Never said it was not fun, just that playing MoM now, does not "Feel" the same for me as it did back then.

YMMV

Lee

No, that's a dead site where it once was.

Try Petrell's Domain.

Note that this is not "MoM 2.0", which is more a rebalance, such as we're seeing with the current "WOM mods".

This link is for "MoM 1.40f", apparently an independantly developed patch to the executable.
Of course, it is not the full game download. That would be warez and the moderators would have to delete this post. =P

It fixes a crapload of real bugs and has a lot of interface improvements, such as giving you some idea on how many monsters
     (not just what type) will be in a lair you "scout".
AI heroes can be pretty tough cookies because the AI creates and gives them items.
Units that can "see invisible" can actually shoot invisible units... because they like... can see them, y'know?
Just a small teaser. There are tons of fixes and the AI generally uses a lot more game features.

The MoM AI won't suddenly become "very good" but it's far less exploitable with these loopholes fixed.
Right now, the MoM AI is still better than the "no AI" in WoM but this lead isn't going to last.

IMO, balance can add to the fun. That's why some worry about it.

I don't agree that only MP games need balance. Some people have fun when things are reasonably balanced and where choices can make the difference in their success. Not all fun is the same for all people.

Well there's a right way to be poorly balanced in a single player game and a wrong way. The right way is to have lots different classes or factions which play extremely differently, but which are not equally strong. One might be better, but people will still have fun playing through all the different ones in order to get the experience of it. And the differences should not be so blatant that you can say one is better then the other in every possible way.

The wrong way to be poorly balanced is to give someone choices in the game which are rendered meaningless because one is strictly better. For example in MoM, especially in the early versions, summoned troops were poorly balanced in that they were extremely weak compared to mundane troops. Even the best summoned could be wiped out by a single unit of pikemen or something along those lines. This is a not fun balance issue, because it limits your options by punishing you for summoning.

Well I agree it makes for a really fun game, but it's not necesarily balanced. An example would be in Diablo 2 when it first came out, most would agree that the barbarian was the strongest class. But you could still play as the sorceress or necromancer and have a lot of fun and have a completely different game experience, even though you'd have a harder time. It wasn't balanced, but it was still lots of fun and much more interesting then if the classes had been balanced but too similar. You couldn't say the barbarian was strictly better because other classes could do lots of things that he couldn't. But you could say he had a much easier time succeeding at the game.

To continue the Diablo 2 example though, what wasn't fun was when certain skills and powers were so much weaker then others that you would never take them. This was fairly common in the game, and at least until the final version there were lots of skills skills that might look cool but which would severaly penalize you if dared to invest points in them, thus dramatically reducing your options in the game. This is where balance in a single player game is much more important.

I'm confused about the concept of balanced being used here. In MoM there were definately race and wizard pick combos which would in general make the game easier, or harder. I don't think the developers ever intended otherwise. If you discover how "easy" the game is taking all Death books and walloping the planet with those wraiths, try something different! It's true that once you get your killer stack assembled, the AI will probably lose (even against a human, you'd likely win) but it's getting to that point which is the game.

 Someone said earlier that "any focused strategy AT ALL with any race spelled certain victory - no matter what." Having played MoM through 100's of times (along with many other PC stragey games since day 1), I'm going to have to say that this is simply incorrect. The only way you could make this claim would be if a) You were playing on Normal or lower difficulty,  if you were exploiting some AI glitch, or c) you weren't counting games with poorly generated starting positions. On Hard or Impossible you can get wasted by the friggan raiders while exploring in the early turns if you get dealt a poor hand, or you so cripple your economics by garrisoning your first town instead of exploring that you're going to be stepped over for the rest of the game.

It is fair to say that when playing on Impossible that the AI isn't so much a genius, but cheating with huges bonuses. The end result is that unless you play well, you will get your butt kicked. I contend that nobody is ever going to make an AI capable of perfectly managing the enemy in a game with as many variables/strategies as MoM offered.

-Morloc

a. Abandonware is a legal fiction.

b. GOG (Good Old Games) is selling MoM, which means it can no longer be considered abandonware.

That's the bit that some will never get.
Having one "good" option and many "crappy" options may be unbalanced but that does not equal fun.
Intentionally choosing a bad option which is nothing but worse and simply doesn't work is not a choice. It's merely stupid.
A balanced game means that options are different. Not just good or bad but 2-dimensional balance!

While MoM isn't exactly a shining example of balance overall, it illustrates that particular point very well.
Live and Chaos books.
Life is all buffs, protection, and healing, while Chaos is boom boom kick their butt, burn their cities, corrupt their land.

They could hardly be more different but which one is the "better" magic?
You can win equally easy with either - but in different ways.

And that is "good" balance.
Bad balance limits the content of the game to those parts "that work" and why would anyone want a game where 80% of the content are "that crap that noone ever uses"?

Currently, WoM is an example of bad balance.
Since Elements and Magic are the name of the game, one would assume that winning "by magic" is an option.
Wrong. With the exception of some extremely OP summoned creatures, magic is largely inconsequenial except for taxiing troops around.

If  Elemental:Magic and Elemental:Troops were different games they might actually work.
Too bad they scale by strictly separate mechanics so they cannot both work like that in the same game.

If you're asking for a purposely imbalanced game that's like asking for a game of chess where black has the same pieces as white - but only half the number.

A balanced game might be when the sides are equal and black has no rooks but two queens instead of one.
Different, yes, but either side could win.

GalCiv is a very well balanced game because entirely different strategies can interact and even win. The super diplomat can defeat the warlord... without ever firing a shot.
Now try winning a game of WOM through diplomacy. It's one of the victory conditions...

So yes, it's true. Without balance you have no options. Only the one strategy that works and that's terribly boring.

And MoM was in fact balanced, too. Just not in all it's myriad of combinations.
Imbalanced would be if the Chaos book would be equal to Life in the heal/protect department but still maintain a huge lead in direct buttkicking.
But it doesn't have that. No Invulnerability, Heal, Prayer, and whatnot...

So MoM is good because it's balanced. That's why the book/retort picks have different costs and you only get a limited number. To balance them.

Obviously a lot about it could still be improved. Some units or spells are just way over the top and the (now lost?) MoM 2.0 patch had addressed a lot of those funky spikes in the curve.

The important part is : is the AI able to actually use diplomacy this time, or is it still just auto-attacking you randomly ?

Well, there is a difference between "perfect balance" and "so blatantly overpowered that you steamroll everything easily". The imbalance in MoM was of the latter kind

Paladins were insanely powerful for a "regular" unit, a champion with some strong enchantements and items could RAZE THE WHOLE MAP, including all the AI, by himself - I remember my Demi-God Warrax, at least when MoM said "demi-god", it actually meant it... what a powerhouse...

Well My love goes to the AOW games which was largly based on MOM and in my opinon much better.

Escpecially since you could get those hammers in less than 20 turns.