Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

ok, would some kind souls out there be kind enough to offer some tips, hints, and/or suggestions on game play, ie; which research should you go for lst, expansion, lst turn etc.

would be well appreciated

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

All of this is completely (nation+pretender)-dependant. I could probably write a computer program to generate this advice, on a given input (though it would take quite a while).

I'll give an example of Magic Research, which is roughly 1/2 of your consideration when determining a strategy.

Magic:

1) Consider the magic levels of the mages of the nation: M
1a) Consider the ratio of gold/research (gold/RP) for your nation: GPR.
1b) Consider the freely achievable magic levels, using spells such as "Summon Earthpower": Mf.
1c) Consider the costed achievable magic levels, using items such as "Thistle Mace": Mc
1d) Consider the combined levels, including spells achievable only with Mc: Mcf
1e) Consider summoned mage levels, including spells achievable only with Mc: Mcfs.
1f) Consider common independants, such as Druids (2 nature, 2 holy) and Sages (1 random).
1g) Consider ultimate levels, considering all summoned mages plus their summons or boosting items (recusively): Mu.
1h) Note that there is also the set Mx, which includes rare combinations (like double unlinked randoms), empowerment, lucky independant mage provinces, and battle spells boosted by an additional gem. Mx is not very important except in the last case, and common indy mages (druids). Mu is a proper subset of Mx.

2) Consider gem income: GI.
2a) Consider base national gem income, GIn, from the capitol.
2b) Consider seaRchable magic site income, GIr, the income that can be found by searching with national mages. Naturally, this is mostly limited to the magic levels of national mages - water mages will mainly find sites giving water gems.
2c) Consider common "level-0" magic sites, like Kelp Forests (or something), that give magic gems and can be found by non-mages.
2d) Consider your nations's inherent site-scrying ability (from M), with spells like "Gnome Lore" and "Acashic Record". The gems generated from 2a through 2d are "GInrs".
2e) Also consider the extended scrying ability from Mc (for example, a 2-astral mage plus a 2-astral Starshine Skullcap allows Acashic Record), GInrse, but this is not too important in the early-midgame.
2f) Consider gem-generating items: Clam of Pearls, Fever Fetish, Earth Blood Stone.

3) Consider which spells and items in M are "good" (e.g. Falling Fires, Falling Frost, Blade Wind, Nether Darts, Shadow Blast, Mass Protection, Relief... and various Rituals).
3a) If you are C'tis (with Raise Skeletons), Abysia (with Falling Fires), Pythium (with Stellar Cascades, Mind Burn, Solar Rays, etc), Vanheim (Blade Wind), and so forth, you're golden.
3b) Otherwise, goto 4.

4) Consider construction.
4a) Ulm has a 25% forge bonus.
4b) Nations with 3 Earth magic can forge Dwarven Hammers (-25% forging cost).
4c) Nations with 2 Earth magic can forge Earth Boots, +1 Earth, then Dwarven Hammers.
4d) Nations that can easily summon supercombattants MUST RESEARCH CONSTRUCTION. A supercombattant (SC) "chassis" is a leader that has high HP and high stats, and all the normal slots (head, body, feet, 2+ hands, 2+ miscellaneous). A supercombattant is an SC chassis with most of these slots filled with magically forged items. Supercombattants often get 100-1000 kills, rising in the hall of heroes to gain huge stat boosts.

5) Consider which spells and items in Mf are "good".
5a) Adjust your boosted GPR according to national availability of items like Owl Quill, Skull Mentor, Lightless Lantern, and cheap researchers like Specters.
5b) Calculate the RP cost of attaining them, including "Summon Xpower" spells.
5c) Go for the most cost-effective ones, including RP and gold.

6) Consider which spells and items in Mcf are "good".
6a) Calculate the RP cost of attaining them, including booster spells AND construction.
6b) Go for the most cost-effective ones, including (2b) plus gems for forging.

7) Consider which spells in Mu or Mx are "good".
7a) Calculate the RP cost of attaining them, including booster spells, construction, and conjuration/enchantment for summoning powerful mages.
7b) Go for the most cost-effective ones. This time, it includes (3b) plus gems for conjuring mages, and random chance...

8) Consider Blood. It is the lone magic resource that all nations can break into.
8a) It helps to have a human rainbow Pretender that can forge Sanguine Dousing Rods, Brazen Skulls, and so forth.
8b) Regardless, set aside some provinces at 0% tax with scouts doing "Blood Hunt".
8c) Eventually, use blood slaves for empowerment of national mages (or your pretender) to summon massive blood summons: Ice Devils, Arch Devils, Father Illearth, etc.
8d) You can also make Blood Thorns, an awesome life-stealing weapon for supercombattants.

9) Consider Alchemy. It lets you transform gems into other gems, at a massive 50% loss. I use it all the time.
9a) Alchemy is most efficient on Astral gems.
9b) Astral gems come from Astral nations, and... Clams.
9c) Nations with Fire gems, like Abysia, can turn them into 15 gold each in the early game for a massive head start. Fire gems are not very useful anyway.



As you can see, even magic research is too difficult to determine statically (meaning, without any input such as nation, theme, and pretender). But if you ask for suggestions on a given triple (nation, theme, pretender) or ask for advice on completing a triple (which pretender for this nation+theme ?), people can be pretty helpful.

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

tell me your nation and your pretender and i can help, otherwise its kinda hard.

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

If you are just starting out then turn the independents higher. It holds the AI's in check so you can do some buildup. A setting of about 6 or even 7 if you plan to do research. If you play with the defaults then the AI will probably swarm in on you fairly quickly.

