Please point me in the right direction, help me get started!

[Tex Pete]

Hello, I've been playing around with this game for a few days now, but I'm having a hard time getting comfortable with the game and feeling that I am in control of what is going on.

Mostly I don't understand the game well enough to come up with a plan that would enable any kind of exponential growth or something like that. If someone could help me with some effective SP/MP strategies, I'd appreciate it.


So far I've tried Tein Chen, Ermor, maybe a few others. I'm not really sure what to do with each one as far as buildings go. Ermor reduces the choices to some extent.

Ok well so I'm basically a total newbie at this game I need some help getting started. I've looked at the available strategy materials on websites linked from here and haven't really found what I need, and I haven't been able to find any threads that are specific enough either.


Tex

[Teleolurian]

Play Ulm, usually recommended for newbies because they epitomize 'big hitty army'. While in MP you'll need to develop magic for them (and explore their weaknesses), you can usually tank the AI just by playing them as a huge army.

PRETENDER DESIGN Don't worry about Bless effects (does normal Ulm even have blessable units?). You can probably do fine with an Earth Mother, surrounded by an army with one or two other commanders, to wipe out independent provinces.

CASTLES High admin is generally important, especially with Ulm. Build your castles one or two provinces away from each other. If you're not sure, go with Alex's advice and build the watchtower - you're not going to need tremendous pretender magic anyways.

MAGIC If you want to forge a wide range of gear, take a mage-type pretender (one with 10-point paths) and spread out a few points, probably 2 in everything but blood and astral. Keep in mind that you won't have gems for most of these magics at the beginning (Ulm produces Earth gems). However, a rainbow mage is an excellent sitesearcher. If you instead want to back up your armies, you should probably go with a high-Earth pretender, like the Earth Mother or Cyclops.

SCALES High Productivity is necessary with Ulm. Order is also useful; you can balance this out with high Drain (important for Ulm, since their Master Smiths ignore this to some extent) and maybe a point or two of unluck. Ulm needs a relatively high Dominion; don't leave it below 5. Many players recommend 7 or higher.

RESEARCH When playing the game, you will probably want to spend most of your research in Construction; however, there's no reason not to look for strong/useful Earth spells in other branches and get to them. Once you've got enough researchers to get to level 2 in one or two turns, you might as well pick up a couple of levels in everything (but Blood, unless you have blood).

TEMPLES AND LABS: Build a temple in every province- every 5 temples will increase your overall Dominion strength. Labs are only necessary where you plan on recruiting magical units.

RECRUITING: Don't go for expensive black plate units at first. Take time to read unit descriptions, or at least mix and match; place flail and hammer infantry on the front line and set them to attack closest; behind them, pikeneers (that's Ulm, right?) on hold and attack; on the flanks, put some of those crushing Ulm knights.

FIRST GAME: Play against Mictlan, because they suck. Make sure to guard your commanders against Eagle Warriors, which fly to the back. Set a group of troops to guard commander.

DEFENSE: Defense is moderately useful; not only are Ulm troops better than most in 1-on-1 combat, but the AI tends not to attack defense-20 provinces unless it has no other choice. Defense militia also don't keep wounds (like other units), and you can always 'move' your defense around by decreasing defense in one province and increasing it elsewhere. Plus, Ulm has tremendous amounts of money in the late game. Heck, even the mid game.

Note that this guide is zero percent opinion; it's basically a mishmash of previous Posts. The always-included disclaimer is that this is only one way to play the game; specifically, if we took all the posters who originally posted Ulm strategies and made some sort of hideous flesh golem out of them that then figured out how to play Dominions, it would probably play Pythium instead, but might write a strategy guide much like this one.

[ywl]

Ermor is not a typical nation, so it's better start with something else. Tien Chi is reasonable for newbie but it has it's funny quirk to use well.

The trick is to keep it simple. Forget about magic for now. You can kill your computer oppenents easily enough with simple troops. Man is quite good for starting player and so is Pythium.

Choose Wyrm as the pretender. It is strong, regenerating and has no magic (to distract you ). Put all the points into scales and a good fortress. With 425 points (500 minus the cost of a Wyrm), you can raise the scales to Order +3, Production +3, Growth +2, Luck 0 and Magic 0. The optimal choice is actually Order +3, Production +3, Growth +3, Luck -2 and Magic +1 but you may or may not want to deal with the complication of a negative scales.

To win the game: as Man, keep building Longbow for the first 6 to 10 turns. Send them out to conquer indies. Take out those with only light infantries, barbarians first. They're no match for your longbows. After a while, start building Wardens and Tower Guards - some people hate the latter but I find them ok. These heavy infantries will be the core of your armies. They're enough of an equal to fight most infantries, while your longbows will stay behind to *slaughter* your enemies. Amass big armies, expand, take the indies and kill any AIs declaring war on you. You should be able to win the game by brute force alone.

For Pythium, the formula is even simpler... You keep building various form of legenaires. Put them near the front. If you don't give them any command, they can efficiently switch between using the javelin and short swords in battle. And again, with your massive legenaire armies, you should be able to win by brute force.

[apoger]

The variety in this game is stunning.
Could you give me a slightly better idea of what kind of plan you'd like? I'll tailor suggestions to what you are looking for.

Heavy military? Mucho magic? Potent pretender? Fun with sacred troops?

And what kind of nation are you looking to play? Take a look at the list and make a choice. Doesn't matter which, they are all good. Choose one that sounds fun to you.


Give me a clue and I'll give you a plan.

[Teleolurian]

Erm, when I said Watchtower, i meant Wizard's Tower.

[aldin]

As you can see Tex Pete, there's as many "good ways to get started" as there are people who play. I'll give a few pieces of advice that helped me get over the hump:

1) Never do a castle assault with your pretender.
2) Bump your pretender's Dominion to at least 5 during creation.
3) Hire mercenaries.

~Aldin