Help! It's not fun!!

[MaxWilson]

It also helps if you have everyone start with 9 provinces. Honestly what we really need for this situation are some more scenarios, but I'm not aware of too many and I haven't gotten around to making any myself. Real Soon Now. After I finish my T'lan Imass mod, and implement a rule-based AI for Ms. Pac-Man.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Hey ummm, for starting nation choice I would really suggest T'ien Chi, either Early or Mid (they lose something in Late ). Both nations get incredible magic diversity in their national mages, and both get excellent national troops with solid PD.

They are not a nation that you can so easily get a real "handle" on, but they have some of the best cheap troops to deal with the AI stepping up the fight, as well as huge magical diversity so that you can really explore different spells and different tactics within one game.

Using Fast research is one way to get into the more "exciting" parts of the game, I would also suggest boosting Magic Sites to at least 70. A large gem income will give you the chance to empower your pretender in all paths, and try out all of the summons and global spells that you are curious about.

Also bear in mind, the interactions of the stats are far less "spreadsheet-like" than you might imagine. First, paying close attention to the combat mechanics in the manual will show you how things like Shield Parry, Repel, multiple attack Defense reduction, encumbrance, and so many other factors start to open up so many potential interactions even just with the basic troops. But it's when magic becomes more prevalent, and you start adding in interesting buffs and summons (and a little fire and brimstone, too) that the battles really start to come alive.

Ultimately, what makes Dom3 sparkle is not so much the gameplay itself, as it is the content. And there is so much cool and interesting content, it's nearly impossible to become deeply familiar with all of it (very few succeed in that quest, most dehydrate first).

Also if you think the action is just a tad too slow - try a game where you take a pretender who has Fear +? and give a starting Dominion of 10. Don't bother boosting his magic, and keep him awake. On the first turn, attack blindly, and laugh as he massacres the independents. Continue fiddling with that game until he dies or gets a horrible affliction. Now go back, do it again but pay attention to the magic, make sure he has 1 Astral (Ethereal and Luck), or 2 Nature (Regen), or 2 Water (Quickness) or something that gives some solid buffing that doesn't take forever to research (like Soul Vortex is neat, but you won't get it in the first year), and then go straight for those buffs, and see how long he lasts. Almost everyone has immense fun with supremely powerful critters, it's just too hilarious to watch them eat things. It's by no means the only path to victory, but it's a fun way to open up your eyes to the vast potential that the game has to offer.

[Tifone]

JimMorrison said:

[...]And there is so much cool and interesting content, it's nearly impossible to become deeply familiar with all of it (very few succeed in that quest, most dehydrate first).

Not with a good Water bless

Hey Clownhammer, welcome here.
I'm a quite new player just like you, so I can't be of much help. I am like you, I love to play SP in large maps, I have yet to try a MP game 4 newbs but soon I'll try.
The more expert guys here gave you excellent advices IMHO.

If I can bring my experience, as you asked nations-pretenders combos, the first game being very funny to me was:

Large Random Map, 3 Human Player, 3 Normal AIs, Early Age
Very Fast Research, Indies at 6, 2 initial provinces, Sites at 55

My 3 nations were

- Abysia with an Asleep Moloch: The expert ones are right, Abysia is funny, the national troops are quite good at the beginning for their good armors and heat auras and not many indies are a problem for them. For the time the Moloch awakened, I had forged some items for him and sent him fighting with my main army, while the powerful fire mages were wreaking havoc on my enemies and my (immune ) armies in form of falling fires, fire pillars, firebolts, fireclouds, fire-everything.

-A Marverni with an Awaken Wyrm with no magic, Dominion 10 and decent scales. A strange choice probably, but it was funny to have a good awaken SC helping my early expansion and I didn't have to worry a lot about (regen, no magic points to lose if it died). Not having blesses, I didn't have to focus too much on sacred units and made huge armies with a mix of every unit avaible. It was funny, yet not terribly effective on the long game

-Agartha with an Imprisoned rainbow Master Lich. The blesses helped the not terrible sacreds of Agartha while hordes of troglodytes and the nice national summons were flanking and squishing the enemies, with mages casting one of the most exciting spells of the game: Blade Wind. Let me say - plain fun

The enemy AIs were IIRC Ermor Arcoscephale and Tien Chi (I avoided water nations as I suspected it would have been difficult for a beginner getting to attack them).

Ok, now prolly the gurus will skin me alive as surely those weren't perfect, minmaxed, totally effective builds - but I had a lot of fun with them, they were fine to play with and gave me a nice idea of how the things work in Dominions 3; playing 3 nations at a time allowed me to gang against the AI if I was in trouble, then to backstab myself and see how my favourite armies worked one against another.

Surely every experience in game as in life are different for different people, but I hope I gave you at least some ideas on how you can have fun with this huge game


P.S. If someone is asking, Agartha won as soon as I put my hand on Tartarians [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif[/img] - even if I didn't know yet that with Gift of Health or The Chalice they would have been far better [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Dagger.gif[/img]