That why my paladins were also flying and invisible.
Inspired to play. Caster of Magic for Windows on Steam just released v1.02.00. Unfortunately the game now crashes after ending the first turn. Many other reports of the same on the Steam discussion. Sent save file to support. :-/
I think the way to let Seravy know about problems is on this forum:
Realms Beyond – Caster of Magic for Windows
In fact, based on one of his recent posts, I gather he finds it discouraging that people do not let him know about problems they encounter.
I sent him the log files he needed via email, and he thanked me via a private response.
What do you think are the best game options for CoM (for Windows) for people who are relatively new? I want the game to be easy enough to progress far enough to see a range of units, etc, but not be so easy I learn bad habits. I got slaughtered my first few games at “Fair”. :-)
Current settings are:
Questions:
Is Easy too easy? That’s the lowest setting. Next one up is Normal then Fair.
Is 5 opponents about right for a Normal size map?
Are Large continents good to learn? I avoided random or Island … because I assume that was “not standard”.
I have also enabled “Smart Familiar” which seems essential while learning (to get a preview of lair battle results). Also “Targeting Aid” (will warn if casting a spell on an immune target). And “Easy Lairs” which is recommended with Easy difficulty.
For others:
I found the overall tips in this Reddit post very helpful
And this post on GoG
And also the tips in this thread!
If you know MoM, then Easy will be too simplistic for you. There is a very significant difference between Normal and Fair. Normal is definitely the place to learn the game, assuming you know the basic mechanics already from MoM.
Number of opponents and size of map is more complicated. In Caster, the size of the world depends both on the game size setting and on the number of opponents. So a Normal size map with 4 opponents is vastly smaller than a Normal sized map with 13 opponents. I believe the game is a little easier on a Large map (maybe even more so on Huge but I never tried that) because you tend to have more time to conquer the nodes and treasure locations around you, before AI wizards show up to pressure you and very possibly snap up the easy ones. As to number of opponents, the more you have, the more trading opportunities, and the less effective any sort of rushing strategy is for anyone. But exploration becomes more difficult, and as a result you are more likely to face a defensive war where you have little to gain because you don’t even know where your enemy cities are, or they are so far away that it would be counter productive to take and have to defend their cities or nodes. I usually choose a large world with about 8 or 9 opponents… The related decision is on the last screen (score modifiers) where you can alter the way the AI wizards are divided between the two planes. World Equalizer whacks your score (I never even notice score, I just play to win), but it does seem to produce a decent expansion area for you.
I always play on large continents, so I am not sure what it would be like otherwise. Just my taste, all these types of games, I find a lot of water travel tedious.
Smart Familiar and Targeting aid are both very useful options. Easy lairs, less so. It seems to me that, in general, the human has a leg up on cracking those lairs, you are more likely to devise a strategy once you know the contents of the garrison. And easy lairs means less loot, which can make an enormous difference in this game. Quite often you end up with a spell well before the proper era that way, also some pretty good heroes, and even spell books.
Thanks! Interesting that map size scales with opponent count. I changed to Normal size and the spacing between opponents (on large continents) feels right. I have also changed to Normal difficulty, that also feels right (I was snowballing too quickly on Easy, thousands of gold and mana in early game).
Smart Familiar and Targeting Aid are essential! And seem like they fit the theme: your wizard would know how tough a pack of cockatrices are. :-) I think of these as “score bonuses if you turn off”, and will leave them on by default for a long time.
I added one more: “No Overlap”. This changed minimum space between cities from 4 to 5 squares. It spread things out a little more. I think that’s personal preference, others may prefer denser cities on a continent.
My final settings are:
Maybe that helps some other noobs. :-)
Playing my first game after the patch, and it is an interesting one.
