Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

I think many people will agree that MA Marignon is somewhat sorry, even though LA is in a pretty good position.

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Bless nations are usually the easiest to play, especially Giants. All of them have a pretty common play style and approach, high N/E bless. However that also means they are extremely predictable.

Magically diverse nations tend to be the hardest to play, but they are also the most powerful if you know your way around them. Nations like EA,MA,LA TC, LA Pyth, LA Bogarus.

If you want a good and easy nation to play that is not bless specific but very strong, take MA Van or LA Midgard with a special emphasis on shapeshifters.

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Access to recruitable everywhere blessed chaff with a natural fire bless pushes the early game, but angels are what makes Marignon interesting. Lots of nations have access to cool thug chasis.
Marignon has to push to an early province lead and then keep the steamroller running.
Once you pause to consolidate and give your foes room to breath, it's pretty easy to counter what they have.

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Be careful people, we're wandering off in the acronym pile of noise interference here... :)

I'll be taking the advice so far to heart and try a pretender build. I'll try to have my choices documented in a post and put them up for discussion.

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Their recruitable everywhere sacreds are worthless, (in the numbers they can realistically be recruited due to the holy limit) fire bless does nothing for your abysmal magical diversity (nor does it really help your capital only sacred knights or angel summons) and the angels certainly are cool, but also overcosted after the clam removal. (If we're talking CBM) They have no real means to push to an early province lead (at least less so than almost every other nation. If you sacrifice everything for early game performance you probably can accomplish something, but then you've sacrificed everything of course) and nothing about them resembles steamroller, running or otherwise.

So yeah, I disagree with every word you wrote except that it's pretty easy to counter them. MA Marignon is a poor, poor nation. Was already at the bottom of the pile in vanilla, and the many CBM (or patch) boosts to most other previously weak nations have left them quite alone there.

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Plus the units are really ugly lookin'!

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

This mod improves some of the marignon unit sprites(as well as some of the other older sprites), and I believe it's going to be incorporated into the next CBM. So at least you'll be able to look good while being one of the worst nations.

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Respectfully, I disagree with your dismissal of 'the acronym pile of noise'. If you want to master a competitive multiplayer game, you must be willing to learn the jargon its players use. Only the kindest experts will be willing to couch their terminology in explanations for you.


As for the Original Post, what I recommend more than anything is practice. Multiplayer practice is ideal; singleplayer only works with specific goals. For example, can you achieve 20 or even 30 provinces by Early Spring Year 2? With multiplayer practice, focus on simply playing as much (as many games) as possible. The slow pace of Dom3 lends itself to perfectionist play, but perfectionist play is not helpful to a new player.

For example, here we are talking over the specifics of Caelum strategy. Rather than that, just go start up a small singleplayer game, say... 3 Impossible AI + you on a 60 prov map, and try out thunder strike spam tactics for yourself. While perfecting pretender design in this thread will help for the multiplayer game, it doesn't teach you how Caelum actually plays.

Of course, for most tactics it's impossible to adequately evaluate them in a singleplayer game, but you can get a taste. I personally recommend small-scale multiplayer games, since that will allow you to play more at once and finish them, win or lose, quicker. Blitz games on IRC are also helpful in this regard.

A good read is the Beginner section of this book, specifically the Getting Started topic:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Another great way to learn a lot about the game quickly is to sub a position from a more experienced player somewhere in the turn 35 to 60 range. This will give you a good idea of what you need to try to develop in the preceding turns and what battles look like at that stage.

This is not an unusual situation as this is when turns start to take much longer, especially if the player is doing well. A player at that stage who has a sudden uptick in real life responsibilities often has to bail.

I've done a few of these, often covering the other player for only a week or two, and have learned a lot in every case.

Re: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?
 

Just a short update to let you guys know I am still alive.
RL is frantic at the moment, but I'll be back on this topic. :)