Why chaos magic is weak.

Anything else to do with the original Master of Magic
Richrf
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Why chaos magic is weak.

Post by Richrf »

Chaos magic is the weakest of the bunch because

* It has weak early game spells.

For example, look at the commons

Firebolt/lightning bolt - It affects only *one* figure no matter how much mana you pump into it. In the early game, you will be fighting normal units anyway eg netural cities guarded with spearman/swordman with 6-8 figures, so who cares if you kill off one figure!

Compare to healing which affects the whole unit.

Disrupt - Wow, destory one wall... Does anyone use this??

Corruption - Ditto. The computer loves to cast this, which gives you a clue on how bad it is. Heck even if the strategy is viable, it certainly isn't useful early game when the goal is to capture netural cities and crack weak lairs...

Wall of fire- lol. Only idiots cast this.

Shatter- Semi useful- except early game, most of the units you are facing will have very low attack strengths anyway , so reducing them to 1 isn't such a big deal.

Fire elemental/hell hounds are decent. Warp wood is situational but decent.

Eldritch weapon is probably the best common chaos.

The fact is 5 (if we exclude shatter) are totally useless common spells. 1 is good, the other 4 are decent.

50% of chaos common spells are crap!


* Chaos has the second most number of summon spells (Nature has the most)

As we know summon spells are typically slightly underpowered, so if you have a lot of spells in this department you are at a disadvantage. In the late game, heroes will trump any creature you summon anyway. Is it any cocidence that Life which is considered strongest by many, has only 4 summon spells?

The problem is Chaos has IMHO summons that are not very useful also.

Chimera/doombat/fire giant/gargogyles/chaos spawn/effreet/

Most of these are too costly/too weak. Maybe you could use doombat cos of it flying abilities but the rest.....?? Chaos spawn is pathethicly slow...

Chaos does okay once you hit the rare and very rare spells . Particularly flame strike maybe doombolt. Personally I don't like all the city destroying spells cos it destroys structures and pop that will be yours later...
Lupinedreams
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Post by Lupinedreams »

I've always thought black was the weakest color in the original, the only spell death has that really shines is dark rituals. The summons are largely underpowered and the curses you can put on cities are mostly crap. The fear spells would be powerful if they worked as they said they did, rather than fearing your OWN units. Also, the darkness spells are vastly inferior to the holy light spells, as there are only a few life creatures in the game - unicorn, angel, archangel, and guardian spirit - but a decent number of death creatures, and many of the random monsters you fight in lairs are death monsters - rarely do you encounter hordes of angels!

On top of this, several of blue's creatures are immune to death magic, and almost all of black's as well! This is on top of spells and summons that are already largely lackluster.
Richrf
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Post by Richrf »

Lupinedreams wrote:I've always thought black was the weakest color in the original, the only spell death has that really shines is dark rituals. The summons are largely underpowered and the curses you can put on cities are mostly crap. The fear spells would be powerful if they worked as they said they did, rather than fearing your OWN units. Also, the darkness spells are vastly inferior to the holy light spells, as there are only a few life creatures in the game - unicorn, angel, archangel, and guardian spirit - but a decent number of death creatures, and many of the random monsters you fight in lairs are death monsters - rarely do you encounter hordes of angels!
I would agree that Black is weak as well and is probably bottom two.

But as you said dark rituals at least gives black a viable early game strategy, plus death spells are at least fairly synhergic eg weakness/black sleep/life drain/dark prayer combos can be fairly effective (darkness is more to strengthen your units).

Plus life drain is particularly broken in the original.... :)

Mana leak ,drain power etc are also pretty good against opposing wizards.

Even excluding the bugged cloak of fear spell, all the other black common spells are not too bad though you need to play with a certain fixed strategy.

But you are right about early game, the death wizard cannot crack many lairs, their spells are more effective against opposing wizards or neutral cities.

