Let's play Lords of magic!

[Illven]

So Lords of magic is a sort of combination turn based, real time strategy game. Everyone takes turns in the overworld, but when they get into combat, it's real time with a pause feature. (Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this with print screen and paste to paint. )

Oh also, there's elves, and dwarves, and magic. And dragons.

This game is really old. But it's on steam, and although it's super hard, it's really fun. So I'll Let's play it for you.

But first.

Who will I be?

Spoiler: Prologue. Before the chaos.

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Like a blast from the past.



Now we can choose who we start as. As a lord, we are the most powerful unit (or one of the) most powerful units in the faction. We can go to a higher level, and we are even better then equivalent level "champions" of the same type.

We have three options. Warrior, Mage, and Thief.

Warrior is the standard, we have decent offense, decent defense. Take a sword, and murder people. However all warriors have a once a day Rally ability. This ability gives a slight attack buff, and maybe a slight defense buff to all your units in that battle.

Mage is the standard, we have crap for offense and defense, but we get magic. We start out weaker then the warrior, but become stronger later in the game. (When this happens depends on what faith we choose. That'll be down below.)

Thief is a bit different. We have ranged attacks, and offense and defense in the middle of warriors and mages. However, they have sneaky abilities. They can go invisible (although units have a chance to detect them) they can attempt to spy on other parties, they can attempt to steal from other parties, and in battle they can attempt to capture a champion. Where if you win the battle you'll keep the enemy as a prisoner. Where you can either try ransoming them for money, you can try interrogating them or torturing them for info (both have a chance of killing the unit.), and you can execute them. Prisoners have a chance of escaping you can knock them out to prevent this, but if you knock them out enough times prisoners auto die.

In my experience thieves make for the worst lords because if you actually use their stealth abilities, they are probably on their own and thus vulnerable to getting ganged up upon. If your lord dies, you lose. With two exceptions, one of which is slaying the final boss is the same battle.



And we have the eight faiths.

There's the Life faith. The faith of the elves. With the best ranged attacks in the game, and good mages however their melee is lacking.
There's the Earth faith. The faith of the dwarves and gnomes. Heavy infantry and Cavalry are their specialty. They have no fliers, and they are slow.
There's the chaos faith. Think Barbarians. Done.
There's the water faith. The faith of the amazons. Good cavalry, best navy. No real other strengths
There's the death faith. The faith of Balkoth. If we pick this faith, you don't get to pick if we go warrior, mage, or thief. We will be going mage for Balkoth. We will also have a different end game then other faiths.
There's the air faith. They can fly! They have the most flying units, and a bunch of lightening spells. Their basic infantry flies as well.
There's the order faith. We're knights. We have some Merlins, we have crossbowmen, we have rangers as our thieves.
Then their's fire. Think Barbarians. Now with fire. Done.

So. Which faith should I pick, and what should our lord be?

[Domochevsky]

What a blast from the past... be a Thief who likes birds~ By which I mean Air. Stay out of your enemies' range until the end of time. Bring all the arrows!
(I played this decades ago. Never understood what I was doing. Lesse if this changes now.)

[Psyren]

I remember being captivated by screenshots of this game in my magazines as a child. I never got to play it, so this is probably the next best thing.

Because I'm curious about the magic system, I'd vote Mage, but I'll second the vote for Air.

[Vitruviansquid]

Mark one for Mage and Chaos.

[Legoshrimp]

I remember this game! I don't think I was very good at it, I don't remember ever getting near a final boss.
Most of the time I think I started with life, warrior. Which seemed to be an easy start. Not my suggestion though, why make something easy.

Hmm maybe thief, chaos.

Also I think you will see the magic system anyways. You pick up additional heroes pretty quickly.

[DemonicAngel]

oh man, this is a nostlagia trip!
I've spent so many hours losing this game as a kid...

chaos for sure, not sure which class...

[AmberVael]

Wow, its really been a while since I played this game. I don't think I was old enough to really get the strategy at the time.

I'd pick a mage for lord type. Magic is more interesting than fighting, and thieves are annoying as lords. Not much preference on faith, though I did always like Death.

[Leecros]

I remember this game! I don't think I was very good at it, I don't remember ever getting near a final boss.

If I recall, typically when I play. You don't get near the final boss, the final boss gets near you.

I remember doing a video let's play of Lords of Magic. It was awful(on my end), but I was super surprised at how well it was received. There is a cult following to the game, it just isn't super massive.

