Hi, I'm new! And.. uh.. help?

[nonsense]

Hi folks,

I just got my copy of Dom III this weekend, and I've been messing around with it a little bit in between reading snatches of manual to better understand what's going on.

I won't bother you with basic questions that I can have answered by reading the manual, but if someone could recommend a good starter nation, that'd be good... I'm hoping for something that's not overly complicated, but has a bit of versatility to play with, so that I can better learn the game... I actually started a random match with Early Age Niefelheim, with a nature-magicky Son of Fenrir (who eventually died to the ubdeomilitia of the fourth of four nations I sent him into alone... evidently, not quite the combat monster I expected, once he got swarmed). It's fun, but I'm having trouble figuring out whether or not I'm actually being effective.

It's definitely an interesting game, but I feel a bit in the deep end. There's so much to take into account... I think, overall, what I want to know is what players tend to prioritize.. I know it'll vary from nation to nation, but is there sort of a baseline amount for, say, how many mages you should hire to research? How important is it to look for sites? Can fortresses and temples and so forth wait, or are they a more important investment than the initial army?

I think I may have overdone the army recruitment with my Niefel game, because I was mowing through the indep (and Kailasan) forces with ease; granted, it was against an easy AI, but I feel as though I could've cleared the area with my starter army and used more of my funds for priests and mages and such. Does that square with your experiences?

So there's a scattered diatribe, peppered with a few questions.

And hi!

[Tyrant]

You are in for a great gaming experience nonsence, this is really a great game and it's so big that you have many weeks of fun game exploration ahead! Keep in mind that the game is quite new and even DomII vets do not have it wired.

I'd suggest that you start out with the Middle Era. The indies are very week in the Early Era and the Late Era has lots of peculiarities. Middle will give you better practice against tougher indies without too many "Holy Crap" moments. You might try Man, Caelum or Arco as starting nations. Definatly avoid Blood nations at first.

A few random tidbits of advice

- Try to expand as quickly as you can without taking many casualties. You want to get a good growth curve going, but it's important to build your army up. Recruiting shortbowmen if your country does not have good archers will help here.

-Searching for sites is important, but not urgent. Make sure you get it done, and the sooner the better, but not at the experience of expansion in the early game. It's worth while to search for everything that you can, even if that's a pain in the neck. Most site are levels 1 or 2, btw.

-You want to increase your research every turn until it's at least 200. This is not always possible, but try. Note that there are two nice magic items that create research- Skill Mentor from Death, and Lightless Lantern for Fire. These can help alot if your nation does those kinds of magic.

-Research priority is crucial, but it's hard to make reccomendations because it's dependent on the nation you are playing. Some candidates for early research- Evocation 2 or 3 if you need firepower, Thaumaturgy 2 to get site searching spells, Construction 2,4, or 6 to get power up items, resarch items and/or weapons and armor. Conjuration X to get some particular summons that will help you out.

-Building provence defence is very helpful against the AI.

-You want to build a second fort/temple/lab at the point resources become a limiting factor to your build at your capitol. Beyond that it's hard to generalize.

Far from a comprehensive guide, but i hope that points you in the right direction.

[Tyrant]

Here's a link to the wiki

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominions_3:_The_Awakening

And here's a thread you might find useful

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

[Gandalf Parker]

I think Ulm is a good starting nation. Its benefits are heavily armored troops. Most people tend to understand what those are for.

There is a tutorial in the game which is very helpful

[reverend]

Gandalf Parker said:
I think Ulm is a good starting nation. Its benefits are heavily armored troops. Most people tend to understand what those are for.

I second that opinion.

Ulm is rather straightforward and easy to play, little magic, but good troops. You just need a few mages for site-searching and forging, most of the time, you can overcome your enemy without hand-scripting every mage in battle. At least against normal AI, which you probably will be playing when starting out.

[quantum_mechani]

nonsense said:
I know it'll vary from nation to nation, but is there sort of a baseline amount for, say, how many mages you should hire to research? How important is it to look for sites? Can fortresses and temples and so forth wait, or are they a more important investment than the initial army?

You should be hiring, at minimum, roughly one mage per turn. Think of 'provinces-that-can-recruit-mages' as another resource. Site searching priority varies, but if you have the early remote search spells researched, and the gems and mages to use them, it is rarely a bad idea to take advantage. Forts and temples are mainly important once you have more gold than your starting fort can make good use of.

[FrankTrollman]

For a starter player I would go for a Dominon 10 Imprisoned Oracle with really nice scales. It's a valid strategy and you won't start with your king piece on the board so you can't lose it until you understand risks a bit better.

A nice Order 3/Growth 3/ Productivity 3 on Early Age Ulm is very forgiving - simply make a big barbarian horde and expect tremendous losses. You can try the different types of barbarians (I like Shield Maidens and Archers myself) and see how they stack up knowing that you'll produce even more troops next turn so the fact that inexperience combined with a disposable troop strategy will leave you with a big pile of corpses won't be game breaking.

Elite strategies are harder to master, since your army will contain so few actual units. Mistakes that cause you to take "more losses" are unacceptable when your army is ten units or less.

-Frank

[dirtywick]

Arco is a good starting nation as someone stated. They have a variety of magic, stealth, flying, and regular troops. I also think Machaka is a great nation to start with, they have a good path variety giving you a lot of strategy options and the ability to build stealthy armies. And actually I think MA Ermor would be a good starter nation.

[KissBlade]

Pay heed to Tyrant and Quantum_mechani's advice in this thread. They're probably the ones that hold most resolute. As for a good starter nation, EA Jotun is one of the easier themes to play. You also want to try nations with archers as they play a huge role in most military, EA Tien Chi's another nice pick to LEARN the game (they are not very beginner friendly to win with however) as they offer a great deal of versatility in terms of battle magic, summoning, sacred, archery, etc. Other recommendations are nations that start off with good national recruitable troops such as Man or Marig. (Though Marig has an array of problems from the fire magic)

PS. Plug for my guide, but also you can take a look at my sig guide for a preview of how most MP games are played. (Though I'll be honest, there's a bit of magic at "learning the ropes" on your own)

[Taqwus]

Or EA Sauromatia may be interesting. There's not a huge chasm in the unit lineup; it has understandable units (light cavalry, spearmen, archers, et al); doesn't really need an ultrabless; doesn't rely on national spells; and has a fair bit of interesting magic available.

Arco, by the way, has the nifty healing priestesses that might be fun if you like creating combat pretenders.


Mostly, 'tho, I'd suggest avoiding:

Ermor, Late Era (very VERY different from everything else)

R'lyeh, Late Era (insanity domain is... interesting, possibly frustrating; Void Gate is a slot machine)

Oceania (reportedly quite bugged units)

Mictlan, Early or Late (blood sacrifice is an extra mechanic to fuss with, and it's mandatory here)