Disclaimer: I play on Normal or Hard difficulty, without Insecticide.

Objective: Get spell skill as high as possible, as fast as possible. In a dream world, get enough spell skill to cast the Spell of Mastery in 1 or 2 turns.

My build:
-Large land masses will allow for more cities.
-Strong nodes provide more power each turn, even if they are harder to clear.
-Normal or Hard difficulty yield stronger nodes I think. Maybe it just increases defender strength and subsequent one time rewards. Impossible difficulty is more than I want to deal with.
-4 enemy Wizards, just because. Fewer wizards gives fewer spell trading opportunities and fewer enemies interfering, so this might be a wash.

To increase spell skill, I need lots of power to drop into the skill slider plus Archmage as a multiplier. Other directly applicable retorts are Node, Chaos, Nature, and Sorcery Mastery. Also, I want as many dark elf citizens as possible, since each provides a point of power.

I'm not sure about the last retort. Myrran (start with Dark Elves), Alchemy (covers mana shortages, helps units), Warlord (helps units), Sage Mastery (get missing spells faster), and Rune Mastery (cuts Spell of Mastery casting cost) would all help in different ways.

For spells, I need Change Terrain, Gaia's Blessing, and Raise Volcano (make tundra useful). Dark Rituals would also be excellent, edging out Stream of Life since Dark Rituals provides a power boost beyond getting each city to 25 pop. If we don't start on Myrror, then we want Move Fortress for the extra Power from a Myrror capital.
Naturally, we want as many Dark Elf citizens as possible, regardless of rebels (who still produce their one power).

If I don't start on Myrror, then I want to hit a tower of wizardry asap and conquer a dark elf city. Amusingly, lizards or gnolls might be best for this.

What else should I consider?

You want it all, and I respect that.

Have you read the thread re: the Runemaster/Artificer combo? It does an end run around some of your basic assumptions, in that you can create and break artifacts for an actual profit — which means that you can pump your spell skill wand to the max almost from the very first turn, if you'd like. (I'd still consider investing in Archmage, though, given your goals.)

Also, since Runemaster has a prereq of at least two spell books in three different disciplines, you can invest in Nature and Chaos as two of those, giving you potential access to Change Terrain and Raise Volcano.

Dark Elves are only great in principle. The real-game problems include über-slow growth and rampant rebel-rousing xenophobia. For most of the benefit without all the headaches, start with High Elves or conquer the Beastmen ASAP.

Hmm...I don't know about that one. It may be possible, but it's going to take a long, long time. The highest I've ever gotten my Casting Skill is the mid-500s, and only then at the end of really, really long games where I controlled vast empires across both planes. Even with a CK that high, it still took me 12-13 turns to cast the Spell of Mastery.

Dark elves are problematic because of their slow growth, but they may be the best choice because they'll produce the most mana in the end, and your game is not going to be a short one anyway. You'll want to plant as many cities as you can as fast as you can, and keep going until every last bit of available turf is colonized. You may even want to wipe out any cities populated by non-magical races like trolls or dwarves and resettle those areas with dark elves.

This is assuming you manage to squash all the other wizards.

If you go dark and get Dark Rituals, you'll want to finish building you cities and then build housing to max the population first before casting it. Dark elves already have the worst growth rate in the game, and Dark Rituals might completely stall it before you get to size 25.

I've gotten to the point where I could cast the SoM in 5 or 6 turns, after lengthy campaigns in which I defeated all the wizards except one, who I beat back to (ideally) a single hamlet on an isolated island somewhere. (So basically, by casting the spell I was rubbing it in and running up the score. Go me!)

So 4 (or even 3) turns might be doable, in a campaign dedicated to maxing out spell skill for that very purpose. We'll have to see.

I've considered Runemaster/Artificer (and I've used it in several games), but it ony provides nearly infinite mana and easy high power artifacts for heroes. There are 3 issues with using that to pump out massive spell skill. 1) Neither retort boosts my power income or the power spent on skill. With a limit of 6 retorts, this combo actually prevents me from using at least one retort that DOES directly boost power income (archmage and 4 that multiply node income). 2) Once I've got a decent gold income, I just convert that as needed into mana to support my casting. Raise Volcano is somewhat expensive, but Change Terrain is fairly cheap. By the time I expect to be raising volcanoes, mana income just won't be a problem. 3) If I'm busy making artifacts, I'm not reshaping the land scape to my liking. :)

It was only recently that I realized just how good magic spirits are as scouts, so my early gold gets turned into mana to support a small handful of those, and since they check out every non-terrain feature they see, they can sort of pay for themselves after awhile off the free gold/mana. For defense and conquering, I generally get by with normal units. I already put everything into spell skill unless I want to get some research done post-haste. It has been quite awhile since I've actually stored any magic power as mana (though I was VERY addicated to Alchemy for a long time). Of course, some of this is possible because I'm not playing on Impossible.

