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Master of Magic: Difference between revisions
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* [[Black Magic]]: Death and Life are the only two magical schools that cannot be combined: If you have death you can't cast life. Death magic is composed of necromancy and negative enchantments. This would make it less useful than Life, since in the later game it's hard to get a negative enchantment past an enemy's resistance, but Death also gets a laundry list of the best summons in the game. Shadow Demons, Wraiths, Death Knights...
* [[Blade on a Stick]]
** The Spearmen, the weakest unit of all races whose only good points are being so cheap it doesn't require gold to upkeep and having 8 figures for most races (more total health and more benefit from per-figure buffs, though with their puny basic stats the latter doesn't say much)
** Improved version is (depending on the race) either Halberdiers (better attack and armor than Swordsmen, more expensive, but no shield) ''or'' much better Pikemen with Armor Piercing and Negate First Strike (which lets most Cavalry and some other units to receive retaliation only from what's left ''after'' their attack, if any, rather than initial unit strength) - and also 8 figures.
* [[Bonus Feature Failure]]: The best quest rewards are: extra masteries, extra spell books, rescue of an elite hero, or an elite item. If you have the maximum number of spellbooks, heroes and masteries, the game was forced to give you some crap like an Item of Lame.
* [[Boring but Practical]]:
**
* [[Breath Weapon]]: Usually fire breath. Much like Thrown attack, used when attacking (not in retaliation) before ''everything'' else, even Gaze attacks, and is stopped by Defense (with Shield bonus), ''not'' Resistance, though obeys damage type Immunities. Sky Drakes have ''lightning'' breath, which is also armor-piercing.▼
** Spearmen. There are two reasons why they are go-to city garrison unit. Being the cheapest to maintain, and strength in numbers. 8 figures give 1/3 more hitpoints total than most infantry with 6, and this matters surprisingly often, especially vs. illusionary attacks, which makes them noticeably harder to wipe out with a single Fire Bolt (or even Psionic Blast - ''recruit'' spearmen have about 1/2 chance to survive it on maximum power!) or single attack of a cheap summon. This also means 1/3 greater benefit from most buffs and some promotions than for 6-figure units, and 2x greater than a 4-figure, which allows Elite spearmen to "catch up" with Elite cavalry: both have 16 hit points total<ref>8x (1+1)=4x (3+1)</ref> and 24 attack total<ref>8x (1+2)=4x (4+2)</ref> (though in smaller chunks it's much worse at beating high Defense) - and that's not counting buffs, from which they'll also improve 2x as much! A single racial, mineral or spell bonus can make them a low-level [[Glass Cannon]], and they're cheap enough that just about any early bonus makes them [[Zerg Rush]] -capable.
*** Ditto for Halfling Swordsmen, due to 8 figures and Lucky bonus.
▲* [[Breath Weapon]]: Usually fire breath. Much like Thrown attack, used when attacking (not in retaliation) before ''everything'' else, even Gaze attacks, and is stopped by Defense (with Large Shield bonus), ''not'' Resistance, though obeys damage type Immunities. Sky Drakes have ''lightning'' breath, which is also armor-piercing.
* [[Bug War]]: What happens when you get involved in hostilities with the Klackons.
* [[Character Customization]]: Customize your Wizard.
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* [[Mana Drain]]: A couple of effects can do this, but they're fairly rare. Can also appear in spell form: If you have mana leak, and can launch several combats against a target in a row, see ''[[Game Breaker]]''.
* [[Master of Illusion]]: Quite a few spells of Sorcery revolve around illusions.
** Illusion-based attacks are ''nasty'', completely bypassing defenses - better than Armor Piercing, but on the other hand many units (all Undead, Angels, Demons, Sky Drake and anything with True Sight cast on it) have Illusions Immunity. Just like Armor Piercing, does nothing if the target is immune to the main attack itself or has no Defense in the first place (Phantom monsters
* [[Merlin]]: Here he is a Sage Master (25% bonus to Research) and uses Life and Nature magic.
* [[Mirror Universe]]: Literally called Myrror. Magic is more powerful here, and the races are different. And all roads act as enchanted (unlimited movement).
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* [[Taken for Granite]]: The Nature Rare Spell Petrify, plus some monsters like the Gorgons can do this. In effect, it instakills a unit that fails its resist roll.
* [[Teleporters and Transporters]]: Several variants of teleportation spells, most of which are life magic. Also, a few units like Unicorns and Djinn can teleport naturally.
* [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works|Throwing Your Ax Always Works]]: Most of Barbarian units have Thrown attack, as well as some heroes (in which case it gets bonus from Axe items). Draconians' breath weapon is equal in giving the pre-melee attack and being affected by Large Shield defense bonus, but Thrown is also improved by almost all effects that buff melee. For "common" units it's 1 - likely to kill 1-2 figures of badly armored infantry, but useless against tougher stuff. Still, vanilla Barbarian Spearmen inflict 2x more damage when attacking, and with mithril weapons they do '''4x''', becoming all-around better than vanilla Halberdiers (except against swordsmen with those shields, but they still have advantages of 2 extra figures
** Much like Breath attack, it applies only when the unit is attacking rather than retaliating, ''before'' anything else - in some ways even better than First Strike, as any figure killed by it won't even get a Gaze attack.
** It benefits from most of the same bonuses as melee - alchemy, mineral (mithril/adamantium weapons) and buff spells Giant Strength, Flame Blade, Lionheart and Eldritch Weapon, but not Holy Weapon that boosts only pure melee. To Hit is trickier - bonuses from Mithril/Adamantine weapons do ''not'' apply, but heroes still enjoy bonuses from Blademaster and Lucky abilities.
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