I know what you're thinking. "Is it really necessary to rank the races in a 25 year old game?" The answer is no, but I love this game, so I'm doing it anyway.

This ranking is for your starting race. Klackons, for example, are generally useless if you don't start as them. I also noticed that I don't talk about racial relations and unrest very often, but I did take them into account when making my rankings, so they're there, even if I don't mention them.

A Tier (Excellent for any strategy):

Halflings
Dwarves

Both of these races have:

A strong early game economy.
Strong basic units that allows them ample rush potential.
Powerful advanced units that can clear most sites and come relatively early.
Enough tech to make their economy relevant later into the game.

Incredibly strong at all virtually stages of the game, these races pair well with any book/retort combo.

It's worth noting that I haven't played all that many games with Halflings since they got nerfed in the userpatches, but from the games I have played a stack of Elite Slingers still seems like it can conquer both planes with ease, to say nothing of enchanted Champion Slingers with adamantium weapons.


B Tier (Either excels at some strategies, or is decent at many strategies)

Barbarians
Beastmen
High Men
Klackons

I go back and forth on whether Barbarians are A Tier, B Tier, or deserve their own A- category. Like Halflings and Dwarves, they combine a nice early game econ bonus (in this case, huge population growth) with strong basic units, even better advanced units, and a reasonable tech tree - but unfortunately their bonuses just aren't quite on the same level.

Beastmen are a very well-rounded race, with strong basic units, hard-hitting advanced units, and no major holes in their tech tree. They're held back by a lack of any sort of early game economy boost, but otherwise can expand fairly quickly and turn their cities into economic and magical powerhouses.

High Men are the epitome of a late-game race. They receive no boost to their econ or military, but they enjoy a full tech tree with the strongest normal units in the game at the end of it. Definitely in the "excels at some strategies" category - High Men are the ideal choice if you're looking to turtle up and cultivate a handful of highly developed cities, or if you're planning on using summoned creatures for your main attack force early on. They have one hell of a slow start, but the strongest late game of all.

Klackons are the opposite of High Men. Their basic units are strong and their economy is just incredible in the early and mid game - easily the best on Arcanus, and arguably even better than Dwarves. They transition poorly into the late game, however. Their tech tree is very limited, their ultimate unit (the Stag Beetle) is only okay-ish, and their unique unrest situation that makes their economy so strong early on also makes it much harder for them to make use of other races. They pair very well with any combo that has a slow start - Artificer builds, Nature or Death-heavy builds, etc.


C Tier (fails to stand out/only excels in certain conditions)

Draconians
High Elves
Lizardmen
Nomads
Trolls

Draconians, like Beastmen, are fairly well-rounded, and the fact that all your units fly can potentially be seriously exploited. Unfortunately, Draconians suffer from a nasty growth penalty (though not as bad as Elves or Trolls) and their advanced units aren't anything to write home about. If you're playing a heavy water map or don't mind majorly cheesing the combat AI, Draconians can be very strong, and without the growth penalty they'd easily be a B tier race. As it stands, though, they just don't quite offer enough.

High Elves are tough to evaluate. Many of their units are strong but frail. They generate magic power from their population, but they receive few religious buildings, meaning each city needs to be able to hit at least 15 citizens before it can reach a higher max power output than other races. Their late game units are strong, but not the strongest. Ultimately, however, High Elves are severely hindered by terrible population growth, which cements them firmly as a late-game race, like High Men - except they'll take longer to reach the late game, and the rewards for doing so aren't quite as impressive. Their one saving grace is Longbowmen, a unit that's capable of boosting High Elves into some rapid early-mid game expansion.

