MOM magic types learning curve

[Elok]

As I mentioned in my "I hate cracks call" rant, I've never been able to get into MOM, but I'm now giving it a shot. Can anybody tell me how to most effectively use the different types of magic/how easy or hard each spelltype is to use? I've read the FAQ, and it's all about 11-book strats and casting Incarnation for negative mana and so on. I'm thinking of basic differences in tactical uses of magic. I would ask for a list of all the game's spells so I could figure it out for myself, but after an exhaustive google search I haven't been able to turn one up...

I've already figured out that life is best for boosting your units and, to some extent, cities, but really doesn't offer much in the way of creatures or versatile attacks...until you get Holy Word, which I freaking love BTW. And Torin the Chosen Unbalancer.

Nature seems to be a big attempt at well-roundedness that falls flat. For support spells, you get stuff like Gaia's blessing and giant strength, which is meh. The units? Until you get Great Wyrms or Gorgons, it's pitiful crap like sprites and warbears. It can't come close to Chaos attack-wise, even if you ignore those vicious summoned units like Great Drakes. Cracks Call is cheap, especially with web, but it has nothing on stuff like Warp Lightning. What have I missed that makes nature useful?

Sorcery: Confusion's just fun, as are all the souped-up counterspells, Magic Immunity and such. But while your monsters aren't vulnerable to stuff like starfires that attack "good" or "evil" units, illusions immunity really hurts the effectiveness of your magic in general. And the global enchantments seem pitiful. Wind Mastery or Crusade? Hmm, let's think...anyway, how can Sorcery best be used?

Chaos is the great power of YouDieNow. I figured that out.

Death: Few direct attacks, your unit-boosters usually weaken your units in one way or another in addition to the bonus they offer, city enhancements are slim, Life Magic makes your monsters an enemy wizard's b****h. Mana leak might be nice if the AI didn't like to live with almost no MP anyway. What's the point of Death magic?

[bakalov]

First, you need at least 3 books of a particular color to be able to get all the spells from this colour. There are 40 spells. With 1 book you can get the first 20 (common and uncommon), the second and the third add the possibility for 10 rare and the 10 very rare spells respectively. By getting the spells I don't mean researching them, but getting them from research, trade or from ruins and/or enemy fortresses.
If you have 4/3/3/3 books then you have the potential for having 4*40+13 = 173 spells.

Your conclusions about life magic seem to be correct. It is a powerful magic type, no doubt better than death.

Nature has a lot of summoning spells, less direct damage and boosters. Imo it is good for supporting magic type, not for the main type.

Cool spells for nature are:
-water walking
-path finding
-earth lore for exploration
-natures cures to cure all units in a square

cool boosters: (all of them rare or very rare :-/ )
-regeneration
-elemental armor
-iron skin

enchantments:
-herb mastery
-nature awareness (see everything everywhere)

Sorcery is cool for:
-magic immunity
-guardian wind
-spell lock!!!
-flight
-invisibility

-spell blast - a must! - works perfectly with detect magic
-the powerful dispells are good

You are not right that sorcery has not good global enchantments! Suppress magic and Time Stop are some of the coolest that can exist. They are very rare though.

Death is worse than life, but there are some possible strats with it:
You need a race that can build cathedrals, and Infernal power. Then with dark rituals you can get quite much power with dark rituals. May be trolls are good for their natural regeneration.

Evil presence is cool vs non-death (cuts their power badly)
Warp node is for the same purpose.
Mana leak can be abused. Similar abuse is possible without it too (so its not a very big plus).

No comments on chaos. I'd like to add that it has the coolest item enchantments too (flaming, lightning, chaos). They require several books though.

[DaveV]

I've attached a list of spells I made from the in-game help files. It is meant to be read into a spreadsheet program, but can just be read as a text file, also.

I'd say that favorite (or easiest to use) magic type will depend on your playing style. I like to attack early with ranged troops, so I like low-level spells that enhance ranged attacks. The list is very short: heroism, flame blade, eldritch weapon, holy weapon. The other nice thing to have is some summonable ground troops to slow down the opponents and allow me to get in a few more shots: Phantom warrior/beast, Fire Elemental. So I usually emphasize life, chaos, and, to a lesser extent, sorcery. I wouldn't mind finding a few nature books in a node, though...

One of the coolest things about this game is that there are lots of choices, and you can make arguments in favor of almost all of them. You can start with only a few books and lots of retorts, expecting to pick up some books in nodes (note: you can have at most 13 books), or you can start with lots of books for more early spell power and mana.

I like to spread out my books into several realms, since it gives me more chances to trade spells or pick them up from nodes or conquered wizards. While the high-level spells can be really powerful, they are expensive to research and cast, and I try to end the game by conquest before I would be researching them.

As for the enemy wizards not having any mana: if you play Impossible, they have it coming out their ears. Unfortunately, any lower level will usually find them with near-zero mana balances.

[Elok]

I forgot all about spell blast! I imagine that's very useful at higher levels, when the AI can get strong/smart enough to really cast magic instead of randomly pestering the player with occasional Corruption. And looking at Time Stop's effect on the list (thanks, DaveV!), I must say it's obscene. What with alchemy to keep the mana reserve up, I imagine Jafar can be a vicious enemy at the second-highest level.

I'd heard about the undead vampire troll trick, and I guess Dark Rituals could be fun in conjunction with infernal power. It still sounds a LOT weaker than life though. Maybe if the player's looking for a challenge.

Thanks also to whoever first discovered that adamant slingers kick butt. That discovery was doubtless made around 1994, but I'm still loving the benefits in my current game. It's fun to watch little midgets execute "weapon-immune" wraiths from across the battlefield...not to mention the no-longer-so-great drakes occupying chaos nodes on Myrror. Slingers are cool.

