Q: New to game, need advice - getting wrecked

[jutetrea]

nice, thanks.

Game just suddenly stopped saying "you have reached the end of the demo", so i'll just wait for delivery I guess. Got a bit of reading to catch up on

Are the Dom2 forums useful? Or have there been enough changes since that a lot of it doesn't apply?

[Manuk]

Sunray's page
Arryn's page
Gandalf's and Nerfix's page

There you can read some stuff alright.

[Taqwus]

Some of the strategy-affecting differences...

Dom 2:
- No Eras.
- Base Nation + Theme option; themes generally cost design points.
Most themeless nations resemble Middle Era D3 nations.
Themes may be similar to other eras.
A couple of themes have turned into global enchantments.
- You bought one fortress design with design points, and used it on all terrain; hence, one could go for 'mad castling' with a cheap fortress.
- And forts were cheaper, too.
- It was much easier to access all magical paths; randoms were either FAWE, SDNB, or FAWESDNB. Sages were common and had a FAWESDNB random. Spectres had two.
- Far fewer national spells.
- Half the income and supply of D3. Combine with cheaper forts and there's more emphasis on mages and SCs than large armies.
- Lifedrain weapons not restricted in how much they could drain...

[jutetrea]

Cool

Initially thought sea going races would suck.. but its kind of nice to be a bit more undisturbed.

Completely dif stats though I'm figuring. Ran up against the Ry'leh(sp?) and by the time i'd knocked them out of their keep others had conquered huge swaths of land with huge armies so I was way behind as i butted heads right off the bat (again!).

What's up with random map placement? Tried the Farthing map, 76 land 25 sea.. end up 3 provinces away from the only other sea nation. I was mid left, he was top left. Seems like every map i try there's an enemy within 3 or 4.

[Aleph]

Like many commenting here, I'm very new to the game, having played it (fairly constantly) for only about a month, and only in SP. Here's my perspective:

Just Surviving: If you're just looking to play through a huge game to see what is possible and want to avoid losing at all costs, play LA Rl'yeh. They are the only nation of that era to start underwater, and if you aren't facing Atlantis then you have no serious competition for the oceans. You will likely be frustrated by micromanagement (which is compounded by insanity domain effects), esp. given your above comments, but this will give you a sense of the value of F1. Lessons you can learn from Rl'yeh: Clam-spamming (N enabled Slave Mage -> Contact Naiad -> Clam of Pearls), controlling hordes, shifting from recruited to summoned commanders to save cash, raiding, and later a great experimental lab through Wish.

Bless: I tend to play large, long games. In these, bless is generally less useful than in small games, since many nations (but by no means all of them) have capitol-only sacreds. Even so, bless approaches far cheaper than a triple 9 bless can still yield great dividends without totally wrecking your economy. For example, Mictlan can run F9N4E4B4D2 with an imprisoned Smoking Mirror and still have enough points to runs a strong chaos economy (Turmoil/Sloth/Luck/Growth 3 and their freebie Heat 1) and taking dominion 5. While their many sacred troops won't be quite as nasty as they can possibly be, they'll still hit with brutal power (+4 attack, +2 strength, flaming weapons), regenerate, and reinvigorate (great for their many sacred spellcasters, both recruited and summoned) while being able to catch a lot of lucky breaks, generate compound population interest, and groom smaller provinces for bloodhunting/ recuperate bloodhunting losses.

[jutetrea]

Thanks for the reply.

I think I'm starting to get a hang of the terminology, but just want to clarify some stuff.

chaos economy works? lots of events, trying for positives for gem and cash flow? seems counter-intuitive, but I'm assuming it works since i've seen it mentioned a bit.

Haven't noticed the mirror yet, but randomly: why do folks pick a non-moving god? Don't you lose a lot of potential that way? Are they generally cheaper or that much more protected?

I'll have lots to play with once the full version comes in, definitely looking forward to it.

[Shovah32]

Non moving gods are generally cheaper for what you get(better dom, good start magic, decent new path cost) and chaos economy is good partly because it can get you extra points(order3misfortune2 is 40 points more than turmoil3luck3. You should avoid misfortune3 due to some very bad events)