How difficult is this game?

[LoloMo]

Dominions 3 is the best turn based strategy game I have ever played. And I don't think we have yet seen all that can be done with the "engine", which the patches are uncovering bit by bit. So Dom3 is the best turn based game I have ever played, and is still improving with every patch.

Oh, and I will also credit the decline of my fencing career to this game. I used to fence 4 hours a day 4 times a week before I met Dom3. Now I'll be lucky to get in a session once every other month. My gf might be next. Wahahaha

[Fenris99]

Hmm I just loaded it up and I don't know how to do anything. Obviously I need to read the manual first.

[Micah]

Check out the tutorial as well, though I would recommend reading the manual at some point as well. One caveat to that though, is that some things in the manual have changed since it was written (that's a nice way of saying that they're buggy). So take everything with a grain of salt and chalk it up to learning when you find something that diverges from the printed material, it'll save you some frustration to keep that in mind (speaking from personal experience here).

Some things off the top of my head:
Your rate of dominion spread does not increase with every 5 temples you build.
The morale system is (I'm pretty sure) much more complex than the rulebook explanation, you don't get random routing of elite units due to a bad morale roll. (Which I'm glad is the case)
Critical hits due to fatigue do not simply halve the protection value of the unit when they occur, the effect is much more severe in practice.

There's other stuff in there I'm sure, but that's a sampling. Don't mean to scare you off, as this is without the doubt the best money I've spent in my life on a game, just wanted to keep you from taking everything in the book as gospel.

[HotNifeThruButr]

The first... maybe five games that you try (yes TRY) to play will make you feel like you're on some kind of crazy pills.

Don't worry, everybody goes through this. The coolest part of this game is discovering what every nation has to offer, what every spell and summon does, and every item you can construct.

I advise just throwing away your manual (seriously. Who can even remember all that junk?) and going headfirst into the game.

[Wokeye]

Ummm is there a list of 'deviations from the manual' somewhere?

[hnchrist3]

If you are a strategist, this game is unequaled.

At first you will be overwhelmed, because you have no ability to find a balance or even useful strategy. There are something like 600 spells in the game alone. Most are garbage, but the trick is in using specific spells against other Nations (even the "crappy" ones). Not only that, you have to choose "paths of magic" to study, so a spell you want or like is only available if you put your researching abilities to it. In the mean time, there may a simple yet unavailable spell that would make your life grand, but you chose something else.

THAT is the nature of this game. Choices.
Every turn you are forced to make choices that can win or lose it for you, right now. And then there are the choices within the choices, such as what to recruit; how to use THOSE choices.

Effectively you are playing in a gaming soup. Not only are you playing against the other players (be they AI or real), but you are playing against yourself.

There's a saying of mine that applies to all games:
"An 'always-losing' strategy, always loses."

I have seen people try-and-try-again the same losing strategies to games and then wonder why they lost.
If it didn't work the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd times, on what planet does it work on the 4th time?

Adaptation.
It is the name of this game.
You either adapt, or you lose.
But here things are not that simple. To start with you have to choose an era (early/middle/late) and a nation. Already you're looking at 150 choices. {Apologies to developers, this is an arbitrary number; I did not work out the possibilities.}
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Personal note.
When I first started playing, I settled on Helmheim as my 'Nation of choice.' But time and time again, I was humbled by (Late-Age) Ermor. So then I started playing LA Ermor, and that became my love. ALL OTHER NATIONS HATE ERMOR. (A bonus to me!)
Huh? Surely. Anyone who challenges me early is doomed to die. I may go with him, but que será, será.
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Why we (the community) love this game is that we are challenged at every turn (literally).

Faithfully submitted,
HNC3 = Howard N. Christ III