Best blitz/early game strategies

[occasionalplayer]

Congratulations on making such a good mod! I have tried it a couple of times and it plays great.

I would like to know your opinions about possibly the best "blitz" setups on high difficulties. Here's what I thought:

Alchemy plus Mana Focusing always gives you a headstart (rush buy). However, if your power base is small, it does not boost you that much early in the game (works well with high elves - no blitz but rush buy everything, protect your city provisionally, then strike with high tier units - not so much blitzing of course).

This said, Alchemy seems the strongest pick in terms of price-to-effect ratio.

Possibly best buying setup at first: dwarves - alchemy - mana focusing - inquisitor. Huge tax rates, improved minerals, dwarf and miners guild bonus - with a rich world and a good starting position, you soon might have 100+ income per turn with just one city. Of course, not so fast because you need to raze everything - but I think you can just spread settlers. Arguably better than klackons (it seems Golems are a bit better in the hand of the player because of magic immunity). Slow speed can maybe be ovcercome by massive road building.

Trolls: also seems to work well with speed buying. However, picking useful warlord/Tactician reduces your power base (decreasing effectiveness). No or not much magic needed with this.

Most cost effective attack force at the beginning? Maybe not so race-guided (Barbarians with alchemy, warlord, tactician, or gnolls), but possibly ghouls (take conjurer, specialist for that matter). I am under the impression a death expansion is more cost-effective because of bootstrapping with undead and skeletons as instant garrisons (15p casting, even doable with little or no skil).

if you can spare it, two nature books plus earth lore seems very favorable for blitzing.

Have not really tried the other realms, but death seems somewhat better early on - even better than normal unit - rushes.

[namad]

Alchemy is useful in a blitz to convert gold into mana, not mana into gold.

[Seravy]

Alchemy is useful in a blitz to convert gold into mana, not mana into gold.

Depends. With a warlord and no strong summoning spells but a powerful race, doing mana into gold is sometimes better. With high skill and good spells, mana is better. I tend to do both in the same game as the situation changes.
I just finished my first (at least with decent AI) impossible victory and nomads were amazing in the early game, way better than I expected.

[occasionalplayer]

Here's what I found:

Possibly the strongest blitz setup: Barbarians, Archmage, Conjurer, Specialist, Alchemy, Mana Focusing - All death or maybe two sorcery for focus magic.

Concept: explore with barbarian spearmen. Summon skeletons only for garrisons. Pick Ghouls and Darkness. 6-7 Ghouls will defeat some lairs and most towns. Use the undead as garrisons or cannon fodder. Use the yield to speedbuy buildings, then continue with berserkers.

Other setups I tried:

Tiny or small world, rich minerals, wet, Lizards, Myrror (again alchemy mana focusing; possibly nature focus to get earth lore): The idea is to seek out and settle mines. Works to some extent - however towns are really weak and Myrran mines are not so good for Lizardmen (and less frequent if you don't pick dry world, which hurts lizardmen).

Dwarves: Alchemy, Mana Focusing, Myrran. Dry world! Then you get huge resources (5 crystals for one town!), imagine the yield with miners guild. I wouldn't pick inquisitor because taxes aren't what gets your economy boosted - resources are!
Downside: Hamlet development extremely (!!) slow; sometimes over 50 turns to develop into a hamlet. Slow speed can be partly compensated with roads (Hammerhands get acceptable speed on those, and once you have settled 3-4 good towns, you get up to 250 gold/mana per turn). That is possibly a winning strategy, since you can combine them with golems in order to attack enemy wizards.

Inquisitor doesn't work so well for blitz strategies IMO.

Intermediate strategy: High elves, all nature, alchemy/Mana focusing/Conjurer/specialist. Kinda works with magic sprites (some conquests possible) while building excellent cities. Not a very fast option however.

Nomads: Not tried them yet. I thought spearmen or horsebowmen rush could be doable (Alchemy/Warlord/Heroism), but food is an issue.
In any event, death seems to be the best realm to support early aggression. Heroism seems to expensive, especially on the units you have in the beginning.

Nothing seems to beat the barbarian blitz though.

[namad]

I play nomad alchemist on hard/extreme a buncha times, it's a solid combination.

The problem with alchemy early game, first fifty turns to turn mana into gold is that aggressive races like barbarians or gnolls don't have hardly any mana at all anyways to convert, and high elves or dark elves have such expensive late game units that they're almost unaffordable even with extra gold from their mana. Of course later in the game, turning mana into gold is amazing and I do it a lot, eventually your casting skill is just too low to spend all your mana anyways.

If you're taking mana focusing with barbarians just to get a few extra gold per turn, imo, you're selling your long game short for a very minor early game bonus.

[occasionalplayer]

I play nomad alchemist on hard/extreme a buncha times, it's a solid combination.

The problem with alchemy early game, first fifty turns to turn mana into gold is that aggressive races like barbarians or gnolls don't have hardly any mana at all anyways to convert, and high elves or dark elves have such expensive late game units that they're almost unaffordable even with extra gold from their mana. Of course later in the game, turning mana into gold is amazing and I do it a lot, eventually your casting skill is just too low to spend all your mana anyways.

If you're taking mana focusing with barbarians just to get a few extra gold per turn, imo, you're selling your long game short for a very minor early game bonus.

Interesting points. What would, in your opinion, then be the strongest setup for a powerful endgame?

[rgp151]

Alchemy + Archmage is still a powerful combo, just as it was in MoM. Alchemy gets you the mana and Archmage gets you the skill needed to make use of it. Plus Archmage gives you a starting skill bonus as well so its works well for in early game and late game. In classic MoM I seemed to land on Alchemy + Archmage with 4 Life & 5 Sorcery with Barbarians as being one of the strongest all around builds, or with Nomads.

I haven't played CoM enough yet to really know, but Alchemy + Archmage is still strong.