Alsol the list of bugged or plain useless death spells is quite long

Cloak of fear,
Terror? (not sure)
Subversion
Famine

etc

Definitely, black needs powering up as well. But fixing cloak of fear/terror should help a lot. Maybe make the zombies and skeletons stronger also.
The summons are largely underpowered and the curses you can put on cities are mostly crap.
I think the common summons are probably not good but shadow demons/wraiths is pretty good compared to what chaos is getting at the same level.

And yes the curses on cities are crappy even if they did work, like chaos.
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Implode
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Post by Implode »

Lupinedreams wrote:I've always thought black was the weakest color in the original
Wow, I would have put them like so, best first:
Life
Death
Nature/Sorcery about equal
Chaos

Death magic is great, especially now I've figured out you can Black Channels captured undead units. Its easy to win the game with Death magic, the only problem is, using the scoring system from the original MoM you get a bad score (not least of which because of all those Dark Rituals spells sacrificing population that you would otherwise get score for!)

But in multiplayer, there won't be any score, just win/lose, so it won't matter. I'll gladly play Death magic multiplayer :)

I still believe Chaos is the only magic realm that needs any adjustment (with the possible exception of some minor reshuffling of Life spells).

Implode.
Lupinedreams
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Post by Lupinedreams »

I think if the bugged spells worked correctly, black would be up there, definitely! Yes, life is very powerful, it's hard to really argue with that - other colors would kill to have some spells as good as life's common spells.
Black's forte is supposed to be death and fear and evil and the like, so while it's summons can't match greens, and doesn't have the support spells of white, or manipulation spells of blue, or destruction of red - it should be able to fit somewhere in between blue and red with some manipulation (fear) and some destruction with it's drain and death and curse spells. Once black's offensive spells are fully operational, it should really be a force to contend with (Although I would still never bother summoning a demon lord) One of my favorite things about death magic is the ability to create lifestealing weapons for your heroes - powerful indeed!
ikanreed
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Post by ikanreed »

The irony of chaos magic is that it works best when you play an excedingly defensive game, where you try to keep a large ammount of mana crystals around, get big cities, and use your combat spells as a strong first strike in defensive combat to take out your enemy's ranged/ability-heavy unit. This also allows you to take advantage of chaos's global enchantments, which reduce the effectiveness of your foes without you having to go kill them.
To this end, chaos mastery is a far better choice than the 11th chaos book.

Chaos only really works well with good builders with high growth rates like orcs.

The other four colors have a radically different primary strategy, which is to overwhelm quickly with magically enhanced normal units, swarms of weak low upkeep summons, or small groups of the best creatures. In these areas chaos falls far short.
Richrf
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Post by Richrf »

What would be the normal early game plan for a mostly Chaos player?

rely just on your normal units? Do you actively try to take down

1) nodes?
2) Lairs?
3) neutral cities?
4) opposing wizard cities

What spells are best used in the above 3 scenarios?

Ditto for death,life,sorcery,nature....
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Implode
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Post by Implode »

Personally:

Death - easiest start - get a Wraith. Wipe them out, all of them :x All neutral towns and some lairs/nodes/towers, an enemy wizard or two if you can find them, but being a bit careful since anything tougher than giant spiders/war bears they start to have a little trouble with. Tougher later on because they never really get any units much better than Wraiths all through the game.

Nature - Ditto but with Basilisks. Earth Lore really helps. Probably take out a few more nodes/lairs/towers and a few less towns. At least they get some decent spells later on.

Sorcery - Tough to start with. I've tried Storm Giants but they're only mediocre. Usually try to wing it with normal units until I get the decent high level spells. Heard lots of people report playing early on just with Phantom Warriors, but I just don't like them... in fact I plain just don't like Sorcery...

Chaos - Normal units with Eldritch Weapon, Flame Blade, Chaos Channels and a lot of reloading. If you can spare the mana after casting lots of EW+FB, start getting skill up there fast so you can cast Doom Bolt, Flame Strike, etc. Essential to get some nodes early on to get your mana income boosted up.

