Tips for higher difficulties?

[Myrrorball]

Is it too noob-ish of me to straight up ask for tips on winning games on Hard/Impossible? Normal difficulty is still fun but way too easy even vs. 4 opponents.

I have won vs. 3 opponents on Hard before but only with luck - finding and killing one wizard before she has enough mana to return, towers the AI couldn't break through, cheesing defense with invisible units etc.

Usually I manage to expand to 3 or 4 cities but that's about the time one or more enemy wizards appears on my doorstep with massive enchanted stacks of "f you" and my feeble empire starts crumbling.

Whatever decent offensive stack I've built at this point is out of position as far as guarding my cities and/or getting whittled down by my sallies on nodes and lairs.

Should I start w/ 11 books and rely on a killer spell? How do I expand reasonably quickly, yet sustainably - or should I focus on one or two megacities? Get gold or mana first?

Specific or general tips are very much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[Catwalk]

Welcome Myrrorball! And your questions are most welcome too, don't be shy

11 book combos are very strong (Torin is a lot of fun), but I wouldn't recommend them for learning the game as they allow you to make shortcuts. It sounds like you're building up your economy too slowly. Here are a few pointers:
1) Use ladder buying. This means first buying a unit of spearmen, then swordsmen, then settlers, then stables and then the shrine you really want. This way you only pay the low rate of 2gc per production point instead of the usual 3. Big savings.
2) Buy items that cost less than the one you really want. If your production is 7 and you want a shrine, buy a stables (80) and let the town produce the remaining 20 points on its own. If you buy the whole thing, surplus production is wasted.
3) Set taxes to 2.0 at the start of the game, and try to keep them there. Get extra garrison units if you start seeing unrest, spearmen are cheap.
4) Use the following build order for all cities: Builder's Hall => Granary => Smithy => Marketplace => Farmer's Market => Shrine. These are by far the most important economic buildings in the game. For your starting city, I recommend Granary => Shrine => Marketplace => Farmer's Market. You may want two units of spearmen after the granary.
5) Try Halflings with Warlord and 9 Life books for an easy combo. Your spearmen and swordsmen are quite strong on their own, and elite slingers are very potent soldiers. Only problem is that they move slowly, so they're not great for taking out lair after lair. You should produce extra troops in areas close to enemy wizards.
6) Heroes are excellent for taking out monster lairs, but problematic against other wizards as they can take them out easily with spells.
7) Expand quite rapidly (a little more cautiously if you're using the Insecticide patch) and put a bunch of spearmen in all your less important cities. With the halfling setup above, try to put a slinger in each of your cities fairly early on + spearmen for unrest control.
8) Explore lots and lots with magic spirits. These are way easy and cheap to explore with. Send them into nodes to get info on the defense forces, summon more to replace.

Hope that helped a bit, feel free to ask again. I'd like to launch a MoM succession game sometime (players taking turns on the same game, sending the save file back and forth), let me know if you'd be up for that.

EDIT: Another fun combo is Myrran + Warlord + Node Mastery + 2x Life + 1x Nature + 1x Chaos + 1x Sorcery. Dwarves are the strongest race in the game (IMHO), and Node Mastery lets you take any node easily as you can web Great Drakes and Sky Drakes. A stack of 9 elite hammerhands can defeat just about any ground based enemy.

[Myrrorball]

Awesome, thanks so much for all these tips. It took me a minute to figure out "ladder buying" but now I see how it works. Will certainly be using that.

If a succession game happens I'd give it a shot, sure. Before then maybe I'll do a game report w/ screenshots now that I'm armed with more info.

[Catwalk]

Note that ladder buying can easily be seen as an exploit, as you're probably not intended to do that. The AI doesn't do it, and I usually restrict myself from using it.

Good tax/unrest management is crucial, can make a huge difference for your growth. Understand how the system works, and get extra garrison in time for city growth. Make sure all cities have just enough unrest reduction for your current tax level, or you're losing out.

Most summoned creatures suck, you're better off relying on strong racial units and heroes. Ranged units tend to dominate, you can't go wrong with longbowmen, slingers and rangers and priests.

[Incanur]

Most summoned creatures may suck, but some are absolutely devastating. Hell hounds and sprites make for solid early game units under the right circumstances. I love starting with Alchemy, Archmage, Channeler, Chaos Mastery, Conjurer, and five chaos books. The game becomes a mad dash to summon stacks of hell hounds on the cheap and find an enemy fortress before spell research makes your pets unable to compete. Anything with regeneration can work. Units like wraiths and shadow demons rule - I've won various games on impossible through a lucky trade for such spells.

[Aureustgo]

I haven't played any of the versions with the improved AI (hope to soon!) but in 2.0, impossible and large land mass is a very difficult setting.

In my next patch I will eliminate the 11-book strategies, but currently you can use those, and it's a pretty easy win. Without 11-books, it's much harder. [I consider myself an expert, and I probably win about 1/3 to 1/2 my games, though I typically don't use life, don't use warlord, etc.]

Basically, as I wrote on another site, to win at impossible consistently - large land mass, that is - you need to know all the tricks in the book, and be very attentive to your play.

This means, for example, rather than willing to lose an unwinnable battle you can often live to fight another day by running around, fleeing from the AI, until the 50 turns are exhausted (this takes a lot of practice). Cavalry, and other 2-movement units, come in very handy, although not necessary if you're clever.

Summoning magic spirits as your scouts and making a specific point of taking out AI outposts before they grow to cities (this doesn't start a war). You can often keep the AI down to it's fortress and a couple other cities until 1408. Magic spirit is hands down the best spell/unit in the game - use it wisely!

Sometimes the AI will go after cities of yours that were formally neutral. Attack the AI when it comes close and they'll retreat. At some point they'll stop sending units. Taking out neutrals is hand because it gives you money (which you can translate into mana) and libraries, which can help you get to the big spells that will help you in the mid-game (lycanthropy, phantom beast, demon, etc). Whatever you do, do not prompt a war against the AI until 1408, unless you can take out their fortress. You will almost surely need all this time to build up your strength.

Generally, don't attack an AI city unless it's their fortress. Taking out AI cities is a lot of effort for what you gain - you need a lot of bang for your buck.

See, lots of little things that add up in a big way...

[b0rsuk]

And there are some simple but powerful combos that work even on Impossible. Undead created by Death Channels spells are not supposed to heal, ever. But if you create undead from trolls, they do regenerate. And because regeneration also makes your units come back from dead after battle, you suffer no losses in combat unless all your units are wiped out.

It also takes some metagame knowledge. For instance AI tends to cast direct damage spells a lot, so you need to work around that. AI tends to use hordes of shamans.

[momfan]

Make full use of hero-specific spells that you don't normally have.

For example:

Malleus: Flame Strike is very useful when clearing nodes/cities, especially when the defenders have ranged attacks.

Yramrag: Doom Bolt eliminates many units instantly, and heavily damages powerful creatures. Warp Lightning is similar and may be better against units with lots of hearts. Yramrag can be worth hiring even when he doesn't have arcane power.

Serena: A godsend if you play Death, as she can cast Healing on your normal units. Even better if she has arcane power or extra spellcasting ability.

Morgana (with Insecticide): Black Prayer weakens opponents, very handy when subsequently casting spells that can be resisted e.g. Disintegrate, Confusion, Black Sleep, Warp Creature, Life Drain etc. Even better if she comes with extra spellcasting or arcane power.

Also, some heroes with particularly useful traits:

Fang: Flying at speed 3 makes him a great explorer. Fire breath gives a second attack.

Jaer: Windwalk makes him handy for moving a big stack around.