Master of Magic Challenge

Yeah, though I think it really makes a huge impact which race you play.

The Troll units in my current game are very handy, because no matter how many you lose in any given combat, as soon as a single one survives, they all roll back to full strength right after each battle.

High Men Paladins have always been my favorites, because their First Strike and Magic Immunity they come in handy in many situations.

And obviously, many people like Halfling Slingers.

Other races are totally borked in comparison, for example the Nomads - their Griffins suck and I didn’t think they had any “redeeming qualities”.

Of course, which spells you can field also has quite an impact, having the proper magic abilities can help you turn second grade units into a extremely useful force.

A extremely rich game which offers plenty of options on so many levels. Great stuff, even after all those years.


rezaf

I rolled Sssr’aa and dwarves, which I am kind off happy about. (had so many fingers crossed after rolling sss’raa to get one of the actual myran races)

I am finishing up a hafling/life game at the moment, then time for the challenge!

No way, Nomads are awesome! They get a gold bonus like Dwarves, grow fast like Barbarians, and can build Universities and Mech Guilds for massive city productivity. Griffins aren’t amazing (though first strike + armor piercing ain’t bad), but rangers and horsebows are absolutely solid units that can do quite well. Rangers and horsebows are probably second-tier compared to paladins/longbows/slingers, but Nomads have better base race characteristics than any of those three races. You just have to have an alternate plan for the endgame if you go up against a developed high men/high elves empire.

Also, to crank out a stack of the uber units you really only need 1 city of the appropriate race.

DeathKnight takedown with Life Picks:
True Light + Bless = grant you significant advantage over death creatures (DK).
Anything you can toss on top of that such as Lion Heart and Invulnerability is more the better.

As for ranged units in general:
Guardian Wind - protects from arrows (archers/bowmen) and stones (sllingers).
Resist Elements / Magic Immunity - protects from magic attacks.
Warp Wood = remove any and all ranged attack from a unit, no resistance available!!!

Sky Drake…very tough unit to beat:
20 Melee Damage
20 Lightning-Breath Damage
10 Defense
14 Resistance
30 HitPoints
+3 to hit
Illusion Immunity
Magic Immunity

Worth being noted that the lightning-breath attack is dealt before melee, so it gets first strike unless your unit has first strike and/or negate first-strike. This breath attack ALSO counts as armor piercing attack, which means that only HALF of your defense is taken under consideration for mitigating the damage done.

Your best tactic will be to use a hero, rev up his defense meter to survive in melee and have him with spells like resist elements/elemental armor and resist magic/magic immunity so they can survive the lightning breath.
Lionheart is pretty much a must, because it also increases your hitpoints (undocumented).
The largest vulnerability of a Sky Drake is its, relatively, low defense.
A hero should be able to reach 20-30 melee damage, and provided he can survive in a fight, he should be able to kill a single drake. Healing spell works well here also.
Back up the hero with Paladins/Priests, if possible. Paladins make good meat shield to soften up the Drake for the hero to slay, and with Endurance they can make distance between them and the Drake to avoid death.
(Catapult would be pointless as the attack damage is not strong enough to pass the Sky Drake’s defense beyond 1-2 points of damage).

Nature Masters would find Great Wyrm a very good unit to use against Sky Drakes.
Chaos Masters would find immolation, eldritch weapon and flame blade (cumulative/stackable) decently effective for good extra damage to ease off the edge.

As for fighting in general:
Death Wizards - use Black Prayer
Nature Wizards - use Entangle (if they can’t make a move, they can’t do jack shit!)
Chaos Wizards - use Shatter, it’s devastating!

Magical creatures is pretty much the end game.
Like the dude with the “Solid Empire” commented, at the end game it’s downto destructive powerful magics.
After all, the game is called Master of Magic, not Medieval Civilization. Normal units aren’t going to cut it.