Lizardmen are a more extreme version of the Klackons. Their normal units are arguably the strongest on Arcanus, and they have a nifty bonus to population growth. Unfortunately, they are technologically the least advanced race in the game, and their cities lack any production-enhancing buildings, meaning that even max pop cities will often still take more than one turn to produce units. As a result, Lizardmen are really only good for one thing and one thing only: Churning out wave after wave of normal units, particularly Spearmen and Swordsmen, although the unique Javelineers can be quite impressive when you get them out. Lizardmen also have the benefit of being able to swim, allowing you to expand in all directions at once, making them quite viable on water-heavy maps. The guiding principle of Lizardmen is that you are the biggest, baddest kid in the playground for the early stages of the game, and it's up to you to be able to conquer enough to hold on in later stages.

Nomads are the definition of "fails to stand out." They get a -10 to growth rates, and their normal units are all baseline (i.e. weak). Their real edge is maneuverability, found in Horsebowmen and given to their whole army through Rangers. This puts Nomads in a bit of a unique position because their military power comes in the midgame: Rangers can be used to speed up your slow-but-devastating PIkemen, or they can be used to turn mounted armies into fast strike forces. This enables them to be threatening earlier than High Men, but they will still struggle a great deal in the early game. Late game their tech level is comparable to High Men and their top unit, Gryphon Riders, are arguably the strongest flying normal units in the game. Nomads also receive a 50% trade bonus, which would likely be enough to elevate them to B tier if it weren't for the fact that MoM's wonky trade mechanics means that this generally doesn't make a big difference.

Trolls are a bit of a strange race. They have unbelievably powerful basic and advanced units and their tech tree is surprisingly pretty good, both of which would make them an A-tier race - except not only do they lack an econ boost, they have a painful growth penalty. This makes them odd because their early game is simultaneously fast and slow. Your units will steamroll neutral cities, but your own cities will grow relatively slowly. This makes them difficult to evaluate - if you roll a start with many neutral cities nearby and can expand militarily, you'll be in great shape. If you're instead stuck having to rely on Troll settlers to expand, expect to fall behind very quickly.


D Tier (is almost always inferior to another race)

Dark Elves
Gnolls
Orcs


Dark Elves are popular and I'm sure some will be unhappy to see them down here, but they really do struggle. They have a terrible growth rate and worse unrest tables than Klackons, which makes expansion for them a hopelessly slow and painful process. Their special of getting a weak magic attack on their normal units would be incredible on Arcanus but isn't enough to make them competitive against Myrran races. Elite Dark Elf Spearmen can be quite powerful with it, but that means waiting until your units are elite before you can do anything - again, slow growth. Dark Elf Warlocks are quite strong, and the fact that Dark Elves produce a whopping one power per population can eventually become very nice, but it will take a long, long time before Dark Elves can reach their potential, and you'll be playing catch up for most of the early, mid, and even part of the late game.

Gnolls, like Lizardmen, are extremely limited tech and economy wise, and depend entirely on conquering other races to survive into the mid game. Gnolls, unlike Lizardmen, have a penalty to growth, cannot swim across water, and while their bonus to normal units is impressive, it's generally a fair bit weaker than the Lizardmen bonus. The good news is that Gnolls do get access to basic production buildings, and their unique unit, Wolf Riders, are strong, very fast, and low tech. This is still too little to save the Gnolls, however, and if a player is interested in early rush races, better options abound.

As we've seen, some races focus on early game, some focus on late game, and even one or two focus on mid game. Orcs are unique, however, in that they are weak at every point in the game. Their normal units aren't even baseline, as their cavalry lack the otherwise ubiquitous First Strike. They receive no economy bonuses, and their unique unit, Wyverns, are pretty underwhelming - arguably the worst unit in the game when it comes to value for tech investment. They are, in every way, a worse version of High Men. Orcs have one "advantage" which is access to the entirety of the tech tree - but when the only difference between them and High Men is that High Men don't need a Fantastic Stable, it becomes yet another strike against them.


(Ironically enough, Dark Elves, Gnolls, and Orcs are some of my most-played races. Not even to give myself a challenge, I just find them fun. But they sure aren't overpowered).

