04-05-2002 15:54									#1
	What would you like to see in a MoM 2? Support Apolyton

Since nobody else has brought up this topic yet, I thought I would throw out a few ideas of my own to get the ball rolling.

I loved MoM, and would love to see a well done sequal to it released some time.

Some of my ideas are pretty simple, others are a bit farther out in left field...

1. More victory conditions

Not exactly the most original of ideas for improving a TBS, but hey, its worth a shot. Having ways of winning that favor the explorer and peaceful perfectionist players would be nice.

One way could involve searching the dungeons and ruins for pieces of a powerful artifact that when put together might act like the Spell of Mastery. There would have to be a good number of those pieces around, spread across the maps of both planes. They would have to be immune to item teleporting and block hero teleporting, so once discovered, the hero would have to travel overland all the way back to the Fortress town to return that piece to the treasury, or contiune carrying it with them, thus taking up item slots, and risking loss if the hero dies. It would be especially interesting if the more pieces the hero carried the more obvious it was that they had 'em and the more everyone else on the map would go right after them.

Another victory condition might be quests from the gods. Missions given from above or below to do certain tasks. Complete enough of them and victory might be handed to you on a divine or infernal platter.

And these are just a couple of ideas for victory conditions, I'm someone else could think of more.

2. More customizations for each race

There was some customization for each race, but I think there could have been more of it. For the most part, each race just had buildings that they couldn't get, some unique units, and maybe a few other specials. My idea would be to try making each race more different and unique. More fitting with what that race is supposed to be like.

It could be done through a combination of having some special building(s) that only available to that race, maybe some more variety to the the units, and a bit more effort to making each race different.

One example that just hit me is the Nomads. This may sound weird, but to me it seems silly that a race called the Nomads would settle and have towns. I don't remember how far into the building tree one could get with the Nomads in MoM, but here is an idea. Instead of building real buildings, a Nomad "town" is just putting up different types of tents and other portable structures. A special ability that the Nomads might have would be to uproot the entire "town", move it somewhere else and replant it in the new location. You've settled a new village, and ten turns later you decide you don't like the spot? Thats fine, as a Nomad, you can always move the whole town. Or perhaps if you're really crazy, you actually decide to plant a "town" or two right next to one you are trying to capture. The uprooting process should probably take at least several turns of "deconstruction" time, and the "unit" that appears for the move would have to be among the slowest around. The "towns" would probably also need limits on how often they can uproot, and an upper limit on their size that is not just terrain dependant(or perhaps, being nomads they just don't get as much food from the land as other races could). It would definitely be different, and make the Nomads much more Nomadic than just a few building restrictions and some special units.

If combined with my #3 idea, this could work especially well.

3. Race relations

Selection of your initial race did not really have any effect beyond determining what buildings and units you started with. You could always capture towns of other any other races and fully utilize them later. I thought it would be interesting to have that selection make an actual impact on how fully you could utilize races other than your starting one.

For example, if you started with the High Elves, you might be able to get the full range of buildings and units from Halflings, only be able to get basic buildings and units out of Dwarven towns, and if you capture a Dark Elven town, it is automatically razed. Humans might be able to get about the same out of every other race, but that would be only slightly better than the basics. And to really stretch the idea to its fullest, perhaps the Klackons, being hive oriented and so different from everyone else, can take over a town only by killing off all its inhabitants and settling some of their troops in their place, converting it to a Klackon village. (Of course some balancing would have to be done on the growth of that conversion, to prevent the Klackons from being able to swarm across the map too easily). And a converse to this would probably have to be that any other race that takes over a Klackon town would always raze the town with no choice for taking control.

Another suggestion for this might be inclusion of some spells and/or artifacts that allow better control over various races. So one might allow you better control over Nomads where another might affect Lizardmen. How much more control could be open for debate, and should probably still depend on exactly what your starting race is.