If you want sheer power income, dark elves just can't be beat. While they can't build cathedrals, they do produce one mana for each citizen, regardless of whether that citizen is a rebel. All other magic producing races require 2 citizens to make a power point. A fully built dark elf city gives 31 power, while a fully built city from a magic race (with a cathedral) gives 22 power and a fully built non magic race gives 10 (or even a measly 1, for Klackons). The slow growth of the dark elves is offset somewhat by Gaia's Blessing and having very fertile land from Change Terrain; a different magic race would have to grow more than twice as quickly to out strip the mana production from the DE.

Rebels: They don't actively harm you, they just don't make hammers, food, or taxes. 2 Spearmen can quiet one rebel down for production and gold (slight loss on food) if needed, and if all (or nearly all) of your cities are Dark Elves, then the race mixing penalty doesn't really matter either. On the bright side, all Arcanus races have the same unrest penalty with Dark Elves (except Barbarians and High Elves), so that isn't a factor for choosing a starting race.

Starting race: I want something that can beat a tower early so I can start spreading the dark elf plague pronto. Gnolls (stable), Lizardmen (fighter guild), and Halflings (armory) are all good at this. Gnolls have extra attack and wolf riders are crazy fast, but they can't engage flying shooters well; javelineers and slingers can just open fire. Nomads have some very interesting possibilities, with cheap horsebowmen early and rangers later for the pathfinding. Nomads also have most of the relevant high level town buildings once I get established on Myrror. Barbarians are a little slower and rely on thrown attacks, and High Men and Orcs don't have anything that can compete at such low levels of building. One day I'll try spreading the Klackons far and wide, but not today. I'm not sure about High Elves; I like that +1 to hit, but the exra 2 rebels on top of what everyone else gives to all dark elf towns (until I can move my fortress) is a bit much. Naturally, if I started on Myrror, I'd just start with the Dark Elves.

Wizard requirements: I need Change Terrain (uncommon), Gaia's Blessing (rare), Raise Volcano (uncommon), and Dark Rituals (common). I'm also hoping for Move Fortress, since Myrran costs three picks and I can probably find a tower early. I need Archmage and Node/Nature/Chaos/Sorcery Mastery.

I only need 1 book in Death; two will guarentee Dark Ritual, but it is common so I can probably acquire it without much trouble later if I can't research it (and I don't need anything else from Death). Need 1 in Chaos (uncommon spell, so I might want a few more), and 3 in Nature to be able to get rare spells. More in Nature will reduce casting costs of my primary spells (and better shot at GB and MF). I'm torn about starting with 1 sorcery (hoping for Phantom Warriors) and Node Mastery. I could still get NM later without burning one of my 13 spell book slots on Sorcery just for PW.

Here's what I'm thinking for 11 picks:
-Archmage, Nature Mastery, Node Mastery
-1 Death (easier to find nature/chaos books than death books) (alternate, get extra Chaos book)
-1 Chaos
-5 Nature
-1 Sorcery (alternately, get 2 extra Nature books instead of Node Mastery)

Find Later:
-Chaos Mastery, Sorcery Mastery (yes, the great god Saveload will be worshipped in this game)
-Nature books
-A few Chaos books

I just ended a game where I got to 551 skill (848 with fully decked out heroes), and 2340 points on my Skill slider each turn. I'd popped sorcery/node/rune mastery and archmage, and Sharee started on Myrror and spread a bunch of dark elf cities for me. This game is what gave me the idea to go for massive power. Spell of Mastery is showing 4 turns at a cost of 3750.

There will, of course, be quite awhile farming spell skill.

It's not as hard as I thought it might be then. You should aim for 1 turn.

