Most powerful race? Pretender?

[Taqwus]

It really, really depends.

For instance, in a large map with at least normal research speed and maximum magic site frequency, the sheer amount of magic resources and the likelihood of plentiful research before the game is over will favor magic over even the better mundane troop types.

Even a prot-30 vampire queen with all elemental immunities is going to die pretty quick if smacked around by a Niefel Jarl with quickness and a gate cleaver (armor negating magic toy with 29 base damage; will badly hurt most things quite quickly, and it's not even unique). Anything falls unconscious if hit by Magebane; hit twice and it can basically forget about waking up for the rest of the battle (100 fatigue per hit).

[st.patrik]

There is no "most powerful" race.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
But for starters And Ulm has a low learning curve since its mostly armored troops (but watch out for Ermor). Ermor has some automatic power which makes it easy to play (but watch out for Marignon). Marignon has alot of fun things to play with (but watch out for Ulm).

Indeed - Marignon is definately fun, and can expand quite rapidly with a good fire pretender, because all but, mmm, "Infernal Faith"(?) start with a very potent fire spell, "Holy Pyre", pre-researched. Good cavalry, good spell casters, great priests, and crossbows, with any accurate high-fire pretender, allows for great early expansion.

And if you can expand rapidly enough early, you can build strengths and minimize weaknesses, if you have decent magic. (This is the difference with Ulm, I think - Ulm can expand quick, but has difficultly in the later game for lack of magicks.)

[HotNifeThruButr]

I won my first game with New Era Pangaea, so look into that.

I think good races for newbies are the ones with high variety. In other words, Mictlan is a big no-no.

Marignon has a whole rainbow spectrum of different infantry, crossbows, powerful and reasonably priced riders in the form of Royal Guards, and flexible sacred units for the high magic Pretenders.

Man features mighty and versatile Longbowmen, Knights that can play polo with enemy soldiers, and vicious Wardens of Avalon for heavy infantry.

T'ien Ch'i is another nation with good variety. They have two ranged weapons in Crossbows and Composite Bows, Imperial Guard who're hard to rout and can deal decent damage, and cheap Imperial Horsemen that shish-kabob as well as any knight. Magically flexible Celestial Masters also make good site hunters.

Enjoy your Pretenderhood!

[Yossar]

I would definitely say Ulm is good to start since they work fairly well even if you don't have the whole spell grimoire memorized.

[En Forcer]

I'm on turn 165 in a solo game playing Ulm with a Cyclops. I am relatively new but I have learned volumes about troop movement and how to get access to certain magics and abilities through this race. I consider them a forgiving race to play because there are so many heavy units you can field. Heck, even my crossbowmen wear Plate!

So you can learn the mechanics of combat and conquest by throwing masses of heavy infantry at the enemy, and explore the magical options at your leasure.

I don't have the spell paths down yet (some guys here have a plan on what they research first and what they want to get to in what order). So I'm just playing with forging all kinds of cool stuff and giving it to commanders to see what happens in combat.

Ulm is a good combat race, and they have smiths who forge. The downside is no sacred units, weak priests, no mages, and all units are rather vulnerable to magic (low mr).

Next I will probably play with Marignon.

[Gateway103]

If you play with Ulm, you can set a high drain scale, as your smiths are immuned to the effects of drain scale when researching. On the other hand, drain scale makes magic casting that require MR penetration a bit harder. I.e. it is easier to resist spells in a Drain dominion.

Not enough to prevent losing valuable troops to magic, but could be useful at times.

-Gateway103