Anyway, i've always been partial to the skills and abilities of the Amazons, so my vote's for Water and Thief.

There's the death faith. The faith of Balkoth. If we pick this faith, you don't get to pick if we go warrior, mage, or thief. We will be going mage for Balkoth. We will also have a different end game then other faiths.

It used to be that you could play as a Warrior or Thief of Death, but only if you did the weird custom/point-buy start. The game would play out normally, but it would always end up in "defeat" for "Balkoth" after the last faction fell, because Balkoth wasn't alive or something. I never knew if it was a bug or what, but I do like the alternate skins that the Lords have. So I indulged myself with it on occasion.

[danzibr]

I love this game!

I always went life warrior. Dunno, I was young. I think I branched out just a *little* bit, but eh.

So I'd vote... something other than life warrior :P

[Greg_S]

Ooh, I remember liking this one a lot. I had my best luck as air, because their cavalry was bugged for a while and didn't require some resource to recruit. I vote chaos mage, because their spells get really fun near the end, IIRC.

[Illven]

Spoiler: Replies

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What a blast from the past... be a Thief who likes birds~ By which I mean Air. Stay out of your enemies' range until the end of time. Bring all the arrows!
(I played this decades ago. Never understood what I was doing. Lesse if this changes now.)

Well you're certainly older now.

I remember being captivated by screenshots of this game in my magazines as a child. I never got to play it, so this is probably the next best thing.

Because I'm curious about the magic system, I'd vote Mage, but I'll second the vote for Air.

The graphics are very distant, and even for a really old game, the graphics are pretty clear.

Mark one for Mage and Chaos.

Got it.

I remember this game! I don't think I was very good at it, I don't remember ever getting near a final boss.
Most of the time I think I started with life, warrior. Which seemed to be an easy start. Not my suggestion though, why make something easy.

Hmm maybe thief, chaos.

Also I think you will see the magic system anyways. You pick up additional heroes pretty quickly.

Sure, but starting with the mages, means we start with a handful of spells. If we pick warrior and thief as far as I recall we don't.

oh man, this is a nostlagia trip!
I've spent so many hours losing this game as a kid...

chaos for sure, not sure which class...

I remember it took me years to figure out how to end my turn.

Wow, its really been a while since I played this game. I don't think I was old enough to really get the strategy at the time.

I'd pick a mage for lord type. Magic is more interesting than fighting, and thieves are annoying as lords. Not much preference on faith, though I did always like Death.

I know those feelings.

If I recall, typically when I play. You don't get near the final boss, the final boss gets near you.

I remember doing a video let's play of Lords of Magic. It was awful(on my end), but I was super surprised at how well it was received. There is a cult following to the game, it just isn't super massive.

Anyway, i've always been partial to the skills and abilities of the Amazons, so my vote's for Water and Thief.



It used to be that you could play as a Warrior or Thief of Death, but only if you did the weird custom/point-buy start. The game would play out normally, but it would always end up in "defeat" for "Balkoth" after the last faction fell, because Balkoth wasn't alive or something. I never knew if it was a bug or what, but I do like the alternate skins that the Lords have. So I indulged myself with it on occasion.

Really, I'm surprised, I thought once you killed the last lord, the game no longer cared if Balkoth died. The same for if you beat the last enemy lord with another faith and your lord dies in battle as well.

I love this game!

I always went life warrior. Dunno, I was young. I think I branched out just a *little* bit, but eh.

So I'd vote... something other than life warrior :P

I tended to go elven mage myself.

Ooh, I remember liking this one a lot. I had my best luck as air, because their cavalry was bugged for a while and didn't require some resource to recruit. I vote chaos mage, because their spells get really fun near the end, IIRC.

Right... Fun.

Spoiler: Lords of magic week 1

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[So the majority of votes, were for chaos. And a majority of votes were for mages. I want you all to know that I hate you, and I regret starting this let's play. ]



[I was stuck on the name.]



[Because we are the chaos nation. Our opposite the nation of order starts in a strong position. In addition, the nation of death always starts in a strong position. This is one advantage of playing the life nation, in that only one nation starts in a strong position.]

"My name is Lucy. Of the people of freedom. Our people lack a leader. The great warhero chiefs of old are gone. Their spirits guide us, but their physical form left the material plane so long ago."

