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Great writeup Catwalk, a bit messy but very informative! At first I was wondering why you put such an emphasis on Just Cause but then I remembered that Dwarves can't build Parthenons - so keeping unrest low is an important point.

As for your thoughts about the spellpicks you would take if you would play this map again I have a question: Does the mod lower the number of spellbooks needed for choosing common spells? Because when you play version 1.31 you need at least two spellbooks in a realm to choose one common spell. If you only have one spellbook in Life it is potluck whether you get to research Just Cause at all. You might not have the spell available during the whole of the game. But I often find that Just Cause gets dispelled - so I try not to rely on it too much.

Word of Recall is nice but I wouldn't pick it as a starting choice. For me the hardest part of the game is shortly after the start - especially if there are other wizards on the same continent. So I tend to pick cheap but useful spells. For instance Phantom Warriors are very cheap to summon in battle. Hellhounds are cheap to summon globally. I do not go for very expensive spells early on. Stone Skin is cheaper than Holy Armor (and is half as strong - but still worth it - only costs 10 Mana when cast in battle). I do want something that I can use early on. Later in the game there will be all kinds of spells available anyways. Resist Elementals only costs 25 to cast globally and only costs 5 Mana to cast in battle.

Regarding the new costs of picking things at the start I do not think Dwarves are the strongest race in the game. So I disagree with making them the most expensive one. They definitely are stronger than Gnolls or Barbarians though. Also I do not think that the magic realm of Life is that much broken. Life spells are very expensive - so it is hard to get cumulative effects out of them. Sorcery is just as strong actually - and is cheaper. But you need more spellbooks to make the most out of Sorcery and Life.

You did not seem to have many enemy spellcaster heroes in the fortress cities. I often find when the enemy wizards have three or four spellcaster heroes in their home cities that hell breaks loose on the first turn of the battle. For instance if their master wizard casts Wrack and the other wizards cast other strong spells than they can quickly reduce 9 stacks of Hammerhands to rubble before they even reach the city walls.

Using Warbears just for Pathfinding is an interesting idea - never thought about that. But if you compare their melee performance with that of Hellhounds you will find that Hellhounds give you just as much bang as Warbears - for half the price and half the upkeep. And Hellhounds can attack flying units.

Thanks for the comments Philos! Can I tempt you into reposting them on dragonsword.com? :P You can find the full tournament rules there as well. The spell selection rules were changes so that:
1) You start with no spells regardless of how many spellbooks you pick, all have to be researched
2) All spells you get are pre-selected right away
3) 1 book gives you 1 common spell, 2 books give you 2 common spells, 3 books add 1 uncommon spell, 4 books add another common and uncommon spell, and so on. In hindsight, this gave too few spells at early levels and I'm upping it a bit for future tournaments.

Interesting claims about Dwarves and Life magic, are you up for putting your money where your mouth is and try out the tournament yourself? :P

I think Just Cause is the single most powerful early spell because of the major economic impact it has once you have more than one town, regardless of which race you're playing. And I still believe that dwarves are that dominant, the combination of strong and fast units (requiring only Fighter's Guild)`with amazing early economic bonuses makes it the best rush race and highly sustainable in the long run.

Hello Catwalk,

well, I have to admit I just failed at my first attempt on Impossible - still using MoM version 1.31 for this. I'm not a veteran player yet. I just started MoM a few months ago. I was amazed I could go up to hard level in that time. Compared with related games (Civ I, MoO, Age of Wonders) that was a fast progression to hard level for me. In Civ I and in MoO I'm actually still struggling at hard level. Here I don't even know everything about the game yet and I'm winning quite comfortably on hard level.

But the jump to Impossible seems to be much larger than the move from Normal to Hard. In 1411 of the game, where I had to give up, the AI had all the strongest units in the game: Paladins, Griffins, Stag Beetles, you name it - they had it. My best units at that time where Lizardmen Javelineers and I was still at the point where it would take me 4 turns to produce one unit of those. No way to win that one at my present stage of experience. I think I will stay at hard level for quite a while.

