Master of Magic challenge

[Catwalk]

For those who weren't raised properly, Master of Magic is a strategy classic from 1994, made by Microprose. It is heavily influenced by Civilization and Master of Orion, and has a magic system inspired by the card game Magic: The Gathering. It has been included on several lists of all time top games.

I'm interested in setting up a small challenge game in which all participants start from the same save and try to beat it as fast as possible. I suggest the following conditions:

1) Max one hero per stack
(heroes are pretty imba, one per stack encourages you to spread your armies out more rather than having a killer stack)
2) Magic Spirit may not be used for exploration
(way too cheap and fast exploration available to everyone)
3) Alchemy may not be used
(makes runes much more valuable, too easy to just use alchemy for all your rune needs)
4) Starting wizard has 2 books of each colour except Life + Conjurer + Artificer + Artificer with Orc or Gnoll
(fairly weak combo allowing for a wide variety of spells, lack of powerful normal units encourages you to research good summon spells, Artificer gives you an interesting outlet for spare mana and spell power)
5) Production may not be bought
(slows down city growth and reduces micro management, also frees up cash for army upkeep)

The conditions are up for discussion, let me know if you're interested!

[VT2]

I love this game, but I haven't been able to get it to work on XP.

[Catwalk]

Works fine for me with dosbox.

[Catwalk]

No takers? :(

Doing a test run now with the above rules. Not buying production and not using alchemy both have a huge impact, I have to plan and prioritize far more now.

[fatjew]

im playing this game for the first time ever, started off with high men and Life + Sorcery I think. it seems really cool just made a couple squadrons of swordsman and pikeman and attacked a lair with some warbears in it. lost the first time but rebuilt and won the 2nd time. seems like a really cool game but wanted some advice.

i read some guides, got a good startup for buildings but dont know where to go from here or what to do. feel like spending some time teaching a noob catwalk? or someone else of course.

[fatjew]

actually id appreciate a crash course in this game. i hit sort of a roadblock where my the buildings i made consumed too much gold, and the troops i made consumed too much food. i found an option to convert production into gold but it was still -2g per hour and i couldnt build anymore buildings. am i doing something wrong or did i rush into building as much stuff as i could too fast?

[Catwalk]

Sure, will gladly teach you. Other than being marred by horrible balance in many areas, it's an excellent game that's still worth playing. Crash course:
1) Explore lairs with a lone spearman before entering, as retreating is really costly (50% chance of losing a unit)
2) Focus on economy first, which means getting to Granary and Farmer's Market fast (Builder's Hall => Granary => Smithy => Marketplace => Farmer's Market)
3) Run a tax rate of 1.5 or 2 gc per citizen, each 2 normal units in a town will calm down one rebel. You access the tax rate under Info, or press F7.
4) Keep a close eye on how many figures are in a unit. If a unit has 6 figures, it means each of those 6 figures has the listed stats. Most units have 6 figures, one of the reasons why Pikemen kick ass is that they have 8 figures. Most Halfling units have 8 figures, Slingers are one of the strongest units in the game.
5) Each unit who survives a battle gets 2 exp for any enemy killed, regardless of strength. Take advantage of this to train your troops on easy battles, bring in more units than you need and try to keep wounded units alive.
6) Try picking the Warlord retort for some good overpowered fun. Can also try picking 11 books of the same colour. Halfling (+1 food, 8 figure units), High Elf (Longbowmen, extra mana) and Nomads (Rangers, Pikemen, Horsebowmen) are all strong and easy race picks. High Men are also good once you get to Paladins and Wizards, and until then you'll manage well with Pikemen and Priests.

[fatjew]

sounds great, ill change my tax rate today. biggest problem was the high end buildings took up so much gold maintenance i couldnt keep up with them. then i was scouting around with a magic spirit and came across a computer wizard. he said he wanted to be friendly but then i scouted around his area some more and he "declared war" on me and said he would attack. should i even pay attention to this or should i not be scouting their areas like this on future runs?

[Catwalk]

Chances are he was just being pissy. Scounting can provoke them slightly, but it's well worth it. Don't linger around their known towns.

You should only build training facilities in a few buildings, don't bother building even barracks in other towns. Miner's Guild not always worthwhile either.

I've created a discussion channel, come join me in #MoM :)

[fatjew]

ill be on there later today heading to class right now.

ok one more question since ive got you here...

more cities:
i know there are benefits to having cities from other races so you can get their benefits as well, but should i be using them to produce resources to fuel my main city? or should i treat them as a seperate entity powerful on its own? i sent a magic spirit into a nuetral orc city by accident and it defeated the few units of sword and spearman and i got the city. was just building it slow but no troops cus my food was already low from troops in my other city, and some monsters rampaged it and burned it down and i lost 100g. so obviously you need to keep all cities defended making them less productive in terms of resources. any comments on this?

[Catwalk]

It's worthwhile putting two units in each city in order to calm down one rebel. It'd be possible to go without a garrison if you stick with a tax rate of 1gc or 1.5gc, but it's risky as you found out.

With normal rules, it pays well to focus on economic development in all cities. Granary and Farmer's Market are very strong buildings that you should get them everywhere asap. Pick one city to be your training centre and get the necessary buildings for strong units + Fighter's Guild/War College and Alchemist's Guild.

