Newbie come lately?
 

Hello All.This is my first post.
I recently purchased Dominions 3 and is so far absolutely blown away. I am however also quite overwhelmed. Eventually I would like to try my hand at MP, but for now SP is still very challenging.I wonder if anyone can recommend good settings/map/age as well as a good nation/good generic pretender advice. I have read several guides and while most are excellent I still feel that few are newbie-geared.

Thank you in advance for any help
Carny

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

also an additional question. When reading through Guide the strategy index" thread I find guides for several nations that don't seem to be in the game: Hinnom and Lanka. Is there something wrong with my game?

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

patch it. they are added later. as is TNN/eriu i think

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Ah. I assumed the digital download was fully updated. Patch will happen.

Are they any good?

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Depends on what you like. For a race to learn the game with.I've heard that Man is quite newb friendly, Lanka and Hinnom are blood races so you need to get yourself started with blood hunting and stuff like that(I myself still don't know how to efficiently do that) They are definitely strong but you might get a bit confused with them. Ma Aghartha is something which you might like you get to summont loads of tough units. Nifelheim will be an easy start for you, you can just buy all the Sc you want.
But yea Giant races will do well against many computer opponents mainly because their PD is really tough:) A trick you can do (its going to make your life easier untill you learn how to use most of the spells and communions and alike, is to put loads of PD 50-60-70 on chokepoints the computer will try attacking it and fail most of the time)But I only suggest you do that if you are pressed hard from 3-4 sides.Also Helheim is good for a bless strategy.Just buy loads of sacreds and buff them with your amazing dwarf mages: Iron warriors, Strength of Giants and later on Weapons of Sharpness, Army of lead, Army of Gold.


On good map question - random map thats what I always play on:)
Age - depends on whether you like strong fantastical units more or big and well equipthed armies. For fantastical units go Early age, for mix between the two Mid age, and for Strong armies(durable units and other nice stuff) -late age.
Hmm settings normal I guess, but that is just me I like everything to be even between me and the computer opponents.:)
On good pretender advise, get bless or SC-pretender it is easier than starting with rainbow pretender.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Lanka and Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath are retardedly good. Tir Na Nog and Eriu, not so much :)

I wouldn't worry about sucking too badly in MP - there are quite a few newb games going on at any given time, and everyone sucks as badly as you probably will at first.
I enjoy the Six Lands map to try out strategies and gauge expansion tactics myself. As for good eras/noob nations, I think the Middle Age is the one with the fewest gimmicky/advanced mechanisms. EA has too much magic going on (not to mention supertough blessed units who might crush you if you don't prepare for them, while the LA often involves a lot of Blood Magic which takes some getting used to.
Try something like MA Arcoscephale with an imprisoned Oracle+good scales, or Man with a rainbow pretender - both are pretty vanilla while being decent enough against the AI.

Also, the wiki is your friend once you've got the manual memorized and realize there's still a ton of stuff you don't know.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

If you like AARs/LPs have a look at this: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/User:..._3_Newbie_Game

I found it was great for learning alot of the tricks when I was new (what magic items to go for, what to do with my mages).

Also, Bogarus and LA Pythium were also patched in later, other people in this thread...

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Also, if you have questions that need to be answered NOW. you could always try the IRC channel (IRC is a form of chat).
More info here:
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/IRC

And it would also be wise to register at the other forum.
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods
That has a special topic for announcing to the world that you are a newbie and want to play in the next MP game. (I think Calahan started it, I'll do a frigging search).

Right, there it is:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/...?showtopic=375 (Word of warning most of the games there are played with the CBM mod. Opinions differ if that is a good start for a newbie player or not).

Have fun.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

One of the great things about this game is that people do not tend to agree on most of it. Everyone has favorite nations. They all play differently so you will want to try them all. The "best" nation will be the one that best matches your playing style. Slow moving heavy armor? fast moving raiders? heavy research? barbarian horde? stealth guerilla warfare? undead armies?

Personally for new players I like to recommend Middle Age Man. Its not the most fun, nor the easiest to win with. But its probably the most "standard" nation. Its bowmen and knights, mage, priests, scouts. Not very hard to figure out what each one basically does so you can concentrate on learning the menus and keypresses.

There is a map on www.Dom3Minions.com called Tower which is good for new players. It allows you to play with many AIs without getting swarmed by them. It also tends to improve the use of some menus (such as F1)

Also a good tip for new players is that the Independents strength in games is the reverse of AI strength. If the game is rough on you, turn the indepts UP. Most people turn them down thinking it makes the game easier but it actually makes the AIs harder.

If you get tired of Solo in vanilla mode then there are maps and mods to boost it.

Oh yeah, and the only almost complete keypress chart is at the player-made wiki.
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Hotkey

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

There was another thread about this a while back, and I'm just going to link you so you can get an idea of people's various opinions on the matter. Note that the thread eventually fell to bickering between some of the various parties involved, and it will really not do any good to read past page 2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=46214

Alternatively the short version - It doesn't really matter what nation you play as, as long as you enjoy the theme of the nation you'll probably enjoy playing. But if there was a nation I would describe as the easiest for a new player to play, it'd probably be EA Niefelheim. They are strong or capable in all categories and one of the more forgiving nations. They can be played bless, scales, rainbow, whatever. The only drawback is their best units are all cap only, and the rest are only average at best.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

A this is a nice example of opinions differing.

rdonj, you are mad! Niefs best units are the skrattir (well actually they are commanders ;) ). Sure they need some research to give them equipment, but after that they are more versatile than the large giant commanders, or the giant troops. You probably only want a few of the large blue giants (or the werewolf giants troops) to expand.

