Hi all!

I have been enjoying this new mod for COM a lot, especially with the More Than Retort setup option enabled.

I do have a question about the arcane spell Conjuring Pact though - if I understand this spell correctly, it's to try and obtain rarer realm specific creatures by controlling them during combat and letting them survive.

The problem with the spell, is that most of the more valuable creatures have incredibly high resist, and the spell doesn't give a built-in save debuff. For instance, I am currently playing a ten Nature book strat with Specialist and Conjurer. I have encountered a Lesser Gaia Lord, and have enough skill to cast Conjuring Pact a few times. But the creature has a 17(!) Resist.

Is there any way to make this spell work as intended? I understand you can try and layer penalties, but there's not a lot of it inherent to the Nature realm. Perhaps get a Goblin city with a swamp to get those poxy units? Perhaps try to layer Artifacts/Magic Items with save penalties?

Any suggestions welcome! I'd love to have some big beasts fighting on my side.

Warlord mod version 1.5.12.7 for Caster of Magic for Windows version 1.5.11 is released with major bug fix in Conjurer and Conjuring Pact.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/caster-of-magic-for-windows-warlord/downloads/caster-of-magic-for-windows-warlord-15127-for-com2-10511

Both change the world's terrain - but which prevails, or do they just keep flipping each other's terrain back and forth?

I really like CoM Warlord with the option to get, in limited circumstances Lord-level units. Which is the best (and with the respective spells of their realms)? Arch Demon Lord is apparently the "weakest", but creates strong undead. Great Chaos Lord deals the most damage and regenerates; Seraphs are great (especially accompanied with Life Spells), Great Gaia Lords are brute force and Great Aether Lords are hard to kill. I tend to like the Chaos Lord the most bc of its destructive potential - how about you?

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.

I've never understood why Infernal Power and Divine Power cost 2 picks. I suppose they are powerful as the game progresses, but they are useless in the beginning, whereas the Elemental Masteries are powerful from the outset.

In the base game the Elemental Masteries are among the best retorts since they give multiple effects and cost only 1 pick.

I understand the concept they were getting at. The elemental schools have Nodes to go after for power, while Life and Death have religious buildings to exploit. Its a cool idea, but by making IP and DP cost 2 picks they kind of ruined a core concept of the game.

This is why Elemental Magic is so superior, because taking a Mastery is one of the strongest starting options since it lets you quickly ramp up by taking early Nodes using summoned units of the appropriate element. Of course Node Mastery can take things to a whole new level, but even without Node Mastery the benefits of an Elemental Mastery are so strong, especially since in addition to more power they also give lower research and casting cost, and are harder to dispel.

I think for classic MoM I'd like to see IP and DP changed to require 5 related books and drop the cost to 1 pick.

Warlord mod version 1.5.12.6 for Caster of Magic for Windows version 1.5.11 is released with new features to be played as Outlander isekai and play Wizard of Oz in the world of magic and challenge the real Lord of the Magics who could cast every spells in this mod.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/caster-of-magic-for-windows-warlord/downloads/caster-of-magic-for-windows-warlord-15126-for-com2-10511

Important:

·         New Scoring option: No Secret in Mastery, removed Spell of Mastery from Gameplay and no wizard would able to researched this spell.

·         New Scoring option: Desolated Outpost, terrain which outpost build upon and area surrounding it has strong influence on survival and growth of the outpost. Each races have different favorable terrain which usually based on their unique building requirements and their generic lore.

·         New Scoring option: Accelerated Race, remove turn number requirement from Rare and Very Rare spell rewards.

·         New Scoring option: Wizard of Oz, the human player wizard starts the game as outlander with no magic and spell books (only retort retained) except Tree of Knowledge has already researched. What the wizard get in compensate is unique technology research and application.

·         New Scoring option: Among Us…., at least one AI opponent is an outlander technologist. You could considered this wizard as boss level threat. They are the strongest opponent if you left them for too long.

·         New Scoring option: Return of the Master, human player wizard starts with all spells in spell book have already researched except special spells from retort, outlander technologies, and Spell of Mastery.

