Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Anything else to do with the original Master of Magic
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 5:11 pm

Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by kyrub » Sun Aug 02, 2009 7:41 pm

After reading through several threads over concrete game balance issues here on forums, I thought I'd put up a thread focusing on the the game concepts more generally.

The MoM tries to create an icredibly vast and rich universe and introduces several strategic levels, which could sometimes make a separate game of its own: wizard selection, physicall combat on a special map, spell combat side with several tactical level of its own, city management, race relations, spell research, mana distribution, diplomacy and wizard relation system, gold income and tax rates, terrain related city development, army food management, overland map spellcasting, global spellcasting, unit experience system, fame-related hiring of heroes, artifact creating. Inside these bigger levels there is a plethora of small game concepts, sometimes spaning over those different strategic levels (such as unit health - healing - regeneration).

Now, while the programmers did an exceptionnally good effort to bring in ALL THIS and inter-connect such a vast number and level of those concepts, it seems that it inevitably ended as a story of "too many oranges in one basket". Some of those concepts were left half-way (a simple comparison of city management with a Civ1 game shows it), some of those remained in an embryonic stage and are more or less complicating the game (or interface) without contributing anything special to the game itself (endless city popups as a somewhat simplish example).

A lot of these concepts (and here I finally come to the core theme of the thread), although they represent excellent and enriching ideas, have been left in a broken, unfonctional, or marginal state. Sometimes it si down to their inner malfunction, sometimes (many times?) down to their interconnection with other areas of the game. I'd like to discuss them and see what is the general meaning and how / whether they could be repaired, simplified, deepened in a future of the game.

Feel free to add your suggestions and ideas.

Please note,
- that the concepts are not equall to single problems the game balance offers, so for instance, don't write here 'Paladins are too strong', but instead try to discuss (as an example) the overpowered end-stage units concept.
- that I do not intend to discuss the things broken due to the poor AI, that's broken AI. Instead I'd like to think through those concepts that would be broken or would not (more or less) fonction in a normal game, let's say in a mulitplayer.

User avatar
Tino Didriksen
Site Admin
Posts: 46
Joined: Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:05 am
Location: Odense, Denmark

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by Tino Didriksen » Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:12 pm

I actually can't think of any game concept that is fundamentally broken. All the limitations and annoyances are due to the AI not being good enough. If it was a game between humans, everything seems to tie in together...

Posts: 33
Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by kyrub » Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:27 am

Well, I think there are many (you're right, maybe not 'fundamentally'; the fundament is great).
Here's my first bunch of concepts that are more or less 'broken':

1. Special attacks that are offensive only - First strike, Breath attacks, Thrown attacks, Illusionary attack, ... (others?) ....
which occur only when the unit is attacking. According to many reviews, this concept would work, had the AI not been totally dumb. Well, it would definitely not.

Imagine a multiplayer game, you having one veteran cavalry unit and your opponent - an elite swordsmen unit. How to use the First strike to win the fight? You cannot move adjacent to him, or he will attack first and you lose your advantage. All you can do is move just one step off the swordsmen. Swordsman unit moves back, because he wants not to be hit. And you're back to the point A, you cannot close down the swordsmen unit to use your special. Broken concept.
Surely, you will eventually corner the opponent. But since the battleground is big like a stadium, this will happen around the turn 20. By that time, 95% of battles are decided, by magic or ranged units. Your advantage = 0 (or 0,05). Yes, with two cavalry units, you can close the swordsmen unit down simultaneously. But, what exactly is your 'advantage' when you first need a double advantage in numbers to use it?
So right now, all these quite cool concepts are totally flawed and are "fonctional" only as far as the AI is not programmed to make them non-fonctional.

An an example of a perfectly working 'first strike' concept is to be found in the Heroes of Might n Magic 3 game. The battlefield is small and you cannot back off, and the first strike is the decisive factor in the battles. The game engine adds to it a sublime 'wait' concept, with which you may force the opponent to move first - what an excellent idea! This IMO make the Homm battles tactically much deeper than the MoM ones (spell systems aside).

2. The pace of the game - the terrain movement
These are asbesthund's words from another thread:
The speed of the game feels to slow. At the start the development is to slow and if the game moves on, it feels slow because there is soooo much micromanagement to do. At the beginning you have nothing to do for many turns because its not possible to build settlers in a appropriate time until 3-6 buildings are ready, same for good units. With slow growing races often the first settler appears after more then 40 (granary 8 + market 10 + farmers market 10 + settler 8 ) rounds.