NA Nief is a odd nation, it mostly has what we in dom3 terms call thugs and SC (supercombatants). Single very strong units that, if properly equipped, can kill a lot of enemies. So with this nation you tend not to use a lot of troops. (Also, most normal giant troops suck, they are huge so get a lot of incoming attacks, and have only few return attacks. They tend to die quicker than they kill enemies). But giant commanders are great. There are some reasonably cheap area of effect weapons that give these commanders a lot of killing power.

Also, if you are a new player you might want to play a few blitzes (short games on small maps, some played in a few hours (a new turn as soon as everybody has submitted theirs), or played over the period of several weeks. Teaches the early game and how to play with other players. Gandalfs server is ideal for that. Perhaps some other newbie wants to play with/against you.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Like I said, opinions differ. On everything in this game. :)

But to me the first recommended nation should be the simplest, not the most complicated. Being able to do all of the different popular strategies seems more confusing, not less.
"For some people, unlimited options is actually no options at all."

But then again, thats one of the great things about the game. Maybe Im being insulting. The asker gets to hear it all and take a shot at a choice.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

I still stick with MA Man. Longbows beat all. You could have a militia guy for a pretender and the archers would give you the leeway to play through a game and test out anything you want.

Really though, the nation that you WANT to play because of theme is probably the best choice. Your first few games are probably going to be a good learning experience no matter who you play.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

One suggestion I will make is when you are ready to really learn the magic system, play EA Tien Chi. They can pursue just about any course of magic outside of blood they want to pursue.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Wow this is truly great. Thanks everybody!
Some reading up do, some games to try on.

One question regarding the AI. Does it "get better" on higher difficulties or does it just cheat?

and again thank you everybody for the welcome. Its really great not to get the neoclassic OMG LOL NOOB - greeting that some game communities reserve for new players. Looking forward to getting (presumably) hurt in MP now.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Just cheats

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

The ai just gets more points to design its pretender on higher levels, so they end up having more magic and better scales, so more gold. They don't, however, bend the rules after that initial boost.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Oh and one last thing that I found out: I might be wrong, but in most of my AI games I tend to get swarmed (espessially if end up in the middle) with the graphs on, I think that is because the AI tends to focus on the lowes one in the army graphs(And if you pick a bless strategy you will be one of the lowest in tersm of army strength) so that will make the AI attack you. Otherwise If you have graphs off I found that I get attacked by the AI one at a time, so I found that a bit more bearable.(Although this way you wont be able to check where exactly are you in terms of power:))

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Not like in other games. It does operate pretty much within the same ability to know things that the human players operate in.

What it does get is extra build points. So it is able to use more expensive pretender chassis, and add more magic, and take more extreme scales. But since if does this fairly randomly the results can either be really good or really bad. :) One of the things commonly used to boost the AI later is the ability to assign it logically created pretenders with settings that match that nation better.

I think for many communities that comes from the idea of newbies being only fresh meat. When all of the expert players know all of the killer strategies so that newbs are not much better than AIs.

Even though Dom3 has been out for years, the closest thing to absolute strategies can only be gotten from defining all of the game parameters (map size, nations in game, turning off many game features with mods). And with so much variety available for those and everything else in the game there will always be room for even a newbie to do something surprising.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

I've noticed gem income affects it as well. If all the sudden you start searching for magic sites and ramp your gem income up in just a couple of turns, the AI will start declaring war on you left and right.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Just for the record, when I said "units" I meant "recruitable troops" ;) Your usable troops are basically the skinshifters, the sacreds, and the javelin throwers. The... whichever they're called, with broadswords, are acceptable as arrow catchers and heavy infantry because they can generally survive a few turns in melee without dying, but you don't want to use them to try and kill things. That is the job of other things. They'll work, it's just other things are more efficient.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Of course we do not react "OMG NOOB", we actually like good opponents here :D. (At least I do). Of course I also like to win, but most people have that. Steamrolling over no opposition is no fun. (Well, most of the time it isn't) The closest fought battles are the ones you will remember. (Or the dirty tricks Calahan pulls when he subs into a position!).

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

You can learn the basics of combat from just about any nation. Just putz around with different troop types, see what gets you killed and what doesnt.

More important is learning how to use mages, which definie about 90% of the game's content. But that takes a lot of experimentation, so just have fun and putz around with them.

After that, I would read some of the excellent guides in the strategy section (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=38122) and on the wiki (http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Nation_guide). Some of the strategies described are really elegant and complex, so dont worry about copying them to the letter. Just read them to get an idea of how to use the resources each nation has available. If you try out one or two of their tricks in each game you play, and you'll master them in no time.

Of particular note are two of Baalz excellent guides:
On Communions:http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Nation_guide
and on Blood Hunting: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Reign...d_Bloodhunting

These were some of the harder things for me to figure out, and these guides helped tremendously.

Re: Newbie come lately?
 

Play as any of the water nations with at least 5 Dominion in a map where all the computers are land opponents. 95% of the computer opponents have zero skill at enter water provinces. You can take your time to learn the game while the stupid AI opponents are stuck on land.
As time passes you'll most likely play only maps with land since the AI is so painfully stupid at entering water provinces.