Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

Hey, my first game was on the demo as Kailasa, and let me tell you, that was an *awful* beginner's nation. (Also, i didn't realize you could increase dominion, so i had dom1 - it was pretty hilarious.)

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

That reminds me of my first game; I was dom killed before the end of the first year and had no idea what killed me.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

fantasma, I'm not assuming anything, I'm just saying that different people use different approaches, so you can't underestimate all of them like HoneyBadger did. I've acknowledged both types you were talking about. however, you are mistaken in that there is no best beginner's nation. well maybe not 1 best but there are certainly better and worst beginner nations, no matter what approach you use.

the more complex the nation is, the harder it is for new players. the more balanced the nation is, as in no overwhelming strengths and weaknesses, the harder it is for newbies. the more choices the player has to make playing a nation, the harder it is for newbies. with that in mind, EA TC is a very balanced nation, doesn't have any overwhelming strengths(at least not from a newbie's perspective), has to make a lot of choices(which infantries to use, how to mix in archers, positioning, mixing combat magic or not, etc). with the power house nations it's basically pick a bless, recruit sacreds and priests to bless them and go steamroll the AI. much simpler, hence more newbie friendly.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

13lackgu4rd: Your side is arguing this debate from false assumptions (that new players are privy to knowledge that precludes them from counting as "new players" at all, in my opinion), and then basically suggesting that they're "attracted to shiny things", in other words. Are they squirrels?

How exactly am I underestimating anyone?
Who's to say that a new player isn't from China, and initially interested in the way the game portrays their country's mythology? Who's to say they even have internet access?

I have to assume that your and my definition of the word "assumption" is very different. Especially as you are the one making gross assumptions about my own self, or at the very least, arguing against my posts in a rather derrogatory way.

Why would a balanced Nation be harder for a new player to play? What difference would that make? And why would "more choices" translate to more difficulty, if all the choices are basically good ones? And if you can win with Tien Ch'i, purely by picking something randomly, and building enough of it to overwhelm the AI, which you can, I've tested it (possibly aside from elephants, but it's still the AI using them, which means not using them particularly well--and which you can beat, easily, with Tien Ch'i, and which you can also avoid.), then why would you need to mix in troops or combat magic?

And if you're not using 9/10ths of a Nation, anyway, how much fun are you having? Considering that the point here is to translate new players into experienced players, I feel that the level of fun is a pretty big factor. How replayable is Niefelheim, if all you ever do are build skinshifters?

You haven't managed to do anything more than continue to state your original argument, in slightly different, but still uncompelling ways, without taking any opposing arguments into consideration. And now you seem to be edging rather close to making personal attacks.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

HoneyB. Please calm down. This is getting far too personal and if you reread some of your posts, I think you'll agree you aren't exactly helping.

I'm not quite sure why this seems to be such a do or die argument to make. I've said my peace, I feel I've made valid points, and I've moved on. Just what nation the new player plays is not so important as to be worth a week debating whether one or the other is "better". Obviously we all have different opinions on this, and they aren't going to be swayed easily.

At this point the only thing I'm interested in is hearing how playing is going for the original poster... assuming he hasn't been scared away from his own thread due to our bickering.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

The squirrels take exception to your intended insult.

You're still confusing learning the interface with learning the game. Learning the interface is easier if you can focus on learning the interface and not have to learn the game at the same time.

For the sake of argument, i loaded up a vanilla EA TC game. And looked at 7 slightly different infantry options. I can't even tell you which one a new player would recruit. Sure, I know what the differences are, but they're subtle if you don't know what you're looking for.

Now, despite this, i thought i'd give it a try under the same conditions I played Nieflheim. Of course, i had to do research, because there's nothing else to do with commander buys early, so i chose evocation because it sounds good for killing stuff. Not only did i lose with starting army + 1st turn recruits on their second battle (Nieflheim's went 12 straight victories, including conquering Marveni's home province), and after resupply only went 3 more battles before needing to be resupplied again. It also took much longer to assemble suitable forces for expansion or fighting, and armies took significantly more casualties than nieflheim (as a %) and suffered a greater loss of fighting power because of them. Expansion was much slower. Didn't get to fighting the AI yet, not sure its worth doing so, can't imagine things will go much better.

