First run through

[Trucker1911]

Hello, I've been playing MoM on and off since I received the game as a gift back in 1995 or so.

I bought the Caster DLC and played a little bit.

For those of you who haven't had the chance to play the new version yet, here are some things I've noticed.

1) The retort system has been overhauled.
I played with Omniscience and chose a book from 4 different realms and got huge benefits from it. Production, max.population, etc

2)You can no longer do the "build weapons and destroy for a profit" scheme, but it's no longer necessary. You can no longer build weapons for 25% of the.price, and Artificer does NOT come with Build Artifact.

Magic power comes much more easily to come by with the Magic Market building, plus the retort that replaces Divine Power and adds a big buff.

3)Paladins no longer have magic immunity!!!! Big thing here.
You can't build a stack of buffed Paladins and run rampant anymore. Not sure I like this one. They were always vulnerable to slingers, though.

4) Magic resistance has been nerfed. A simple fireball from a magician does more damage. And even though the Paladins still have 7-8 resistance, they still get hurt by simple magic missiles.

Magicians and even Priests now do better damage, but units have been given more movement points per turn, so even swordsmen can come at you quicker.

I believe this was meant to balance out, but I think some units move too quickly. Fire Giants, for example, now have 4 ammo to shoot, but also have 4 movement units.


One enemy wizard decided to start pilfering mana from my mana points pool. It would not stop. I even took all my magic base and put them on Research and let my mana crystals get emptied, and whoever wizard was stealing them, continued to do so, no matter the fact I had none left and wasn't generating any per turn.

This needs to be fixed.


One great thing I noticed is that the turns go by quicker! The enemy wizards don't seem to make tons of boats for no reason, which I think was the reason why turns could take so long.

Buildings have been overhauled and depending on the retorts you chose, it is much quicker to.build up your city.

The game seems to have been changed to speed up gameplay.

Wizards don't keep peace for long. They still attack your units in your territory, and then ask you to exchange spells like nothing happened. This is probably something Seravy could not fix due to not having the source code. But they are still aggressive and still expand like no tomorrow.

Me, I liked having 3-4 cities and spamming the map with Paladins, or having Zoldron and a couple others go around destroying everything on the map.

I will have to adjust my strategy. It is less easy to win battles and enemies still come at you quicker. But at least you can build up your cities quicker and get food and gold supply going and build up strong armies quicker also.

I also noticed that no wizard seemed to have started on Myrror plane. Usually every game would have Sss'ra on Myrror and the other 3 on Arcanus.

Myrror retort also is ONE pick now.

Hopefully one day, someone will be able to alter the game further and provide us with much bigger maps. I don't mind being an expansionist, but when the map is small, and enemies expand quickly, you learn to stay small and build a stack of heroes.

Also, since weapons are more expensive to make, and units are easier to kill, it almost doesn't seem worth it to spend vast resources on building a hero army. However, both magic power AND casting skill seems to be greatly buffed, it may still be worth it.

Like I said, I only got part way into the new game, but these are just my observations from what I've seen so far.

Also, I.would still suggest that Mana Stealing be nerfed, or altered, and would also like to see Paladins with slightly better magic resistance, and also, please add Counter Magic back to the Level 1 Sorcery Spells so starting with 1 Sorcery Book can afford you this much needed skill.

One other thing I had forgotten - the ONLY reason I ever grab a book of Life magic, is to get the Guardian Spirit - so that I wouldn't have to defend my nodes.

It seems the Guardian's high chance of killing enemy spirits is gone. In fact, it seems that any magic spirit can meld right over it and take it on first try. Not sure I like this change. This has always been one of the best selling points for using Life.

Prosperity was always a decent one, but not too sure what its role will be with these changes. It used to be a late-game spell, as building up your cities took so long, and you'd just use the money to buy another city or a few stacks of Paladins.

Cities can be built up much quicker, so not sure there is as much a role in the game for tons of gold. It would work if the map were bigger and you could use more gold for more expansion.

But right now, I think Life could use the Guardian Spirit's special ability. Especially when enemies immediately attack anything that comes out of your city.


Thanks again for reading, and thanks to Seravy for all the time and effort he's spent in keeping this great game relevant.

Oh. Rakir The Beastmaster now has a bow and arrow. Thought that was neat.

[Seravy]

4) Magic resistance has been nerfed. A simple fireball from a magician does more damage. And even though the Paladins still have 7-8 resistance, they still get hurt by simple magic missiles.

I have to correct this one. Damage spells are reduced by the defense stat in this game, always have been. Magic resistance only applies against "resist or die/be cursed" kind of effects. Fireball is indeed stronger at least compared to one that used no extra mana slider, but the important detail is, that spell hits all enemy figures. Units with more figures take more damage so it can be quite brutal on those units.

Fire Giants have 3 movement, maybe the one you encountered had a buff.

Overland curses like drain power can be pretty bad. These are cast by the AI based on their personality, but cannot be used unless the AI considers you an enemy, so a Wizard's Pact can prevent it. Drain Power in particular is at low priority on the AI's research list as it is especially crippling in the early game when mana income is still below the amount it can drain, but finding it in treasure can give it to them earlier. Perhaps an additional condition to never cast the spell before a certain turn count would be a good idea. Any recommendations for the limit? Another possible solution is to change the drain formula somehow so the "constant" portion is lower the earlier it is cast, any recommendation is welcome on that as well.

They still attack your units in your territory, and then ask you to exchange spells like nothing happened. This is probably something Seravy could not fix due to not having the source code. But they are still aggressive and still expand like no tomorrow.