Life - Just about any way you want to play it! :D

Implode.
hammer
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Post by hammer »

Well i personally think the "death side" is kinda weak :)
My favorite is a combined wizard, more spells, more fun :)
Get a humans race, build paladins, summon champions (ranged) kill the enemy, kinda hard to do it in a high difficulty though.

If i had to place all my picks on 1 magic i would place them on LIFE (only if i want an easy game :) ) at max books you get a bonus spell to summon quite a powerfull melee hero :) Incarnation if i am not wrong :)
He basically kicks a** on almost everything, with a little magic support its unbeatable.

Another good pick is Sorcery with sky drakes, its hard to get to them but on a mirron side are less wizards :)

If i'd had to play chaos my tactics is the same as implodes :) get a flame strike or doom bolt at the begining, get a strong normal units and go with them casting high level spells on everything you see. After a 2-3 flame strikes, most of the units die. The rest finish with you troops.
Richrf
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Post by Richrf »

To be clear I'm not referring to 11 book strategies.

When I say a color is weak, I mean weak in the sense that if a player was predominantly that color (say 9 or 10) books he would be at a disadvantage.
momfreeek
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Re: Why chaos magic is weak.

Post by momfreeek »

Richrf wrote:Firebolt/lightning bolt - It affects only *one* figure no matter how much mana you pump into it. In the early game, you will be fighting normal units anyway eg netural cities guarded with spearman/swordman with 6-8 figures, so who cares if you kill off one figure!
not true. You can take out a whole unit with a high powered lightning bolt Still not a great spell though.

Early game though.. all you need is Hell hounds. These guys are great value for what you get. They will take out any neutral cities very early (although a load of slingers will require a massive charge) and even further into the game hell hounds can be useful en masse, due to speed, and being able to attack fliers.

Chaos spawn are uber against a lot of opponents and useless against others. Gargoyles can also be very tough against certain things for what you pay for them. Chaos creatures are mostly pretty good value IMO (better than nature although nature creatures do have some nice abilities).

Its true that there isn't much else good for chaos for a while. Flame blade and eldritch weapon can be pretty useful... then a bit later you get to things like metal fires, flame strike, doom bolt, warp lightning, all very powerful and silly easy to use.

All those chaos creatures (including chaos channeled creatures) become incredibly powerful once you get the higher chaos spells that buff all chaos creatures (warp reality and Chaos surge) and most of the rarest chaos spells are extremely good. Disintegration. Doom Mastery, Call the void, Great wasting, Meteor Storm, Great Drake, Hydra.. all well worth casting and who cares if you destroy your opponents cities.. by the time you conquer them you'll have won the game anyway.

At this stage of the game only life has the edge over chaos IMO. Torin, High prayer and Lionheart all seem rather ridiculously over-powered compared to the power of chaos which surges immeasurably as the global enchantments stack up but is at least easily countered with disjunctions (and righteousness).

all Chaos beastmen are one of my favourite starts. Winged minotaurs ftw!
Iluvalar
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Post by Iluvalar »

Hi everybody ,
Choas magic do not suck ..

First i remember that i've already won a impossible game with a massive use of corruption spell .. I don't remember the exact setting i used to achieve this put i do recall that i was on the myrror plan .

Next , i feel like a wizard casting armagedon is more dangerous than one casting the final spell . The volcanoes increase his base magic power by about 300 manas in no time ..

Finaly this is one of my favorite power trip : armagedon + great wasting + choas surge + hammerhands + adamantium . hehe . Now fear my all mighty Scale platted Hammerhands !
HeymlicH
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Re: Why chaos magic is weak.

Post by HeymlicH »

Richrf wrote:Chaos magic is the weakest
Chaos is not weak, if played correctly.


Richrf wrote:* It has weak early game spells.

Wrong. Chaos has one of the best early spells.