Interesting take on each race's relative strengths; it's always good to get a different perspective from one's own.

I have to say that I agree with you for the most part, and the differences aren't worth quibbling over. I do want to point out that one often overlooked advantage to the High Men are their wizards: they get six figures per unit instead of four, which makes them 50% stronger than other wizards, and arguably better than Dark Elf warlocks.

Also, Trolls (being unable to build an Alchemist's Guild) pretty much require you to start with the Alchemy skill to render them viable in the long run. Klackons, Gnolls and Lizardmen suffer from the same limitation, so taking this feat grants those races a substantial boost as well.

I'd say that 6 figures make the High Men magicians better than any other race's magicians, but Warlocks still easily beat them in power. Doom Bolt is just massively better than Fireball. I don't know about Trolls needing alchemy. They just need to build a stack of War Trolls and send them off to war. The only things that can put trolls down for good is Cracks Call, Disintegrate, and losing a battle.

Lizardmen lose out late game, but Stag Beetles have surprising staying power. From what I recall, a pair of beetles can take on an Earth Elemental, and Klackons (like Trolls and Gnolls) reach the end of their city development pretty quickly, so there is no question about just rolling military units off the line.

Wolf Riders are perhaps my biggest objection to the tiers above. They have hit pretty hard and have good staying power for just how fast they are available, and they are so fast. Sure, they taper off in late game, but they are quite dominate early and mid game.

An interesting question. I'd tend to interpret it as the assumption that you start with a city of that race. Otherwise the unrest penalty of Klackons and Dark Elves wouldn't matter at all.

That said, a tier list of races worth conquering would be interesting too. Are their cities productive? Are they terribly rebellious? Do they produce useful and/or unique units? For example, Klackons might rank near the bottom of the list of subject races to conquer, but they can produce Engineers, and that alone is worth keeping one of their cities alive if you don't have another source of Engineers. And Orcs, one of the weakest starting races, can have highly profitable cities that don't have much unrest under most overlords.

Something to keep in mind with the old High Magicians vs WarLock debate is that HMs cost 1/2 the price to build as WLs and 2g less upkeep.

That being said pitting them vs each other is a waste as whoever attacks would lose with equal numbers. However if you went into battle with equal number of construction cost then HMs would win as they would have twice the number and be able to survive the fist attacks.



Considering the thread title though I would rate HMs higher as you could easily start with OR capture a High Man town with little penalty as they get along with most other races with a minimum of fuss so could be useful to everyone unlike WL/Dark Elves.

Huh. I just took a look at High Magicians versus Warlocks on the wiki. Magicians have 5 att, 3 def versus Warlocks 7 att, 4 def. Magicians have 10 extra potential damage, but that's added via two extra attack rolls (allowing defense to be rolled against the extra damage twice), while the Warlocks have 8 extra potential damage without adding any new attack rolls. Of course, Warlocks can go "No Magic Immunity? You take 10 damage now." in each battle; a warlock unit that gets a turn is guaranteed to kill at least one Magician unit (if it isn't at least Elite), while magicians have no such guarantee.

Upkeep should be a total non-issue by the time you can make a Wizard Tower, though the extra construction time would result in fewer Warlocks than Magicians. However, Fireball just doesn't match up to Doom Bolt.

Nope! Assumption of starting with that race. Part of what factors into the rankings is how good a race is at exploiting other races to compensate for its weaknesses. The exception to this is Klackons, where I'm assuming you'll mostly or only be using Klackon cities to take advantage of that sweet, sweet tax income, what what.

I go back and forth on the tier for Gnolls. Wolf Riders are quite impressive and can even occasionally go toe to toe with Paladins early on before the Paladins start racking up levels. Their problem is the lack of any sort of econ bonus. Lizards get a bonus to pop growth and can quickly and easily expand across continents, and Klackons are just on another level. Gnolls get a penalty to pop growth and don't really provide anything to make up for it. I'll admit that Gnolls are one of my all-time favourite races to play in MoM and I could be overcompensating for my own bias.

