MOM v1.2 update: "The AI Patch"
CGW Alan
position of knowing in advance what will be in the forthcoming patch for
MOM. I don't have a full list of everything in it (they're doing more
every day, with the pactch supposedly to be ready by mid-November
sometime), but here's what I can remember off the top of my noggin':
1. Improved AI. Right now, everyone knows the AI is lame. Any gamer can
usually overrun the other players without working up a sweat. Designer
Steve Barcia says he's up to the challenge and is hacking away at the
code. He promises most games in the future won't be won by conquest, but
by the need to cast the Spell of Mastery.
Specifically, computer players will be much smarter about forming
effective "hunter/killer" stacks (and USING them!) and garrisoning their
cities. He explained the new logic computer players will use, and it makes
sense to me (I'm no programmer, but the strategic principles the AI should
use will be much more sound).
2. Faster play speed. I've already got an interium playtest patch and
the time between clicking on NEXT TURN and your ability to do something is
about 33% faster right now. You can really notice the difference, but it
might still be too slow for some. Me? I'm satisfied with the new, faster
speed that I've seen.
3. Less gold. Treasures (in gold) will be a titch smaller and Trade
Goods will produces less gold, too. Not enough to kill you, but enough to
make gold a bit more valueable.
4. Lower maintenence cost (in mana) to upkeep summoned critters. This
will probably drop by around 25%, but may only affect rare and very rare
fantastic creatures.
5. More value for picking Spell Books before starting the game. Each
one will enhance your starting skill level and will give you a certain
amount of KNOWN spells at the start of the game -- both critical elements.
6. Myrran will probably be hiked to 3 picks's worth of the pre-game
selections.
7. Magic and Guardian Spirits might become non-coporeal. This makes it
a lot easier to get them to distant nodes on Arcanus!
8. They're considering adding more random events if they get the time.
One where all the lairs produce monsters, others that are race specific
(i.e., something good/bad happens in every Gnoll city, etc.)
That's all that I can remember off the top of my head. There's a lot
more to it, particularly in subtle tweaks to the numbers. For instance,
Gnoll wolf riders will move 3 now. This makes them great, particularly in
combat, as they can race for the other guy's rear line units. Also,
Draconians will move 2 each, instead of one (that flying ability was
actually holding them back before!). Stuff like that.
Best to all (and please don't send me email asking for more details!),
Alan Emrich
Daniel Starr
...I'd program this. Other suggestions?
Basic Strategy:
1. Identify nearest threats/targets.
2. Upgrade buildings/spells to match.
3. Build a stack and take them out.
Repeat.
Strategic notes:
0. Don't build military units before you've identified uses for them. Build
a Granary, Shrine, Marketplace and Farmers Market instead.
1. It's better to upgrade to a stack of strong units than to make a lot
of weak units for the same target, even if it takes a little longer. You'll
probably end up building the armory (et al) later anyway.
2. In particular, try for a stack that can take out a whole series of
similar-difficulty targets instead of one that will get one target and be
nearly destroyed in the process.
3. Divide your troops into "keepers" and "fodder". Don't waste spells on
"fodder". In the early game most troops are fodder; beyond halberdiers
most troops are keepers. Do not build fodder without an immediate
purpose. Do not build weaker troops than the best available to you except
to suppress unrest or where they have special abilities (e.g. priests).
Obsolete units are bad. [Uncommon+ level summoned units are keepers.]
4. You usually are only in immediate danger from a couple of places, so
don't garrison to defend from them, build a large offensive stack and take
them out! [Your fortress, the exception, should have a garrison.]
5. Your killer stack should have a healer/shaman/priest. They make
numerical superiority work.
6. Your killer stack should have its units, especially its best ones,
strongly enhanced with overland spells. Frequent combat will make
the effective cost much less than the in-combat equivalent.
7. Cast multiple enchantments on just a few units: the combat mechanics
strongly favor quality over quantity, and a single unit is easier to take
care of than nine. [If a keeper has to go, it should be one you haven't
spent mana on.] Heroes should have everything possible piled on them.
8. Don't waste mana on combats you're going to win anyway, unless a valuable
unit is endangered. Casting Fireball on spearmen raiders is dumb.
9. Within combat, have injured units step back and cower behind fresh ones
-- healers can't raise the dead, and it's not cheap even for wizards.
10. When you meet a wizard, send scouts out and bring a killer stack past
one of his units so he can be intimidated. Improve your fortress garrison
and food supply. Drop research after your current spell. Develop a
second killer stack if you can. [Unless you believe in peace: this is
not MOO. There is no High Council. :( Good luck.] The research exception
is if you have an anti-wizard spell you can research quickly on your list
-- Drain Power or Spell Lock, say.
11. When you find his fortress, strike if you think you can win and if he
has no other wizard neighbors. If he does have a neighbor, cut a deal with
the neighbor and divide him up with a two-front attack on outlying cities.
Do not attack if his killer stack(s) are stronger than your fortress
garrison unless you can gut him quickly -- that's asking for banishment.
12. When attacking enemy stacks, cast antimagic [countermagic, mana leak,
disenchant area] spells as much as possible. Top targets are wind walking,
pathfinding, spellcasting, and healer units -- it's the stack as a whole
you want to cripple. If you're going to lose, concentrate attacks on one
or two weaker units to whittle him down hopefully faster than he replaces
them.
13. If you have a "dry spell" of no nearby targets that you can beat anytime
soon (often happens on Myrror with its nodes-from-hell), scout a bit and
concentrate heavily on research. High-level spells are devastating...
Some miscellaneous tactics:
1. Most races have a "sweet spot", a set of units that are quite good for
the investment required and should be preferentially built. Prime candidates
are Dragon Turtles, Stag Beetles, Paladins, Rangers, Nightmares, War Trolls,
Longbowmen, Hammerhands.
2. If you have Flight in your library and either Troll or Warship
capability, get those Flying Trolls / Warships asap.
3. Trolls and other regenerating units should merrily run away from
opponents when injured and engage only after regaining all figures -- then
flee again.
4. If you have Phantom Warriors/Beast or Air/Fire/Earth Elemental you can
employ smaller garrisons.
5. Avoid direct-damage spells except for critical enemy units. Almost
always there's something better to do with the mana.
6. Watch for vulnerability ploys. Send Weapon Immune critters and
Illusions against normal units -- and if you're faced with them, don't
hesitate to cast Holy Weapon or True Sight or flee. Send your Fire Immune
critter against the Hell Hounds. And so on.
7. Negative enchantment spells against the enemy are extremely effective,
as are global enchantments. Cast at every opportunity. [Warp Node, Famine,
Time Stop...]
--
Daniel Starr | Graphics CPU demand will peak in 1995;
starr-...@yale.edu | AI is the processor hog of the future.
| --------------------------------------------------
"Scuppers. Hosepipe." | PC with 10^10 neurons: 40-80 years. (Moore's law)
Hoang Pham
>position of knowing in advance what will be in the forthcoming patch for
>MOM. I don't have a full list of everything in it (they're doing more
>every day, with the pactch supposedly to be ready by mid-November
>sometime), but here's what I can remember off the top of my noggin':
Alan,
Thanks for the sneak-peak on the next path for MoM. Am just recently
playing MoM with the 1.1 patch, and it is pretty stable if I stay within
the basics (had some heroes disappeared on me, but anyway). Not asking
for any more details on the patch, but am just curious if SimTex had
already planned another patch to follow 1.2 to implement improved
features that won't make it into the 1.2 patch. Thanks for any info you
can give.
CGW Alan
> "am just curious if SimTex had already planned another patch to follow
1.2 to implement improved features that won't make it into the 1.2 patch.
Thanks for any info you can give."
I don't know. Only if bugs make a v1.3 patch necessary, I suppose. I
think that v1.2 will have all the feature improvements they're planning.
If there is another, it will only fix bugs and tweak numbers, I expect.
Alan Emrich
HEUGE aka Eugene Hsu
this is a wonderful piece of programming (minus the crashes). It's
such a great game (as everyone already knows) that I had to force myself
to delete the damn thing and give the box to my friend so I can work on
ANYTHING else.