Got off to a phenomenal start. Several nodes in quick succession. Conquered several independent cities early, including a High Men city that got me not just Paladins, but eventually Paladins with adamantium weapons. WAY ahead on magical income, and ahead on everything else too. And I am the only wizard with any blue magic, so no one is in a position to dispell my unit buffs efficiently. And I wiped out my main antagonist, Freya, a maniacal nature wizard. Got my favorite, Aether Minding up and going.
But I might well lose! Despite all that excess magic income, several competitors have stayed fairly close in spell power. I didn’t think all that much of it, until one in particular showed up with significant numbers of Wraiths. I mean, wtf, I’m still in the mid-rare spell era myself, how are they keeping pace with so much less magic income. So at first, I thought maybe they just got a lucky draw, picking up a rare spell as loot in some dungeon. But then a few turns later they busted out with a very rare spell, Final Wave.
And now I realize that my good luck – no blue magic opponents – has a downside. Three death magic opponents must have been trading spells like crazy, such that they didn’t need anywhere near as much magic income to fly through the research. (Not sure if the patch made AI wizards better at this, but I have never seen this before!)
This game just continues to amaze me, always something different happening, new challenges at every turn.
Just curious, is there any way to see this or confirm this?
Not that I know of. Just an inference, since their magical income is vastly less than mine, and they are ahead on spells.
The only other explanation is that they are cracking a lot of difficult loot locations and getting very lucky.
This game might be too complicated for me. Which of these do I need to purchase in order to play Caster of Magic? I’m on Windows.
Very confusing.
Caster of Magic for Windows is the current iteration. The other “Caster of Magic” there, sans “for Windows,” is, I believe, the old DOS mod that is no longer being updated and is quite a ways behind the “for Windows” version, which I wish they had just released as a standalone CoM2 or something because you don’t (I think?) really need MoM at all to run it, although it is licensed and installed as a DLC. I personally would (and did) get it on GOG.
CoMW is the vastly superior version, so definitely play that.
I got master of magic in a bundle for 1 dollar earlier this year. I am just waiting for a sale before buying the rest
Thanks!
Finally, Master of Magic bundle is on sale! And I have Master of Magic, so the bundle is a decent price.
I have MoM classic on GoG, but decided to grab the bundle on Steam. With some earnings from selling Steam items automatically it came to a couple of bucks.
Ran across a mod for Caster of Magic for Windows: “Caster of Magic for Windows: Warlord”
Manual
Caster of Magic Warlord mod’s main goal is to improve immersion and reduce repetition when using normal military units. Normal units have been redesigned and several dozen new stock and racial unique units (with complete new animated sprites) have been added across the board.
The units recruited from Armorer’s Guild and Fantastic Stable buildings typically cost more and are far more advanced than their Caster of Magic counterparts. These units are not part of the Caster of Magic design of being disposable and inferior to summons and spammed all over the world to the point of clutter.
The mod also considers asymmetric game balance to be a key factor to game enjoyment to stay true to the spirit of Master of Magic. There will be moments where you might wonder an individual element is unusually strong – for the most part that is intentional though minor balancing tweaks will continue with future versions.
There have been spell and summon modifications, including entirely new summon units. Realms have been re-balanced accordingly.
Besides magic realms, races and building mechanics have also been redesigned to fit the modder vision, then heavily play-tested with balance taken into consideration. Some of these updates reverse changes from Caster of Magic to something closer to the original Master of Magic, albeit not completely.
Most recent version (1/22/22) 1.3.7
Download
Installation directions are near the top of the manual.
I have not had a chance to try it yet, but it looks interesting.
Very interesting. My concern is if the AI, which I understand is one of the big draws if not the big draw of CoM, will know how to play with these changes or if it will tilt the game back towards its roots of being a “comp stomp”.
Yes, that remains to be seen. His comment here is a bit ambiguous
Could be it means he likes the human player having overpowered strategies unavailable to the AI, but I am not sure.
For me, the draw here could be a bit more emphasis on “regular” troops. But only if the AI remains strongly competitive.