And these are words from J.P.Gray's clairvoyant review of the game:
The other pacing problem is endemic to Civ-style games that rely on exploring the world and lots of combat. Moving. Is. Very. Slow. This wouldn't be a huge issue if every turn didn't start off with five minutes of "built granary, build smithy; built smithy, build marketplace..." times twelve. As it is, it ruins the pace. Long turns of emptiness with a few flashes of brilliance is not a good recipe for a 4x game.

I cannot agree more. I love to spent my time playing my favourit game, but I want to spent it meaningfully. The start to the "real" game (like casting some magic or getting some units or heroes) takes ages to happen, unnecessarily. And when you finally learn how to be as quick as possible, you try trolls / death - and you may be dead yourself before 5 basic units are actually build or your 1-mvt zombies actually find something defeatable in the Myrror shrowd.
A lot of times in my game I say to myself: and now what? The nodes and lairs are too strong, there's no enemy in vicinity (or he is 10x stronger). Should I sit there and wait for my first hero or my first ship? Should I spent 30 turns with my 6 units to go to that node and see if I could defeat what's hidden there (and if not, go 30 turns back)? I use Save/Reload here, but it does not exactly help anything, does it?

A lot of 'tedium' problems are connected with the units' movement. Once you have pathfinding or windwalking, you are well. In fact more than well: every unit in the stack moves according to the "pathfinder". But, why the hell does not the same work for forrester and the mountaineer abilities? Forrester is the better of the bunch, but with a couple of infantry units in the stack, you're stuck. Mountaineer... is only good to magically get to the 'Usain Bolt' pathfinder. In the first third of the game (when you've got relatively little to do), your units are hopeless turtles. Then, with a 'click', they metamorph into gepards. Horribly broken concept in otherwise lovely terrain movement feature.

3. The terrain issues bring me to a small, not broken, but marginal concept: the ships are almost useless (unless you start on a small island). The main problem is they cannot interact with (attack) other units on the land like in other Civ games. They also cannot enter the rivers to give you a special advatage of surprise attacks... They also take a lot of time to be produced in the early game, when they could be useful, from time to time.
When you've developped enough in your surroundings and you really need to expand on another continent, you most of the times don't need the ships - or only one or two of the kind for the whole game. An idea of a navy is futile (unless you are into that flying invisible stuff... - but then you probably have floating island or windwalking as well, so why bother with the expensive warships at all?). Expendable ships bring expendable buildings along with them. Marginal, unnecessary, and it costs. In multiplayer, the winner would IMO not spend a hammer on a second ship.

4. Another would-be very cool feature is the iron-coal discount thing which is too poor to matter anything unless:
- you have dwarves
- you have built the miner's guild which happens usually in the latter stages of my games... but then it does not exactly matter anymore.
The more I like the idea of some cities being key cities from the military production point of view, that in turn may be subject (to a good effect, finally !!) to some nasty black magic spells, the more I am disappointed with the lack of a significant effect. The better (coal?) discount makes the unit 10% cheaper, that is 9 turns instead of 10 (eh? I almost did not notice). And which unit gets 10 turns to be produced in the mid-game, by the way?

Apologies for a long post. And I don't want to rant - I love the MoM game. And that is why I want to identify the broken parts of it.

Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:00 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by RDarkfire » Tue Aug 04, 2009 5:16 pm

First-time poster, long-time MoM lover.

I agree with all your points, kyrub.

I wonder if that guy Aureus is still around, the one who made the really cool "version 2.0" patch. I recently d'l/ed the game again and tried it out and it's very very cool (and thank gawd I can play Klackons!). Surely whatever tools were used to fandangle with the game rules could be used to make these kinds of changes you're talking about here.

Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:28 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by Beryl » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:31 am

I feel I don't play the same game.
1 - IMHO special attack work both on offensive and defensive. There are attack roll and defense roll for both units on each fighting. First strike gives you the first attack roll even in the role of the defender (ie : a cavalery unit closing to and attacked by a swordmen will roll first attack). True that Homm tactival battle system with initiative/speed system is better but there was several Homm version when there is still no MoM2.
2 - there is also a spell giving +1 mvt. The limited mvt rate gives much more importance to cavalry units in mid game and that is good for me. Any forrester combined with Brax gives him a much more important role.
You can also generate a map with less landmass. I enjoy much more the first part of the game than the finish (and forget save/reload in a MP game, you must live with the consequences of your decisions)
3 - ships : floating island and windwalking could be dispelled in a MP game, a ship must be attacked and can spot ennemy comming or spy cities. With less land mass you need a lot of ships, specially if you don't use the books for floating island or windwalking and can't find an alternative path with towers on Mirror. Did you try to play without them ?
4 - true but still usefull to produce cheap units and settlers faster, important if you have one near your capital, and you can transform coal/iron by spell if I remember. If needed, you can buy the miners guild.

