MoM favourites

[King Krull]

Recently started playing MoM again on XP and wondered what were other people's favourite games, eg what retorts, races and spell realms.

For example, I like 4 Life, 4 Chaos, Warlord and Alchemy with the Halflings. I love Alchemy in particular.

Also, like to play the Halflings on Myrror with Warlord, Alchemy and 5 Life books, so I can have Champion Adamantium Slingers, assuming I can get the Crusade spell. As you can see, Halflings are my favourite race (3 food per farmer isn't bad either!).

I'm interested in knowing yours as I do like playing other people's set ups sometimes.

Thanks in advance.

[DaveV]

I usually play impossible, 4 opponents, small map, because it makes the game more challenging. Some combos I've used recently:
Dwarves, archmage, warlord, alchemist, LLLL (suggested by bakalov).
Halflings, archmage, warlord, alchemist, LLLLCNS.
Halflings, warlord, alchemist, node master, LLLLCNS (the one I've played the most, probably).
Halflings, warlord, archmage, alchemist, channeler, LLLLL.
Halflings, warlord, archmage, alchemist, LLLLLLL.

Archmage is nice for the extra casting power and faster increase of casting power, but its real attraction is in its making spells "twice as hard to dispel". In several games using that retort, the AI wizards never tried to dispel one of my enchantments. Channeler is handy more for the half maintenance than the reduced in-combat casting cost, since I always convert my starting gold into mana and cast Magic Spirit on the first turn of the game, quickly followed by another Magic Spirit and Just Cause, and then lots of Heroism spells once my gold balance builds up enough that I can convert more to mana and still have enough left to attract heroes. I use alchemy constantly throughout the game, setting my Mana slider to zero as soon as I can afford to. Node Mastery is great for the ability to avoid node fizzle, and the extra mana is a nice bonus.

Life magic is probably overpowered. Just Cause lets me crank up the tax rate an extra notch, Heroism gives me ultra-elite units early, Endurance lets me keep the stack speed consistent and makes my engineers work twice as fast, Altar of Battle lets me produce super-powerful units without having to cast any enchantments on them, Stream of Life means I don't have to worry about unrest in the captured cities, Lionheart changes a good multi-figure unit to an unstoppable one. And Torin is capable of taking out AI cities by himself once he's been pumped up a little with experience and/or items.

The Dwarves and Halflings are the strongest races for my style; halflings for their slingers, extra food, and low rebellion of captured cities, and dwarves for their increased production and extra cash. I like trolls and draconians, too, but I usually find it too hard to expand with the former and hate myself for using the cheap "all units retreat exhausted" trick with the latter.

If you're interested in comparing results from a common start, we had two threads built around that concept: here and here

[King Krull]

Thanks DaveV

One thing, your post ended suddenly when you were talking about comparing results from a common start?

Yes, I like Dwarves and my Everquest character is a Dwarven Cleric and will be again when Everquest 2 is released.

I find Torin overpowered so sometimes don't recruit him to give the other wizards a chance! I love White magic, it's my favourite.

As for Archmage, whenever I start on Myrror I cast Planar Seal asap but have to keep re-casting it whenever Jafar or Lo Pan shows up. I'll try Archmage if it means this won't happen so much.

Therefore I'll try your combinations above.

One question, why Channeller with Life Magic? I know it cuts casting cost but Life isn't overwhelmed with fantasy creatures?

Thanks again.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by King Krull
One thing, your post ended suddenly when you were talking about comparing results from a common start?

I forgot to put a period at the end of the last sentence, but it's complete otherwise. The two occurrences of the word "here" in that sentence are links to the comparison game threads.

Originally posted by King Krull
One question, why Channeller with Life Magic? I know it cuts casting cost but Life isn't overwhelmed with fantasy creatures?

Within 20 turns of the start, I'll have two magic spirits exploring, and will have cast Just Cause. That's 5 mana/turn maintenance, which is halved to 2 mana/turn by Channeler. So I gain 3 mana/gold per turn: the equivalent of a free gold mine or quork crystals. Later in the game, when I've cast Heroism and Endurance on a bunch of units, my savings increase. I also save on casting Healing, Prayer, True Light, etc., when the combat is far from my capital. I'm not sure it's worth 2 books, but it does give the game a different flavor.

[King Krull]

Thanks DaveV

Your post ended as below, no 'here's' in the sentence!

"If you're interested in comparing results from a common start, we had two threads built around that concept: and.."

Anyway, thanks for the Channeller tip. I'm trying the Dwarf
'lineup' in your post and am having fun. I was lucky to get an ideal city spot with three gold mines within a couple of spaces of each other so am rolling in money. At one time I was getting 600+ gold per round which is a record for me I think (set at 1.5 gold). Am able to convert it into Mana through the Alchemy and have just been putting points into reserach and casting skill.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by King Krull
Your post ended as below, no 'here's' in the sentence!

"If you're interested in comparing results from a common start, we had two threads built around that concept: and.."

I think something on your computer is still preventing the display of some hyperlinks. The sentence should end: "concept: here and here". You can just check the old threads in this forum: The threads are named "MoM comparison game" and "MOM comparison game 2".