Well, I tried out my build last night, picking Nomads. The game proceeded to show me a giant, glaring weakness in my strategy: in order to blanket the world in Dark Elves, I first need a Dark Elf city. Just to rub it in, there has been no trace of Draconians, Beastmen, or High Elves either. Not so much as a mercenary from a mana producing race has shown up. Maybe this time I've actually been paying attention, but Myrror seems very sparsely populated (granted, all wizards started on Arcanus). On the bright side, Klackons seem to be absent as well. I picked up maybe a half-dozen Dwarf cities, and one measely 2 pop Troll hamlet (with no real growth prospects). And things started off so well, too...

Notes:
-Need to remember that a mass of sprites is much stronger than I expect.
-Good Idea: Using Black Sleep. Bad Idea: Trading Black Sleep.
-Grab a few neutral cities early to pay taxes for unit support and alchemy.
-Horsebowmen are cavalry with bows instead of first strike. This is an excellent trade, and an excellent unit for its cost with even a little experience. They have better stats than bowmen in all areas except figure count. In combat, reduce the number of figures in enemy units using ranged, then finish the units off in melee after you run out of arrows.
-Rangers could really use a Fighter's Guild, even if it isn't strictly required. Innate pathfinding with two move is awesome; waterwalking scouting and hitting unguarded outposts before they become hamlets is very easy.
-Build a few more strike force stacks to start taking lightly guarded nodes. Especially early, this is a lot of extra power income. Don't revert to building up capital city too early.
-Totally corrupting the land around an enemy's capital is surprisingly theraputic.
-Need to devote more resources to research early. A single library just isn't going to cut it.
-Don't forget to drop a unit on any nodes you control, so enemy wizards can't steal control without my noticing!!! No, that other thing you are doing isn't as important. Block towers too, no need to give enemy settlers free access.
-Phantom Warriors are great against melee units, not so much against ranged units.


Except for the glaring lack of magic races, this game actually went pretty well. I took a start with some ruins nearby and they happened to yield free gold/mana. My first magic spirit soon stumbled on Merlin. A stack of 6-7 horsebowmen took him out before he got more than 3 spear/swords guarding his capital. He even cleared a nature node for me before he went down. A little later, I follow the stream of lizard settlers back to Oberic's small island. Oberic's lizard shamen + sprite fortress guards were surprisingly hard to overwhelm; I had to use a mass of my own sprites to supplement my few inexperienced rangers.

I found Raven and Sharee not too long after. Sharee's mana stores surprised me; usually computers on this difficulty don't have much mana in reserve. However, I took her out with another mass of rangers and sprites, and Raven doesn't have the mana or resources to pose much threat.

This build is working out wonderfully with a node or two; I've already built more than 100 spell skill, and it still feels very early. I've explored most of Myrror already, so I think I'm just going to go cap Raven and then try again in a new game.

As the last little bit of "Ha Ha!", the game offered me two units of nightmares on the turn that I finish Awareness and confirm there are no Dark Elf cities.

Crush Raven, New Game!

Quest update: In the new game, things are now chugging along pretty well. After I finish terraforming and laying out cities, it will mostly be a lot of "End Turn" clicking.

-3/4 of enemy wizards have been eliminated, and Ariel's all life + charismatic fortress has been surrounded and contained (with a spearman on myrror to stop any planeshift nonsense). Repeated Earthquakes will help keep her honest.
-Arcanus and Myrror have been completely pacified (cleared of all neutrals).
-Burned nearly every race to the ground (2 nomad cities as wizard fortresses, 2 dwarves for engineers, 1 draconian for flying spearmen to guard points if I need them) except dark elves. I got sick of trying to reduce the population of cities before sacking them, so I decided to accept the fame hit (the point is 1 turn SoM, not high score) and move right along.
-Several dark elf cities are churning out settlers, and I'm starting to get some good coverage of Myrror. Arcanus will be next, and I'll be moving my fortress soon.
-All mainland tundra has received a volcano (and I realized I can probably convert all of the north/south pole areas into sites that can support a few more cities!).
-Gaia's blessing is up on all cities I own and ready to cast on every new outpost I start.
-6 demigod champions have returned to my fortress for additional spell casting (Mortu, Ravashack, Aerie, Alorra, Warrax, and a strong Mystic X (I couldn't believe his picks turned out so well, Super Arcane Power, some defense boost, and a mana pool buff). Finding regeneration in a ruin was a god-send for clearing the great wyrm nodes. Now I just need to equip everyone with spell skill boosting artifacts.
-10 nature books, 1 each of chaos/sorcery/death. Retorts: Archmage, Nature/Chaos/Sorcery/Node Mastery, Divine Power. I realized either Divine or Infernal Power could grant a few extra power income per city, so I jumped on those.