"But our people need a leader. They need someone who will lead our people. Our ways are great. But our people are dying. Infighting takes as many as disease does now a day. We need a new warhero chief."

"But none of the current generation have the charisma to lead. They are too focused on their petty squabbles, too focused on themselves. We need a warhero chief beyond any imagining. And yet.... I need to do something. Something to save my people. I shall have to hope that I will suffice."



[As the chaos mage, we start with an amulet that'll give any mage that wears it +1 armor, and +2 mana.



"Right now, I only have a few friends that support me. But in time I hope to inspire my people."

[Along with our chaos mage, we have a berserker. The chaos base infantry, and a base cavalary, and base ranged unit. The base units come in groups of three. In addition, as long as one unit of the group remains alive, they can heal with time back up to three units.]



"Some of my friends are better then others."

[Stickthrowers, are base ranged units. Kinda blow.]



[We also start with an overland spell. Minor fate affects a party and gives a random increase or decrease to the parties stats. It's effect it based on level, and it's the reason I'm not the biggest fan of chaos mages. We start at a low level.]



[Some more details on party management.]



"We had heard reports about some thugs in some nearby caves, however scouting the caves made me feel they were unstable. We decided to go elsewhere to prove ourselves."

[Dungeons come in levels of 1 to 10, with 1 being the easiest, 10 the hardest. I'm not sure we'd survive a level 3 dungeon right now.]



"As it grew late in the day, I knew that we would need to camp in the wilderness, and search for our glory with the dawn."

[We ran out of movement points. This is where the turn based system comes in, we now need to hit end turn. (The dial with the number 1 on it.) Every other faith will take their turn, and then we go again.]



[We now get informed about resources and costs in the game. Your lord never costs you any ale, gold or crystals, and your starting party won't cost anything till you liberate the great temple.]



"Now this cave system seemed much more stable. And so we entered."

[Ah a level 1 cave seems much more reasonable.]



[We get our combat tutorial. Note that with a button command you can give orders to one unit of a three man party.]



"A group of centaur archers had taken over the cave. My friends and I decided to stay and fight."

[Of course because we're so out matched ranged wise and would take a ton of damage entering combat, we decide to press the little computer in the right of the screen. It auto-calculates combat for us.]



[But first, our incombat spells. Hand of fate is what it says, it has a right now 69% chance to deal 6 damage to the target. There's a 31% chance we take the damage though.]



[Crash cripples and damages our units for a temporary increase in combat power.]



[Having damaged them as much as possible we now turn to the autocalculate.]



“And we were successful. Although I did not have many memories of the fight, when we were done the centaurs laid dead, and we had no casualities.”

[We are told some about the results of combat]



“However we did elect to rest a night or two to recover from our minor injuries”



“Having rested the night, everyone seemed in full health, so we left the hideout to continue proving my worth to the people.”



“Old man Nergan taught me everything I know about shamaning. I will avenge his death!”



“This time it was a pack of spirtes along with a smaller group of centaurs. Reasoning that we can take them, we elected to stay and fight.”

[Since the foes have no ranged option, we choose to form a defensive line. Which means we'll wait for them to come to us, so that our stickthrowers can throw a few sticks at people.]



“Unfortunately appartently the spirits considered vegence a selfish motive, and when I tried to call on their favor, they attacked me instead.”

[Yay, self damage. ]



“Thankfully my friends were able to handle the rest of the battle with no casualities.”



“We waited. It had been a week since I had left home to save my people. But still I hadn't proved myself to them. I elected to continue removing wild hordes.”



“We came apon another roaming horde in a hideout.”



“But... uh we came apon a pegasus.... We wisely elected to run away.”

[So. For explanation. There are four tiers of summoned creatures. There's the base one at the mages tower, the second tier one at the mages tower, the strongest repeatable summon that is in the great temple of your faith, and the legendary creature that most faiths can only summon once per game.

The pegasus is the life's faith strongest repeatable summon. This is a monster fit for end game parties.... in a level 1 hideout.]



“Most of us got out safely....”

[Oh wait. I should have 1v1'd the pegasus with my lord, and restarted with a decent lord ]

[Leecros]

[So the majority of votes, were for chaos. And a majority of votes were for mages. I want you all to know that I hate you, and I regret starting this let's play. ]

I sympathize. Chaos is my least favorite faction above only the two that are directly connected by land to the Death region and tend to get subjugated rather quickly(Earth and Fire IIRC).

