What will your first game be and why?

[ioticus]

In my first game, I will play as Abysia Middle Era vs. a single AI Mictlan on a moderate to large size map. I choose Middle Era because the races should be closest to the Dom2 races in this era. That will make for a better testing ground. The difficulty will be normal, since I want to test the AI on equal terms. My other reasons are as follows:

1) Mictlan was probably played the worst by the AI of all the nations in Dom2, so this will give me a good way to test if the AI has improved very much. If the AI can give me a good game as Mictlan, then I will be very surprised and pleased.

2) I choose to play Abysia, because I want to see how blood magic and blood hunting has changed in Dom3. The micro was supposed to be reduced, and the micro was probably at its worst with the blood nations. Therefore, I should be able to see if there has been any improvement in this high micro area. If there is, it should bode well for micro in other areas as well.

3) I like blood magic, but I feel some of the blood summons (like Devils) are a little overpowered. Also, I thought some of the blood spells in Dom2 were almost useless and I never used them. It will be interesting to see if these issues have been addressed. Also, I can't wait to see if there are any cool new blood summons. I would love to see some Devil Lords, for example

Your turn!

[okiN]

I'm going to take a completely different stance. I intend to dive right in there and try to take in all the new additions as quickly as I can. I can't wait to try out the new races and figure out how to play them. I can't really give more details because I don't know what all the new nations will be, but I guarantee it'll be crazy.

[Nerfix]

I'll propably incoherently race through random nations.

[Agrajag]

I'll let the RNG decide.

[WraithLord]

I'll try Pythium in all ages, simply because it's my favorite nation and I want to know if it will remain that way.

[DominionsFan]

Ulm, small map, 4 AIs.
After that the new races.

[fahdiz]

Agrajag said:
I'll let the RNG decide.

As will I. How exciting!

[Nerfix]

I'll try out LE Atlantis if possible.

[Cainehill]

fahdiz said:

As will I. How exciting!

RNG in the sense of rolling dice? Or in the sense that there's finally a "choose random AIs for game" option? (Preferably with checkmarks to disallow nations, so newbies can avoid Ermor and the like, and others can avoid nations that tend to use abusive cheats (ie : targetting the human player when they can't even see him)).

[Sorlakind]

Ulm, middle-age in a mid-sized map with a medium number of nations with normal (i.e. medium) AI.

Why? First, because Ulm was the nation I played the most in DomII - it was easy for newbies like me (for example setting up the scales was a no-brainer). But mainly, because I want to see if in a *magic setting* the "rebalance for supply and incomes" allows for a conventional-type army to have a long-term usefulness and actually defeat, or, in the least, to cause a non-negligible dent in magical armies - in middle-to-late games, magics dominate and conventional and national troops are next to useless.

Another of my gripes was, that if you were fighting against some undead nation (e.g. Ermor), their death scales would lay waste to provinces in such a manner that regrowth was not possible, IOW, a fight between, let us say, Man and Ermor, was highly unbalanced because Life didn't have the means to counter Death. Same comments for Good vs. Evil where there is a whole school of evil magic (Blood with the possible addition of Death) but the few Good summons (Harbingers and Angels) were actually not that good. So a *second* game would probably be a Man vs. some Blood and/or Death nations to see if the new Uber-angels and the Good can finally kick some Evil ***.