Now, TC can improve quite a bit with cleverness (any cleverness), but the whole point of the test was to see how foolproof it was. Nieflheim is much more foolproof than TC.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

I tried really hard to not get into a quoting contest with you, however you've crossed the line HoneyBadger! so, here we go... :(

as soon as you stop "argument mode" and try to actually read what I've written than you'll understand how ridiculous your claim is. I'll even quote a part of my last post, which proves you wrong.

in case you haven't noticed the bold part is exactly what you've been missing. and this post is not the first in which I mention something similar to it!

to hear about dominions you must have internet access, it's still not in retail stores, remember...? so, nobody from China can speak English? that's shocking! :doh: wait, so how did they get this game in the first place...? I wasn't aware that there was a Chinese version of Shrapnel's website, but to be honest I didn't exactly look for 1 either so I don't know, just doubting it...

oh and by the way, your points, as ridiculous as they are, which I tried to show above, are also completely irrelevant. you clearly don't understand my point so you're arguing BS instead. you are underestimated people because many do actually read available material before playing, many new players are already on IRC and asking questions before even their first single player game! but how would you know? you're never on IRC... so you're underestimating people, I've presented you with that alternative, and my argument also works for your underestimated audience as well, so there's really no substance in your argument!

excuse me, but don't put me on the Sombre wagon and you as part of the Spanish Inquisition! derogatory way? wait, now you're becoming Shrapnel? anyone who disagrees with you is automatically offending you? cause otherwise I don't see how any of my posts could be seen as derogatory.

and here we finally reach the crux of my argument, which you clearly failed to understand. "what difference would that make?" you ask. personally I think it's quite obvious, but I'll explain it to you thoroughly because obviously it isn't to you. the more choices one has the more he has to think about which choice he makes. in order to properly decide between choices one needs as much information regarding said choices. as for "all choices being good", sorry but I must disagree with you on this. with TC all your choices are mediocre, it's only smart scripting and usage of battle magic that makes them good, but neither of those things are very newbie friendly, especially if they fit into your completely clueless about the game type.

heck, Squirrelloid answered this exact point of yours in the post above this 1. and those tests(as well as what you've described) were only against AI indies, not even AI nations! AI nations have a lot more troops than indies, 300+ troops in their armies are very common, could easily be more too! good luck fighting that with TC's troops without any clever tactics or magic that would actually require some knowledge of the game!

and all this is relevant how...? we're talking about one's first single player game! we're not yet talking about replay-ability and all that... by the way, Niefelheim is very re-playable but that's an entirely different issue, and irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

also, how do you expect to use more than 1/10th of a nation with no prior knowledge on the game? 9/10ths of every nation involves smart scripting, usage of rituals, usage of battle magic, forging items, communions, thugs, SCs, etc. how exactly will a new player, especially your type of new player, deal with all those things on their first single player game??? exactly, they can't... and it doesn't matter whether they're using Niefelheim or TC.

you haven't managed to make any argument of your own, only show utter misunderstanding of my(and others') arguments. instead you're trying to argue irrelevant points, and you fail even at those. I'm being close to personal attacks? where exactly? I've kept this argument very much to the point, all I did was disagree with you and show you why you're not making any sense. has nothing to do with a difference in opinion, it has to do with understanding the facts, which are indisputable, as they're "facts", look it up...

however, this post is a clear personal attack on me, no matter how hard you try to sugar coat it. good job doing what you're falsely accusing others of doing, keep up the good work! :doh:

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

This is a perfect example of a wrong assumption. I, for example, am not able to convince myself to focus learning an interface for the sake of it and then move on to learn the game. I would have stopped along the way pretty soon.

BTW, it took me months to realize one can buy PD. Who reads the fine manual, you know?

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

bold part is exactly our point... dominions is a game with a very steep learning curve. you can't just jump right in and expect to know everything on first sight. sure, it will work in most games, but this is not 1 of them... it takes time and patience to even learn all the basics, in case you haven't noticed yet, dominions is a pretty complex game.

P.S even so called "vets" do not yet know everything there is to know about this game, so newbies...?

