MOM Hint II

pchang · March 23, 2001, 15:14

Yes I have tried 11 life books and the incarnation strategy works too, but it is slower. 11 chaos and chaos spawn works fairly well. Right now I am trying 11 sorcery and storm giant. It is working fairly well, except that in my current game I have found 2 death books so far. Anyway, I think once you can support 200 manna per turn and Time Stop, the game is over. I was hoping for life instead. So far, I have not been able to get warlord and crusade at the same time, but I can always hope.

Richard Bruns · March 23, 2001, 22:21

That wraith strategy is just too powerful. I had won the game by 1409, even though I wasted a lot of time taking out nodes and exploring Myrror. It looks like 11 of any type of book is a game-breaker, so I'll avoid that in the future.

By the way, why do the Wraiths have such a hard time fighting other undead creatures? Stacks of ghouls or zombies will kill a perfectly healthy unit, despite being much less powerful than other things the Wraiths kill easily.

pchang · March 24, 2001, 00:36

wraiths life steal. they take points from the enemy and regenerate by the same amount. you can't steal life from the undead.

Father Beast · March 24, 2001, 15:07

Before we get too far into the sequel, lets have a link to the Grand Old Thread
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum22/HTML/000583.html?173

the thread I read first when I come here. or used to

why the (bleep) do they close threads anyway?

must be some programming FM

thanks for bringing it back, guys

Father Beast · March 24, 2001, 21:56

Every time I play MoM, I am amazed at how difficult it is to get started. the support for even the lousy starting troops can drag on you, and supporting some troops decent enough to take a node is can drag a single city to a virtual halt. not to mention that the improvements neccesary to get those decent troops cost more gold in support than is very feasible.

When I get on in the game and have several maxed out cities doing trade goods (capitalization), I forget how rough it is at the start.

does everyone have this problem, or is it just me?

pchang · March 25, 2001, 02:58

I think everyone has that problem. This is why the game is so challenging. It is also why the 11 death book strategy w/ wraiths is so powerful.

Chowlett · March 26, 2001, 15:55

I eventually found another install of MoM on my hard-drive, ostensibly identical with the other - but it worked. It's now safe on a RW CD while my machine is upgraded.

I think, before it went, I won on easy with the 11 death/wraith method in 1409. And I wasn't really trying.

pchang · March 26, 2001, 16:53

I was demonstrating that 11 death strategy over the weekend, but this time the wizard on Myrror was a life wizard who managed to cast planar seal before I was ready. I still won, but it took a lot longer since I couldn't attack him.

Why do they close these threads? The UltimateBB software this site uses has an inefficient algorithm for linking new threads (I figure they are using some sort of linked list instead of an index hash). This causes the server to really slow down if the threads get too long. They close long threads to prevent this.

pchang · March 29, 2001, 14:45

Has anyone else noticed that the higher the difficulty setting, the more often the game crashes?

Bosh · March 29, 2001, 16:59

It's ridiculously easy to win as trolls without ever using any magic, you just run in circles whenever you get hurt. Virtually nothing can beat an army of 9 elite war trolls

. Trolls and a little bit of life magic to buff them up is especially devastating.

pchang · March 29, 2001, 17:13

What do you do before you can build War Trolls? Earlier units only move 1.

pchang · March 29, 2001, 17:17

BTW, I finally got Warlord and Crusade in the same game. Champion Adamantium Doom Drakes could almost take on Sky Drakes on a 1 for 1 basis. My Mithril Paladins boosted by Torin's leadership had an attack of 16. The only real problem was that by the time I found the Crusade spell, the game was pretty much over. There was only 1 enemy wizard left, and while she was still a pain in the ass, the outcome was no longer in doubt.

Chowlett · March 30, 2001, 18:50

quote:

I eventually found another install of MoM on my hard-drive, ostensibly identical with the other - but it worked. It's now safe on a RW CD while my machine is upgraded.
I think, before it went, I won on easy with the 11 death/wraith method in 1409. And I wasn't really trying.

Only, when I came to back it back, I discovered I was 7k short again. I'll try putting some things in High when it comes back from repair (see the B&W thread)

Bosh · April 3, 2001, 03:11

Well even without war trolls you can generally beat most monsters that only move one space a turn by leading them on wild goose chases while your trolls regen. With some practice you'll also be able to "ping pong" faster monsters between you non-war trolls as long as there aren't many of them or they aren't too powerful. Also its possible to have a spare hero lead the enemey around while your trolls heal...

pchang · April 5, 2001, 09:47

I just got MOM to load on Windows 2000. It was pretty easy, but I lost sound. Anyway, it is on my laptop now and I play on the plane when I'm travelling. Just create a PIF for magic.exe and wizards.exe. Set DOS environment to 640 and EMS to 4096. Then run install and say no sound to everything. It may be possible to get sound if you have a Soundblaster card, but I'm pretty sure the one on my laptop isn't supported. Of course, I haven't had time to fully explore the settings. Anyway, sound on an airplane is kind of pointless. It's so noisy you can't hear anything anyway.

pchang · April 6, 2001, 13:16

In my latest game, I chose conjuror (summoning discount), sorcery master (sorcery discount), and 9 sorcercy books. This resulted in a summoning cost for sorcery creatures of 40% of normal. Very early on, I could summon 5 phantom warriors per battle. I would take a group of 2 or 3 wimpy units and send them into towns or ruins 1 at a time. 10 to 15 phantom warriors would almost always win the day. Since I burned through manna at a prodigious rate, I had to crank up the tax rate and convert gold to manna almost every turn.

