Evening the strength of the 5 realms of magic

[Clythoss]

I never thought i would read something like this. :) I think Chaos is at least as strong as the other forms of magic. It´s the only form of magic i ever managed to beat impossible mode.

I Play with Halfling and 11 Chaos Books. Just try to get the 36 skill as fast as you can to cast the devastating Flame strike. So you can conquer all Neutral City´s with your single Swordsman(who should have flying (chaos channels).Until you have flame strike you may try with help of Fire elemental. Check the Lairs, maybe you find some mana crystals or an item you can break.

Later spells like Warp Lightning ( i like this one) or Doom Bolt Can kill single Units.

The Main Goal at the Beginning should be to build Buildings as fast as you can and conquer Cities with your single unit.Don´t waste your production time for building units. 2 or even 1 one unit should be enough to defend a city in the first stages of the game, because you have flamestrike. Time is critical because sooner or later, the time will come when flame strike won´t kill evrything you see, so Hurry.

In the Mid game build Defense and Research. You´ll need Call the Void Chaos Vortex Meteor Storm Armageddon and Great Wasting. Armageddon is a Great spell, because every Volcano will add 1 to your power base.

In Late Game Use the Mentioned Spells to Break Down The Computer Players. They can Cheat all they want but it won´t help. Computer Cities will have many or maybe even all people be rebells. Their buildings will collapse and mana base will vanish.It is possible to reduce all cities to 1 pop which will be a rebel. If someone happens to cast Spell of Mastery Use Call the Void at the main city and a few quick flying unit to conquer it. Mana Base should be high enough to kill the last few standing units with flame strike warp lighnig etc.

When evrything went right you can add extra fun by conquering all defenseless Computer Cities with your single swordsman if he´s still alive.


The Strategy has only One problem. Magic Immunity. Nothing is Worse than to Bring down a capital with call the void, enter with your flyers and see 8-9 Sky drakes waiting 4 u. Also when you defend your cities with one unit+Flame strike it´s a very bad thing to see paladins enter.

[Lupinedreams]

I've just never found direct damage spells to be very efficient in MoM. The only exception is the CPU which can afford to dump obscene amounts of mana into its nuke spells since it gets mana for free - but I'll have to try 11 chaos books, I've never tried it before. Would be different and interesting! although 11 book strategies do seem to be overpowered, at least in the early game - and they basically guarantee you some of the good high-tech spells that other people can only pray they have the option to research later.

[Implode]

Well I never thought i would read something like this. :)

I think Chaos is at least as strong as the other forms of magic. It´s the only form of magic i ever managed to beat impossible mode.

Honestly I tried I'd say 5 or 6 games with 11 Chaos book starts and couldn't beat it, yet I can do 11 book starts in all the other starts easily (Sorcery is a bit tricky too, but not as hard as Chaos). The only way I could win with Chaos was to pick 9 Chaos + Warlord.

I've tried your suggestion before too of picking Flame Strike as the initial spell, pumping everything into skill until you can get enough skill to cast it, but I just found it didn't work. Firstly by the time I've got enough skill to cast it, with any other strategy I'd have half my starting continent took over. Secondly, its alright for taking out raider cities full of spearmen and swordsmen, but anything else it can't kill outright (like even low level nodes with spiders/war bears/etc) and your swordsmen can't finish them off.

You´ll need Call the Void Chaos Vortex Meteor Storm Armageddon and Great Wasting. Armageddon is a Great spell, because every Volcano will add 1 to your power base.

I don't like casting things like Call the Void, Great Wasting or Armageddon - I mean, why hurt cities that you're going to want to take over? If you kill population, ultimately you're hurting your own score?

Implode.

[Clythoss]

Secondly, its alright for taking out raider cities full of spearmen and swordsmen, but anything else it can't kill outright (like even low level nodes with spiders/war bears/etc) and your swordsmen can't finish them off.

That´s right. I should have written this in the research and build defense part. You need to have some troops or enough base to cast some attack spells.

I don't like casting things like Call the Void, Great Wasting or Armageddon - I mean, why hurt cities that you're going to want to take over? If you kill population, ultimately you're hurting your own score?

Again you are right, and it brings up an interesting point. Chaos magic´s strategy should be to destroy the world not take over it.And that´s what i do, and believe me i like it :). Too bad i don´t get the points i think i deserve. So this brings us back to the topic :) . If you want to make chaos more playable than you should give some reward for destroying the world. Maybe in your game you could give points 4 killed townsfolk destroyed buildings and so on... .Maybe you could give also something good for razing cities instead of take over.

When you cast a volcano you gain 1 power per turn. I think this was a good start, if only the volcano´s would stay volcano´s like in the first version of magic.

[VM]

I think Chaos does not really need a buff. Redesigning is a very delicate process, you should at least have an option of "original rules", and then do the balancing in very minor steps.

[Lupinedreams]

Implode said he would have an option to play IME with a rule set that was faithful to the original if he did any rebalancing - we can see this in effect in his latest release as he gives the game host a myriad of options in terms of game world size, wizard ability picks, etc, but always has "original" choices available. I have faith that any rebalancing he does will be for the better, but he's making IME very flexible in regards to rule sets so even if you just want pure MoM with multiplayer, I'm sure you'll be satisfied. I'm actually looking forward to Implode's pet project more than most of the current games coming out in the near future, to be honest with you, along with a number of my roomates and friends - I'll probably be hosting IME games nightly once it's polished up :)

[stew]

how about move fireball down to common and move shatter up to uncommon, and maybe reducing fireball's cost from 15 to 5, while reducing its power from 5 to 2 or 3, and removing the ability to add strength to it?

