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[Duuvian]

Here is the MoM multiplayer page. It also has a small but active community on the forums.

http://www.roughseas.ca/momime/phpBB3/index.php

Also, look what I found on the forums. It's Masters of Magic Unofficial Patch 2.0!

http://www.roughseas.ca/momime/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=310

I've played MoM with this patch and mentioned it earlier in this thread. I recommend it. There is a .pdf in the zip file that has a list of changes and stuff.

[LordBucket]

Masters of Magic Unofficial Patch 2.0!

Link is dead, but I found a copy here

[Duuvian]

Cool, thanks LB, I shoulda checked it first.

[Sensei]

You have gained a skill point in data mining.

[Kagus]

Yeah, I'm running DOSBox.  I don't have any other emulators, and good luck getting this thing to run without one. 

Luckily I haven't seen any more crashes since then...  But I do wonder what it was that caused the first one.


Actually getting into the game has been a bit trickier...  There are still several aspects that elude me, and I've had a spot of trouble finding the right setup that works for me.  Also, I don't know if it's just an engine cap or if there's actually something weird going on, but the game seems to run rather slowly...  And not just in the sense that it takes me ages in order to build something.  I mean that the game itself seems to be a little sluggish.

I've tried looking around a couple times for a race and/or magic overview, never really found anything detailed.  It'd be really nice to know what each race actually has going for it instead of just having to work off of the blurb they toss in during character creation.  For instance, I only found out that Trolls regenerate after reading an online strategy guide/discussion.  I also found out that Draconians fly and that Dwarves can create golems.  None of this is mentioned in-game, and for a beginner who hasn't had time to poke through a fully-fledged city of each race, it's a little unhelpful not knowing what you're getting into when you start up a game, seeing as each match is quite the dedication.


On the other hand, it's also gotten me to start up Age of Wonders (original) again.  Always fun when that happens.


EDIT:  Oh yeah, and I tried getting a Runesmasher to work.  But I'm a tad uncertain as to what skill I need beyond Alchemy and Artificer, as I see nothing under the "Channeler" description that would point towards giving a greater spell discount/smashing return.  I was just getting back the same amount of magic-cash as I spent.

EDIT2:  Nevermind.  Misread, think I found the real thing now.  Sorry 'bout that.

[LordBucket]

I'm running DOSBox
the game seems to run rather slowly

Try adjusting your dosbox settings.In particular, look at the [cpu] section. For example, try setting 'cycles' to max.

I've tried looking around a couple times for a race and/or
magic overview, never really found anything detailed

You can right click on things for context help. This works during character creation too.

I tried getting a Runesmasher to work.

"Runesmasher?" Do you mean the runemaster retort? Runemastery gives you a 25% bonus to research and 25% reduced casting cost for arcane spells, and also increases the power of your dispell magics. "Arcane" spells are the generic spells that everybody gets regardless of book selection: magic spirit, dispell, summoning circle, etc. Runemaster is probably not a very useful retort.

But I'm a tad uncertain as to what skill
I need beyond Alchemy and Artificer

Alchemy and Artificer have nothing to do with runemastery.

If you're looking to play a game with focus on artifacts and heroes...number one most important thing is probably to play a a life mage so you can heal and ressurect your heroes. Without ressurection, once a hero dies...he's forever gone. That's really annoying if you spend a lot of time and effort building them up. So play a life mage. For artifacts...meh, personally I don't think retorts are really needed, but the artificer skill will reduce the total cost of your artifacts by 50%, which is kind of a lot, so it will speed that up. Alchemy gives you 100% efficiency when converting gold to magic or magic to gold. So if you build a lot of cities with high tax rates (life mages are especially good for this) then you can convert that gold into magic to use to build your artifacts.

If that's your goal, then something like: alchemy, artificer and 9 life spell books would be the obvious choice. But personally I think the better choice would be to take artificer and ten life spell books. Your alchemy will be half as efficient, but that tenth spellbook will gauruntee you access to every life spell in the game, and it's the very high level life city enchantments that give a life mage the gold surplus.

giving a greater spell discount/smashing return.  I was just getting back the same amount of magic-cash as I spent.

Oh...you're trying to do what Nirur Torir was suggesting in this post. Honestly, I don't know what he's talking about. Artifact destruction gives you exactly as much mana as it costs to make the artifact, so it's a break-even proposition. It's possible he may be talking about something that used to work in the original, unpatched game.

