In Domina, players are tasked with managing a Ludus, that is a school or training center for gladiators. The player seeks to wrestle glory from the bloody sand of Rome by obtaining and training gladiators to win in the arena, there’s also a bit of political wheeling and dealing to get noticed and give your warriors an edge in fights.
It’s a fun game, but it can be difficult at times, especially as you face increasingly difficult enemies with each fight. For those looking to make things a bit easier, reduce grind, or just remove strategy entirely from the equation there are a number of cheats and exploits that can be used by the player.
10 Equip Any Card
For many of the cheats on this list you’ll have to manipulate the game’s save file. This means you have to play long enough to get a save file and then open Domina’s AppData/Roaming file, then open the Savestate file using Notepad or a similar program.
To equip any of the useful cards in the game for your gladiators you’ll have to search for the gladiator’s name in the Savestate file and under “CARDS” put in any number up to 41. Unfortunately no one has devised a master list of the cards and their respective numbers so this’ll take some experimentation, but you can use this to give your gladiators the useful cards instantly.
9 Sea of Water
To give your gladiators an endless supply of live giving water and avoid dying of thirst you implement the same steps outlined on the card cheat to access the Savestate file. Here you’re looking for the “waterUnitsAvailable” and you’ll just change the number after to however much water you want.
It’s advised to keep this a realistic number as setting it too high can bug out the game, but it’ll provide you with an endless supply of water to keep your gladiators cool.
8 Endless Harvest
For an endless supply of food you’re basically going to do the exact same thing as the water cheat. Open the Savestate file in the Appdata/Roaming file in Domina with the Notepad program. Look for the line item “foodUnitsAvailable” and put in the amount of food you want to have in the game.
Again, putting too high a number can cause issues with the game and considering how easy it is to do you shouldn’t need to give yourself too much food.
7 Fountain of Wine
Unlike water or food, wine isn’t meant for your sweaty gladiators parched throats, but is a way to grease the palms of local politicians. Bribes are an effective way to keep costs down or obtain new warriors so having an endless supply of wine is a major advantage.
Following the same steps above open the Savestate file, look for “wineUnitsAvailable” and put in the desired amount and get those politicians sauced out of their minds.
6 Put Off Fights
While the game doesn’t have a master countdown to gameover or anything like that, players may find themselves feeling a little crunched to prepare for upcoming battles. For players wanting a few more days to prepare, there’s a simple cheat to give yourself as much time as you desire.
Going back to the Savestate file, search for the line “days UntilNextBattle” and put in the desired number of days you wish to put it off. This is a great way to get a few more days to beef up gladiators, save up for better gear, or just give the game a more casual pace.
5 Change Stats
One of the most time consuming activities in the game is raising a gladiators stats and there’s no worse feeling than watching your prized fighter, who you’ve been training for a long while, bite the dust forcing you to start over with a rookie.
To save yourself some time or give yourself a team of superheroes, access the Savestate file, search for the gladiator’s name and near the top are the stats Agility, Weapon, Defense, and Strength. It’s possible to set these to ridiculous levels and although the game has been reported to have trouble showing higher numbers, the game mechanics will register the values anyway so feel free to go crazy.
4 Ultimate Health
Perhaps the gladiator’s most important feature is their health stat. Gladiators can have ridiculous strength levels, but if their health is low they’ll go down in a fight. Using the same steps as above players can access the Savestate file, search for the chosen gladiator, and below the stats they’ll see maximal health and the current value. Simply change that value to whatever you want and you’ll have a robust gladiator able to absorb damage.
Players should also be careful to change the “Current Health” stat to match their new “Maximal Health” stat. Otherwise you’ll have a character who’s severely wounded as his current health will be lower than his maximum health.
3 Downgrade To Create Wealth
The next three cheats don’t require any save data manipulation and can be performed in-game, which makes them much more convenient. One way to bring in lots of wealth is to take advantage of the quirks in the downgrade mechanic.
When players downgrade their gladiator’s equipment it’ll sometimes trigger an increase in the gladiator's value. So crafty players can downgrade their gladiators, sell them at the market for a higher price then they’re worth for potentially hefty profits.
2 Fight The Second String Early In Gauntlets
During Gauntlet fights, players are tasked with fighting the opponent in rounds with the backup fighters waiting on the sidelines. Some sneaky players have discovered that by taking control of the gladiator and directing him to get close to the backup fighters on the enemy’s side, it’s possible to get a couple of hits in if not outright kill them.
This doesn’t cause any issues with the game as the injured fighters will take their turn and dead fighters will simply register as having lost their fight and the game will spit out the next in line. It’s a great way to make upcoming fights easier, especially if the next fighter in line is tougher and can pose a problem.
1 Wounded Fighters Ignore Later Wounds
This is likely going to be patched in the near future but it’s a great exploit to use at the moment. After gladiators are wounded in battle the player is tasked with healing them and normally would keep them benched until their wounds heal and they can enter a fight at full health. It turns out there’s a glitch in Domina that the game won’t register any new wounds a healing fighter receives in battle.
The fighter must win the battle for this to work, but basically a gladiator at 80% health can be healed, enter into a new fight, have his health reduced to 20% during the fight, but if he survives his health will jump back up to 80% after the fight as if nothing happened.