So I'm not in for tournaments yet. But I still do not think Dwarves are the very strongest race in the game. They are among the stronger races though. Actually I would have a hard time picking the one and only strongest race. I find there are a number of top races that are pretty much equal in strength. I definitely agree that Gnolls are the weakest race. And Barbarians are one of the weaker races too (despite their thrown attack). Klackons are actually not that bad - when they are your main race (not when you just conquered some
cities of them). I would rate Klackons as being somewhere in the middle. Lizardmen evolve faster than Klackons so I would put them in the upper middle group, maybe together with Halflings and Orcs. I would place Dark Elves amongst the very strongest races though - they are quite a bit stronger than High Elves. Their units use magical ranged attacks, which do more damage than arrows and are harder to avoid. And Nightmares are much tougher than their counterpart Pegasi. Also Nightmares seem to be much more resistant to magic than Pegasi. Dwarves might be on level with High Elves (lower rank of the top group). I'm not decided whether to rate Highmen as equally strong as Dark Elves. Apart from Pikemen and Paladins they are not outstanding. They lack flying units and good ranged units. Early in the game Highmen are quite hard to play. Nomads should be in the lower rank of the top group as well. Trolls, Draconians and Beastmen are somewhere in the middle group - not really amongst the strongest races - but not really weak either.

However, I like the idea of making the race choice cost picks. That way you get to pick more retorts when taking Gnolls.

When looking at your screenshots I figured that there may have been some visual changes in the mod as well. Your screenshots from Myrror do not look so dark. I first thought, you did not even start on Myrror because of that. Or did you do some changes to that yourself?

Originally Posted by Philos73

Hello Catwalk,

well, I have to admit I just failed at my first attempt on Impossible
...
My best units at that time where Lizardmen Javelineers and I was still at the point where it would take me 4 turns to produce one unit of those. No way to win that one at my present stage of experience.
...
So I'm not in for tournaments yet.

I still think you should go for it 2 players lost or resigned so far, I'm estimating that about half the participants will manage to win the game. There's no shame in losing at the highest level, and you'll learn a bunch about the game when playing a directly comparable game which others reported about. Think about it

But I still do not think Dwarves are the very strongest race in the game. They are among the stronger races though.

I stand by my assessment of 8 points They have the best econ by far and a very powerful unit you can get early on. Even at Regular level it's a powerhouse, units like longbowmen and slingers rely on boosting to reach their full potential. On top of that, they start out with two very strong units of swordsmen which can easily take over a nearby neutral city.

I definitely agree that Gnolls are the weakest race

The problem with gnolls (1 point) is that waging a war of attrition will inevitably lead to a loss for you because of the AI's bonuses. Their units are quite decent, they just don't fit in with how games play out. And if you want Wolf Riders, you may as well go for Barbarian Cavalry instead.

And Barbarians are one of the weaker races too (despite their thrown attack).

Barbarians rank decently on my list with 3 points. +20 growth is a major economic bonus, they have pretty decent access to buildings and two strong units (Cavalry and Berserkers).

Klackons are actually not that bad - when they are your main race (not when you just conquered some
cities of them). I would rate Klackons as being somewhere in the middle.

I find that the cost of their units tends to cancel out their production bonus. I rank them slightly below Barbarians, 2 points. They're inferior in both economic and military matters.

Lizardmen evolve faster than Klackons so I would put them in the upper middle group, maybe together with Halflings and Orcs.

I put Lizardmen together with Klackons, 2 points. Their economy stinks, but their basic units and Javelineers are very decent. They're obviously a lot stronger on Small land mass than Large. One thing really holding them back is the fact that their settlers are double price rather than normal price like the rest of their units.

