Newbie come lately?

[Carny]

Hello All.This is my first post.
I recently purchased Dominions 3 and is so far absolutely blown away. I am however also quite overwhelmed. Eventually I would like to try my hand at MP, but for now SP is still very challenging.I wonder if anyone can recommend good settings/map/age as well as a good nation/good generic pretender advice. I have read several guides and while most are excellent I still feel that few are newbie-geared.

Thank you in advance for any help
Carny

[Carny]

also an additional question. When reading through Guide the strategy index" thread I find guides for several nations that don't seem to be in the game: Hinnom and Lanka. Is there something wrong with my game?

[PriestyMan]

patch it. they are added later. as is TNN/eriu i think

[Carny]

Ah. I assumed the digital download was fully updated. Patch will happen.

Are they any good?

[bbz]

Depends on what you like. For a race to learn the game with.I've heard that Man is quite newb friendly, Lanka and Hinnom are blood races so you need to get yourself started with blood hunting and stuff like that(I myself still don't know how to efficiently do that) They are definitely strong but you might get a bit confused with them. Ma Aghartha is something which you might like you get to summont loads of tough units. Nifelheim will be an easy start for you, you can just buy all the Sc you want.
But yea Giant races will do well against many computer opponents mainly because their PD is really tough A trick you can do (its going to make your life easier untill you learn how to use most of the spells and communions and alike, is to put loads of PD 50-60-70 on chokepoints the computer will try attacking it and fail most of the time)But I only suggest you do that if you are pressed hard from 3-4 sides.Also Helheim is good for a bless strategy.Just buy loads of sacreds and buff them with your amazing dwarf mages: Iron warriors, Strength of Giants and later on Weapons of Sharpness, Army of lead, Army of Gold.


On good map question - random map thats what I always play on
Age - depends on whether you like strong fantastical units more or big and well equipthed armies. For fantastical units go Early age, for mix between the two Mid age, and for Strong armies(durable units and other nice stuff) -late age.
Hmm settings normal I guess, but that is just me I like everything to be even between me and the computer opponents.
On good pretender advise, get bless or SC-pretender it is easier than starting with rainbow pretender.

[Kobal2]

Lanka and Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath are retardedly good. Tir Na Nog and Eriu, not so much

I wouldn't worry about sucking too badly in MP - there are quite a few newb games going on at any given time, and everyone sucks as badly as you probably will at first.
I enjoy the Six Lands map to try out strategies and gauge expansion tactics myself. As for good eras/noob nations, I think the Middle Age is the one with the fewest gimmicky/advanced mechanisms. EA has too much magic going on (not to mention supertough blessed units who might crush you if you don't prepare for them, while the LA often involves a lot of Blood Magic which takes some getting used to.
Try something like MA Arcoscephale with an imprisoned Oracle+good scales, or Man with a rainbow pretender - both are pretty vanilla while being decent enough against the AI.

Also, the wiki is your friend once you've got the manual memorized and realize there's still a ton of stuff you don't know.

[Colonial]

If you like AARs/LPs have a look at this: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/User:..._3_Newbie_Game

I found it was great for learning alot of the tricks when I was new (what magic items to go for, what to do with my mages).

Also, Bogarus and LA Pythium were also patched in later, other people in this thread...

[Soyweiser]

Also, if you have questions that need to be answered NOW. you could always try the IRC channel (IRC is a form of chat).
More info here:
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/IRC

And it would also be wise to register at the other forum.
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods
That has a special topic for announcing to the world that you are a newbie and want to play in the next MP game. (I think Calahan started it, I'll do a frigging search).

Right, there it is:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/...?showtopic=375 (Word of warning most of the games there are played with the CBM mod. Opinions differ if that is a good start for a newbie player or not).

Have fun.

[Gandalf Parker]

One of the great things about this game is that people do not tend to agree on most of it. Everyone has favorite nations. They all play differently so you will want to try them all. The "best" nation will be the one that best matches your playing style. Slow moving heavy armor? fast moving raiders? heavy research? barbarian horde? stealth guerilla warfare? undead armies?

Personally for new players I like to recommend Middle Age Man. Its not the most fun, nor the easiest to win with. But its probably the most "standard" nation. Its bowmen and knights, mage, priests, scouts. Not very hard to figure out what each one basically does so you can concentrate on learning the menus and keypresses.

There is a map on www.Dom3Minions.com called Tower which is good for new players. It allows you to play with many AIs without getting swarmed by them. It also tends to improve the use of some menus (such as F1)

Also a good tip for new players is that the Independents strength in games is the reverse of AI strength. If the game is rough on you, turn the indepts UP. Most people turn them down thinking it makes the game easier but it actually makes the AIs harder.

If you get tired of Solo in vanilla mode then there are maps and mods to boost it.

Oh yeah, and the only almost complete keypress chart is at the player-made wiki.
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Hotkey

[rdonj]

There was another thread about this a while back, and I'm just going to link you so you can get an idea of people's various opinions on the matter. Note that the thread eventually fell to bickering between some of the various parties involved, and it will really not do any good to read past page 2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=46214

Alternatively the short version - It doesn't really matter what nation you play as, as long as you enjoy the theme of the nation you'll probably enjoy playing. But if there was a nation I would describe as the easiest for a new player to play, it'd probably be EA Niefelheim. They are strong or capable in all categories and one of the more forgiving nations. They can be played bless, scales, rainbow, whatever. The only drawback is their best units are all cap only, and the rest are only average at best.