First newbie game: first impressions!!!

[Alneyan]

Yes, the game can be indeed overwhelming when you first start playing (I have been lucky to first hear of Dominions when it was Dominions I). Here comes a few answers in no specific order:

- There is a *lot* of units in Dominions, but the differences between your national units are rather unstressed. For example, you may have several kind of infantry troops, with various equipment (armour and/or weapons), and they would not serve the same purpose (light infantry serves as cannon fodder or as a swarm whereas heavy infantry is here to give some punch).

Other differences include the sacred units. These are expensive, often capitol-only, but they will cost twice as less to maintain per month, and you can give them a blessing. To bless a sacred unit, order a Priest to cast the Blessing (or Divine Blessing if available) spell. The actual effects of the blessing depend on your Pretender magic skills; in your case, your troops would have had a +3 bonus to defence because of your Water 8, (if memory serves; it may be a bit more) and a Reinvigoration 3 because of your Earth 5.

If you want truly impressive units, rituals are indeed the way to go; there lie everything ranging from puny skeletons to Archdevils or Titans.

- There are quite a few ways of going under water. For example, a Water mage can bring several friends with her under water (only a few though), there are items with the same effect (such as the Manual of Water Breathing, available at Construction 4 with Nature 3 and Water 1; it allows 25 units to go underwater), a special Dominion allows all sacred units to go underwater within friendly dominions, and so on. Any unit with the special ability "Poor Amphibian" or "Amphibian" will also be able to go underwater, without the help of any kind of spell.

- Unrest reduces both the income and the resource production of your province; high levels of unrest (100 and above if memory serves) also prevents you from recruiting any unit. Patrolling decreases unrest, but kills a small part of your population. Reducing your tax rate decreases unrest as well, but will reduce your income in the short run. Unrest is caused by battles, enemy dominions, events and special sites (the most common being the Brigands' Lair).

- If you want to know more about magic, you can browse the various magic schools in the demo. When creating your Pretender, double click on "View Magic Schools" near the end of the process, and you will have access to all spells in the game. When playing a game, you can also double click on the school you are interested in to bring up the list of all spells available in this field.