I would place Dark Elves amongst the very strongest races though - they are quite a bit stronger than High Elves. Their units use magical ranged attacks, which do more damage than arrows and are harder to avoid. And Nightmares are much tougher than their counterpart Pegasi. Also Nightmares seem to be much more resistant to magic than Pegasi.

I don't rank Dark Elves very high, at least considering that they're Myrran (6 points). Settlers that cost 150 to produce without any economic bonuses are a major setback for your expansion, meaning that you can't take proper advantage of your mana production. Their units are unimpressive, the inherent fireballs are only interesting early on. After that, you'll wish you had normal spearmen for cheap garrison purposes. Nightmare is a weak unit that I won't bother producing (I won't bother with Pegasi either). Having to put up a Fantastic Stable just to get access to them is too rich for me. Keep in mind that fireballs aren't boosted by magic, Mithril and Adamantium weapons. Starting on Myrror means you'll be able to get access to those early on, and you're losing out on that completely.

Dwarves might be on level with High Elves (lower rank of the top group).

If you compare a dwarf game with a high elf (I gave them 4 points) game you'll see military dominance much faster with the dwarves. While hordes of longbowmen are cool, it sucks to have enemy wizards eat them up one at a time with spells. Hammerhands are vastly more resistant to that, and longbowmen are only really useful at Elite level. If you go mainly after lairs and neutral towns, longbowmen really shine.

I'm not decided whether to rate Highmen as equally strong as Dark Elves. Apart from Pikemen and Paladins they are not outstanding. They lack flying units and good ranged units. Early in the game Highmen are quite hard to play.

It surprised me that I ended up giving High Men only 3 points. I think this is partly because speed was the objective. You just can't get a fast victory with High Men, until you get Paladins it's a thoroughly unimpressive race. On the other hand you'll always win in the long run, as Paladins are that strong.

Nomads should be in the lower rank of the top group as well.

Nomads (4 points) are great because of Pathfinding and the fact that their ranged units are fairly sturdy. They lack firepower for going after lairs and nodes, but shine against the AI with speed and sturdiness.
[quote]Trolls, Draconians and Beastmen are somewhere in the middle group - not really amongst the strongest races - but not really weak either.
Have to disagree about Trolls (7 points), regeneration is excessively powerful. It lets you win battles easily by doing tactical retreats all the time, and it ensures that you don't lose troops in battle. Clearly the best rush race, you can attack straight out the gate. Econ stinks, though.

However, I like the idea of making the race choice cost picks. That way you get to pick more retorts when taking Gnolls.

I'm actually planning on rebalancing races to be on the same level for future tournaments. However, if the tournament format (victory conditions and other special conditions) benefits some races more than others I might keep using the cost system for races to some extent.

When looking at your screenshots I figured that there may have been some visual changes in the mod as well. Your screenshots from Myrror do not look so dark. I first thought, you did not even start on Myrror because of that. Or did you do some changes to that yourself?

Nah, everybody started out on Arcanus. Even with a Myrran race. This was done in order to make sure everybody gets the same starting conditions. We used kyrub's 1.4 patch, check it out on dragonsword.com for a full list of features. Most of those concern the internal workings of the game and are for the most part not visible.

[Oskatat]

how to deal with a draconian player? its usually my favorite race, since nothing but specials, spells or flying hurts them. i didnt see them in any post here, so i'm curious

Draconians are way weaker in the enemy's hands than in yours, normal troops handle them just fine due to their overall lack of strength. Ranged units work well.

I had fun using Draconian Bowmen (with adamantium weapons) in a recent game, those are highly useful when waging inter-continental warfare.

Progress on my mod is coming along nicely, still expecting to have the first version out by the end of the month. I could really use more feedback, drop by http://www.dragonsword.com/forum/php...forum.php?f=10 if you wish to help out.

The unofficial patch has been updated to 1.40e version.

Some major AI improvements + a few bugfixes.


http://www.dragonsword.com/forum/php...opic.php?t=116

[_r.u.s.s.]

really nice

v1.40f
(corrected game crashes)