My Impression After a Few Games of Caster

[Mercutio]

These are just my opinions, but they are fresh from someone who's been playing MoM for a long time:

I was excited by the repurposing of duplicate Retorts, and I like the potential builds I find.  Although I gravitate to Specialist / Omniscient as it seems OP compared to anything else. 

Combined with the "fixed" diplomacy, it makes the game too passive.  Version 152 suffers from this too.  MoM is about maniacal wizards who fling their minions into harms way, not historical leaders who can be usurped by revolt.  There can be only one!  Even if a wizard is pacifist or perfectionist, there should come a time when all their ducks are in a row and they pull the trigger.  Version 131 and Insecticide at least deliver the emotion of uncertainty and danger, especially in the early game.  An alliance should just mean their inevitable backstab hurts all the more, not that they'll warn me for years until I drop a mega stack on their Capitol.

There does seems to be a conscious Civilization-esque design choice here.  Especially, with the year 1406 trigger.  I found myself frustrated with masses of useless 9 stacks of pre-trigger troops zerging nodes in vain.  So, I'm safe from the predations of other wizards, but I don't have any use for my worthless armies.

While Retort and even Spell rehabilitation was welcome, I found the race tweaking too much.  The Barbarians are free from their movement limits, enhanced with pathfinding, no less!  Orcs with free armies.  Ships with zero cost?!  In an island or fair start, you can just spam 9 stacks of fleets that are cheaper than Spearmen?!  That screws lizardmen, for sure, and upsets the balance created by upkeep to begin with.

In general, I think zero is a degenerate cost.  In MoM, there's only a few examples.   Dark Rituals is balanced by a another cost, population growth rate.  Chaos Channels makes a unit Banish bait.  But here, enchantments, unit upkeep, movement cost all move to zero.  I can already min/max the macro economy with Retorts... why do I need discounts on troops or spells?   It makes the economic management pointless. 

Finally, I also found the movement changes too much.  What's the point of Longbowmen, when innately Pathfinding Wolf Riders can sweep up on them after a single volley despite rocky terrain?  All these changes made the battle map feel way too small.

There it is.  Take it with a grain of salt, but hear me out.

[massone]

What fixed diplomacy? Unless you get a game with only Peaceful/Lawful wizards or you bought all the alliances, you will get wars rolled.

You should probably try playing other retorts first. Specialist is far from OP, I wouldn't even rate it within the top 3 single point picks, and arguably not even in the top 5 when playing anything other than 7+ books in one realm. Omniscient is very good, but only for multiple realm plays that suffer from randomness in getting Very Rare spells, and is intended to help 3-4 realm plays that don't have access to Very Rare at all.

1406 is hardly a trigger. The advanced units aren't very impactful in COM compared to new spells and buff stacking. If you're zerging nodes with 9-stacks of basic units, maybe you're just producing too many military units. Just disband them if you don't want them. Obsolescence is normal and realistic. Magic is way more important than the advanced military buildings. I usually don't even bother building those in 1406. By the time Armourers' Guild or Fantastic Stables normally finish (without gold rushing), I've already got or close to Rare spells, and so does the AI on Lunatic. I'd much rather finish Wizard's Towers and Amplifying Towers first for most of my cities.

There isn't any reason for an ally to backstab you until you're the only ones left. There's very little advantage gained from conquering an ally, and unless you're playing on low difficulties, your doom stack is not going to defeat their Fortress easily. If you attack an ally with no shared books, you get no spells. If you attack an ally with shared books, you're wasting resources because you can just trade for their spells and be way ahead.

I see nothing wrong with free ships. Triremes are defeated by common summons or a few combat spells, Galleys are still defeated by Javelineers. You can't even afford to build 9 galleys at the point of the game where Lizardmen's advantage is relevant. One stack is completely irrelevant, and if you have multiple 9-stacks, the Lizardmen has already expanded way more than you. It's a waste of production. If you're building 9-stacks of Warships, gold maintenance is hardly relevant anyway, not that it really even matters normally either. Orcs are very mediocre, and that's how they were designed. Stronger units and other bonuses are always better than maintenance reduction.

In COM, the economy isn't about staying in the green, especially not gold. It's about the speed of your growth, and becoming more magically powerful.

[Seravy]

Omniscient and Specialist are both good retorts, so are most of the others. Try them and you'll see.

Nice to see there are players out there who don't find the diplomacy too harsh. I usually get to see people complaining they can't maintain peace.

The year 1406 trigger is not something I'm proud of but it's a necessity. The game has no technology research and it's easy to buy the highest tier building from looted gold that appears in treasure, or simply by saving up what you produce.

Ships have no maintenance because they have a lot more limited use than any other unit. You can't attack cities, defend cities, attack nodes, or defend nodes using them unless you cast Flight which does have maintenance. It's also a necessity for the AI because it's not allowed to disband ships.

I don't see how no maintenance equals zero cost - you already paid for your unit by producing it or casting the summoning spell.
Economy in Caster of Magic is about making decisions on which resource you produce. Magic Power, Research, Gold, Production, Troops to conquer, these are all beneficial but you have to make the correct decision on which ones to prioritize. I believe that's much more interesting than trying to figure out how not to lose the game to your own economy because it's a struggle to remain above zero income.