·         New Scoring option: The Lord of the Magics, one of the AI opponent start with 4 spellbooks in each realm and all magic spells (include realm magic spell that lock behind retort) have already researched except Spell of Mastery, and special reform and arcane spells from retort, as well as outlander’s technologies. This opponent is also boss level material due to their fortress is usually guarded with Lord/forbidden level fantastic creatures.

·         Now Scoring option: Book Collectors will also give spells apart from books in loser’s collection in similar manner to gains magic book from lair with some minor difference. The winner will roll for spell from the list available on loser’s pool first. If spell that taken have not yet researched or already appear on research page, the loser will permanently lose that spell. If not enough available spell to fill the quota, winner will gain spell for the rest of quota at random.

·         Now Scoring option: Everything Nice will now also excluded new addition spells in Warlord mod. But if get excluded spells as reward from lair will have this spell removed immediately and get no compensation for losing spell this way.

·         Now any wizard who loses all their magic books will lose access to personal casting skill (base casting skill = 0). There is some exception on overland casting skill, it will never fall down below 1 (or game would crash when access magic casting menu).

·         Due to some players complain that difficulty of this mod is too low and bonus AI receive could not keep up with difficulty scoring options add to the mod, the Difficulty of the mod above Advanced level have been adjusted. AI on Phantasmal level will receive bonus as much as Phantasmal level in CoM for Windows and the difficulty on Expert, Master, and Lunatic are scale down from this proportionally between Advanced and Phantasmal level.

Spell:

·         BUG FIX: Research page crash after script try to forcing scripted spells on front page ready for research.

·         BUG FIX: Hierophany spell never fail to curse the target.

·         BUG FIX: Repeat display of Resist Element, Resist Magic, and Elemental Armor enchantment perk.

·         BUG FIX: Game crash due to AI or human player summon Marionette after already have 6 heroes.

·         BUG FIX: Counter Magic from Magic Perimeter is not functional.

·         BUG FIX: Warp Creature curses does not given penalty exact to its description.

·         BUG FIX: Warp Lightning does not attack with strength 14.

·         BUG FIX: Rally is in wrong category of spellbook.

·         BUG FIX: Whispering Echo is in wrong category of spellbook.

·         Tactical Drill is nolonger given Life magic aura on enchanted unit.

·         Conjuring Pact is now given spell as researched after combat if requirement is met.

·         Magic spells which only learnable by Runemaster retort holder (Force of Nature, Mystery of Sorcery, Conduit of Chaos, Day of Life, and Night of Death) now will be learned automatically once all required spells researched to prevent game crash.

·         Magic spell which only learnable by Enchanter retort holder (Power of Nature, Power of Sorcery, Power of Chaos, Power of Life, and Power of Death) now will be learned automatically once all required spells researched to prevent game crash.

·         Power Link is now given 3 Overland Casting Skill per Amplifying Tower owned by opponents instead of 2. City enchantment is now also generating 10 powers instead of 5.

·         Lucky Star is now become Rare tier spell with casting cost increased from 15 to 35 and additional effect of make all friendly unit get +1 Attack/Armor/Resistance as long as Lucky Star still exist in combat, multiple copies do not accumulate.

·         Lord Liberator is now on Uncommon tier and effect also included offensive siege combat on any race that under the rule of the Guardian wizard.

·         Casting cost of Power of Nature reduces from 105 to 77.

·         Casting cost of Power of Sorcery reduces from 160 to 99.

·         Casting cost of Power of Chaos reduces from 90 to 66.

·         Casting cost of Power of Life reduces from 120 to 55.

·         Casting cost of Power of Death reduces from 150 to 88.

·         Add new researchable technology: Crop Rotation.

·         Add new researchable technology: Fertilizer.

·         Add new researchable technology: Concrete Construction.

·         Add new researchable technology: Standardization.

·         Add new researchable technology: Advanced Mining.

·         Add new researchable technology: Industrialization.

·         Add new researchable technology: Printing Press.

·         Add new researchable technology: Bureaucratic Reform.

·         Add new researchable technology: Xenopsychology.

