Master of Magic Impossible Difficulty

Welcome to my second attempt at Master of Magic Iron Man on Impossible difficulty setting. Since I won't be repeating Iron Man rules and basic starter-strategy recommendations, the reader is advised to read through my first Iron Man attempt, linked to above.

This second, generalist Wizard build (see above pic) takes the Myrran retort along with two books each in Life, Chaos, Nature and Sorcery. Note that Life and Death are mutually exclusive: I flipped a coin and got Life.

We took the Myrran retort in the hope that we would be left alone to our devices or at least be out of reach of the other Myrran Wizard in the early stages of the campaign. It turned out that not only were we NOT alone in Myrror but, worse still, we began in close proximity to a rival.
We took two books each in Life, Chaos, Nature and Sorcery so that we could acquire some of the most useful early spell picks. If order of spell acquisition is kind, they should give us some nice early buffs and wards.
We took Halfling civ for their productivity and powerful early Slinger combat units. Coupled with Sprite and Hell Hound summons, we should be able to handle most early battles.

The First 15 Years

In the first 15 years of her campaign to become the Master of Magic, Freya built her starting city of Honeypool as per Merlin's High Men city of Haven. By virtue of Halfling proficency in farming coupled with generous terrain resource RNG, Honeypool boomed with prosperity. At one point, its population grew by 200 per month due to the abundance of food. That means we can crank out Slinger packs when the need arises. For those who don't know, a Slinger is a Halfling combat unit that fires bullets from a slingshot. In the early game, Slingers are deadly. And they can be strong late-game as well.

Honeypool was largely able to grow freely in peace, but in its taverns whisperings grew of Dark Elf sightings on the borders, of Demons, and of Draconians led by a powerful reptilian Wizard to the west...

Shuri the Huntress was hired as Freya's first Hero. Shuri is a mid-tier Hero, nothing special, but we'll take what we can get. With the Endurance buff from Freya and Shuri's pathfinding ability, the huntress was able to stride across Myrror's terrain with great speed, finding mana crystals and gold for her Master. In addition, Shuri was able to take out roaming Dark Elf patrols for some early XP gain and promotion. But Shuri could not engage the Demon Lords, Sky Drakes and Behemoths guarding the best treasures: what we needed to find were mid-tier lairs.

So Shuri did just that. With the help of Halfling Slingers and Halfling Shamans, Shuri defeated the Spirits led by an Angel guarding one of the Plane-travel Towers that let us go back and forth between Myrror and Arcanus. Note how the ranged attacks of Shuri, Slingers and Shaman managed to thin out the spirit ranks before they closed in.

The reward of the Plate Mail of Movement far outstripped the risk. PMoM is a second-tier armor; 7/10 armor. Thus, are we grateful. Note that Merlin found no magical items; not even a jester's bauble in his campaign of two decades! Poor guy.

Endurance + Pathfinding + Plate Mail of Movement = Shuri the Huntress can move across 12 squares per turn.

The increased mobility allows for kiting tactics in both strategy and tactical modes of play; she is like Gandalf on Shadowfax.

Myrran Enemy Located

To Freya's dismay, she was not the only Wizard on the Myrror plane. Confirming the sightings of her Halfling subjects, Freya's Magic Spirit scouts located Sss'ra's stronghold of Icetop not far to the west of Honeypool, in a far superior region as regards neutral annexation potential.

More bad news is that Sss'ra's civ is the flight-capable Draconian. Thus did Sss'ra expand south and then west across the seas with alarming speed before pushing upward to reach the southern border of Freya's realm.

Once Sss'ra made this bold move, Freya knew that war was imminent. The suggestion of cooperation by Sss'ra being naught but a ploy to buy build-up time, Freya dispatched a Shuri-led Slinger force to take the stronghold of Firepeak from Sss'ra while in its fledgling state. However, Shuri found the stronghold positively stacked with (low-tier) Draconians already.

As luck would have it, Honeypool was suddenly besieged by rampaging RNG ghouls and zombies led by a (weak) demon. Shuri high-tailed back to base in order to assist in the defense of Honeypool, and succeeded in the nick of time. Having buffed her subjects from the balcony of her tower, Freya breathed a sigh of relief, ordered reinforcements to the garrison, and then stepped back inside to conduct more spell research.

Shuri Journeys to the North & West

Emboldened by her armor and buffed to the hilt by Freya, Shuri was commanded by Freya to take the Dark Elf strongholds to the north as well as retake the Halfling Outpost of Myrean founded by Freya, which was sacked by the Dark Elves while Shuri was dealing with the lesser demon. Myrean is worth retaking since its location was specifically hand-chosen by Freya by reason of its fertile land.

Here we can see Shuri's mobility in battle mode: while she is no slouch in archery, Shuri charges straight up the middle and attacks their ranks directly:

After bringing the northern peninsula under Freya's banner, Shuri led a small Halfling force to the south in order to rid Firepeak of Sss'ra's Draconian Spearmen. Note how Shuri charges in to tank the pack, freeing up the Slingers and Shaman to fire safely from range.