[Dungeons come in levels of 1 to 10, with 1 being the easiest, 10 the hardest. I'm not sure we'd survive a level 3 dungeon right now.]

In my experiences, (generally) Dungeons from Level 1-3 are fine for starting parties. There's a big jump in difficulty at Level 4. Anything above level 7, you should be well prepared for. Have Fun with anything that's level 10+(Pretty sure the highest level dungeons are level 12, but they tend to be pretty rare/special dungeons).

“Unfortunately appartently the spirits considered vegence a selfish motive, and when I tried to call on their favor, they attacked me instead.”

...and this is why I dislike playing Chaos in general. Their mages are just too unreliable.

Spoiler

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“But... uh we came apon a pegasus.... We wisely elected to run away.”

I....That's new.

I've never ever seen a high-tier unit like a pegasus in a level 1 dungeon. I think i've seen level 1 champions on the rare occasion, but a Pegasus...I don't even...

The worst part is that while the map dungeons are randomized at the start of the game(outside of a few choice dungeons). After the game starts, they're set in stone. That pegasus is going to be there until it's dealt with and that means that level 1 dungeon will be there until you deal with it and severely reducing your momentum. There's only so many low level dungeons in the game to get a few starting levels off of and not being able to access one for awhile is going to be painful.

[Ivellius]

Man, this takes me back.

The good thing about being a Chaos Mage is that you can research Reincarnate and get some really unusual unique units (Elephants, Bears, Sprites [I think], and so on). I think a few of them even have really cheap upkeep costs, though it takes a lot of doing to actually get them. If I recall correctly, using Goblin corpses is the best way to run that.

One other thing to point out is that your starting retinue actually does cost resources; you simply get "hidden" followers in your capital to support them. Once you liberate your Great Temple, you'll notice that you have a couple of people assigned to ale and one to gold that you didn't put there.

I assume you know about Parrying (self-Defense option) and Berserking? Manipulating those helps a lot.

[ArlEammon]

The music was absolutely great.

[Psyren]

I was about to ask why Chaos provoked such a negative reaction, then I actually read the LP. Jeez.

Let the record show I voted for Air (Yay for ducking blame!)

Also - is the Pegasus thing a bug? Or is the game really that random even in the starting dungeons? Because that was terrible - HOMM was nothing like that!
(I mean... maybe a bad week or month could cause some really nasty stuff to appear on the world map, but you generally got multiple turns of softballs unless the guy who designed your map was intentionally trolling.)

[danzibr]

lulz, loved your comment about the 1v1ing.

I was such a noob. Never learned how to play well. Maybe someday...

[Cikomyr]

I have always been more partial to Order. Their crossbowmen were broken as heck. They had good range, and they packed a huge punch that could bring down the biggest creatures in a single volley.

If I remember right, armor in this game acts as arithmetics Damage reduction. Which means 5 armor would soak the first 5 points of damage of every attack. A fast shooting elven archer could send 3x arrows of 6 damage while an Order Crossbowman only sent 1x bolt of 12 damage , but against anything with any reasonable armor, the Crossbowman will do large amount of damage while the Elf will tickle the enemy to death.

I remember sending an army of 3x3 lvl3 crossbowman mercenaries against Blackroth(?) When he came into my lands. The crossbowmen sniped him, and i won the game. Twas quite anticlimactic.

[Cikomyr]

Hey. Does anyone here ever managed to get a full geographical map of the world of Lords of Magic? I always wondered how everything interacted with each other.

[Illven]

Spoiler: Replies

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I sympathize. Chaos is my least favorite faction above only the two that are directly connected by land to the Death region and tend to get subjugated rather quickly(Earth and Fire IIRC).



In my experiences, (generally) Dungeons from Level 1-3 are fine for starting parties. There's a big jump in difficulty at Level 4. Anything above level 7, you should be well prepared for. Have Fun with anything that's level 10+(Pretty sure the highest level dungeons are level 12, but they tend to be pretty rare/special dungeons).



...and this is why I dislike playing Chaos in general. Their mages are just too unreliable.


I....That's new.

I've never ever seen a high-tier unit like a pegasus in a level 1 dungeon. I think i've seen level 1 champions on the rare occasion, but a Pegasus...I don't even...

