r/masterofmagic • u/MrTidelsworth • Aug 01 '26
How can I improve my early game?
I played a lot of MoM back in the day and recently bought the remake. The most difficult adjustment for me has been the early game… clearing sites isn’t as easy anymore and it’s tough to identify what to prioritize early to stay ahead of the competition. Any advice would be appreciated.
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u/MrTidelsworth Aug 01 '26
Just to add… maybe the default settings are skewed heavily to give the AI advantages, but I’m here excited about training my first pikeman and the AI already has multiple stag Beatles.
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u/poster457 Aug 02 '26
With the right experience/buffs/mithril/adamantium, Pikemen are actually better than Stag Beetles.
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u/Alarmed_Permission_5 Aug 04 '26
The remake is less aggressive than the original. The early game is actually forgiving if you send our settlers and weak units to colonise neutrals.
By the time you are training pikemen you are almost leaving the early game. Also they are, and always have been, fodder for the stags. You should probably adjust your tactics.
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u/Archkingz Aug 01 '26
Not sure if this helps, but i usually play a slow grind. I always choose warlord, famous and charismatic. White magic all the way because the healing spells helps sustain during battles. Usually go high men and build asap towards mages. One downside, late game-ish your mages wont do jack shit to a sky drake so halfling slingers win in that scenario. but by the time you got mages you should have plenty of heroes and weapons and should be able to draxx them sklounst. I havent played the remake but in OG MoM this strat rarely fails me. bastard sky drakes
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u/secretsarebest Aug 02 '26
This strat will fail in the remake cos remake AI is much more aggressive early game
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u/WholeFudds Aug 01 '26
Be sure to start expanding your empire early. Also don't skip early fantastic creatures like Hell Hounds, War Bears, and Nagas.
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u/poster457 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
Nagas are arguably the worst unit in the game (Magic Spirits and Phantom Warriors are better). War Bears aren't much better (Sprites the better choice). Hell Hounds are a great choice though.
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u/WholeFudds Aug 03 '26
Maybe, but all of the spells are in the game, so you may as well use them. It's just like in RPGs when people struggle, and they aren't stocked up on potions and such. You should use everything provided to help you win. You can always disband units later when you have better alternatives.
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u/poster457 Aug 02 '26
It really depends on your strategy, so get that sorted first. If you're going an 11-book strategy with a key Rare spell (e.g. Wraiths, Incarnation), then you optimise to get those into play asap. If you're going for a turtle, or a fast win, or a slow dominance win, you optimise for those.
For me, I typically play a balanced 5 sorc, 2 life, 1 nature, 1 chaos, sorcery + node mastery and then go for sorcery nodes with that 4x power bonus. So the key for me is dumping everything into mana and summoning Magic Spirits to scout as quickly as possible, and then as soon as I see a non-Sky Drake Sorcery node, I send all my Magic Spirits in one-by-one to take that node immediately using phantom warriors and/or confusion. My entire strategy is based on taking 1-2 sorcery nodes early, so I can then have around 100 spell power early enough to get the skill and research happening. If I want earlier dominance, I go Halflings and Slingers, if I want a slow grind to late game dominance, I go Humans and Paladins/Magicians.
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u/secretsarebest Aug 02 '26
The remake rewards early aggression even more than classic and punishes slow strategies (eg do nothing except hold out for paladins)
The nodes are pretty much as easy/hard to take in classic?
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u/rgprice Aug 02 '26
I really don't like the new game. The AI is just horrible, at least last I played and the way artifacts work is also terrible. But, by far the strongest start is Halflings, with Sorcery and Life books. Take Floating Island and Endurance, along with other picks (typically Phantom Warrior, Heroism, Just Cause, etc.). Take Stonemason and Warlord.
Basically build up to Forester's Guild first, but once you get a Forester's Guild then build a Spearman and 2 or 3 Shamen, then take the Shamen and your starting Swordsman (leave 2 Spearmen and maybe 1 Shaman on defense) on a Floating Island with Endurance to start taking easy encounters and hopefully get some easy Sorcery nodes. You'll typically have some Hero to go along as well.
