A few newbie questions.
 

1) How is the MP in this game? How easy is it to get a game? Can you just look at a server browser and jump in?

2) How viable is it to play as a trader nation in MP?, i.e. being very weak militarily but buying and selling artifacts with other players and so on.

3) What does NAP stand for?

Probably more to come.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

1) Excellent. You after wait for a thread to start up, I would join one of Llama's newbie games. As an alternative you could always sub for someone.

2) You can trade as much as you and other players want, its fun! But its mainly about fighting! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Your description fits playing MA Ulm thou...

3) Non Agression Pact, usually with a number, ie...3. A promise you are going to give 3 game turns notice before you invade whomever you had the NAP with. Very, very common treaty in MP.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Okay, thanks. Hmm.. MA Ulm. I'll try them when my game arrives. What'd probably happen is i'd make an insanely huge and deadly army just sitting in my home province, where my Forge Lord with his dwarven hammer and Forge of the Ancients churns out endless priceless loot. I'd be rich! RICH! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

EDIT: Oh yes, what's subbing?

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

MA Ulm is a good trading nation because of its forge bonus making construction of magic items cheap.

However, I will warn you that it is considered a weak nation in MP and as such be more likely to be attacked by another nation.

You could be better off playing EA Ulm which has the forge bonus but more powerful troops/mages and blessable troops.

Subbing is taking over from a player already in a game who can't play anymore, mainly due to real life reasons. Its better to get a sub than turn that player AI usually.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Okay, many thanks!

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Trading a a main strategy really isn't a viable strategy.
It can help you from time to time but it won't win games, battles or wars.

Don't start with MA Ulm.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Duncan_Frost, stay away from MA Ulm. If you want to be a trading nation,
EA Ulm or AA Arcoscephale are much better choices. These are real nations...
MA Ulm is a sad joke.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Ugh. If not Ulm, who would you recommend as a good nation to start off with? Just for practice in SP. In the demo, I've taken a liking to Arcosphale. Having flying units in the PD is fun, no matter how useless they are. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

You'll find MA Ulm is a little contreversial on these boards; it seems to be a "love it/hate it" nation. It's fine for SP, though.

For SP, when I was just learning the game, here are some nations I found useful:
-Any country with strong national troops is more amenable to newbies imo. Countries with weak national troops that rely heavily on mages/commanders/special summons can be harder to get working (Agartha, Bandar Log, etc.)
-Since you mentioned flyers, I figured I'd mention Caelum, where almost everything flies. EA Caelum is great to play around with high level evocations, too. When learning the game its easier to focus on one or two schools per game.
-However, when you're ready to play with LOTS of different magic, Tie'n Ch'i (I played EA) was very useful to me when learning the magic system, because of its ridiculous magic diversity. It has a solid troop selection, too. Maybe play your 3rd or 4th big SP game as TC, the amount of magic options available to them are overwhelming at first.
-Someone will mention Niefelheim, and its probably the best bet for a bless strategy. Take high bless, build frost giants, profit.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

One of my favourite spells in the demo is Cross-Breeding, so Blood. Who's a good blood nation? And what's a blood economy?

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

"Blood economy" is the collection of blood slaves. It's easier to capture blood slaves in high population provinces, but blood hunting increases unrest and reduces population. Hence, a "blood economy" is fundamentally opposed to a "gold economy".

The big blood nations are EA/LA Mictlan and Lanka, although lots of nations have smaller blood picks (the "'heims", LA Marignon and Ulm, Pangea, come to mind)

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Duncan, if you like Arcoscephale, stick with them. They are a fine nation.
Not one of the powerhouses, depending on whom you ask, but a very strong nation.
I suggested them as a trading nation not because they have a forge bonus - they
do not - but because they have a great selection of magic, especially in the
Early Age, and excel at all three types of magic searching. By the way, make
sure you have A4 (four levels of Air magic) on your pretender to exploit the
Oreiads fully. They do not look like thugs, but they can be.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

plz forget the idea trading nation.. it'll give him an incorrect view on the game I think.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

What do you mean, Aezeal? I know it's probably an idiotic idea, but hey, I thrive on idiotic ideas. Such at using melee only in TF2, or using armies of 1000 hornblowers. Plus, I could sell information too! I love that kind of thing.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

I would say that you could do very well out of trading items and information if you made an effort with it, but you would still have to have some base of military strength. Your capital is just too juicy a target for other players to leave it alone if you can't defend yourself.

In Galactic Civilizations II I once had an excellent game playing as "The Foundation" (based on Asimov's book). I colonized no planets and didn't build any military until a long way into the game, but concentrated on playing the nations off against each other, trading techs and also doing a lot of research myself. I won. It was awesome.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

That's why I said i'd have an insanely huge and deadly army in my capital. 24 commanders equipped with Crowns of Command, leading 100 Crossbreeds each.. hehehe. Or I could just spam slingers, as is my wont.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Aha! More questions!

How easy is it to mod? Do I just edit a text file or similar? Is there anything that's not moddable?

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Modding is relatively easy. I you wan't to edit say... the stats of an unit or the name of a nation you will do fine with wordpad or something similar. If you wan't to make an entire nation you'll do fine with a text editor and a program like Paint(Windows) to make unit graphics. Be aware of the fact that not everything can be modded in Dom3. It's easy to do it but not 100% modable. You just can't have it all!http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif
Read the modding manual that comes with the game. It may seem a little overwhelming at first, but you'll learn.

On the subject of the most newbie friendly nation I would you say that Tien Chi is a good nation to start with. Strong troops that are not to expensive and good summons.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Okay. Is there a link to a modding tutorial anywhere? Or is there anything in the manual?

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

It's on the game CD and I think it's in the Manual as well.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

It's in dominions3/doc on your computer.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

You might also want to follow the link in my sig to the Reorganized Modding Manual thread. That document might be easier for a beginning modder to use than the official one due to the way things have been arranged in it. The official manual organizes commands alphabetically without regard to what commands are similar to each other or do similar things.

Re: A few newbie questions.
 

Great! Thanks everybody, especially Edi, you've been a great help. I've been looking through the forums and everyone's much more mature and sensible than on most forums http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif