First Impressions of a Newbie

[HJFudge]

Hello

Just recieved the game in the mail today (hooray no more waiting!) and eagerly ripped open the package and shoved the disk in my computer and started the install. It went very quickly, compared to Mask of the Betrayer which I also recently bought. I was expecting to have more time to peruse this nifty manual that made up most of the package.

Well, the beginning of the manual talks about a tutorial. Looking at the SIZE of this thing, I figured it'd probably be best to run through it so I can get a grasp of some of the more important commands. It was interesting to play but I got bored halfway through of reading and decided I wanted to design my OWN god thank you very much.

Just to be safe, I skimmed the remainder of the tutorial in the book to see if there was any important commands I might want to look at. There were a couple and I left the manual open as I went about choosing a race.

The amount of choices, while neat, was very daunting at first. What was the difference between all the ages? How many different sacreds where there in each army? I really didnt feel like going through every. single. choice. to find out. Instead, I checked the manual. AH! Good. Nation descriptions. Well, it at least gave me a start.

Having been perusing the forums as I waited for the arrival of my copy of the game, I had a very basic idea of some game elements I dont think wouldve been obvious from the manual and tutorial alone. For example, I knew what a bless strategy was (just not how to make a good one or which nations it was good for). I knew I wanted to be able to make cool magic items and lay some serious beat down with my troops. So I decided on one of the Early Era Giant Races...the Nefeilheim! I figured nature would let me have REGENERATING giants and I figured right. I set myself on the small Still Seas map and played my first real game.

It was slow going, as I tried to figure out what does what. I got bogged down in a race to get back my provinces as the Enemy army would take a province when I moved away from it to take one of theirs, refusing to fight me. Grr! Well, I gave up some ground and found a couple spots I could advance my armies in a 2 by 2 formation, one army on either province moving up at the same time.

I learned giants are good for stompin and dont die alot.

Figuring out how to take an enemies fort also gave me some problems. I kept getting messages about needing more men, but since I didnt know how to build my OWN forts (I learned, but by then I was well away from the one fort I had and getting new troops up to a spot useful for making forts took several turns) my troops just sat there seiging em. One army began to starve.

Anyway, long story short, I managed a victory. One that took WAY longer than it should have Im sure but hey. I thought to myself 'Hah! This aint so hard.' and chose a bigger map with more enemy nations.

What followed was a thorough thrashing. 3 games I tried, 3 games I lost horribly.

Erg this is a long post. Lets summarize.

Dom3 seems awesome and its going to take me awhile to figure out what choices I prefer (I find I like the lizard guys, C'Tis, the best so far) and how to actually be proficient at the game. Its got alot of depth to it and as I play more and pour over the manual I think I'll get it.

The magic system is whats confusing me, with all the spells. I am trying to learn what to research to get good casts, and what summons to shoot for. It took me awhile to figure out HOW to summon. The enemy also always seems to be casting better magic than me, even though I am researching alot with Sauromancers.

The combat system is cool, giving orders and letting your troops be in charge of carrying em out.

There are so many choices though, and the map has SOOOOO many icons each turn is taking me a long time.

I am reading alot of people having bought this game new like me because of the stardock offer. Maybe all of us newbies should get a MP game together or something.

If you read all this, congratulations. You win a death gem. This game rocks and Im having a blast figuring it out.

[NTJedi]

To help games move along better consider setting up a victory condition using the victory points. To kill all enemies or their domain on a 500 province map or larger can take several months.

[Meglobob]

Welcome aboard!

When you play a nation, its a good idea to follow the manuals pretender designs. Once you become familar then improve on those with your own design.

With magic just concentrate on the spells that your nation is suited too. For example with Ctis, death magic, Banes, Banelords are good and skele spam.

[Endoperez]

All four elements: Conjuration gives Earth/Phoenix/Storm/Water power, that give +1 to caster level. Conjuration also lets you summon smaller, then bigger elementals, and eventually the elemental royalty (Kings of Fire and Earth, Queens of Water and Air).

Fire: good at Evocation. Most summoned units aren't that powerful, but Fire Snakes are nice. Fire and Death make a good combination, because that allows you to make a cheap Fire booster Flaming Skull (Constr 6).

Water: mixed goodness. Quickness from Alteration spells, Boots of Quickness (Wat2) and Jade Armor (Wat1 Earth1) makes tough units doubly good. Evocation has Falling Frost and few other nifty damage spells, but they're mostly from level 5 up. There's Frozen Heart high up in Alteration, Sailor's Death in Thaumaturgy, and some nice summons in Conjuration. Water/Fire mages can use Acid line of Evocations, which are quite good and easy to research.

Earth: Good at Alteration (armor buffs, armor destruction, Earth Meld, Petrification!), at Evocation (Blade Wind, Earthquake and multipath spells Rain of Stones, Gifts from Heaven, Magma Eruption), and it's one of the easiest paths to boost, with Earth Boots at Construction 4 and Earth Power available in all battles.

Air: Has some buffs Alteration (Mirror Image, Mistform, Phantasmal Army, Mists of Deception) and Evocation (Lightning Bolt, Thunder Strike etc) spells. Storm (Evoc) blocks most flying and most missiles, which can be very good. Air gives cheap Flying Boots, and has teleport spell Cloud Trapeze in Enchantment. Seeking Arror, in Enchantment, is good when massed against human mages. Chain Mail of Deception is nice armor for fighters, and if you get an Air 4 mage he can forge two magic boosters (Barrel of Air and Winged Helmet).

Death: good in Conjuration (Bane Lords, Wights, Wight Lords; even Black Servants can be useful if you give them cheap armor and weapons, and the tougher commanders are much better) and Enchantment (Reanimation is bad because it takes gems, but Raise Dead/Raise Skeletons are very good battle spells when massed. Behemoths are nice. Reanimate Archers is good if you can cast it.) For combat spells, you can research Terror, Rigor Mortis or Life After Death from Thaumaturgy, Shadow Bolt/Blast from Evocation, or Drain Life/Soul Vortex from Alteration. Death and Fire let you cast Banefire, and summon King of Banefires, a former King of Elemental Fire who has been corrupted by necromantic magic.

Astral: Thaumaturgy all the way! Mind Burn, Soul Slay, Enslave Mind... Evocation lets you kill commanders from afar, with Mind Hunt. Just make sure there are no enemy Astral mages in the province. Alteration buffs Body Ethereal and Luck can be cast on nearby friendly enemies, which make them much more survivable, which is very good when you have tough units.

Nature: Enchantment has Charm(!!), Gift of Health (!!!) and other nifty spells. Conjuration has lots of summons, but most aren't very good, and Tangle Vines and Maggot, which help a little but not much. There are some Evocations. Nature items often give regeneration, berserk and reinvigoration (=removes fatigue), which are good in fighting commanders, although berserk can be a double-edged sword.

Blood: Blood is different. Very different. If you want to try it, go for the fliers as Devils fast as you can. Fiends of Darkness, Devils/Frost fiends, etc. Dark Vines are tough, Demon Knights hit very hard. And especially in single-player, where there isn't any competition, you get lots and lots of unique commanders that can be equipped to destroy whole armies: Ice Devils, Arch Devils, Heliophagii... the Demon Lords are good, but perhaps not quite at the level the spell's Blood requirement would make you think. They are very nice mages though.

[Rathar]

Try just plain messing around. I found that making a bunch of nations and trying them out for 10 or so turns helped a ton and didn't take too insane amounts of time.

[KissBlade]

Make sure you read the manual front to back. Ask a lot of questions if you can on both the forums and the irc channel about what you don't understand.

[Wikd Thots]

Slowing down the computer players:

#1 Turn the independent strength UP when you start a game. The AI is not as smart as you about choosing who he should attack.

#2 Turn the resources up. It makes the AI spend money on cheap independent troops. To make the AI smarter later on you turn resources down so that he makes more national troops.

#3 Start with more AIs. Not too many but if you start with only one or two then you become a target fast.

#4 Play on bigger maps

#5 Play for Victory points. The AI is not as smart about going for the provinces with stars on them.

[HJFudge]

Now a quick question about victory points.

I looked in the manual but it had very little on it.

So I pulled up the option on the create game menu and it gave me a ton of different options, such as dominion, total provinces, VP total and VP cumulative. Under the cumulative and total options it gave me MORE options.

I guess my question is...what VP settings are good for a mid sized map with 6-10 players? Should I go cumulative with lots of 1 point sites or lots of 2-3 point sites? What effect does it have on the length of the game?

[jutetrea]

The last 2 pages of the item section of the manual give all the boosting items - invaluable for planning out how to get higher level casting

There are a few posts on the board which detail how to avoid becoming an AI target early, although they'll still just randomly declare war on you sometimes. Its fun when you're playing vs 5 AI and 4 of them are at war with each other and leave you to take them down 1 by 1. Not as fun when all 5 are at war with you (at least early).

The demo limits you to lvl 4 magic I believe, while the AI is unlimited. I'm wondering if using one of the magic cutoff mods (limits to 4 or 6 or 8) may be good to start, as it should limit AI and player to lvl 6 magic say. Might let you become more familiar with the levels/paths and included spells.

Many many players don't finish SP games, frequently they become a chore as micromanagement gets too hefty. Save the game, try another nation/setup and maybe go back to the long game to get to epic stuff later.

Late age has less magic generally, and better troops when compared with early age - might make it easier by limiting some the crazy magic paths available in EA.

The nation descriptions in the manual are great for a first run (most of them), if you follow the guidelines and play for ~20 turns you'll get an ok idea on a nation.

I've had the game for almost a year and still haven't played some nations.

Try a few turns of different combos - good scales + high/low dominion, bad scales + high/low dominion, Heavy dominion + preaching, bless, awake fighting pretender vs. an asleep heavy magic pretender. Even a few turns of the above will give you a good idea of how you like to play.

Most importantly, have fun!

[Endoperez]

You might want to go for 1 VP per capital, normal victory points, and control of most of the capitals required to win. This has the side-effect of letting you see where your enemies are, but it gives the game a sensible ending.