Well two weeks ago (when I had it *whimper*) I solved it a few times in
NORMAL mode with no lockups whatsoever. When I went to Impossible, the
game started to get flakey on me. I ftp-ed to wuarchive and grabbed the
MOM1.01 patch as well as the MOM1.1 patch, and after installing the 1.1
patch, I Was able to continue that same Impossible saved game, and get
past the crash. The combat was also faster.
Things I have learned :
I started out with very minimalist spells, choosing instead to be
famous, channeller, and warlord. I found that I this was a good
combination to pick up heros before some other wizard cast Just Cause.
Building in order : builders guild ; grainary ; smithy ; marketplace ;
food market ; shrine ; temple ; then it becomes
dependent on the game. Sawmill+forrestry = food
plus catapults ; wizards guild = mana etc...
First get the things that will generate food AND population, then work
on gold and mana, and finally have free options for other things that you
need.
btw. I was VERY lucky in winning that impossible game. I was on er...
um... (it's been two weeks bear with my poor memory) not Myrror... er..
the regular world (altera?) and had only managed to hold onto about half of it. Two other wizards kept on attacking me although I was using the (spell that fooled them into liking me) niceness spell, but I managed to block them off into
attacking only two cities. I placed stacks of soldiers around where they could get at me. My center cities were pretty darn empty except for buildings.
On Myrror the other wizard (Horus?) had taken over completely the entire world,
but since I never attacked the few cities which he had on the regular world,
he was pretty nice to me. I traded a spell with him nearly every round, and
threatened other spells out of the two other wizards. Gets a nice library.
Well, since Horus controlled all of the green towers, I traded him a Phase
Shift spell for something, which let me get my six heros with three others
(three I think were just maxed out wizards) to his world. When I got there
he literally had nearly every space on the map taken up. I started walking
around to look for his capitol, but then decided to trade him for "true
seeing". That let me find his capitol, which was completely surrounded except
by sea by full stacks of 9-each. Since I didn't have fly, I traded him for
that as well. 8) I flew into his capitol through the one hole, managed to
kill his armies in his city (used "fire storm" twice and used long range
attacks). That left his hundreds of soldiers unable to help him or move.
I took over Myrror and the rest of the world. Bascially Horus gave me the
methods to beat him although he was at least 7 times on the scales more
powerful than me.
*shrug*
well gotta finish some work. (good thing MoM isn't still installed. 8))
HEUGE
--
=> Eugene P. Hsu = H E U G E = University of Southern California <=
=< euge...@scf.usc.edu College of Biomedical Engineering >=
=> Yes means No. No means Yes. Delete all files? [y] <=
Keith Hearn
Matt J. Carlson <m...@wag.caltech.edu> wrote:
>CGW Alan <cgw...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Since I'm coauthoring the MOM Strategy Guide, I'm in the priviliged
>>position of knowing in advance what will be in the forthcoming patch for
>>MOM. I don't have a full list of everything in it (they're doing more
>>every day, with the pactch supposedly to be ready by mid-November
>>sometime), but here's what I can remember off the top of my noggin':
>>
>>one will enhance your starting skill level and will give you a certain
>>amount of KNOWN spells at the start of the game -- both critical elements.
>> 6. Myrran will probably be hiked to 3 picks's worth of the pre-game
>>selections.
>
>What do people think of this? Are the various Myrran races balanced enough
>to make them worth 3 picks? I think 3 picks isn't such a bad idea, but
>are all 4 of the races worth this? (ie. do people think that the
>myrran races are all balanced w/ respect to each other?)
>
>I would like to see an option for Myrran costing 2 picks, and if you want
>a special Myrran-only race it will set you back another pick.
>I just don't see it worth 3 picks to start off on Myrran as a race of
>Halflings... (which is my current game of the magical Halflings of death!)
>
>IE: Starting on Myrran = 2 picks
> Starting on Myrran as a "special" race = 3 picks
>
>(You can't start as a special race, not on Myrran so that isn't an option
>at a cost of 1 pick.)
I like this idea. I'm not all that thrilled with the Myrran-only
races, but I like starting on Myrrar. I don't like paying for the
privledge of not taking a myrran race.