The worst part is that while the map dungeons are randomized at the start of the game(outside of a few choice dungeons). After the game starts, they're set in stone. That pegasus is going to be there until it's dealt with and that means that level 1 dungeon will be there until you deal with it and severely reducing your momentum. There's only so many low level dungeons in the game to get a few starting levels off of and not being able to access one for awhile is going to be painful.

I will say the one difference between a level 3, and a level 1 dungeon, is sometimes champions will appear in the three ones.

As far as my research states, I think the pegasus in a bug, it's supposed to be a brownie. (The life scout.)

Man, this takes me back.

The good thing about being a Chaos Mage is that you can research Reincarnate and get some really unusual unique units (Elephants, Bears, Sprites [I think], and so on). I think a few of them even have really cheap upkeep costs, though it takes a lot of doing to actually get them. If I recall correctly, using Goblin corpses is the best way to run that.

One other thing to point out is that your starting retinue actually does cost resources; you simply get "hidden" followers in your capital to support them. Once you liberate your Great Temple, you'll notice that you have a couple of people assigned to ale and one to gold that you didn't put there.

I assume you know about Parrying (self-Defense option) and Berserking? Manipulating those helps a lot.

I know that you can get sprites. But are the bears and elephants any good? What are their upkeep costs.

Also merc corpses would also be good most likely.

The music was absolutely great.

It was.

I was about to ask why Chaos provoked such a negative reaction, then I actually read the LP. Jeez.

Let the record show I voted for Air (Yay for ducking blame!)

Also - is the Pegasus thing a bug? Or is the game really that random even in the starting dungeons? Because that was terrible - HOMM was nothing like that!
(I mean... maybe a bad week or month could cause some really nasty stuff to appear on the world map, but you generally got multiple turns of softballs unless the guy who designed your map was intentionally trolling.)

And now you are enlightened.

And yeah, as far as I can tell, a bug.

lulz, loved your comment about the 1v1ing.

I was such a noob. Never learned how to play well. Maybe someday...

Unfortunately I have to give a good faith effort at playing.

However if maurding parties start spawning pegasi like they do on my personal playthroughs, well... I'll lose awfully quickly.

I have always been more partial to Order. Their crossbowmen were broken as heck. They had good range, and they packed a huge punch that could bring down the biggest creatures in a single volley.

If I remember right, armor in this game acts as arithmetics Damage reduction. Which means 5 armor would soak the first 5 points of damage of every attack. A fast shooting elven archer could send 3x arrows of 6 damage while an Order Crossbowman only sent 1x bolt of 12 damage , but against anything with any reasonable armor, the Crossbowman will do large amount of damage while the Elf will tickle the enemy to death.

I remember sending an army of 3x3 lvl3 crossbowman mercenaries against Blackroth(?) When he came into my lands. The crossbowmen sniped him, and i won the game. Twas quite anticlimactic.

In most cases it is arithmetic damage reduction. It's not a perfect fit but in most cases it works.

You're comparing a much higher level crossbowman to the elven archer. Crossbowman do have slightly higher ranged attack, but at the same level it's only a point or two. In exchange, they fire faster, and have more then half again as much range.

Hey. Does anyone here ever managed to get a full geographical map of the world of Lords of Magic? I always wondered how everything interacted with each other.

You can by clicking the smallest magnifying glass. The edges of the map link up with each other.

Spoiler: Lords of magic chaos mage week 2 Short update today.

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"It took most of a week for me and my allies to recover from the pegasus rider's deadly attacks. We had no choice but to avoid that hideout for now."



"Hopefully this one didn't have a pegasus in it."



"Thankfully the only thing in the cave was a sprite pack and a gang of centaurs."

[Yay, a sane challenge.]



"And so I sent the spirits at them."



"Although some of them hated what I asked them to do, much of them attacked the sprites."



"Helping my friends to prevail."



"As my friends that threw sticks increased in strength, we discussed resting for the night."



"We waited to see what the next week would hold for us."

[Ivellius]

I don't actually remember upkeep costs on the animals, and a quick Google search did not seem to enlighten.

Off the top of my head, I think Panthers and Bears are ~1 ale per unit, and Elephants are free (!).

[Illven]

Spoiler: Replies

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I don't actually remember upkeep costs on the animals, and a quick Google search did not seem to enlighten.

Off the top of my head, I think Panthers and Bears are ~1 ale per unit, and Elephants are free (!).

Huh, if that's the case, Elephants are damn good then.