[King Krull]

Thanks DaveV

I'll do a search instead.

[Father Beast]

it looks like both of you guys enjoy the warmonger whammy of Warlord and Alchemy. As in, Warlord boosts your troop a notch, and alchemy gives them magic weapons. With that, even your starting swordsman and spearman can go forth and conquer. If you start with a few towns close by, the game is made.

It's almost as bad, IMHO, as the conjurer/sorcery mastery stunt to summon phantom warriors super cheap.

[King Krull]

Thanks all.

I've read the 'comparisons' threads and have enough trouble winning on Hard than try Impossible.

I'm beginning to like Sorcery more, have started adding one Sorcery book to the mix so I can try to get Floating Island, Confusion, Counter Magic, Phantom Warriors and Spell Lock. Floating Island is great for Halflings who otherwise, of course, can only build Triremes.

I've read the rest of the MoM threads in the forum and might try that single city thingy (OCC?). I assume you would need a race that could build most buildings?

[Father Beast]

King Krull-
"Thanks all.

I've read the 'comparisons' threads and have enough trouble winning on Hard than try Impossible."

I felt much the same way. I Used to play on intro, and only went to easy to make custom wizards. Then I got involved with the comparison game and actually won a game on impossible.

I actually tried it just to see how badly I would get beat. Imagine my surprise when I won!

Of course, I lost the other comparison game I played....

[DaveV]

Father Beast: warlord's advantage for me is more in the mid-game than the early game. If I play halflings, a 100% increase in the attack of my spearman and 50% boost to the swordsman is pretty good, but still not enough to take over a city with four halberdiers or six cavalry. But later, when I can cast Heroism to double the attack of a slinger and give it an additional +2 to hit, that's a huge advantage. Alchemy is a retort that pays off all game for the gold-to-mana conversion; I'm not convinced that it really does give +1 to hit. It is nice against weapon-immune creatures, though, especially if I can capture some Troll cities.

King Krull: Floating Island is probably my favorite starting sorcery spell, especially since I usually play small maps. It's worth paying the 5 mana upkeep in return for not building a shipwright's guild (2 gold upkeep) and trireme (2 gold, 1 food), which would only carry two normal units anyway. As to level of play: as annoying as Impossible can be at times, it is still beatable if you play a good game and have some good luck. Once you've played at Impossible, it just doesn't seem like the same game to play at the lower levels where the AI wizards usually have a mana balance of zero.

[King Krull]

Could you advise me on the single city strategy mentioned in my previous post?

Does it rely on Heroes to do the fighting because you won't have enough food otherwise for built units like Slingers?

Thanks.

(Edit: Forgot to ask, if it relies on razing cities rather than conquering them, it must do severe damage to your Fame and overall score. Or can't you have a negative number for Fame?)

[DaveV]

Originally posted by King Krull
Could you advise me on the single city strategy mentioned in my previous post?

Does it rely on Heroes to do the fighting because you won't have enough food otherwise for built units like Slingers?

Sorry, never tried it: it just seems too artificial to me. I guess heroes with lots of artifacts, and maybe some summons, would be a good strategy. I don't see that you'd necessarily need to construct a lot of buildings.

Originally posted by King Krull
(Edit: Forgot to ask, if it relies on razing cities rather than conquering them, it must do severe damage to your Fame and overall score. Or can't you have a negative number for Fame?)

I don't think fame can go negative. I've had Just Cause active when I razed a city early, and my fame stayed at +10 instead of dropping to 9.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by DaveV
Father Beast: warlord's advantage for me is more in the mid-game than the early game. If I play halflings, a 100% increase in the attack of my spearman and 50% boost to the swordsman is pretty good, but still not enough to take over a city with four halberdiers or six cavalry. But later, when I can cast Heroism to double the attack of a slinger and give it an additional +2 to hit, that's a huge advantage. Alchemy is a retort that pays off all game for the gold-to-mana conversion; I'm not convinced that it really does give +1 to hit. It is nice against weapon-immune creatures, though, especially if I can capture some Troll cities.

In my experience, if you can attack a neutral city when it's still 1400, they'll have at most two swordsmen, recruits of course. it's when you wait a while that the numbers grow. I once let a halfling city stay neutral until around 1428. It had 9 elite slingers defending!!! That showed me how stupid I was to wait.

[Elok]

I'm a total novice player, but I too love Alchemy and Warlord. Alchemy I mostly like for the mana conversion, since I prefer to take the more cowardly way out whenever possible. Heroes and quick-and-dirty summoned creatures. Life is immensely nice IMO as well. I like being able to resurrect my heroes after they get attacked by Great Wyrms that just "happened" to accompany the warbears reported by scouts exploring the node, or teamed up on by eight shamans while they're still Myrmidons. After Life, I guess Chaos. Doombolt, call the void, repeat. Immune to Illusions is too common among creatures that I really need to confuse/pwarrior blitz to beat for me to really like sorcery. And Spell Blast just irritates me, when it interrupts me two turns before I would have finished making Gunthar or Shalla a doomsday axe. That's like 4000 mana wasted.