What faction is most appealing to new players?

[Tenebrion]

Okay, I have a question question that I want to ask in regards to factions. To preface this post, however, I'd like to say that I'm asking this specifically to help decide which faction to get my wife to play first. In short, she's refused to play Dominions 3 for a few months, mostly due to the poor graphics, but I've finally convinced her to give the game a try.

So, here's the question : What faction do you think would appeal most to a non Dominion's player, and why? What factions would you say are the easiest for newbies to play, are the most visually stimulating, are the most diverse, are the most representative of the Dominion's 3 playstyle, etc.

This is an open ended question, and I'd love to also hear about what kind of pretenders are good for first time players, and what magic choices are fun.

Hopefully, together, we can convert my wife into being as much a fan of this game as I am.

[Darkstone]

I'm not that new to SP, but I would say the more fantasy oriented nations are the most appealing at the beginning, Neifelheim, Abysia, Agartha, Ermor, R'lyeh, etc.

Liches are probably the best pretender to start off at the beginning. Or anything immortal. They make early learning/experimenting much less painful.

[Sombre]

Depends what she's into.

My wife likes Marverni because she reads lots of books about gauls and celts and the like.

Generally speaking I'd say an underwater race would be a bad idea though.

[Tenebrion]

Right now I want to avoid any faction that has any glaring strengths / weaknesses. In other words, I don't want her first faction to be something like EA Abyssia, because they have a exceptionally powerful infantry but no range. Likewise, I wouldn't want her to play a faction like Caelum due to their fragility and high mobility, or Ryleth / Atlantis for obvious reasons.

In other words, I'm thinking the best choice, for a starter faction, is a jack of all trades kind of nation. That way, once she tries the other factions, she can have a better appreciation of their various strengths and weaknesses.

[Ferrosol]

I would say MA Man they have decent and varied troops reasonably high quality mages and access to some national summons. and if she gets stuck she can always just build a ton of longbowmen

[Kamamura]

ULM!

[llamabeast]

My ex-girlfriend absolutely loved getting interesting random picks and working out what to do with them. Every time one of my games hosted when I was at hers (and later her own games), she would straight away insist I check all my recruited mages to see what picks they'd got. She also really liked searching for magic sites.

As such I'd recommend Arcoscephale or T'ien Ch'i. They are nice races anyway. EA T'ien Ch'i is pretty cool, with the Warriors of the Five Elements as well. Also they are kind of goodies - I think it's nice to start off playing the goodies. Oh, and they have national summons - always nice to see what weird beasties you can conjure up.

[Cor2]

I was actually thinking Ulm as well.

Do tell us how it turns out. My wife refuses to play because the game involves killing and war.

[Revolution]

Ferrosol said:
I would say MA Man they have decent and varied troops reasonably high quality mages and access to some national summons. and if she gets stuck she can always just build a ton of longbowmen

[sector24]

For learning a bless strategy and general AI stomping, Niefelheim is the best. But they don't really teach you anything about magic.

For complete security and the freedom to make mistakes, EA Atlantis is great because the AI basically can't attack you. Plus you have a good spread of the straight forward magic paths like Earth, Water, Fire.

For a general experience I'd say the best nations are EA Agartha, EA/MA Arcosephale, and Tien Chi. If the AI gangs up on you (like they do) it's nice to have a ridiculously overpowered unit like Troglodytes, Elephants, etc. There's also very little in the way of tricky combat scripting or micromanagement.

Ultimately you want to pick a nation and pretender that your wife will find interesting, even if it's not that easy to play. If graphics are an issue, the newer nations are generally prettier: Fomoria, Bogarus, Lanka. Older nations tend to have some blurry sprites.