Yet another new person with a question...

[fantasma]

Oh, sorry if it came like that, my point to make was that there are many different approaches and views what is intuitive and what is obvious and how to learn. I took Squirrels statement as an example of IMO invalid generalization, nothing personal intended at all.

[Daynarr]

Time for you guys to calm down. This is spinning out of control and I'm going to start giving infractions pretty soon if this keeps up. The OP asked two simple questions being new to the game, and you made a 7 pages of arguing about that simple question. You really are NOT helping him this way.

[Edi]

I'm going to second Daynarr. Tone it down and keep it civil.

If you want to cover all approaches, give some basic advice and point to resources where the new people can find out more (FAQ, strategy index etc etc).

Some new people will know more than others, but you're better off not making any kind of assumptions until you get to actually gauge the newbie's level of knowledge. If it's unclear, a simple "Can you please elaborate on how much you already know?" can work wonders.

[Cosian]

Munkie and I apparently stumbled on the same Elemental Post referencing DOM3. I ended up picking it up as well and am really enjoying the layer upon layer of strategy and things to do.

Prior to reading this post I had selected Niefelheim after reading a strategy guide somewhere on them. It seemed like a race that would move forward into understanding some key game concepts...

Bless and Sacred Units - Since the Frost Giants have a good Sacred Units and a Multi Bless strategy seemed to have quite a bit of support I dug into it and ended up creating an Imprisoned Cyclops E9N9W4. This coupled with Companies of 5 Niefel Giants and 1 Niefel Jarl seems to work pretty good.

Magic Item Creation and Spell Use- Buffing up with some good magic items or spells seems to be applicable to these units to augment some of thier weaknesses like suceptabilty to fire. So I explored that.

The Scales - Since the Niefel and Jotuns like cold, playing with the race got me into understanding the scales.

Anyway I like playing them and they got me into a few key game concepts in what seemed a logical manner. They seemed to be a decent choice for my first game.

[HoneyBadger]

I kind of throw my hands up at trying to help anyone with this thread, any longer.

I'll just point out that I never suggested that someone from China wouldn't understand English, so there's no misunderstanding. I only meant that they might be more interested in China's representation in the game.

The part where it was suggested (not by me!) that "Chinese people don't know how to speak English" was several steps beyond any place I ever took the argument, or intended it to go.

The thread has clearly gone beyond ridiculousness, or any desire for mutual understanding, or cooperative effort, which is pretty sad, since I initially felt it could have been quite useful.

[Knai]

I wouldn't say that, its still useful enough, there just aren't enough people posting. To rectify that.

I would consider early age Arcocephale a good way to learn. They have some magic variety, but more importantly high troop variety. Even things like Wind Riders, which are horribly overpriced, work wonders against the AI, and one can play around with infantry, massed slingers (sure, archers are better, but massing slingers on turn 1 can make an army nasty), chariots, and the aforementioned Wind Rider without even getting into the magic system. Once they do get into the magic system, they get a smattering of everything but death and blood, with very nice air and nature, both of which are easy paths to understand.

[Gandalf Parker]

The thing I was going with is that the OP (original poster) said he was looking for "something to ease a new player in to the game" and "looking for a faction that might be a bit easier to wrap my mind around" after "my post-tutorial experience".

Since the tutorial is Marverni and was chosen to give abit of everything, I was shooting for something simpler. Less "learn the nation" just to get used to the buttons. Niefelheim does seem like it might be a good choice but Im probably biased in that I thought some sort of human nation would be the least specialized.

[Kadelake]

Originally Posted by Cosian

Munkie and I apparently stumbled on the same Elemental Post referencing DOM3. I ended up picking it up as well and am really enjoying the layer upon layer of strategy and things to do.

Prior to reading this post I had selected Niefelheim after reading a strategy guide somewhere on them. It seemed like a race that would move forward into understanding some key game concepts...

Bless and Sacred Units - Since the Frost Giants have a good Sacred Units and a Multi Bless strategy seemed to have quite a bit of support I dug into it and ended up creating an Imprisoned Cyclops E9N9W4. This coupled with Companies of 5 Niefel Giants and 1 Niefel Jarl seems to work pretty good.

Magic Item Creation and Spell Use- Buffing up with some good magic items or spells seems to be applicable to these units to augment some of thier weaknesses like suceptabilty to fire. So I explored that.

The Scales - Since the Niefel and Jotuns like cold, playing with the race got me into understanding the scales.

Anyway I like playing them and they got me into a few key game concepts in what seemed a logical manner. They seemed to be a decent choice for my first game.

It looks like you made some very good choices for a first game and learned a lot. I think you might have proven that Niefelheim is a good nation for new players (One of the good nations, I'm sure there are others too...)

Regarding units: Niefel giants are great but don't forget the skinshifters. They are really powerful even though they are not sacred and their low resource cost means you can recruit a lot of them when you need them.

Regarding magic: I think you've got the right idea about using buffs and magic items. Niefelheim is great for that kind of stuff. The next step might be to learn damage spells and other battle magic. That's the order I learned things at least

[Cosian]

Originally Posted by Kadelake

It looks like you made some very good choices for a first game and learned a lot. I think you might have proven that Niefelheim is a good nation for new players (One of the good nations, I'm sure there are others too...)
......

Regarding magic: I think you've got the right idea about using buffs and magic items. Niefelheim is great for that kind of stuff. The next step might be to learn damage spells and other battle magic. That's the order I learned things at least

Right you are and thats exactly what came next ..... I was on my second game and I had kind of fell into a groove using combat teams of 1 Nifel Jarl and 5 Nifel Giants. That combo, coupled with having a pretender with strong bless bonuses seemed pretty unstoppable.

Lulled into a false sense of security, I had gained pretty good control of the map and was just starting to consolidate and do some mopping up. I sent 2 such groups into a couple provinces. I wasn't really paying too much attention. Each province had 50-80 of errr...something .....a veritable cakewake for my giants...

Next thing I knew I am trying to figure out where my giants went. Note I had long since stopped watching all my indy battles since the giants just dominated. Hmmm? They must have all died. I found 1 Nifel Jarl cowering in a province he must have retreated to. So I started looking at those indy provinces more carefully. They were predominately made of up of devils with some supporting troop. Well apparently those devils are pretty tough...at least against Frost Giants.

My second attempt I tossed in a few priests set for Banishment x5. That should do the trick. I watched the combat and again saw my giant team get totally raped by about 30+ devils. The devils just fly in on round 1 and surround the giants and start blasting their hear aura. The Banishments did do some good, but not nearly enough. The devils seemed pretty resistant to the Banishments.

So it became a new game....figure out how to deal with those devils. And that drove me to start digging through spells and figuring out where I needed to research, what Nifel spellcasters to use, and what spells to script them with.

The Jotun Skratti with their 2 Water path seemed a good bet. I researched Evocation 2, gave them each some water gems and sent a number of them in with the team. Scripting a Rain along with Cold Bolts and Cold Blasts made the difference. I suspect there are a number of other approaches but it was cool figuring out how to counter specific mobs.

Now I need to see if there is way to heal afflictions...the victory was not without its costs...

[thejeff]

What those provinces probably were was regular indy provinces where one of the commanders had generated with a magic item. Specifically, a Soul Contract. One devil/turn. If you hit those late enough in the game they can be brutal.