Noob, needs advice please

[Edratman]

llamabeast said:
Hmm, these things are obviously very much a matter of opinion.

Personally I would always play on default settings for gold, resources and supplies, otherwise you are not really getting the normal Dominions experience. Also I get worn out on larger maps, so would probably play one with 100-odd provinces, e.g. Parganos. But everyone plays the game differently.

I suggested the high settings because it makes playing the Heims fairly easy against normal AI. This would help him learn many facets of the game while starting out. Moving to normal settings should come with time as he learns and experiments.

I suggested the large map next because I anticipate the AI starting to attack on many fronts when he expands to around 20 provinces. That should not be excessively time consuming to do his turns.

The sequence I suggest gives some experience with the game, some forging, minor magic and some easy victories to start. Then he should start out well with easy early expansion on the large map, similar to the easy victories on the smaller maps, and subsequently get thumped when the AI attacks from all over the place. After a couple of these he will realize that there is a lot to learn about the game and start to try other things.

There are about a skillion different ways to learn how to play this game. This is just my suggestion.