In any case, I recommend against focusing or "special" builds or exploits until you're comfortable with the rest of the game.

for a beginner who hasn't had time to poke through
a fully-fledged city of each race

Play high men. They're the only race that has full access to every building in the game, so they're a good standard choice.

[Jude]

Actually Orcs are the truly "generic race." They have access to ALL buildings (High Men have all but Fantastic Stable). Of course, High Men are still way more powerful because of Paladins.

I know I've seen some good race overviews online, but I dunno where...just keep googling.

One thing - Klackons, Gnolls and Lizards all blow, although Lizards have an interesting water walking ability - but they still blow, so they're for advanced players. Stick with High Men, Orcs, Nomads, High Elves at first.

[Kagus]

I have tried getting race overviews in-game, that's the problem.  I'm aware that right-clicking on something will provide a short info blurb on them, that's what I was referring to when I was talking about what you can see when you're in character creation.  The thing is, there are certain aspects of each race that aren't covered by that little blurb.

For instance, when you're looking at trolls on the creation screen, it shows you that trolls reproduce very slowly, and that they don't have access to certain buildings.  It says absolutely nothing about their regeneration, their war trolls, or even that they have four pegs to a unit. 

For halflings, you can see that farmers produce more food than the other races, and you can also see that they are blocked from certain other buildings.  It doesn't say anything about how they are capable of stacking a large number of troops onto one square, and that everyone has the "Lucky" trait. 

These are all things that you'd need to see in-game.  In other words, after you've already picked one.  I was looking around for some sort of fan-made  (not necessarily a requirement, but they tend to be the most comprehensive) list of all the different units, abilities, and quirks of each race. 


And by the way, the Runesmasher (a term I came up with in order to describe that special build) does actually work.

Artificer allows you to create items from the get-go, and for a significant discount.  Alchemy allows you to convert gold to mana (and vice-versa) at a one-to-one ratio.

Runemaster grants you another discount on arcane spells.  Well, guess what?  That works on item enchantment spells as well.

With just alchemy and artificer, you can create magical items and crush them again for no net gain or loss. Add runemaster into the mix, and you'll see something *very* interesting.


I've managed to quadruple my mana/gold reserves in the time it took to find and conquer my first city.  I'm working with barbarians, and with a paltry 6 power points to work with (one was set off for research purposes, the rest into skill) I was able to make a +5 armor element resist spell-enhancing plate mail before my first city even had a market.

Because of the extra discount, you can create an item for half the amount you'd get from smashing it.  Fun stuff.  Now imagine what you'd be able to accomplish with a darkelven power supply going into your skill bar (that's another thing...  Although it states that both draconians and beastmen generate 1/2 a power point per pop unit, they say nothing about the darkelven power generation or spellcasting infantry)...


EDIT:  Installed the 2.0 user patch, I'm just reading through the changes now...  They've made some interesting ones.

For example, Black Channels no longer exists.  There is a similar spell, Spectral Force, which does just about the same thing, but it's a combat spell and the effect wears off once the fighting is finished.  This has some interesting consequences...

They've also slashed the prices on a lot of death spells, and have made skeletons a zero-upkeep summon.  Life Drain has been removed though, and has been replaced by "Chill Touch", which deals 2 points of unresistable damage to a single unit.  From what I can tell, that means a single figure, as there's a new uncommon death spell which does the same thing, but to the entire group (which, for anything with less than two hitpoints a figure, would eradicate the entire unit.  Not bad, but doesn't really help against the big baddies.  Guess it's not supposed to).  Chill Touch costs 12 mana.


Chaos Channels has been all but removed from the game.  They've added it in as a potential random effect from Call Chaos.  And I never even got to use the bleedin' thing...


EDIT:  Oh yeah, one other thing...   Do the starting spellbooks just provide you with a base of knowledge, or do they represent your entire magic potential?

For instance, will a mage with four sorcery spellbooks be able to research more sorcery spells than a mage with two, or will he just start with more spells already under his belt?  I've been a little uncertain in regards to that...

[Jude]

The spellbooks are your potential. It's just like Age of Wonders with the spheres of magic. Having 10 spellbooks in a realm, IIRC, lets you research them all, whereas having 11 in a realm lets you research them all and have a rare spell as one of your starting picks, or something else not particularly worth it.

You can find extra spellbooks in ruins and stuff, although in my experience it's extremely rare.

Also, I'm sure I've seen race overviews online, but preliminary googling is coming up with nothing. I dunno, but one would be really nice to have.

[LordBucket]

Jude
Orcs are the truly "generic race." They have access to ALL
buildings (High Men have all but Fantastic Stable).

Just checked, and for me orcs can't build banks, cathedrals, oracles or war colleges. Though you're right yes...apparently high men can't build fantastic stables.

No great loss.

Add runemaster into the mix, and you'll see something *very* interesting.

Interesting. I just tested it and your'e right: An item that previously took 75 mana to create now only requires 38. I hadn't realized. I suppose since the item creation spells are arcane, it does make sense that runemaster would reduce their cost.

The math is odd though. Runemaster says it reduces by 25%, and it looks to me like it's actually reducing by 50%. 150 base, down to 75 from artificer then 38 from runemaster.

In any case...while interesting, and while it does make runemastery fantastically less worthless...I have to wonder if it's really that great compared to other options.

Do the starting spellbooks just provide you with a base of knowledge,
or do they represent your entire magic potential?

will a mage with four sorcery spellbooks be able to research more sorcery spells than a mage with two, or will he just start with more spells already under his belt?

It's a little more complicated than that, but yes...in general more spellbooks means more spells available in your research pool. You could, for example, play a no-spellbooks mage and you'd have access to the spell of mastery just as soon as you cleared up a few arcane spells.

Beyond that...I'll try and explain as best as I remember:

There are four levels of spells. There are 10 spells each of the common, uncommon and rare levels, and two very rare spells. Every spellbook represents approximately 3 spells from a school. The spells you get are psuedo-random, but there are minimum thresholds of books to get each level of spell. For example, if you choose only 1 book in a school, there's zero chance that you'll get any rare spells from that school.

If you take at least two books within a school, you'll be able to start with some of those spells already researched. These are the spells you're asked to choose when you create a character.

However, in some versions of the game, if you take fewer than some minimum threshold of books in any given school, the spells you choose at the beginning will be gaurunteed to be in your research pool, but you will not start with them already researched. (I think it was four, but it's been a while, and I'm not certain which versions did this. Might not be an issue for you. If your version works this way, then for example, 2 spellbooks would mean you'd choose spells and not start with them, but would eventually be able to research them, whereas if you chose five spellbooks you'd choose spells and start with them.)

With 10 spellbooks, you are gaunrunteed to have access to every spell of that school.

With 11 spellbooks, you'll start with every common spell, plus two uncommon and one rare spell. This allows you to start the game with a really high level spell that you would optherwise have to research a bunch of other spells just to get access to.

Every spellbook more than 7 within a particular school gives you a 10% discount to research and casting costs for spells of that school. So, for example, with 11 spellbooks you'd get a 40% discount.

To enchant a spell ability (bless, endurance, etc.) onto an item, you must have that spell in one your spellbooks, whether or not you've actually researched it yet.

Every spellbook you have any of any type increases the magic-per-turn value of your fortress.

Finally, some champions associated with life or death magic will only work for you in you have at least one spellbook of their type.

Note that it is possible to find spellbooks and retorts in high level dungeons and towers. Most often this will happen on Myrror. With a little luck (or savescumming) this can result in some broken combinations. For example, conjurer + sorcery master + 13 spellbooks = zero casting cost summons. If you're going to try this, note that there is a maximum number of spellbooks that you can have. (I think it's 13.)

[LordBucket]

whereas having 11 in a realm lets you research them all and have a rare spell as one of your starting picks, or something else not particularly worth it.

In some cases 11 books can be extremely worthwhile. For example:

1) There is no life or death "mastery" retort. For example, if you take 10 chaos books + chaos mastery, you'll get a 15% casting/research bonus from chaos mastery plus some other perks, but that's not an option for life or death mages. 10 books = 30% dioscount. 10 books + mastery = 45% discount, 11 books = 40% discount.

2) The starting rare spell can be a huge advantage for some schools, and there are some extremely viable strategies that depend on this. For example, a life mage starting with stream of life can start the game with a maximum tax rate on his cities and zero unrest. Another option: start with invulnerability. Having flying gaurdian spirits with invulnerability within a couple turns of game start makes early expansion much easier. With ten books, you'll need to spend a long time researching before you'll get access to these spells.