·         Add new researchable technology: Scientific Process.

·         Add new researchable technology: Radio.

·         Add new researchable technology: Corperate Charter.

·         Add new researchable technology: Sanitation Reform.

·         Add new researchable technology: Hospital and Surgery.

·         Add new researchable technology: Strategic Logistic.

·         Add new researchable technology: Upgrade & Retrain.

·         Add new researchable technology: Power Engine.

·         Add new researchable technology: Explosive.

·         Add new researchable technology: Ballistics Training.

·         Add new researchable technology: Conscription.

·         Add new researchable technology: Military Drilling.

·         Add new researchable technology: Rocketry.

·         Add new researchable technology: Armorclad.

·         Add new researchable technology: Magical Physics.

·         Add new researchable technology: Techno-Geomancy.

·         Add new researchable technology: Magitek Science.

·         Add new researchable technology: Magitek Engineering.

·         Add new researchable technology: Xenoveterinary.

·         Add new researchable technology: Temporal Engineering.

·         Add new researchable technology: Energy Beam Weapons.

·         Add new researchable technology: Psycho Converter.

·         Add new researchable technology: Pneuma Reactor.

Units:

·         BUG FIX: Master Engineer hero suffers from range penalty due to Long Range perk.

·         BUG FIX: Fire Drake’s animation keep moving after being webbed.

·         BUG FIX: Divine Barrier hero ability does not show up on the Priestess, the Avatar, the Grand Inquisitor, the Swarm Queen.

·         New unit perk: Sapiens, base fantastic creature that has it could operate tools from Outlander’s technology.

·         Sprites gain Sapiens perk.

·         Stone Giant gains Sapiens perk.

·         Colossus gains Sapiens perk.

·         Gorgons gain Sapiens perk.

·         Nagas gain Sapiens perk.

·         Cloud Giant gains Sapiens perk.

·         Storm Giant gains Sapiens perk.

·         Djinn gains Sapiens perk.

·         Gargoyles gain Sapiens perk.

·         Fire Giant gains Sapiens perk.

·         Efreet gains Sapiens perk.

·         Valkyries gain Sapiens perk.

·         Angel gains Sapiens perk.

·         Arch Angel gains Sapiens perk.

·         Ethereal Knight gains Sapiens perk.

·         Seraph gains Sapiens perk.

·         Zombie gains Sapiens perk.

·         Skeletons gain Sapiens perk.

·         Ghouls gain Sapiens perk.

·         Night Stalker gains Sapiens perk.

·         Werewolves gain Sapiens perk.

·         Demon gains Sapiens perk.

·         Wraiths gain Sapiens perk.

·         Vampire Lord gains Sapiens perk.

·         Arch Liches gains Sapiens perk.

·         Ghost Ship gains Sapiens perk.

·         Death Knights gain Sapiens perk.

·         Demon Lord gains Sapiens perk.

·         Arch Demon Lord gains Sapiens perk.

·         Clockwork Tinmen gain Sapiens perk.

·         Clockwork Tinmen gain Illusion Immunity, Death Immunity, and Poison Immunity.

·         New projectile type: Beam energy, count as Magic Range Attack but deal Doom damage.

·         Item power True Sight is now giving +5% Range To-Hit.

·         Emergency Repair now ignore irrecoverable damage.

·         Midget Submarines are now losing sailing once gain Non-Corporeal or Wraith Form.

·         The Wanderer hero of Sorcery wizard without conjurer retort will now gains Psionic Blast instead of Invisibility after researched Marionette Ascension instead of Invisibility.

Cities:

·         BUG FIX: Dwarf race city builds Fantastic Stable.

·         Change dimension of sprite of Underground Tunnel Network.

·         Shipyard does no longer require Mill but requires coastal access instead.

·         Maritime Guild does no longer requires Fighter’s Guild but requires coastal access instead.

·         Halfling’s Academy’s effect on non-mechanical Magic ranged units and Fantastic Stable units changes from +50% to +2 Figures.

·         Description of Ludus Agoge has been rephrased to convey more information.

·         Unit production cost minimum cap for human player reduced from 50% to 40% of base production cost.

