Why am I so bad with Dom3

[Chacal]

Well,

Few years of Dominions : lot of SP games, very few MP (2!) and with friends only, and I find myself very bad player ! When I play a nation I don't know (I only know Niefelheim and MA and LA R'yleh) I usually do crap ! Even if I play my beloved giants from cold I don't find myself very efficient, even against AI.

I found that my play is just not very good at early stages, but it is just catastrophic in endgames, I'm not very used with magic and finally I end with playing with large armies with well equipped assassins to kill commanders. Even my SC are probably lot of laugh...

And I still love that game, but I now spends more time reading descriptions and summoning funny critters than actually playing...

What is wrong ??

[Wick]

Sounds normal...

[K]

Well, my advice is to shoot for the killer tactics (and I means spells). While people will wax poetic about all the available tactics, there really are a select number of good ones.

Here are a few:

--Bless Rush. Pick a nation with Holy troops that can be recruited in every castle. Then, choose two off this list: Fire/Water/Earth/Nature. Go crazy.

--Flaming Arrows + missile troops(even slingers will do) + Scouts carrying Fever Fetishes with your army. Cast Flaming arrows every turn with gems

--Supercombatants: Get a big monster commander, then kit him out with equipment. Most SCs can take whole provinces alone.

--Falling Foo: If you have a nation that gets mages with Fire 3 or Water 3, get Evocation 5 as soon as possible send 5-6 mages with an army. They'll smash opposing armies pretty well.

--Race for a Global that kills everyone but you. Utterdark works well for undead-heavy nations, Astral Corruption for blood nations, and any number of globals gives massive bonuses to your nation.

[Aezeal]

If I had an alter-ego it could have been me posting (except that I don't know any nation really except midgard a bit now )

[Omnirizon]

you can play all the SP in the world, it doesn't measure up one whit to one MP game. The only way to get better is to play MP games. Two MP games is just a very stark beginning. You still have a lot to learn, and a lot of oppurtunity to learn. The only way to get better is to play more MP. There you get to see how other players play, what strategies they use, and how to deal with another living breathing player controlling your foe rather than the AI.

Try using a different nation each MP game you play, get a wide base of understanding of many nations and many strategies. If you specialize in 'your' nation, it only keeps you from knowing about and being able to anticipate and counter other nations strategies. The AI will basically play all nations the same, in haphazard random fashion, with random armies wandering in random directions. In MP each nation has a specific set of strategies it is likely to use. YOu must play much MP and you must play many nations in order to get better, it is the only way.

[Aezeal]

Well I think I learned a lot in my 2nd midgard game (the worst faults from my first game where out and I survived longer so I could see somewhat of the options for mid and end game play

[Lingchih]

Actually, you can learn quite a lot in SP games. Not how to win in MP, only by playing MP can you learn to do well in MP.

But in SP games, you can learn the spells and what they do. You can learn how the various blesses work, and how to use them most effectively. You can learn how to build a good SC Pretender (if he gets killed or badly wounded by SP indies, he is not good. If he can take any indy province with hardly a scratch, he is good). You can learn how best to use your scales to maximum efficiency. All kinds of things, really.

[Micah]

Duels are a pretty good way of getting some quick MP experience under your belt to get off the ground, since the host schedule is as quick as the two of you can make it.

[Cor2]

Hey. I suck too!

[Ironhawk]

Clearly you have angered the gods of Dominions 3!!!



Heheheh, just joking. You should tell us more about your strategies. Or if you would rather, you could just pull down one of the Nation Guides. Many contain detailed instructions for how to competitively play a nation.