I like having 3-4 Klackon cities in my empire because beetles are that good, but I hate seeing AI wizards with a Klackon capital or a continent that "mained Klackon" for neutral cities because either one means the bugs are going to be all over the place. Their infrastructure is mostly terrible except for Production and the unrest is also annoyingly high, so they don't do nearly as well if they aren't your capital.

This was a one-off fun run though, just to see how it would work out. It works just fine if you can get going (I wasn't harassed very much at all in the early game, and several early halberds helped clear nearby areas), if there aren't too many enemies that heavily target Resistance (definitely the Klackon weak stat), and if you don't mind having very low magic. By building my wizard around the race, I did have fun. The game ended with Klackons being the only kind of city around, and all of them mine! Mwa ha ha ha ha! Only 39038209582 more turns to research and cast the Spell of Mastery!

They can also struggle with water, being limited to Triemes. The Production bonus does a lot to help offset this, but you're going to need a dozen or so boats to move large numbers of beetles to the next land mass.

Goblins race is said to be added in the latest MOM ($40 US undiscounted price @ GOG) along w some new heroes. Any opinions as I consider buying this latest MOM, given that already I own the original & "Caster of Magic for Windows" older GOG versions of MOM? Graphics & interface changes don't matter to me. What are Goblins like to play & oppose in a Random map game? In particular, can they build roads? As a strategy gamer aware of how Rome relied on roads in it's empire, I wind up tailoring my starting race selection to only those races that road build (eg Beastmen) and I enjoy starting on Myrror. (I know I can start with any race and HOPE the random game has dwarfs etc that can build roads if I start as a no-road-builder race like trolls). Also, is the goblin natural starting world the arcane "non-magical" world, as for orcs & humans, or is it the magical realm of Myrror, as for trolls & beastmen? Overall how much extra strategic challenge is there in the latest version of MOM sold @ GOG today (6/29/23) for $40 list price?

The "new MOM" is a wildly different player experience than any flavor of classic MOM. You should base your consideration of whether you want it on other things than just an added race etc. There are other threads on what that game is like and you should review them. (also read the reviews)

I don't know. I don't have the new release, and I have no intention of getting it.

Nearly a year later, time for another game.

Pro Tip: If you want to have a fun run with Hell Hounds overrunning the world, consider map hacking first to make sure you aren't stuck on a small mountainous island. My build was a Chaos conjuration build backed by Barbarians, intended to summon hordes of hell hounds that transition into Berserkers, then adjust as needed.

Barbarians are nice enough, but I really did plan on having more than 5 cities on my starting land mass. I also planned on having things to conquer besides a Tower of Wizardry and a couple of ruins; I planted all the extra cities myself. Happily, the tower was pretty easy to crack with the hounds, and they did a decent job bringing a troll city and some beastmen and dwarves into the empire. Again, pretty terrible land for city growth, though.

Berserkers are completely unable to deal with a Great Wyrm. They also fall apart against a Demon Lord. I didn't even try to the Sky Drake fights. That's several nodes and ruins I'll have to return to later; hopefully they don't spawn anything too horrific on me.

The AI were left uncontested for a concerningly long time, and Tlaloc started sending wraiths to...somewhere. I have no idea what the plan was, since the only thing on his apparent flight path was the top of the map. There was a node, which he did briefly take from me, but that's it. Fortunately for me, the AI is approximately as smart as a brick, and he didn't seem to care about taking any of my cities. I learned that Berserkers trade very poorly against Wraiths; the life steal tends to keep the wraiths limping along while the berserkers get torn up. Several berserkers can team up on a single wraith and expect good odds on a win, but you really want Elites so their resist reaches 10; regulars suffer hard, and a weakened berserker is food for a weakened wraith. If there's more than about 3 wraiths, even a full stack of berserkers is almost certainly going to lose hard. The wraiths just tear them apart too easily, and the extra wraiths mean the berserkers can't gang up to finish anything.