[Magn]

If you want a real challenge, play with the following settings:

1) Difficulty: Impossible
2) Land: Large
3) Magic: Powerful
4) Max the number of opponents.
5) Don't take the Myrran pick

Feel free to customize your wizard as much as you like. If you want to make it extra hard for yourself, pick chaos or death magic (that way, once you encounter a very powerful life or nature mage, which you will, they will cast nature's wrath or that life thingy that does a 500 strength disjunction on all death overland enchantments being cast).

Pray that you do not encounter a powerful chaos wizard (especially not a myrran that you cannot reach easily)... he'll cast that thing that slowly corrupts the entire world, except that it will have an extra twist that will work just on you: the moral rating of all your cities will sink to the ground and you'll have to keep a full army at each city to keep them from rebelling and even then, you'll have some rebels. You'll see your income go from 300something to -200something in one go. Research disjunction early just in case it does happen (because when he casts this game-ending wonder, you want to dispel it ASAP).

Great fun :).

BTW, gnoll is decent with the warlord pick if you use their wold riders.

[Catwalk]

Magn, the above is good fun but there is a number of broken combos you can use to beat it without breaking a sweat:

1) Artificer + Runemaster + other stuff = you create artifacts at a 75% discount, letting you profit from artifact creation as they sell at 50% of base cost. Can be combined with either 5xBlue (Magic Immunity), Archmage (lots more casting power) or Alchemy (much easier to fuel your artifacts with cash, although you might be making enough cash that the 50% loss is not a concern).
2) 11 books of one colour = major strength to begin with:
- Life gives you Invulnerability, Lionheart, Stream of Life or Incarnation
- Nature gives you Gaia's Blessing or Gorgons
- Death gives you Wraiths and Shadow Demons
- Chaos gives you Chaos Spawn
- Sorcery gives you Storm Giant
...and -40% spell cost for all spells. Very easy to beat the game with those.
3) Warlord + Slingers or Pikemen + Life books = with Heroism or Holy Strength, those units can beat a whole lot of stuff on their own

[Magn]

Magn, the above is good fun but there is a number of broken combos you can use to beat it without breaking a sweat:

1) Artificer + Runemaster + other stuff = you create artifacts at a 75% discount, letting you profit from artifact creation as they sell at 50% of base cost. Can be combined with either 5xBlue (Magic Immunity), Archmage (lots more casting power) or Alchemy (much easier to fuel your artifacts with cash, although you might be making enough cash that the 50% loss is not a concern).
2) 11 books of one colour = major strength to begin with:
- Life gives you Invulnerability, Lionheart, Stream of Life or Incarnation
- Nature gives you Gaia's Blessing or Gorgons
- Death gives you Wraiths and Shadow Demons
- Chaos gives you Chaos Spawn
- Sorcery gives you Storm Giant
...and -40% spell cost for all spells. Very easy to beat the game with those.
3) Warlord + Slingers or Pikemen + Life books = with Heroism or Holy Strength, those units can beat a whole lot of stuff on their own

There are a couple of broken thing.

Death Magic (dark rituals) + Infernal Power + Race that can build cathedral is one of them.

Militarily, halfling is scary (but watch out for guardian wind and wizard units) and so is human if you can get paladins. Add warlord and crusade (life magic) and it becomes an scary combo.

Summoning heroes and rejecting them until they are demi-gods is another (why would you want to put them all in the same stack? Give them crazy artifacts and spread them with some fast units as backup... each single one of them is an army killing machine in his own right... until you find a nature wizard with "crack call" that is).

However, all things take time and at a certain setting, they'll throw crazy things at you early in the game.

At impossible, they won't beat you with a strong military alone, they'll just get crazy magic and blast you to a pulp.

You meet a strong chaos mage at impossible with the right settings and he won't bother invading if it isn't working, he'll just cast the void on your cities.

You face a nature wizard with your "magic immune" paladins and he'll do "crack call" on them.

You throw your halfling slingers at a wind mage and you'll find his units will have "wind guardian" on them.

You throw your "death knights" at a life wizard and he'll "dispel evil" them while the chaos wizard will "disintegrate" them.

Its a crazy crazy game at those levels and I'm pretty sure that some games (if you are unlucky) are pretty much impossible at impossible.

I remember the game where the dragon wizard was myrran, kept casting the seal thing (life magic) and that thing that would cause my cities to go Robin Hood on me (it isn't in the spell decription so its either a bug or a deliberate attempt to make the game more difficult). I was pretty much scr*wed over. The bugger had 5 times as much magic power as anyone else in the game (including the other AI mages).

[Catwalk]

Death Magic (dark rituals) + Infernal Power + Race that can build cathedral

This is an interesting combo, and I think it's less broken because it takes a while to really capitalize on it.

Militarily, halfling is scary (but watch out for guardian wind and wizard units) and so is human if you can get paladins. Add warlord and crusade (life magic) and it becomes an scary combo.

Halfling is broken as it starts out fast (+1 food) and stays strong (slingers). High men aren't broken, as paladins take a loooong time to get. They're really good and can decide the game, but you may be facing major opposition when you get to them.

Summoning heroes and rejecting them until they are demi-gods is another (why would you want to put them all in the same stack? Give them crazy artifacts and spread them with some fast units as backup... each single one of them is an army killing machine in his own right... until you find a nature wizard with "crack call" that is).

Putting all heroes in the same stack allows them to level up much faster. They aren't really killing machines until they reach Commander or Champion level.

However, all things take time and at a certain setting, they'll throw crazy things at you early in the game.

Which is why getting a strong start is key, if you want to win leisurely.