What a beginner should do at the start of the game so as not to be disappointed in it.
Tips to make your life easier
2. Try not to take nature from books, it is rather difficult for the first game. It is also not worth taking death (to a lesser extent, chaos), because the presence of these books worsens the attitude of other wizards. Of the races, the Halflings are a very good starting race – their cities are growing rapidly, and they have a very powerful unit available from the very beginning – slingers.
3. At the start you are given 2 colonists and 2 swordsmen. Leave the swordsmen in the capital, and send the colonists to build new cities. F1 will help you understand where to build – at least 3 cells from any city. When you press the key, it will be highlighted where you can build a city, and where not. Hover over potential locations. Try to find a place with the maximum number of residents. The second parameter is the percentage of the bonus to the construction site. It is desirable that for the first two cities it should be at least 20%. Percent of money is not that important. The presence of nearby dens of monsters is also not important, they will still come to you even from afar. Once built, the colonizer will disappear and a swordsman will appear in its place. Leave him in this city. The city gains its first 1000 inhabitants for several turns, after which buildings are available in it.
4. Go to the Info menu, then to Taxation, increase taxes by 2 cells. You can do more, but try not to be dissatisfied in the first city. Every two soldiers in the city (summoned or ordinary troops) reduce discontent by 1. If discontent grows, extinguish it with soldiers in the city and special buildings. Try to bring the tax level to the maximum, just rearrange and look at the income in money as you play.
5. First of all, build in the new city Sawmill (already built in the capital), then Granary, then Marketplace and after – Farmer Market. These buildings will increase food production and allow almost all peasants to be converted to workers who produce “production.”
6. In the capital, the next building you should build is a Forester Guild – it gives an increase in production and food. After that, it is worth building more colonists and populating all the nearest points where you can settle. Otherwise, your rivals will populate them and quite quickly. Sooner or later, a settlement of an enemy wizard will appear near you. Peace in the game with those who have built up next to you will not work, immediately switch to the construction of troops and the capture of this settlement.
7. For the selected race, you need to determine a cheap army that will behave well at the start and will not gobble up your economy. In the middle of the game, try to replace the defense troops in your cities with Magicians.
8. Before building troops and attacking, try to build Barracks – this will increase the level of troops by 1. Basic versions of troops are weak enough to fight effectively.
9. At the start of the game, call 2-3 Magic Spirit and use them as scouts. They walk 2 cells, including water, ignoring the terrain. They are useless in battle. Enter all dungeons, but do not start the fight. You will be left with information about the number and type of the strongest creature. Remember that few Fire Giants can mean not only a few of these creatures, but a larger pack of weaker creatures. The three dungeons surrounding the capital, besides the green towers, are usually made weak and can be captured by an army of 9 of your best base units.
10. After the process (or even during) the settlement by the colonists, it is worth taking up the protection of your cities. See the tips below, but ranged units are a good option.
11. One of the main problems in the game (throughout the entire game) is the monsters that have crawled out of the dens. In the beginning it can be 1-2 Magic Spirit or skeletons. But then their level and rank grows. Defend cities. The variant from the basic MoM, when your capital is protected by 2 Swordsman, and you have rebuilt all the buildings, does not work here. It is worth defending the city with 6-9 troops after basic colonization and trying to keep a stack of 9 units in the middle and late game.
12. When you defend the cities and several heroes are recruited to you, collect the “fist” – your best units at the moment, the best summoned units – and go explore the nearest dungeons. A good option (unless you are Iron Man) is to save, go into the dungeon, lose the battle, assess the strength of your opponent, load, and return years later with the appropriate army.
Dungeons provide mana and money, but sometimes spells and items for heroes appear there. And in the most protected dungeons, you will find legendary heroes, new spellbooks and even new retorts for your avatar.
13. Heroes are very strong towards the end of the game. But at the start, they are weak, and they may well be killed by a squad of swordsmen. Take care of them, put objects on them, cast all the bonus spells that you know.
14. Keep food production at 0-1-2, because all excess food is burned out (goes into money).
15. At the start you have 160-120 coins, you do not need them, go to the magic screen and convert everything to magic 2 to 1. 60 mana will allow you to quickly conjure either the first troops or the first scouts.
16. Wizard Pact in Diplomacy is worth asking if you and an a mage are at Normal or higher for a while. This level guarantees that you will not walk on the territory of the opponent, and he will not attack your city (but not the troops!) Without breaking. And the mage himself will flicker with his troops on your territory, get used to it. If you walk on his territory, he will quickly get tired and break the agreement.
17. Alliance allows you to finally walk on its territory. Ask for an alliance at a high level, this agreement is much more convenient than the Wizard Pakt, because you can freely explore its territory with heroes and go through simple dungeons.
