OT: Flowers for the grave of MoM.

Cheezeninja · #1 April 25th, 2004, 02:25 AM

Having never been made aware of Dom1, i would have to say that Dominions 2 is the first game i've ever played thats managed to insert itself into the nostalgic, megalomaniac, obsessive niche that MoM occupied for many years of my life. Age of Wonders tried but it was far to much a mainstream sell-out for money, and far too little the underground game that someone poured there heart, soul, and uncountable man-hours into. (thank you, thank you, thank you, dominion makers) I started playing MoM (Master of Magic for any who are wondering) when it was already old and i was still in junior high (i.e. 10 years ago'ish) and from that time up until i read a review in PC gamer (how i found out about Dom2) and bought Dom2 it proudly occupied the "Greatest game EVER" slot in my mind. It has now been supplanted by Dominions 2, but i figured i would make a post about it because there seem to be a few people here who also played it.

my favorite thing to do in MoM, hands down:
max out fire magic, cast armaggeddon, convert the whole world to a volcanic waste that gives me awesome magical power, nuke the AI back into the stone age and lord it over the world. >

my favorite tactics:
max out death magic, start with wraith, cast wraith as soon as possible, conquer independants while raising massive undead armies for yourself.

max out life magic, start with the avatar hero summon, cast it, buff him, conquer all. The original SC

two words, undead trolls.

ahhhh memories... well i guess thats it, i understand this is a dom2 forum and not a MoM forum, call this my eulogy for MoM as it permanently gets replaced by Dom2 on my desktop.
*drumroll* *21 gun salute* *lonely bugle plays taps*
(oh.. and btw i've got an original MoM box, manual and game i obtained on ebay, so neener.)

[ June 15, 2004, 17:29: Message edited by: Zen ]

HotNifeThruButr · #2 April 25th, 2004, 02:36 AM

Were you playing Age of Wonders 2? That was awful, I liked the first one better.

Anyways, my favorite thing about MoM was getting my starter spearmen/swordsmen stack and to a high level and seeing them take out 4x their number in halberdiers!

Gandalf Parker · #3 April 25th, 2004, 03:02 AM

I still have MoM on my WinXP machine. Its been loaded thru many MANY OS changes. Anytime I see anyone mention MoM or Stars! (also still alive on my machine) I tell them they should try the Dom2 demo.

By the way, on sourceforge.net I see at least 7 projects to recreate MoM, and about that many for Stars also. (no dominions clones yet)

Jack Simth · #4 April 25th, 2004, 03:16 AM

It's hard to get, but there is a technique which, once successfully implemented, is completely unbeatable (and I'm NOT talking the Spell of Mastery) - You need two advantages (I may have the names wrong): Artificer and Runemaster, and one spell: Time Stop (sorcery). Runemaster reduces the cost of any arcane spell by 25%, Artificer reduces the cost of artifact forging (an arcane spell...) by 50% - with the net effect being that you can forge artifacts for 1/4 normal cost. The fun part? Recycling an artifact returns 1/2 the normal forge cost - a net gain of 2x your investment. If you can then get your effective casting skill over the maintanence cost of the Time Stop spell (200, as I recall - and each djinn in your capital boosts it by 20 - you can have 9, so you just need 21+ skill from yourself - not an issue), you cast TS, forge/recycle to get the maintenence for the TS and a backlog for summoning (and you don't have to maintain your summons during a TS - all you have to come up with is the 200 per extra turn for the TS), and conquer everyone with summons. Your opponents cannot build units, cannot cast non-combat spells, do not have any income (limiting combat spells), and YOU can keep it up indefinately. Every enemy unit you eliminate stays gone until the TS ends (barring trollish immortality - them you have to wipe out all at once), and you never need to let it end (except for the save bug - a TS doesn't work after a save/load cycle).

Pirateiam · #5 April 25th, 2004, 04:32 AM

Yep I also palyed MOM. Still have the graphic depiction of the wizard on top of his spire casting the spell of Mastery for the ending burned in my memory...

ohh those fond memories.

Kel · #6 April 25th, 2004, 04:49 AM

Sorry but MoM is still my favorite SP game of all time. Dom2 just became my favorite MP game (which is what it aimed to do, so all is good).

The dungeon/site exploration in MoM truly appealed to the gambling addict in me and I liked controlling my troops in combat. I hope they *do* recreate it with some enhancements. I haven't really liked any of the similar games half as much, mostly because they all seem to have lost MoM's depth. Except Dom2, which has plenty of depth, but I so miss my random magic site loot "You have found a sword of chaos".

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change it, such random power spikes might not be good for MP balance, it's just fun, to me, in SP =)

- Kel

Cheezeninja · #7 April 25th, 2004, 05:03 AM

I happen to like the defeats that require vengeance almost as much as the victorys though. When im in a commanding position against the AI (I cut humans alot less slack) in any game I tend to ease off until they build up enough power to hand me at least a small defeat for which vengeance is required. I love finding way's to be in all-powerful positions in games but i also love the defeats along the way that get you there.

Oh and if your looking for an awesome space conquering game, I HIGHLY reccommend Galactic Civilizations, its the game Master of Orion 3 wasn't. You can find it at http://www.galciv.com
the AI in that game is ferocious, and it has a steep learning curve which is something you people seem to like in a game.

[ April 25, 2004, 04:09: Message edited by: Cheezeninja ]

Minrhael · #8 April 25th, 2004, 08:41 AM

Just had to add that I had kept an ancient computer around just for playing MoM, and I just gave it away Last week after deciding Dom2 was finally a sufficient replacement. Nice to have a little more room on the desk now!

Cohen · #9 April 25th, 2004, 09:05 AM

Never played MoM, but a lot AoW, one and less the second episode.

Well I enjoyed it a lot, far more than Heroes of Might and Magic (HoMM) because the gameplay is based on armies ... and sadly on SC Ruler ...

I hate SC ... armies does the fight, not single super beasts ... and this is a problem of Dom2 too.

WraithLord · #10 April 25th, 2004, 03:02 PM

For me MOM is still the #1 SP game.
Dominions II is a great great game, just that in SP it tends to bog down to a very slow pace in the end game.
BTW to those of you who loved MOM I recommend to check leylines

[ June 06, 2004, 18:46: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]