Starting strategies
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:54 pm
I didn't see a thread about this in this forum yet, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
I've been playing Master of Magic for quite a few years now, ever since I got it back in 1995. (Even the dreaded move to Windows XP couldn't stop me - I bought an old Pentium 3 rig off someone and made it into an oldschool gaming platform!) Despite playing for so long, however, I haven't really refined my skills much. It wasn't until just recently that I've established an interesting way to start.
I like to start with the Alchemist retort to make this work a bit better. Right at the beginning of the game, I set the two units I have on Patrol in the city and set the tax rate to 2% for a bit of early cash flow. Then, I go into the Magic screen and set the mana up to full, which should grant 8 mana per turn. This hampers early research slightly, but I figure it's worth gaining a stronger beginning army for - especially from the raiders. Then, I use Alchemy to convert 30 gold to mana and cast the Magic Spirit spell. This magic spirit is used to explore the starting island since they can move twice in a turn. Also, they can find ruins that have no monsters in them for a quick 50 gold or mana. For the next few turns, I focus mainly on building these buildings (in this order): Granary, Marketplace, Farmer's Market, Shrine - this allows for more control over production in your city since fewer will be needed to maintain the city. I like to have a lot of food generation as early as I can get it so that I can start building defense as soon as possible. From this point there's no wrong way to go if you'd prefer to use Alchemy to convert mana to gold and Buy all your buildings, or if you want to ease up on mana production and start researching.
That's how I roll. What about you guys?
I've been playing Master of Magic for quite a few years now, ever since I got it back in 1995. (Even the dreaded move to Windows XP couldn't stop me - I bought an old Pentium 3 rig off someone and made it into an oldschool gaming platform!) Despite playing for so long, however, I haven't really refined my skills much. It wasn't until just recently that I've established an interesting way to start.
I like to start with the Alchemist retort to make this work a bit better. Right at the beginning of the game, I set the two units I have on Patrol in the city and set the tax rate to 2% for a bit of early cash flow. Then, I go into the Magic screen and set the mana up to full, which should grant 8 mana per turn. This hampers early research slightly, but I figure it's worth gaining a stronger beginning army for - especially from the raiders. Then, I use Alchemy to convert 30 gold to mana and cast the Magic Spirit spell. This magic spirit is used to explore the starting island since they can move twice in a turn. Also, they can find ruins that have no monsters in them for a quick 50 gold or mana. For the next few turns, I focus mainly on building these buildings (in this order): Granary, Marketplace, Farmer's Market, Shrine - this allows for more control over production in your city since fewer will be needed to maintain the city. I like to have a lot of food generation as early as I can get it so that I can start building defense as soon as possible. From this point there's no wrong way to go if you'd prefer to use Alchemy to convert mana to gold and Buy all your buildings, or if you want to ease up on mana production and start researching.
That's how I roll. What about you guys?