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

Yeah, do tell us what nation you plan on playing.

All of them have their diffrent nuances. Abysia has heavy troops and blood sacrifices, Machaka can spam Blind and Eagle Eyes + Decay, Pythium has awesome Communion possibilities and so on.

EDIT: Or then tell use what sort of playstyle you prefer. Sneaking with stealth armies, heavy troops, magic summons, anything?

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

Yes, telling us your preferred playing style can help alot. The only "killer strategy" in this game is to find the nation and pretender which BESTS allows you to play the way you tend to play. Im all stealth and I tend to play Pangaea while my son is more "swarming horde" and does well with Ermor

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

well as for style, just staying alive would be nice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif, It just seems that in beginning, you have a choice of expansion with cheap troops, however you need priests to build temples in those captured provinces, or you start research but this means you have to build more mages to help up your research and cut back on troops, plus you will need mages and priests to search the captured provinces. Ok, It seems that the Ai does swarm quickly where ever a human player is even if there are neutrals still left. SO, generaly, do you go for research immediatly and less troops, or more cheap troops and take provinces, or build mages to help with research and searching for magic sites? Also in searching magic sites, I know you need a priest or mage to search and helps if they have that particular type. It just seems like they never find many. Last 2 games I found exactly 2 sites, no matter who I put to search.. which doesn't help. So any advise in general as to starting out would be appreciated. I will boost the Neutrals higher as Gandolf said...
tks for the help from an old geezer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

The important things to keep in mind, in the early game:
1) You need money, so you have to conquer provinces.

2) To conquer provinces, a combination of infantry, archers and/or magic support is best.
2.1) In the beginning, I usually buy as much cheap survivability (good prot, def, hp) as I can. As Ulm, I'd recruit cheaper shielded units, as Jotunheim (Iron Woods or Utgård) I'd recruit Vaetti and humans, as Abysia I'd recruit Humanbred, etc. Numbers are important.
2.2) If you can recruit archers, longbowmen or crossbowmen which only cost few resources, recruit lots of them. Massed ranged units of any kind are devastating.
2.3) Check your starting spells. Abysia starts with Flare - very good! Broken Empire starts with Body Ethereal - AoE 1 and a single mage gives you 5-9 ethereal legionaires.
2.3) In some cases, your pretender can be worth many, many archers. Fire 6 and Fire Darts is decent, and the higher the Fire, the more darts. Check out all spells up to second level of research, and see what would benefit your nation the most. If it is a summon, numbers are important, if it is a damage spell, preferably it should affect many creatures. Mind Burn is good, I use Reanimation, etc.
2.4) If you can, have a priest who can cast at least Sermon of Courage, preferably Fanaticism, with your initial army. Your Prophet can do it, always. If you don't have Holy 3 priest, your prophet is better than any of your priests anyway, so you can make your starting commander your prophet. If you do have holy 3 or 4 priest, make it your prophet. Usually this means you have to recruit it in the first turn.
2.5) Mercenaries can be the ultimate cannon fodder, or support your archers or even infantry to enable you to conquer tougher provinces faster. Always put them more forward than your own units if they are melee units, because they are less important than your own units in almost all cases.
2.6) There are some special strategies some nations can utilize. E.g. C'tis Empoisoners can assassinate most indie commanders, especially with the help of Reanimate Skeleton, or if they manage to cast Hand of Death, or poison him. Elephants coupled with high-morale units also work well. They are Hypaspists for Arcoscephale, Wingless for Caelum.

3) You need to have enough starting dominion to not have to build temples in the early game. 5 is a bit low, but 7 is enough in most cases. I'd only go above 7 if my nation needed it for some special reason, like spreading the extreme temperature (Caelum), creating armies (Carrion Woods Pangaea) or spreading diseases to my enemies (Miasma C'tis).

4) Decide what you want to research. If you have lots of Astral 2 mages and some access to Astral 3, Thaumaturgy and Mind Burn, then Paralyze against big enemies, then Soul Slay, then Enslave Mind is good. If you have Water, Thaumaturgy has Sailors' Death. Evocation has lots of combat spells. Conjuration helps many nations, but especially Vinemen and Vine Ogres are used. Enchantment has lots of Death summons, and Raise Dead -combat spell can be massed to create enough undead to destroy more permanent armies. Construction helps in many things, especially once you get Construction 4. N2 -> Thistle Mace, E2 -> Earth Boots, etc. Vine Crown also helps your Vine summoners, so investing those is a good idea.

5) I think research is more important than site-searching, in the early game. I usually send only one or two mages searching, although other is usually one of my powerful ones if I can afford not researching with him and he's not in a danger. Farmlands have few sites, Forests and Mountains somewhat more, Wastelands many more sites. There are more Nature sites in Forests and Farmlands, Earth sites in Mountains, etc. Level 2 gives you most sites of a spesific tpye, and 3 virtually all of them. Level 4 sites are very rare. If you want to experiment with sites, choose a rainbow mage, and take level 2 in all paths your nation doesn't have EXCEPT Blood. While the few Blood sites are good, they are very rare.

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

Have you been through Geryk's walkthrough? It's a nice starting point to just get your basic orientation.

http://www.maladjustite.com/dom2_walkthru.html

Re: Tips and/or suggestions for starting game
 

the walkthru was the lst thing that I did, it was more useful then the manual. tks for the help, I shall endeavor to venture forth again to asail the other pretenders http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif