Yet another new person with a question...
 

Hi all,

I bought Elemental a couple of weeks ago and I have to admit that the best thing that has come out of that game so far was the recommendation to check out Dom3.

I bought the DigiDL last a couple of night ago and installed it on my home computer, netbook, and work computer. I am reading the manual on my iPad as I play at home, and I am slowly understand my post-tutorial experience.

A couple of questions have come to mind as I am playing the game...

First, is their a recommended race and game configuration to ease a new player in to the game? I understand that everyone has a unique experience, but I was looking for a faction that might be a bit easier to wrap my mind around.

The second questions would be if I could possibly copy and move my save file on a thumb drive so I can keep portable between my three systems? Can I install the game on an unlimited amount of systems (I guess it is a bit late to ask this one).

Thanks in advance for answers,
Munkie!

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

Technically you can. The game checks the legal serials only when you connect to another machine that has Dom3. So mostly just when you get into multiplayer games. Then you have to be careful about possibly playing the same game from multiple computers. The game would only see that the serial is coming from two different machines. It would have no way to know that they are both really you.
But for solo play and tutorial (or running a copy as a server) its no problem.

As for race, Im not sure. I tried awhile back to get an agreement about what race is simplest and already basically understood by non-players. But as you say, everyones experience with this game is different so it was alot more discussion than agreement. :)

My thought was something like Middle Era Ulm. Its strength is basically heavily armored men and cavalry. It has a priest and a mage and a scout but nothing too far from what you might see in any fantasy based game. To me it seems one of the more generic recognizable nations. I think it gives a chance to learn how play the game without wondering how to play Ulm.

Now that might actually turn out to be your perfect match. But if it doesnt, dont sweat it. As you play with the others you will be able to match nation to your style (offensive, defensive, turtling, researcher, stealth, horde)

And welcome to the addiction.

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

MA Man would be a pretty good choice as well. It doesn't do anything fancy, massing longbows can make nearly any pretender design work vs the AI.

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

I would suggest MA Ashdod or EA Niefelheim. They're some of the strongest nations in the game, have powerful magic, armies, sacreds, and recruitable SCs... and can be played decently in multiple ways, so you can experiment with them a bit. These are fairly straightforward power nations, so not too much thinking out of the box is necessary. The suggestions of MA Man and MA Ulm are given often, but I've found that players who start out with these nations end up getting the mistaken impression that they're rather strong, when in reality these are some of the weakest nations in the game ;)

As far as settings go - I would suggest leaving most settings at default, with the possible exceptions of magic research and random events. For your first few games, it will make things a lot easier on you to play with easy research and few random events. Few random events lets you gain more points by taking misfortune scales without too much worry, and will prevent you from having to do as much backfield cleanup. I'd also suggest playing on a map that's thin and long, with one easy AI. This will provide a funneling effect making it harder for the AI to maneuver armies around you, so you'll need fewer effective armies and not need to worry as much about defending your borders. In fact I'll provide you with an example map. You can NOT put more than one AI on this map. You'll have to unzip it and put the contents into your "\dominions3\maps" directory. Unless you have windows 7, and then it might be in someplace trickier to find.

One last suggestion - when you start out, try playing against only human nations. Like tien chi, man, ulm, vanheim, etc. Some of the other nations, like say abysia, have special abilities that can make it a lot harder to deal with them if you're not prepared, and you probably want to get a handle on how things like magic and forging work before trying to fight them.

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

MA Man for human troops, EA Aby for battlefield evocation and Niefel for big bad giants...

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

Hmm, rdonj that is a bizarre reason to discount MA Man and Ulm; because the guy may mistakenly think they are strong? That being said, I started Dom 2 with Niefelheim and loved it.

Looking back on my Dominions beginnings, all that really matters is finding a theme you like. The rest falls into place.

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

And then instead of a no-specials, easy to understand nation.. to recommend one with everything?

I didnt expect him to win with them. Just learn how to play the game..
Did you notice phrases like "ease a new player in to the game" and "I was looking for a faction that might be a bit easier to wrap my mind around"? I think I will stand by my recommendation (or Middle Era Man isnt bad also)

OH hey Munkie, before I forget. If you find yourself getting swarmed by the computer players then turn the independents UP to make it easier for you. People usually turn them down but that just makes the swarming worse

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

I was beaten to the punch in suggesting fire and ice, EA Abysia and EA Niefelheim. Some things they have in common: good to excellent sacred troops and commanders that work well with an Earth 9/Nature 6 bless, immunity to their respective elements, heat and chill aura's, access to blood magic.

EA Aby's Burning Ones attack opponents in several ways: two hard hitting attacks per round (even more so when they go berserk), a fire shield that will harm opponents when they attack the Burning One (I think they are the only recruitable troop with this ability), and a heat aura that will fatigue opponents (fatigue increase the chances of a critical hit). Anointed of Rhuax are thuggable commanders and will let you experiment with that aspect of the game.

Niefel Giants aren't as good at inflicting damage as Burning Ones but they don't have to be. With their high HP they will be able to hang in there until their stacked chill auras do their job. Once the opponent is fatigued they become easier to hit and giants hit plenty hard. Even if they never hit the opponent, eventually the chill aura will go from fatiguing the opponent to killing them. If you use these take note of the effect of the chill aura on opponents - it really is a powerful weapon and can fatigue opponents without cold resistance frighteningly quickly. But Niefelheim's star is the Niefel Jarl - plain and simple they are recruitable SCs. They are well equipped for crowd control with a chill aura just like Niefel Giants and capable of casting Soul Vortex which will both damage opponents and heal/reinvigorate the caster.

Since both these nations are immune to their elements feel free to cast Falling Fires/Falling Frost without worrying about harming your own troops. Also, cast Heat from Hell and Grip of Winter to tire opponents (if possible precede the battle with a casting of Wolven Winter to make Grip of Winter even more effective).

Now while these two nations share some attributes they are actually on opposite ends of the power curve. Their respective access to blood is a good example. EA Aby's blood access is through a capitol only mage; Niefel has recruit everywhere blood mages. Who can transform into a wolf shape that is perfectly capable of killing SCs. Or once Blood 9 is researched just cast them into hell. But regardless of the power differences between them both these nations will give you an opportunity to experiment with blood magic. Note that in the case of Abysia you'll want to empower a nature mage in blood so you can forge Jade Knives. Give these to your sacred mages and you'll see the power of blood sacrificing in pushing dominion (note: selecting a high dominion when designing your pretender and using the strongest priests you have are very helpful in this process).

Lastly, both these nations lend themselves to a strong bless (though they don't *have* to be played that way). MA Ulm and Man don't (though you can make a case for the latter if you play using the CBM mod) - in those cases look for your pretender to provide good scales and magic diversity. When designing a pretender you can get varying combinations of bless, scales, magic diversity and combat ability. Try different nations and different approaches to see what you enjoy most.

Anyway, welcome and have fun!

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

Absolutely; from everything I've heard this works quite well and is probably the easiest way to switch machines and make sure you always have the most current turn files/mods/maps.

Edit: you can actually run the game off the thumb drive, not just copy saved games, etc.

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

The thing is, the nations I mentioned may have everything, but they're also GOOD or at least average at everything. So no matter what approach is used, they will always be effective. I don't think, therefore, that they are nations where having more options makes them more complicated. And I can't think of a nation more forgiving than niefelheim to mistakes. It's a very strong nation with most of its strengths being quite straightforward... especially if you follow valerius' advice. I'm not sure what makes a better candidate.

Foodstamp - that argument mostly boils down to "it'll make them think these nations are strong, and playing in the way that they'll do to defeat the AI will teach you very bad habits, and not actually help you learn how to play the game".

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

I can't understand recommending MA Ulm to a new player. The nation is so bad it makes me cringe just thinking about it. All that heavy armor amounts to nothing when they start fainting at the first sign of combat. MA Ulm should have a label 'for masochistic experts only', its totally unplayable for a new player. (And lets not start with the 'zillion types of slightly different infantry' syndrome. MA TC has the same problem, and doesn't get a recommendation from me for the same reason despite being leaps and bounds more playable.)

MA Man is, however, perfectly playable against the AI by a new player. Its cavalry is excellent and longbows are very effective, meaning you can fight the AI off just recruited units if you choose. But it doesn't offer much range of play experience.

But if the new player wants to experience a range of play, I think Nieflheim is quite possibly the best choice. Very forgiving of mistakes as rdonj said. Against the AI, Nieflheim can almost do no wrong. Which means the player is free to experiment with game functionality and not be too worried about getting hosed.

After giving Nieflheim a go and becoming familiar with the basics, I'd probably play one of EA/LA Mictlan or EA Ermor.

-One of those two Mictlans should be played with F9W9 minimal bless just so you can experience the other end of sacred performance (turbo offense to the Niefl Giant turbo-defense), and of course Mictlan is all about the blood magic, which against the AI a player should be able to experiment fairly freely with since they'll have a pile of jags keeping the AI from interfering with whatever else they're doing. Now, Nieflheim could dabble in blood, but they can't afford it quite like Mictlan can afford it. Basically, Mictlan gives them a totally different play experience.
-EA Ermor is a great nation for experimenting with communions. You've got a good basic troop, the principes, which will handle all your expansion for you just fine, and stay useful against the AI all game. And you've got powerful recruit-anywhere astral-capable mages to try out communion mechanics with. To top it all off, EA Ermor can afford an awake pretender so you can try a RB researcher or an awake SC and explore your pretender options more fully. (Now, EA Ermor is on the weaker end in MP games, but that has almost nothing to do with its performance against the AI).

Once you've played those three nations, you've learned just about everything SP can teach you. (Ok, except for 'how to expand effectively as EA Agartha', but some things man simply wasn't meant to know).

