Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

Has anyone been able to get the custom maps working? Anytime I increase the size of the maps it's waiting for human players even when I selected zero.

I would really enjoy a game with 10 AI opponents on a very large map, but I'm having no luck with starting a game after increasing the map size.

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

I absolutely loved MoM for years, and we played big hotseat multiplayer games. It was a lot of fun.

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

they did not shut down, they just ended their beta phase (and their humor sucks)

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

Yeah, that is clear now. I guess I should now say - "true today"

Pretty lame publicity stunt. I'll think twice before I buy anything else from them.

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

I've just executed a vicious combo:

Artificer
create a staff -4 Spell Save, 2 charges of Black Sleep

Remember Black Sleep ? The spell no one likes because it's 15 MP, depends on enemy resistance, and renders enemies so helpless the designers decided there will be no xp for killing them ? (or something, or was it fame ?). One word:

Ghouls.

Every normal unit killed mostly by ghouls rises as undead under your control. They never heal, but require no upkeep. The good thing is they keep citizens in shape (2 units: unrest -1). Oh, and because it's Zaldron the sage who does the spellcasting, I don't have to spend a single mana point !

The combo is a little hard to pull off (you need to save lots of mana for the item). But my hero is now a walking undead factory. It's like low-level Zombie Mastery, but trickier and more flexible. And it's creepy as hell: units zombified in unnatural black sleep. I can reliably zombify 4+ units per battle, but you need empty slots so it can be walking a thin line. There are ways to get the most out of it: I'll be using Darkness and favoring units with first strike (cavalry), bowmen, so as to not take any damage. Of course, if you can spend 750 (or close) mana on an item, there are probably ways to use it better. But they are not as creepy.

Black Sleep is an amazing spell - when it works. It's almost like killing an unit outright. Any attacks against the sleeping unit automatically hit for maximum damage, no shields. And the funny thing is, the spell makes bowmen scary. Heh, I may wraithform a squad of bowmen and ghouls (+pathfinders from nomads) and perforate people with regular bowmen just for fun.

I already valued ghouls for rushes. While ghouls are expensive, there are ways to use them without Black Sleep. Weakness is very good, because it's so cheap, only 5 MP. But it won't work against unusual races with resistance > 4. (It's fine against High Men, Nomads, Orcs, Lizardmen; these are the cities I want to conquer with Wolf Riders when I play Gnolls). Cities zombified early with ghouls can have ridiculous taxes.

Long story short, if you need a mean combo ask b0rsuk.

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

I'll take that as NO. :D

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

There are lots of really, really good strategies for mom. But my favorite cheese was always taking trolls with life. Making sure to nature. Take enough life and you are guaranteed endurance. Take web as your nature spell.

Trolls regenerate - and with endurance you can out run (circles) around most things. 50 turns and all your troops come back....

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

Guarranteed spells have been removed in one of the official patches. Now you only spawn with Common spell for each book in a school beyond the first, and if you start with 11 books you get a rare and uncommon spell too. Since you're talking about Nature + Life, you must've been playing an old version.

There are interesting ways to beat paladins. In my current game Jafar was stuck on two islands linked by a tower. A turtler got his wish granted - he started with High Men. I went with Klackons and Chaos. Long story short I assaulted his islands with a stack of 8 chaos channel (wings) stag beetles and a draconian shaman (removed from each battle so he can live). I cast Warp Reality each time I fight a significant number of paladins (4+). It gives all non-chaos units -2 to hit. Wings meant beetles weren't scared of first strike, in fact with innate fire breath they were the ones doing first strike. The beetles were otherwise fairly basic: Elite with no magical weapons (Alchemy) or even Metal Fires. I'd be much more afraid of pikemen and magicians if I didn't pick Flamestrike from a myrran lair.

The game can be wonderfully surprising and epic. In the same campaign, I strayed a bit too far on my quest to raze Horus's cities. I entered Myrror and torched a city in the same turn. Two heroes with 60 casting skill each made it easy. Next turn Horus casts... Planar Seal, and I'm a bit behind in casting skill and nowhere near researching Disjunction. I had to camp in a draconian town while fighting then challenging groups of priests, bears, pikemen, catapults deprived of my most powerful heroes. By the time I got them back

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

Bad news. The patch appears to have broken at least 1 thing: the great Magic Vortex spell. There was supposed to be a bug - if you cast the spell more than 3 times it could lead to data corruption. So the developer added an error message saying only 3 vortexes can be active at a time. The thigh is, I get the error message even if there are no vortexes (vortices?) :(.

Re: OT: Master of Magic unofficial patch v1.40f
 

Good news: gog.com has a discount on MoM, so I can buy it cheap and see what all the fuss is about!