How difficult is this game?

[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.}
---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------
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.
================================================== =======
================================================== ========
Why we (the community) love this game is that we are challenged at every turn (literally).

Faithfully submitted,
HNC3 = Howard N. Christ III

[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.

[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.

[VedalkenBear]

Well, that said, what kinds of nations/factions/different-strategic-choice-factors do you enjoy? Luckily, Dom3 has something for everyone. Generally, about 3 somethings for each one.

[Fenris99]

VedalkenBear said:
Well, that said, what kinds of nations/factions/different-strategic-choice-factors do you enjoy? Luckily, Dom3 has something for everyone. Generally, about 3 somethings for each one.

Ah, that's a difficult question to answer. When I played the Civ games I usually tried to out-tech everyone. With Paradox games I usually role-played by trying to outdo whatever that nation did historically; overrun Sibera for Russia, colonize for England, etc. When playing wargames I generally prefer to have a smaller army of elite units. I also prefer ranged units that can kill before the enemy closes the distance.

Any advice on starting nations?

[VedalkenBear]

1) Like to out-tech people. This generally means good magic (since it's the 'tech tree')

2) Rather like RPing.

3) Smaller, more Elite armies.

4) Ranged units.

Well, I guess the obvious response is 'MA Caelum'. They have excellent ranged units, but don't really use them. They have very good mages, and good _battlemages_ at that. The only sticking point is that their initial army is generally almost required to be Mammoths intermixed with high-morale troops and just stomping everything flat. Dunno if that appeals to you.

[Fenris99]

I'll give it a try tonight... just reading through the manual right now. There's so much to do here. It's awesome!