4. Seperate building and unit construction queues.

My reasoning for this one is (to me at least) simple and logical. Most of the man power that goes into building mills, temples, and towers is not the same man power that would go into forging spearheads, shields and swords, or the man power that goes into wielding them.

Yes, there would have to be some play balancing in modeling exactly how fast construction of buildings and units would occur, and it would have to be slower than the original (or other TBS games) to compensate. However, part of that could be done by having two seperate types of builders to adjust your construction speeds, so that along with the farmers for food, you might have light and heavy builders for units and buildings respectively. This would naturally tend to balance out the seperate queues a little all on its own. Reason being that if you focused a town on heavy construction to get a building done faster, its unit production would be at a virtutal standstill, and vice versa. The one exception to this would of course have to be ship building, as it would be appropriate for that to take up the entire industrial focus of a town.

I also thought another touch that could go along with this would be to have unit construction cause an adverse affect on town population. Ie. if you build a unit, your population is actually going to decrease by an amount appropriate to the unit under construction. The early, weak units like the spearmen might take away less population than the later stronger units. For most units it wouldn't have to be a huge number, though a settler unit should be. But it could be something that might add up to significant numbers if a town is balanced to zero or near zero growth, and its industrial capacity focused on units. Crank out too many units too fast and your town has shrunk a size. Unit damage healing could also be tied into their supporting towns population. As the unit recovers, the town experiences a lower popultion growth. I suppose you could even allow the population to jump back up when a unit is disbanded, though I would say that if a unit is disbanded in a town different from its original, there should be some negative effects on town happiness for a while to represent letting loose all those soldiers somewhere that isn't home.

	04-05-2002 20:37									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Dam*! it must be something like 6 years since
I played MOM. (I don't own a copy) I would be
*HAPPY* if they would release a remake, that
I could play with my win98. hopefully they do
that.

	05-05-2002 09:23									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

ummm, gosh!

I don't have near the deep thinking that bleyn does on this matter. I would be happy with a windows port of MOM, to tide us over until we can get at MOM II.

Sayyy! That's not that bad of an idea! see if Infro can put out a little bit of time for a "Greed" edition, like the Myst masterpiece or some such. then they could put quicksilver to work for a couple of years on a true sequel.

For an updated MOM for win9x: better AI, 16 bit graphics, and multiplayer. bring us all back into the fold after not being able to run it on newer OS's.

For MOM II: a few things would be awesome.

1. more planes. or at least the option for more. maybe choose from 2 to 6 planes as a startup option. I played around with the Planar Seal spell for a while, and fantasized about being able to cast it only between selected planes. Imagine not being able to break that spell, but sneaking in an invasion force around a back way through another plane. to avoid using towers like a "planar elevator", I suggest that each tower is only a portal to a certain plane, and all planes might not be directly accessible from the plane you start from. especially on small maps.

2. More classes of spells. In addition to the unit, city, and global enchantments, I suggest planar enchantments, which are like global, but only affect conditions for the plane you cast it for. naturally, there should be an increased cost for casting on a plane other than where the wizards fortress resides. come to think of it, using a spell blast on a wizard residing on another plane should bring higher cost. increased further if there is a planar seal of some sort in operation. that might give the incentive for the going around the seal action I suggested.


Bleyn, I don't know about the further customizations, as they were pretty diverse already. I mean you couldn't even count on spearmen being the same. this race had regeneration, that one had eight figures per unit instead of 6, and so on. still, if it's done well, I have no real objection.

Your race relations suggestion is excellent, but was somewhat already implemented in MOM. happiness ratings for various races were dependent on your wizards starting race.

the more victory conditions suggestion is certainly welcome, though I don't know if I like the ones you've suggested.

and finally, I detest the idea of separate unit and construction queues. I think that is part of the unrealism that should stay in the game.

anyway, if I think of more suggestions, I'll be back

	05-05-2002 19:50									#4
	Re: What would you like to see in a MoM 2? Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Bleyn And to really stretch the idea to its fullest, perhaps the Klackons, being hive oriented and so different from everyone else, can take over a town only by killing off all its inhabitants and settling some of their troops in their place, converting it to a Klackon village. (Of course some balancing would have to be done on the growth of that conversion, to prevent the Klackons from being able to swarm across the map too easily). And a converse to this would probably have to be that any other race that takes over a Klackon town would always raze the town with no choice for taking control.

