Might and Magic III: Mowing and Myconids

Another "what kind of adventurer says 'no' to this?" hall of fame entry.

       
Few other games, even in the modern age, capture the joy of exploration as well as the Might and Magic series. From the first game forward, its maps are packed with messages, side-quests, encounters, and treasures. Every row or column is practically guaranteed to have something.

It amazes me how many games think that these special encounters aren't important--that players are perfectly happy to map 20 x 20 mazes with nothing but random combats. The early PLATO games are guilty of this, as are 1980s additions like Maze Master and The Standing Stones. I wish more games had taken lessons from Might and Magic: you can never offer too many things to annotate.

The tradition goes back to Wizardry, of course. On the first level of the first game, I marked six special encounters including a wizard who waved his hand and banished the party back to town, an altar of a hooded man that delivered repeat combats with Murphy's Ghosts, a sign that read "Area out of bounds!," and a couple of statues that produced keys. In an early Bard's Tale dungeon map, I recorded seven special encounters, including the mysterious "IRKM DESMET DAEM" message. Neither of these games was bad.
    

One of several dungeons in the opening two maps.

     

But they couldn't hold a candle to the first Might and Magic title, which had 13 special encounters on the first map, not including the shops. Random maps in the wilderness routinely served up 10 or more. In the first dungeon (Doom) on map A1, I got all the way to the letter Q in my annotations of messages, statues, and other encounters, and that didn't even include the level's many teleporters. This is a series designed to ensure that there's always something around the corner.

The encounters, granted, are not always sensible. It requires a certain suspension of disbelief to justify copious buried treasure, fountains that boost attributes, secrets scrawled openly on walls, and talking Moai heads that somehow teach you skills. On the other hand, realism is stretched perhaps less in Might and Magic than in other games, since almost every world in this series turns out to be an artificial construct of the Ancients, designed to put its inhabitants through various tests. When a universe is designed specifically to highlight Clarke's third law, you can hand-wave a lot of goofiness.
      

Your mouth doesn't even look like it would hold 5 gems.

     

In this session, I fully explored (except for some water squares) the exteriors of Areas A1 and B1 in the game world. On the map of the Isles of Terra, the largest grouping of islands (where the party starts) occupies Columns A and B, all the way down all four rows. (The overall world map has six columns and four rows, for 24 maps of 16 x 16 tiles.) To do this, I had to have two characters trained in the "Pathfinding" skill to walk through squares of dense forest and two characters with "Mountaineering" to walk across mountains. Much like Ultima VI, "mountains" are tiny little things in this game and give no sense of actually crossing mountains.

I keep forgetting that "Corak's Notes" are a thing. It wasn't until after I cleared the two areas that I remembered to check what he had to say. He warned about the orcs and goblins attacking travelers in A1 and suggested visiting the heads of granite in A2. I'll try to remember to check the notes as I arrive at each new map and reference them as I clear it.
     

Little did the developers know how funny this would turn out to...what's that? The TV show came out before the game? In 1989? 28 years ago?! Oh, God, I've wasted my whole life.

       

"Pathfinding" was easy--one of my characters already had it, and I got the second one when I enlisted the NPC Allan Bow in Fountain Head. I didn't know where to go for "Mountaineering," but I figured the game wouldn't let me stray too far from the opening maps (which had plenty of mountains) before giving me an opportunity to purchase it. I headed down the main road out of Fountain Head until I came across another town--Baywatch--in map A3. The town was full of tough undead, and I was there a bit prematurely, but sure enough I found a desk at which the "Mountaineering" skill was taught.
      

Most enemies seem to respond well to "Toxic Cloud"--my only mass-damage spell so far.

      
I bought "Swimming" for every character during the last session. This allows me to stray one square from land. To explore the open ocean, I have to wait for some higher-level spells like "Water Walk." It occurs to me that even if you had such a spell, it would be pretty difficult to walk across an ocean. You might not sink, but you'd still be heaved up and down by the waves. Water-walking in a storm would be like strolling through an 8.0 earthquake.
      

My party is perfectly capable of swimming across this serene pond.

      

It took almost all my gold to train two characters in it--so much that I couldn't pay my two NPCs and they ditched me. But it wasn't long before my fortunes had reversed and I was able to enlist the NPCs in Fountain Head again. From there, I began a more systematic journey through the opening maps. I started in Row 3 or 4 (ocean occupies earlier rows) and walked in east-west strips across both columns A and B, working my way south.

As with Might and Magic II and Tunnels & Trolls, the very nature of a tiled overworld encourages this kind of "lawnmowing." I agree that it seems a bit artificial, but there isn't really an alternative. You could try to explore more organically--heading in directions with marked paths or in which you see distant objects--or perhaps randomly, but either way you're just fooling yourself since you know you have to step on every square eventually. Particularly in this game, where there are no random encounters, there's no benefit to wasting time. You might as well do it systematically.
     

Mowing my way across the terrain.

    

True to the traditions of the series, I rarely reached the end of a row without hitting some kind of special encounter. These included:

       

• Buried treasure in random squares, which may include gold, gems, items, or all three. 

                 

A nice haul of treasure in the wilderness.

               

• A pool that did serious damage to any character who drank from it, but which delivered several valuable items.

• Various fountains that temporarily increased my attributes, resistances, levels, hit points, and armor class. 

                

Aw, man. Highlander II sucked.