If you want a Nation that's good for teaching basic Dom 101, I would recommend EA Tien Chi.

It's humans with diverse equipment, all of which is useful in it's own way. The Sacreds are powerful, especially for humans, and work with most Blesses, their's a lot of colorful and fun Pretenders to choose from, and the mages are powerful (but not necessary to fully embrace, to beat the single player game). There's also a lot of neat little Summons, which should make learning the magic system a little more fun.

It's perfectly possible to beat the AI into submission, in the most hamfisted way possible, with EA Tien Chi, so very little pressure on the new player to learn a bunch of fansy tricks.

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

One of my first games was Niefelheim, it got boring very soon when I stomped about the map with several groups of the blue giants. That left me with a dull feeling for the game.

Then I started a game as Marverni, simply the theme got me, and you know what? It taught a whole lot more. It has decent troops once you learn which ones to use against who and very nice mages with the druids.

But similar things can be said about many nations, the point is to pick the ones you enjoy themewise. You will learn how to make them effective, at least against the AI.

Regarding Man, I think they are dull. Ulm is so anti-dom3, it is the antithesis to the game, I guess it is mentioned therefore quite frequently? Anyways, you will lose quickly relying on black plates, although castling up and spitting the smiths out your ears can be very effective and fun. But this is not a good recommendation for a beginner, it plays so differently than most nations.

I would suggest picking the race you like themewise, check out any guides, then come back for some advice once you picked your nation.

Just some generally agreed on early game goals:
1. Try 15 provinces in the first year
2. Try building at least 1-2 castles (one should be finished, but this is varying on the nation and style)
3. Recruit mostly - that reads exclusiely except in the very first turns, maybe - mages from your forts.
- Take order 3 unless you know what you are doing. Pretender design is one advanced topic, try replicating a build from someone experienced, or ask advice on your first builds.

Generally it pays off to specialise in something you are good at, i.e. high hitpoint sacreds profit from regeneration (n4-8) and reinvigoration (e9, if they have armour) more than jaguars who are killing machines that like more attacks (w9, f9) blesses. If you have fear (lowers morale), stack awe on top (checks against morale before making an attack). You have shields, your opponent not, so massive archery can profit you. He has few hard hitters, use swarms of unarmoured high attack/high defense troops. He has high defense, use things that don't check defense like area of effect attacks, or missiles (unless he has a good shield, that is).

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

Those all make sense. But they still seem to talk to the idea of learning how to play nations. What nation would you recommend as the FIRST nation so the person can learn how the game works, the buttons, the queues, the movement, etc without having to learn anything about the nation itself?

Im thinking human (we all know how to play humans?)
Troop and commander types that are likely to be known already. Basic scout, mage, priest, infantry.

This goes back to why I say programmers shouldnt write the game docs (thankfully Illwinter didnt do that for Dom3). By the time you are deep into the game, its hard to think like a newbie again. Many things seem "obvious" and dont need explanation.

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

Gandalf, plain and simple the nation that most appeals to the player. Because he will stick to the game long enough to learn because he enjoys. Some like stomping around as a giant, others to swarm with little buggers. As long as you understand that you cannot survive with your capital alone it does not matter which nation to pick up the mechanics with.

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

I just want to reiterate that there is no need for multiple installs, I installed the game on a USB drive and can play it anywhere.

In my opinion the best starting nation is EA Niefelheim. The reason is that there are two main components to the game. The "civ" part of the game which is about empire management, recruiting troops and managing gold etc. Then there's the "magic" part of the game which is all about understanding spell paths, combat magic, forging boosters, path diversification, etc. The magic part is much more powerful but much more difficult to learn.

Your first nation should be able to stand tall based purely on the "civ" part of the game because the magic part is the most confusing. EA Niefelheim is perfect for that. EA Lanka, Hinnom, and Ashdod are also great for this. Once you understand how to search for magic sites, build forts, do basic army placement, etc. you can move on to a more magical nation.

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

After reading the responses I think any of the nations are fine, just grab a nation and go, if you face an interesting enemy nation, play that one next.

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

Wow, I am taken back by the passion that everyone in this thread has shown regarding their thoughts about how a new player should approach the game. On any other forum that I have encountered this conversation would have degraded in a poke-in-the-eye-fest.

Going back to my original questions and the responses given you all have given what seems like feasible and well supported methods to get my feet wet and my mind to understand this detailed and in-depth game.

