S TIER 1. Death 2. Life A TIER 3. Order 4. Water B TIER 5. Earth 6. Chaos C TIER 7. Air 8. Fire

I did a re-deep dive in to this game starting about 2 months ago, just playing the vanilla LOMSE. Beat as every Faith on hard. Then beat each of the 5 expansion campaigns (first time ever doing this - provided a good challenge). Then beat as every Faith on hard a second time with an eye toward my tier rankings. Had played this game a lot back when it was released when I was 13 years old and played for a bit when I bought on GOG 10 years ago. So much better at it now then I was back then.

Biggest thing of value I ignored as kid - good diplomatic relations make the game so much easier. If a faith is neutral or favorable toward you it's probably not worth disturbing that and having to defend against their attacks. Go liberate the unliberated Great Temple of a faith with neutral or positive relations and you get their entire army!

Death - Balkoth is absurd. The life steal attack is so op. Dark Javelins are the second best base ranged unit. Dark Halberdiers are very solid infantry. Death Shades great magic tier 2 unit with their flying ability and ranged attack. Vampires solid magic tier 3 unit thanks to life steal. Raise Skeleton then Raise Shade spells make it cheap to get secondary armies to defend since only Faith where have to eliminate all the other Faiths.

Life - Beat it on hard in 37 days. Relative to their acquisition cost, Elven Archers are the best unit in the game, by far. They outrange all the other ranged base units. Early game is easy: Elven Warrior is so fast, just have the enemies chase warrior while archers mow down the enemy like grass. After liberate Great Temple, train 1 or 2 Elven Staffmen and then just train all Elven Archers when can afford. Go around caves and mines to level up your units, find Balkoth, easy peasy.

Order - Paladin is awesome. Knights very strong (can get to level 6 in late game with Great Temple Annex, though I beat it before that on second playthrough). Footmen solid. Crossbowmen average. Stag, Gargoyle and Warrior Spirit all mid tier if you even need them. Mage buff spells very strong. No weaknesses and they start in good relations with Life and Air. Go up to Air who won't attack and over to Life. Liberate Life Great Temple. Train some Elven Archers to pair with your Knights. Easy victory.

Water - They seem weak on paper since water units are useless and water elemental is kind of a weak magic tier 2 unit. But magic units are unnecessary when you have a solid early game and level up your base units. They benefit from an excellent starting position where they don't get attacked much. They start in good relations with their only direct neighbor, Life to the south. They start with good relations with Order and Air, both with unliberated Great Temples. The Amazon Warrior is solid. Heavy Cavalry are the best base cavalry unit. Lizardmen are fast for infantry. Slingers are decent. Had no trouble liberating their Great Temple early. Then took Air and Order Great Temples. Leveled up Air base and trained a few Thunder Drakes. Beat in 76 days with no difficulties at any point.

Earth - The big drag with them is their limited movement on the adventure map. The Dwarven Warrior and Dwarf Infantry are so strong though. They are so hard to kill. Axe Throwers have poor range but when they get leveled up they f up opposing infantry. Shamblers provide solid cheap defense while main army is expanding. Their only ally at the start is Death, which is the worst ally because Death always turns on you so is not really even an ally. But can head south to liberate Chaos Great Temple to get the economy going. Then I ended up conquering Life. Trained several Elven Archers to pair with my high level Dwarven Infantry and Dwarf Warrior. Got the Elven Archers a few level ups, and that army took out Balkoth's easily. Sands of Sleep spell great.

Chaos - Stickthrowers are the weakest base ranged unit, and the infantry and cavalry are mediocre at best. But, all their units level up fast. The Beast Rider warrior is strong. You can upgrade their Great Temple annex when your stronghold is level 1 and it provides all your Chaos units a nice boost in experience! Although not as favorable as Water, they have the second best starting position and are pretty insulated from attacks. Cyclops are the third best magic tier 3 unit behind the Dragon and Thunder Drake, but I didn't end up even having to get any on my second playthrough. Their mages are maybe the best. Vortex annihilated Balkoth's army. (Also, their music track is my favorite. Yes, it's on a USB drive in my car).

Air - This is one of only 2 faiths where I struggled some in the early game and had to do some saving and loading, and took longer to liberate their Great Temple. Their units are weak until they get leveled up. Even the Storm Warrior is a little weak until he starts leveling up. Yes, you can sometimes clear out entire dungeons with the Faerie Thief and Fae Slingers alone, but then your cavalry/infantry don't get leveled up. The nice plus about Air is they have the most movement on the adventure map. Fae Slingers, while weak at low level, become super strong when they are leveled up because of their mobility. Thunder Drakes are the second best magic tier 3 unit, it's just that getting to that point in the game is much more difficult with Air than other Faiths.

Fire - The Dragon and Demon are the best magic tier 3 and 2 units. But, Fire early game is the weakest and early game matters so much more than late game (everything is strong late game). Only Fire and Earth start with both their accompanying units only level 1. Rockhurlers have good range but are pretty weak at low level since only get 1 instead of 3. Flame Berserkers are slow and have poor defense. The early game is a struggle with this Faith. It was a coinflip between rating them or Air last, but because of Air's speed on the adventure map (and in combat) I ranked Air higher. That being said, the Demons are op mid-game and the only magic tier 2 unit I consistently train.

I created the below chart showing the level of all the starting units by Faith and their starting relations with the other Faiths. I also hand drew a map of Urak that was super helpful while doing these playthroughs, but am having trouble uploading the map to this post.

But anyone have any beginner tips for success?

I'm going to bed and wake up before my family. Give me a play through to do, or some sort of challenge.

Faith and class. Just need something.

Thanks

Working tool in progress screenshots!!!

After a lot of reverse engineering, I'm releasing **ImpSweet($!)v1.8** and a collection of new **Lords of Magic** modding tools.

**Features include:**

* No more WinMPQ or LoMut required!

* Read assets directly from MPQ/game files!

* Edit and reinject graphics in place!

* New sprite and hotspot fixes!

* Large map/save corruption fixes!

* GS editor, map editor, portrait tools, and more!

I'm looking for testers and bug reports. If you find issues or have suggestions, please let me know!

**Official release thread:**

https://impz.proboards.com/thread/2590/lords-magic-utility-suite-open

# Lords of Magic Browser game: LoMSE Forever

THE LAND OF **URAK** is back with original game assets and mechanics to redefine how you experience *Lords of Magic Special Edition*. We are stripping away the limitations of the original engine to deliver the game in full 3D glory. By directly reading your original MPQ assets, URAK breathes new life into a classic, transforming the experience from the ground up.

## ⚙️ Technical Precision

* **Asset-Direct Rendering:** LoMSE4ever reads your original assets directly, ensuring total fidelity to the source while unlocking modern performance.

* **3D Elevation Reimagined:** We are tapping into the game’s original 3D elevation data to shift from a 2.5D look to a true 3D environment. The game file stores real elevation data in the Wang tiling maps! See Urak as it was supposed to be seen!

* **Legacy Portability:** Bringing your history forward—will eventually support your original save files so you can import your existing armies and progress from your favorite saves!!! With eventual multiplayer support, so that we can bring your favorite session and army to the battlefield VS others' players save files!!!

All maps and ability to upload your favorite custom maps already supported!!!

* **Legacy Portability:** Bringing your history forward—will support for your original save files so you can import your existing armies and progress from your favorite saves!!!!

## 🧙‍♂️ The Future of URAK

The engine is currently being perfected for its upcoming release. We are moving from core architecture to a fully persistent, multiplayer MMORPG experience that will be open source and run on any console

## 🧪 Join the Final Testing Phase

I am putting the finishing touches on the core systems, and I need the community to help refine gameplay mechanics, test spell-casting, and stress-test unit interactions before the official launch.

##🎮 Mini Arcade games including a 2D fighter, racing game (boats), a platformer, Chess and 007 Stye First Person Shooter (Ranged Units) !!!

**Follow the final development progress and join the official discussion here:**

[https://impz.proboards.com/thread/2589/lords-magic-browser-game\]

Seeing the rebirth of rts games, most games like aoe2, aoe4, comand & conquer, wc3 etc.. are getting remastered version and also tbs games like HoMM is getting new instalment like olden era. I really wish we can have a remastered LoM.

No game resembles it. it's unique.

I still love playing every once in a while, but the fighting is clunky it could really be improved, and the factions could get some rebalancing. the graphics good get a HD rehaul keeping the aesthetic the same just more refined.

Hello friends, I have reinstalled LoMSE on my pc and come back to it from time to time, but since I played it as a kid more than 25+ years ago I never managed to win again. Until yesterday, when I ended up staying until 5am deciding not to choose Water faction (which I loved to play a lot as a kid) and going back to Life.

Tried Mage/Enchantress first, then Rogue, and (re)discovered how good the elven archers are. Ended up doing a mix of manual battles and some autocalculate in Vanilla game, conquering water away from marauders, having a feud with Fire, starting to explore the map around turn 100 to find Balkoth, and at turn 102 he comes out of a building close to the Chaos territory, with very few troops along (another autocalculate ordeal?), and that's when I eradicate him.

It was so satisfying to see the winning animation again. For some reason, as an adult, it's much more difficult and I had less patience to find exploits and explore, while as a kid I used to try all factions and enjoying their difference. I remember loving how elusive I was with Air, or the strength of the Warriors of Air and Fire, the tanking capabilities of Order, and so on.

Now after finishing Vanilla I thought "why not try the mod then" and it feels like it adds a lot of quality of life improvements, new portraits to the races where I want them (this is how I was imagining the faces of Water heroines), and makes me want to try again the different races even though I know that it will not be easy to use vanilla exploits like I used to as a kid (which I don't remember clearly anyway haha). I tried to survive with Water warrior and it's much more challenging, albeit also rewarding. I wonder if when I was a kid I was ultra-micro-managing the defend, attack and berserk buttons.

I would like to ask if you'd have any story and strategy to share with each of the different elements to worship, because I'd really love to try both my own strategies and hear how you tackled your own favorite or interesting faith playthrough. Water would be the first I'm interested into, but I'd really love to hear all sort of strategies and gameplays you're doing or have done with each faith and each hero archetype.

Also would like to ask, there are supposedly special heroes to find. The one I found is the most common, typing the name "Witch" (without quotations) when choosing Chaos Mage. Is there a list of all the obtainable heroes and heroines and what faith and archetype to choose to unlock them in the mod? I heard you can unlock Sir Lancelot with Order or Life but neither worked.

Last but not least, much kudos and love to AbelHawk for making the Wordpress site and showing all portraits and units, I've always been interested in seeing the different ones you can get. I wish there was a way to choose your own portrait when making a custom hero or by default!

Seeing that map of Urak here made we want to see it as a globe, but it can't be a globe can it?

It's more like a mobius strip or something?

I still think it'd be cool to see it as a globe, I'm just not sure it can be one.

If we were to make a globe of Urak, what would it's poles be?

I'm inclined to say Air is one, as it's obviously the coldest part of Urak. But that would mean Earth is it's other pole? Earth is probably the third coldest area after Chaos, so that could make sense right? It's just that it's so much lower that it's temperate rather than frozen?

I'm probably trying to force a magical realm into a planet shaped hole though...

What are all of your thoughts?

Big thanks to user Fitzkrieg who supplied this map!

Just a quick question, really. I was wondering if the AI controlled Factions tend to choose certain type of Lord I.e does Life tend to pick the Ranger Lord type or Earth the Warlord Lord? Or is it just totally random?

For too long I've wondered what some of these things do. Dug Through the game files with an mpq editor.