[Kagus]

Orcs in the 2.0 fan patch have building restrictions, but in vanilla MoM they don't.  In 2.0, Dark Elves are the ones with no building restrictions.

And I figured out the Runemaster discount thingy...  The math makes perfect sense if you just look at it from a different angle.

The percentages are additive, not cumulative.  So instead of first taking away the 50% discount from Artificer and then taking away the 25% discount from Runemaster, it combines the two discounts and takes away a total of 75% from the base cost of the item.

Say I'm making an item with a base cost of 200.  If the percentages were cumulative, then I would first have Artificer shave off 50%, then take the new value (100) and shave off 25% from that, thus ending up with 75.

But since they're additive, I'm taking away a combined 75% from Runemaster and Artificer at the same time, leaving a cost of 50 from the original 200.

The returns you get from smashing an item are 50% of base cost.  You're paying 25% of base cost in order to make the item, so you get back twice as much as you put into it.


Now, in order to get all the traits and stuff required for this little funhouse, you'll only have two points left over.  This can get you warlord or famous or something, or maybe a couple more books.  But the highest book rating you can look forward to is 4 books in one area.


Hmm...  A bit of a shame on the spellbooks = potential front, but I guess it makes sense.  It just means that you can't take any cool traits if you're looking to have access to the really cool spells.

[Duuvian]

There is a Prima guide .pdf linked to somewhere on Implode's forum, apparently it came out when they had first started but it's still a very good guide.

[LordBucket]

Ahh, I see. Ok. Yes, that does make more sense.

you'll only have two points left over.
the highest book rating you can look forward to is 4 books in one area

You could probably go without alchemy. After playing a couple dozen turns with artificer+runemaster I didn't get the impression there would be any shortage of mana to work with. I tend to get a lot of my mana by converting from gold (even without the alchemy retort) because there's so much surplus, so if you already have unlimited mana, there shouldn't be much need to do alchemy at all. Plus six of those points are books, so it's not like it's a total waste. If you skip alchemy you could have as many as five books in a single school, and nine books total. A lot of middle-game spells aren't useful, and I find that most games end before I get to the late game spells.

The biggest problem I have with it is the loss of casting cost reduction. The whole point of runemaster+artificer seems to be having unlimited mana...but mana isn't usually in short supply, and if it is a single point for the alchemy retort should get you all you need without having your overland casting tied up in making artifacts. Having reduced casting cost not only means you need less mana to begin with, you also get more benefit from the mana you do have. For example, let's say you have 100 spell skill, and infinite mana from the above method. Heal costs 15 mana, so you can cast it six times in one battle. Now let's say you take 11 life books instead. Suddenly that 15 mana heal spell only costs 9 mana to cast, so with 100 skill you can cast it eleven times in a single battle. And, since research costs less too, you'll get to the more powerful spells more quickly.

Or, let's say you go sorcery instead of life. 100 skill with your runesmasher means 10 phantom warriors. But if instead you go 10 sorcery spellbooks plus conjuring, phantom warriors only costs 5 mana. You'll get twice as many in a single battle. And if you only need 7, you'll spend half as much mana to summon them.

It just means that you can't take any cool traits if you're
looking to have access to the really cool spells.

If you want to go to the effort, there are a couple options:

1) Dungeons on Myrror drop spellbooks fairly often. If you take a bunch of retorts, you can try to fill up the books later on.

2) If there's a specific spell you want in your research pool, you can start and check for it, and restart until you get it. The spells in your spellbook are coded with a simple letter-to-symbol substitution. Spend five or ten minutes and you can figure out how to decode the spell names.

[Kagus]

Ah, but the trick with alchemy is that you can now convert those fancy-schmancy 800 mana points into 800 gold coins, instead of losing half of it in the process.   And this is in the first few turns of a game.

It's basically just for the cash that you'd be doing it...  Spellcasting is better handled by higher book ranks and spellcasting traits, but no amount of books will get you an early game gold fountain like this (honestly, there's no way you could get Streams of Life up and running that early, and even if you could, the benefit would be minimal with such underdeveloped towns).

Just recently started up a game with almost all my points shoved into traits.  I think I could have gone for that second life book instead of artificer, but oh well...   

Anyways, having a pack of trolls with magic weapons working their way up to ultra-elite alongside a hero I got for half price is pretty badass, if I do say so myself.