Just to summarize the answers to my questions:

Recommended Races:
ME Ulm – Allows new player to focus on game mechanics
MA Man – Massing Longbows allows for flexibility with pretender design
MA Ashod – Strong Race allows for a lot of leeway
EA Niefelheim – Strong Race allows for a lot of leeway, this race seems to have the most support
EA Abysia – Opposite number of Niefelheim, strong but fire based
Mictlans after understanding the game a bit
EA Ermor for experimenting with communions
EA Tien Chi for teaching basics

Game Configurations:
Easy Research
Few Random Events
Turn Up Independents to Prevent Swarm

Multiple Installs:
Might Experience Issues with MP Games
Run from a Thumb drive

Again, Wow! A diverse set of races but it seems the majority feel that the EA Niefelheim lend to a powerful army that allows a new player to pretty much be able to make mistakes without getting killed for them. I definitely take in to account the thought that a powerful race such as this also might lend to boredom in that there might not be a challenge. The thought that which theme will appeal to me will lend to a lasting appeal of the game in general makes sense. It seems everyone’s thoughts are well backed up, and they all seem to make sense.

I am going to keep this thread up while I create and play my next game and I will definitely give feedback from my experience so I might help others in the same boat as me.

Thanks again for taking the time to craft your responses, they are very appreciated and I will try and utilize them all in some manner.

Kindly,
Munkie!

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

I made a guide for this case taking my first experiences
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...523#post756523

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

Re: Getting bored with Nieflheim
Well, eventually you'll get bored of SP anyway, probably after a couple of plays. MP is where the meat of the game is.

Also, by the time you get bored stomping around as giants, that means you've figured out how to script (the mechanics, not the nuances), recruit, order units to do stuff in the map, research, etc... Which was the entire point of playing nieflheim in the first place - to use a very forgiving nation so you could figure out how the game works without getting trashed. So quit that game and start a new one. No point in continuing once the game has served its purpose.

------------

Playing human nations in dom3 is hard. It doesn't matter that you recognize the unit types - that doesn't help at all. And its not like Nieflheim or the other power races don't have scouts, mages, priests, and infantry (such as it is).

In order to learn how the game works you want a nation that minimizes your need to understand tactics or the nuances of scripting so you can focus on just learning the mechanics of playing. Which means human races are generally a bad choice because they require an understanding of the magic system and often elaborate scripting for best performance. Nieflheim, otoh, runs on auto-pilot against the AI. You could literally not script and probably beat the AI. That's why its the best first nation, so you can figure out that scripting thing without having to worry about experimentation ruining you.

Also, Nieflheim's one notable weakness that the AI can exploit is the fact that its PD is awful. This is actually an advantage. It will stop you from getting into the bad habit of buying lots of PD (which works disturbingly well against the AI, but really terribly against human opponents).

---------

Honeybadger actually raises an issue with why EA TC is a bad beginner nation. Its got all that infantry with different equipment - and those differences matter. When its your first game, don't take a nation that requires you to think too hard about what troops to buy when you're still figuring out how to script. Seriously.

Your first game should run no more than 20-30 turns, possibly as few as 15, and leave you feeling like you know how to actually play the game. Then you can worry about how to play the game *well* and understand the strategic choices the game has to offer.

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

It think that's all a bit too extreme Squirreloid. There's nothing wrong with playing around with the game.

MA Ulm and other human nations is good practice for the very reason you mention, that it forces you to learn scripting. More challenge = better practice.

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

I feel like i'm talking past you.

Its your first game. You don't know *how* to script. Not how to script well, how to script at all. The mechanics, not the nuances.

Yes, later experimenting with different races is great. But for your very first game? The complication of subtly different infantry does not needed to be added on top of learning the game UI.

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

I don't think it's an issue with EA Tien Ch'i. It doesn't really matter what units you decide to make, despite their diverse equipment (hint: it's not really that diverse). Build enough of whatever, any single unit type, and you can beat the AI with it by throwing enough of that unit at the AI's troops. Any of their units can form the core of a successful military (we are talking about the AI, afterall).

Even their cheap infantry is really useful in the early game, because of their long pikes.

In the meantime, by seeing what works better, in certain situations, you can gradually learn the Nation, and through that, the game.

And you have the option of easily switching gears in mid-game. Build too many chariots, and you can start supplimenting them with pikemen and archers, on the cheap.

You also don't have to worry about screwing up with a bad Pretender build.

Most anything will have some success, from an extremely high Bless, too low Magic, too hot, too cold, no growth, etc.

Low Dominion can be salvaged with TC's cheap priests (again, it's the AI). Expansion is solved by "build whatever", and the very decent starting army, so you can have an imprisoned Wyrm, or a statue, and still be successful.

You'll just become more successful, over time.

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

As opposed to Neifelhiem, where you have essentially 2 useful troop types? Skinshifters and Neifel Giants? And Neifel Giants only if you've taken the right bless. Everything else might have some use as meatshields for your mages, except that your mages work better as thugs than artillery.

It's also not immediately obvious how lousy the troops are. Some of them look quite nice, but they're expensive and giant, which means they'll be easily swarmed and due to the way the combat mechanics work, they get slaughtered.


So your troops are capital only. For anything else you really need to rely on thugs. Which is fine. It's what Neifelhiem is about. But it's hardly an easy into to the game.