I think that unit for unit Warlocks are far better than High Men Magicians by a fair margin, but High Men are going to have the numeric advantage - not just because their Magicians build much faster, but because they're going to be able to get to Wizard's Guilds much faster thanks to not having prohibitive growth penalties. That being said, it's totally hypothetical because the Wizard's Guild is kind of a dumb building (if you're going to be the most expensive building in the game you can't also eat up 3 of my power), and High Men are going to be way more interested in Paladins anyway.


I have found a fun new use for Dark Elves, though. They pair really well with 8 Chaos. Not as well as they pair with 8 Life, but everything pairs well with Life. Dark Elves, however, are uniquely suited for Chaos. Even on Myrror Hell Hounds are more than enough to allow you to expand quickly, compensating for one of your big weaknesses. You can just pump out Settlers in your cities and let your Hell Hounds take care of all your military needs. More importantly, though, Dark Elves will give you a massive starting power base that will only get better, which means you'll have the mana and skill points Chaos so desperately needs to toss around all those spells. This still isn't particularly strong, but it's incredibly enjoyable. I like to use Nightblades to plug all the open towers and then just sit on my continent and tear the world asunder.

Klackons aren't a great race for exploiting others (race relation problems), but their defense bonus, production bonus, and ability to make engineers are pretty good. They also give Tumu a reason to exist. :)

Also, Stag Beetles are a solid unit. Not the best of the normal units (which is probably Paladins), but strong enough to reasonably assault some of the stronger fantastic units and cheap enough that the losses aren't too bad. I think you're over compensating for your bias in the case of the Gnolls. Sure, they have pretty poor economic support compared to most other races, but their strength isn't in economy. Their strength is in only needing a Stable and a Barracks in order to start rolling out Wolf Riders. The Halflings need the same number of hammers to roll out Slingers, but Wolf Riders move up to 3 times as fast as Slingers and Wolf Riders are much more effective in small numbers with low experience.

Nomads (Horsebowmen) and Elves (longbowmen) are the only other races that have effective units able to come online so quickly. Horsebows are decent at killing enemies without taking losses but still need a large herd, and longbows suffer the same drawbacks as slingers (low move, need experience and numbers).

You don't want a huge empire of Gnolls, but you only need a few Gnoll cities for them to do their job: very quickly redistribute other's possessions to you. Get the town basics in place then just roll out very fast military units and send them to conquer. Riders can reasonably expect to survive a battle that turns bad (3 speed lets them run out the 50 turn limit), they can fall back for faster healing, and reinforcements can expect to reach the front line to keep a push moving.

It also helps that most races don't mind being ruled by Gnolls; according to the chart on the wiki, they are the 4th most popular race in terms of total race relations, coming in behind Halflings, Highmen, and Nomads.

Lizards can cross water, and their units have good defensive properties, but they still only move 1 hex per turn. Lizards out-expand Gnolls if each race starts on a tiny island, but otherwise I'd rather have the extra move speed. The Dark Elves are definitely oriented toward a casting wizard than a normal unit wizard. High Men have the better units overall, but they don't provide nearly as much magic support for their controlling wizard as the Dark Elves.

I've gotten to the point where I usually don't build a Wizard's Guild due to cost. It does eat 3 power per turn, but it gives 8 research. If you're spending power on research, then the Wizard's Guild gives the best return for power spent in the game. If you don't need to research, then sell every Wizard Guild that isn't being used to make units.

Yeah, that's fair. The point with the economic bonus is less that they need it, and more that if you look at all the Arcanus races that rely on early aggressive expansion (Klackons, Lizards, Gnolls) Gnolls are the only ones that don't have an economic bonus. That is a fair point on how early Wolf Riders come out, though. I think maybe Gnolls could be bumped up a tier.


