The Official Strategy Guide is ridiculous.

[b0rsuk]

I just started reading it. I don't doubt it holds a lot of in-depth information and formulas, but some stuff is... just....
Who wrote this ? The original designers ?

while no race (save, perhaps, for Halflings) is particularly bad in combat

Some other gems from Chapter Three:

Red, or Chaos, magic is the strongest combat magic color.
(...)
Black, or Death, magic also has many strong combat spells.
(...)
While the remaining magic colors have combat spells and powerful unit enhancements, their strengths tend to lie in areas not directly related to or supportive of an aggressive military approach.

That's right - white magic sucks in combat. Red, black for the win.

GOOD MILITARY RACES
Beastmen, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Gnolls, High Men, Klackons, Lizardmen and Trolls

Dark Elves struggle in Myrror, have awfully expensive units and only really shine if you take them to Arcanus. Gnolls suck once Wolf Riders run out of steam. Klackons... really ? Beetles can beat paladins if enchanted with Fly or Demonic Wings, but...

No mention of halflings or high elves.

[Oso]

If I understand correctly, the people who wrote the book were just like us when the game first came out. They didn't exactly know how things would interact with each other.

I suspect some(a lot? most?) of the actual strategy is based on how the designers THOUGHT things would work.

One thought I had when I first found this place was, "How cool would it be for the players here to re-write the strategy Guide, with some 15+ years of experience playing the game? Experience that might easily add up to 100+ years of collective experience."

Obviously, most (not all) of the nuts and bolt (formulas and such) are pretty much accurate from the OSG but the actual strategy part, not so much.

[I like Serena]

Obviously, most (not all) of the nuts and bolt (formulas and such) are pretty much accurate from the OSG but the actual strategy part, not so much.

Which nuts and bolts are not accurate?

[Oso]

Not accurate may not be the best phrase. Ambiguous might be better.

One example:

...Treasure is generated after the Guardians defeat.

Not quite true because then 'farming' (for spells I'll use as an example) wouldn't work reliably.

I bust a node and I get a spell as loot. I can do a reload cycle until I get a spell I like.

If it were truly generated at defeat, then getting a spell on one iteration shouldn't guarantee I still get a spell on the next one.

So, some of the lair treasure has to set at game generation time in that the game says "This lair is going to generate some mana, an item and a spell." and only the amount of mana, the actual item and the color/name of spell is generated at guardian defeat.

Not that it really matters in game play terms. The main thrust of the post I was making is that I was agreeing with the OP, ....it holds a lot of in-depth information and formulas but the actual strategy for playing the game stated in the manual is way off, in my experience. Basically because the writers of the OSG suffered the same handicap a regular player had when the OSG was written: Not enough playing the game collectively or individually to truly know what the best strategies were. Or if they did, they didn't put it into the OSG.

The way the strategy works in the OSG, in my opinion, is based more on what the writers thought the designers were trying for rather than from actual, long term game play.

Doesn't make their strategies wrong, don't think I am saying that, just...incomplete.

[Jtm]

...Treasure is generated after the Guardians defeat.

Not quite true because then 'farming' (for spells I'll use as an example) wouldn't work reliably.

I bust a node and I get a spell as loot. I can do a reload cycle until I get a spell I like.

If it were truly generated at defeat, then getting a spell on one iteration shouldn't guarantee I still get a spell on the next one.

Actually, the statement is correct but it can be seen as incorrect, depending on how you look at it. IlSe and I have studied the lair data format thoroughly and recognized the parts that held information about treasures. The information is all about quantities and types, not anything exact, expect for the amount of mana you'll earn. For instance, the lair treasure data can limit the treasure type to spells. What is does not do is state what spell you'll get. That part will have to be generated so that it will match the lair difficulty. While it is true that the treasure is not fully generated, it is still partly generated on the fly.

[Oso]

I agree, and after discovering this through playing, I decided, at least for myself, it really didn't matter because ambiguous doesn't equal wrong and in real game play sense it didn't matter in that case.

The only place I can see that really mattering is for someone who was going to modify the game (if they thought it needed) so farming is impossible. Reading that part of the OSG might have led them to look at the wrong treasure routines initially before figuring out they needed to look somewhere else as well. But even then, the OSG would have given them a place to start.

I'm not a programmer so I have no idea how to go about deconstructing a program. I don't even know if what I just said even makes sense from a modding point of view.

As far Serena's question. "Which nuts and bolts are not accurate?" If we are talking tables and formulas I'd say none are inaccurate. Or at least in those, I have never found an inaccuracy and I don't think anyone has ever pointed one out to me.

From what I understand, the formulas for how things are done was taken directly from the programmers before the OSG was written. The only inaccuracies there would be from misprinting the OSG or from a coder changing a formula after the OSG went to print.

[ikeika]

I agree, and after discovering this through playing, I decided, at least for myself, it really didn't matter because ambiguous doesn't equal wrong and in real game play sense it didn't matter in that case.

The only place I can see that really mattering is for someone who was going to modify the game (if they thought it needed) so farming is impossible. Reading that part of the OSG might have led them to look at the wrong treasure routines initially before figuring out they needed to look somewhere else as well. But even then, the OSG would have given them a place to start.

I'm not a programmer so I have no idea how to go about deconstructing a program. I don't even know if what I just said even makes sense from a modding point of view.

As far Serena's question. "Which nuts and bolts are not accurate?" If we are talking tables and formulas I'd say none are inaccurate. Or at least in those, I have never found an inaccuracy and I don't think anyone has ever pointed one out to me.

From what I understand, the formulas for how things are done was taken directly from the programmers before the OSG was written. The only inaccuracies there would be from misprinting the OSG or from a coder changing a formula after the OSG went to print.

I've known the writers since the early '70s and everything above is true and at the time, they were not programmers.