Neifelhiem is also pretty unforgiving of mistakes. Especially if you're running a bless. The Neifels are expensive. If you screw up and lose a group that really hurts. If you wait to recruit too many of them to be sure, it'll take forever to expand.
And as was said, the PD is crap. That may be a good thing to learn in training for MP, but it can turn a minor setback into a rout. Especially since PD helps convince the AI not to attack, even if the PD wouldn't stop it. Having little or no PD is an invitation for a multi-front war.

On a larger scale, if you're thinking of this as hard-core training for MP, Niefelheim might be a good choice. A lot of things you have to do with this nation are the basics you'll need to learn for MP. For a more general introduction, I'd recommend anything that doesn't rely on thugs or a bless. Good solid troops, maybe archers and mages that work well as artillery. And no blood. Play around with the basics first, then branch out. This may not be the quickest way to good MP, but a lot of people play SP more than MP anyway.

And who cares about the complication of subtly different troop types? You're fighting the AI. It's bringing pile of random junk at you anyway. Recruit some of each, maybe buff them a bit and rain destruction down on the enemy from behind them. Ulm is actually good at that. And it works well in SP.

I'd really echo Foodstamp's advice from earlier. Pick something that sounds interesting or just pick a random nation. See what you can do with it. If it gets boring or too frustrating, switch to someone else. Maybe the nation that was beating you. If the game does grab you, you'll soon have more nations you want to try out than you have time to try them.

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

...what? I've beaten impossible AIs before, without using niefel jarls in ANY capacity, using nothing but javelin troops, skinshifters, and a small number of meatshield guys as arrow catchers. So I have no idea where you're coming from. Besides, skinshifters may be cap only, but they also take completely negligible amounts of resources so are quite massable. Niefelheim's troop lineup may not be *great*, but it's completely usable and solid enough.

If I wanted to suggest hardcore MP training, I'd pick a kailasa or a bandar log before niefelheim. If you can beat full on impossible AIs with those nations, you are definitely ready for MP.

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

Well, I bow to your awesomeness. Though you'll note that I did mention skinshifters.
I'll concede that the javelin troops have some use. I've done roughly the same, though I used some mages and thugs as well. But neither of us are new to the game.

Where I'm going with it, is that recruiting most of Niefelheim's troops is a losing strategy, and it's not obvious to a new player that it's a losing strategy. Other than Neifel Giants and Skinshifters, expensive high-resource giant troops will die to the hordes of chaff the AI likes to throw around. And it's not obvious why, since they look tough.

The advice given was "Try Niefelheim, they've got good armies and mages. You'll win easy." Not, "Use mostly Skinshifters, or Niefels if you took an E9Nx bless." Of course, the most detailed advice also talked about using Skratti to kill SCs, which isn't really useful to a newbie playing SP.

Hardcore MP training as in "here's a good way to force a new player to use MP style tactics", not as in a final test to prove you're ready, which I agree Kailasa or BL would be great for. Maybe hardcore was the wrong word.
It was the idea that the lousy PD was an advantage, that sparked that idea, but the whole nation points in that direction. Small groups of elite troops, recruitable thugs/SCs, basic troops become useless quickly, etc.

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

Hey, that's not fair! The core of my suggestion was bless + chill aura + some evocation, which would then give you the leisure to experiment with Niefel Jarl SCs and dabble in blood magic. I merely mentioned Skratti as SC killers in an attempt to illustrate the differences in power level.

As you can see Munkie, people will have varying (and strongly held) opinions. One nice thing about SP is if things go wrong or you hate the nation you're playing you can just start a new game.

I'll mention one other thing. Let's say you've played for a few dozen turns and you're enjoying it but you want to try some new things. Backup the turn files and then if things go wrong you can just copy them back into the saved games folder and try again.

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

The strong "forgiving" factor is partly why I recommended EA Tien Ch'i. I have a feeling that starting with Niefelheim promotes the desire for a "strong bless strategy", for all situations, which can be dangerous in competitive play.

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

Skinshifters are not sacred, and are perfectly playable. Not to mention other units as already mentioned. So i'm not sure why Nieflheim necessarily promotes a strong bless mentality.

Indeed, i usually see EA TC taken with a larger bless than even a bless-focused Nieflheim takes.

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

It's Niefelheim.

You don't think Niefelheim would tend to promote a strong bless strategy to an inexperienced new player? If the obvious elements of the Nation didn't, then certainly the Forums would, since the most obvious and straightforward strategy for Niefelheim includes "Earth9,N4+" almost by rote.

Sure, you can do lots of other things with Niefelheim, but those other things are advanced strategies.

Tien Ch'i, you can literally do anything with, including destroy your scales and Pretender, for the ultimate Bless. I've had something like 4A,4F,9W,4A,4N,1B on a Father of Winter before, and destroyed the AI.

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

Ahhh, I know exactly how you feel. Thank you PC Gamer UK, who I believe is the one who mentioned that Elemental didn't push the genre forward like Dom3 did. Dom3 is exactly what I was looking for and had been missing for over 4 years! And it was developed by 2 guys. Amazing.