Now you're going to be dealing with a challenge of patience. You can win the game any time you like, so it's just a matter of keeping focus until you plant cities everywhere and crank them up to full output.

I've never been able to keep building once I get tot that point, but you have a goal, so good luck.

Everything was cruising along well, rapidly picking up speed as more cities finished erecting buildings and switched to settlers. Enough settlers were popping out that I started having some trouble giving each newly planted outpost Gaia's Blessing on the turn it went down (with >1000 spell skill!).

And then something happened: "Can't build any more outposts". Ariel had one city left and I had 98 when I counted from the city screen. I had a whole bunch of settlers moving to their spots when I get this message. I let the dozen or so current outpost sized settlements become hamlets, and I still can't build any more. It appears the game will only allow 99 cities. I imagine this isn't common information, because it probably can't come up very often. I was packing in cities on a large size map as tightly as I could manage after burning everything except two capitals and 3 dark elf cities (and the DE were already planted quite well). I'd even managed to finish volcanizing the poles in Myrror and dropped several cities there.

With this entirely unexpected development, I think I'm going to abandon this goal for the foreseeable future. I was already questioning how long I'd last after everything settled down and all I had left to do was click "End Turn" and hit Ariel with periodic earthquakes to keep her busy.

Lessons Learned, if anyone wants to try in the future:
-The dark elf growth rate turned out to be a non-issue after things get moving. Granary, farmer's market, forester's guild, animist guild, gaia's blessing, and change terrain will massively overcompensate for the -20 growth penalty.
-There is zero reason to ever colonize the arctic edges of the map. However, if you raise a volcano in the tundra at the poles in the right way, then you can generate a few new land spaces around where the pathfinding gets a little funny (where the map edges apparently overlap). This is nothing more than a novelty. You also get the standard +1 power per volcano if you convert the poles.
-The game can't handle 100 cities. This is only an issue in very particular circumstances.
-On reflection, I'd advise taking Runemaster as the 6th pick instead of Divine/Infernal Power. D/I Power's +295 power per turn (assuming all cities have a parthenon) just can't compete with Runemaster knocking well over 1000 points off the casting cost of Spell of Mastery.

I've attached screen shots of the magic screen on the turn before I won, and the victory screen after I cast the Spell of Mastery (5 turns with heroes in capital). I pretty much lost heart after seeing the cap on cities, so I didn't bother to finish filling out my town population. I had a lot of newly minted hamlets just waiting for some terraforming and food structures. I'm keeping the saved game for now; if anyone wants it to take a look around or to maybe take up where I left off, just let me know.

Forgive me for injecting some levity into your obvious frustration, but this was my takeaway from your post:

"I got 99 cities, then a glitch ate one."

I hope that at least cheers you up a bit; rather than, say, wanting to punch me in the face through your monitor. :p


EDITED TO ADD: For the record, there's also a known hard cap of 1,000 troops worldwide. If everyone garrisons a full nine in each city, that's 99 x 9 = 891, leaving barely 100 troops available to roam the world, guarding nodes and amassing for an attack. (Summoned creatures are included in that total; I'm not sure whether heroes are as well, but I suspect so. Ditto with the creatures found in unconquered towers, lairs and nodes.)

With one or more aggressively military wizards, it's possible to bump up against that hard cap well before the game ends; the only solution is to reduce their troops in order to add more of your own.

If I weren't at work, I'd have laughed out loud at that. As it is, I needed to suppress myself.
My initial reaction when the error message first popped up was along the lines of "wut?". I was left with close to two dozen settlers standing around staring at the country side, going "Man, this looks like a great spot. I think I'll just stand here."


I'm not sure if I knew about that hard cap. I know there is a unit limit in Civ 3, but I don't think I've ever played on a high enough difficulty to hit the unit cap in MoM (I tend to use only a few stacks for attacking, and I usually defend with 2 spearmen and magic). I'm pretty sure heroes count against the limit, but I suspect critters standing around in ruins don't count (the game doesn't need to record their location, just record the number/type of defenders as part of the ruin data). Neutrals roaming the map or guarding cities certainly would count, though.

This is my experience as well. On top of everything else, the arctic map squares behave strangely.

Considering the caps on cities and troops, I would not pack settlements close together, but space them out in the most favorable locations so when they reach their ultimate development you get the highest quality returns.

Managing that many cities isn't fun anyway. At best it's boring because all you do is end your turn over and over.