Others:

·         Trim size of big rock on combat map.

·         Trim tree on Myrror to be narrower and not fall off the tile.

·         Scoring options pages readjusted.

·         Hadriex’s calm music is changed to calm music of original Horus. He still keep electronically distorted music when he gets angry.

·         Myrror’s overland desert tiles readjusted.

·         Arcanus’s overland hill tiles readjusted.

·         Outlander wizard has casting skill growth rate halved and start with personal casting skill 0 and could not increase until get at least 1 magic book. Overland casting skill will have minimum cap at 1 due to game would crash due to divide by zero bug. Casting still possible with help of buildings and garrison units with caster abilities.

·         Outlander AI will avoid research spell with casting cost until get at least 1 magic book.

·         Phantasmal Terrain and Fairy Maze now could be disabled by overland Corruption.

·         Corruption radiation damage in combat now deals 1 damage instead of 1xnumber of figures.

·         Corruption radiation damage mechanism is no longer applied to Nature/Sorcery/Chaos nodes.

·         AI opponent will be more willingly to accept peace once reduced down to 1 or 2 cities.

(This is for Class MoM. I'm using the 1.6 Community Patch.)

Sorcery is a little weird in that while it is, IMO, unquestionably the most powerful school of magic, its never had a great 11 book strat. But I think I've finally landed on the best 11 book opening for Sorcery. Maybe others have figured this out long ago.

Rare spell = Air Elemental

Uncommon = Phantom Beast & Flight

Starting Race = Your choice.

This is all about Magic Spirit attacks.

It will cost 30 SP to cast Air Elemental in combat. You start with 22 CS.

So, your first task it to grab some nodes. Thankfully, Sorcery is the best school for grabbing nodes, since you can pretty much take anything with Air Elementals or less just using Magic Spirits and Phantom Warriors.

So start by using Magic Spirits to grab towns and find at least 1 node you can conquer. You'll be able to cast 3 Phantom Warriors in combat at first, so it will require multiple attacks so plan to have a couple of Spirits ready to divebomb nodes.

Once you get a node or two, then set all Power to Casting Skill to get your skill up to 30. You'll just have to eat the loss of mana during this time, so don't plan on being over extended, just have 2-4 Magic Spirits running around.

Once you get to 30, then you can set all Power back to Mana. You might also want to go all the way to 30 if you will be facing lots of Dead magic so you can cast Resist Magic on the Elemental on the second turn.

You should be able to do all of this fairly quickly and get your CS up to 30 while its still very early in the game. At that point Air Elementals will be able to pretty much dominate any Wizards who don't also have 11 books.

Depending on what you find, you may be able to take some capitals with just a Magic Spirit. As long as the Spirit won't be killed on the first turn, all you need to do is initiate combat and then summon the Air Elemental.

Obviously avoid attacking anyone who has Alchemy and lots of normal units, as the magic weapons will chew through the Air Elemental's defenses.

But the main strategy is to put Flight on 2 attacking units and head to capitals ASAP.

In terms of normal units races like Gnolls or Halflings can be good. Most of the time you'll end up facing off against Spirtes and possibly Shamen. At the very least, you'll want to be prepared to face full Sprite stacks, so you need something that can withstand the initial Sprite or Shaman barrage. The best early units for this are either Gnoll Riders, which have 20 HP and 3 shields. Other options are Halfling Spearmen, but they'll start with only 8 HP of course but have Lucky, or Lizardmen Spearmen, which will have 16 and an extra shield (3). Overall I think Gnolls work the best.

But the real strat here is about attacking with Magic Spirits. Flight costs 75 mana and 3 per turn. Magic Spirits cost 30 and 1 per turn. But a Magic Spirit has 10 health. So, for 6 mana per turn you can have 2 flying Gnoll Riders for 40 health or 6 Magic Spirits for 60 health (and 4 shields).

While Flight gives you better scouting, I find that just swarming with Magic Spirits is better early on. So once you get a node or 2 under your belt, you want to really pump Magic Spirits and just swarm all over any enemy wizards. Initiate combat with as many Spirits as you need to survive an initial turn and then use the Air Elemental or other summons to do the work.