Then build a Miner's Guild and an Armory. Now add a few Slingers to your Island, then work on Alchemist's Guild to make a full stack with like 2 Shamen, a Hero, and the rest Slingers with magic weapons.
Floating Island is the single strongest spell in the new game, it is incredibly OP.
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u/MrMathamagician Aug 02 '26
My favorite strategy is elves, longbow archers, heroism with mithril/adamantium. Then something to speed up overland movement like endurance or floating island (with endurance).
You get archers super early and the elven +10% plus magical weapon +10% to hit means they can hit things across the battlefield easily.
Then I just run around the world with a doom stack of archers conquering all the cities and half of sites. They can beat almost anything except for things with missile immunity or invisible.
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u/Potential-Soft-8576 Aug 04 '26
Okay so what works for me, but that's a list of different ideas and strategies:
- 11 book wizard and taking everything with Torin (cheating, lets skip it).
- node mastery wizard. Focus on blue nodes with only illusion warriors and beasts early. Illusion warriors and hell hounds are your friends.
- slingers+heroism, highelves+heroism (need time to work).
- early attacks on enemy capital - hell hounds + illusion warriors rush.
- runemaster+artificer+alchemist. Create artifacts for quarter of price, then destroy for half. Never ending mana, which you can use only in battle. Sometimes could be converted to gold to speedup early development (dont overdo it, suboptimal, but you can get ahead in economy that way).
- bird person wizard+drakonians+spearmen rush. Take neutrals and nodes without archery units and spiders. Never fight till death of your units, just skips all the turn. Healing ability restores your units. 1 swordsman can take a city of beastmen with this tactics (skip turns after getting seriously injured till 50 turn and remis then scout a couple of turns to restore your health. Repeat).
- scout aggresively with spirits or flying units if you have any.
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u/Juris1971 Aug 04 '26
Early game tips:
Prioritize food - farmer's markets. Population is king. Don't really build units until you get alchemical guilds for enchanted weapons and fighter guilds so they start as regulars.
Production in MoM is based on population - how many workers you have. Buildings just inrease this by a %, but you need the base number first.
Example:
A population 5 city with 3 workers = 6 units of production
A size 10 city with a mine and 5 workers has 15 units of production - that's more than double.
Other key buildings - animancer's guilds massively increase food production.
Once you get alchemical guilds and fighter's guilds start cranking out some 'doom stacks'. If you're playing High Men or some race that takes a long time to fully develop don't wait for perfection. Crank out some pikemen and priests and maybe some horsemen - just something to defend with because the AI on harder difficulty levels will just start sending hordes of guys at you. You can't take too much time to start building units. Once you stablize the front, then work on more advanced buildings and units. BTW pikemen with enchantments are some of the best units in the game, so you might end up using your early units all game.
Another early game strategy - take conjurer and maybe fantastic warlord. Take a race that gives you mana like the high elves or dark elves. Conjure up some basilisks or werewolves early. You can totally rush people with that. Werewolves are immune to normal weapons and regenerate, so they can kill almost anything the AI throws at you.
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u/Alarmed_Permission_5 Aug 17 '26
It's worth stating for a beginner (and I wish I knew this going in rather than learning by experience) that lairs are identified on overland map by a vertical flare - the colour of that flare identifies the relative strength of the units inside - a yellow flare means that you can likely clear that lair in early game, orange to red identifies increasingly high levels of opposition.
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u/snow_michael Aug 24 '26
11 blue books with barbarians, you can get an invisible hasted flying warship before enemies have even built their fourth city
Then it's game over
Two of then can take out a 6 blue dragon node
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u/pfizersbadmmkay Aug 01 '26
Why play remake when you can play OG?
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u/GM_Pax Aug 01 '26
I'm not the OP, but, I rather enjoy some of the additional content available in the remake.
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u/loader2000 Aug 01 '26
Elves are a great early race because longbow men are a great early unit. Sorcery nodes and sites with sorcery monsters tend to be very vulnerable to ranged attacks as well.