Furthermore, MoM on Hard/Impossible versus Easy/Normal is like Starcraft beginners/intermediate versus veterans/elites.
The game changes pace as such that there isn’t much end game, or even middle, you aren’t supposed to reach it or ‘live long enough’ to reach it. If you stretch it too long, then the AI will get too powerful for you to control (at least, not easily).
The idea is to scout ahead as much as possible, find your enemy’s fortress, muster as many powerful units (summoned, preferably) as you can and take him out as far as you can. The sooner the better. Then drop off all his cities using the advantage of being able to cast combat spells.
The other thing is rapid expansion, forget the granary and start off with making a settler, scout around and find a good place to settle in. Early on the AI will leave you alone if you have 2 spearmen guarding a town. Don’t be affraid to use the “buy” button and time your build order so you can bounce up the tax without running into rebels (make a shrine or temple before farmers market to offset the unrest - klackon as your capitol race is really nice here, all klackon cities you take over have innate -2 unrest).
Don’t count on natural cities unless you can take them over, focus on expanding on your own accord. More cities = more templers/shrines = more magic power = higher your chance to overrun your enemy with enchantments, summons, sustained unit buffs and overall research pace/skill to use in battle.

Wrongo. In our example here, rangers and horsebows are slightly more generalized longbows, but powerful ranged units nonetheless. Pretty sure you’re not about to argue that longbows aren’t good endgame units ;)

Besides, it’s all a means to an end. Hordes of (zerkers/rangers/horsebows) are a good way to drain enemy magic reserves, stomp on their less-defended non-core empire, and otherwise be a pain in the ass. Yeah, you need more than that to get through powerful magic-fueled defenses. Never said you didn’t.

Furthermore, MoM on Hard/Impossible versus Easy/Normal is like Starcraft beginners/intermediate versus veterans/elites.
The game changes pace as such that there isn’t much end game, or even middle, you aren’t supposed to reach it or ‘live long enough’ to reach it. If you stretch it too long, then the AI will get too powerful for you to control (at least, not easily).
I’ve been saying that for a while. I’ll say that certain maps almost ensure that you get to something resembling the endgame; my last high elf/chaos/hard game made it to fully developed cities + big stacks o’ paladins + very rare spellcasting despite me rushing it as hard as I could. Lots of islands, 2 Myrran wizards, tough-to-clear towers, etc.

The idea is to scout ahead as much as possible, find your enemy’s fortress, muster as many powerful units (summoned, preferably) as you can and take him out as far as you can. The sooner the better. Then drop off all his cities using the advantage of being able to cast combat spells.
The other thing is rapid expansion, forget the granary and start off with making a settler, scout around and find a good place to settle in.
Good grief. How long before that new town becomes useful? You’re crippling your early game by losing two workers (from building the settler and not having the +2 food from the granary) and denying yourself the huge aggregate pop gain from the +20/turn growth bonus.

Early on the AI will leave you alone if you have 2 spearmen guarding a town. Don’t be affraid to use the “buy” button and time your build order so you can bounce up the tax without running into rebels
yep, absolutely…

(make a shrine or temple before farmers market to offset the unrest - klackon as your capitol race is really nice here, all klackon cities you take over have innate -2 unrest).
…wait, what? Farmers market gives +3 food/+30 growth for 100 production. That’s better than a single worker (from not having to farm), even if you have a to suck up a rebel until you get the shrine (100 prod) or temple (200! prod) up. Plus the growth bonus, which again is critical. Especially for slow-growth races like the Myrrans or Elves.

Foxstab: Despite what you wrote about Catapults, like I mentioned above, I’ve found Airships to be an excellent unit to use against Sky Drakes - and most other strong site guardians like Wyrms, Giants or Elementals as well.
Unsupported by spells (for example because a node is around) it’s possible to lose an entire stack of them, but they’ll take some enemies with them.
In my first assault on a Sorcery Node with 4 Sky Drakes and 5 Phantom Warriors I managed to take down two Sky Drakes with 9 Airships, two times in a row. A third stack finished of the PWs and lived on to clear three other nodes guarded by powerful monsters.
Ironically, what finally got them killed was a lair defended by the relative weak Spirits - their magical attack shred the Airships to tears.

Also, most magical creatures kinda suck.
I’ve now played on enough to have maxed out gold and mana, and for the heck of it I summoned a full stack of Sky Drakes.
They cost me 9000 mana, plus a fortune to support (25 each?), and their effectiveness is questionable, imo - an assault on a 5 unit stack of enemy Paladins cost me four of the dragons, which caused me to disband the rest of them suckers.

My elite force is still - as in the old days - a full stack of Paladins with some enchantments thrown on them. These guys are killers and barely took a dent when I recently assaulted Horus’ capital garrisoned by Arch Angels and Paladins. At least for my playstyle, the Paladin is the best unit in the game, hands down.

Also, at least in this hard game, I’m having one hell of a endgame. It’s a truly epic experience, where I’m wrestling city after city from Horus’ hands.
I conquered his Capital and he’s casting the Spell of Return, but he’s lost.
Been a great struggle.

I’ll post my score when I’m finally done - it will probably be abysmal, as I took much too long to accomplish things - but it’s been a great match.


rezaf

The game is finished, and it was a good one. With high elves having such a slow growth rate, I decided that this would be a game of conquest, with very few settlers, so I put all of my power into mana and started summoning nagas. While exploring, I found a neutral klackon town, which I took, and a few turns later, a lizardman town, which I also took. Looks like I’m stuck with lizardmen and klackons for my slave races. It could be worse… oh wait, no it can’t. I also find one mithril deposit, but it only really allows for one town to use it, so I interrupt my capital’s rush to longbowmen to make one settler.

The turn after I take the lizardman town, Lo Pan shows up at its door, in March of 1402 - that’s really early! I’m thinking that the game might be over before it began, but the best group Lo Pan can throw together only has one hero and his starting swordsman and spearman. My 4 nagas are able to defend the town, although I lose three of them to combat and confusion.

He shows up again in June of 1402 at the same town, this time with 2 hell hounds, but I’m back up to strength due to my ridiculous tax rate and buying klackon swordsmen. I win with minor losses. I then find his capital in April of 1404 and start walking there with my very early killer stack - 6 nagas and 3 klackon swordsmen!

The battle takes place in December of 1405, with Lo Pan fielding 4 hell hounds, 2 heroes, a swordsman, and an engineer. He casts more spells than I can drem of at this stage of the game, but it’s no match for my naga horde. Lo Pan bites the dust.

Three months later, I make contact with Raven, who has already spread to a number of cities. I bring the new stack of doom, 5 nagas and 3 high elf cavalry, to his doorstep and banish him. While he’s casting the spell of return, I take over a fair bit of his empire. I banish him for the second time in October 1409 and take over his last town in June 1410 to defeat him.

This leaves me in charge of the main continent in Arcanus, but I’ve seen one of Ariel’s units around - she’s on Arcanus somewhere…

I finish taking the neutral towns and make my second high elf settler. This gives me three high elf towns in great locations, one of which has mithril - it might be enough, with plenty of food and gold from my slave towns.

Luckily for me, Ariel is on another continent, with 5 or 6 spaces of water between us. She’s got Nomads and somehow has picked up high man magicians to guard her capital - so much for my killer stacks of longbowmen. I start ramping up to produce elven lords, hoping that the water will keep her from overrunning me in the meantime. Ssra shows up on my continent and takes over a few of my towns before I can turn him back. He’s got beastmen and trolls.

I hit her with 3 flying, guardian winded, magic immune elven lords, and her capital falls. She comes back two more times before I take her last city, and I promptly turn their production to griffins - not great, but flying and first strike are useful.

Ssra is a tough nut to crack - he has about twenty cities on Myrror and a silly lead on me in spell power and research. I scout his capital and find four great drakes and five chaos spawns - more than I can take down without major enchanting of multiple stacks of elven lords, so I take him down the easy way - I send in one flying invisible unit at a time and then banish until I run out of casting power. Then I repeat 8 more times until that final drake is banished, along with Sssra.

I take over a handful of his cities in the eight turns before he returns, and hit his new capital with my elite stack of one hero and three flying, magic immune, spell locked, and hasted elite elven lords. They pack a punch and are able to take down his capital the next three times he returns. I take over the rest of his towns with stacks of unenchanted elven lords, griffins, and minotaurs, leaving him one city to return to, which I surround with sky drakes and storm giants.