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

No. Not that strong bless strategies aren't one of the strongest ways to play for nations that excel at them. And most who excel at them are quite strong. Clearly, even if you took some issue with the author of the guide, someone DID write up a guide for non-bless niefelheim. And that person is a highly respected writer of guides for many nations, whose works are excellent for acquainting oneself with different ways of looking at nations (even if they aren't always very newbie friendly).

However...

I don't really get how this wouldn't give the player that very impression?

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

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make: that Niefelheim does not give you a huge amount of options to play successfully: It's got units that are there mostly for effect, unless you really know how to get the most out of them, and that making bad choices about Niefelheim can easily cost you a successful game, even against the AI.

EA Tien Ch'i, on the other hand, is a much more forgiving Nation, and much more flexible, choice-wise.
You can go with an "all or nothing" approach to a Bless strategy, or absolutely anything in-between, and still do well, without knowing that Nation very well.

Someone learning on Tien Ch'i is much less often going to be frustrated, at any point in the game, by not being able to play "how they want to play", and still win.

I feel that's important to the learning process.

And I don't have any issues with Baalz, if that's who you're referring to. He's got a far deeper understanding of the game, and is a much better player, than I ever will be, and his strategy guides are the gold standard. He's done a great deal to help people learn the finer points of Dom3, including myself, and has been a real asset to everyone. I admit I was a bit tiffed at his choice of wording at one point, in one of his strategy guides, but that certainly has cost me more than him, and the contents of the guide in question were themselves without fault.

Also, if the guides aren't "friendly" for new players, then why are you referencing them, as something new players should be familiar with, in this conversation?

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

HoneyBadger, you're missing the point. with EA TC you can't just create troops and go after the AI, as TC's troops are pretty much on par with many other nations that the AI may be using. so in order to tip the scales in your favor you need to efficiently use magic, both inside the battlefield and rituals. with Niefelheim your options are a lot more limited, so it's harder to make a mistake, and those options pretty much guarantee you bring the AI into submission even if you just bum rush it.

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

Also, remember new players will tend to instantly be drawn to the biggest baddest things on the roster. Call it the rule of cool, or the shiny toy factor, or whatever. So the chance that they'll try something other than Niefl Giants or Skinshifters first is actually pretty low.

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

I'm not talking about what shiny thing attracts them. I'm talking about what's best for educating a new player.

And no, you don't need to do anything fancy, because I've tested it out myself.

The AI can't keep up with a human player throwing TC numbers at them. It isn't that "smart", and the troops TC has, while they may seem similar, are nonetheless superior enough to win against the AI's poor to nonexistant strategies.


You're both looking at Niefelheim from the viewpoint of experience. There's a ton of mistakes that can easily and repeatedly be made with Niefelheim, that aren't obvious right out of the box.

Those cool looking guys with the plate armour? I thought they were great, when I first started playing. Yeah, they suck. The skinshifters? Well, how's your income? You don't have any? And they aren't even sacred? Why are the other guys archers putting all those holes in them? How about Niefels? You went with a triple 10 bless??? (alt: Oh, you didn't do any bless at all?) How about those guys that throw boulders? Why are the other guys' archers putting all those holes in them?! How come my hags keep dying? Old age what the hell? What's blood magic? Wait, what are blood slaves? Demons hell yeah! How do I get those? I can't, because my population is dead??? Wtf they all froze to death? Ok, so maybe I can make some undead...who are those little grey guys? Where did those yellow lines come from? oh crap, my undead guys just blew up. Those were priests??? Ok, so I'll build my own priests to zap them back. Wait, that only works on undead? Why are the other guys' archers putting all those holes in my priests? Well, everybody else has a damn shield, why not the giant priests? I guess I should have stuck with the (sucky) dudes in platemail. Ok, so I guess I'll build a giant king guy... Yeah, I could only afford one, but he's got a 10/10/10 bless! I'll just go attack these little wolf tribe dudes, they look easy....WTF?!?!? IHATEDOM3!!!

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

You could probably do it that way, but it's certainly not how I approached my first game of Dom3. Here was my first experience:

Day 1: Received game in the mail. Started up a new game with EA Agartha, max opponents, large map. Messed around for a bit, didn't really know what I was doing. Crushed the independents with large armies of trampling troglodytes, but got massacred by EA Helheim.

Day 2: Brought the game manual to work. Read the entire thing on the sly between meetings. Did a little forum searching. Went home, fired up EA Niefelheim. Took a N10 bless. Built 1 Jarl, 5 Niefel Giants. Destroyed all independents, felt like a big man.

Day 3: Continued my EA Niefelheim game, small armies from AI nations moved around my army and stole all my provinces. Eventually caught them, then HULK SMASH! Built ridiculous amounts of Jarl/Niefel Giant armies, basically one group for every province on my border. Slowly crawled across the map until I felt confident enough to start over with another nation.