            

• A golden scale that invited me to put 5,000 gold in one of the cups in exchange for the "Merchant" skill.

             

How long is it going to take the new master merchant to make this back?

             

• A wagon where a peddler sold temporary "Might" potions.

• A gypsy wagon where a fortuneteller foretold a different destiny for each character class.

              

At least it isn't the Hand. I'm thoroughly sick of those guys.

          

• Various "spawn points" that, when destroyed, end the menace of particular monster types.

              

Getting rid of the fungi for good.

      
Monsters included orcs, goblins, giant insects called "oh no bugs," and wild fungi that do a mass-damage electrical attack, because that makes sense.

There were three dungeons among the two areas: Cyclops Caverns, the Ancient Temple of Moo, and the Slithercult Stronghold. I didn't make it very far in any of them. I was turned back by a combination of very difficult monsters, traps that I couldn't avoid even when I could see them right in front of me, and secret doors that my characters were too weak to bash down. Commenters have mentioned that there are spells to avoid those traps. Once I get to Baywatch again in my natural progression, I'll take the time to thoroughly explore the options in both guilds.
      

This battle against some interesting enemies was more difficult than even my fountain-enhanced characters could handle.

      
I figure I'll return to these dungeons after I've completed a couple more overworld maps, have a few more levels under my belt, and can identify an optimal path through the buffing fountains.
    

I guess I'll have to come back for it.

    

Other than demanding a couple hundred gold pieces per day, NPCs don't act any different than PCs. You can freely swap equipment, gold, and gems, decide what they'll equip, and supervise their training. Because of this, I'm having a little bit of angst about whether to treat NPCs as full party members. Should I let them drink from barrels that provide one-time statistics upgrades? Should I pay for skills for them? I suppose it comes down to how sure I am that I'll keep the same NPCs throughout the game. I don't know. Allan Bow (archer) and Fineous (druid) complement my party well because I otherwise don't have those classes. Then again, I don't have a barbarian or robber, either. How much should I invest in NPCs that I may later drop?

Miscellaneous notes:

• Last entry, I suggested that the ranger has only cleric spells. It turns out that, like the druid, he has the "nature" spellbook. I don't remember this from previous games, and I don't know how long it lasts. I know it's gone by Might & Magic VI, where druids are just mage-cleric hybrids.

• I also praised the controls extensively last time. I do have one complaint: the keys that turn the party right and left seem overly sensitive. I often accidentally turn twice.

• Positive conditions, such as those conferred by fountains, disappear every morning when the sun comes up. If you want to make fountain bonuses a major part of adventuring, you have to hit them early in the morning so you keep their benefits all day and night. Each step elapses 10 game minutes.

• The fountains, frankly, strike me as a bit overpowered, but perhaps that's just because it's the beginning of the game. 

• Some rings and necklaces, made of cheaper metals with no enchantments, actually make your armor class worse.

• Some of the discussion in my first entry revolved around the annoyance of having items break. You have to get them repaired at shops. It seems to me that there's a higher chance of such breakage when the character goes unconscious.

• Arrows can be shot through every type of terrain except buildings and mountains.

       

Wasting time and arrows on some fungi on the other side of the mountain range.

       

At the end of this session, I had a ton of unidentified equipment, so I brought myself back to the shop in Fountain Head. Although I still praise the ease of the interface when buying, selling, and trading equipment, I still have problems coming up with a good system for quickly arbitrating multiple items, assigning them, and selling the remainder.

There are three major considerations with equipment: type, material, and enchantment. Type (long sword, short sword, wakazashi) is probably the least important of the three when it comes to the power of the item, but it is what determines who can use it. Material has fairly significant effects on the damage of weapons and AC value of armor. The item's enchantment might further affect those values or they might affect entirely unrelated statistics. My "Fast Long Sword," for instance adds 5 points to the wielder's "Speed" attribute.
     

My paladin and his growing inventory.

    
Items can have multiple enchantments. My cleric is wearing a "poisonous ebony charisma chain mail." The ebony chain mail part delivers a +10 AC bonus. The "poisonous" part adds 20 to acid and poison resistance, and the "charisma" part adds 12 to personality. A "mugger leather armor of fists," worn by my ninja, has a +3 AC bonus, adds 4 to the "Thievery" skill, and casts the "Flying Fist" spell.

You can pay to get the specific statistics associated with any item, but doing this for every item would drain gold awfully fast. For the most part, I've been using the item's sale value to get a rough sense of its utility. I might get back from an expedition and find I have 7 suits of plate, chain, and scale mail and only 4 characters who could equip them. If there's a clear natural break in value among the 7 suits, I'll probably sell the lowest 3 and distribute the rest according to need.
       

Statistics for my "fast long sword," which can be wielded by a knight, paladin, archer, robber, or ranger.

      
I really do my best to achieve balance. When deciding who gets a new "Warrior Ring," which increases Might by 5, I scan everyone's might and give it to the lowest character. A new "Lapis Belt" (+2 AC) goes to the character with the lowest armor class unless he already has a better belt.

Even though it takes a long time, and I sometimes screw up and find out hours later that one of my characters has no primary weapon, I still find these types of logistics extremely satisfying, and it does make a tangible difference when you next head out.

It's been nice to play this one in a leisurely way, but I'll probably pick up the pace and cover more territory for the next entry.

Time so far: 7 hours

Reload count: 5