I would not call MoM a 4X game, as the game was designed before 4X was first marketed, but it still introduced original features. MoM has a roll play feeling I never found in any 4x game.


User avatar
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:13 am

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by Lucern » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:23 am

Aureus is around, but I think these critiques go much, much deeper than can be done with file editing. In any case, I like this kind of criticism - very meta.

1. Offensive-only abilities. In your example, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around why the cavalry can't use its first-strike ability to good effect. Swordsmen move at 1 unless they're enchanted. Cavalry move 2. There is no attack-of-opportunity for adjacent moves in MoM. When it moves adjacent to the swordsmen, it gets to move again. Aside from that, there would be great value in experimenting with defensive abilities aside from those that negate offensive-only abilities. Keeps us humans honest. That said, with human players, this setup won't be so bad.

2. Pacing. I'm with you part of the way here, though I like the beginning of the game a lot. Sure, you hang on the end-turn button plenty with most setups, but I find that this always ends a bit too quickly. There's exploration and that nervous first expansion to do in this stage. On Myrror, incidentally, I never considered trying to bust nodes in the early part of the game. Sheer insanity - though magic production is made up for by a few Myrran races.

Regarding movement, yeah it's a bit slow. This is probably a good and bad thing. It's good because the AI essentially spares you only by its movement limitations. Its production is so advanced that the few times I've been on the receiving end of endless movement (Myrror), I needed equally endless magic reserves or troops that could win fights without taking a loss in figures, because the assaults were constant. An easy solution, because I doubt everyone agrees here, is to have an option to start the game with x2 movement for all units. A more sophisticated solution might lie in a 3rd road type, either restricted to a few races or one that's actually built on top of other roads, would only take .25 movement to bypass. Kinda like Roman era roads vs the little dirt roads we see in game. That way you could control where the good movement is without being a nature wizard. Another tweak might be that ships all move twice as fast so that the seas are actually quick to traverse compared to land.

3. Terrain/Ships. I do wish ships were more useful. Like if you could blockade a city and halve its gold production - that would hurt. They're also fairly weak. Lizardmen will tear you apart on the high seas in most cases. In my MoM Expanded thread (I've got graphics for eight new races...), I've actually got two new ships, hoping that stronger ships would change something. Then again, I'm not sure quite what it would change. I also had the idea of a certain kind of ship being able to traverse rivers quickly, which would at least add another dimension to ships. Then again, it would look silly in combat with the way things are handled now.

4. Production. I don't really have a problem with coal being of limited use until you have a miner's guild, for mainly logical reasons, but I do feel that the production model is one that could use some love in a remake. This ties in to the tedium of the late game, when city upgrades graduate to 'chore' status from the time when they used to be happy little messages earlier in the game. Aside from having different buildings to build (which would take a mod - I've made 5 buildings just to see if I could), a queue would do wonders for MoM building in a couple of ways. Compare the building in Master of Orion 2 with that of MoM. It's got two features that really shake things up. The first is that it allows you to queue multiple structures/ships. This is huge - you don't keep having to go to your 11th city that got a late start to build the farmer's market when you're more concerned with eliminating Rjak. You don't have this interruption slowing down the pace of the game in the late game - as you say - it allows you do spend that time meaningfully. With a good queue, I don't think I mind any movement limitations because the speed of the game would be much quicker. The second advantage of the queue in MOO 2 is that it allows for more than one thing to be finished in a single turn if there's enough production in the queue for the next item. This makes it so that weak ships with okay technology can be effective. For MoM's units, we may smugly dismiss swordsmen and spearmen in our single-player AI abusing and save/loading, but who hasn't been saved by that elite spearmen unit we left at our fortress when wandering monsters come? Frankly, with developments such as the fighter's guild (makes veterans, right?) and with magic upgrades to weaponry, a city with high production values might actually save your empire if it could crank out 3 veteran mithril halberders per turn in an emergency. I have less of a problem with uber units at the end of most races' tech trees when weaker units can be mustered quickly and en masse. This little addition could reshape the way MoM is played. Naturally, this feature of the queue would have to be optional though, because it changes balance, and for AI players, who get absurd production boosts, they might flood the world too quickly. Life casters would be even more powerful with their city boosts. Life-casting wizards with dwarves could be a nightmare. The queue itself, though, is a mere - if hugely significant - interface upgrade. I'll be happy to provide the graphics for anyone who's putting a queue into a MoM game.

