Favorite games

[Aezeal]

I like sins of a solar empire less than galactic empires.. I quit it after a few started games.

PS you get less ganged-up upon if you actually start completing a few missions for otehr races. It helps a great deal if 3 races want you to target another race.. DO IT or basicly you'll die from all 4 races and try to stay neutral (relatively, or just defendeing a bit) untill you get such a target.. all my (al be it few) games I saw this happen... usually once you are halfway through destroying that nation they will want you to target another though.. which probably doesn't fit in your plans then.. but hey.. you are way positive in their favor then .

MoM was great.. I've played it a few times on dosbox in the last years but really... it's way to easy.. the idea is great.. 2 worlds

Myth was nice too I'll admit

populous was nice even the latest version

[lch]

Aezeal said:
PS you get less ganged-up upon if you actually start completing a few missions for otehr races. It helps a great deal if 3 races want you to target another race.. DO IT or basicly you'll die from all 4 races and try to stay neutral (relatively, or just defendeing a bit) untill you get such a target..

Actually, if you are already attacking an enemy, your first mission from the other races will be to continue to attack them. The more AIs there are, the better the results.

Aezeal said:
MoM was great.. I've played it a few times on dosbox in the last years but really... it's way to easy.. the idea is great.. 2 worlds

MoM too easy? With the latest patch? Without white magic?

[Torin]

Why white magic? green magic is broken

[Lingchih]

Doh! Forgot about Myth, it's been so long since I've played. What a great game. I used to love the Dwarven bombadiers.

[B0rsuk]

MOM
White magic is greatly overpowered. Heroism, holy weapon (+1 to hit), holy armour, altar of battle, stream of life (max taxes), prosperity, Incarnation, lionheart, righteousness, star fires, endurance...

Actually, I can only think of two green magic spells I really need:
Wall of Stone
Resist Elements (because AI loves shamans and direct damage spells)

What's so broken about green magic ? I think in the long run Black and Blue pay off much more... if you know what you're doing. Black has wonderful Mana Leak which basically halves ammo for enemy shamans and mages. Drain Power lets you to completely empty an opponent before you attack his city. Weakness is a very good, cheap early spell. Summons (except very overpriced ghouls) are just POWERFUL, to the point where I decided not to use them. Dark Rituals for stupidly high power.
Blue has Word of Recall, Counter Magic, later on Magic Immunity.
Red has awesome summons (hellhounds - PRICE), very good buffs, battlefield-wide spells like Flamestrike, Warp Reality (great with Chaos Channels)....

Note that I play either on Hard or Impossible. I don't play:
- halflings
- high men
- elves
- beastmen, draconians, dark elves, trolls, dwarves
because I consider them overpowered and not fun enough. Halflings are the worst offenders by far. Huge food supply, 8 figures, slingers are extremely effective and come from...armory. +1 to hit bonus by default (this is huge). Very high resistance. Halfling swordsmen easily kill gnoll halberdiers, which is very sad, because extra attack power (and wolf riders) is all gnolls have.

I like lizardmen, gnolls, nomads.

[Foodstamp]

Hooray for single player games like Master of Magic where balance can take a backseat to variety. Balance has become an obsession of modern gamers, and it makes perfect sense in a multiplayer game, but in a game like Master of Magic what is the point?

As long as the balance is not so skewed as to create only one possible choice, it only serves to create varying levels of difficulty in a game like MoM.

You can create your own settings beyond choosing the difficulty setting, such as you have done with your "these are the only races I play" and "This is the magic I consider overpowered".

The very thing you guys are debating about has extended the life and replayability of Master of Magic.

And honestly, by comparison do you think that Dominions is all that balanced? There are weak blesses, weak magic paths, weak nations, and what people would consider "overpowered" versions of each as well. To the point that the end game strategy in Dominions is fairly uniform with the early to mid game strategy being only the means of getting there.

Of course in single player Dominions we can create our own rules just like we did with Master of Magic

[sector24]

My favorite MoM spells are Change Terrain and Chaos Channels. I usually played Nomads, or Dark Elves when I wanted to be left alone. The sprites for green magic were totally overpowered because they could fly. For instance, you could send two sprites against a Great Wyrm and since it couldn't hit flyers you could wear it down and steal its goodies or unlock a node before you'd normally be able to. Even if you couldn't clean out the whole battlefied before you ran out of ammo, sprites could almost always retreat successfully so you could wear a site down over time.

