Favourite MOM race.

[player1]

Probably.

And those who had were just "low tech".

[aaglo]

Now, I have read about people praising the paladins. Yes, I think also that they are propably the best unit in the game. But that is also their downside - it is not fun to play with ultimate units.

Thus I think that players and fans could also think about the benefits of those 'lesser great units'...

For instance, Elven lords (High elves 'equivalent' for paladins)... they are not that good (from stats only the resistance is better), but they are good... they have first strike, armor piercing and +20% to-hit-bonus (50% chance of making hit ).

[Ecthy]

Similar to dark elve nightmares. What fun!

[Rex Little]

How about Troll Shamans? A full stack of those can take out almost anything, unless it's magic-immune or can cast multiple Flame Strikes. And after the battle, the entire stack is regenerated.

[LDiCesare]

Elven lords and nightmares are pitiful in comparison with paladins and griffyns
Troll shamans are not worth Warrior Trolls. They rarely deal enough damage from a distance to effectively clean any opposition worth fighting, and are a bit weak (only a bit) hand to hand.
I think that race balancing was overall quite good:
Paladins are stronger than elven lords but 1)they are a bit harder to get (cathedral)
and
2)the elves have a 1/2 mana per head bonus the high men don't have.
As for dark elves, they have warlocks, which are by far the most powerful magician type available. The fact they give 1 mana per head is almost irrelevant in comparison with that (for a change, play with dark elves and then with klackons - mana??).

[Tuberski]

At one time I played Dark Elves because of the Nightmares. Flying units with ranged attacks!

Then I thought the paladin was the great, so I played High Men.

But, I have played the halflings the longest, because of the slinger. It's tough and hits more than most units in the game. Also, it has 8 figures.

[aaglo]

About Trolls... +2 swords, +3 resistance, +3 hitpoints... and IIRC, the shamans had quite a lot of shields? Once I had a hard time conquering a neutral city full of Troll shamans... It was DIFFICULT! Cos' they're TOUGH!

[captaincurt]

Well, this thread inspired me last night to copy MOM to my 1Ghz windoze xp box... MOM is the only game to ever live on all four of my PCs, starting with a 386SX/16 back in '94. Needed a break from the eternal turns of civ3...
I played four/large/impossible/powerful/halflings with CCSSNN/alchemy/artificer/runemaster/node mastery. What a hoot! Eldritch-Weaponed Slingers flying around with my Wind Mage were awesome! Plus I tried the "break items for mana" exploit (never knew about that before).
Of course the AI wizards start declaring war around the 50 turn mark, one-two-three and it's total chaos. Managed to take out Rjak and Ss'rra with my hero/slinger stack, though Rjak's Wall of Darkness stopped me cold until I researched Disenchant Area. Of course, in a matter of a few turns, both had completed the Spell of Return, and they were mad as hell. At about 5am when I decided to quit, I was actually losing ground. Their Life Drain and other damage spells started being strong enough to take out my slingers, and I didn't have enough enhancement-type enchantments to make them tougher. I decided to get some sleep when I saw Ss'rra's stack of Great Wyrms (? the green ones)... I couldn't bear serving up my loyal elite slingers as a "light lunch"...

[captaincurt]

Oh yeah, but to be on-topic:

Nice perks of halflings:
food bonus (like a free animist's guild)
quick growth rate
low unrest in captured cities (even the klackon one!)
quick to get slingers
lucky

Pitfalls:
taste delicious
short legs mean they can't run fast enough to get away


My slingers took the most damage from:
1. direct damage spells
2. enemy magicians, shamans and bowmen (I was too busy to cast Guardian Wind )
3. the occasional "oops!" like ruins with death knights, storm giants or sky drakes

[aaglo]

on higher level the resistance of halfling units is quite high (not as high as trolls), so the spell effects on those should be reduced.

But the high-level trolls are awesome at this again, champion units have +8 resistance compared to recruit units (+3 from race and +5 from level upgrades) "bring your spells on, and let's see who gets hurt!"

[moomin]

Elves. Free mana is great in the beginning, and after that starting race doesn't matter much.

[Ecthy]

moomin has a point there, once you szarted conquering and colonizing with different races, starting race doesn't matter

[LDiCesare]

Agree with moomin, starting race is important, that's why I choose dwarves: DOUBLE gold. I consider gold being much much much more important than mana.
Gold allows you
-not to raise taxes, thus more happy citizens, more food, more production, ultimately more gold
-Lets you hire heroes, getting a hero sooner is much more important to me than more mana - even a sage gives 3 rps per turn to start with so it is worth 3 mana)
-Mana through alchemy (saves you mana points for research and aptitude)
And dwarves get double bonus from ores. This means build a settler, find some adamantium , build next to it and get 6 instead of 3 mana. Alternately, wait for your elven city to grow to size 7 to get the same bonus in the same place. And adamantium, mithril and such are quite common on Myrror so it is not hard to get it, and you'll probably find a good spot before you reach a good size in your starting city.
Also dwarves = Myrror + twice as fast roads = More gold from road bonus + Less need for defense units as you can move them all around instantly. Again, keeping a not numerous army to begin with lets you use your production and gold more intelligently, like building libraries and settlers.

[moomin]

LDI, sure. If you want to play a Myrran race. Which I don't, usually, since I go for _very_ early node liberation, which is so much easier on Arcanus. Any one or two early nodes will outweight any early game bonus, I feel.

[LDiCesare]

moomin, that's a question of style/strategy. I tend to cast very few spells. I sometimes play with no spell books at all. It's a bit harder, but I like it. Thus my focus is on heroes and then armies. Getting more mana in the beginning of the game is irrelevant to my gameplay. Paying a hero or mercenary is not.