18. Ships in the CoM version are much more powerful than in MoM, they can easily kill summoned units, even Trireme, and they cost you nothing after construction, so do not hesitate to breed them and recapture the seas.
19. Special lairs in the game are called Nodes, when you capture them, send a summoned Magic Spirit monster there and press the Meld command, the ghost will occupy the lair and bring you a lot of mana. This is the main source of magic in the game. But the enemy ghost can take it away from you. Therefore, on it, as in the city, it is worth keeping an army of 6-9 units.
20. On the screen of magic, you distribute where the energy goes. Research and mana are understandable. At the beginning of the game, you need mana. Leave the research for now, send all income to mana. The research itself will then grow along with the buildings in the cities. By the end of the first quarter of the game, transfer some of your mana to increase your spell level. This level affects the number of mana that you can spend in battle and for 1 round on the global map. It is very difficult to summon a monster for 300 magic, even if you have 5000 mana, and during the turn you can spend the starting 20.
21. One of the most interesting activities in the game is to gather a squad of hero(-es) + your best summoned and normal units, and start exploring the dungeons. Tactical battles (do not forget to enable them in the settings), and the rewards for them are truly worth it to postpone the destruction of opponents.
22. Summoned monsters are far stronger than normal units, especially top tier.
How combat works in the game
1 shield is a 30% chance not to receive a damage inflicted by an enemy unit. Similarly, the percentage is indicated at the top right. The shield is used both for melee attacks and for protection against ranged attacks, including magical ones. But the bottom line is that when damage is inflicted on a unit of several figures, the unit is not protected by all the figures at once. One figure tries to defend itself from the attack, it takes damage, loses hearts. When it is killed, another figure tries to defend itself. That is, shields during defense are not multiplied by the number of pieces.
1 cross is protection from spells (not ranged, even magic, attacks) of all groups. It is considered differently. Each cross has a 10% chance that the spell will not work. 10 crosses protect you 100% from spells (exclude damaging spells). But the fact is that spells usually have a “-3” bonus in their descriptions, this bonus is deducted from the opponent’s crosses. If you cast damaging spells in battle, look at the shields, if control or curse spells, look at the number of crosses.
Hearts represent the number of lives each unit has for each piece.
Throw, breath, poison and gaze attacks pass before the main attack. The most dangerous are stone and death, they kill immediately.
All immunities protect the unit completely from this type of attack, except for weapon immunity – this type gives +8 shields, and then if the unit is attacked by a regular (built in the city) unit without a magic sword (given by a high-level building). That is, heroes, summoned units and units in the middle and end of the game ignore this bonus.
Bowman is a weak ranged unit. There are 2 types of ranged attacks in the game – physical (arrows, stones) and magic. Physical attacks have a strong range penalty and usually do not worth it, even on weak troops.
Swordsmen – the basic melee unit, it is worth building only in emergency cases, usually acts as cannon fodder. Some races hovewer can have a very strong swordsmen. There is a small bonus to defense against ranged attacks.
Halberdiers is a good starting melee unit, but you need a Fighter’s guild to build it. There is a bonus to defense against cavalry.
Cavalry – Swordsmen variant with fast movement and attack bonus
Catapult is designed to destroy walls, but walls do not pose any threat in the game. Can be used as a good ranged unit to defend the city. It move slowly.
Who is worth fighting for
Barbarians: (not recommended for the first batch)
Gladiators, for them you need to build Barracks + Colosseum (both buildings do not require support in the form of money). They are slightly more expensive than Berserkers, but they have more resistance and, most importantly, defense. Berserkers are very fragile.
In the middle of the game, the race does not have good units.
Gnolls:
Wolf Riders – only requires Stables, but very, very fast units and are not very expensive.
In the middle of the game, you should switch to Jackal Riders – 8 pieces !, 4 life each, Cloack of Fear (opponents with low Resistance sometimes won’t attack you in response or even won’t be able to attack on their turn).
Halflings: (recommended for the first batch)
Slingers – 8 pieces !, a special type of long-range projectiles (not stones or arrows) without penalty, 6 reloads, + 10% to hit. 9 units of this type can take out even very strong monsters in the nearest lairs. A good unit at the start and at any stage of the game.
High Elves:
Longbowmen are one of the best starting units in the game. It is very cheap and has a very low penalty for ranged attacks.
Magicians – replace archers in the middle of the game.
The Elven Lords are a good mid-game strike unit due to their high health and high magic defense.
High Men: (not recommended for the first batch)
The race does not have good starting and cheap units. Better to evolve directly to Magicians.
Paladins – the unit lost its protection from magic and became a very expensive and semi-useless version of the Knights (a new cheap unit, it was not in MoM). Even in very well-developed cities and with a construction bonus, it takes several turns to build.
