General Help for a not quite Beginner

[ano]

Try a race that doesn't need a bless and has access to earth or astral magic (bakemono, for instance). Take prince of death with dom9 (to get awe) and d3 (you may take more if you like, but that's not necessary). Forge him an earth shield from the trinkets (one for 5 gems with bigger parry - I don't remember exactly) and later some armor and weapon (his Rod of death is AN, but doesn't use strength of wielder), but that's not necessary for expansion too - only shield is needed.
And enjoy... He will easily take out even rather big armies of indies with the orders "hold, hold, attack archers".
Or try S3 or E3 wyrm. This guy is amphibious, can attack on turn 2 and doesn't need early forge, but definitely needs research in alteration (ironskin, body ethereal, personal luck) and conjuration (if you took E3 then you definitely need earthpower). However, he is weaker later on.
Or take a dormant titan sized god with good magics that can be used for self buffing and good items. He won't help with expansion much, but will be a powerful sc later.

[Horst F. JENS]

Nothing speaks against starting with a late age game. Choose a nation for yourself, choose some enemy nations that you feel you can handle and start playing.

Late age in general focus more on troops and less on magic, so it is a good way to learn basic troop tactics and don't worry too much about magic.
The default magic site frequency setting for late age is lower than in the other ages, but you can change that before the game start.
Because of the fewer magic sites all players tend to have fewer magic gems.

Early age is the inverse of late age, with relative weak troops but strong mages, and the default magic site frequency setting is high.

Middle age lays in between.

If you have no idea about how to design your god, take a no-magic combat god (Wyrm, Manticore), very good scales and dominion9 to get the Awe effect.
After playing some games with a nation you will get a feeling for what your national mages can do and can't do so you can plan your god with that wisdom in mind.

[llamabeast]

If you do play Late Age though, I recommend avoiding including Ermor or R'lyeh, since they are Weird. Apart from that, yep Late Age is just generally like Middle Age with more armour and less magic.

[jscott]

Thanks for all the tips. I'll try starting a game I intend to play through tonight.

[Cor2]

Here is something I struggled with as a Newb: You have to take into account Starting paths, cost for new paths and starting dominion when looking at the price of a pretender.

IF you want an earth 9 bless It may seem like a good idea to get a crone and buy earth 9, cuz she costs 10 points. In reality its cheaper to buy a cyclops even though it costs more at the base. (as sector24 pointeed out)

Some rules of thumb/ tips:

never go with dominion under a 4. 6 or higher is reasonable.

As far as blesses go, choose what complements your national holy troops. Mages like earth, fire is good for argatha b/c of their crap attack.


Blood 9 bless is considered by many to be the worst bless and a waste of points.

Remember that certain immobile pretenders can teleport (not the sphinx). Meaning that they can open a can o' woop *** late game, especially if high in astral. This is often very suprising the first time its used.

A pretender with no magic paths has little risk associated with dying, besides preist time spent calling god or possible afflictions. Conversely Rainbow pretenders suffer the worst from death.

Its usually good to make sure you have astral, so if your nation does not have it your pretender should.