Spoiler: Lords of magic week 3

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Finally recovering from our injuries.



We leave the hideout only to meet a roving band of enemies.



"Bring it!" I replied it, with a swagger.



A trio of orcs on wolves, backed up with goblins armed with crossbows.



My magic had mixed results again, but it helped my friends more then it hurt me!



And we were victorious.

[Occasionally marauding parties will spawn. I'm not sure what causes it, but they will attempt to take over resources and buildings, demolishing the buildings if they get a chance. If you kill an enemy lord, any remaining units of the same faith become marauding parties that will only attempt to fight you.]



[Oh hey, a resource building!]



"Listen I'm not much of a drinker. But my friends wanted to free the brewery. They helped me so much... So I felt like it was important you know."



"We were successful."



[As long as we possess this brewery, we will gain a free 2 ale per turn.]



"After we healed and my friends got smashed. They agreed to help me take a building that produced crystals important to the spirits."



"Another group of centaurs had made the mines their own. They refused to negoitiate so we had no choice but to the avenge the miners they killed in their initial take over."




"We were successful."




"My mage friends weren't willing to fight for me. But they were willing to take my money, and summon goblin spirits into flesh made whole, for me to use in combat."



"I knew what must be done. I had to reclaim the great temple of my people. I didn't want to believe that such a task would be necessary. But I think. I knew in my heart that it was all along."

[Leecros]

Yaaasssss. I've been waiting for my fix of Lords of Magic.

[Occasionally marauding parties will spawn. I'm not sure what causes it, but they will attempt to take over resources and buildings, demolishing the buildings if they get a chance. If you kill an enemy lord, any remaining units of the same faith become marauding parties that will only attempt to fight you.]

A quick google search claims that marauding parties spawn from unconquered dungeons within the Fog of War, but I don't know how accurate that is. In my experiences, as the game goes on the marauding parties only become more numerous/powerful. Not weaker.

[Psyren]

When you say your magic had "mixed results again" - was that the same Hand of Fate spell that can hurt either side? Or something else?

[Starbuck_II]

Why would animals want ale, do they have drinking problems?

[Ivellius]

A quick google search claims that marauding parties spawn from unconquered dungeons within the Fog of War, but I don't know how accurate that is. In my experiences, as the game goes on the marauding parties only become more numerous/powerful. Not weaker.

This is probably due to the fact that as dungeons are cleared out, the more powerful ones that are left behind spawn more powerful raiding parties. (The AI would naturally not kill these very easily, either.) Anecdotally, I think this is why the lich castle island usually has some powerful raiders on it by the time I get to it.

[Leecros]

This is probably due to the fact that as dungeons are cleared out, the more powerful ones that are left behind spawn more powerful raiding parties. (The AI would naturally not kill these very easily, either.) Anecdotally, I think this is why the lich castle island usually has some powerful raiders on it by the time I get to it.

But one would think that if that was the case, then there'd be a mix of very powerful raiding parties and fairly weak ones for the entirety of the game. The game actually does a decent job at scaling the marauding parties for the turn. So either there's other factors involved(like how many turns have passed) or there's a spawning range. Such as: Dungeons spawn marauding parties when they're within the Fog of War, but not in the undiscovered(black) areas.

[Starbuck_II]

Just tried playing it both Air and Life.
Terrain and ranged really make a difference. When I can keep enemy downwind, easily pepper them.

When I tried all ranged, when terrain wasn't there, lost.
Game a lot harder than it looked.

[Lord Torath]

I usually played Life (Mage Lord) with an archers-to-cavalry ratio of about 2:1. Line the cavalry up and tell each one to defend itself (Ctrl-Right Click to select individual members of a trio), which adds half its attack rating to its defense rating. Position the archers behind, and cast "Bless" as soon as the enemy is within arrow range. Usually works pretty well, unless the opposition includes a Fire or Chaos mage with the Vortex spell (or the Fire equivalent). So kill enemy mages as quickly as possible.

[Illven]

Spoiler: Replies

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Yaaasssss. I've been waiting for my fix of Lords of Magic.



A quick google search claims that marauding parties spawn from unconquered dungeons within the Fog of War, but I don't know how accurate that is. In my experiences, as the game goes on the marauding parties only become more numerous/powerful. Not weaker.