In a way I guess the Gnolls' economic strength is in their relationship tables. They get along well with just about everyone, and that makes them an ideal "overlord" race. You may not even need a Gnoll city beyond your starting one. The downside to Gnolls, of course, is that they're very limited by what races are on their continent. If you get lucky and roll a bunch of High Men or High Elves or Nomads or even Orcs then you'll be in great shape. If you don't, things could get trickier.

Instead of an economic bonus, they get a +2 attack bonus without having increased unit costs (ex. Gnolls need 20 hammers for a Swordsman, while Barbarians need 30 and Klackons need 40). Gnolls get a bonus that applies directly to early aggressive expansion. Lizards get a defensive bonus without increased cost, which may help a unit stick around longer, but an attack bonus is better for expendable units so they can do some damage before getting squashed.

Also, lizards are slow walkers. And by now, you've probably noticed that I really value speed. :)

If your starting city is positioned with decent terrain, you don't need to build a Gnoll settler. Sort of like Trolls, it can help to have 2-3 just to really keep that flow of fodder going, but you never need more than that.

But yeah, Gnolls definitely want to bring other races into their empire. They'll benefit from adding pretty much anyone to their empire: Barbarian Berserkers can start to pick up the heavy hitting slack if Wolf Riders stop being able to cut through, Klackons provide Engineers and Stag Beetles, Halflings provide slingers and the farming ability to support massive Gnoll armies, and everyone else provides the missing infrastructure. Lizards are perhaps the saddest race to encounter, since Gnolls can build Triemes (or raid Towers of Wizardry) if necessary.

Arcane Trolls of Death

Every race has certain combinations that work really well. This is the combination for Trolls. One of the huge weaknesses of dark magic is creatures turned to death no longer heal. Unless you have regeneration, which trolls do. It is a really great synergy.

I agree, Death Trolls are a lot of fun. Death Halflings is also a surprisingly fun and effective strategy. That being said, neither of those is as good as Life Trolls or Life Halflings - but IMHO Life is overall far and away the most powerful school just because of the way the game is designed.

Because Death's power tends to be stacked towards the mid game, it goes best with races that have a strong early game but fall off quickly - Gnolls and Lizardmen come to mind. Your racial units will start to become useless at around the same time that things like Shadow Demons start to come online.

I gotta disagree with this.

Halflings are overrated. Yes, Slingers are powerful, but they are just too slow (mobility wise).

Dwarves, meh. They lack the ability to hit flying units which is a pretty big detriment and requires special strategies to address.

Barbarians are solid, but certainly they benefit most from some specific strategies. Not counting cheesy Invisible Warships, Life is clearly their best school of Magic for Endurance and Lionheart. Given that they can naturally hit flyers it opens a lot of strategies for them. Berserkers with Lionheart can basically kill anything in the game with ease.

Beastmen are solid, certainly a good B tier. Flying Minotaurs are very powerful and so they pair best with Sorcery.

High Men are obviously very powerful but late bloomers. This can be dealt with by by using good Common summons, like Hell Hounds or Bears/Sprites. My favorite strat with them is Conjurer + 2 Chaos and 8 Sorcery to get Flying Paladins.

Klackons are horrible. Arguably the 2nd worst race. The biggest problem is that n harder levels the only real way to do well is to focus on early conquest of neutral or enemy towns, but expansion by conquest doesn't work with with Klackons due to their race relations.

Draconians: Wrong! Draconians are easily A Tier. Draconians with Life are arguably the strongest setup in the game. Flying is a HUGE advantage. You can easily find Adamantium early, but a Settler on Adamantium and develop that town to produce Adamantum Spearmen or Bowmen, which are very powerful and cheap.

In the longer term stacks of Doom Drakes and Flying Ships are very powerful. Doom Drakes come out absurdly fast and can dominate anything.