Well, I could also ask what's the point of magicians when a Sky Drake can't be damaged by them, and why build Elven Lords when they can't even attack flying units. That's how it works, some units are just bad against some others, you certainly don't want Longbowmen fighting the wolf riders, unless you have Earth to Mud. But you definitely want those Longbowmen against Chaos Spawn, Phantom Beasts, any Halberdiers, or Dwarven Hammerhands. I use longbowmen a lot, they are a great unit.

I agree the map can feel too small but unfortunately, that can't be changed. Larger maps are available in Caster of Magic II Alpha although even the current maps only feel small to explore, they feel huge to actually play the game to the end - I rarely finish in less than 15-20 hours.
This much speed is also necessary for AI armies to pose a threat - if they take 4 turns to reach your nearest city after you see them coming, they have almost no chance to actually conquer it.

I admit it might take some time to get used to the different playstyle in CoM and it might not be for everyone.

[massone]

I think Mercutio was talking about the combat map, not the overall map. It's true that units like Wolf Riders can go from other side to the other in like 2 turns, so there aren't really any ranged units that can handle them. Personally, I think this is fine. If we didn't have such fast units, then ranged units would just be too dominant.

[Anskiy]

I've had Tauron spike my fort with 9 Hell Hounds, and Jafar do the same with his Naga army early game. Diplomacy is possible but you always run the risk of wars, unless you get lucky with your wizard distribution. The whole "You are as strong as me so I will beat you!" mechanic also gets the player into many wars unless they try hard to appease the AI, at serious costs to themselves.

Barbarians are arguably a bit too good, though I feel this is balanced by their lack of range and no research building capabilities. Orc armies are cheap because they aren't very strong unless you build Hordes. Quantity is still a type of quality though, you can still get use out of them when employing them at the right situations.

Free ships are really not a big deal. Triremes are very mediocre naval fighters, easily taken out by lots of things. Stacks of Galleys are better for ruling the sea, but are still rather vulnerable. Stacks of warships are obviously the best bet, but that costs a lot in terms of investment into Maritime Guilds, and dominating the water is less important than dominating the land. It doesn't affect Lizardmen that much, Carracks are stronger than Galleys and armies of Javelineers can easily destroy any ship stacks.

Personally, I like the changes to movement. Master of Magic was way too slow for my taste, and most units having a speed of 1 meant there was little room for strategic placement. Longbowmen still defeat Wolf Riders if you mass up enough of them btw, Wolf Riders are still melee units and are still susceptible to a lot of melee counters, like fortress walls or walls of fire. Besides, Gnolls need them to be good at their job, they are already among the weakest races in the game and drop hard by the midgame.

[Incanur]

What difficulty are you using? I've been playing the original MoM since it came out. I tried various earlier mods as well. After getting some games under my belt, my favorite is Caster of Magic by far.

I struggled getting used to it at first. I started out at fair difficulty, & lost a bunch of fights I thought I would win while I was learning the new system. However, I still won that game easily.

At advanced & expert difficulty, I started losing games. Well, I never technically lost, but the writing was on the wall & I gave up. In one case, the enemy did banish me with a sneaky fortress attack via Plane Shift.

If anything, after years & years of classic MoM, what frustrates me the most about CoM is how balanced it is. MoM let you turbo out Wraiths & coast to victory. MoM let you banish enemy wizards at a whim & steal their mana. MoM let you craft absurd artifacts for your heroes early. Etc.

CoM keeps me on my toes even at lower difficulties. Sometimes I hate that, but on the whole I appreciate the challenge.

I agree the combat map feels too small in CoM, but from a balance perspective it's nice that some melee units are more relevant than they used to be. Does Earth to Mud affect pathfinding units, though? As I recall, it didn't with Great Lizards with Landlinking for me.

[namad]

If you play on the two easiest settings the AI won't try to win the game and will seem way too passive.

That's because on the harder settings they'll press you aggressively and wipe you out if you're not experienced.

[Seravy]

Earth to mud does affect pathfinding units, but it does not affect units that have waterwalking and pathfinding both, or have noncorporeal for the same effect.

[Suppanut]

Is it possible for CoMII to have option to setting level of civilize/barbarism (how more likely to spawn races of non-player to be those which access larger section of tech tree, as well as effect other wizard personality such as aggressiveness and goals. At lowest level of primitiveness, some high level buildings would not unlocked at 1406 at all) and level of sanity of the world (How much warp personalities such as maniac and chaotic could be found on other wizard or effect some random events, think about it like warhammer fantasy. At highly insane behavior, even life wizard could be religious maniac who bent on forcing convert the world to the way of life realm, witch-hunting other wizards, and banish all non-believers to hell, sorcery wizards suffer from OCD and try to disenchant everything or even spamming spellblast for no other reasons, etc)?

Basically, option to set how bad neighbourhood is....

[Seravy]

CoM II already has these options :
-Disable Chaotic wizards
-Disable AIs building near your cities
-Disable AIs beoming hostile towards you without provocation.

Setting the quality of neutral cities is something I would prefer not to have as it basically rewards takin an early game race because it eliminates the risk. You can always be sure you can conquer late game race cities every game...