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Guest
Guest
Hello Leaders,
Welcome to the 6.1 State of the Nations! Winter for the Ages is wrapping up and I hope you took advantage of the increased resource production, sales, and events. Please share your thoughts with us so that we can make future “for the Ages” events even better! Today, I’m going to be reviewing 6.0 and 6.1 and will be talking about what’s coming up next for DomiNations in 2018.
With 6.0, the Cold War has finally arrived in DomiNations! In the December update we added the new Age with upgrades for nearly every building and troop. We also introduced a new Barracks troop, the Assault Vehicle, and a new Factory troop, the MRL. For those of you that participated in the Chuseok event or sale, the MRL (Mobile Rocket Launcher) may look familiar. Given the positive response we saw from the Hwacha Troop Tactic, we decided to create a mainline troop with similar functionality. The MRL was a troop that both fit in very well with the Cold War theme and would be able to act as a modern Hwacha in the game.
For anyone currently in the Cold War Age, you may have noticed that upon reaching the new Age you didn’t receive any duplicates of buildings to place on your base. In most Ages we give a handful of additional buildings like Towers, Garrisons, and Stables, but with Cold War we chose not to go this route. We did this because we feel that in the Cold War Age your base is large enough that getting one extra Tower or one extra Garrison isn’t really all that exciting. We want to make sure that we’re being smart about the buildings being added to later Ages. That way, when we do introduce a new building like the Missile Silo, we have more room to make it new, interesting, and worthwhile for the player. That’s exactly how we wanted to follow up our 6.0 release: with something new for late Age players to build. This is where the 6.1 update, Tools of the Trade, comes in.
In 6.1, we’re introducing three new Traps: the Decoy Trap, the Claymore, and the Signal Flare. The Decoy Trap is available in the Atomic Age while the Claymore and Signal Flare can be built in the Cold War Age. The Decoy Trap functions very similarly to the Decoy Tactic that is already available in your War Academy. Once triggered, a decoy tower will appear and all nearby troops will attack it. Like the Tactic, the decoy tower will remain on the battlefield until it is killed or a set period of time expires.
The Claymore is a trap that explodes and does a large cone of damage in a specific direction when triggered. The trap centers the blast cone on the troop that triggers it, but the range of damage extends out a lot farther than the trigger radius. This will definitely be a trap you want to watch out for.
The last trap is the Signal Flare. This is a trap that alerts defenders to incoming attackers. Once triggered, the Signal Flare causes all nearby Garrisons, Bunkers, and Stables to release a bonus waves of defenders. These alerted defenders gain a temporary boost in attack and movement speed. For players looking to attack Cold War bases, you’ll want to make sure you keep an eye out for suspiciously clustered defender-spawning buildings. Chances are there’s a Signal Flare hidden nearby waiting to sound the alarm!
In addition to the three new Traps, we’ve also introduced a new Atomic Age level for the Dock with five new Expeditions. Players in the Atomic Age can now send Expeditions to Rio de Janeiro, Halifax, Melbourne, Karachi, and Incheon. Completing these Expeditions will reward you with Trade Goods, National Trade Goods, certain Blessings, or new mixed Troop Tactics. If you’re interested in more information about 6.1 - Tools of the Trade, see our Official Release Notes.
Looking beyond 6.1, there are a few more things that we can preview here today. As with all previews, please remember that details can change as a feature is being developed. What I talk about today may not exactly be what goes live. With that out of the way, let’s talk about some upcoming content for future releases.
The next Great Leader in the University will be the 20th-century Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. He’s going to be a Leader for late Age players and will require a new Cold War University level to complete. His capstone, Lion of Judah, will unlock a unique new building: the Rocket Arsenal. This powerful addition to your base will function like a Garrison that releases Bazooka infantry defenders to devastate attacking tanks, heavy tanks, and helicopters.
We’re also working on a feature to allow a player to better track all the benefits they’ve earned from buildings like the Library and University. Tentatively titled Boost Details, this new window would allow a player to review all the buffs their buildings and troops are currently receiving and where those buffs are coming from. After a battle, a player will also be able to review what temporary buffs they have active and what buffs their enemy had for that battle. This should allow a player to see why a base was stronger than they were expecting and potentially figure out which buffs they should invest in to strengthen their troops.
Our last preview for today is actually two features currently lined up for a future update. The first is a minor map expansion. In 6.2 we’re planning on adding an additional row and column of forest expansions to accommodate all the new buildings that have been released, as well as providing space for future buildings. In a future release, will also introduce a brand new building that will sit on the edge of the map near the Alliance Gate. This new building is the Museum, which will allow players to gather, improve, and display various artifacts from throughout history. Doing so will provide the player with benefits to nearly every aspect of gameplay. However, I don’t want to spoil too much information about the Museum now because we’ll be doing a design spotlight on this feature in the coming weeks.
Lastly, I hope everyone has had a chance to check out the live stream that TinSoldier and Ash did recently. If you haven’t seen it, be sure to check it out here. They worked with the development team to answer questions posed by the community. It’s a great source for information and we appreciate all of the questions and feedback that we’ve gotten.
