The actual fundamentals of the game (keys to success)

[rgp151]

The funny thing about this game is that its been around for so long, but I still feel like there is a poor understanding of the fundamentals of the game. I think in part this is because it doesn't follow the intuitive basics of many 4X games. The reason for that is because in MoM conquest is king, making unit acquisition actually the key to economic development, as opposed to core economic traits. In games like Civilization, or even MoO, economic traits lead to superior economic development, which can lead to military advantages. In MoM, however, that is turned on its head, where military advantages lead to economic gains. So while in most 4X games its all about economy first, in MoM its all about military first. And IMO, this is what makes MoM so fun, because fighting and conquest is fun.

So, what is the key to success in MoM? Fielding a death stack ASAP, or at the very least, being able to take neutral encounters/towns ASAP.

How do you do that? You need to be able to acquire useful units as quickly as possible. How do you get units in MoM? There are three ways:

1) You can build Normal units in your towns.
2) You can summon Fantastic units.
3) You can hire heroes and Normal units.

Building Normal units is the most obvious and direct way to acquire units, and its what most people rely heavily on. The problem with building units, however, is that this is extremely costly early on and slows down your economic development. So relying on building Normal units is the slowest possible way to field an army in MoM. I think the biggest flaw in many people's approach to the game is relying far too heavily on building units.

So we come to #2, summoning units. This is by far the fastest and most direct way to build your army. This, then, makes Conjuration the overall best retort in the game and strategies that revolve around early conjuration as the core most fundamentally viable strategies. That doesn't mean Conjuration strats are necessarily the absolute most powerful, but in general terms, Conjuration is a fundamentally sound strategy.

I personally don't like 11 book strategies at all, and never play with 11 books, as I view that as pretty much broken and ruins the game. Yes, obviously 11 books is always the most powerful strat, and of course 11  books relies on summoning. But, barring 11 books, summoning is still the way to go. With the elemental schools, Chaos, Sorcery and Nature, the best approach is Conjuration + X Mastery and 9 books. This will give you the cheapest possible summoned units, allowing you to summon a death stack quickly to begin taking towns and nodes ASAP, while your capital focuses on economic development and building toward the ability to produce your best possible Normal units ASAP. Sorcery is a little different, you don't need a death stack with Sorcery because you can summon so many units during battle, so with Sorcery you can start conquest with as little as a single unit of Nagas, or even just a Magic Spirit. Yes, Nagas are worth it with this setup.

As for Death, with Death all you need is just Conjuration and 10 books. Focus on taking neutral towns with Ghouls and Sorcery nodes with Skeletons. Throws masses of waves of Skeletons at Sorcery nodes until you take them. The power they provide can be vital. 

With Life, however, while you can use Guardian Spirits, they really aren't good enough to use a Conjuration based strategy with, so I'd say Life is the only school for which early summoning is not a key to success.

You still want to rely heavily on summoned units into the Uncommon level of spells. Getting your powerful Uncommon Summon ASAP can be the key to the mid-game in any Conjuration strategy.

The key to all of this is that you are able to field armies early in the game without having to build any units in your towns. This allows you to focus on economic development in your towns and getting your town to the point where they can build powerful Normal units as fast as possible. The other great thing about Conjuration is that you can move your summoning circle, so that you can produce your most powerful early units in any town you want, you don't need to wait on those towns to develop economically.

But now for hiring. This is the other key way to acquire units without building them. The most commonly hired units are Heroes, but you can hire any type of Normal unit as a Mercenary. People really overlook this a lot IMO. The Retorts that boost hiring are Famous and Charismatic. Whether Charismatic is really worth it is a matter of debate, but it can be. Another complement to Famous is Warlord, which also affects your hired units, as well as your Normal units. With this strategy, you can want to skip building Normal units early on and rely instead of hiring units. This can be tricky because it is much more up to chance than summoning. However, there can be big payoffs as well. Its a sort of higher risk, higher potential reward  type approach. I've had Famous games where I quickly acquired powerful heroes like Fang, Morgana, Shin-Bo, and Shalla, leading to rapid facerolls, and games using Famous where I didn't get a single hero or mercenary offer until way late in the game. Yes, being Famous usually works out, but its not a sure thing. Famous + Charismatic can be very powerful, especially as you start getting good offers of gear to go along with your heroes. Even getting early offers of Normal units like Doom Drakes, Trolls of any kind, Nightmares, etc. can also be game changers and offer the opportunity to take an enemy capital quickly. 

The key here is recognizing Famous as an economic tool. Try to rely on it as a means of acquiring units instead of building units and to develop your strategy around this perspective. You need to generate gold, keep gold stockpiles on hand, and focus on economic development and not be tempted to build units. Focus on raising your Fame as much as you can as fast as you can. Here, of course, Life magic shines, making Life the best school to complement this strategy. Of course, Sorcery is also good, and a mix of both Life and Sorcery and work very will with Fame based strategies. With this, its all about getting your Fame to 40+ ASAP and keeping it there.

Now, of course, there are still viable strategies that rely on early unit building and of course there is Artificier + Runemage, which is its own separate thing.  Artificier + Runemage is sort of like a mix between a Famous Strategy and a Conjuration strategy, without using either of those retorts. It works best when you take 2 Chaos books and make use of Hell Hounds early on, while you wait for heroes that can make use of your Artifacts. Again, the key is not building units, but rather developing economically while you rely on summoned and hired units. 

Then we have the cases of strats that do rely on early build Normal units. IMO, these are the most challenging strats to pull off. The best for this is of course Life, using races like Barbarians, Halflings, Darconians, or Nomads. For this you obviously want Warlord and possibly also Archmage and/or Alchemy.

Here you want to go for something like a few Barbarian Cavalry and focus on buffing the heck out of them. You'll need to be able to put Heroism, Endurance, Holy Weapon, etc. on them. 

A start with something like 2 Cavalry and 1 Hero can work and you can often take capitals early with as few as 3 Barbarian Cavalry that are heavily buffed. Nomads can also work really well, though they are riskier than Barbarians. But still, you can start with Horsebowmen, work up to Rangers, defend with some Pikemen, and then when you get Griffins you are set. But the key will be the Horsebowmen rush, which isn't as good as Barb Cavalry, but is still decent and can be worth it for the Ranger + Griffin payoff. Again, the key here is that if you are going to use Normal units, you need to rush to some moderately powerful early Normal unit and then rely on buffing the heck out of them, to make use of your magic. Allow your magic to provide value instead of relying on building out a lot of Normal units, which delays your economic development.

So the real key to all of this is, developing strategies around fielding stacks capable of acquiring resources as early as possible in the game, while not slowing down your economic development. They key to this is being able to acquire units without having to build them in your towns at all. Conjuring and hiring are the keys. If you are going to rely on built units, at least use magic that can make just a few built units as powerful as possible.

[mxb2001]

Thanks. Being a latecomer to MOM I'd always assumed that it was just like Civ, etc. It explains a lot of my frustration when the typical Civ strat fails.

You didn't talk much about the things that limit powerful unit building. For normal units it is the incredibly high food support cost. In Civ you got a break on support when being Despotic/Monarchy but that does not exist in MoM at all. I suppose the only thing could be halflings maybe. For fantastics it's the stupendous mana cost. Here though there is a cure: Channeler/Conjurer plus all retorts that give you more mana in some way or another. Mercenaries are subject to the same problem as built units, they eat food! That's why Heroes seem to be the best solution as they really have low upkeep (gold only). If you gear them with items instead of spelling them up you also don't run into the mana problem.

Oh and you actually overlooked something else. Heroes don't have to be random. Summon them. : )

[rgp151]

This is my recommendation for newcomers or people that haven't really been able to take their game to the next level. Do this and you'll get some understanding of what really works in MoM.

Play Chaos: Chaos Mastery + Conjuration + 9 books. High Elves.

Put all power to Mana at the start. Summon a Magic Spirit. Explore. Look for Chaos nodes with Hell Hounds or Fire Elementals. Look for neutral towns. If you don't have a good map with some neutral towns to take and takable Chaos nodes, then start over.

As soon as you get to around 100 mana, start summoning Hell Hounds, and keep summoning them until you get at least 6. You may need a full stack to take a node. With proper maneuvering you should be able to take any node with Hell Hounds in it. You want to always be the attacker with Hell Hounds, never on defense, because of how Fire Breath works. You can also take Phantom Warrior Sorcery nodes with Hell Hounds. You'll have cheap Fire Elementals, so 90% of the time the only thing you will cast in combat is Fire Elemental until you get Flame Strike or Warp Reality.

You should be able to take a few nodes and several neutral towns, as well as a few encounters. By then hopefully you'll have a hero too that you can put in with your Hell Hounds. As you get mana, keep summoning Hell Hounds and taking more stuff. You can leave a single Hell Hound to guard nodes and leave one in each town you take. Build two spearmen in each town you take then work on development.