[Tekee]

Funny, I was told somewhere on some website that Chaos magic is best for beginners

[Sammual12]

It is. You can handle attacks better when you can use attack spells to help out your defenders.

With the other schools of magic you have to be setup before the battle.

Sammual

[Richrf]

I personally would not talk about 11 book strategies and use it to judge whether the color is weak or not, even though to some extent you can tell. 11 book strategies hinge on finding *one* suitable spell and exploiting it to the fullest.

Is chaos weak? A better test is this.

Say you were forced to take 8 books of a single color + retorts, I really can't see how 8 chaos would be played versus say 8 white which would just rule over the chaos player..

[Lupinedreams]

yeah, you have to look at the color as a whole, definitely! And how it wiill fare at different stages in the game, and what flexibility it has - red has some direct damage spells, but direct damage by it's nature is pretty weak in MoM unless you're the CPU and have near infinite power to throw around - even then they're usually only good for one big nuke to gank one of your heroes if he's not well protected enough..

Not only that, but white is versatile, and that's one of it's main strengths! yes, it has mostly buffs and support spells, but they cover almost every aspect of the game in some way, from improving city morale to EXCELLENT combat boosts to your units - even raising your entire army's experience level...

not only are the spells powerful, they're basically ALL good, which makes the color as a whole very desirable. Every color has a least a couple good spells, but that doesn't make the whole color strong. If it's the rarer spells that are good, then you can't get them early and are at a disadvantage (and may not ever get them)

if it's the early spells that are good, they become outclassed later!

White is good through the whole game, and the only color able to revive it's dead heroes - you were forced to rely more on heroes and units you produced as white doesn't have many good summons, but every color must use produced troops so that's not much of a drawback (and those troops will be more powerful in the hands of a white player with so many buffs, even without focusing on them, blanket worldwide buffs and blanket entire army effecting buffs in battle are not hard to get your hands on with white)



alright, I've babbled out a bit of a doctoral thesis of a post here, but you get the idea...

[Iluvalar]

hi all ,
I feel like most of the magic school are well balanced .
My only concerns are about these spells :

- Crack call is real a pain in the ass .. i would banish difinitively this spell . it's the worse spoiler of all the game (even Torin who is MAGIC IMMUNE can't stand a chance ).
- Torin is a bit too strong but i don't know exaclty how to fix it . Maybe just reducing a bit is starting stats .

The best way to deal with the 11 books startegy would be to give a fixed mana production for the wizards tower instead of 1 mana per books . This is the way it was in the 1.0 version i think ..(5 mana/turn) .
This way it would be about impossible to summon a basilisk in the very beginning of the game ..

[esper256]

I think the solution to the 11 book strategy is to change the way spell picks work.

I think you shouldn't pick what spells you start out with. I think you should pick which spells are "learnable" for any spell above common.

I think it would reduce the "stinker" problem. where some of the schools of magic have a few spells that stink and if your spell choices of what you can learn end up being them, it's useless. Since you make sure you pick the non stinkers to be learnable.

It would be counterintuitive to new players. Picking things that you will have the potential to learn later is counter-intuitive. But I also think the rate at which games ramp up in MoM so slowly. Starting with a rare spell is going to make game balancing tough, sure you can move Incarnation up to Very Rare, but that doesn't stop you from picking lionheart or invulnerability and conquering your continent before any slow start strategy has a chance.

[Implode]

I think the solution to the 11 book strategy is to...

I think the solution to the 11 book strategy is to play with only 10 books :) when I set up the "recommended" game options XML file, I expect I will set all the difficulty levels up like this with 10 books instead of 11. Alternatively use the option to force players to pick one of the pre-defined wizards (none of who have 11 books in one realm of magic).

To go totally the other way... it'll be interesting for quick games what 20 pick strategies people will try in MoM IME. I set up 20 books to give you 1 free very rare spell so it'd be the equivalent of 11 books giving you 1 free rare spell :) And it might be hard call going 20 in one realm (and getting a real nice start) or going 10/10 and being guaranteed every spell in 2 realms of magic :)

Implode.

[HeymlicH]

The strongest source is the one allowing to win fastest. This is especially true in multiplayer games.

If not using 11 books of one source (many players think this is too powerful) I would rank like this:

Considering this, the strongest source is sorcery. Phantom Warriors are awesome.

Chaos is second.

Life I would rank third.

Nature and Death are hardest to play.


If 11 books are allowed, I would say:

1. 6 sorcery + some retorts.

2. 11 Life (Torin)

3. 11 Death (Wraiths)

4. 11 Nature (Basilisk + Gaias Blessing)

5. 10 chaos + mastery.


I don't see a problem with any source - they are just different - but I see a problem with 11 books in one source allowing to pick a high level spell at start.

The only way I could win with Chaos was to pick 9 Chaos + Warlord.

There is the problem. You rely on normal units. Chaos doesn't work like this.

Go 10 + mastery, or even 7 or 8 + some retorts. The retorts you want most are chaos mastery, archmage and channeler.