First time MPer looking for game!

[alhorro]

@cleveland
I can't agree that subbing is a best way to learn — you don't have an idea how has your nation been evolving and what were your predecessor's plans (of course sometimes you'd be given some instructions, but it's impossible to describe everything). IMHO the best way to learn is to obtain a turns archive from some finished game and follow turns carefully. Examining several games with skilled players has helped me greatly.

@GrudgeBringer
All the nations are balanced for default magic settings. Of course it's possible to play with hard research and minimum gems, but actually it requires much more skill than using defaults, and it's definitely not for a newbie game.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by alhorro

@GrudgeBringer
All the nations are balanced for default magic settings. Of course it's possible to play with hard research and minimum gems, but actually it requires much more skill than using defaults, and it's definitely not for a newbie game.

I'm not so sure the nations are balanced towards any particular data points like that. some effort is made to give them a semblance of equality, but I think theme is a more important deciding factor in game effecting choices made by the developers than is balance.

consequently, settings are largely arbitrary (and in the case of magic gems, the default is even for thematic reasons!). more money/resources/magic probably lessen the benefit of strong bless nations a bit, while difficult research only improves their benefit. however, in the end, there isn't much of a ratio of benefit on these scales between nations, and their effect from nation to nation ends up being pretty flat. that being said, many players practice on default research, and aren't prepared for the different dynamics that difficult research introduces.

there also seems to be a tendency for games to feature difficult research to delay the onset of game-breaking magic power. players also like to have money and stuff, so beefed up money/resource/magic settings are popular