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[LoSboccacc]

If anyone doesn't remember the punchline, it's from the old Master Of Magic, a game famous for its fun factor brought by the insane unbalance that anything within the game has.

Every item is potentially game breaking powerful, so that it basically becomes a rush to the ultimate power, whether by armies, champions or spells.

Spoiler: a bit of introduction (click to show/hide)

for the most part, the game looks like a civilization clone. you build cities, buildings within cities, train units in cities and move stack of units around razing and conquering other cities.

from a comparison stand point, there is one important difference: units are fairly cheaper than building; early on swordsman cost just 3 turns, while a temple comes in 15. the limiting factor for armies is food, not cost.

of a note are also heroes: they are slightly more powerful than your standard unit, there is a limited amount of them, but they fight alone, while a swordsman unit comes with six of them and they all attack and defend. the true power of heroes lies in leveling them up and giving them artifacts, which can greatly enhance them above and beyond what your most powerful unit can become.

and last but not least, magic: you can cast spells that do pretty much anything, both on the world map and in combat, from standard magic and normal resistance to the classical fireballs and bolts; spells have all kind of effects, i.e. one makes a unit undead and also removes its food cost, so there is much potential here for powerful combinations.

the most interesting part of this game is that nothing was actually balanced and anything can become so huge, from paladin armies with invulnerability and crusade spells on them to city breaking spells and immortal invisible flying heroes; this means that you can actually win the game specializing in any sector you like, while having to defend from your absurdly powerful enemies attack.

I figured I should really learn to play this, so I'll be documenting my failures here for the community enjoyment and to steal interesting hint and strategy from your juicy posts.

Spoiler: A pretty standard game (click to show/hide)

Time for choices! I'll be the Old Man, obviously. Because I totally hate this guy:

Spoiler: It has a goatee so you know it's bad (click to show/hide)

So, what should a winner look for? I hear chaos is pretty cool, but death magic also intrigues me.

Spoiler: The Old Man in the mirror (click to show/hide)

I guess that the old grumpy would not have selected any school in particular, so I will overspecialize in sorcery, with a SSSSSSSSS + conjurer and sorcery mastery retorts. A lot of common spell also comes for free; I just exchanged resist magic with nagas since the counter magic looks better on paper:

And I'll go with the High Mans, which are a solid race, balancing the stupid spellbooks selection.

Welcome, to Newland!

Spoiler: on spellbooks (click to show/hide)

in this screen you can customize your wizard. spells and research works in a weird way here: the more spellbook of a school, the more spells you are given. spells are given at start, with having more book of a particular school giving you higher level spells. spells then need to be 'unlocked' researching them. the number of spells also influence which spells of which school you can unlock at start for free

Spoiler: on cities (click to show/hide)

city appearance is only influenced by the population size; the blue flag is our banner.

[LoSboccacc]

Spoiler: The start, on exploration and bemusement (click to show/hide)

We started on a chockepoint, from which we can set one border and decide where to expand next. Meanwhile the city will build the usual suspects, granary at first and then some defensive units.

Scouting aggressively will reveal which part of this area is better suited for starting expansion:


A gnoll hamlet city lies at south west, while two nature node are up north east.


The northern area is closed by the sea, but I would like a city up north to protect the nodes.
According to our surveyors, a city built north of the node wold become an interesting mid size port, sustaining a population of 11 but with very small production bonus.

I will first take the gnoll city, and then move a settler on our northern shore.
The city is currently not heavily defended:


But we will need more than our standard unit to defeat them.

Time to rack up our mana production, we will win this city by spell casting.

Spoiler: on nodes (click to show/hide)

the special tiles up north are nodes. they are magically charged, interfering with your spells, and attract magical creatures which will attack you on sight. if you can clear a node, you can meld a spirit which channels mana directly to your reserves

Spoiler: on races (click to show/hide)

to complicate matters, each race has its own set of graphical sprites. in this screen you see the defenders, which are swordsmen just like my unit and a spearman, but they in their gnollish sprite version

[LoSboccacc]

Spoiler: sprites, they all are (click to show/hide)

While the army builds, I uncovered a bit of the southern area:

some ruins and a nearby tower, which will be useful later on. or will be our doom.

Besides, at 4 turn per swordsman, I have time to go and check what lurks within the nature nodes. The first one has sprites:

A couple unit and a hero? can work, if there aren't many. Chaaarge!

Sprite hit hard:

but I hit harder. I overdid it a bit, but I didn't wan't the nature of the node conflicting with the cast:


we're victorious! 150 gold also were laying just there, probably a gift from an unlucky explorer:


a spirit will seal the node and bend its power to our will:

feel the power! it's the luccicanza!


With the sawmill just being completed, we probably have some few turn before we can add a couple swordsman to our little army... probably enough to tap the other node?

Spoiler: on ruins (click to show/hide)

a lot of different places holds monsters and treasure and occasionally a hero in distress that may join you; it is important to reap on their bonus early on.

Spoiler: on towers (click to show/hide)

the tower are usually protected by powerful monster; by towers you can travel to the other magical plane, myrror; that plane holds more mana, tougher monster and better treasure

[Iituem]

Love this game so much.  It's so utterly game breaking at the higher spell levels, but since all of the schools are so woefully unbalanced you can end up with every faction breaking the game equally.  Definitely watching this one.

[IronyOwl]

Been meaning to give this a try. Not entirely certain what's happening so far, but watching with interest.

[Darkening Kaos]

I found Gnolls to be fairly useless, better to raze their city and found an outpost of your own on the ruins, {but one square further south}.

I was playing this just last night, nostalgia crept up an me when I wasn't ready for it.  I still have the box, books and original CD, packaged as the Players Choice Edition (1994), getting it out every now and then to hammer the wimpy Elves in a storm of raging dwarves and trolls, all led by Mega-Jesus.

Have fun.  I'm gonna start a new game now.

[Neonivek]

Love this game so much.  It's so utterly game breaking at the higher spell levels, but since all of the schools are so woefully unbalanced you can end up with every faction breaking the game equally.  Definitely watching this one.

Honestly I considered playing a game with level 1 magic in everything but life (because I've already seen max power life... it is extremely potent) and see what amazing spells I develop along the way.

[LoSboccacc]

Been meaning to give this a try. Not entirely certain what's happening so far, but watching with interest.

I retconnected some explaining; I can't really explain to much since this game is quite weird and each thing would require a wiki page

Love this game so much.  It's so utterly game breaking at the higher spell levels, but since all of the schools are so woefully unbalanced you can end up with every faction breaking the game equally.  Definitely watching this one.

anything works as long as you have mana to back your unit up, specially because you can charge the low level spells to be more effective.
Honestly I considered playing a game with level 1 magic in everything but life (because I've already seen max power life... it is extremely potent) and see what amazing spells I develop along the way.

[TheZoomZoll]

I like this so far.The format doesn't need much change either.

This looks like an interesting game so I might get it and give it a try too.

[EuchreJack]

Yay, Master of Magic LP!

[LoSboccacc]

With a noob! I only need something better than tiny pic for uploading images in batch; suggestuon?

[EuchreJack]

Imageshack allows you to upload multiple pictures at once.

And by multiple, I mean 10+ (I'm not sure there is an actual limit).  You just highlight all the pictures you want to upload, and wait for the internet absorb your sweet screenshots.

[Robsoie]

If you're interested in Master of Magic, i recommend this unofficial patch, fixing several bugs and improving the AI so it gives a better challenge :
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=3663

[LoSboccacc]

If you're interested in Master of Magic, i recommend this unofficial patch, fixing several bugs and improving the AI so it gives a better challenge :
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=3663

I know, I'm already on 1.40n; just forgot to mention it on the OP.

Spoiler: A diversion before gnolls (click to show/hide)

Well, a diversion first actually, let see what's on the other node; the earlier we get em, the more the gains.

War bears? Why not!

9 attack and 5 defense each?

ok, fail; flee for your life!

Spoiler: on swords and shields (click to show/hide)

The MoM combat system is a bit weird by today standard.
Attacker run a 30% roll for each sword for each figure; defender roll a 30% roll for each shield.
Each successful attack roll minus each successful defense roll is the damage dealt. Both attacker and defender perform an attack roll in melee, at the strength they had when the combat start.
This mean that a war bear attack can kill all the swordsman figure in a single turn! And the swordsman cannot hope to pass their defense.

Spoiler: meanwhile, back in the city of Newland (click to show/hide)

The army of the high mans is ready to engage the gnollish city, strong of a wizard, three swordsman, a bowman and a spearman unit.


The gnolls are a bit stronger than us, but we have a powerful sorcerer on our side!

Let's cast confusion on them:


it failed 

ok, then: phantom warriors! sorcerers doesn't really have much in the way of offensive spells.


spam phantom warrior, actually, since they're so cheap:


in the end, we are triumphant; we lost a swordsman, sadly.


I decided to keep the gnolls.
They have no high end troops, but they make fine swordsman, stronger than ours (two sword more, from 3 to 5), which will make a cheap and powerful complement to our troops in the early phase of the game

[IronyOwl]

So is each unit a hit point, or what?

Also, good to see your empire grow. And I was wondering about the wisdom of attacking War Bears.

Why are nodes better the earlier you get them?