Unless there is a non-aggression aka Wizard's Pact treaty or something equivalent, the AIs can randomly turn "Hostile" and attack you as long as they aren't lawful or peaceful. This is a feature from the original, albeit I added the "unless they are lawful or peaceful" detail. Attacking any of their units automatically flips this "Hostility" flag on. Offering tribute can make them reroll it but there is no guarantee they will roll "not attacking" on the reroll unless they are of those two personalities. The chance of being Hostile depends on their personality and your relation level with them.
(This "Hostility" flag is also what allows them to cast curses like Drain Power, by the way. No hostility - can't target you with curses.)

Normal and below difficulty has no Myrran enemies, this is, again, a feature from the original, but most people played higher difficulties there. Fair and above has at least one Myrran enemy.

I am working on source code based new Caster of Magic that will have larger maps, but that will take time.

Guardian Spirit now makes the node generate extra MP and buffs your units defending it. The protection the old one provided was decent but unreliable due to the random chance involved, and on top of that it was extremely annoying to deal with it when the enemy used them, and there was no way to know how many spirits are needed to take over their node. It wasn't fun.

[Trucker1911]

Thank you for your reply!


As far as Drain Mana, can you code it to where they have an equal chance to cast it on any given wizard? That way, if they cast it every turn, you at least have 1/4 chance depending on if they've met everyone, or are hostile to everyone.

They took probably 150-400 mana per turn. Went from 3,000 in my pool to zero pretty quickly. It takes magic right out of the game. Might as well cast Suppress Magic.

As far as being attacked, it doesn't seem proper that an enemy should attack without first declaring war. So if they want to go to war, then so be it. But don't attack and then expect me to trade spells.

I would like to see Paladin resistance raised by 3-4 more crosses, if you think that would be prudent. They are High Men's best unit, after all. Make them cost 25% more production to build as a trade off, perhaps?

Guardian Spirit needs to still be able to kill off incoming Magic Spirits. If you can add a dice roll to it, 2/3 chance to kill Magic Spirit and 50% chance to kill another Guardian would work. If this is something you can do.

Magic power comes easier now so not sure I will care much more about taking, melding and defending them, as it will probably cost too much in resources, only for someone to cast Drain Mana on me every turn and take it all.

Looking forward to playing it through again here in a sec.

I'll update again if I come across something I honestly think needs to be fixed.

If you get the game to support bigger maps and more opponents, I'd gladly pay a few $$ for that kind of expansion. Exploring the map was a huge part of my fun back when I was 12-13 when this came out. Now that I'm older, I get around to playing it maybe once a year or so. Glad to see it updated.

Thanks again for keeping MoM alive and kicking!




EDIT:

Couple things. Sometimes on starting a new game, it will get stuck forever on "Building Worlds..."


Also, seems Animists Guild is now necessary to build Armorer's Guild, which is fine, but it doesn't let us know in the "Allows" field.


Neverending battles!!!
If you are attacked by a flying unit, and you have no way to destroy it, for one reason for another, you're forced to flee.
If you hit "auto", they all seem move around randomly forever. The flying unit will not attack.
This, I thought, had been taken care of in the "Insecticide" patch, which I thought you had assimilated into your overhaul, but this may have been overlooked.


I'm casting Drain Mana and stealing from Tauron 230-245 mana each hit, and it's not being transferred to my pool, despite it saying that it should.


Giving Ghouls magical ranged attacks is way OP, especially given how easy it is to accumulate magic power and spam the board with them.


Are you sure that the Guardian Retort is working? I chose this retort, and my city is still maxing out at 25k. Shouldn't it go to 31k?

[Seravy]

Generating maps, especially the Tiny size, can take up to 2-3 minutes. This is because there are very little land tiles and a lot of things have to be placed without breaking rules (for example player capitals can't be too close or can't have too poor terrain) so it takes a lot of rerolls to find the correct positions.

Armorer's Guild only requires Fighter's Guild and the date to be at 1406 or later.

Flying units not attacking if it's not beneficial for them is a feature. It will not happen in lower difficulties in version 6.01 anymore, that was an oversight.

Drain Power transfers mana to your skill pool, in other words you get that much SP, not MP. It increases your casting skill.

Guardian adds +6 so the city can grow 6000 higher. However no city in the game can be larger than 25k, that's a global rule with no exceptions. I assume the main reason is this is how much people the city screen can display at most. It might be interesting to rethink if this cap really is necessary.

[Trucker1911]

Can you please explain further how Drain Mana works?

Casting Skill is the amount of mana per turn you can channel into casting a spell. Usually it starts at 10 and depending on retorts and how much power you spend on skill, you can raise it, but you don't end up with 100 mana per turn in the skill column overnight, it takes time.

So when you drain 245 mana from another wizard, they lose 245 mana, and it goes where? It gets added to the amount of mana you channel into skill?

For example, I could have a power base of, say, 150 mana per turn. I spend 40 to add to mana pool, 50 on research, and 60 on skill. I might be adding .5 skill pts per turn from that or so.

So the 245 i steal from Tauron, it gets added to that 60 for a total of 305? And is that permanent or just for the next turn only? I guess maybe that would add 2.5 more skill to what you have. Seems a decent trade off.

Am I getting this right?

Thx

[Seravy]

"So the 245 i steal from Tauron, it gets added to that 60 for a total of 305?"

Yes.

"And is that permanent or just for the next turn only? "

Permanent.

[Trucker1911]

Thank you.

Any chance for a "Move City" spell in the Arcane Book?

Would help tons.

[Seravy]

Maybe after I finish remaking the game with source code. It's not possible using with hex editing.