Starting on Myrrar is both good and bad. You start off with a world
to yourself often, which is Good. Even starting with just one
competitor on your plane gives you lots of room to expand. The
world is very strong, magically, which is both good and bad.
Taking the first few nodes and lairs can be tough, since they
have tougher guardians, but the payoff is also better, so you
get stronger faster.
Once you've built a stack strong enough to handle most lairs (I like
magicians, gimme a stack of 9, and I can clear any lair or node I've
found, usually w/o losing units), you're pretty well set on Myrrar.
You just run around and conquer the whole plane (taking out whomever
else is there, if you do actually have company), and then you're in
a very stong position to move out to the other plane, with enough
magic resources to easily wipe out the other wizards there.
All in all, I'd say it's worth at least two picks, just to start
on Myrrar.
On a side note, has anyone looked into the idea of taking very few
spell books at the start, on the theory that you'll get the Spell of
Mastery much quicker if you have fewer common, uncommon, and rare
spells to learn before you get to the very rare spells? With all of
the advantages you'd get by being a famous, charismatic, conjuring,
channeling warlord alchemist (et cetera) on myrrar, you might survive
quite nicely by yourself on Myrrar long enough to get and cast the
Spell of Mastery w/o much contact at all with other wizards. Kind
of a cheap win, actually.
Keith
Thomas Neil Franklin
challenge to look forward to :)...
--
Tom Franklin
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Internet: tn...@Virginia.edu
Matt J. Carlson
> Since I'm coauthoring the MOM Strategy Guide, I'm in the priviliged
>position of knowing in advance what will be in the forthcoming patch for
>MOM. I don't have a full list of everything in it (they're doing more
>every day, with the pactch supposedly to be ready by mid-November
>sometime), but here's what I can remember off the top of my noggin':
>
>one will enhance your starting skill level and will give you a certain
>amount of KNOWN spells at the start of the game -- both critical elements.
> 6. Myrran will probably be hiked to 3 picks's worth of the pre-game
>selections.
What do people think of this? Are the various Myrran races balanced enough
to make them worth 3 picks? I think 3 picks isn't such a bad idea, but
are all 4 of the races worth this? (ie. do people think that the
myrran races are all balanced w/ respect to each other?)
I would like to see an option for Myrran costing 2 picks, and if you want
a special Myrran-only race it will set you back another pick.
I just don't see it worth 3 picks to start off on Myrran as a race of
Halflings... (which is my current game of the magical Halflings of death!)
IE: Starting on Myrran = 2 picks
Starting on Myrran as a "special" race = 3 picks
(You can't start as a special race, not on Myrran so that isn't an option
at a cost of 1 pick.)
Matt
--
------------------------------------------------------------
O O Matt J. Carlson m...@wag.caltech.edu
\___/ rm 219 BI (818) 395-2764 HAVE A NICE DAY!!
------------------------------------------------------------
Mike 'Krazy' Donais
How about: Start on Myrran = 2picks
Start as special race (on normal plane) = 2 picks
Start on Myrran and race = 3 picks. ?
Mike.
Dave Dubeau
>Alan,
>
>Thanks for the sneak-peak on the next path for MoM. Am just recently
>playing MoM with the 1.1 patch, and it is pretty stable if I stay within
>the basics (had some heroes disappeared on me, but anyway). Not asking
Did you lose a hero and then reload the last save? This happened
to me once. (I *love* Sky Drakes :-)
Keith Martin
Hmmmm. 1.1 had been very stable on me - up until last night,
when I started getting a crash about every 6 or 7 turns. I think I
saw this mentioned here once before - anyone have a clue what is causing
this ? Autosave or something ? It got so damn annoying last night I
had to quit. Then to work out my frustration I had to log onto Genie
and play Airwarrior . . . .
--
Keith Martin ke...@moe.coe.uga.edu
Genie: 2244 "Sluggo" 6026 :Ozhost
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hoang Pham
>>playing MoM with the 1.1 patch, and it is pretty stable if I stay within
>>the basics (had some heroes disappeared on me, but anyway). Not asking
>
>Did you lose a hero and then reload the last save? This happened
>to me once. (I *love* Sky Drakes :-)
No, he got Black Sleep (erroneously reported as Weakness) casted on him
during a combat. He survived the encounter. But the next time he was in
combat, he turns up as invisible (as in no graphic icon, not the spell) and
any one hit on him would kill him.