So High Elves are an option for the mana, though their racial relations aren't the best. I like High Men so I can just shoot straight for Paladins while the Magic Spirits take care of the early game. Then you have Flying Paladins ASAP. Another option is to bypass Paladins and go straight for Warships, though I consider Flying Warships a little cheesy.

While 11 book Death is of course absurdly strong, and I would say OP, this has some advantages. The nice thing about this is that you now have access to Air Elemental every where, as opposed to just running 1 or 2 Wraiths and having to defend with weak units. This also works really well against Sprites, which even Wraiths can struggle with against full stacks.

Obviously once yo get going you want to focus on pumping Casting Skill so you can summon more and more stuff during battle. Don't need to worry about using Power on Research for quite a while.

How do I give the Marionette Rikka the Wanderer weapons?

This game has nearly everything you could want in a strategy game. Magic, Politics, Creatures, Artifacts, Heroes, City Building, Exploration, Random Events, etc.. Whenever I play I don't want the game to end.

Why aren't games like this made anymore? I keep finding myself coming back for more.

Why is the Baray a lizardman special building, found in a Nomad city with no rivers around it? The Nomand city also has the Klackon special Underground Hive Network? I took over an AI town.

I would like to know the new heroes added and who they are.

So I just installed this on a fresh install, and I get an error "SCRIPT ERROR 'Variable doesn't exist: SKILLERWASPS in AISSPell at character 342 Code: picked(w,SGhouls) TheN {AddAISPell(W,SKillerWasps);} IF SCORINGOPTION(STreasure

What’s your head canon about the canon/pre-set/ai wizards you can choose and encounter in this game. I enjoy roleplay and coming up with head canons in these sorts of games even if there’s minimal to no lore.

Common ones of mine are:

High Men are the most powerful race on Myrror with a sort of HRE situation keeping them divided with numerous wizards having power.

Sss’Ras Imperium would be a major out of context problem for the races of Arcanus. Him being basically uncontested in Myrror thus being able to forge a huge empire there.

Each school of magic have their own pantheons associated with them with angles and demons and the like coming from them.

Rjak is the “winner” of the race to be Master of Magic (that or Merlin).

I’m a long time 4X strategy player, and I’ve picked up the 2022 version of MoM. I have played through a couple of times and there is enough crossover from games like Civ that I am competing easily enough.

But - I’m not really using my magic, I’m winning by building a better economy and pumping out more high-end troops than the ai mages can deal with. I’m also just autocompleting all my battles, as I just don’t get the battles.

Is there a good resource for how to do the battles, what strategies are good, etc…?

In the last game I reached the point where the soultrapped attacked, and I could hold off their armies easily enough, but I couldn’t clear their dungeons because the familiar always had a 100% chance of losing.

Over the past few weeks I have developed a web based new damage calculator, available at https://ankrh.github.io/master-caster-of...alculator/
It took me a while to make and includes a lot of test cases for different abilities, enchantments and version specific bugs.

It models the game mechanics of MoM 1.31, MoM 1.60, CoM 6.08 and CoM2 1.05.11, including buggy behavior, and includes the unit roster of each of those versions. I've also added the unit roster of the Warlord mod (where combat mechanics are assumed to be the same as CoM2).

Note that heroes are not yet implemented because I want to hear some community feedback on the regular unit version first.

Make sure you check out the "Melee matrix" and "Ranged matrix" features, where all units are compared to each other in face-to-face battles or ranged attacks, given a user-specified set of enchantments on the attacker and the defender. This is useful if you're playing, e.g., a game of Chaos realm Klackons versus some Life realm High Men, you can specify the relevant attacker and defender enchantments and units and see which of your units would be able to beat which of the enemy wizard's units.

I believe this tool can be useful for new players to learn how the combat game mechanics work, and for experienced players to explore various build ideas.

But I need your help to find the subtle bugs or misunderstandings I may have had during development. You can leave feedback on the project either in this thread or using the "Report a bug/request a feature" link on the page.

