MOM Hint II

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
I'm currently doing well with a one-book strategy (it should have been a zero-book strategy, but I had one point left). I chose Beastmen, and didn't expand at all until my capital was fully developed. My first settlers were accompanied by elite Minotaurs (War College and Warlord), which have successfully defended all my colonies against attacks. I've nearly conquered Myrror, and I don't think the wizards on Arcanus can stop me.

Lack of spells was a problem, but Alchemy let me use that Beastman magic to help build my cities quickly, and Minotaurs are tough enough to put up a good fight without magical assistance.

The game won't let you choose a specialty if you have only one point left, but you can choose a specialty if you have two points left, leaving you with no books.

Good job with the one book. I tried it and got plastered. notes on your strategies are welcome

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Sorcery: Sky Drakes are Very Rare, you can't begin with them. Phantom Beasts are powerful (though they can only be conjured in combat, you'll need to push up your Skill).

Hmmnn.... something's wrong with my spell book. it says Sky drakes are rare, but can't agree on the upkeep.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Mine says they're Very Rare (and they are), but there are other typos.

I chose Myrran (Beastmen), Alchemy, Artificer, Warlord, Famous, Charismatic, and one Chaos book.

Building up just one city seems to be the main reason for my success: I could defend it with a couple of Swordsmen and the Heroes who were attracted by my fame and charisma. And spellcasting heroes usually have at least one spell of their own, in addition to knowing yours: Serena's healing and Vlana's confusion were useful.

When I'd built everything else and was churning out Minotaurs (and building a road network with dwarven Engineers from my first captured city), I used mostly Minotaurs for both colony guarding and conquest, while making items for my Heroes. Minotaurs are slow, so Heroes with movement-boosting items were better where long-distance travelling was needed, but I had to rush-build units in the newly-captured cities to guard them when the Heroes moved on, and I've since lost several of them. I haven't lost any that were conquered by my Minotaurs (because I leave one or two elite Minotaur units behind to guard them, rather than crappy Swordsmen or whatever), so maybe I should have been more patient and used Minotaurs only.

I think I'll try the "build up one city" strategy more often in future. It's suicidal in Civilization, but it seems to work in MOM. If you're not diverting resources and population to build pathetic little villages, the advantages of quickly getting a university, cathedral and so forth are considerable. And you can generate more cash to develop villages when you're ready.

[Ecthy]

Chaos Spawn sucks donkey dicks

[Father Beast]

Building up alone

I'm going to try something that should let me get the entire myrror plane to myself until I'm ready to conquer arcanus.

What I'm thinking is choose 8 life books and Myrran, then cast Planar Seal as soon as possible.

I'll report back here how it works.

[Ecthy]

I still haven't got my hands on the game.... should be playing it again soon!

[Father Beast]

It works great!!

I chose 8 life books, Myrran and dark elves for the quick power buildup. large land and powerful magic.

put almost all my magic into research at first, then into mana as soon as I got Planar seal. I think I cast Planar seal around 1408.

I had taken several towns and 2 nodes by the time someone cast disjunction on my planar seal, and I was able to put it back up in 6 turns. Warlocks were my main force for a while until I found a dwarf town and settled a couple of dwarf towns near adamantium and started cranking out adamantium steam cannons. With stream of life, all my money problems were over, and I soon began running my mana at a deficit and using a lot of alchemy to keep my gold from going over 30,000.

Incarnation allowed me to take the last of the nodes (cast heroism on Torin), and picked up a sorcery book from this node with 4 sky drakes and a couple of Djinn!!

I must have recast planar seal after it had been disjunctioned 10 times during this time. the other 4 wizards were left to quarrel among themselves on arcanus. I got word that one of them was banished, and returned. another was defeated for good. I never saw more than a couple of their units on Myrror.

I positioned a couple of stacks of 9 elite adamantium flying steam cannons on towers, with Torin accompying one of them, then dropped the planar seal, moved them through and recast it in two turns. This was around 1455.

Took a couple of cities, repositioned my summoning circle on one of them, took a bunch of nodes. last wizard falls in 1462.

Not bad, though it is a bit annoying to keep recasting Planar seal every few years.

I got this Idea when looking through the spellbook and wondering what good planar seal is.

[Richard Bruns]

I have a question for the experts about losing heroes and fame. I know that if you lose a battle that had heroes, you lose fame. But what if you lose a hero but then win the battle? Do you still lose fame? And if so, do you lose fame if a hero gets killed but then regenerates after the battle?

Also, is there a bug with animists guilds? The city report seems to indicate that each farmer is still only making 2 food.

Thanks.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
The Runelord discount also stacks with the Artificer discount for creating magic items. With 50% off for Artificer and 25% off for Runelord, you can make items at 25% of the usual cost!

If you then use that magic item on the anvil you will get double the amount of mana you spent casting the spell.

EXAMPLE: +1 sword with Runelord and Artificer costs 75 MP. If you break it on the anvil you get 150 MP out if it.

this also makes Hard and Impossible levels very easy.

[Rex Little]

Good questions, Richard. I'll have to check them out next time I play. I'm pretty sure that you don't lose fame if you win the battle and lose a hero; I'm virtually certain that you don't get lost fame back by regenerating the hero; I'm also virtually certain that the animist's guild does improve food production.