* imagines a world where a klackon player takes over the world with stag beetles and decimates every single other race *

Brr....

	06-05-2002 13:49									#5
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I would like to see: LESS BUGS, where my unit gets all possible unit enhancements (invisible, invunerable, blessed, undead, first-strike, armor-piercing, illusory, wraithform, holy bonus, meld-with-node, create-outpost, regeneration, immune to all, flight, wind-walking, lucky, caster, sage, blade-master, constitution, leadership ect.)

	07-05-2002 00:56									#6
	Remove this text

BETTER AI!

I played game recently. And AI is just too stupid.
Easy to beat on middle or hard difficulty, while on impossible it cheats outragesously too make game unplayable.

Probably because there is too manu balance loopholes which human player can exploit.

And human is ALWAYS better in tactical combat.

And game is VERY RICH in options (also reason for weak AI), which could make it an MULTIPLAYER HIT.

But, there is no MP versrion of MoM

MP & AI are first things to fix.
Rest should come later.


P.S.
There is an rumor that Quicksilver (they are maaking MOO3) is interested in makig an MoM2.

	07-05-2002 02:56									#7
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Fromwhat I understand that depends partly on how MOO3 does.

	07-05-2002 04:12									#8
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

And that they would like it make that sequel.

Although no one had asked Infogrames about it (and they own the rights on MoM game).

	07-05-2002 15:48									#9
	Remove this text

What MOM2 needs is better AI clearly. The tactical combat should be reworked, as running around a lot of slow beasts with a mounted archer is a painful but always winning tactics. Age Of Wonders had a better tactical combat. They seem to have crippled it in AoW2 because walls were really very good in the first version (if you can't breach walls with a specific unit, you can't take the city).

About race customization: I'd rather have more balancing. Klackons were IMO lame. I want to point out a few special abilties beyond building/units: Dwarves produced double gold and gained double bonus from ores. Also, nomads had 50% extra gold but no bonus from roads, and elves and others gave mana by population, halflings gave more food. That was pretty good enough.
I think a special building per race would be cool (dwarves getting more production, elves more mana, klackons more... klackons?).

And I loved having mixed races armies. Don't make it impossible to conquer or use effectively races other than your own. Make them unhappy, yes. Cripple them, no. Actually, I can't see why I couldn't have a city with 3 high men and 1 halfling in it. You could build the base city race buildings and units of any available race in it ?

Also, more heroes, and AI that uses magic items.
The plane enchantment idea sounds cool.

	07-05-2002 15:55									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Yep, AI heroes with magic items... when slain, you can claim those items...

And what if you beat an enemy unit/army, you could use the weapons of the defeated units for something? Building of one same/similar unit is cheaper...? No... what a lame idea

	07-05-2002 16:31									#11
	Inflate your Upload Space

Did ANYBODY played Gnolls?

There are realy looking like bad choice of race (exept if you try some early rush when thay can be usefull).

	07-05-2002 16:35									#12
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I just finished a game with gnolls... they are easily expanding.

They have good attack rating, and the wolf riders are quite decent. For a lesser unit, but I suggest you pic warlord and alchemy retorts. They can't make Alchemist guilds (to make magical weapons).

	07-05-2002 16:59									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Yeach, when I played gnolls, Alchemy & Warlord IS MUST, since they are pretty limited in number of builidngs.

So they are really good, if you try to conquer AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBILE (and gain some other races cities for later game)

In other cases (which includes Impossibile diffculty level, since AI gets Wizard Tower and Chatedrals VERY early) they are NOT good choice.