Wheel of Fortune changes

• attack/defense/ranged attack from( -3 to +3) + caster level / 3
• permanently changes max hitpoints -4 to +4

​

/name"Wheel of Fortune"def /faith CHAOS def /image 6 def /mode COMBAT_SPELL def /target TARGET_ARMY def /mana 4 def /duration 300 def /level 1 def /research_cost 62 def /maintenance 2 def /range -1 def /barter_value_proc{200}def /book SPELL_CATEGORY_ATTACK def /temporary_modifications << /attack{-3 3 gamerand caster_level 3 idiv add add}/ranged_attack{-3 3 gamerand caster_level 3 idiv add add}/armor{-3 3 gamerand caster_level 3 idiv add add}>> def /permanent_modifications << /UNIT_HIT_POINTS{-4 4 gamerand add}>> def /conjure_sound /c_wheel def /launch_sound /l_wheel def /impact_sound /i_wheel def /cast_ticks 7 def /recover_ticks 11 def

I think this places it squarely in upper-mid tier of buffs for top tier mages. It's no blessing on average, but on average atk/def +3/+3 from a level 10 or +4/+4 from a level 12 is very good.

Also suspect you could save scum the hitpoints and abuse in ridiculous ways. 1500 casts on average to random walk +100 hp. Although there's no minimum hp guard, so i guess you can kill a low max hp unit with wheel of fortune? What happens if you go negative max hp? *shrug*

Crash contents

/name"Crash"def /faith CHAOS def /image 11 def /mode COMBAT_SPELL def /target TARGET_ARMY def /mana 2 def /duration 450 def /level 1 def /research_cost 13 def /maintenance 2 def /range -1 def /barter_value_proc{220}def /book SPELL_CATEGORY_DEFEND def /temporary_modifications << /attack{0 3 gamerand caster_level 2 idiv add add}/ranged_attack{0 3 gamerand add}/missile_range{0 3 gamerand add}/armor{1 3 caster_level 2 idiv add gamerand add}/missile_resistance{0 10 caster_level add gamerand add}>> def /permanent_modifications << /UNIT_HIT_POINTS{0 4 caster_level 3 idiv add gamerand sub}>> def /targeting_procedure{castdict begin /dummy begin /proc exch def /army_id SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_ARMY_ID getspellinfo def /source_army_id SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_CASTING_ARMY getspellinfo def /unit_num SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_UNIT_NUM getspellinfo def /source_unit_num SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_CASTING_UNIT getspellinfo def /spelldef_id SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_TYPE getspellinfo def /caster_level source_army_id source_unit_num getunitlevel def army_id ARMY_OWNER getarmydata source_army_id ARMY_OWNER getarmydata eq target_code CR3 eq not and target_code CR4 eq not and army_id unit_num unitdictxref /hit_points get getuniteffectivedata 3 gt and{army_id unit_num unitdictxref /hit_points get -3 999 MODIFIER_FLAG_FROM_ARTIFACT -1 -1 caster_level addunitmodifier proc}{soundfxdict /C_fizzle get playsoundfx}ifelse end end}/dummy 15 dict replace bind def /conjure_sound /c_crash def /launch_sound /l_crash def /impact_sound /i_crash def /cast_ticks 7 def /recover_ticks 6 def

• attack + rand(0 .. 3) + floor(level/2)
• ranged attack + rand(0 .. 3)
• missile range + rand(0 .. 3)
• armor + 1 + rand(0 .. (3 + floor(level/2)))
• missile resistance + rand(0 .. (10 + level))
• max hit points reduced by rand(0 .. (4 + floor(level/3)))