I'm happy to report that Galleys make for excellent transports, unlike the Triremes trying to shuttle beetles around (see previous game report). 3 galleys have been efficient enough at moving large masses of troops across multiple islands that I haven't felt the need to build more. The extra transport capacity and movement are huge.

Gargoyles are okay in taking hits, but their attack strength is pretty abysmal for their cost. They can handle sinking small numbers of triremes, and maybe some other light fighting, but sadly 4 attack is so low that enemy units get more opportunities for lucky hits. Interestingly, a Gargoyle vs Night Stalker 1v1 is something of a coin toss; each gargoyle figure has a good chance to make that save each time, but they need to make a lot of saves while trying to kill the stalker. My 'goyles failed to win their bout, but the night stalker was very badly injured before it was over.

Doom Bats are also pretty mediocre combat units. They sacrifice a little too much defense for their higher attack (compared to gargoyles), considering they are a single figure unit. They are absolutely wonderful as scouts though. Costly scouts, but you don't need many running around in order to check on just about anything you'd like. Gargoyles can serve somewhat the same purpose, flying around, keeping watch, and occasionally sniping something weak.

With my small and poor terrain, the AI had a lot of time to get established. Tlaloc kept sending wraiths nosing around, Horus and Oberic are on a very large land mass farther away, and Freya is repeatedly summoning Behemoths! I did consider a few times just abandoning this game.

First up is stopping the trickle of wraiths before they get serious. I found a crack in Tlaloc's defenses; while he parked 9(!) wraiths in his capital and in another forward city, and I had to keep sniping single wraiths while they weren't stacked with anything, I was able to take a city defended by regular units with my rising berserker numbers. From there, I skipped the wraith city and went looking for other targets, slowly claiming more and more cities. A Chaos Rift went up over Tlaloc's capital to start chipping away at wraith hp, a couple fire storms to hopefully help, and finally it was time to go for the kill. A pair of small attacks used up his stored mana while allowing a flame strike at the defenders, then the real assault was able to pick apart the badly weakened undead flyers. Conquering this island of decently developed High Men and Halflings solved my food, gold, and future infrastructure problems in one fell swoop.

During this war, I learned that I misunderstood how Wrack works: It doesn't target every unit for 1 damage, it targets every figure in every unit! Berserkers are durable and resistant enough to cope, but Halflings really suffer with their high figure count. This spell is a lot stronger than I thought even with that +1 to enemy attempts to resist. Black Prayer makes it even worse, if you can use both.

A couple paladins showed their faces during the Tlaloc war, and I'd like to report that while Wraiths wreck Berserkers and Paladins (probably) wreck Wraiths, Berserkers wreck Paladins pretty well. It might go the other way if the Paladins got to use their First Strike instead of Berserkers using their Throwing, but AI dumb.

Horus is an angry guy, being as at war with everyone as I am. Since he's sharing a continent with Oberic, leaving Freya all alone on Myrror, I decide nature girl needs to be my next target. Also, the constant Behemoth production is scary. Happily for my current situation, her land mass is also pretty poor in terrain (lots of deserts and mountains), and the AI is too dumb to use all that nature magic to fix it. I won't be able to fix it either, but at least I'll be able to fight. She has spread Draconian and Dwarf cities out pretty well, so there's a fair bit of fighting to do. She's also had time to amass a pretty good spell skill and Hard difficulty is keeping her supplied with mana, so even skirmishes with single weak units tend to be bloody. Cracks Call has drastically reduced the War Troll count, and a combination of Cracks Call and Ice Bolts have made the guy who runs my unit payroll happy, removing more than a few berserkers and slingers.

I've found that a group of Berserkers actually do a pretty good job against Behemoths, in a many vs one scenario. Figure 3 or 4 zerks can kill a behemoth as long as the zerks can all gang up on it? Even Iron Skin didn't seriously change the math. Much like Wraiths though, I think a stack of behemoths will be untenable for getting any kills before the berserkers are wiped out. Unfortunately for me, Freya has chosen to guard her capital with 5 behemoths, 3 basilisks, and her version of the champion Deth Stryke. I'll just...come back later. This might be one of the best guarded AI capitals I've ever seen, and I do not have a plan for this.