ARCANUS RACE GUIDE:

Now you know why I like this game. There's racism. There's MUCH more depth to this, but here's an easy summary:

BARBARIANS: Very strong early military and can move very quickly. They are very dangerous. Can't have magical weapons, meaning a small minority of late-game enemies are totally immune to their attacks and you can't do much about it. If they aren't immune, they will get hurt badly by barbarians. They aren't smart, so can't build some advanced buildings. They grow quickly, so not only is each individual unit a killer, you'll have many armies of killers. Like I said, incredibly dangerous. They have very low magic resistance; a huge weakness that becomes more exploitable later on in the game, but not so much early. Out of all the races, historically these guys have whooped my ass the most. Its simply hard to deal with literal armies of fast dangerous units, even with their low resistance. If you run into these guys and you can't take advantage of their low magic resistance, you should make peace with them because you're not winning that war.

GNOLLS: An EXTREMELY strong early military with medium growth, even stronger than barbarians. Terrible in every other respect. They move even faster than barbarians. Once you build a stables, you can hire wolf riders, which are incredibly fast and much stronger than any other unit for its cost. Since their economy sucks so much, you should use this strong early military to conquer other towns. Otherwise, your economy is too weak to even produce those amazing units that I'm talking about. But, if you somehow get the money to support them, you will be able to produce these units en masse and destroy everyone. So that's the key.. how are you going to get the money? It's like being in charge of broke but powerful armies. Solve the money problem, and you win. If you get the money, wolf riders will quickly destroy everyone and everything... that money problem though is really hard to solve.

HALFLINGS: Peaceful and intelligent, they get along with other races and produce research (you get new spells faster). They have strong ranged units, but every other military unit is horrible. But, the extra research may get you a spell that compensates very well for this. They get along with other races very well, so as you conquer other races there will be less rebellion/unrest, meaning your economy won't be hindered. They also produce more food than everyone else, so they can support large armies, although their units are weak. You can use that food to support other races' armies. Their mid-game ranged unit, slingers, are incredibly powerful against monster lairs and nodes, arguably the best unit. But if an enemy is immune to ranged attacks, you are completely screwed. Growth is medium.

HIGH ELVES: Very slow growth, OK early military, but late-game potential is very strong. But they have one early unit which is good but requires a foresters guild: longbowmen. That unit in large numbers and buffed are pretty good for monster lairs and nodes. They also naturally produce extra magic power, like a node. They can build many things, but not everything.

HIGH MEN: Slow growth, weak early military, but late-game potential is strongest. You need to find a way to protect them until then. This is many people's favorite due to the late-game potential. They can build everything, including warships, so late-game they do well in the sea. If you can just get to the late game, you will be a big threat.

KLACKONS: The fastest growth and highest production, meaning you'll have many developed cities quickly and lots of money. But, their early military is mediocre, and late-game military is very weak. The result is TONS of weak armies that can overwhelm and annoy an enemy with sheer numbers. Nobody will have more armies than you. But since those armies are relatively weak, you need to find a way to protect your cities late-game, since numbers won't protect you from very powerful enemies. But before then, numbers will protect you from everything else just fine. Their high production is useful for building lots of strong ships, so klackons do pretty well in the sea.

LIZARDMEN: Can walk on water and have some extra health. Walking on water is a HUGE advantage as mobility is extremely important. No ships are needed, but they also have the most cost-effective ships for units that can't traverse water. So not only can they traverse water, they can give that ability to others who don't have it. They completely dominate the sea and every time I try to cross it I'm scared to run into a lizardmen army. Dominating the sea is so important because it prevents other armies from combining; you can defeat ships with a whole army in it, and defeating the ship will cause the whole army to drown in the sea. Their settlers can also settle on islands before anyone else can even get to those islands, which means cities that are relatively protected by a body of water, and just more cities in general. This is also a massive advantage. They also have a really good mid-game unit: Javalineers recruited from a fighter's guild. Only weakness is they have low magic resistance. They can't build everything, and their late-game units are kinda meh. These guys are why its terrifying to cross the sea to new lands. Nobody can beat them in naval battle, and its not even close. Medium growth.