That was it in a nutshell, the only spell I ever cast was bless, I didn't forge much of any equipment or try the other units. My main battle was with the game mechanics and the interface, not so much the other nations. Niefelheim (and some other nations) let you do that. I don't think you could win as EA T'ien C'hi using military might alone, you would have to figure out enough battle magic to beat the AI once they start using Mass Protection, Shadow Blast, etc. Elephants would crush you, causing you to post about how overpowered they are. :p

I think TC would be ok in a small game, but it's my experience that players typically put in the max # of opponents and the largest map possible for that "epic" feeling and in those situations TC would crumble when 3+ AIs all attack you at the same time.

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

Ok, playing nieflheim with a build that is pretty stupid (Son of Niefl with dom 2, lots of points in magic i never used, O3C3). I then proceeded to hire nothing but niefl jarls and niefl giants (at 2/trn), never did any research, never scripted anything but attack closest (ie, never blessed my sacreds), and never repositioned units on the battlefield.

My opponents were 5 random hard AIs. I've got 2 crushed and just waiting for walls to break as of late fall year 2 (fomoria and marveni).

Now, to actually kill Oceania i'm going to need to do some forging for Rings of Water Breathing, but this is seriously on auto-pilot with no problems whatsoever. And I'm sure even a brand new player would put more effort into their turns than i have. (I also made some mistakes early that resulted in my pretender getting killed simply because this strategy is beyond stupid, and lost some combats to not bringing enough Niefl Giants. Still crushing AIs, and they're harder AIs than a new player is going to select).

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

My first game was actually with EA Agartha. I played with pretty low difficulty, toned the indies down to make expansion easier. And god I cursed over how incredibly hard the game was. I refused to give up and eventually little by little I managed to fortify and start turning the wave. It took forever but I won in the end.

I kept asking myself "If these underworld giant badasses are so hard to win with, how is it even possible to play a human nation?"

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

HoneyBadger, I don't know about you but I registered on these forums 2 weeks before even deciding to buy dom3. it took 2 more weeks for it to actually arrive in my mail box. spent that month reading stuff on the forums, almost immediately ran into Baalz and his great library of knowledge so I've done some serious amount of reading(as in most of his guides) while I didn't understand most of what he said there, as I didn't even own the game, I did already get a picture of what the different nations are, magic, armies, etc. don't remember my first single player game but I know that I did mess around a lot with EA Atlantis. for obvious reasons it didn't do me much good, so I moved on to land nations, read Baalz's guides on them once more, than started to actually understand what he was talking about. than I got some expansion rhythm going and quickly enough got into my first MP game, as a sub, don't even remember what nation it was. the first game I played from start to finish(well, finish is when I died) was a vanilla game with EA C'tis.

your main problem is that you're assuming people jump right into the deep water, before knowing anything at all. sure, some people do, but I'm seeing more and more newbies on IRC and here on the forums who ask questions, obviously read stuff around here, and acquire more knowledge in this game before even attempting their first single player game! and even the people that do jump right in with no preacquired knowledge are usually not as dumb as you're trying to make of them. so if you take Niefelheim with no idea at all on what you're doing, the first unit you will most likely recruit is a niefel giant(more if you can afford it) than send them out against indie, probably in larger numbers than you actually need and without a bless for them unless you got something from your random pretender generation. but even than you probably won't bring priests to bless them. and guess what? you'll still roll indies as well as most AI nations...

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

So, your argument is that new players playing Dom3 right out of the box should already be somewhat educated, and know their way around the Forums?

You'll run into just as much trouble from Wolf Tribes, barbarians, and calvalry, with Niefelheim, as you will elephants with Tien Ch'i. Tien Ch'i, however, can deal with elephants by making chariots, which are size 4, and then killing them with archers. This should be a little more obvious, I would think, than trying to find a solution to innumerable little guys with daggers, lances, 2 handed swords, etc (it's a lot easier to educate yourself about your own equipment, than it is about the enemy's stuff). And again, it's a lot more forgiving than Niefelheim, where you can pretty easily lose a 500 gold unit, which may not be easily replaceable, with the wrong scales.

Ok, so assuming that you do start playing as Niefelheim, and haphazardly manage to be successful: How much are you actually learning? How many other Nations play like them? There's very little integration of forces, and almost no National spells. The "best" Blesses are very specific, you won't learn much, if anything, about integration of forces, their mages and priests are powerful, but you won't be doing any Communing, or any mass spellcasting. If, per your argument, the new player is gonna go for a "big flashy unit", they're gonna get a SC Pretender, which is one of the worse picks for Niefelheim, and obviously doesn't work all that well for a lot of strategies. You're also not learning a whole lot about province defense, except that Niefelheim hasn't really got any, and the ecomony of the game is decidedly skewed. You might learn about Forging, but spending multiple turns lovingly equipping your Niefel Jarl with a full suit of (the wrong) magical gear is not going to be very useful at all, in competive play. If all you're building is Niefels, you're not gonna learn a whole lot about building castles in an efficient way, are you? You're also going to have a fairly tough time dealing with fire, poison, and shock damage, and not really understand why, because HULK SMASH. Fighting in the water, as you mentioned, is gonna be a long, long way off, if you ever get there. Oh and Independents? They're gonna die from all that cold, so you're gonna learn that, but that's about it.