I save at end of every turn, knowing how flaky the game can get. So I
tried restoring, but it didn't do any good. It wasn't a big deal (he's a
wimpy Upkeep 2 hero), so I wrote him off.
What do you need to attract higher level heroes anyway? I've gotten my
fame to 30 (no Famous attribute) and got plenty of cash (close to 1000) to
spare, but one-third way into the game now and I only got 3 wimpy heroes
offering to sign up, including the dead guy.
I'm still on Arcanus, although have developed my killer stack of elite
halfling slingers (yes, I know, hahah :) and have gotten about half of
Arcanus conquered. Have gone through a bunch of nodes/caves/towers/etc
and I've never gotten any spellbook or retorts, just spells and minor
magic items (I've tried saving the game before combat and redoing it to
get a different choice, but the category is the same, only the selection
changes). Does difficulty (I'm playing Hard) or magic (Normal) settings
have anything to do with this? Would I get more powerful magic items on
Myrror?
Anyway, nice game with a rich magic structure with endless variations.
No wonder they had problems not beta-testing it thoroughly.
Gavin Adams
> Since I'm coauthoring the MOM Strategy Guide, I'm in the priviliged
>position of knowing in advance what will be in the forthcoming patch for
>MOM. I don't have a full list of everything in it (they're doing more
>every day, with the pactch supposedly to be ready by mid-November
>sometime), but here's what I can remember off the top of my noggin':
What about bug fixes? It would be great to play the game without having to
reboot my system every 4-5 turns once I enter the mid game.
--- Gavin "Visualize Whirled Peas!"
------------------------------+---------------------------------------
Gavin Adams | Air Warrior: #3644, "Boo Boo"
g...@rt66.com | Air Warrior Web Site:
Albuquerque, NM | http://cactus.org/AirWarrior/Main.html
------------------------------+---------------------------------------
Torbj|rn Lindgren
>and I've never gotten any spellbook or retorts, just spells and minor
>magic items (I've tried saving the game before combat and redoing it to
>get a different choice, but the category is the same, only the selection
>changes). Does difficulty (I'm playing Hard) or magic (Normal) settings
>have anything to do with this? Would I get more powerful magic items on
>Myrror?
Definitely! I would guess that there are at least 3 (probably more)
spell-books on Myrror on this setting...
Martin Schafer
>
>
>Once you've built a stack strong enough to handle most lairs (I like
> magicians, gimme a stack of 9, and I can clear any lair or node I've
> found, usually w/o losing units), you're pretty well set on Myrrar.
What about magic immune stuff, like Sky Drakes? Or does their immunity
not include immunity to the magic ranged attack?
>
>On a side note, has anyone looked into the idea of taking very few
> spell books at the start, on the theory that you'll get the Spell of
> Mastery much quicker if you have fewer common, uncommon, and rare
> spells to learn before you get to the very rare spells? With all of
Having fewer spell books will not let you get the spell of mastery
more quickly. The Spell of Mastery take 60,000 research minus all
the research you've spent on everything else. Unless you have so
many spells that you have more that 60,000 research points of spells
to research, more spells just means less time spent researching
without acquiring anything interesting.
Martin
Adam Connor
>I would like to see an option for Myrran costing 2 picks...
>IE: Starting on Myrran = 2 picks
> Starting on Myrran as a "special" race = 3 picks
I like this idea a lot; here's hoping SimTex is listening. I'm not really
sure that all the Myrran races are equally valuable, though. (I favor
the dark elves.)
Adam
Jason V Robertson
Maybe the special race is kind of assumed, so they charge you 2 picks? I
personally would prefer Myrran=1 pick Myrran Race=1 _additional_ pick. I
mean there really isn't enough of an advantage to being myrran to warrant
2 picks unless you are a special race.
--
"The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular."
- F. D.
jrob...@uiuc.edu (Email with subject: "getkey" for autoreply PGP)