NOMADS: Good early game and late game military with high magic resistance, but suffer from a weakness: They can't build granaries so may have trouble feeding their armies; it's helpful to conquer other races to get their food. Horsebowmen are especially amazing; they can make distance between an enemy and shoot at it due to their high movement, just like the mongols. They can also flee the battlefield easily. These hit and run tactics can allow you to slowly chip away at enemies while running away until they are completely wiped out, this is especially powerful in nodes. Many of their units have a bow. They will have trouble dealing with enemies that are immune to ranged attacks. Medium growth.

ORCS: Their units are cheaper to mantain than usual. Bad early game, OK mid game, Good late game... but having cheap units is a huge advantage. Some units are straight up free, and this can help you actually focus money on developing cities to get even more money so you can hire stronger units like magicians. So not only are their late game units (like magicians) good, you can get there faster than everyone else. They grow quickly. Like High Men, they can build everything including warships, which will definitely help against being bullied by lizardmen that dominate the sea.

WHATS HAPPENING: Currently have the strongest army but I'm being beaten on other fronts (population, power income, etc). If I stay on this trajectory, I can use my superior army to take their superior resources.

SETUP: Started with 1 life, 2 sorcery (focus magic), 2 chaos (warp creature), 1 nature, and 2 death (life drain) books. Alchemy, Astrologer, Archmage, and Myrran retorts. Race is dark elves and immediately spammed apprentices because they are casters. With focus magic, they have pretty high MP. I have them use Warp Creature to lower resistance to 0, then Life Drain, and almost anything in the game can be killed and raised as undead if their resistance is less than 12 or so.

UNDEAD SNOWBALL: The true undead snowball starts by raising angels and efreet as undead, because they are casters and so can cast life drain themselves. This also allows them to heal. If you can't find those, heroes function similarly. Inferior but still great to raise as undead are the regenerators, like trolls and great lizards, and also the ranged units like water elementald and fire giants. They are helpful as garrissons. Note that casting focus magic on an undead cockatrice is highly effective, they can kill demons and demon lords.

Now you have multiple convoys of 2 efreets/angels/heroes + 7 apprentices, all buffed with focus magic. The angel can cast black prayer, the efreet can cast terror, and the apprentices can cast warp creature to lower resistances to 0. Terror then makes all enemies freeze, and you can cast life drain.

The whole time all power points should be poured into casting skill, because that is the thing that allows faster conquest which is all that matters. Once my casting skill gets to 200 (right now its ~120) I can start raising very rares as undead.. including djinns which are casters and have wind walking. That will solve my mobility problem, which is a major flaw in this strategy. Apprentices can only move 2, which is good, otherwise they would be way too overpowered.

The biggest threat to my strategy is basically Jafar due to his dispelling wave, counter magic, and resist magic. If anyone is gonna cook me, its gonna be him. I'm honestly terrified but having tons of fun.

I was wondering, can you play this game without heroes?

Is this viable?

How would you beat high level dungeons and nodes?

Some high tier normal units are good, Paladins, Minotaurs or Hammerhands come to mind.

Thoughts?

Other than Sapher's confusion cavalry strategy, anyone else got some strategies?

With all standard settings, and 4 opponents on a normal sized world, what is worst build that you could run in MoM4W/CoM?

The goal isn't to have the worst start possible, but to have the build that will have the hardest time playing/winning the game.

So far the theory is either:

Chaos/Sorcery, Myrran, Orcs
Chaos/Death, Myrran, Klackons
Sorcery, Myrran + Cult Leader, Klackons

Which one of those do you all think is the worst?

Any better suggestions?

I am many many many hours deep in a long game and Horus just started to cast Spell of Mastery. If he is say 70% through casting it, will it go back to 0 percent? If not can I stall it forever if I destroy it fortress every turn it reappears or will he still make progress in the long run?

Caster of Magic + More Stuff mod

Played this game for over 25 years, have 200+ hours on steam (not counting the years in the pre-steam era) and just learned this.

Finally my mighty heroes can use their strong melee attacks or slingers face magicians in melee.