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

The point to playing nieflheim first is to learn how to script and how to order units around and how to use the UI, not how to strategize.

Learning the mechanics of the game is different than learning the strategy of the game. Nieflheim is easy enough to be successful with so you can focus just on learning mechanics and not worry about the nation.

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

I can only reiterate what I already said. My first game was more about understanding the interface and the game mechanics. What are afflictions, what's old age? How much upkeep do my soldiers cost? What's the difference between attack and precision, what's fatigue? Can my army take out 50 light infantry? 10 knights? In my first game I didn't even know you could click on a guy's weapon to see its length and damage, there would be no way to know whether I should recruit more archers, pikemen or glaive wielders let alone what armor to give them. The stuff you're talking about I didn't even attempt until my 3rd or 4th game.

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

:lol

Oh man, that's great. Congrats for sticking that out, I can't even imagine how painful that must have been. Funnily though, when I was playing the demo, my ea agartha game was the first I had a chance of winning (I played on glory of the gods... yeah, that was never going to end). Although in hindsight, my strategy was remarkably awful :)

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

You can do all of those things with EA Tien Ch'i, Squirreloid. Probably better, since you have more units to order around (and they're simpler and more straightforward than Niefels), and you can learn the UI more easily, because more of it is actually useful to you.

And while you're learning that, you're not also picking up "bad habits" from a Nation that has a particularly narrow way to play successfully ("narrow" in that there's still a lot of--often confusing--options, but not many successful ones).

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

I don't see how Honeybadger can possibly argue that Niefelheim is unforgiving. IIRC he played them in the 1st mega game with a triple bless and all negative scales:D.

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

And how well did I do with that, before I got Domkilled, Mr. Ghost King I had to kill not once but twice?

(I daresay I'm a better player now, than I used to be, although I'm still not very good--If I had my choice of Nations now, I think if I were going in another huge game like that, I'd go in as Yomi.)

Niefelheim is a really fun Nation to play, don't get me wrong. They're one of my favorites, thematically.

We're not talking about theme here, though.

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

HoneyBadger, my point is that you should never estimate new players as being completely clueless. the tools and information are out there for the taking, it's up to the individual to find and make full use of them. also, actual game play is required to connect the theories you can read about with the practice of actual game play, and how much of the theory actually works for you.

EA TC can and will lose to indies if you're coming from a completely clueless attitude, there's only so much you can produce in order to outproduce 3-6 AIs... with Niefelheim you can easily do that because you don't rely on masses but on small groups of quality groups that suffer much less attrition damage.

as for what you learn from it. the first game is not about strategies, communions, etc. those are far more advanced things. the first game is to get a clue on what the game looks like, the actual visuals, scripting, etc. now, obviously if you're not winning you'll give up a lot faster than if you are, so it's advised to take a strong simple nation instead of a weaker more complex nation. you don't want Niefelheim, fine. take Mictlan/Lanka/Sauromatia/Hinnom. dual bless(or more) works well for all of these nations, and you don't even need to delve into blood to win against the AI. show me an AI army that can effectively stop an army of 100 Jaguar Warriors lead by a High Priest of the Sun(to Divine Bless them) with a proper Mictlan blessing. show me an AI army that can deal with Sauromatia's sacred cavalries with the proper bless, or even mass Androphag Archers without any bless. same goes for Lanka and of course Hinnom. there's a reason why these nations are consider the "EA Powerhouses". they're all very simple to play and completely steamroll the AI without doing anything complicated(battle magic scripting, communions, heavy reliance on blood, etc). sure, these nations, played by a skill player, are completely terrifying, but you don't need to unlock even a quarter of their true potential in order to steamroll the AI and learn the very basics of actual game play.

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

What could be simpler than never needing to script anything except attack and still be able to clobber AIs?

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

This burns down to the fact that different people have a completely different approach to the game.

Some people never read manuals and start right out, eventually looking things up when they have to. Some are the opposite and have read the whole forum before buying. And so it is with nations. Some feel comfortable stomping around with few tough guys, to others this does not appeal at all (too costly per unit makes some people squeeze), for example. To some it is probably very intuitive to research evocation immediately and wait until fireball is online before even starting expanding, others would not touch the magic system at all until their 5th game, I guess.

Honeybadger and 13lackGu4rd, for example, appear to approach things completely differently. So, please, accept that each has his own style to approach new things and, in the end, there are lots of good advice in the thread, but which are more familiar to one's style remains for the original poster to decide. There is no simple best beginner's nation.