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

To be honest, with your latest posts I would have to say you've both gotten into the realm of personal attacks. I admit there's a pretty hostile feel to this thread overall now.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

Oh, sorry if it came like that, my point to make was that there are many different approaches and views what is intuitive and what is obvious and how to learn. I took Squirrels statement as an example of IMO invalid generalization, nothing personal intended at all.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

Time for you guys to calm down. This is spinning out of control and I'm going to start giving infractions pretty soon if this keeps up. The OP asked two simple questions being new to the game, and you made a 7 pages of arguing about that simple question. You really are NOT helping him this way.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

I'm going to second Daynarr. Tone it down and keep it civil.

If you want to cover all approaches, give some basic advice and point to resources where the new people can find out more (FAQ, strategy index etc etc).

Some new people will know more than others, but you're better off not making any kind of assumptions until you get to actually gauge the newbie's level of knowledge. If it's unclear, a simple "Can you please elaborate on how much you already know?" can work wonders.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

Munkie and I apparently stumbled on the same Elemental Post referencing DOM3. I ended up picking it up as well and am really enjoying the layer upon layer of strategy and things to do.

Prior to reading this post I had selected Niefelheim after reading a strategy guide somewhere on them. It seemed like a race that would move forward into understanding some key game concepts...

Bless and Sacred Units - Since the Frost Giants have a good Sacred Units and a Multi Bless strategy seemed to have quite a bit of support I dug into it and ended up creating an Imprisoned Cyclops E9N9W4. This coupled with Companies of 5 Niefel Giants and 1 Niefel Jarl seems to work pretty good.

Magic Item Creation and Spell Use- Buffing up with some good magic items or spells seems to be applicable to these units to augment some of thier weaknesses like suceptabilty to fire. So I explored that.

The Scales - Since the Niefel and Jotuns like cold, playing with the race got me into understanding the scales.

Anyway I like playing them and they got me into a few key game concepts in what seemed a logical manner. They seemed to be a decent choice for my first game.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

I kind of throw my hands up at trying to help anyone with this thread, any longer.

I'll just point out that I never suggested that someone from China wouldn't understand English, so there's no misunderstanding. I only meant that they might be more interested in China's representation in the game.

The part where it was suggested (not by me!) that "Chinese people don't know how to speak English" was several steps beyond any place I ever took the argument, or intended it to go.

The thread has clearly gone beyond ridiculousness, or any desire for mutual understanding, or cooperative effort, which is pretty sad, since I initially felt it could have been quite useful.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

I wouldn't say that, its still useful enough, there just aren't enough people posting. To rectify that.

I would consider early age Arcocephale a good way to learn. They have some magic variety, but more importantly high troop variety. Even things like Wind Riders, which are horribly overpriced, work wonders against the AI, and one can play around with infantry, massed slingers (sure, archers are better, but massing slingers on turn 1 can make an army nasty), chariots, and the aforementioned Wind Rider without even getting into the magic system. Once they do get into the magic system, they get a smattering of everything but death and blood, with very nice air and nature, both of which are easy paths to understand.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

The thing I was going with is that the OP (original poster) said he was looking for "something to ease a new player in to the game" and "looking for a faction that might be a bit easier to wrap my mind around" after "my post-tutorial experience".

Since the tutorial is Marverni and was chosen to give abit of everything, I was shooting for something simpler. Less "learn the nation" just to get used to the buttons. Niefelheim does seem like it might be a good choice but Im probably biased in that I thought some sort of human nation would be the least specialized.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

It looks like you made some very good choices for a first game and learned a lot. I think you might have proven that Niefelheim is a good nation for new players ;) (One of the good nations, I'm sure there are others too...)

Regarding units: Niefel giants are great but don't forget the skinshifters. They are really powerful even though they are not sacred and their low resource cost means you can recruit a lot of them when you need them.

Regarding magic: I think you've got the right idea about using buffs and magic items. Niefelheim is great for that kind of stuff. The next step might be to learn damage spells and other battle magic. That's the order I learned things at least :)

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

Right you are and thats exactly what came next ..... I was on my second game and I had kind of fell into a groove using combat teams of 1 Nifel Jarl and 5 Nifel Giants. That combo, coupled with having a pretender with strong bless bonuses seemed pretty unstoppable.

