, from Freeholder to Emperor.
Turns: the thing you actually spend
Everything costs turns. You are granted 20 turns a day and can store up to 90.
Here is the part that catches new rulers out: a turn pays you the moment you spend it. Your gold, grain and iron arrive as income when you give an order, not while you sit idle. Turns left unspent earn you nothing at all. A ruler who logs in daily and spends everything will out-produce one who hoards, every time.
| Order | Turns |
|---|---|
| Settle new land | 1 |
| Order buildings (any quantity) | 1 |
| Train troops (any quantity) | 1 |
| March on a kingdom | 2 |
| Send an agent | 1 |
| Post or buy on the market | 0 |
Because an order of any size costs one turn, ordering 200 buildings at once costs exactly what ordering one does. Place large orders.
Your first day, step by step
- Claim your kingdom. You start with 250 acres, 75,000 gold, and a crown truce of 72 hours that nobody can break.
- Open Lands and look at your wilderness: acres with nothing on them, earning nothing.
- Build farmsteads and homesteads first. Food and people come before everything. Check the Throne Room afterwards: if grain per turn is negative, you are heading for starvation.
- Spend a turn or two settling more land, then build on that too.
- Open Muster and train defenders. Your truce ends, and an undefended kingdom with a good net worth is the most attractive target on the board.
- Spend every remaining turn. Come back tomorrow.
A reasonable opening is roughly a quarter of your land in farmsteads, a quarter in homesteads, and the rest split between counting houses, foundries and defence. There is no correct answer, which is the point.
Land and buildings
Each building occupies one acre. Ordering costs 300 gold and 15 iron per acre, and the work finishes on the daily tick, 1 day later. What you order today defends you tomorrow, never tonight.
| Building | What it does |
|---|---|
| Homesteads | Houses 30 peasants. Peasants pay your taxes, so homesteads set the ceiling on every other income. |
| Farmsteads | Produces 85 grain a turn. Grain feeds your peasants and your army; run out and both start to desert. |
| Counting Houses | Produces 60 gold a turn on top of the taxes your peasants pay. |
| Foundries | Produces 25 iron a turn. Iron is needed for construction and for every soldier you train. |
| Barracks | Each barracks trims the gold price of training by 0.5%, to a maximum of 35%. |
| Fortifications | Each fortification adds 0.6% to your defence, to a maximum of 50%. Siege trains are built to break them. |
Settling gets harder as you grow: a scouting party finds fewer acres and charges more for each one. Razing a building returns 20% of its cost and hands the acre back to wilderness.
People and food
Peasants pay your taxes, and every soldier you train is a peasant taken out of the fields. Homesteads set how many you can house; your population grows toward that ceiling on its own.
If your grain runs out, peasants flee and troops desert, every single turn you spend. Watch the grain line in the Throne Room. If it is negative, build farmsteads or buy grain on the market before you spend anything else.
The army
Offence counts only when you attack. Defence counts only when you are attacked. An army built for one job is nearly useless at the other, and that trade-off is the whole war game.
| Troops | Offence | Defence | Gold | Iron | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Levies | 0 | 3 | 120 | 5 | Cheap conscripts. They hold a wall and nothing more. |
| Wardens | 1 | 9 | 340 | 25 | Professional defenders, and the backbone of any kingdom that expects to be hit. |
| Reavers | 9 | 1 | 380 | 30 | Raiders bred for the attack. At home they are little better than levies. |
| Siege Trains | 18 | 4 | 1,400 | 180 | Slow, ruinously expensive, and the only thing that reliably breaks fortifications. |
War
A march costs 2 turns and resolves the instant you commit, against whatever the defender has standing at that moment. There is no waiting and no warning. Both sides receive a written report.
| Kind of attack | What it takes |
|---|---|
| Conquest | Seize acres. The costliest fight and the only one that grows your kingdom. |
| Raid | Strip the treasury and granaries. No land changes hands and your losses are lighter. |
| Siege | Throw down buildings, fortifications first. Softens a kingdom you mean to conquer later. |
The rules of engagement
- You may only attack kingdoms worth between 40% and 250% of your own net worth. Nobody can farm a beginner, and nobody is safe purely by being large.
- You may strike the same kingdom at most 3 times a day.
- New kingdoms hold a crown truce for 72 hours. It ends the moment they march on somebody, so you cannot raid from behind it.
- Losses are permanent on both sides. Winning a battle still costs you soldiers.
- Fortifications lift your defence; siege trains are built to break through them.
The spy court
An agent costs 500,000 gold, and no ruler may keep more than 1. That price is deliberate: knowing what a rival actually holds before you commit an army should be a serious investment, not a habit. Missions can fail, and a failed mission often ends with your agent hanged, which means paying the full price again.
| Mission | Gold | Success | Risk | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reconnaissance | 15,000 | 85% | 8% | Count a rival army, stores and buildings before you commit to a march. |
| Burn the granaries | 45,000 | 65% | 25% | Puts a torch to a share of a rival grain store. A starving kingdom loses troops on its own. |
| Sabotage the forges | 45,000 | 65% | 25% | Wrecks foundry stock, slowing construction and training. |
| Incite revolt | 70,000 | 55% | 35% | Turns peasants against their lord. The tax base falls with them. |
The market
Rulers set their own prices. Post grain, iron or troops for sale and name what you want for them; the goods leave your stores at once and come back if the lot expires or you withdraw it. Buying and selling cost no turns, so the market is the one place you can act freely when your turns are gone.
The crown takes 5% of every sale. Lots expire after 3 days, and you may keep 10 open at a time. A kingdom that farms grain well and sells the surplus can fund an army it could never have trained on its own.
Titles
Your title follows your net worth. It is worth nothing in itself, and everything to look at.
| Title | Net worth |
|---|---|
| Freeholder | 0 |
| Thane | 250,000 |
| Baron | 750,000 |
| Viscount | 1,500,000 |
| Earl | 3,000,000 |
| Marquess | 6,000,000 |
| Duke | 12,000,000 |
| Archduke | 25,000,000 |
| Prince | 50,000,000 |
| High King | 100,000,000 |
| Emperor | 200,000,000 |
Rounds
A round lasts 45 days. Round 1 is running now, with 45 days left. When the clock runs out the standings are archived to the Hall of Fame, every kingdom is retired, and a new round opens. Nobody carries an advantage across, so arriving late in a round costs you nothing but this round.
Claim your Kingdom