Richrf wrote: Firebolt/lightning bolt - It affects only *one* figure no matter how much mana you pump into it. In the early game, you will be fighting normal units anyway eg netural cities guarded with spearman/swordman with 6-8 figures, so who cares if you kill off one figure!
"Fire bolt/lightning bolt affect one figure" means they do the damage once. They still can kill more than one figure. These two spells work exactly as healing spells.

Richrf wrote: Disrupt - Wow, destory one wall... Does anyone use this??
Yes
Richrf wrote: Wall of fire- lol. Only idiots cast this.
ok, I'm one of these idiots.

Richrf wrote: Fire elemental/hell hounds are decent.
No. Hell hounds are great. They allow to take all chaos nodes up to efreet in the early game. They do a good job vs the phantom stuff, too.
Richrf wrote:
Eldritch weapon is probably the best common chaos.
It's crap.




It seems you are playing chaos like life, with normal units. This doesn't work. Chaos is relying on summonings and combat spells. Use them. A lot can be done with low level summonings (hell hounds). What can't be done with hell hounds is done with bolts. Chaos is played best as high elf. Also, an interesting choice are dark elves (Vortex + nightblades are deadly).


The really good chaos spells are hell hounds, magic vortex, Lightning bolt/doom bolt, chaos spawn, warp reality and most of the high level spells
Kev
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hmm

Post by Kev »

The poster above has it right - forget the crappy chaos buffs.

re. Chaos I posted this earlier....


Chaos is hard to play, because it requires a tremendous amount of both magic skill and mana to be effective. The best strat revolves around summoned beasts + chaos channeled units + warp reality. Much cheaper and more reliable than damage spells, esp. for high level combat. Just start with hell hounds, which are the BEST low level critter, and then gargoyles, then hydras. With WR on, most enemies cannot even hit them. Flame strike rocks, doom bolt rocks, all the resistable spells suck. I would be careful about lowering spell costs however.....maybe 5 on some but certainly no more. The creatures could be cheaper however, hell hounds are good but the rest are terrible for the price, until you get to the hydra. Its hard to give chaos anything when it is SO powerful at end game (armageddon is like time stop = game over usually, and you can weenie attack stuff with 1 unit + doombolt or flame strike very effectively). I think you could drop chaos channels down to 40 instead of 50 and maybe warp reality down to 40 as well, but its a pretty good balance right now. Its crappy at the start, but its very dangerous with 120-150 skill.

Its all about the hell hounds, then its all about the chaos channels...but really its all about the warp reality. That one spell is the key to chaos - it is a brutal debuff that has no save, just call it "Red Prayer". I think it is still the second weakest, after nature, but in the endgame (100+ skill, lots of mana) it becomes better than black, while still not as good as white/blue. You basically have got to ROCK with hell hounds and warp reality, so that you will be around in 100 turns to nuke stuff.
Clythoss
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Re: Why chaos magic is weak.

Post by Clythoss »

I just posted in the other thread and have to say again, i like chaos. I´m more a defense builder player. I don´t build armies, i rarely use summons. Instead i build up quick, trying to get a good economy.2 Gold is 1 Mana :). Why should i build armies or summon dozens of hell hounds when a buffed halfling swordsman with help of fire elementals can do the job alone? When you concentrate on skill and can survive to the point where you can finaly use flamestrike the game is as good as won. Now nothing can stop me from gaining skill and research faster than anyone else. I don´t have to pay for troops or creatures. When i reach Armageddon Great Wasting and stuff it´s Game Over.

I guess it´s just a question of playstyle. And with my playstyle chaos is simply the most effective.

With my style of play this is my list of effectiveness.

1.) Chaos (Flame Strike rocks, late game spells simply take enemy´s out of game)
2.) Death (wraith is fast to Conquer lairs and rebells, rituals REALY help)
3.) Life and Nature share this place. (Nature can buff your cities and has some good unit buffs, Earth lore helps. Life is Life :) Can´t think of any way to play the game where you can give it a worse rank than 3)
and last and very very least
5.) Sorcery. (You´re screwed... :) )
E=MC²+1W6
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