	08-05-2002 03:26									#14
	Inflate your Upload Space

I almost always play the halflings, slingers are the best unit in the game! the will destroy nearly anything. Elite or super elite slingers can even damage units with missile immunity.

	08-05-2002 12:08									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Gnolls were rather good IMO. Their wolves are so fast that you cannot lose many in a fight, you just make those wounded run back. And they do deal lots of damage. I agree slingers are very strong, but they are hopeless against invisible units, and even the AI seemed to love invisible werewolves quite a bit. They are quite useless against invisible flying paladins. Is there anything stronger than that?

	08-05-2002 12:21									#16
	Put an end to popups!

A bit off topic here, aren't we?

Invisible flying warships are well-working units, but not against fast units with true sight or illusion immunity.

My favourite units include:
1) all barbarian units (thrown weapons are great!), and that's why barbarians are my favourite race
2) war trolls (regeneration&movement 2; pepper up with some spells - flame blade, black channels, chaos channels, lionheart, what ever you got - and you've got a killer)
3) slingers (8 figures says it all)
4) paladins (hard to kill - immune to magic)
5) pikemen (armour pearcing, negate first strike, 8 figures - need to say more?)
6) stag beetle & dragon turtle (shields anyone?)

	09-05-2002 04:25									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I agree that improved AI is Priority 1. At the very least, the AI needs to :

1. Come out from behind city walls and fight units with ranged attacks, instead of just sitting and taking hits. As it is, one slinger can take out a full stack of stag beetles if the beetles are in a walled city; just walk to within 2 spaces of the gate, fire 9 shots at the nearest beetle, and hold down the D key until "All Units Retreat Exhausted." You'll have to repeat this 30 times or so, but it works.

2. Not attack strong ground units with weak flyers.

3. Spread out slow units to keep fast enemy units from avoiding combat.

4. When fighting one-on-one against a unit of equal speed, use correct positioning to force the enemy against a corner so he can't run away forever. Strangely enough, the AI did this in the original version, but the 1.31 patch changed the pursuit algorithm so that the pursuer kept following in your wake instead of cutting you off.

Andemagne and Father Beast: the DOS version, which I got from Underdogs (www.the-underdogs.org) runs in DOS mode on my Windows 98 machine and on my Windows NT machine.

	09-05-2002 11:12									#18
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

The tactical AI is poor, but strategic AI is poor too. There should be some plans and attacking from the AI. They never strike your cities in a concerted plan, and choose their targets in a not enlightened way.

	10-05-2002 03:01									#19
	Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare The tactical AI is poor, but strategic AI is poor too. There should be some plans and attacking from the AI. They never strike your cities in a concerted plan, and choose their targets in a not enlightened way.

Not neccesarily true, I've had times(usually on impossible) where the AI will send droves of units after one city.

	10-05-2002 03:36									#20
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

In my experience (almost always on Hard), the AI will target a particular city and send waves of attackers at it, but it'll ignore other cities along the way, even if a stack passes right by them and could take them easily.

	11-05-2002 08:43									#21
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by Rex Little Andemagne and Father Beast: the DOS version, which I got from Underdogs (www.the-underdogs.org) runs in DOS mode on my Windows 98 machine and on my Windows NT machine.

The Underdogs LIVES!!!!

Wahoooooo....

I was afraid that it had bitten the dust, since my old bookmark led me to nothing.

anyway Rex, I also run MoM on my Win98 machine in dos mode, but problems getting it to run have been reported widely, and I myself was unable to get sound for quite a while.

Not to mention the feasability of getting it to run on WinME or XP, which are not sitting on the dos code. I'm not sure about how they work out.

still, I don't think it would cost infrogreed all that much development time to put out a Masters edition for what is widely regarded as one of the all time greats. I mean, hey, they did it for Myst, after all

	12-12-2002 21:30									#22
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I've gotten MOM to work on 2000. Rantz said he could get it up and running on XP and 2000. I'm not sure why you'd want to run it on ME, since it is probably the worst OS ever made. Sorry you got suckered into that one...