Priests are a stripped down version of Magicians that can heal with their spells.
Klackons:
Swordsman – Racial bonus +2 shield makes their swordsmen good in combat.
Stag Bettle – as soon as you have Armorer’s Guild available (for this you need to study and cast a special spell closer to the second quarter of the game) you will be able to build this monster relatively inexpensively. Has excellent health, good speed, protection. And most importantly, Fire Breath allows him to attack flying units. The race has a racial production bonus, and you just have armies of these bugs. Unfortunately, against long-range monsters and high rank monsters it is powerless.
Lizardmen: (not suitable for the first game)
The starting units are pretty weak. But the first attacks should be carried out by Javelineers, although the unit is much worse than the Longbowman.
Dragon Turtle is similar to Stage Beetle, but slower, more robust and less powerful in attack. A plus is Lightning Breath, because many creatures of the Chaos school have a natural resistance to fire. Again, the unit can only be built after the spell, and by the middle of the game it will be relatively useless.
Nomad:
Horsebowmen – at the very start of the game, a good unit, but quickly degrades. Therefore, it is better to immediately upgrade to Magicians
Magicians is a choice of playing in the second quarter of the game until the middle, and then as a defensive unit.
Rangers is the most powerful archer in the game, but is available after a spell and the construction of an expensive building, by which time the player should usually already have a lot of Magicians.
Orc: (suitable for the first batch)
Shaman is a good ranged unit for the very start of the game.
Magicians – Good for the mid game and as a defender of cities onwards
Horde is a mediocre unit that is available too late to be effective.
Who is worth fighting for (Myrran races)
Beastman:
Swordsmen – racial bonus +1 heart and +1 sword works well on weak but numerous units.
Centaurs is an underground version of Horsebowman, but stronger and more expensive.
Magicians are a good mid-game unit.
Minotaurs is a rather expensive unit, but very strong in melee (if it reaches it), because it has + 20% to the chance of hitting with its 12 swords (and for 2 figures this is 24 potential damage). 12 lives and little protection from ranged attacks. But it is available only after the construction of a building, which is available after the spell.
Manticores is a rather weak unit, the only advantage is that it flies and has weapon immunity, which protects it until the second quarter of the game. But since it is available only after a combination of a spell + an expensive building, it is useless.
Dwarf:
Steam Cannon – requires only a university, but it has a Long Range ability, an attack power of 15, good protection against indirect spells and a large supply of projectiles. And it is inexpensive. Of the minuses – weak defense against attacks (including long-range ones), slow (that is, it is good at defending cities).
Golem – requires all Mechanician’s Guild and Fighter’s Guild) a good set of defenses against magic (death, fire, cold, poison, element), stunning protection against curses and control spells (15 Resistanse) and a good melee attack 14. Of the minuses – quite expensive for start, 180, not the strongest protection against physical and ranged damage.
In the middle of the game, it is better to replace Golems with Hammerhands – 6 figures, which means that any bonuses from spells will significantly improve the unit. Good level of attack life and protection from control spells. And cheaper than the Golem. Requires spell + expensive building.
Dark elves:
Apprentice is a great, very cheap unit with ranged attacks for the price of a swordsman, requires a library.
Mid-game units:
Warlocks are a local variant of Magicians, they have increased damage, but they cannot cast spells from your spellbook, instead they throw a very powerful (a way to take several hearts of even the most top summoned creatures) attack with a Doombolt Spell 1 time
Nightblades are the only invisible unit that can be built, not summoned. Strong enough, due to invisibility, most ranged units (all normal units and some of the summoned creatures) will not be able to shoot at him, even if melee troops detect him.
Nightmares is a versatile unit, attacking power is slightly weaker than that of magicians (due to lack of figures), but life and melee combat make up for this. They fly.
Draconian:
Swordsmen: have +1 defense, fly and breathe fire. Good impact force for the very start.
Magicians – As above, a good start to mid game option.
Doom Drakes is the Underworld variant of the Stage Beetle. The attack and the power of the fiery breath are slightly stronger, plus there is Cloak of Fear (the opponent sometimes does not respond to the attack or attack), but due to the break into 2 figures, the loss of half of the life of the unit greatly reduces its combat strength. Requires spell + expensive building.
Troll:
At start:
Swordsmen: a decent number of lives and regeneration in battle, plus +2 swords make them a good starting unit
Shaman: Basic ranged unit with no range penalty
For the middle of the game:
War Trolls & War Mammoths – the same cost, the same become available after a spell + expensive construction. Mammoths do not regenerate, they have fewer figures, for some reason they run slower than foot War Trolls, but they have higher characteristics. Due to the movement speed, I would still recommend War Trolls.
