Protection
After you have registered for the round and realm placement has been completed, but before the round has started, you are under protection during which time you cannot invade or be invaded, or take any kind of magic or espionage against others or they against you. You can however access the Council for your Realm.
For players who join when the round starts, protection is synonymous with the first three days of the round.
Simulating
Because of the safety of being in protection, most players make sure to plan it as best as possible to ensure they reach the desired combination of land, building composition, OP, and DP for their strategy.
To do this, players create simulations ("sims") of protection using the OpenDominion Simulator originally created and maintained by Blackreign and now maintained and updated by Yami.
Conditions
To prevent/hinder cheating attempts the game will no longer allow Dominions to leave protection without a minimum amount of defense. There are two calculations for this:
- The first applies before OOP and is the same calculation that can be found on the invade screen:
10 x land-3300 OR 750(whichever is greater)
- The second applies after the round has already started, but you have yet to leave protection. When you try to advance your final tick you will receive an error message stating the minimum defense you will need for that size, which will change for each day in the round and as per the NPD defense chart.
These conditions can be bypassed by selecting a QuickStart build which will also enable you to leave protection immediately, rather than the standard 24h wait period.