Hi, I'm new! And.. uh.. help?

[Graeme Dice]

Taqwus said:
Ermor, Late Era (very VERY different from everything else)

There's absolutely nothing wrong with learning the game as Ermor, and you might as well play it against the AI where it's a powerful nation, instead of against people where it's not.

[curtadams]

I'd recommend middle age Man or Marignon for learning. They field good versions of the basic Dominions army, which is infantry in front of archers, with flanking cavalry to sweep up stragglers. Both have access to a decent magic set, with army enhancers, magic items, and summons, although the mix varies, so you get to play around with magic without having to know how to use it. Ulm is mostly a good start but IMO the magic is too bland apart from items, which requires good supercombant/thug design to use.

Vanheim has no archers but their high-defense infantry and cavalry are incredibly strong so it's also a good nation to learn on. It's a good nation to learn thug construction because the glamourous commanders are so strong.

Some trickier things to avoid:
Trampler nations: Arco, Patala
Blood nations: Mictlan early or late, Marignon late
Funky Dominions: Ermor or late R'lyeh
Cavalry nations: late Tien Chi

Many of these are quite strong but using their strength requires special tricks with magic or army layout.

[Taqwus]

Hmmm. I should offer one caveat with Sauromatia; it also applies to Pythium.

One has to be careful with hydras.

[Turin]

The easiest nation to play vs the AI is probably late era R´lyeh.
1)You are a water nation, so the AI can´t really invade you.
2)You get tons of freespawns, so the AI doesn´t want to declare war on you.
3)Setbacks don´t really hurt you, because of the many freespawns, which replace losses easily.
4) Your mages are very good at astral magic, which makes it easier to branch into other paths with rings of sorcery/wizardry to try out more stuff. Acashic record makes sitesearcing easy.
5) Void gate is a lot of fun.

Just make sure you take a dominion 10 pretender with good scales and you should be fine.

[nonsense]

Thanks for all the replies; judging by the fact that most everyone is recommending something different, I probably can't go too far wrong.

I have to say, avoiding R'lyeh is... well, it's something that won't last too long. Unleashing an army of shapeless ctulhoid horrors is probably what sold me on the game. Still, they sound fairly tricky, so I'll play around with more straight-forward stuff first.

So, to summarize:

1) I should research as much as I possibly can.
2) Temples everywhere.
3) Play a "standard" infantry-archer-cavalry race at first.

[Meglobob]

nonsense said:
Thanks for all the replies; judging by the fact that most everyone is recommending something different, I probably can't go too far wrong.

I have to say, avoiding R'lyeh is... well, it's something that won't last too long. Unleashing an army of shapeless ctulhoid horrors is probably what sold me on the game. Still, they sound fairly tricky, so I'll play around with more straight-forward stuff first.

So, to summarize:

1) I should research as much as I possibly can.
2) Temples everywhere.
3) Play a "standard" infantry-archer-cavalry race at first.

Good advice.

One last note, what I struggle with the most in Dominions (and continue to struggle with) is the magic system. Its so huge it takes alot to get yr head around it.

By this I mean what path of magic to research and in what order to be most effective, spells to aim for etc, etc...
It's also different for every nation as well, so only after playing 1 nation 3 - 4 times do u start being near 100% efficient in yr research/spell selection/gem spending choices.

[Tyrant]

nonsense said:

2) Temples everywhere.

Temples everywhere may be fine in SP, which is what we are talking about here, but FYI do NOT do this in MP. Expensive undefended temples will be burned. Build them only in forts or, rarely, in out of the way provences far from the enemy.

[Taqwus]

Early on, rapid expansion is far more important than leaving temples everywhere you go. That means putting money into troops, fast (well, unless you're AE Ermor) -- mercenaries, for instance. Even in SP.

400 gold will buy you a temple... or it might buy you a mage or two for research, or better yet, it'll cover most mercenary bands in SP which will let you capture more provinces faster for more income. Worry about more temples if your dominion is being stomped, or once you don't have as pressing a need for spending all your Au on troops and mages.