Unit Matchups

When to build Warriors, when to build Scouts, and when the right answer is neither.

Dominion has two units at v0.1 — Warriors and Scouts. Archers and a ranged combat system are planned for v0.2, which means every matchup question in the current game reduces to “how do I stack these two.”

Warriors: the front line

Warriors cost eight iron, have ten HP, deal three damage per tick, and move one tile per tick. They are your capital siege unit and your tile anchor. In combat, Warriors absorb all incoming damage before Scouts take any — they literally are the front line.

Build Warriors when: you need to capture enemy tiles (Scouts can't capture enemy tiles, only neutral ones), you need to siege the Capital (Capitals take ten ticks to capture), or you need a stack that can trade hits without evaporating.

Scouts: vision, speed, expansion

Scouts cost five crystal and three grain, have five HP, deal two damage per tick, and move two tiles per tick. They reveal fog in a three-hex radius instead of two, and they capture neutral tiles in two ticks instead of four.

Build Scouts when: you need to expand faster than your opponent in the opening, you need vision to set up a capital push, you want to raid lightly-defended backline tiles to force your opponent to recall units. Scouts should almost never fight Warriors head-on — five HP means two Warrior attacks kill a Scout.

The mixed stack

A combined Warrior + Scout stack is the strongest generalist composition once you have economy for both. The Warriors tank incoming damage while the Scouts contribute their two damage per tick from behind. Example: four Warriors plus two Scouts deal sixteen damage per tick while the Warriors soak all hits until they die. If the Warriors fall, the Scouts are exposed and fragile — which is why mixed stacks want Warrior reinforcement, not more Scouts, when the front starts to crack.