How difficult is this game?

[jimkehn]

Except, I think if you prophetize your commander he will be a level 3 Priest. Isn't Fanatacism an H4 spell?? Maybe KB meant cast Divine Blessing, which an H3 Prophet can cast. Only helps if you have sacred troops on the battlefield, though.

[KissBlade]

My memory might be off, my laptop is sputtering so I can't play Dom lately but I thought h3 gave you Fanaticisim in Dom3?

[Sir_Dr_D]

No, it is H4.

[KissBlade]

Ah right, nevermind, it was smite that dom 3 took down. Yeah, just cast Sermon, Smite x4 then. =) Thanks, (haven't played dom for awhile cause my laptop with it went clunky >_> and it doesn't fly well on Vista)

[Fenris99]

Thank you for the advice, KissBlade .

The game is not easy. It seems I have to build up for at least 3 turns before I can start grabbing indie provinces. The Ai seems to be doing it sooner. It also seems that you have to have a long view on what you're going to do; you can't just face challenges as they come. You have to have some master plan.

And I'm playing on a small map with easy Ai.

[Meglobob]

Fenris99 said:The game is not easy. It seems I have to build up for at least 3 turns before I can start grabbing indie provinces. The Ai seems to be doing it sooner.

Look to be conquering 1 province per turn from turn 2 (ie...1 turn to strengthen your starting army), aim for 15+ provinces by early spring year 2.

This is minimium, some nations you should expand faster with.

[Endoperez]

That's the minimum in competitive multiplayer. In the beginning, and against the AI, you don't have to hurry. Depending on your tastes, you might never start playing against other people, and thus might never feel the need for such a rapid early expansion. It's easy to do with some tactics, and some nations have an easier time than others, so you'll probably manage to do it at some point even if you aren't going all out for it.

[Edi]

Meglobob said:

Look to be conquering 1 province per turn from turn 2 (ie...1 turn to strengthen your starting army), aim for 15+ provinces by early spring year 2.

This is minimium, some nations you should expand faster with.

Once more, minimum with what independent strength? Indies 5, doable. Indies 7+, forget it, province per turn from turn 3 and you're likely not going to be able to do more unless you have good luck with the neighbors and good quality units in decent numbers.

[Edratman]

Fenris99 said:
The game is not easy.

That about sums up the game. The more you play, the more intracies you discover. If you read the threads from the MP gamers you will discover tricks and depths you will never have thought of on your own.

Pretender/magic/scales set up is almost a complete game within itself. If you ask 5 players what is best, you will be lucky to be offered only 7 opinions. Where you set your options regarding indy strength, and % gold/resources/supplies and research speed also significently alters the game strategy. And SP is an entirely different game from MP.

If you play SP, you will develop your own preferences for settings. They will be absolutely correct for you and your expansion/research strategies will develop to reflect these settings. I myself play very difficult or impossible AI, indy 9 and leave everything else at the default (except for renaming- always allow renaming - you can rename commanders to "prophet", "scout", "5 death", "6 Nature", "Rainbow shield maker" or whatever you choose to help minimize confusion because the stock names are confusing and will also repeat.) It took me months to work up to "Impossible" AI settings.

Slippery Jim's advice on expansion rate is right on the money in my opinion, based on my also using indy strength of 9. This changes somewhat depending on which nation you are playing (some have better/more affordable early game troops), what settings you have chosen and your starting location, but it is correct. The mercenary advice is also spot on. Bid 5 gold above the mercenary asking price and you will always get them.

My expansion standard is to be ahead of the AI by about turn 10 on the province chart if I don't use mercenaries. If there are good mercenaries available in the first 2 or 3 turns and I'm playing a game where I will buy them, I will be ahead of the AI at the outset of the game. (For my first 6 months of playing, I always bought the good mercenaries. Now it depends upon my mood and the affordable early troops of the nation I am playing.)

This is a great forum and community, as you should be able to discern from the responses. Ask any question and you will get sound advice.