In your capital, just build straight for Elven Lords. Look for Doom Bats and Fire Giants to research ASAP. Fire Giants pair with Elven Lords and Longbowmen for Pathfinding. If you get Doom Bats fast, then use those as scouts and to take weak towns. A pair of two can take many weak towns and even some early capitals. Scout for capitals and try to take at least one capital really quickly. Don't be afraid to lose heroes when playing this style, because heroes aren't important. Don't just waste them, but it can be worth it to lose them to take a capital early on. Mostly you'll be relying on summoned and normal units anyway and Chaos has no real way to defend heroes, so don't worry too much about them. If you can get a few good ones to take neutral encounters with that's' fine, but they aren't core to the strategy.

In many games where you find many neutral towns, you should be able to take a lot of them and really get your economy going. Taking Chaos nodes is the key to getting the mana you need to keep your summoning going. Ultimately you'll want to rely heavily on Chimera, which are a little slow, but you can pair them with Elven Lords and Fire Giants for faster movement.

Put Chaos Channels on all normal units that become Elite. The end game is Warp Reality and Chaos Surge, using all full stacks of Fantastic Chaos units/Chaos Channeled units. Have non-Chaos units together, like maybe a stack of Longbowmen using Flameblade, with some heroes or a single Fire Giant. Then stacks of Chimera and Doom Bats with maybe some Chaos Channeled Elven Lords.

Build one Settler at most if you find a good spot for a town on Mithril, but otherwise rely on conquest for your expansion.

If you play Civ 6, think about it like this. In Civ 6 the resources are Gold, Faith, Science and Culture. Gold is gold, but Power is like the source of Faith, Science and Culture combined, which you split using the Magic sliders into Mana, Research and Skill. But in MoM, the best early source of Power is Nodes, which aren't something you build, rather you conquer them. So this is why in MoM, fielding an early army is so important. Getting an early Node is really key to success and there are usually so many neutral towns that is makes far more sense to take them than to build Settlers.

Edit: When I say build straight for Elven Lords, I mean don't bother building any other units. Just use Hell Hounds on defense if you need defenses. My capital build seque3nce for High Elves is something like:

Granary > Marketplace > Farmer's Market > Sawmill > Shrine > Forester's Guild > Miner's Guild > Armory > Fighter's Guild > Armorer's Guild. You may need to throw in a Temple somewhere along the way. After making 2-4 units with that, then go for an Alchemist's Guild before you build more units.

[Anskiy]

Interesting, you don't use Longbowmen? I thought those were pretty good ranged units, almost as good as the famed Slingers.

[zitro1987]

Longbowmen costs food, hell hound is easy to spam with its abnormally low cost

[rgp151]

Interesting, you don't use Longbowmen? I thought those were pretty good ranged units, almost as good as the famed Slingers.

I use Longbowmen, just not as part of the early setup. They move too slow and are too costly to support. Typically, I'll not really build them in this strat until I have an Alchemist's Guild. Maybe if I'm being really threatened by early Sprites I would. But generally its all about getting one or more stacks of Hell Hounds at first, then mixing in some Elven Lords/heroes, adding a Fire Giant to make it all more mobile (unless you get a hero with Pathfinding), and getting those Doom Bats out ASAP. If you see Doom Bats in your early research list, then start on those as soon as you see them. Doom Bats have a fairly narrow window when they are really powerful. They can decimate most of the early normal units, as well as Sprites, which is what a lot of capitals are defended with.

Once tougher units start coming into play then Doom Bats will serve mostly just as scouts, but they can still be good to mix into a stack with other units to help take out ranged attackers. Then you want to transition to Chimera. If for some reason you haven't gotten Chimera, but you have Gargoyles, then you can use Gargoyles with Immolation as well, but that's not as good.

Longbowmen are rarely good on offense against enemy wizards. I tend to keep Longbowmen on defense and to make stacks with at least 6 of them to go around and take neutral encounters. Sometimes 7 Longbowmen with a Fire Giant and room to summon a Fire Elemental works well, but usually I'll have at least one Elven Lord or Chimera or a hero. Preferably some melee unit that can attack flying creatures is best to deal with Demons.

But against enemy wizards, they move slowly, their resistance is a bit low, they are a lot more vulnerable to attacks than Slingers, Warped Wood and Guardian Wind are things, etc.

And once you get past the early mid-game, then you're looking for stuff like acquiring Paladins and Trolls to do your really heavy lifting, until you can get Great Drakes. I like to try and hunt for an extra Chaos Book by doing lots of Chaos Nodes, which of course also adds to your power anyway.

