Game Journal Tuesday 11 July 2000

Pic of the day: Those trolls are ugly brutes, are they not?

Master of Magic

All goes according to plan. My dwarven empire expands steadily across the surface of Myrror. Neutral cities are subjugated by my faithful heroes and placed under martial law enforced by golems, until shrines and temples for the Life Forces are build and the populace becomes truly converted to the cause.

***

This particular match, which has lasted since sometime last weekend, is played at normal difficulty level. I'm basically trying out a strategy that I have not used for a while, tentatively called "Master of Myrror". As my fellow MoM fans will know, the game takes place on two parallel worlds, Arcanus and Myrror. Arcanus is the most standard fantasy world, while Myrror is a more intensely fantastic dimension, richer in magic and weirdness. The default for the game is to start on Arcanus, but at a cost you can start on Myrror. This makes for a slower start, since Myrror nodes and lairs are harder to conquer. On the bright side, the other players are left behind on the other world until someone is powerful enough to break through to the other world. This usually takes a while. By choosing the Dragon face, I ensure that I am alone on Myrror for the first part of the game.

Dwarves is a good choice for a starting race. They don't have good soldiers until a bit into the game, but they produce more money than any other race and make fabulous engineers. I have one single engineer unit connecting the new cities with roads, and for natural expansion it works well enough.

My wizard (that's the incarnation of the player in the game, sort of) has artificer skill in addition to starting on Myrror. Artificers can produce magickal weapons and artifacts at half cost. This means my heroes can get equipped in half time, always useful. Better yet, it means I can upgrade my weaponry over time, as old items give full value in mana points when I break them. By steadily running some new "create artifact" spell, my heroes get better and better equipment. This is essential to winning, since it is an area where the artificial intelligence is sorely lacking.

I spent the rest of my starting points on spell books. I admit I am not sure this was a good idea. I considered alchemy. Dwarves make mounds of gold, and with alchemy I could convert the surplus to mana and increase casting skill and research dramatically. However, I was too tempted by the many useful spells. I may try alchemy another time, if there is another time. This time I chose 3 life spell books, 2 nature spell books, and 2 sorcery spell books. My playing style relies heavily on basic life spells, protective magic. And web is a very useful green spell. The basic sorcery spells are not so useful, though. I think I chose it for the Floating Island spell, which is useful early in the game to cross oceans. But honestly, it doesn't take so much time before you can build a trireme or two.

At first I concentrated on one single city, while scouting the surrounding landscape. When this city was able to build halberdiers with +1 magickal weapons, I started to build alternately halberdiers and settlers and found new cities. The first was founded near an Adamantium mountain. Adamantium, properly used, gives +3 magickal weapons. It also gives a moderate boost to local mana production. From here on, I expanded this city as fast as practical, by rush buying each city improvement as it was half finished - even earlier for the first. Builders Hall, Granary, Shrine, Sawmill, Foresters Guild, Smithy, Marketplace, Farmers Market, Temple. The sequence is primed for maximal growth and production while avoiding unrest. Then Miners Guild, Library, Sages Guild, and Alchemist Guild. Then military buildings until I am ready to produce +3 golems. The other dwarven colonies supply surplus money for the rapid expansion of the military city.

Golems are not exactly paladins (the virtually unbeatable unit produced by High Men) but they are good defenders. They take a lot of beating, giving the sorcerer time to use magic or other units for counter attack.

***

The twin worlds are generated randomly each time you start a new match. This particular instance of Myrror has unreasonably many trolls. I've practically combed the game world and found 1 dark elf city and 1 dragon city (side by side), a couple of neutral dwarf cities, and 1 beastman city. There's like 10 troll cities. Trolls are practically worthless unless you play a rather special strategy where you use their inborn ability to regenerate. Basically, fallen trolls will rise again as long as their corpses are recovered (that is, if you win the battle). So you can throw as many trolls as possible on an enemy, if that decides the battle in your favor. Nifty. But apart from that, trolls are sad. They breed slowly, have a bad temper, build few useful buildings and don't pay much tax. In retrospect, I may have been better off razing the towns and planting dwarf cities instead.

According to the book and UseNet lore, cities will produce more gold if they are connected to other cities with roads, and particularly if those cities belong to different races. I'm not sure how much difference this makes. I have certainly not been able to notice a big change when a city is connected to the network. If you're looking for money, your best bet is dwarves, dwarves and more dwarves. They pay double tax, and get double bonus from special terrain, and build city improvements faster. (They build military units very slowly, though.)

I was lucky to find the beastman city early in the game. Beastmen are good complements to dwarves. They breed at a decent rate, they can build a wider range of city improvements, and they generate mana naturally. The more and bigger cities, the more mana. This in addition to mana from city improvements. They tend to run a deficit, though.

***

If you have read this far, chances are you are an avid MoM fan like myself. In which case I cordially invite your comments and your own favorite strategies. If you're not a player, you have probably already concluded that this game is horribly complicated. That's only partly true. On the easiest difficulty level, you can just muck around and pick up things bit by bit. But when you really get into it, yes, it is a science. I must admit that I play it only for fun, and typically on "normal" difficulty. (I hate losing. This incidentally applies in real life too.)

The ultimate source of MoM lore on the Net is probably Jarvinen's unofficial Master of Magic site.