See below

This is probably due to the fact that as dungeons are cleared out, the more powerful ones that are left behind spawn more powerful raiding parties. (The AI would naturally not kill these very easily, either.) Anecdotally, I think this is why the lich castle island usually has some powerful raiders on it by the time I get to it.

See below

But one would think that if that was the case, then there'd be a mix of very powerful raiding parties and fairly weak ones for the entirety of the game. The game actually does a decent job at scaling the marauding parties for the turn. So either there's other factors involved(like how many turns have passed) or there's a spawning range. Such as: Dungeons spawn marauding parties when they're within the Fog of War, but not in the undiscovered(black) areas.

It could self select for weaker dungeons in the fog of war, so that while it's not impossible to get a level 11 dungeon to spawn a marauding party, it is far more likely that a level 1 hut to do so.

When you say your magic had "mixed results again" - was that the same Hand of Fate spell that can hurt either side? Or something else?

Yes. Although alot of chaos magic has somewhat random results.

Why would animals want ale, do they have drinking problems?

Well they need water and it won't poison them like unsafe water.

Just tried playing it both Air and Life.
Terrain and ranged really make a difference. When I can keep enemy downwind, easily pepper them.

When I tried all ranged, when terrain wasn't there, lost.
Game a lot harder than it looked.

Air can be really nice in buildings with inaccessible terrain, you just keep your ranged units there, and let them pepper infantry to your heart's content.

I usually played Life (Mage Lord) with an archers-to-cavalry ratio of about 2:1. Line the cavalry up and tell each one to defend itself (Ctrl-Right Click to select individual members of a trio), which adds half its attack rating to its defense rating. Position the archers behind, and cast "Bless" as soon as the enemy is within arrow range. Usually works pretty well, unless the opposition includes a Fire or Chaos mage with the Vortex spell (or the Fire equivalent). So kill enemy mages as quickly as possible.

Yup, that's one of my favorite armies as well.

Spoiler: Lords of magic week 4

Show

“As we spent time healing in the hut, we came upon cavalry from the lands of air. I thought about going out to meet them. But my friends needed rest. And I was no leader yet.”



“As we emeraged from the hut. We also saw scouts from the lands of the elves. But now we were on a mission. A mission to save my people.”



“At the great temple, I stopped to marvel the great pyramid like sctrucuture, I stopped to think what great lords of the past would have thought when they approached here. Was... Was I really worthy to join them.... Well. Someone had to, and I didn't see any other takers.”



“Orcs. Backed by an army of the dead had taken over our great temple. This could not, and would not be allowed. I prayed to the spirits for strength.”



“We pulled into formation, the stickthrowers and I on higher ground, the melee and summoned creatures in the valley below us.”



“The spirits were with us tonight. Nearly killing their leader outright as I called on their might.”



“The orcs had imprisoned two captives. They were probably planning to sacrifice them to their profane gods at the new moon. They pledged their loyalty to me, their savior.”

[When freeing your great temple, you'll gain two champions, each a type of champion your lord is not.]



“We found a storage of magic crystals, and the barbarians great axe.”



“The people proclaimed me their leader. Shaman Chief Lucy they call me now. A base of operations has been constructed for me at the stronghold. A base to fight the dark elf king Balkoth, and the terrible people have order. My people are saved. Now I must raise them to greatness.”




“One of the people who pledged their loyalty to me, seemed to have favor with the spirits, I told him to go take a staff and go to the library. So as to research the great magics of old, to call upon today.”



[Spells that you don't have, cost a certain amount of work days to learn. Work days, is a simple matter of what the caster(s) total level is doing the researching. Lucy has a level 4 shaman, researches four times as fast as this level 1 shaman.]



“They started on the research of how shamans of old could send artificats anywhere they wanted in the world.”





“We also set about hiring a guard force for the capital. After all we never knew when the next attack from the dark elves, of people of order would strike.”



“Appartently stickthrowers although useful are not well liked for their tenedacy to fight at range.”



“People all over the chaos lands have been hearing my name. The savor of the chaos people. They have traveled to my stronghold, to serve me as I wish.”



“I'm told that the research may take abit.”



“It's a new dawn for the people of Chaos. Anything is possible now, and we shall strive to end threats to our people.”

[Leecros]

around this point in time is when Air shows up and attempts to ruin Chaos' day. That tends to be the way my Chaos runs go.

Even if Air doesn't attack. Their proximity, the versatility of their ranged units, and power of their magic in comparison makes them a good early target.