Yet another new person with a question...

[sector24]

You could probably do it that way, but it's certainly not how I approached my first game of Dom3. Here was my first experience:

Day 1: Received game in the mail. Started up a new game with EA Agartha, max opponents, large map. Messed around for a bit, didn't really know what I was doing. Crushed the independents with large armies of trampling troglodytes, but got massacred by EA Helheim.

Day 2: Brought the game manual to work. Read the entire thing on the sly between meetings. Did a little forum searching. Went home, fired up EA Niefelheim. Took a N10 bless. Built 1 Jarl, 5 Niefel Giants. Destroyed all independents, felt like a big man.

Day 3: Continued my EA Niefelheim game, small armies from AI nations moved around my army and stole all my provinces. Eventually caught them, then HULK SMASH! Built ridiculous amounts of Jarl/Niefel Giant armies, basically one group for every province on my border. Slowly crawled across the map until I felt confident enough to start over with another nation.

That was it in a nutshell, the only spell I ever cast was bless, I didn't forge much of any equipment or try the other units. My main battle was with the game mechanics and the interface, not so much the other nations. Niefelheim (and some other nations) let you do that. I don't think you could win as EA T'ien C'hi using military might alone, you would have to figure out enough battle magic to beat the AI once they start using Mass Protection, Shadow Blast, etc. Elephants would crush you, causing you to post about how overpowered they are.

I think TC would be ok in a small game, but it's my experience that players typically put in the max # of opponents and the largest map possible for that "epic" feeling and in those situations TC would crumble when 3+ AIs all attack you at the same time.