Promoted to Commander and on a roll, Shuri subsequently sacked a few more strongholds to the west; namely, Minnlow, Fellwood and Leer. Only in Leer was stationed a Dark Elf force that made Shuri think twice before engaging. After taking some time to heal and risk-assess, Shuri tanked their magical attacks as she charged through the fiery gate to massacre the Dark Elf defenders and gift her Master an eighth stronghold.

No sooner had Leer fallen but Sss'ra's Draconian bowmen flew in from the north to hover over the sea just off the coast of Fellwood, training their bows down upon it. Their intent obvious, Shuri still declined to engage the airborne force because Freya foolishly forgot to buff Shuri with Guardian Wind (which lets her tank arrow hail). Thus, Fellwood's fate was sealed: the Draconians flew in, filled the defenders full of holes and then burned Fellwood to the ground, wiping it off the map. Thus did Fellwood fall.

It turned out that Freya had scried an Sss'ra horde amassing to the west of Leer; fearing her huntress-hero would get boxed in and taken out just as she reached the rank of Lord, Freya commanded Shuri to return to Honeypool for the time being even as Freya hired its second hero, Valana the Bard.

After the Halfling Slinger and Shaman hordes get cranked out by Honeypool, will Freya command her Huntress-hero to lead them back west to defend the fledgling strongholds from being stormed or destroyed by Sss'ra?
If she does command it, will the northern peninsula be able to defend itself from airborne Draconian forces while they are away?
How long will it be before Tauron starts pushing westward, now that he has breached the Myrror plane?
What will Valana the Bard bring to the table?
Will the Halfling Outpost of Myrean be able to grow into a booming city to rival the capital, Honeypool?
How can we hunt for much-needed magical items when we are surrounded by expansionists?

The Next Five Years

Shuri the Huntress, Valana the Bard and a host of Halfling Slingers from Honeypool journeyed back west to expand Freya's interests around the Draconian and Dark Elf strongholds that border Sss'ra's domain.

Together, they took Ashwell and Adderax from the Dark Elves west of Leer. Then, they successfully defended Leer and Ashwall when Sss'ra laid siege to both soon after. In the siege of Ashwall, Sss'ra healed an already tanky hydra no fewer than four times as it slowly closed in on our ranks, but our superior firepower prevailed and we gained our first victory that yielded two points of fame. In subsequent skirmishes, Shuri took out three of Sssra's heroes (Maktu the Orc Warrior, Sheena the Golden One and Tiberius the Sage) before ripping through a second hydra backed up by Draconians for two more points of fame.

With Freya's fame growing, heroes began to flock to her banner in 1417: first Aureus the Golden One and then Reywind the Warrior Mage. Later, Freya also gained Warrax the Chaos Warrior through Summon Champion.

As her forces pressed on westward, Freya finally encountered a second Wizard rival in Raven, who dwells on the plane of Arcanus. It was only a brief glimpse of one of his scouts, however.

To Freya's dismay, her western forces could not hold Ashwell and Adderax against Sss'ra's horde of Dark Elves and Draconians that relentlessly flowed in from the west. Losing three fame and five combat units, Shuri and Valana led the survivors back east to the more heavily fortified stronghold of Leer. Great plumes of smoke could be seen rising in the west, as Sss'ra burned Ashwell and Adderax to the ground.

Suddenly, three pairs of Sss'ra's Doom Drakes soared over Freya's realm from the east, causing Freya's Halfling subjects to cower in terror. Striding over no fewer than 15 tiles between Leer and Firepeak, Shuri intercepted and slew the Doom Drakes before they could lay siege to and retake Firepeak for Sss'ra. Since the drakes came from the east when Sss'ra is stationed in the west, Sss'ra's realm is wrapping around the Myrror plane, and his reach is unassailably great.

Yielding the Crossbow of Power (+6 attack), Shuri took out three pairs of giant spiders backed up by two Stone Giants in a dungeon east of Firepeak. In another dungeon just south of Minnlow, Shuri was able to one-shot two more Stone Giants with her new crossbow. Having taken out the basilisk that accompanied the giants, Shuri yielded the Stick of the Mage for Reywind the Warrior Mage. Ho-hum. Like that will make any difference.

Need More Roads

While she did manage to build roads between her Honeypool capital and one town to the north and one to the south, Freya's expansion efficiency has been greatly limited by her civ's lack of road-building engineers. Thus, troop movement rate is too slow. Most ground-based infantry troop units can only move over a pathetic one tile per turn/month. But with roads, tile movement per turn is only limited by road termination at settlements. Luckily, RNG offered us a Beast Master engineer early on, but one is not enough to get troops flowing freely across the realm.