Posts: 33
Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by kyrub » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:58 am

offensive-only problem

IMHO special attack work both on offensive and defensive.

Beryl, you're wrong. Some special attacks do work like you said, but those I've named, do not. Look at the table N in the game manual (the pdf doc in your mom directory).


Okay, step by step.
(veteran cavalry, att 5, def 3, hitpts 3, fig 4) ------- (elite sworsmen, att 5, def 3, hitpts 2, fig 6, to hit +1)
1 cav (4) closes swordsmen
2 swo (6) att - do 6x 1,3 = 7,8 damage (I am using the table in OSG)= kill 2 figures and do 1,8 (1 or more likely 2) dmg to the next figure
cav counter att - does 4 x 0,9 = 3,6 dam = kills about 2 swo

3 cav (2) first strikes - does immediately 2 x 0,9 = 1,8 dmg = kills 1 figure
3b swo (3, having just lost 1 fig) counterattack, do 3 x 1,3 = 3,9 dmg = kill 1 figure, and they do 1 dmg to the next figure. (if they did 2 dmg in 2nd round, the cav unit is now dead. Let's say it survived with 1 HP)

4 swo (3) attack, do again 3,9 dmg = kill last figure
cav (1) counters, does 0,9, does 1 dmg to swordsmen without killing the figure
Result: cav (0), swo (3)

Surely, had the cavalry been elite as well, the result would have been different, a draw I guess (but cavalry is more expensive and is supposed to have an advantage). But what this example shows quite well is that the cavalry uses its bonus only once during the whole combat, and - what is more important - after it has already incured losses made through an even combat. Therefore, the advantage of special attack can be always minimized, unless the defender is cornered.
- That was the point of my argument.

User avatar
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:13 am

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by Lucern » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:36 am

Thanks for your patience Kyrub. According to the strategy guide, First Strike allows the unit to resolve an attack before a counterattack is possible. Normally, all combat is simultaneous (barring a number of specials, like gaze attacks, thrown weapons, etc). So your example, I take it, is the standard AI botched movement, where it doesn't leave any movement to attack. If they had, two figures would likely be removed from the swordsmen before the slug-fest occurred, which might have made the difference. Sadly, I just described what the humans will do, and, if I read you correctly, you describe what the AI blunders into. This is an unfair advantage that wouldn't be so common with defensive abilities.

While we're on the subject, it's worth taking a look at the order of melee combat to see its quirks as laid out in the strategy guide (and probably in the manual...but I don't have that in front of me).

Phase 1: Breath (attacker only), Gaze (attacker only), Thrown attacks (attacker only)
Phase 2: Gaze (defender)
Phase 3: First strike (attacker only)*
Phase 4: Normal melee combat, Life Stealing, Poison, Other Touch Attacks

*Cloak of fear must be resisted during this phase. Barring that, it happens during phase 4.

So gaze weapons among the defenders actually strike before first strike, interestingly. Also, barbarians with thrown weapons can whittle down enemies before the simultaneous fighting begins when they initiate attacks. Barbarian cavalry can do so in two instances. Anyone considering expanding defensive weapon types can use this as their basis. Phase two might be a good place for it, say, for an ability that represents the initiative of units with polearms.

Posts: 33
Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by kyrub » Sat Aug 08, 2009 10:07 pm


No, exactly not this! The whole concept is broken (=not because of AI, although the poor AI makes the broken concept profitable for the Human player).

[C] [ ] [ ] [S]
combat position nr.1, C is cavalry, S swordsmen, [ ] is one combat field

Here's the logic, step by step:
A) we agree now that cavalry closing down swordsmen means a lost fight
B) the alternative is to
leave any movement to attack

which means that the cavalry must start its movement closer to the swordsmen unit. So we move it only one step forward.

[ ] [C] [ ] [S]
combat position nr.2

C) Now, if the swordsmen stay where they are (or even advance - that's what AI would do), they'll get slaughtered. So the logical movement is to step back:
[ ] [C] [ ] [ ] [S]

... which takes us back to the position nr.1 ! The cavalry has gained absolutely no advantage. It can only pursue slowly the swordsman unit until it gets to the edge map (where it cannot step back). See my previous posts on this being poor.