Efreet is my strongest available summon. Speaking of which, I need to call up a few and see how they perform. Berserkers, Slingers, and War Trolls have been slow pushing for me, and I have enough cities producing that attrition is no longer a concern. I still dread the blood bath that would be necessary to win against such a beefy horde. I may need to just take the rest of her empire and then see if she can still pay all that maintenance. I fear the answer might be "yes", and these aren't Death creatures so Chaos Rift attrition isn't going to be a thing before the heat death of the universe.

With no wizard intervention, a stack of 8 Berserkers with assorted magic and mithral weapons can beat a pair of Iron Skinned Behemoths. Most of the berserkers will be dead or critically injured afterward, but they came out on top. One more behemoth would have been one too many, even with a brain dead AI. Liberal use of Thrown weapons is also necessary.

Looks like that Iron Skin was doing a lot of work. A full stack of Berserkers nearly managed to win against the Behemoth/Basilisk/Champion defenders. Granted, the defenders had no magical support, while the Berserkers had the advantage of Metal Fires and Disrupt to reduce the wall defense. Also, it probably wouldn't have been nearly so close if the wall hadn't existed and locked the AI inside the city, since all the behemoths would have come out to rampage and prevent focused fire.

I did find the Great Drake spell when cracking something, and those are proving solid tanks for my newly summoned champions. Good damage and they can take several hits. I'll have to try sending some against a Great Wyrm to see what happens. Oberic did show me that Dispel Evil can just end a Great Drake, so that was fun.

Chaos Channeled War Trolls (demon wings every time, somehow!) with Eldritch Weapon actually did a pretty decent job against a single Archangel. I'm finding that War Trolls actually aren't all that great at combat, attrition just isn't a thing for them.

Unicorns supported by an Archangel held up quite well against a flame strike.

I've got an Efreet following the heroes around. I'm not sure that I care for it; it doesn't quite have enough of anything to excel in any task. Okay attack, okay magic attack, semi-okay defense, good flying speed, and it can cast a chaos spell or two. It just doesn't do anything well enough to have a niche.

Inspired by the recent discussion on 11 book strategies, I went back to 11 book Sorcery to try out Storm Giants, supported by a Nomad starting city.

Storm Giants are functional, but it is not a fast strategy. They are okay units, but they don't solo the way wraiths, gorgons, or basilisks can. I wasn't left with a feeling of weakness like from Fire Giants, probably because of the extra ammo and the armor piercing. Storm giants really want at least half a stack of them to get the momentum to be effective. They make decent fire support for a stack of other units, where the giants fire off salvos then move in to help finish the fight. I found that it takes about 3 storm giant shots to kill or critically injure a phantom beast in a sorcery node, and the giant should be able to win the exchange to finish it if the 3 bolts don't quite do the job. Multiple beasts mean you need multiple giants.

I didn't test them out against much more than medium strength targets, so I'm still not sure if they cut it when the traffic gets heavy. I was very pleasantly surprised by how quickly the giants would heal, especially in town. I think I'm more used to units taking longer to heal because my units tend to be multi-figure, and units take longer to recover figures than to recover hearts. Other magics also tend to have ways to recover health on non-expendable units.

I had a good stack of giants roaming, but a mana short came along and I decided to sacrifice them to avoid the maintenance costs. I just didn't have the gold to compensate for some unknown length of time. This game was plagued by constant mana needs, no doubt in part because I made liberal use of Mass Invisibility to help deal with hostile wizard stacks. I never did get around to resummoning more of them; I had champions by that point and spent my time and mana enchanting them with Flight, Magic Immune, Guardian Wind, etc.

Ariel got rolled by a giant or two really, really early (she started very nearby). Her halflings were a definite boon to the empire. Several Klackon cities also helped provide physical might once they finished infrastructure. I enjoyed Enchanted Roads on Arcanus; that greatly, greatly helped my empire, even if I did need to devote guards to it afterward.

