Noob, needs advice please

[Edratman]

llamabeast said:
Hmm, these things are obviously very much a matter of opinion.

Personally I would always play on default settings for gold, resources and supplies, otherwise you are not really getting the normal Dominions experience. Also I get worn out on larger maps, so would probably play one with 100-odd provinces, e.g. Parganos. But everyone plays the game differently.

I suggested the high settings because it makes playing the Heims fairly easy against normal AI. This would help him learn many facets of the game while starting out. Moving to normal settings should come with time as he learns and experiments.

I suggested the large map next because I anticipate the AI starting to attack on many fronts when he expands to around 20 provinces. That should not be excessively time consuming to do his turns.

The sequence I suggest gives some experience with the game, some forging, minor magic and some easy victories to start. Then he should start out well with easy early expansion on the large map, similar to the easy victories on the smaller maps, and subsequently get thumped when the AI attacks from all over the place. After a couple of these he will realize that there is a lot to learn about the game and start to try other things.

There are about a skillion different ways to learn how to play this game. This is just my suggestion.

[Ironhawk]

DanielDrache said:
I brought Dom3 through eBay (no manual, sending a 300page book to New Zealand would of been way to expensive)

Daniel, purchasing dom3 off of ebay is a risky proposition. The game manual is what contains your unique CD-key. If the CD-key of whoever sold you the game is detected by Illwinter as being flagged as a pirated key, your game could suddenly stop working.

[Jourdelune]

In my SP experiences, Setup against AI to start learning:

Gold 200
ressource 125
supplies 100

The supplies setup is really important against AI to have it low. It will stop them to swarm you with 600 and more troops.

Always put your opponent in human setup. Choose the nation, don't take water nations, don't take Pangaea or Ermor (they swarm like any other AI).

You will see their starting position (cheating :S), you will choose their pretender (you are learning, don't give them the best... I usually find immobile pretender for them help you). Don't give them high bless. Don't spend all their god points.

Then after first turn, turn them to AI. They will be put in Normal mode (suck if you want more challenge later on) but give you the best control on those learning game.

I always generated my own map. Trying to put 1 on province nations setup because the 0 seems to give 15% of water provinces (damn).

Giving a high rugdeness (sp...) give more choke point. Mountain -> impassable.

Then, try to make virtual defense line at first turn. Identifies where you could have the minimum province to defend your country with a minimal provinces walls. Then rush to them and construct fort and PD at choke point.

Hope it helps,
Jourdelune

p.s. people are free to buy what they want, where they want. Only fascist culture tend to think the other way.

[sum1lost]

Jourdelune said:

p.s. people are free to buy what they want, where they want. Only fascist culture tend to think the other way.

I'm not sure why you said this, but it isn't fascist to think that a company should be allowed to code against pirating, and it is hardly fascist to advise you against Ebay, where pirated copies of games abound...

[Ironhawk]

Well said, sum1. Jourdelune clearly doesnt have all the facts and just likes the word "facist"

[Edi]

Jourdelune said:
p.s. people are free to buy what they want, where they want. Only fascist culture tend to think the other way.

Yes, people are completely free to buy the game from wherever they want. They are also quite free to suffer the consequences of their actions if they happen to purchase a pirated copy. Lack of manual means a pirated copy. If the eBay purchase was actually an instance where the seller had purchased a legal copy and was selling it onwards, then verification details for the original purchase should be available. If not, too bad, so sad, bad decision and the consequences follow from that.

Understand that there is absolutely ZERO obligation on Shrapnel's part to allow people access to the resources on these forums unless they can verify that their copy of a Shrapnel title is legal. Normally, it is assumed that people who do register here to use the forums have legal copies (i.e. presumption of innocence), but if there is cause for suspicion, it will be investigated. If things progress that far, failure to verify original purchase will result in swift, decisive application of the Ban Hammer to the problem. There is nothing fascist about that and if you think there is, you should educate yourself about the meaning of the words you are using, because you're so far off the mark it's not even funny.

Also, I have the following opinion to express and note that this particular opinion is my personal one and should not be interpreted to reflect the opinion of Shrapnel Games. I actually don't know their stance on this:

Too many people are too concerned with how they have a right to this and a right to that and behave as if they have no obligations whatsoever toward anyone or anything and how they should always be let off the hook instead of suffering the consequences of their own actions. Usually it is also a case of those whining loudest being the ones who least deserve to be given any slack. In my opinion, that sort of behavior indicates only self-centered, whiny spinelessness and immaturity and my estimation of the person's worth will be along similar lines. The concept of personal responsibility for their own decisions seems to be completely foreign to these people.

Note that since this forum is a community forum for Dominions 3 and I am a moderator of the forum, so my duties are to serve the community in the capacity assigned to me. So I am likely to keep many of my opinions to myself and I will help users with advice and other resources without letting personal feelings influence things. But that consideration does not extend into excusing their bad decisions if and when things come to a pass where investigation of irregularities is called for.

[MeisterSin]

I'm new so I'm staying far far away from this particular discussion
(Though game company shouldn't have to provide support etc for pirated games)



Jourdelune Suggested no water nations or ermor as enemies,

Can anyone suggest a weak enemy/s? (When play as Niefeheim)

[Edi]

Stay away from the glamour nations (Vanheim, Helheim, Tir na n'Og), they tend to be really successful for the AI, since they have better than average troops. Niefel has the problem of getting its troops swarmed against the AI, but if you take a Nature bless (e.g. N9E4 or N9E6), you should be able to reach a critical mass of Niefel Giants and after that it doesn't really matter much who you face, the cold aura does them in.

Middle Era would perhaps be better to start out with, since you have a greater variety of better baseline troops with many nations. Using the Better Independents mod (see sig) could also help you some.

[Taqwus]

MeisterSin said:
Can anyone suggest a weak enemy/s? (When play as Niefeheim)

The AI tends to implode badly with Mictlan (EA, LA) because of the dominion dynamics, but this does not necessarily make for an interesting game.

If you play on Normal, with independents on 9, and a luxuriously spacious map (ex. 20 provinces per player!), it will likely be far easier to get away with a 'conventional' army-heavy non-bless strategy. You don't have to rabidly expand against normal AIs (it's even OK to be out-expanded by them, if you're research-heavy -- crushing them late-game with magic and strategy), and if you keep the peace with them, they tend to reciprocate unless you bare your throat. If you find one early that's weak, kill him, of course.

Small crowded maps with weaker independents tend to reward aggressive high-bless strategies with really bad scales and recruitable high-quality sacreds, paired with some early boosting magic.

In general, you should probably avoid the water nations at first, and Ermor (LA -- undead hordes require some specialized counters), R'lyeh (LA -- nasty insanity dominion), C'tis (MA -- nasty disease dominion, and loads of poison). Flier-heavy (Caelum) and stealth (Pangaea, say) nations are considerably less nasty in the hands of an AI than they would be led by a human player, as it's not that good at making use of the mobility and/or stealth. The same goes for the magically powerful nations; the AI is better at making use of conventional armies than it is with optimizing research to make use of those nations.

You'll also notice AI weaknesses regarding the maintenance of supply lines and its stubbornness with respect to sieges -- it sets itself up for starvation, sometimes. Other times, you may be able to anticipate where it'll attack and take advantage of the turn order (moves in friendly territory go before mundane attacks) to sandbag it. Spies can be used to -really- ruin its tax base (ex. TC (MA) spamming Imperial Consorts).