Summa: with smart movement from the weaker side, the cavalry cannot force the opposition into the combat without losing the first-strike advantage at the same time.
That is why I call the (first-strike, breath, thrown...) concept broken.



Interesting idea. But it may be hard for me to implement, so I thought quite simply to make the "offensive only" abilities permanent. Or maybe: used only in the first combat of that particular combat_round, regardless of whether it is a counterattack or a proper attack.

User avatar
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:13 am

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by Lucern » Sun Aug 09, 2009 7:20 am

Two spaces! That wasn't how I was imagining it, and the AI never moves so intelligently. I read you now Kyrub. Thanks again for your patience :)

It is interesting how deliberately they made gaze work in offense and defense and not the others. I'm sure they thought of the cavalry quite literally standing there getting attacked, which would mean annihilation. In reality, they could, at a moment's notice, charge into their attackers unless they were only feet from each other. I could see the same thought being applied to whether or not a unit is throwing weapons - is there enough time to switch back to swords/spears from the knives, hand-axes, etc? Perhaps it was for balance's sake. In any case, the byproduct is pretty funny - cavalry can't catch infantry in a charge when the infantry doesn't want to be caught. Wha? That's especially bad for cavalry because they aren't left with much else without the first strike. They're just 4 guys with average stats.

Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:00 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by RDarkfire » Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:50 pm

Possible solution : Since movement points are coded as units of 1/2 movement-points (according to one of Implode's other posts about WIZARDS.EXE I think), why not just give cavalry-type units 2.5 movement (or, 5 1/2 MP's), so that they can move their 2, and then still have movement points left to attack??

Or if that doesn't work... just give all cavalry units 3 movement-value instead. After all... when you're horseback, you're moving a helluva lot faster than on foot anyway.

Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:13 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by Tomalak » Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:39 pm

Lucern wrote:

Actually, no mater how much production you have stored up, you can NEVER produce more then ONE thing per turn in MOO2!!! This never bothered me in MOM but I can't stand it in MOO2! You must be thinking of of the original MOO, which you're right about making numerous weak/small ships very effective, even late game. (MOO2 is fun... but MOO is a masterpiece!)

RDarkfire wrote:
why not just give cavalry-type units 2.5 movement

Sounds like a GREAT solution to me! The AI still won't use it's First-Strike advantage as it should, but it would help, especially if we ever see a multiplayer mod. I think Aureus should have a look at this concept for his MOM2.0 mod, since his main objective is to 'improve' the AI for more of a challenge.

Getting back to the QUEUE idea, I'd like to ask Kyrub if it would be 'possible' to make the GRAND VIZIER option build BUILDINGS ONLY!!! This would make me VERY happy to see!!! As Lucern stated, in the beginning the "New Building" notices are fun... but this quickly wears out in the late-mid game. Even in MOO2 I turn on the "Auto-Build" at this time. (which only produces buildings)

And I agree the pace of the early game is REALLY slow, but chalk me up with those who like it, the progression from a weakling to an all-powerful being is truely awesome in this game! I've also always liked how MOM handled movement, again weakling (it's a big world to explore!) to Jaer flying my army half-way around the world in a single turn! (overpowered... yes but by then it's part of the "mop-up" phase!)

The only time I really thought his game had a broken mechanism is with the lack of a battle INITIATIVE system. That can't be fixed in this version (yeah I still hold out hope for MOM2) but at least when attacking, the defender should only get to move 50-100% of it's units on the FIRST turn due to "surprise"... unless an Oracle is built? (useless building right now!)

Ok just my thoughts, Kyrub get back to us on that Grand Vizier thing please! Thanks.

Posts: 33
Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by kyrub » Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:30 am

why not just give cavalry-type units 2.5 movement

Good idea, but it does not work. I tested it 1 year ago. The code is obviously not built to support .5 in the battle movement, there was an inconsistency of the movement (3 short steps < 1 big step although the MP spent was the same) and, if I remember correctly, a problem with inconsisent or even quite random MPs after an attack.