I soend the next 80 turns researching and casting the spell of mastery, while taking out nodes and lairs with my random stacks. It was a great game, but the endgame mopping up and getting the SoM cast took forever, with the game well decided.

Here’s the final tally:

I sure do love this game.

Started a new one, impossible, with Oberic and halflings. Oberic doesn’t look that great - 5 life books and 5 chaos ones - might be good out of the gate with chaos summons and life enchants. Halflings, however, may be the best race in the game, so I’ve got high hopes. Chaos channeled, flame bladed, eldritch weaponed halfling slingers with giant strength ought to be able to put the hurt on just about anything.

I really hate Sss’ra, the last two games I’ve played have ended in bug hunts on Myrror. This time, Sss’ra got off a Great Wasting fairly early, and Freya and Raven couldn’t handle it. I took both of their capitals with barely a defender.

I finally got off a successful Disjunction (third try) after casting Planar Seal, and pretty much cleaned up every site and node on Arcanus with Shuri & Gunther and a stack of Wyverns. I have Plane Shift this time, so I’ll probably just get my superstack adjacent to his capital on Arcanus, shut off the Seal, and guerrilla shift.

Finally done. What a grind in the end.
Pretty miserable score, as I expected, but just look at the ending date to see why.
I battled every single wizard down to his last city, and conquered those as well, except for Horus, whose arctic city I left standing to cast the Spell of Mastery. Most time was probably wasted “wrapping up” Myrran, conquering nodes and lairs etc. - it was late already when I began serious attempts to take the fight to Arcanus. Then I played rather cautiously, always trying to minimize losses and secure my holdings instead of pressing on in a timely manner.
I re-learned many of the games mechanics in this match, which alone is priceless, and it was great revisiting this classic.
Had a great time.


rezaf

I just won my first game. Turns out death magic doesn’t suck after all; it just requires a totally different play style from the other schools. And lots and lots of cheese tactics.

Difficulty: Hard
Endgame status: Victory
Rjak + Lizard Men
Banished Wizards: 4
(I didn’t cast the Spell of Mastery)
Fame: 91
Year: 1424
Final Score: 4146

Man… I’d forgotten how inelegant MoM’s end game was. After I banished the last wizard (Merlin) I had to spend another hour or two capturing each & every one of his remaining cities.

By the way, when I banished Raven, all of his cities turned neutral. Why did Raven’s remaining cities go neutral, while Merlin’s remained his?

Because Merlin was the last enemy wizard?

So the last wizard banished always retains his cities? What a strange design choice.

Are you sure Raven wasn’t defeated and not banished? When a wizard is banished s/he returns after a while if they still have cities, while a defeated wizard is removed from the game.

Yeah, if his cities went neutral, I’d assume he was defeated (i.e., he resigned rather than attempt casting the Spell of Return) instead of banished.

Yeah, if you actually defeat the last wizard, the game ends. If he still had cities left, you only banished him.

Whew, I finally finished my game as Tlaloc with high elves on hard. In the end it was a race between my mopping up and the spell of mastery, and after banishing Oberic and S’ssra 5 or 6 times each, they finally admitted defeat about 20 turns out from my casting the spell. Ah, the joy of pathfinding heroes leading mithril paladins and adamantium doom drakes with pretty much constant use of black prayer. Towards the end I was getting kind of sloppy and lost a few undefended cities that I’d taken from the ai, which decided to raze them to the ground rather than let me have them.

Rise again!

So let’s revive this now that the Caster of Magic-mod has been released as a DLC (more information in the MoM aquired by Slitherine-thread).

Assisted by random, I have started a game with Horus leading the High-Elves on Fair difficulty. This won’t end well.

Starting position: Who needs more than a small island…


Starting with two settler units… that’s new.

Edit; My first hero was B’Shan. I sent him and some swordsmen to clear out the skeletons from a temple. Turns out there was a Nightstalker there too. Oops.

I need to keep up with threads more often. Thanks for mentioning this!