Thanks,
Brian
Welcome to the 6.1 State of the Nations! Winter for the Ages is wrapping up and I hope you took advantage of the increased resource production, sales, and events. Please share your thoughts with us so that we can make future “for the Ages” events even better! Today, I’m going to be reviewing 6.0 and 6.1 and will be talking about what’s coming up next for DomiNations in 2018.
With 6.0, the Cold War has finally arrived in DomiNations! In the December update we added the new Age with upgrades for nearly every building and troop. We also introduced a new Barracks troop, the Assault Vehicle, and a new Factory troop, the MRL. For those of you that participated in the Chuseok event or sale, the MRL (Mobile Rocket Launcher) may look familiar. Given the positive response we saw from the Hwacha Troop Tactic, we decided to create a mainline troop with similar functionality. The MRL was a troop that both fit in very well with the Cold War theme and would be able to act as a modern Hwacha in the game.
For anyone currently in the Cold War Age, you may have noticed that upon reaching the new Age you didn’t receive any duplicates of buildings to place on your base. In most Ages we give a handful of additional buildings like Towers, Garrisons, and Stables, but with Cold War we chose not to go this route. We did this because we feel that in the Cold War Age your base is large enough that getting one extra Tower or one extra Garrison isn’t really all that exciting. We want to make sure that we’re being smart about the buildings being added to later Ages. That way, when we do introduce a new building like the Missile Silo, we have more room to make it new, interesting, and worthwhile for the player. That’s exactly how we wanted to follow up our 6.0 release: with something new for late Age players to build. This is where the 6.1 update, Tools of the Trade, comes in.
In 6.1, we’re introducing three new Traps: the Decoy Trap, the Claymore, and the Signal Flare. The Decoy Trap is available in the Atomic Age while the Claymore and Signal Flare can be built in the Cold War Age. The Decoy Trap functions very similarly to the Decoy Tactic that is already available in your War Academy. Once triggered, a decoy tower will appear and all nearby troops will attack it. Like the Tactic, the decoy tower will remain on the battlefield until it is killed or a set period of time expires.
The Claymore is a trap that explodes and does a large cone of damage in a specific direction when triggered. The trap centers the blast cone on the troop that triggers it, but the range of damage extends out a lot farther than the trigger radius. This will definitely be a trap you want to watch out for.
The last trap is the Signal Flare. This is a trap that alerts defenders to incoming attackers. Once triggered, the Signal Flare causes all nearby Garrisons, Bunkers, and Stables to release a bonus waves of defenders. These alerted defenders gain a temporary boost in attack and movement speed. For players looking to attack Cold War bases, you’ll want to make sure you keep an eye out for suspiciously clustered defender-spawning buildings. Chances are there’s a Signal Flare hidden nearby waiting to sound the alarm!
In addition to the three new Traps, we’ve also introduced a new Atomic Age level for the Dock with five new Expeditions. Players in the Atomic Age can now send Expeditions to Rio de Janeiro, Halifax, Melbourne, Karachi, and Incheon. Completing these Expeditions will reward you with Trade Goods, National Trade Goods, certain Blessings, or new mixed Troop Tactics. If you’re interested in more information about 6.1 - Tools of the Trade, see our Official Release Notes.
Looking beyond 6.1, there are a few more things that we can preview here today. As with all previews, please remember that details can change as a feature is being developed. What I talk about today may not exactly be what goes live. With that out of the way, let’s talk about some upcoming content for future releases.
The next Great Leader in the University will be the 20th-century Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. He’s going to be a Leader for late Age players and will require a new Cold War University level to complete. His capstone, Lion of Judah, will unlock a unique new building: the Rocket Arsenal. This powerful addition to your base will function like a Garrison that releases Bazooka infantry defenders to devastate attacking tanks, heavy tanks, and helicopters.
We’re also working on a feature to allow a player to better track all the benefits they’ve earned from buildings like the Library and University. Tentatively titled Boost Details, this new window would allow a player to review all the buffs their buildings and troops are currently receiving and where those buffs are coming from. After a battle, a player will also be able to review what temporary buffs they have active and what buffs their enemy had for that battle. This should allow a player to see why a base was stronger than they were expecting and potentially figure out which buffs they should invest in to strengthen their troops.
Our last preview for today is actually two features currently lined up for a future update. The first is a minor map expansion. In 6.2 we’re planning on adding an additional row and column of forest expansions to accommodate all the new buildings that have been released, as well as providing space for future buildings. In a future release, will also introduce a brand new building that will sit on the edge of the map near the Alliance Gate. This new building is the Museum, which will allow players to gather, improve, and display various artifacts from throughout history. Doing so will provide the player with benefits to nearly every aspect of gameplay. However, I don’t want to spoil too much information about the Museum now because we’ll be doing a design spotlight on this feature in the coming weeks.
Lastly, I hope everyone has had a chance to check out the live stream that TinSoldier and Ash did recently. If you haven’t seen it, be sure to check it out here. They worked with the development team to answer questions posed by the community. It’s a great source for information and we appreciate all of the questions and feedback that we’ve gotten.
Thanks,
Brian
