System Armies — Neutral Island Defenders in Dominion

Every Dominion field that no player holds yet is guarded by a system army. Its size depends only on the island and the field, so you can work out a fight before you send a single unit.

How system armies work

The further in, the stronger: fields on rare islands hold 2 times the army of a common island, fields on the supreme island 5 times. Portals rise even faster.
Each field's army is rolled when the map is made: up to 10% more or fewer units, rounded to whole units, so two fields of the same type can differ. Portals are always exact. The tables show the army without variance, the range you can meet and its total defense before buffs.
System armies never recruit and never get reinforcements. Units they lose stay lost.
They have no runes, spells or artifacts of their own; an artifact lying on their field does not help them. Only two things make them stronger: a defense field buff on their field, and a combat type that counters your attackers.
If your siege of a system island runs out, you keep the portal and the fields you took; the other fields keep what is left of their armies.

By island

Island	On the map	Portal	Crystal Heart	Other fields
Starter islands	20	2× Pangoan	—	see below
Common islands	8	12× Pangoan	5× Druid Naki	×1
Rare islands	4	30× Pangoan	10× Druid Naki	×2
Supreme island	1	90× Pangoan	25× Druid Naki	×5

The last column compares the army of every other field with the same field on a common island. Starter islands have a fixed, much smaller set.

Starter islands

Every starter island has the same 21 fields. Your Airship Port holds the starting army of your legend; the other fields hold small system armies. Starter islands have no field buffs and no artifacts.

Field	Fields	Defenders	Range	Type	Defense
Portal	1	2× Pangoan	2	Umbral	100
Grassland	7	2× Druid Naki	2	Umbral	60
Forest	7	2× Forest Spirit	1–2	Primal	60–120
Swamp	2	6× Nyxi	5–7	Primal	50–70
Magic Forest	2	1× Elder Spirit	1	Primal	75
Lesser Treasure	1	2× Pangoan	2	Umbral	100

Each common island mixes fields of these types: High Grass, Swamp, Magic Forest and Forest. Which of them appear, and where, changes every round. It also has 3 or 4 treasure fields (Lesser Treasure or Magic Treasure) and one Crystal Heart. Every other field has a 12.5% chance to hold an artifact.

Field	Defenders	Range	Type	Defense
Portal	12× Pangoan	12	Umbral	600
Crystal Heart	5× Druid Naki	5	Umbral	150
High Grass	8× Guard Naki	7–8	Primal	140–160
Swamp	15× Nyxi	14–16	Primal	140–160
Magic Forest	2× Elder Spirit	2	Primal	150
Forest	3× Forest Spirit	2–3	Primal	120–180
Lesser Treasure	4× Pangoan	4	Umbral	200
Magic Treasure	6× Pangoan	5–7	Umbral	250–350

Rare islands

Each rare island mixes fields of these types: Magic Forest, Dunes, Wasteland, High Grass, Swamp, Ash Fields and Gloom Sands. Which of them appear, and where, changes every round. It also has 3 or 4 treasure fields (Magic Treasure or Divine Treasure) and one Crystal Heart. Every other field has a 7.5% chance to hold an artifact.

Field	Defenders	Range	Type	Defense
Portal	30× Pangoan	30	Umbral	1'500
Crystal Heart	10× Druid Naki	9–11	Umbral	270–330
Magic Forest	4× Elder Spirit	4	Primal	300
Dunes	30× Ranax	27–33	Infernal	270–330
Wasteland	6× Pangoan	5–7	Umbral	250–350
High Grass	15× Guard Naki	14–16	Primal	280–320
Swamp	30× Nyxi	27–33	Primal	270–330
Ash Fields	10× Athlas	9–11	Astral	270–330
Gloom Sands	3× Vahloc	2–3	Astral	240–360
Magic Treasure	12× Pangoan	11–13	Umbral	550–650
Divine Treasure	16× Pangoan	14–18	Umbral	700–900

Supreme island

The supreme island mixes fields of these types: Fiery Desert, Magic Forest, Ash Fields and Gloom Sands. Which of them appear, and where, changes every round. It also has 2 or 3 treasure fields (Magic Treasure or Divine Treasure) and one Crystal Heart. No field here holds an artifact.

Field	Defenders	Range	Type	Defense
Portal	90× Pangoan	90	Umbral	4'500
Crystal Heart	25× Druid Naki	23–27	Umbral	690–810
Fiery Desert	15× Pangoan	14–16	Umbral	700–800
Magic Forest	10× Elder Spirit	9–11	Primal	675–825
Ash Fields	25× Athlas	23–27	Astral	690–810
Gloom Sands	6× Vahloc	6–7	Astral	720–840
Magic Treasure	30× Pangoan	27–33	Umbral	1'350–1'650
Divine Treasure	40× Pangoan	36–44	Umbral	1'800–2'200

Field buffs

Fields on common, rare and supreme islands can spawn with random field buffs; portals never have any. The odds are the same on every island:

Buffs on a field	Chance
None	43%
One	43%
Two	14%

Each buff is attack, defense or recruiting (treasure fields get only attack or defense), at level 1 (53%), level 2 (26%), level 3 (13%) or level 4 (8%). Only a defense buff makes a system army stronger: +10%, +20%, +40% or +100% for that field. About 24% of fields spawn with a defense buff, and 36% of treasure fields.

Tips

Check the Type column before you attack: if your units beat the defenders' combat type, you get the effectiveness bonus.
Pangoans and Druid Naki are Umbral, which no combat type counters, so there is no counter bonus against portals, treasure fields or the Crystal Heart.

See also