Dom II, feedback please

[Gin]

OK Endo. In trying your advice a few questions arose:

1-Where do I do the '1 pick in Order, Production, Growth and Magic"?
2-When creating a new game, which nations should I include?

Sorry, I'm a total newbie at this.

Thanks
Gin

[Turin]

I´d just play around for a while, get crushed by the AI and then ask specific questions.

As for your questions:

1) he referred to the scales you choose when you pick a new god. You can set them from +3 to -3.

2) I would include all nations except ermor and maybe Caelum. Ermor is too strong vs other AIs and Caelum is very annoying with seeking arrows and call of the wilds.

indy strength means independent strength. The higher you set it during game creation the more independents will garrison the neutral provinces.

[Gin]

Thanks Turin. Just where does one set indy str. and the scales. I saw no scales when I picked my god, Phoenix. I just had choices within magic, dominion etc.
Thanks again
Gin

[Turin]

Well the scales are in the dominions screen during god creation. You pick your scales by umm clicking on the scales there.

Independent strength gets set under game settings. It´s the second line under number of provinces. It´s above special site frequency.

You get to the game settings screen after you chose the map.

[Gin]

Thanks Turin.
Gin

[OG_Gleep]

Do keyword searches for the various nations that you try. I am pretty sure every race has some sort of discussion thread.

There are numerous docs that have been made by fans, after you play through a couple games I would take a look at them as they are great resources but will mean nothing unless you have some sort of grasp on the general concepts.

Also, try Ulm with a rainbow mage (Rainbow means a mage with multiple paths, these are excellent at site searching). I still think they are the best for illustrating the basic concepts of the game. They also make for great crafters, which will give you insite on the magic item creation system.

Once you have a handle on that, move to a race with a bless strategy. Ulm doesn't have any sacred troops. If you have a pretender with atleast 4 picks in any path of magic, you can pass on special abilites to your sacred troops. At certain points, you get certain abilities. For instance Fire 9 (very popular) gives your sacred troops flaming weapons (+8AP dmg). Fire 8 however would only get you +4 attack.

Also the Dominions I guides are still semi-relavent and are a good read, and actually explain the basic mechanics pretty well.

The forum is a awesome resource, and you can go back multiple years and pull up information. This has also been one of the most helpful communties I have ever been a part of.

The Dom II Library http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/ is a great resource, and also has links to other sites (dominions-x..has the correct link here, unlike the illwinter site). The Illwinter site also has some good resources and has mod links as well.

[Gandalf Parker]

And of course when you get old and jaded with the game you can go to Dominions2.com for the really wild stuff. But thats something like after a year or two at least of playing the game. This is one of the longest-lived games on my machine

[Gin]

Thanks for the recent replies OG and Gandalf. I will try your advice. BTW, I did install the mod people recommended. (CB 5.2)
Does that affect your advice at all? Is it OK to learn the game with this mod active? Or, should I disable it.....
Best
Gin

[Boron]

Hi Gin.
If you have good self-confidence you could also do a "shock"-approach to learn the game.
Come to the dominions-irc channel:

IRC
irc.gamesurge.net port 6667 channel #dominions

Especially on weekends there should always be a few ppl around.
Then ask QM to play a few 1on1s with you. This way you will learn a lot of advanced tactics really quickly.
Recently quite a few new players joined the channel too, so maybe you can also get a few newbie blitzes going and then ask the veterans that are around for tips.

You really need a good self-confidence and high frustration toleration though because most likely you will lose all your first 50 or so blitzes. But the blitzes are the quickest way nontheless to learn to play dominions competetive.
If you play mainly SP and a few long-term-MP-games even after 1 or 2 years you probably won't be a true dominions veteran but rather have barely scratched the surface.

QM and Arch are so good that they almost always beat "semi-veterans" like Truper, Arralen or myself .
So if you have masochistic tendencies or at least a really good self-confidence come to the dominions channel asap

[Gin]

Hahaha...Boron.
I'll pass on the masochism act!
I'd rather have SOME idea what is going on before playing live humans who have a deep understanding of the game.
This is a really big leap from HOMM3 and AOW2, my favorite turn-based games.
Gin