Domination

Wargaming.net had a problem with names. Their first game was called Massive Assault. The follow-up was Massive Assault Network. The third entry, released in 2005, was called Domination. If you never heard of any of them, the naming strategy probably didn’t help.

Domination was the third game built around the same core system – a turn-based tactical framework the developers described as “think-based strategy,” which is actually an accurate description. Every unit’s armour value and weapon damage was visible. You always knew exactly what the other player had and exactly what your attack would do to it. Chess with tanks, essentially, except that the battlefield kept secrets of a different kind.

The secret allies mechanic was the thing that separated Domination from every other hex-based tactical game of its era. Neutral territories scattered across each map could suddenly reveal themselves as reinforcements for your side, at a moment of your choosing. You decided when to spring them. So did your opponent. Both of you knew the other had hidden allies somewhere on the map and neither of you knew when they’d appear. It introduced a layer of psychological pressure that pure calculation games rarely achieve – you’d consolidate a strong position and then have to ask yourself whether now was the moment, or whether waiting gave you a better angle.

The tactical layer was clean and unambiguous. Land, air, and naval units each had defined roles. Infantry held territory, armour provided firepower, artillery extended your reach, air units forced vertical thinking. The AI was brutal by the standards of the genre because a system with no randomness rewards the opponent that calculates better, and the AI calculated well. The career mode, which gradually introduced new units and mechanics as you progressed, was the best single-player structure the series had produced. The story campaign was not. The cutscenes were poor, the dialogue was worse, and place names like Sushiland did not convey the intended gravitas. Most reviewers suggested skipping straight to the gameplay, which was sound advice.

Reception landed exactly where you’d expect for a game with this profile: consistent praise for the core mechanics, consistent frustration with everything surrounding them. GameSpot called the presentation failings staggering while acknowledging the tactics remained engaging. Metacritic reviewers described it as an excellent game buried under unnecessary fluff. One reviewer called it the best turn-based strategy system ever made, then noted the multiplayer had been stripped out relative to the previous entry, which rather undermined the point. The consensus across outlets was that Wargaming had built something mechanically interesting and then wrapped it in production values that worked against it. It reviewed in the mid-60s on Metacritic and sold modestly, which is what happened to a lot of mid-budget PC strategy titles in 2005 when the market was consolidating around bigger names and smaller studios were getting squeezed.

Wargaming released one more entry in the Massive Assault series and then stopped. The studio had been founded in Minsk in 1998 with the explicit intention of making strategy games, and for seven years that’s what they did. In December 2008 they started work on something different – a free-to-play multiplayer tank game that didn’t share much DNA with Domination beyond a studio address. World of Tanks launched in Russia in August 2010, reached North America and Europe in 2011, and within two years had turned Wargaming into one of the more successful free-to-play operations in the industry. The company that built a chess-like turn-based tactics game with hidden information mechanics eventually became a billion-dollar business selling cosmetic upgrades for virtual tanks to millions of simultaneous players. The design philosophy did not survive the transition.

Domination is available on Steam and GOG for under ten pounds. The secret allies system is still unlike anything in the genre. The story campaign is still skippable.