But, since with Chaos you don't have a reliable way to add flight to your units, I often end up just using full stacks of Chimera and Doom Bats on offense against Wizards. As I said, they move little slow at just 2 movement, but since they can go over any terrain it's pretty much worth it. Chimera with Warp Reality are super powerful. And generally, once you get to Flame Strike, you're able to take most anything. I do find that Paladins are pretty clutch in a lot of Chaos games, because you need something with that built-in defense against enemy wizard magic, since Chaos has so little defense.

But really, the key to Chaos is blitzkrieg. It's all about getting out fast and early with those Hell Hounds, acquiring lots of towns and nodes quickly, taking an enemy capital or two before they can really get setup, and then building a strong stack to take on the remaining wizards with Flame Strike and all Chaos units with Warp Reality. You really have to steamroll with Chaos. Get the train moving very early and keep it going. If you stall with Chaos on the higher level difficulties it can be pretty bad, because Chaos has very little in the way to defense or ways to counter enemy magic. Its all about offense. With Life or Sorcery you can come from behind by shutting down a lot of what enemy wizards can do, but with Chaos you pretty much need to come out fast and stay ahead.

But yeah, the best use of Longbowmen is on defense and to take nodes/neutral encounters.

[rgp151]

Once you succeed with a couple of Chaos games like this, then try using a similar strategy with Sorcery and Gnolls. If you don't want Gnolls then you can use High Men, but I suggest trying Gnolls first. Of course don't build any Settlers with Gnolls. If you get a bad map then restart. Main difference with Sorcery is you only need 1 Naga to take most neutral towns. Phantom Warriors will cost 4 mana. Use Naga's pretty much only for taking towns and maybe some weak nodes. Also take towns with just a Magic Spirit. You can take Phantom Beast nodes by sending waves of Magic Spirits and retreating and using Phantom Warriors to take out the Beasts. Only build Wolf Riders in your capital, and send them out on defense to new towns you conquer. If nothing else, you can often take an early capital with 2 or 3 Wolf Riders and maybe a hero. You may need to wait until you get Flight if dealing with Sprites. With Sorcery, since there is no Uncommon overland summon, you do need to rely on normal units and heroes more in the mid-game, but don't skimp on Nagas in the beginning, they can actually be very useful. Phantom Beast and Flight are the priority for early research. I do typically start with all of the most expensive spells and then research Resist Magic first since it goes fast, but you'll need Resist Magic with Gnolls for sure, so you should have that researched by the time you are building Wolf Riders. Storm Giants can be good when massed, but are fairly weak individually. And of course, as Gnolls you're looking for other better races to conquer and develop into the late game, like High Men, Nomads, and Myrran races. Klackons can be ok for some Beetles as well.

Sorcery settles into a more "traditional" game fairly quickly, since you can't rely so much on overland summoned units and since there is no real benefit to using exclusively summoned stacks. With Chaos a Conjuration strategy really relies heavily on full stacks of purely summoned or Chaos Channeled units, but with Sorcery you'll use more mixed stacks. Still, the big issue is the start. This Conjuration strat will let you get active very quickly to take neutral towns and nodes to start building power and your economy rapidly without having to wait until you can build normal units. I would say that Chaos is better at being able to take capitals early on with just summoned units. With Sorcery you do tend to need to wait until you can field a few normal units to take capitals, since Nagas can't hit Sprites (which are very common in capitals) and masses of Nagas aren't great against Shamen or things that negate first strike, or undead. So Nagas certainly have their limitations, but they aren't as bad as many would lead you to believe. They are quite effective at spreading out and taking lots of neutral towns in the early game, and they can be used to guard nodes. But that's why Gnolls are good for this strat. The Wolf Riders are powerful on their own , without the need of attack buffs, as long as they have Resist Magic, and they come out quite early. With Flight a few can take out a full stack of Sprites. You can just cast Flight in battle.

Often you'll only need 2 or 3 Wolf Riders to start, so you can build 2 or 3 without building a Fighter's Guild, meaning they will have zero promotions and be pretty bad, but send them into an easy battle you can win with Phantom Warriors, maybe with some Nagas, and they'll get that first promotion without having to build out a Fighter's Guild. If you have that opportunity that can get you a decent force a bit faster. I've taken many early capitals with just like 2 Wolf Riders or 2 Wolf Riders and a Naga or a Hero as long as they are at least Regulars and not just Recruits. It helps to get your casting power to 20, (it will start at 18) so that you can cast 5 Phantom Warriors. But what I think works best in most situations is to build 2 Wolf Riders before an Armory, and just try to get them leveled up, then go back and build a Miner's Guild and Fighter's Guild before building any more. If you go with High Men then its a totally different strategy and you're shooting for making Paladins before taking any capitals.