Still, this idea of increasing the battle movement is perfect in many other ways, and is quite appealing to me. It helps with another not-working concept in MoM:
(this one feels like being said 100x already... but let us look at it on a larger scale)

5. the combat movement is very slow which leads to the ranged units domination

The description needs more depth, surely. By "slow" combat I mean such a one, which speed does not bring any extra tactical quality to the game. Its only advantage is that it creates time for the spells being cast, but that is not a big issue: because there is a lack of urgency to cast (unless-you're-facing-a-great-wyrm). You have time, a lot of it. And if you have shoooters (magic or missile), preferably beefed-up, you use this time for the only goal it's good for: to achieve a brainless ranged win 95/100 times.
- Because of the creepy movement, the positioning of your units usually does not bring an advantage. The maneuvers would be cool if they mattered. Sometimes, you will fiddle wth your (war) trolls or horsebowmen, back and forth. What else? Blocking a "fast" moving first strike cavalry or even a faster wolf rider unit with slow swordsmen is a simple task: they cannot quickly get around it (to strike shooters, for instance) without being drawn into combat.
- Even worse, because the attacker is slow, only three front units block him easilly and the shooters make the show from a short distance.
- Tactically the most interesting battles are those when you face a bunch of quicker units or some good shooters. Than it matters, what you do, if you advance the front line or 'entrench' in the back. And which spell you cast in the first turn, before they kick you!
- A lot of concepts are hung on the slow advance: imagine a quick phantom beast, or an Earth to mud spell being suddenly so useful!

The only real opposition to the shoot-all tactic are the well-known immunitites, the magic and the missile ones. However, because of the game's intended combined arms concept, it is relatively easy to dominate the combat against the (slower) immune units. You just need one other weapon: it's shooters + cracks call, or shooters + psionic blast, or shooters + some nasty monster, preferably a demi-god.
I must say that Aureus' patch does an excellent work in eliminating the shortcommings of this cracked feature. It brings some new situations (miss_imune klackons' army ante portas), strong shooters come later in the game. Still, many of the issues remain a problem. The game could definitely use more suspense and time-press in the combat. The combat area is big, which is favourable. While I know the MoM is no RTS, its battles happen like under a permanent time stop spell.

Possible solutions:
a) to give a +1 battle (not overland) movement boost to any unit with speed > 1 (this is simple and does not alter the game too much - it more or less solves the offensive only problem as well)
b) to give to every unit (2x-1) battle movement, where x is the overland movement. E.g. infantry-1, cavalry-3, wolf riders-5, doom bat-7, air elemental-9 (there are not many units with mvt >=4 like doom bat). This would alter the game a lot, but is worth a try. It conserves the speed-relations between the more speedy units. The combats will become quick clashes with a lot of drama and time pressure.

6. Magic immunity

Having a spell concept (in a game that relies on powerfull spells and magic ranged attack) that can nullify almost anything in these categories, is... is like having a roulette with all but one field set on one number. Will you bet on that number, or will you actually play a game with some stake? I dislike using the magic immunity, because it feels like cheating. It has no downside, no error, no flaw.

Fortunately, the OSG is wrong...
- because armor-piercing non-ranged weapons work against mag_immune units!
- because lightning swords n maces work too
- because swords of chaos work as well
... but that is not much, eh?

The 1M dollar question: Why the hell can I cast some useful magic on a mag_immune unit?
Casting magic immunity (or giving a mag_imm item to a hero) should automatically dispell anything favorable on that unit.
(And I would even confine the immunity only to things that come from the external magic, e.g. ranged attacks and spells, but let in all touches and wounds. It would be still THE spell of the game. And its concept would be clear.)


Hey, man, who said I could change anything? ( :wink: )
The queue is a sci-fi thing that will never happen with my method. The Grand Vizier tweak is very much in the land of the possible, unless the AI uses the same functions for its own decisions (not improbable). Than it is a 50/50 in my book. My basic idea was to have some relatively simple way to alter externally a special "Vizier" priority list of buildings, so that every player can simply change it to his own strategy needs. And to erase the unnecesary flags at the beginning of each turn.

Posts: 63
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 3:54 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by Virm » Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:30 pm

brief comment on Magic immunity:

While I agree that no magic should be castable on a unit with magic immunity, I see no reason why existing spells active on the unit should be dispelled upon acquiring immunity. If we're thinking in terms of layered enchantments, than anything already cast upon a unit would still be present "underneath" the immunity. If we're instead thinking of all magic just floating about a unit, than magic immunity should only be effective as a natural ability, as casting a spell to grant it should be self-dispelling immediately (as is makes very little sense to have to use magic to sustain immunity to all magic, why doesn't the magic needed for maintaining the spell get dissipated by the spell?)

Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:48 pm

Re: Which game concepts in MoM are broken?

Post by LordLydon » Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:02 pm

Your argument makes sense Virm but as stricktly a game mechanic, Magic Immunity IS too powerfull. Dispelling all other enchantments on a unit would be a nice rule change I could agree on. And again, it still would be THE spell.

Post Reply