Building on the "flyers rule" strategy, I LOVED flying Dark Elf Warlocks. The doom spell could eliminate tough flyers or archers and then the conventional melee units just had to sit there and take damage until you ran out of ammo.

Part of MoM's charm is that it has a lot of valid and enjoyable playstyles.

[B0rsuk]

Foodstamp said:
Hooray for single player games like Master of Magic where balance can take a backseat to variety.

While this is generally true, MOM has exceptionally bad balance. Mana cost of some summon spells is just crazy.

- War bears from nature magic cost 80/2 turn if I remember correctly, and they're likely to lose against swordsmen. War bears have no redeeming qualities.
- Ghouls cost 80 mana. While they're nice and can create undead, they don't heal at all and if you want to use them as an undead factory, be prepared to soften enemies with spells like Weakness etc.
- Hellhounds cost 40/1 turn and they absolutely kick ***. Unlike ghouls, they heal. Fire breath is a form of first strike. It also allows them to fight flying creatures. Hell hounds easily destroy ghouls 1 on 1, as well as war bears, which are twice as expensive.
- MOM is a very buggy game, and some spells just flat don't work. For example Flying Fortress. Neither does Aura of Fear. Subversion does opposite what it's supposed to. Why would you cast a spell that only harms you ?! This is just wrong. MOM, even patched (the version from The Underdogs) is buggier than Fallout.

Balance of many things is so wrong it can easily be considered a bug. There are many ways to play MOM, but there are also many easy ways to win. Any 11 book wizard (all books in the same magic) has access to POWERFUL spells right from the start. Wraiths, Chimeras, or Torin will conquer at least half of the map without breaking a sweat.

I think Sprites are not very cost effective. They have high cost, upkeep, and only 4 shots.
Besides, Sprites are not better at running away than any other creature. I remember, from manual (available on The Underdogs) that there's a flat chance of running away. The chance is something like 50% or 75% per unit, and 0% on Easy difficulty. You'll need a lot more than 4 shots to kill something like a Great Wyrm ! How many groups of Sprites does it take to kill a Wyrm ?

----------

You know what ? I think Dominions3 is more of a SP game than MP game. Kristoffer clearly cares much more about flavour than balance. I don't blame him, he's a bit like a mad scientist :-). And, best of all, he/they gave us tools to fix balance ourselves. But most games (especially from EA) have less bugfixes than Dom3 has extras added in patches. Alternatively, Dom3 can be considered a 'roleplaying MP strategy game'. But this carries a risk of running into a minmaxer.

[Potatoman]

Foodstamp said:
Hooray for single player games like Master of Magic where balance can take a backseat to variety. Balance has become an obsession of modern gamers, and it makes perfect sense in a multiplayer game, but in a game like Master of Magic what is the point?

This is an interesting viewpoint. I agree with you, to an extent. In a game that is designed only for single-player use, players can adjust for rough balancing by handicapping themselves or helping themselves, depending on whether they take advantage of poorly-balanced mechanics or units. As long as the balance is not too lobsided (eg. you MUST use unit x to win, or if unit y is useless), then the game can still work. I would only have an issue if the units/spells/races that I liked were so terrible that I could not use them and win.

It's interesting to note that, as AIs get more difficult, balance becomes more important. If you must play optimally against a difficult AI opponent (or another player online) then, in order to win in a roughly-balanced game, the effective variety of stuff that you can use is greatly reduced. It is the unfortunate reason why fine game balance is essential for most modern games.

As for MoM, I actually do wish that it had been balanced better. I would find replaying MoM more fun if it was able to challenge me without forcing me to handicap myself (which also effectively limits the variety of things available in MoM), and I would have a great deal of admiration for a game able to wrap all of MoM's "stuff" into a coherent and balanced game system. Plus, then it could have hotseat multiplayer, so I could play it with my friends. Then it'd be perfect.

[lch]

Torin said:
Why white magic? green magic is broken

White magic has the best buffs for units and thus enables them to easily gain lots of experience in combat, from the early game on.