In accordance with rule no.3 of Master of Magic Iron Man, I've decided to resign from this run. Over the past two Iron Man games, I've learned a lot about about MoM and become a better player as well. I hope to begin another run soon!

Putting together what we have learned

It's difficult; maybe impossible without favorable RNG on multiple campaign variables, such as starting location, node proximity and rival Wizard personalities, objectives and civs. Expansionist AIs are capable of expanding by 20 strongholds per 10 years. In this game, Sss'ra wrapped his realm around Myrror in 20 years. He was probably taking over Arcanus as well...
Adding to the above, what's going to make for an easier game: Peaceful Perfectionist AIs with Life Books or Aggressive Expansionist AIs with Chaos Books?
Ranged units are crucial vs. ranged foes and flight-capables.
Strong magic and elemental resistances are vital when going up against offensive spellcasting rivals. Otherwise, we get bombarded into oblivion.
We want spotters everywhere or we can't see big build-ups coming. We need an expansive field of view.
Roads are mandatory for ground-based troop deployment. Even if we get six highly mobile heroes going, they still can't be everywhere at once, and we can't risk their demise every turn. We can't use heroes as a crutch.
We need to build cities that can support massive armies and generate a massive arcane power base in order to stand a chance. And we need to get powerful global spells going ASAP.
It all comes down to RNG and a deep knowledge of the game.

For example, our third attempt was made with an 11 Life Book Build / Halfling civ. Started off in a village with Gem and Food tile bonuses. Population potential was also high. Surrounded by six nodes that were easy to take.

Two rivals were in close proximity: Peaceful Perfectionist with Life/Nomad (Horus) and Peaceful Militarist with Realm-mix/High Men (Merlin). Both rivals were geographically hamstrung.

Sss'ra was in Myrror, a Peaceful Expansionist with Realm-mix/Beastmen, and Sharee was stuck on a 10x10 island with no planar Tower. Took her nearly 10 years to get off the island.

In the first decade, we had taken 10 nodes and 13 settlements. Our Capital was only attacked a few times by mid-tier forces. In the first few years we had Serena and Shuri onboard. Torin was Grand Lord by Oct 1407, when he breached Myrror. We were casting Lionheart by Dec 1407.

So we can see how much easier this playthrough is going to be, due to favorable RNG. We banished all 4 Wizards in this run; could have taken them out long before that, too.

Basically, a few things came together for us (RNG):

We had a decent start (good population, good tile-based bonuses, easy node-access).
Geographically -- and as it pertains to Node acquisition -- 3 of the 4 rivals were disadvantaged. This allowed us to get on top early and stay on top.
3 of the 4 rivals were Peaceful. The non-Peaceful rival was stuck on an island with only 1 node, no Tower and no quick and easy way to get off the island (no swim-capable Lizardmen or flight-capable Draconians).
The Book choices of the rivals were not heavily offensive in nature. No rival was summoning 6x Fire Elementals or 6x Phantom Warriors per encounter (as often happens). The only focused rival was a Life Wizard, and Life is predictable and tameable (as long as someone doesn't have Arch Angels and mana to burn...).
No Tauron with Hell Hound or Fire Elemental spam... no one was spamming Phantom Warriors early on.
No one was able to Dispel until mid-game and no one got offensive overland spells going.
Rival civ choices were not powerful.
Beastmen dominated Myrror as Neutrals and Draconians were rare. Thus, Sss'ra wasn't formidable.

In non-Iron Man Impossible games, I've taken out rival Capitals stacked to the max with top-tier Draconians, High Men, High Elves and Dwarves; rich Capitals that yielded 3,000 GP when annexed. In this run, the richest Capital yielded only 600.

Random notes:

Defend acquired nodes as if they are your fortress. AI is coded to zone-in on them immediately. Some rivals patrol their nodes with literal armies.
Once nodes are acquired and strongly defended (patrolled), the AI is often put in the own zone.
Node Mastery is one of the best retorts. Also, Warlord and Archmage. Or if Sorcery, Chaos or Nature realms, you want the Mastery retorts (and Conjurer).
Cracks Call can insta-kill Torin. Rivals can spam CC several times in a row. This is one reason why Heroes can't be relied upon in No Reload challenges.
At least on Impossible difficulty (perhaps other difficulties as well), it is possible to find the Flight spell in an encounter zone even when we only have 1x Sorcery spell book. I found Flight in a Myrror Sorcery Node guarded by Phantom Beast x3 and Phantom Warriors x6.
Impossible difficulty is much easier if Flight is acquired. Thus, one of the best Heroes is Jaer the Wind Mage. Jaer can fly other units and Heroes about as well as transport Settlers to the best tiles and Magic Spirits to nodes.
Planar Travel should be the first research pick for Life builds
Sorcery is the most reliable Realm for Impossible Iron Man. Flight, Wind Walking and Mass Invisibility make all the difference.