I have a test ME box up here at work that I can try to run MOM on if anyone's interested. I think the concept would be the same as 2000. Edit the properties of the shortcut you use to run the game (create one if you have to). You'll have some DOS parameters you can set, like EMS and XMS values and window size. Set the memory to 2048 and set windows size to full screen and it should work.

	14-12-2002 12:53									#23
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Things I would like to see in any future MoM 2:

1. Multiplayer out of the box. Need I ask for this?
2. More spells. Some ideas: Something that can drop Corruption on several squares at once. Something you can drop on an eney stack on the overland map to immobilise them - like a stack version of Web.
3. More heroes. There's only 40 or so in MoM, and after a while it gets boring (not Brax the dwarf *again*!)
4. Break away from the Civilization style town size a bit. Towns and cities don't sit there in real life with big numbers like "16" painted on them that give no conceptual idea of exactly how many people reside therein. It would be good if size 1 = 1000 people, size 25 = 25,000 people, etc. If the city size is more reflective of the number of people, then we can have new military units deplete a city's population as someone suggested earlier in this thread.
5. There should be no upper limit on city size.

	21-12-2002 20:45									#24
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by star mouse 4. Break away from the Civilization style town size a bit. Towns and cities don't sit there in real life with big numbers like "16" painted on them that give no conceptual idea of exactly how many people reside therein. It would be good if size 1 = 1000 people, size 25 = 25,000 people, etc. If the city size is more reflective of the number of people, then we can have new military units deplete a city's population as someone suggested earlier in this thread.

In MoM, the city size DOES reflect the city pop exactly as you suggested.

	23-12-2002 03:56									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Ok, first a MoM "gold edition", or somesuch. not too much work.

some no brainers for a mom update:
Multiplayer
Graphics and sound
A.I.
Editor
I think that would do for a winmom to get interest up and going for a MoM2 to be released a year or two later.

That would take the suggestions

	15-01-2003 20:46									#26
	Increase Your PM Length

I was able to MoM to run on my win98 computer, but I had to keep the sound off.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

As for MoM2

Larger armies

RT combat like what's happening with Moo3.

Smarter AI

Multiplayer, Obviously.

More then 4 enemy wizards in a single game.

Either a detailed build queue or a method of preventing constant micromanagement.

City Defenses that are actually effective. One particularly nasty idea would be to give any range unit located in the city gets unlimited ammo. Recently saw LOTR:TTT and would love to see a battle resembling that of Helm's Deep on MoM2.

	16-01-2003 13:07									#27
	Inflate your Upload Space

Hey, booklord, I am running it on 98 with the sound
You either lack conventional memory - this can be fixed by attuning your config.sys file, or you have not selected properly your sound card type and settings ....

	17-01-2003 12:18									#28
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Please, no RT anything. The game is fun as it is, there is no need to kowtow to the RT trend. I like some RT games, but there isn't one of them that I wouldn't prefer to be turn based.

	17-01-2003 14:29									#29
	Remove this text

Totally agree.

Although it escapes me how would we get a Multiplayer MoM keeping at the same time the TB Tactical Combat that is one of the cornerstones of this game balance and appeal in my eyes...

	17-01-2003 14:42									#30
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

As I got to take up MoM again a bit, recently, I have to admit that after all these years experience in newer games, some improvements in the MicroManagement interface could be added, like:
- Build Queues, with customisable templates. Although I NEVER use them in SMAC, they would finely suit my playing style in MoM
- Allowing to BROWSE thru cities, and not have to click "Cities" and scroll from list top everytime

And, given the enforced base spacing, some (costly) Spell allowing you to Raise Lands from the ocean! .
Or to build Floating Cities (=seabases)