Freya cost me a very large number of stag beetles through Crack's Call. Expected, but still annoying.
Kali's large waves of Dark Elf priests were painful, but Magic Immunity helped deal with them.

The real nightmare was Tlaloc's warlorded halflings. That was a lot of pain packed in tiny ultra elite bodies. Wolf riders, slingers, and rangers mostly did a good job of eating sling stones with their broken faces while the beetles charged. It worked, but there was certainly a body count. Mass Invisibiity was a wonderful life saver.

I noticed/re-realized that Sorcery isn't really a direct magic. It is very much about changing the rules to tilt things your way, but that means you need to get the lethal force from somewhere else. Those rule changes can be huge, but you still have to bring something else to extract those slingers from behind their walls.

I did get a solid interaction with Nomad Griffins, and I'm quite impressed with them. Flying, first strike, armor piercing, and decent stats across the board. Super expensive infrastructure, but very good unit. Would use again.

Tried a second game with the Storm Giants. They feel good as an 11 book strategy for Sorcery, but I'm concerned they depreciate enough in relative power-to-cost to mostly only matter in that kind of scenario. Not having that 40% book discount would hurt viability, and I suspect they show up late enough that you'll already have other options in place before they can hit the field if you don't get them really early.

The extra books and abilities from nodes did let me try out "Free Sky Drakes" this game. Just sitting down and conquering most of Myrror in a turn with unlimited Sky Drakes was amusing, but I don't feel the urge to push for a repeat now that I've tried it.

11 book Chaos, taking Chimera, Doom Bat, and Efreet. It dawned on me that Hell Hounds might be part of the 11 book Chaos strategy, though I didn't employ them much this time around.

I started out summoning Chimera, and they feel good to use. Makes me think a lot of Griffins, though obviously First Strike and Fire Breathing have different counters. They are somewhat pricey to get going, but affordable for 11 books, and they have good conquest potential even as a solo unit. Doom bats make good scouts (and can occasionally eliminate stacks of spears and swords) after you get a bit of mana base, and one or two will let you use your slower Chimera as assault troops instead of scouts. Kudos to Malachi151 for pointing out how solid the Chimera is; I never regretted using them.

Efreet surprised me. One did quite well against swords and spears, which frankly left me feeling uncomfortable and wondering "Wait, is this actually a good unit?". Then I sent one against a ruin with 5 sprites; the sprites wrecked the Efreet and all was once again right with the world. I think the Efreet did so well earlier because it could soften up the already weak swords and spears before entering melee with its 7 defense.

My recent experience with Storm Giants makes me suspect that maybe the Efreet is another squad type unit; they have a couple different options starting with 6 magic attacks, with Fire Elemental, Disrupt, Warp Wood, and Shatter being available in place of some of those magic attacks. It has good speed too, and an okay defense even if its melee attack is somewhat lacking for a Rare summon. So perhaps Efreet are best used as a back line support unit or by grouping several of them as a rapid attack squadron that bring their own reinforcements and debuffs during battle.

I like Hydras. They're almost too slow to be truly viable, but otherwise a powerful unit thanks to 9 figures (basically) and regeneration.

Paladins backed by Warlord and Crusade are exactly as horrifying as they should be.

I prefer playing dwarves on a single large continent. Adamantium hammerhands are a mighty attack unit while their fast engineers can road the whole continent giving instant access to every tower. Dwarven towns are more productive and also get double the taxation revenue and double any resource bonuses.

Dwarves are indeed a strong race. Perhaps one of the stronger Myrran races.

If I had to rank the Myrran races against each other from strongest to weakest, I'd probably say Draconian, Dwarves, Trolls, Dark Elves, and Beastmen. That's in a general sense; Dark Elves are easily supreme if you're heavily focused on power generation. That's also a really close ranking, and I don't think I could blame someone for just about any ordering.