How are you starting?

[Shattered]

#4034

I fired up Master of Magic with the Caster of Magic DLC for the first time this afternoon. It’s pretty intimidating because you decide your own difficulty, race, opponent numbers, world size, etc. without having any idea what the game is like.

I chose Rjak, some sort of necromancer looking guy and went with 4 opponents on normal difficulty and lost all my army and settlers fairly quickly by attacking a tower and genies literally one shot everything. Whoops!

I’ll certainly be starting over, possibly on easy this time. The manual says if you play on easy you can also tell your cities to auto-build, so that seems like a good option while learning the game.

[TigerQuoll]

#4042

I’ve never played this game before, so I’d be interested in some beginners tips as well.
I’ve played a lot of Master of Orion I and II, and basically figured them out by trial and error back in the day. Not sure if I’ve got that kind of patience these days though…

[HPLovegames]

#4054

So, if you are playing basic Master of Magic, the best starter strategy is to play Life magic (white) with the Warlord trait. Take Halflings as your starting race, tech up to Slingers, and use your magical buffs on the Slingers. When possible, attach a hero with Leadership to your Slinger armies, and you will eventually want the spell Incarnation to summon Torin the Chosen.

A stack of 8 fully buffed Slingers accompanied by Torin will basically annihilate any unit that isn’t immune to ranged attacks. However, they are so tough and lucky that they can march up to most of those threats and end them with their tiny hobbit fists.

[HPLovegames]

#4055

Now, if you are playing CASTER of Magic, you have a slightly different situation. War/Life/Sling can be effective, but the enemy AI will aggressively counter you with spells like Guardian Wind (friendly unit is immune to missiles) and Warp Wood (enemy unit can’t use ranged weapon… because slings are made of wood…).

Difficulty in CoM basically effects the enemy wizards. Wandering monsters and denizens of lairs are mostly unchanged, and a Great Wyrm will wreck you on Easy or Insane. I would advise starting players to save scum dungeons because you don’t know the relative strengths of the monsters inside.

Genies, Efreet, Demon Lords, and Archangels are remarkably powerful, flying enemy spellcasters. Don’t expect to bring them down with normal units shy of elite, heavily buffed Magicians. You will likely have trouble with them until you have your own powerful summons on the field.

Great Drakes, Sky Drakes, and Great Wyrms are melee brutes that can easily dispatch legendary heroes in one or two shots.

Dungeons containing Phantom Warriors and Phantom Beasts are easy pickings for a group of archer-types… unless your scout failed to notice the invisible Air Elemental waiting to wreck your day.

The easiest start in Caster of Magic is 10 books Death (black), Conjurer, and Specialist. You will want to quickly summon armies of Ghouls. Ghouls fire life draining bolts that will annihilate most early game units (and late game Barbarians, which are terrible). Enemies slain by the Ghouls will rise as undead who will happily guard your cities without pay and without eating up all the tasty, tasty food.

While your undead empire grows, make sure to research increasingly powerful summons. By the end of the game, you want Death Knights and Demon Lords darkening the skies of Arcanus and Myrror.

[Fatherbeast]

#4056

OK, First off, Caster Of Magic.

Tried playing like I do in MOM with life and halflings, but COM doesn’t allow you to choose the 11 books strategy, so I chose 10 life, specialist, and alchemist.

Turns out Alchemist was a good choice, since I have a lot of gold, and am usually struggling for mana.

[Fatherbeast]

#4057

In Master Of Magic.

Current game: trying another OP strategy with 11 Nature books. Still halflings, though. I never seem to want any other race than halflings.

I’m going to try later on this month – Warlord, Myrran, 5 life, halflings, of course – and try to get a stack of 9 champion adamantium slingers. I figure they can mow down about anything.

[Fatherbeast]

#4073

Second game of the month, Warlord, Myrran, 6 life books (Warlord is only 2 picks? I thought it was 3!). Halflings.

I restarted a couple of times to make sure I have both Stream Of Life and Crusade. Heroism is also a necessary spell. I can live without Planar Seal, although I like the idea of conquering all of Myrror and never seeing the world of Arcanus, and nobody over there able to even meet me before I cast Spell Of Mastery.

[Pseudo_C]

#4076

I know I’m late to the conversation, but I started by sitting down and reading the entire manual. It was a commitment, but I at least had the concepts of the game floating somewhere in my mind so when something came up, I knew there was at least something I could do about it. This did help me quite a bit in my first run through.

In full honesty though, this is the first 4X/Civilization like game I have ever played. So what I thought was user-unfriendly at first, may just be how these types of games play…

[TigerQuoll]

#4079

My approach so far has been, each time I start a new game I choose as different starting conditions as possible to my last game, so that I get exposed to as much of the game’s variety as I can. (Never played this game before)

My first game was OK – I played as Merlin with Halflings, intro difficulty. I had no idea what I was doing or what spells to research or how to use them, but I easily bumbled my way to victory anyway.

My second game is… interesting. I decided to go with easy and create my own wizard – Myrran, Draconian with equal number of chaos and sorcery. (No real strategy behind this – I just wanted a game totally different to my last)

I’ve learned that I like the “small land” setting. It has a better sense of exploration for me – it feels more satisfying to discover new islands than opening up a continent.

Magic power of the world is high, which I think was a mistake.
I basically have the world of Myrror all to myself, but I can’t capture any nodes, towers, caves etc. because they are too well guarded, and I don’t seem to have the right kinds of spells or troops to counter them! (Any tips there?)

Anyway, I’ll keep fumbling around with this. Hopefully I’ll figure something out. If not, I’ve learned a valuable lesson!