What is the easiest nation to play?

[Wrana]

Yes, of course. But unless you have decent national mages you would be stuck at the beginning not knowing where and how to get more power for them. And you have to have a decent military, too. So it just seems that MA Ulm wasn't the best nation to start with in any case - you have to know how to utilize their forging abilities...
My own first Dominion death, by the way, had been when I tried to look up two nations simultaneously, had them started as neighbors by random placement and then got one accidentally Dom-killing the other (Titan vs Rainbow)...
Another nation that is good for beginners seems to be MA R'lyeh - at least that is what I've started in Dom2 with and it has good enough troops, is somewhat protected by being underwater and already has solid Astral and Water mages with smattering of other paths for future experimentation...

[Akela]

Well thanks to all the good advice here I now have two brothers hooked! One to go.

I can tell you from my own experience (1 month now, about 10 games) and the questions I fielded from my brothers that magic is a complete mystery to the brand new player. Like one poster said, we would build mages and put them on research (because that's what Bruce did in the tutuorial) but that's all they would ever do.

You could probably divide magic by effect into 4 main categories. Stuff that modifies combat (buffs/debuffs), direct damage spells, summons and miscellaneous stuff like teleport. All of which are pretty hard for a brand new player to construct a strategy around. The first game seems to be, at least in my limited experience, a matter of moving large masses of troops around the map, watching them fight, and building more of the same.

[Ironhawk]

Originally Posted by Akela

Well thanks to all the good advice here I now have two brothers hooked! One to go.

The first game seems to be, at least in my limited experience, a matter of moving large masses of troops around the map, watching them fight, and building more of the same.

No problem, Akela. Glad you are enjoying the game!

Yep, that confirms what I've been saying. New players have enough trouble getting thier heads wrapped around regular military and production. Dom3 ultra basics. They dont need path diversity or anything like that - those come in later games once the basics are learned.