I started to take over blue nodes and began getting some more sorcery books. 1 more book dropped my cost to 30%. Another 2 books dropped my cost to 10%. Finally, another book dropped my cost to 0%. Now, during a battle, I can summon as many creatures as I want and it cost me nothing.

Exile · April 6, 2001, 17:07

I don't mean to threadjack, but is Microprose still producing this game? I have a set of 7 (!) old 3" disks with the game on them (for DOS), but one of the disks broke and now the installation process won't complete. I loved this game several years ago when I first bought it. (Why does anyone play as anything but dark elves? plus, they look so cool). Is there someplace where it can still be purchased? Abandonware? Something like that?

Salutations,
Exile
[This message has been edited by Exile (edited April 06, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Exile (edited April 06, 2001).]

pchang · April 6, 2001, 18:39

Microprose has abandoned this game. However, if you follow the link to the original thread you will find a site to download a full working version of the game.

Exile · April 7, 2001, 11:24

Thanks. Got it.

Exile

pchang · April 8, 2001, 13:54

Under the latest 1.31 patch, Dark Elves cost 3 picks (start on Myrror) to get. This is fairly expensive. In addition, you have to build a lot of buildings before you get the really cool Dark Elf buildings. This can take a long time. Too long at the more difficult levels or against another human (if using the shell tool).

Father Beast · April 17, 2001, 07:01

OK, we see the advantages to 11 booking, but is there something to multiple abilities? say if I got 4 nature, 4 sorcery, sorcery mastery, nature mastery, and archmage?

what about having 4 kinds of spellbooks?

pchang · April 17, 2001, 14:22

The advantage to concentrating in one area is to get a fast start (easy ability to take over neutral towns/enemy towns early in the game). This is necessary to make up for the head start/cheating of the AI on the Hard/Impossible setting. In the long run, this limits what you can do (one type of spell, one type of tactic). However, the ability to do one thing really well will enable you to win the game. It just takes a little more creativity to guide battles to your advantage.

Having spell books in multiple fields gives you much more flexibility. But since you are not concentrated in anything, it takes time to build up your abilities and your power base (several productive cities). If you can get over the initial hump, you will have a powerful force which is much more flexible and can do many things well. However, on Hard/Impossible or vs. another human, you may never get over that hump.

BTW, I have played the game on a 486DX33 all the way to PentiumIII 750 machines. The AI improved with each patch, but it also seems to improve with each increase in computing power.

pchang · April 17, 2001, 19:35

Using the Conjuror, Sorcery Master, 9 Blue book strategy I described above, I was summoning Sky Drakes at a cost of 0 manna points by the end of the game. Things get really easy when you can send 8 or 9 Sky Drakes into nodes, ruins, or enemy towns.

Theben · April 24, 2001, 04:36

I tried the 9 nature book, nature mastery, and conjurer. I was able to summon warbears for cheaper than a magic spirit (23 vs. 30)! Never got to the point you described, pchang.
And I probably never will. The game kept freezing up when I finally got to the point I wanted to be at, and in a minor fit of rage I snapped the CD in half. Guess I'll wait for MOM2.

Ecthy · April 24, 2001, 10:56

This thread isn't worth a penny without the grandlords Shadowstrike and me posting in it...

Bow down to me

pchang · April 24, 2001, 11:35

Then start putting more useful strategies in here.

Ecthy · April 24, 2001, 17:25

OK, apparently you're very proud of your knowledge, and you think you can intimidate me by bashing me with some random facts...

I'm talking about Humans and Dark Elves here, not Klackons nor Lizardmen nor Trolls. Also, being an alchemist sucks big time anyway.

Magic attacks? I don't see the connection... I'm pretty sure building an Alchemist's Guild and some basic land units (or air ones) is way more effective than waiting for magic attack units.

Also, you need the Alchemist's Guild for the Wizard's Guild... don't tell ne you don't know about the pleasures of Wizard units...

pchang · April 24, 2001, 17:34

Wizard units were the point of that last bit of advice. Their magic attack does not get boosted by Mithril or Adamantium. If you build them, you might as well build them in cities without Mithril or Admantium.

Ecthy · April 25, 2001, 00:03

Mithril and Adamantium are very nice things... I used to play as Humans, building up Paladin armies with Mithril or Adamantium weapons and conquer Myrror and Arcanus with those and a few Great Drakes...

Chaos person, me

Oh, nowadays I tend to play as Dark Elves, I like Myrror so much and the fact they cana produce Mana on their own.. you only need to build many cities with a Myrran race in order to get magic power, you don't need the nods. but if you get them, you're even better off, as they produce even moremana than on Arcanus.

is that OK, pchang?

pchang · April 25, 2001, 00:55

That's better. However w/ Mithril or Adamantium, you have to have an alchemists guild. Being an alchemist is not enough. The following races cannot build alchemists guilds:
Klackons
Lizardmen
Trolls
Also Mithril or Adamantium don't help out magic attacks. So if you are building units with magic attacks, might as well build them in cities without Mithril or Adamantium.