Lulled into a false sense of security, I had gained pretty good control of the map and was just starting to consolidate and do some mopping up. I sent 2 such groups into a couple provinces. I wasn't really paying too much attention. Each province had 50-80 of errr...something :).....a veritable cakewake for my giants...

Next thing I knew I am trying to figure out where my giants went. :) Note I had long since stopped watching all my indy battles since the giants just dominated. Hmmm? They must have all died. I found 1 Nifel Jarl cowering in a province he must have retreated to. So I started looking at those indy provinces more carefully. They were predominately made of up of devils with some supporting troop. Well apparently those devils are pretty tough...at least against Frost Giants.

My second attempt I tossed in a few priests set for Banishment x5. That should do the trick. I watched the combat and again saw my giant team get totally raped by about 30+ devils. The devils just fly in on round 1 and surround the giants and start blasting their hear aura. The Banishments did do some good, but not nearly enough. The devils seemed pretty resistant to the Banishments.

So it became a new game....figure out how to deal with those devils. And that drove me to start digging through spells and figuring out where I needed to research, what Nifel spellcasters to use, and what spells to script them with.

The Jotun Skratti with their 2 Water path seemed a good bet. I researched Evocation 2, gave them each some water gems and sent a number of them in with the team. Scripting a Rain along with Cold Bolts and Cold Blasts made the difference. I suspect there are a number of other approaches but it was cool figuring out how to counter specific mobs.

Now I need to see if there is way to heal afflictions...the victory was not without its costs...

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

What those provinces probably were was regular indy provinces where one of the commanders had generated with a magic item. Specifically, a Soul Contract. One devil/turn. If you hit those late enough in the game they can be brutal.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

Hmmm...ya something was clearly up because these two provinces were substantially harder than anything else I faced. On the plus side, one of the provinces was adjacent to the enemy capital and clearly doing a good job of keeping him pen'd in there as well.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

There are a couple of ways to do this, pretty much all requiring nature magic and some research. Luckily for you you went with a N bless, so your pretender should be able to take care of this. (If he's broken free already?)

In SP probably the best way would be casting the global 'Gift of Health' (Enchantment5, Nature 5 to cast, costs 50N gems) This global increases the hit points of all units in friendly dominion by 10%/dominion candle - absolutely amazing for regenerating giants in it's own right - and also has a good chance of healing afflictions.

Second option would be to forge the artifact 'The Chalice'. This unique item becomes available at Contstrution 8 and requires N4S3 to forge. When equiped it checks to heal the affliciont of all the units in it's province.

These two option are the most powerful, and will quickly get rid of all afflictions in your dominion/in that particular province, so for single player they're your go-to options. Additionally, these are the only ways you can heal affliction on undead units. (Which will become very significant when you get to the stage you want to explore Tartarian factories.)

In multi-player though, these become less reliable, since you'll be competing with everybody else to get these. (Unique item and a global of which only can be up at one time.) And everybody really wants these, for the aforementioned Tartarians. (Some of the players might decide they don't want to dedicate the resources to compete for them, but everyone would love to have them nonetheless.)

Third option is to get a unit that's a healer, and give them the order to heal afflicions. (There's a specific icon for healers, so they're easy to recognize.) There's a few nations that have a recruitable healer. Most notably Arco's priestess, (all ages) but also Hinnoms Acha and Gaths Abba. Can't think of any others off the top of my head. For nations without recruitable healers there's the Fairy Queen. (Summonable at Conjuration 8, requires N5, costs 40N gems. She's not a very good healer*, but unless I'm mistaken it's the only (non-national) summonable healer? In most circumstances I wouldn't recommend summoning one 'just' for healing, but they're very capable mages, (A3N3, so they offer a way into air magic if you don't have it already) and quite a popular summon anyway, so if you have one and she's not otherwise occupied you can have her healing away.

* The way healing works is that first the game checks if your healing ability kicks in, depending on your 'healer' value. Arco's priestess has 100, while the fairy queen has... around 25 if I'm not mistaken. If this check succeeds then it checks each individual affliction to see if it's actually healed, some afflictions being harder to get rid of than others.

Edit: EA Ermor has healers too.

Re: Yet another new person with a question...
 

Sweet! Thanks! New stuff to explore this weekend .. :)