Newbie come lately?

[Soyweiser]

A this is a nice example of opinions differing.

rdonj, you are mad! Niefs best units are the skrattir (well actually they are commanders ). Sure they need some research to give them equipment, but after that they are more versatile than the large giant commanders, or the giant troops. You probably only want a few of the large blue giants (or the werewolf giants troops) to expand.

NA Nief is a odd nation, it mostly has what we in dom3 terms call thugs and SC (supercombatants). Single very strong units that, if properly equipped, can kill a lot of enemies. So with this nation you tend not to use a lot of troops. (Also, most normal giant troops suck, they are huge so get a lot of incoming attacks, and have only few return attacks. They tend to die quicker than they kill enemies). But giant commanders are great. There are some reasonably cheap area of effect weapons that give these commanders a lot of killing power.

Also, if you are a new player you might want to play a few blitzes (short games on small maps, some played in a few hours (a new turn as soon as everybody has submitted theirs), or played over the period of several weeks. Teaches the early game and how to play with other players. Gandalfs server is ideal for that. Perhaps some other newbie wants to play with/against you.

[Gandalf Parker]

Like I said, opinions differ. On everything in this game.

But to me the first recommended nation should be the simplest, not the most complicated. Being able to do all of the different popular strategies seems more confusing, not less.
"For some people, unlimited options is actually no options at all."

But then again, thats one of the great things about the game. Maybe Im being insulting. The asker gets to hear it all and take a shot at a choice.

[Foodstamp]

I still stick with MA Man. Longbows beat all. You could have a militia guy for a pretender and the archers would give you the leeway to play through a game and test out anything you want.

Really though, the nation that you WANT to play because of theme is probably the best choice. Your first few games are probably going to be a good learning experience no matter who you play.

[Warhammer]

One suggestion I will make is when you are ready to really learn the magic system, play EA Tien Chi. They can pursue just about any course of magic outside of blood they want to pursue.

[Carny]

Wow this is truly great. Thanks everybody!
Some reading up do, some games to try on.

One question regarding the AI. Does it "get better" on higher difficulties or does it just cheat?

and again thank you everybody for the welcome. Its really great not to get the neoclassic OMG LOL NOOB - greeting that some game communities reserve for new players. Looking forward to getting (presumably) hurt in MP now.

[BlanketThief]

Just cheats

[LDiCesare]

The ai just gets more points to design its pretender on higher levels, so they end up having more magic and better scales, so more gold. They don't, however, bend the rules after that initial boost.

[bbz]

Oh and one last thing that I found out: I might be wrong, but in most of my AI games I tend to get swarmed (espessially if end up in the middle) with the graphs on, I think that is because the AI tends to focus on the lowes one in the army graphs(And if you pick a bless strategy you will be one of the lowest in tersm of army strength) so that will make the AI attack you. Otherwise If you have graphs off I found that I get attacked by the AI one at a time, so I found that a bit more bearable.(Although this way you wont be able to check where exactly are you in terms of power)

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Carny

Wow this is truly great. Thanks everybody!
Some reading up do, some games to try on.

One question regarding the AI. Does it "get better" on higher difficulties or does it just cheat?

Not like in other games. It does operate pretty much within the same ability to know things that the human players operate in.

What it does get is extra build points. So it is able to use more expensive pretender chassis, and add more magic, and take more extreme scales. But since if does this fairly randomly the results can either be really good or really bad. One of the things commonly used to boost the AI later is the ability to assign it logically created pretenders with settings that match that nation better.

and again thank you everybody for the welcome. Its really great not to get the neoclassic OMG LOL NOOB - greeting that some game communities reserve for new players. Looking forward to getting (presumably) hurt in MP now.

I think for many communities that comes from the idea of newbies being only fresh meat. When all of the expert players know all of the killer strategies so that newbs are not much better than AIs.

Even though Dom3 has been out for years, the closest thing to absolute strategies can only be gotten from defining all of the game parameters (map size, nations in game, turning off many game features with mods). And with so much variety available for those and everything else in the game there will always be room for even a newbie to do something surprising.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by bbz

Oh and one last thing that I found out: I might be wrong, but in most of my AI games I tend to get swarmed (espessially if end up in the middle) with the graphs on, I think that is because the AI tends to focus on the lowes one in the army graphs(And if you pick a bless strategy you will be one of the lowest in tersm of army strength) so that will make the AI attack you. Otherwise If you have graphs off I found that I get attacked by the AI one at a time, so I found that a bit more bearable.(Although this way you wont be able to check where exactly are you in terms of power)

I've noticed gem income affects it as well. If all the sudden you start searching for magic sites and ramp your gem income up in just a couple of turns, the AI will start declaring war on you left and right.