Beginner factions?

[Vantezzle]

What faction would you recommend for a new player?

[Bumc]

Something that doesn't need magic to expand and doesn't need fancy tactics to win.

EA/MA Abysia, MA Ulm, those kind of guys.

[Selgeron]

EA and MA abysia are the easiest nations to pilot, especially if you ignore their blood magic. You wont likely WIN in an multiplayer game, but you won't die instantly. Their units are hearty enough that you can make small mistakes and not accidentally get everyone killed, they dont use complicated thugs or items, they have very few magic paths, but are good at them so you wont need communions or tons of boosters, and their sacreds are tanky and can expand easily.

[Big Dog]

I think Pyrene in any of the ages are good for new players to really get a solid understanding of the different mechanics in the game without having to worry about stuff like temperature scales making your units weaker or random darkness world events.

[timlagor]

Abysia seems fun

I think the general advice to play Ulm is misguided and people *should* look for magic in their play. Pick a nation that has a clear magical focus and can take a fairly obvious route to satisfying results.
There's a lot to learn but anyone looking for a simple game is unlikely to have bought Dominions and trying to minimise magic is like trying to minimise fun


Fire Evocations are one option.

Muspelheim might be a great place to start because you can build big honking giants and splatter enemies but the scales might confuse people.

[Draken]

Learning magic is indeed fun.
But it's also a ton of work until you figure out how things work between researching, site searching, hiring mages, forging items and casting rituals.

If you try to learn all that while simultaneously trying to learn how to get your troops assigned to a commander, how and where to build forts and temples, how to script your archers to not charge into heavy cavalry and how to not blind attack a throne turn 1, it's going to make the game a lot more difficult than necessary.

Never mind any talk about multiplayer. At least if we aren't talking about some mentor disciple game or something like that.

So yeah. I definitely recommend to first get a solid grip on how to use basic mundane troops. Their strenght and weaknesses. What units and formations to use against which type of indy defender. And generally being able to get to the point where you can actually affort a good amount of mages before starting to mess with combat casters and research.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

MA Pangaea. It has a fairly comfortable package of tools where the skill floor is quite low to perform well, but there's a variety of things you can pick up and experiment with to learn the game.

You can play MA Pangaea as a sacred rush nation, focusing on one of several finely tuned White Centaur blesses, you can play to their strong nature/earth magic that can do useful things for you through several research lines (strength of giants and regeneration in enchantment, soldiers of steel in construction, wooden warriors and earth meld in alteration, there are options), you can play to extra tricks like stealthy troops for sneaky raiding, dryad seducers for assassin play, ritual phase forts...

But you can also just take good scales, make centaurs, and fight people straightforwardly, and you won't perform badly if you do. MA Pangaea has a lot of mechanics you CAN engage with, but very few you NEED to engage with.

This makes it a much better beginner nation, to my mind, that candidates like MA Ulm, which will let you expand very easily but actually needs quite a deep understanding of the item forging system and spellcasting breakpoints to really learn how to play them - and in fact they expand so easily that they'll teach you bad habits. Expanding with Blackplate Infantry is not like expanding with other nations!

[voronin_mike]

Originally posted by High Stakes:

I think Pyrene in any of the ages are good for new players to really get a solid understanding of the different mechanics in the game without having to worry about stuff like temperature scales making your units weaker or random darkness world events.

No at least for LA. Those have out-of-forts mages which they actually need to recruit to get magic diversity outside of situational access via seduction. And they need to quickly find use for seduced commanders of various nations if they want to actually use one of their main mechanics. Plus, Blood magic AND sacrifice. Plus, kitting out thugs and Succubi. Plus-plus-plus.
EA/MA are easier, but you still need to really utilize unique flying mages...

[voronin_mike]

Agree about Pangaea and Abyssia ideas. Maybe EA Ermor or MA Pythium, too. Though they are more difficult to wield.
I think I started with Rlyeh all those years ago, but that's with understanding that I will try most of other nations in turn.
What I love this game for is that there are lots of viable playstyles, and different nations really play differently. So in general you need to play with several different nations until one or more of them "click"...

[Big Dog]

Originally posted by voronin_mike:

Originally posted by High Stakes:

I think Pyrene in any of the ages are good for new players to really get a solid understanding of the different mechanics in the game without having to worry about stuff like temperature scales making your units weaker or random darkness world events.

No at least for LA. Those have out-of-forts mages which they actually need to recruit to get magic diversity outside of situational access via seduction. And they need to quickly find use for seduced commanders of various nations if they want to actually use one of their main mechanics. Plus, Blood magic AND sacrifice. Plus, kitting out thugs and Succubi. Plus-plus-plus.
EA/MA are easier, but you still need to really utilize unique flying mages...

That's exactly why they are good for learning the game, they have many different things that can be done / learned. Plus Plus Plus is good for learning the game. Also their units have the same resists / dark vision and are solid LA units. Blood magic is also good for new players to try out so they get an understanding of it.

I would of suggested MA Xibalba but their units are kinda weak on average compared to other MA nations, it's better to pick a nation with strong units and have unusual PLUS PLUS PLUS to learn the other features of the game.

LA Pyrene can easily beat the normal AI by just making the national troops and sending them out.

[Sombre]

My recommendations are:

1) Whichever nation sparks your imagination and you think is cool. The most important thing is to just go for the one you like.

2) Not an underwater nation.

3) A nation with a cavalry sacred, preferably with prot above 15. These tend to be easier to use if other things are going wrong for you.

I personally think MA Marignon is a very good new player nation.

[Mormacil]

I'll add a #4, isn't MA Ermor.

[timlagor]

I think I *would* heed the advice to avoid Blood Magic initially.

I'd also advocate +Fortune Scales (and thus not one of the nations that likes misfortune) because most people just find it more fun to have something nice happen out of the blue rather than something nasty.

[timlagor]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

I'll add a #4, isn't MA Ermor.

MA Ermor looks quite straightforward death magic fun in SP if that's what you're into.
It would leave a lot to learn for any other nation but I imagine it would be reasonably fun and successful for a first game.

You'd need to be told more than the game tells you about how the freespawn works though (ie that you want as many forts+temple as you can cram in rather than spreading out a few forts)

You could have a shock going into MP and getting ganged up on though.

[Mormacil]

MA Ermor really benefits from knowing the actual game to reduce micro. It's certainly a fun faction for something down the line but not as a game to get to know the ropes.

[Yanphi]

I'm a new player and I started with EA T'ien C'hi because of the fact they have access to such a wide range of magics. It was a bit overloading (it still is) but having access everything suited my personality? playstyle? better.