Question: Overcoming the barrier to understand Dom 3?

[Executor]

While I agree SP doesn't give much in terms of improving your skills you should not avoid SP completely. SP can only help you so much but it can help, and it's better to learn basics in SP than MP.

Pick a nations that seems appealing to you and stick with it. Some of the more powerful nations like Sauromatia or Neif might be easier for beginners to play with.
Take a good close look at the nation and get familiar with it, what mages you have, troops, summon. What kind of spells you can cast, should you take a bless for your sacreds, etc. Read a guide or two to see the nations weaknesses and strengths, and possibly a pretender build.

Test your nation out in SP. Try a pretender build that just focuses on the early game first (first 30 or so turns).
There will be time enough to learn mid and late game strategies, and that can only be learned trough MP experience while being trashed, no guide or careful planning will help you there.

If you have a weak nation get a strong awake pretender to expand, etc. Your pretender build should be okay once you manage to get around 12-15 province by the end of year one. If you can't do that I suggest revising your pretender build. Since if you can't get that many when you're alone on a map you won't stand a chance in a MP game, probably even with other newbies.

Once you have your nation and a workable build try a SP game against the AI at impossible difficulty. Try a smaller map and don;t give yourself too much space, around 15 provinces per player. If you can win than you're probably ready to get into a newby MP game, if not, than keep practicing.

MP;
Focus on early game like I said, and try to take someone out, anyone. Fighting wars, any kind of wars is best training in MP, especially being on the offensive. If you think you can't take an enemy alone try to get someone to help you with a joint attack. Once you've survived early game try to improvise. You probably won't do very well with forsaking mid-late game strategies but at least you'll survive to mid game and you'll be able to observe how others perform. Try to mimic some tactics and learn a few tricks along the way. (how to place archer decoys, mage placements, raiding and thug tactics, communions,...)

If you're really having trouble with competitive MP games, than just ask for help or directions. I'm sure there's a lot of people who would be willing to take a look at your turn and give you some advice.

Some more advice from me for MP. Mages and spells are what the game is about. If you don't recruit a mage every turn and invest in research heavily you don't stand a chance. Site searching is very important. Site search as soon as you can everything you can. Recruit spies. For some reason newbs don't really like to make spies but trust me they are a very important part of the game. Build them in every indie province you find them in every turn. Troops and brute force is useful up until turn 30 at most, after than it's all about magic and gems. Get additional forts and start pumping out more mages as soon as you can. Don't spend money on troops when you don't need them, saving for mages and forts is better if you're not in war, and sometimes even than.
Diplomacy can be very helpful to new players. Try to get an ally or at least NAP with everyone except a player you plan to attack.

[ghoul31]

Just take a nation with really nice holy troops.

Then put a giant bless on them so you have super high attack and defense, and 0 fatigue..

You should be able to do very well in the early game doing that.

[Admiral_Aorta]

but don't get stuck into just doing that forever

[Samhain]

I agree with those who said to get the handle of SP before trying MP. Single player games will get you familiar with the elements of the game, though you may experience them differently in an MP game. For instance, as someone else said, MP really emphasizes magic. Researching and site searching are paramount.

Also, keep going back to SP if it can keep your interest. Even veteran players will test a new nation or strategy in SP before trying it in an MP game.

If you want faster feedback on how a strategy or nation will play in MP, you can also try blitz games such as those hosted on dom3minions: http://www.dom3minions.com/HostedGames.htm

In my own limited experience on that server, the game play is a bit different. There is a stronger emphasis on powerful bless strategies for instance. But, it is much more like PBEM MP than SP is.

[shunwick]

Yskonyn,

I am in exactly the same position as you. Personally, I think the posts by Executor and Samhain have it right. I am playing in my 2nd MP game (my first was a disaster) and I feel lost (as in not really having any kind of grip on the game). SP seems the most reasonable way to learn the very basics of the game and I am not going to start another MP game before I get some kind of understanding of how the game works.