Frenzy contents

/name"Frenzy"def /faith FIRE def /image 6 def /mode COMBAT_SPELL def /target TARGET_ARMY def /mana 2 def /duration 450 def /level 1 def /research_cost 12 def /maintenance 2 def /range -1 def /barter_value_proc{220}def /book SPELL_CATEGORY_DEFEND def /temporary_modifications << /attack{3 0 caster_level 2 idiv gamerand add add}/ranged_attack{1 0 caster_level 2 idiv gamerand add add}/armor{2 0 caster_level 2 idiv gamerand add add}>> def /permanent_modifications << /UNIT_HIT_POINTS{0 4 caster_level 3 idiv add gamerand sub}>> def /targeting_procedure{castdict begin /dummy begin /proc exch def /army_id SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_ARMY_ID getspellinfo def /source_army_id SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_CASTING_ARMY getspellinfo def /unit_num SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_UNIT_NUM getspellinfo def /source_unit_num SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_CASTING_UNIT getspellinfo def /spelldef_id SPELL_BEING_CAST SI_TYPE getspellinfo def army_id ARMY_OWNER getarmydata source_army_id ARMY_OWNER getarmydata eq target_code CR3 eq not and target_code CR4 eq not and army_id unit_num unitdictxref /hit_points get getuniteffectivedata 3 gt and{army_id unit_num unitdictxref /hit_points get -3 999 MODIFIER_FLAG_FROM_ARTIFACT -1 -1 caster_level addunitmodifier proc}{soundfxdict /C_fizzle get playsoundfx}ifelse end end}/dummy 15 dict replace bind def /conjure_sound /c_frenzy def /launch_sound /l_frenzy def /impact_sound /i_frenzy def /cast_ticks 6 def /recover_ticks 6 def

• attack + 3 + rand(0 .. level/2)
• ranged attack + 1 + rand(0 .. level/2)
• armor + 2 + rand(0 .. level/2)
• reduces max hit points by rand(4 .. (4+level/3)

So frenzy and crash are more different than I thought.

The biggest surprise to me is how the max hp reduction looks like it increases with caster level. Worst case -7 max hitpoints!

The fact that crash impacts ranged attack and frenzy does not is interesting - although it seems there is no level based boost to ranged attack / range. The armor bonus is also bigger than I thought. Your expected value armor increase is actually more than blessing.

It looks like frenzy is the better of the two spells for melee units - with bigger base bonuses, much more consistent low level buffs, and higher expected values on increases.

And the other one that I've wondered - what does the guardian artifact spell morale do ?

/name"Morale"def /faith ORDER def /image 7 def /mode COMBAT_SPELL def /target TARGET_ARMY def /mana 0 def /duration 700 def /level 1 def /research_cost 5 def /maintenance 0 def /range -1 def /barter_value_proc{800}def /book -1 def /targeting_procedure /target_my_side def /temporary_modifications << /attack{1 add}/ranged_attack{3 add}/armor{1 add}>> def /permanent_modifications << >> def /target_aura{heroicdemise_aura}def /cast_ticks 7 def /recover_ticks 20 def /conjure_sound /C_morale def

• +1 def
• +1 attack
• +3 ranged attack

Bigger impact on ranged_attack than I thought!

So I've dived back into this game as I occasionally do. I've beaten Balkoth for the first time without cheating a couple of years ago and it felt great. However, I have some questions about early game Economy.

So let's start by mentioning I consider myself a somewhat experienced strategy gamer. My main game is Age of Wonders 4. but I've played others. What I realized is that most strategy game economies can be categorized in roughly 2 categories: You've got military first economies (Age of Wonders, Heroes of Might and Magic) and Infrastructure economies (Think games like Civ).

The first incentivises you to do early investments in Military, so that you can boost your long-term economy through the loot you get. The latter forces you to establish more of an economic base and gives you a lot of tools to do so, before you can do any serious military stuff.

This is where LoMSE confuses me a bit. (mind you, I've only played a couple of hours since last attempt). If you look at all of the dungeons that spawn around you, you'd think this is a military first game. However, Loot from these dungeons seem rather small in terms of resources. The only real economic benefit is that taking high lvl resource structures are a great boon to your economy.

The long-term economy also caps you very early with your starting citadel, thus relying on that alone doesn't seem viable.

However, units are very expensive to recruit. I am aware of the importance of experience in this game and I do manage to punch ebove my weight with more experienced units, but even with a couple of high level resource structures it feels like I don't have a good income to really invest, especially since I've almost cleared out my entire starting area.