While we're on MoM subjects, does anybody know why the FW MoMJr. scenario bore so little resemblance to the actual game? Aside from the obviously poor execution that did stuff like only giving monotheism to Jafar, I mean. "Infernal devices," nothing at all like Myrror, Chaos was absurdly weak...

[bakalov]

Hehehe, the only level of dificulty this game is worth be played at, is impossible. And once you master it, it will be easy to beat it too.

FW MoMJr. ? Never played it .....

[ApolytonGuest]

I think Death is slightly "weaker" than Life, but that's a bit of a misnomer. It's not really "weaker" so much as it is different. It requires a different play style and it does different things.

Whereas Life helps strenghten units and cities and such, Death does the opposite. Death can do things that Life can't.

Ever get hit with a Deathwish? It hurts! Especially when you lose half your heros and their magic items to it. Ouch. (you can always reload, but that's kind of cheating).

There are several Death creatures with the "create undead" ability. Slain enemy units comeback as undead creatures under your control. AND THEY REQUIRE ZERO UPKEEP. Great for free units for keeping down civil unrest in cities. And magical beings will come back with double upkeep, but it's worth it if the unit is good. That means you can potentially have any magical unit in the entire game under your control even if you don't have that color. (exception for Torin, of course).

Zombie Mastery gives you a global "create undead" ability.

And Death has the best combat enchantment -- Wrack. Just run around the field and eventually the enchantment will kill off the enemy.

And finally, the spells like Black Prayer lowers enemy stats. The fact that one of those stats lowered is resistance makes your magical attacks all that more effective.

As for creatures -- Wraiths and Death Knights are really strong because of lifesteal. Undead creatures all have illusion immunity and death immunity. So Sorcery magic is really screwed against them.

It's true that some life spells like Starfires and Dispell Evil will hurt Death creatures really badly. But Darkness and True Darkness can at least counter Life creatures somewhat. Darkness/TrueDarkness/BlackPrayer combo will significantly reduce the ability of Life Creatures, and boost Death creatures at the same time.

Instead of improving cities, you can destroy enemy cities with Famine.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by ApolytonGuest


There are several Death creatures with the "create undead" ability. Slain enemy units comeback as undead creatures under your control. AND THEY REQUIRE ZERO UPKEEP. Great for free units for keeping down civil unrest in cities. And magical beings will come back with double upkeep, but it's worth it if the unit is good. That means you can potentially have any magical unit in the entire game under your control even if you don't have that color. (exception for Torin, of course).

that is quite the thing, as you can also cast Black Channels on your own units and then dispel it in order to have undead units with no upkeep, as many as you can make.
as for magical units raised as zombies, I didn't use to do that, but then someone here reported kicking some serious tail with his undead archangel. the possibilities are staggering.

Originally posted by ApolytonGuest
Instead of improving cities, you can destroy enemy cities with Famine.

there are a few city destroying spells you can do, but some guy with consecration can shut you down. on impossible games, you seem to face at least two opponents with it. Ariel gets it early, but even Sss'ra has cast it on his cities when I'm playing death.

[Elok]

Originally posted by bakalov
FW MoMJr. ? Never played it .....

I mean the Master of Magic Junior scenario that came with Fantastic Worlds. They did a rather sloppy job making it.

[Rex Little]

Elok, I think you underrate Sprites. A single Sprite can take any city whose defenders don't fly or have range attacks, and early in the game most of the neutral cities are like that.

[Elok]

Ground-based, early-game, non-projectile units, a.k.a. "cannon fodder," deal very poorly with just about anything. Horsebowmen will mow them down like grass, as will slingers, longbowmen, and heroes. A few shamans or normal bowmen can even do the trick if the city has walls. I guess Sprites are available from the *very* beginning, but they cost mana...also, the two nature books needed to start with Sprites cost the same as Warlord, and twice as much as Alchemist, which are probably more useful in the long run.

[bakalov]

Guardian wind/missiles immunity can stop slingers ... They'll requre *LOTS* of modifiers to punch through. It is possible, but it's very hard to achieve such mods. Missiles imunity actually gives 50 def vs missiles. This normally blocks ~15 from each attack. To beat it you must have more than 15 bullet strength with 100% chance to hit.

[Nimrod]

In all of this talk about the different spells and abilities, no one mentions the chaos spell flame strike. I find it to me much more effective than death wish or wrack. Its funny when the enemy comes in with 9 slingers and I virtually destroy them all in one swipe on my hand

[Illyrien]

Sorcery is my clear favorite, since it allows you to control. Sure Life mages can cast Crusade or similar cool spells... but only Sorcery can steal them :-) hehe

Besides Supress Magic is actually quite evil!


Also Death is becoming a favorite of mine, espicially combines with Infernal Power. Cast Dark Rituals aswell, and you will get absurdly powerfull cities

[pchang]

Suppress Magic

is nice, but it has some bad side effects. If you take out an enemy tower, they start casting spell of return. Suppress Magic can dispel the Spell of Return, but it doesn't kill the enemy wizard. Instead, the enemy wizard enters some phantom state where they can cast spells during combat and stuff, but they have no tower. You can't see what spells they are casting or anything since they show up as a broken mirror. The only way to defeat them is to take their last city or cast the Spell of Mastery.

[bakalov]

Illyrien, playing chaos or sorcery or death of course is cool. But I always liked most playing multi colored wizards, starting with life. 3 books in each color give you access to all of the spells in the corresponding realm.

Of course I remember such death cities that during the Bad Moon event generated more than 60 power :-)