Best wishes,
Steve

[Yskonyn]

Thank again for all the feedback, everyone!
I have decided to focus on Caelum, our winged friends, because a) I have tried playing them in 2 PBEM games and b) I am in the air myself most of the time as well.

So first up is creating a pretender; One guide I read (but that was of the original Dominions IIRC) is that Blood magic provides an interesting complimentary twist to the faction.
Would you guys agree this is still the case in Dom 3?
As a general rule of thumb, are guides from Dom 1 and 2 still fairly valid for Dom 3's factions?

[parone]

ysko-

caelum is a bit tricky, i think, but if you figure out a good early game strat(keep those mammoths from routing!) you have a great midgame with all your lightning/shock evos.

which leads me to this point-i would eschew blood early on. keep it simple. have a good solid goal(ie crazy lightenting, with some back up strat in case that isn't working). but to try to throw in blood-a totally different research line, would be pretty complicated. blood is also micro heavy.

so i would say, if you want to go blood, go really blood. but if you want to go air, go air. but to do both would be a steep learning curve-and isn't that what you are trying to avoid?

anyway, im out of dom MP for the moment, as i am working about 90 hours a week. but if you do end up in a game in a few months, i'd be happy to join up with you.

remmember-originally, keep it as simple and goal oriented as you can.

[Executor]

Caelum can be a bit hard to handle, esspecially in MA, but I think they're a good choice. At the very least you will have excellent mobility which is great for raiding.
As for blood magic, I'd advice against it. You'd sacrafice a lot to get a stable or any kind of blood economy going. Your pretender would be tied up from the start, and it would be a very slow and painfull start with no much to gain. You'd forsake design point, pretender hours which could be put to better use, research detour which I advise against with Caelum and you wouldn't have much to compensate for it all.

[Yskonyn]

Again, solid info there, guys. Thank you so much.
You talk about focussing on Air magic. Would you forego all other paths just to be able to max out in Air? Or don't I understand your point(s)?

I was under the impression that it was good practise to get as many magic paths as possible?

Mammoths and wingless (with their high morale) are a good combo, I find.

[Executor]

Originally Posted by Yskonyn

I was under the impression that it was good practise to get as many magic paths as possible?

Yes, this is generally the case, but non blood nation don't normally try to get into blood, unless you find some indie mages but than that's just luck not careful planning.

To goal is to diversify as much as possible without losing or forsaking too much, which might get you killed. The general consensus for non blood nation is not to dabble in the blood arts unless there is a very good reason to. Like massive blood stone forging in vanilla with Agartha for example.
Non blood paths are easier to get going than blood, and rightly so. You don't need to invest mage time to collect gems like when you blood hunt. And the only one who can blood hunt (efficiently) with non blood nations is a pretender. Than you spend that little you hunted on more hunters and so on. So if you want a stable blood economy it's very hard to accomplish, but if you're aiming at a certain aspect, like massing just a single low cost item, than it's doable but it's still a gamble.
The cost in taking blood with a non blood nation far outweigh the gain.

As for Caelum magic, I will work under the assumption you're going EA, meaning you get A/S/W/E I think.
S1 mages can site search remotely, as can any of your A mages. Water is a little harder but once you get a few water bracelets from const 6 you can site search for W. For E you only need earth boots. That's W/S/A magic covered by national mages, E is covered with a E2 pretender so that leaves you with N/D/F to deal with.

Nature is usually one of the easiest paths to come by. Indie nature mages are everywhere. Site searching would be easy once you get a nature booster for those low level indies. You can take N2 on your pretender to forge boosters, trade one with a neighbor, rely on finding higher level N mages like enchantresses or just empower for 30 nature.

That leaves fire and death to go for the rest of gem types. You could get a higher level (3 or 4) pretender to manually site search or just leave it to in game chance. Not every type is a must.
A rainbow mage would work nice in this case. N2/F4/D3/E3 or something. You'd get a jump start on research and access to other gem types.