What's a good starting nation for newbies?

[PhilD]

I'm currently in my first full version game, and having had so many problems with Vanheim and Helheim, I picked Helheim (which is EA only).

You don't have any real cheap units, but they also never cost too much Resources (which means Sloth works pretty well) and their Glamour makes up for the low Protection of EA. With the points I saved from Sloth, I bought a nice Bless effect (Water and Nature - I like Imprisoned pretenders), and now I have a nice array of super-fast, tough-to-hit Sacred Cavalry; cost is easily made up for by durability.

The only trick is to not forget to use CTRL-click when moving, as almost your full national army is stealthy; sometimes when coordinating attack, you have only half of the army actually doing the fighting while the other half watches from the shadow

OK, Magic-wise, Helheim isn't too varied; some Air, some Death, and a little Blood. I'm not too sure how that would work vs real, human opponents, but vs the AI it seems to work fine.

[Endoperez]

PhilD said:OK, Magic-wise, Helheim isn't too varied; some Air, some Death, and a little Blood. I'm not too sure how that would work vs real, human opponents, but vs the AI it seems to work fine.

You forgot about the Svartalves. They open up Earth.

[Shovah32]

Try early or middle era abysia. Decent magic ability, fairly heavy troops, good priests, access to but not reliance upon blood and assasins. They can be quite forgiving and fun to play (try e9-10 and some blood on a pretender, keeps your fire mages blasting, makes your burning ones tougher and longer lasting and gives you access to demon knights and father illearth)

[PhilD]

Endoperez said:

You forgot about the Svartalves. They open up Earth.

Yeah, for some reason I did. Too short, I guess

(They're expensive, and not being Sacred, they cost more in upkeep, that's probably why I forgot about them. But I guess I'll think about them again when I start meeting real armies)

[KissBlade]

Try Sauromatia, all their troops and mages are good. You can even do a bless. Not to mention the hydras can teach you a mean lesson about troop placement.