MOM: how long do your games last?

[bakalov]

I read somewhere that this issue was submitted to Microprose and they did not say anything. I personally like to use some glitches like the ocean enchanted roads :-) Very cool way to cross the ocean ... haven't tried the roaad building with a windwalker yet, but in the save that I posted I just got the wind mage so it is the right time to check this ;-)

[da_hal]

on one hand, i think it's an exploit...on the other hand, you had to sacrfice a ton of picks for runemaster, so you deserve it...maybe we can get a consensus from the galley.

[bakalov]

sure, we can post a poll

[Harry Seldon]

Kind of cheesy if you ask me but I can't say I'm above a little cheese every now and again.

[da_hal]

hehe polls are definitely cheesy
people who care can just chime in here. :-)

ps. the wizard smilie is too tall. :P

[DaveV]

I guess our styles aren't as similar as I thought, bakalov. I was amazed to see your first save with a size 8 city and no exploring. Here are some saves from a dwarf game I played at impossible. My capital isn't nearly as well developed as yours was, but I think things are going well anyway.

With respect to making/breaking artifacts: I don't do it. This game is so full of exploits that it's hard to draw the line, but I think that particular trick makes the game too easy. Actually, I don't ever build artifacts for my heroes, otherwise they get too strong (and it makes the artifacts I find sometimes that much more welcome). I do use incremental rushbuilding all the time, and will raze the undefended cities the AI seems to leave all over the map, but I don't build ocean roads or use the windwalker movement tricks.

[Harry Seldon]

I don't use the cheese moves either. No ocean roads, no excessive breaking of artifacts. I will occasionally raze enemy cities but I much prefer to take them for myself; I firmly feel that controlling a vast amount of cities leads to an easy victory. Since I usually choose Chaos, if the enemy gets ahead, I Call the Void on the leader's cities to bring him back to my level. It's the only cheese I use when I play.

[da_hal]

i used to use momedit. now though i can win any game fairly easily with either 4-5 sorc picks or most myrran races. the thing i want to do now though is go for speed and efficiency.

i don't use incremental building, and i never heard of most of the stuff you guys mentioned until i read the new faq. all of these things are just opinions i suppose, there's no real way to say one thing is good or another is bad.

i'm beginning to lean towards the "breaking is not cheese" side because:

Node mastery: 1 pick, need 3 picks, one in each color to get it.

Runemaster: 2 picks, need 6 picks, 2 in each color.

Runemaster is therefore the most expensive mana-increasing pick in the game, 8 total picks must be used, vs nodemastery's 4. (i believe there's another one that requires 4 in 2 realms, but it doesn't pump mana like these two.)

[bakalov]

To Dave: In that game particularly I had adamantium in my starting city so I decided to develop it as fast as possible. The situation should look different if it was not there. I played that game in my lunch break so I wanted to do it faster and did not use the magic spirits to scout as I usually do. Though I scouted a little and at least knew where my enemy capital was. And with my adamantium hammerhands it should be easy to smash him :-)

[da_hal]

k, i checked...a bunch require 4 picks in one color and 1 pick for the skill, runemaster is the most expensive skill by far...this seems to justify the huge advantage, imho.

[bakalov]

Runemaster has another good side: with the sorcery's true dispels you are getting x6 dispel magic. This is quite powerful too ;-)

[bakalov]

BTW isn't the price for runemaster 1 pick? I thought it is only one .... anyway 2*3+1 = 7 is a high price ....

[Ecthy]

depends. usually very long because I don't expand too quickly.