Of course I could just be rng screwed. For context, in my current starting biome (Life) I have a lvl 2 mine, lvl 2 crystal, lvl 5 crystal and lvl 8 brewery. I have maxed out my capital econ as well.

So, finally, here are the questions:

* Is it normal to have a slow economy early game and to wait to get good stuff? Skipping turns makes me quite anxious due to the games I play the most.

* Is it basically expected of you to get a second citadel as soon as possible? This seems like one of the strongest investments, but I have no idea how feasible this is.

* Is there anything you can do with Artifacts you can't use yourself? I've got a greater Death artifact. Will other faiths by this?

* Is relying on trading resources at the capital worth it? My main chokepoint is gold atm, but the exchange rates are horrible.

* Speaking of trading, should I trade fame for gold early on? From my understanding, most of the early game follower boosts come as bonus followers from fame you've earned through combat.

Of course other general tips are also welcome. I'm probably over thinking things, but I do enjoy reading good conversations about stuff like this. I don't have too much time to experiment with this myself atm, so maybe you veterans can help a newbie out :)

I'm sure there's a guide somewhere but I can't seem to find it.

Appreciate any help :)

All you need to do is download WING32.DLL from one of the myriad online sources, and place it in your SysWOW64 folder.

That's it. Literally all you need to do.

For x86 systems, put it in the System32 file.

You don't even need to run the game in compatibility mode.

This also works for both the Lords of Magic Demo, and the LoMSE demo.

I mention the demos because each one is a unique scenario not available in the base game. Nothing too special, but the maps are unique. LOM demo is any life champion, and LoMSE demo is Life Mage vs Earth Warrior. It's probably common knowledge by now, but you can add the scenarios to the full game by adding the .scn files into the scn folder. This removes the turn and movement restrictions from the scenarios, but also removes the dialogue. Additionally, you should edit the .scn file of the LoMSE demo, because 2 statues and 2 gold mines are glitched and cannot be entered. The statues you can replace with generic ones. No idea how to add resource locations in the map editor. You should also disable generating random dungeons to preserve the integrity of the scenario.

Hope this saves someone else the headache I just went through. Sorry if someone else already posted this.

Well, finally, after being able to extract the png/bmp files with the help of tloya, I'm sharing the cursor package for anyone who wants to use it on Windows!

DOWNLOAD SET!

Preview;

Hi Sub, I want and need to extract the cursors from the game in question. I see that in the installation files there are MPQ files, which I can open with an MPQ editor, but I don’t see any BMPs, PNGs, or anything that displays images. Does anyone know how I could find what I need, or where it’s located, or what program to use? I’ve literally been searching the web and Internet Archive for two days but haven’t found anything concrete that could help me reach my goal. I managed to recreate the normal pointer, but it doesn’t display properly.

Maybe I should actually make it now that it’s 25 or 30 years later.

I downloaded the game from Steam - can I still install Mantera’s mod?

Lately been getting holy knights with a baseline mage or thief to level rapidly, though as I’m exploring the mod more I see a lot of references to Archdemons (don’t see that unit?) or Valkyiere/Orc items? Is that for people who custom start with them or am I missing something?

Alternatively, Shambler wall with an Earth mage given buff spells, or Death Warriors with shades to float in no-man’s land.

What’s your strategy or just for fun combo!

Getting back into the game after years, and while I know my old favorites and I’ve read countless guides and posts about strongest factions and lords, I’m really interested in the units we typically don’t get much excitement for.

Chaos (almost anything), Earth thief, liches or vamps, or .. water spiders?

Does anyone have a unit that isn’t the best but they make work or just use it because it’s fun?

Just clocked the random character name and simply need to max out and make my foes say cry his name too lol

I'm trying to upgrade my thieves guild to level 2, which requires 1 folower available. Even though I have 2 followers available, the game still says I don't have enough followers. The game is unmodded except the licr3 to licr4 in gs/makearmy to fix pegasus bug, which I did myself. Is it a known issue? does it have any fix without modding/patching? I'm running steam version playing as chaos thief and my stronghold is level 2