good races for/against newbies.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hey there. I'm going to be playing in a highly competitive, yet low-skill dom2 game soon. I really, really want to win. =)

I think I've got a good shot, but I'm working hard to study up, and find the right race.

The race I enjoy playing most is Jotunheim with the Neifelheim option.

But then again, I also liked Ulm -- and a search of the forums showed me that they're generally not well-regarded for advanced play.

So my questions are:
1) Are there any races and/or playing styles that will tend to beat down novice-to-intermediate players? I feel like solid military/brute-force strategies would work well, and this is where my strengths lie, but I'm open to adapting.

2) I'm really familiar with Jotunheim, and tend to use a heavily expansionistic, pure military, castle-building strategy, mostly forgoing magic (other than some construction.) My biggest enemy in the upcoming game is savvy enough to counter illwinter, so I no longer want to invest the resources in it... Is this a decent approach, or is the race or strategy a bad idea for some reason?

And for what it's worth, I expect my toughest enemy to be using some sort of witty magic-based approach. In our last two games, that's been his general approach, and I wouldn't mind having a strategy/setup that could deal w/ that kind of thing easily.

Any help would be appreciated.

-Hiro_Antagonoist

[Turin]

If you are happy with that Jotunheim style, I´d use a e9n9 earth mother. Niefel giants with that bless are hard to counter if you aren´t familiar with the magic system.

But unmodded dominions is really all about magic, so the best counter would be a witty magic approach yourself.

Play Caelum if you want a really powerful race.

[Edi]

Your strategy also has to take into account how large the map is. Pure armies will work well on a small map, especially if research is set to hard or very hard.

I've so far taken part in two multislayer games, and my experiences varied quite a bit.

One of them was a Faerun game where I picked Vanheim, and due to the mistakes and crappy design decisions on the early versions of that map which really screwed Vanheim over, I got curbstomped.

The other one was a Cradle game with Zen's version of that map where I played Abysia, and I got pretty far with that, into the final three. Atlantis finally stomped that game, largely uncontested becase the Man player who was the other claimant to the throne just abandoned it.

Abysia and Man are both solid options, depending on what kind of play style you use. Abysia and Ulm both suit me well, as does Vanheim. I'd stay away from some of the trickier ones like Pangaea and T'ien Chi until you get more familiar with the game.

I don't like the unmodded game much anymore, because magic plays such a completely dominant part in it, and certain spell combos are basically the only game in town. I much prefer the CB series of mods in its present incarnation.

Edi

[Huzurdaddi]

Edi,

WRT Faerun what do you think would be the best solution to the problem of not being able to get your dwarves off of the island:

1) put the capital on the mainland
2) give the dwarves sailing
3) make a connection between the islands and the land ( even if it is not super logical )

[Nerfix]

I don't know if there are any nations that are particulary deadly against beginners in the hands of the computers.

I think that Abysia, Ulm and Jotenheim are good beginer nations. Sure "waah Ulm is teh sux" but that only aplies when fighting against humans.

[Edi]

Huzurdaddi said:
Edi,

WRT Faerun what do you think would be the best solution to the problem of not being able to get your dwarves off of the island:

1) put the capital on the mainland
2) give the dwarves sailing
3) make a connection between the islands and the land ( even if it is not super logical )

Umm, you obviously have not gone and donwloaded the updated map files from Arryn's site, have you? I fixed that problem months ago by adding land bridges through Snowdon to the Nelanther Isles to Tethry Peninsula, and an Alaron-Mintarn-Waterdeep and Alaron-Mintarn-Baldur's Gate (or was it Orlumbor?) connection. These would represent major ports of call and a smuggling route, and neatly solves the problem.

So off you go and download them and you'll be all set. I also hardcoded the populations for Alaron, Gwynneth and Norland so that there are a few large provinces so lack of income won't strangle Vanheim right at the start.

Edi

[Cainehill]

Edi said:
Abysia and Man are both solid options, depending on what kind of play style you use. Abysia and Ulm both suit me well, as does Vanheim. I'd stay away from some of the trickier ones like Pangaea and T'ien Chi until you get more familiar with the game.

Yeah, Abysia is easy and simple for a non-expert player to roll along with. The troops are solid, and simply by researching conjuration 3 (phoenix power) followed by evocation to 5 (falling fires), the mages & troops have incredible synergism : the troops are immune to fire, while the mages can pretty much all act as fire-based artillery without harming the troops at all.

[magnate]

Turin said:
If you are happy with that Jotunheim style, I´d use a e9n9 earth mother. Niefel giants with that bless are hard to counter if you aren´t familiar with the magic system.

Hmmm. I'd go with a W9N9 Son of Niefel, since most battles do not last long enough for the reinvigoration of the earth blessing to matter to troops (and Jotunheim has no sacred mages except the Neifel Jarl who's really a combat dude and is super expensive), and I'd take +4 def and double attacks over +4 prot any day.

I think this would be quite good if you're not bothered too much about magic, since the Son is a pretty decent fighter himself (and teamed with a Neifel Jarl prophet you have a pair of good army leaders). In fact, one of my opponents is playing exactly this setup in our current game.

It all depends *which* sneaky magic strategy your toughest opponent has gone for. I guess you'll find out ....

CC

[Turin]

magnate said:

Hmmm. I'd go with a W9N9 Son of Niefel, since most battles do not last long enough for the reinvigoration of the earth blessing to matter to troops (and Jotunheim has no sacred mages except the Neifel Jarl who's really a combat dude and is super expensive), and I'd take +4 def and double attacks over +4 prot any day.

You don´t get double attacks with the quickness blessing, it´s only 1,5 attacks. A dual9 son of niefel is 50 points more expensive.
Fatigue matters greatly for troops. If the battle lasts only 5 rounds, those niefels will have accumulated 20 fatigue, which means they get -2 to attack/defense and opponents have a chance to deal armorpiercing attacks.
And protection is far more important for niefels than defense. the ~ 20 protection/no fatigue they get with e9 means that they are practically immune to normal troops.

Just try both blessings and see which fares better vs lvl 7 indies.

[magnate]

Wow - I didn't know that fatigue lowered defence! I mean I did, but I thought it had to be over 50 or something. That makes earth blessing *much* better than I thought (oddly leaving air blessing as the only really crappy one).

I've seen posted elsewhere on this board that W9 blessing gets you only 50% extra tactical move but does in fact get you double attacks, not 3/2. I don't know how to test that though.

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up about fatigue. Blimey ...

CC