[Let's Play] Master of Magic

[Gyrfalcon]

Master of Magic. For those of you who know, no further introduction is needed; answer the poll or post your preferred build to tell me what to play already. For those sadly unaware of this cult classic, think the original Civilization crossed with high magic and many fantasy races - which results in a heck of a lot of replay value, since many different races paired with many different kinds of spells means many, many different ways to win.

A brief rundown on the above setup:
- Life magic involves unit enhancement, healing and some holy attack and summoning magics; it's very, very good for pairing with high-end mundane units and heroes and going to town with.
- Chaos magic does burning and blasting - the best magic type for attacking an enemy's forces directly (though this is admittedly inefficient, it can be fun) as well as summoning up fast fiery minions.
- Nature magic has summons, some unit enhancement and some utility magic; its summonings are the most versatile overall. Less flashy than the other magic types though.
- Sorcery magic does battlefield control, illusions and messing with the other guy's tactics; it lacks power on its own, but when paired with a capable race can do some very very broken stuff.
- Death magic is the eeeeevil stuff - raising undead, throwing around curses, blighting the land and so on. Probably the magic type that least cares about what kind of race it's working with - it just grabs power and starts chucking it around - and thus my least favorite type overall.

A bit of detail on the suggested builds:
- Gnolls, 11 Chaos books is an all-out bid to conquer. Gnolls are cheap, durable and fast to produce but have no high-end units at all; I need to use hordes of cannon-fodder and blasty magic to expand quick, then rely on conquered minions and end-game magic to win.
- Halflings, 11 Life books is arguably the exact opposite of the Gnolls setup; semi-weak early on, very very powerful once some powerful, heavily-enchanted Slinger units get their game on. This is one of the classic 'easy win' combos.
- High Elves, 8 Life books, Artificer, Warlord is all about hero units, really. Once I get a trained hero unit or two, enchanted with some spells and outfitted with crafted artifacts, I'll hopefully be unstoppable.
- Klackons, 11 Nature books goes the 'big stompy conquer' route. Klackons... well... kinda suck as a would-be 'master race', but the Nature magic hopefully speeds and buffs them up enough to make a win possible.
- Nomads, 7 Sorcery books, Channeler, Warlord goes for battlefield control. The nomads are a solid all-around race, and with Warlord they do well on the battlefield. Channeler, meanwhile, means that I can use battle magics to their best effect wherever I am.
- Beastmen, 8 Nature books, Myrran is arguably a kinder, gentler version of the Nomads setup. I don't have the funky combat spells, but Nature magic makes my troops quite tough enough and I'm in good position to 'turtle' until I can build up strength.
- Dark Elves, 8 Death books, Myrran gives me the most magic-efficient race in the game, paired with the nastiest magic in the game. This is all about doing evil things to my opponents, though out of necessity I'll have to start out somewhat slow.
- Trolls, 6 Chaos books, Myrran, Chaos Master, Conjurer is arguably an attempt to get a quick expansion going on the 'underworld' of Myrror. Trolls are big, fast and heal well, and the Chaos magic hopefully does a good job of providing them with support firepower where needed.

Other builds are, of course, also possible; I haven't posted them here because of the hundreds of viable combinations (and arguably just as many non-viable combinations). Feel free to post a suggestion in the thread, if you'd like to see me play something off the wall.

[Spectrum]

Let's see some AoW style God-killer Hero ownage. =D

[Brandon Schmelz]

I think I'm most interested in the Trolls, partly because they seem to get the shaft in most games.

[Agrias oaks]

Dark elves, i've never seen anyone play them.

EDIT: I must also say, i'll be following this with much interest...

[Lamoth]

The classic:

6 Nature, 5 Life, Humans

You get invulnerable, regenerating Paladins with Lionheart. Your cities can have a tax rate of 100% because noone cares with stream of life and gaias blessing.

If you are lucky you can cast crusade, too.

The strategy: improve your city until you can build paladins, go to the dark world, conquer the dark elves and use them as mana batteries. Build one human city next to adamantium and conquer the world with enchanted adamantium Paladins.

[Hellzon]

Bookmarked.
As for strategy, no idea. Haven't played nearly enough.

[Fenris]

Havnt played this. But Gnolls and Chaos and Blood sounds pretty amazing.


and i see elves are in the lead. damn elves taking over everything

[Safid]

What, no 11 life + humans for Summon Jesus + paladins? For shame.

[Gyrfalcon]

Originally Posted by Safid

What, no 11 life + humans for Summon Jesus + paladins? For shame.

Sorry, no. I'm trying to avoid stacking the poll with 'uber' options that would make for an easy-but-boring Let's Play. While I have no doubt that you will collectively give me much, much trouble what with having me go to war with all four wizards simultaneously and such, I still don't want to make it too easy. Thus no Barbarians with 11 Sorcery books, or anything with 11 Death books, in the poll.

Besides, there's always 11 life + halflings for Summon Jesus and the Children's Crusade!

[Dorchadas]

I voted Dark Elves + death magic. Add Zombie Mastery (or whatever that spell is) and you can cover the entire world under an endless wave of undead flesh!

Are you planning on razing all cities not of your starting race?