How difficult is this game?

[Loren]

Fenris99 said:
Does it have different difficulty levels?
How does it compare to other turn-based strategy games?

In SP vs the easy AI you'll probably win as soon as you understand how the game works. You'll find it much harder against a bunch of Impossible AI's and MP is a whole different issue.

[Ironhawk]

Fenris99 said:
I've seen it being sold at a local game store.

Dom3 is sold in stores? I thought it was only available to order online?

[SlipperyJim]

Yeah, just play through the tutorial. Then stick to Early Age for your first few games. Middle Age and Late Age games are slightly more complicated due to some ... unique ... nations with hostile dominion effects.

I have to agree with HotNife: Your first few games will probably be overwhelmingly complicated. Don't worry about it. Dom3 has a steep learning curve, but that learning curve is a direct result of the unbelievable amount of STUFF in the game. Once you start to get the hang of it, everything will start to make sense.

As soon as you've exhausted the "vanilla" races and gameplay (which will be a few years from now), then hop over to the "Scenarios, Maps and Mods" subforum to download some user-created content.

[Edi]

Ironhawk said:

Dom3 is sold in stores? I thought it was only available to order online?

Some small retailers have bought a numberof copies from Shrapnel to sell the conventional way, so that's probably one of those.

[Fenris99]

Well, I played last night without reading the manual and got my Wyrm-god killed on turn three. You mean he can't take on large armies by himself?! SO anyway I brought the manual to work today so I can at least know how to do things like move my armies around.

I found the game at J and R, a small retailer in downtown NYC. I wandered in looking to see if they had any new games and it caught my eye.

[VedalkenBear]

I'd like to second the point regarding the mods. That's a huge part of extending the life of SP. The quality does vary, but that's normal in any human enterprise.

If you play quite a bit of SP, especially on large maps, one incalculably important ability to learn is how to handle large groups of troops. The computer AI generally likes to hire them.

I must disagree with the point about the usefulness of the rulebook. RTFM23 comes to mind regarding it. The most important parts to know early are, IMO, the parts that apply to any nation. They are, in no particular order:

1) Learn the rules of morale. Certain nations have no problem with morale; others have crippling problems with morale.

2) Learn how dominion spreads. This almost follows from 1), since from a morale standpoint, you always want to fight in your own dominion for the morale boost it gives.

3) Learn the scales. Learn them well. Don't concentrate on the actual pretender chassis you take so much as what those scales do, and what they mean. As an example, start a game with any nation and take Turmoil-3. Don't even play a turn. Look at how much money you make (which will be from your capital province of ~30k people). Then exit the game, and take Turmoil-2. Etc. etc., all the way up to Order-3. That gives a much more concrete 'feel' as to what happens with that scale, at least. You can do the same with Sloth vs. Productivity, but for Growth/Death and Luck/Misfortune, there's no 'concrete' way of figuring those out.

4) Learn how to position troops. Experiment. Some are pretty obvious (shield archers with other troops... generally), but there are other issues as well.

A frequent discussion on these forums is what nation to suggest to a beginning player. I prefer to ask the player what kind of nation they want to play, and then suggest from a shorter list. Most people who pick up this game will know enough about the genre (4x TBS) that they'll be able to answer this question.

Anyway, sorry for the longwindedness.

[Fenris99]

Don't apologize, it's all good advice. I'm trying to figure out how to play so more advice is better.