High Elves: Wrong! These guys are at least Tier B if not A. High Elves have the best military mix in the game arguably, with both a solid ranged unit and a solid melee unit (Elvin Lords). They are highly mobile and have great resistance. They work well with Nature and Chaos, as well as Life. High Elves with Chaos is one of my favorite strats because the Fire Giants give all your stacks Pathfinding. Flame Blade is quick to get and very powerful. Use Hell Hounds early while you race to Elvin Lords.

Lizardmen : Yeah, Tier C. I always want them to be better, but meh. Their Javaliners take too long to get out is the main problem.

Nomads are good, but they take a bit too long to develop. I used to really like them, but I agree they take too long to really develop. A great race to conquer though.

Trolls : Yeah, conquer these guys, don't start as them. Tier D for starting race.

Dark Elves : Agreed.

Gnolls : NO WAY! I love Gnolls, these are, IMO, the best Rush race. Gnolls with Alchemy + Warlord + all Sorcery = almost guaranteed win. The only time you will fail with Gnolls is if you're stuck on an island with nothing to conquer early on. Gnolls are vastly better than Lizardmen. Wolf Riders only require Stables to produce. And you get a MIner's Guild. When Wolf Riders come out they can easily beat any other unit on the field. That is not true of Javaliners or Dragon Turtles, which both take too long to get out.

For Gnolls all you need to make is a Granary, Marketplace, Farmer's Market, (not required but advisable Sawmill, Forester's Guild), (Possibly Shrine) then Stables and you can start pumping Wolf Riders.

For Lizardmen you need to make Granary, Marketplace, Farmer's Market, Armory, Fighter's Guild (Possibly Shrine). But you won't have the benefit of a Sawmill or Forester's Guild.

Gnolls with Sorcery are super deadly and super fast for conquering.

Orcs : Agreed

Halflings earn their place at the top. They have bonus food, possibly the best race relations, and slingers with some buffs and experience can shred just about anything. They can build the Alchemist Guild to take advantage of Mithral and Adamantium. Slingers can show up just as fast as Wolf Riders, if not faster since the halfling food bonus means halflings need fewer farmers than gnolls do.

Slingers may be slow, but the same solutions for other slow units also work on slingers.

Dwarves have an excellent economy right from the start, getting bonus taxes, minerals, and worker hammers simply for being dwarves. Hammerhands make excellent shock troops, especially with mithral or adamantium, and dwarves can build them fast enough that hammerhands can be expendable. Dwarves are also one of 5 races that can build engineers. Their growth penalty, race relations, and lack of high end religious buildings hold them back, but dwarves produce hard hitting, tanky units at a good speed regardless.

I'm unclear why dwarves being unable to initiate on flyers is a particular problem. Sure, they'll struggle against the likes of Sky Drakes, but most things struggle against Sky Drakes.

Klackons only suck if your fortress isn't in a Klackon city.

If you are klackon, then they are a great race for building settlers, and they do fine having cities packed as tightly as you can manage. They are the only race in the game with an unrest bonus for matching the fortress race (all klackon cities have -20% unrest if their owner is also klackon). They get bonus shields on their units (keeping those units alive much longer than their counterparts) and they get bonus worker hammers. Stag Beetles have decent speed, good armor, good hits, great attack, and firebreathing to let them initiate on flyers. Stag Beetles might not get much benefit from buffs, but they also don't lose any combat effectiveness from the first hp to the last hp. Stag Beetle resistance is a little low, but Klackons can generate new Beetles very quickly.

They do want some slaves to make up for their lack of research and religious buildings. It is just as well that Stag Beetles don't need much in the way of support, considering this deficit.

Between more expensive units and no production bonuses, Draconians have a slow start. Flying is really good, though, especially when it comes time to defend your cities.

High Elves are a B Tier only if you're being generous. They grow painfully slowly, they have no production bonuses, and they don't have the high end religious buildings to deal with unrest. They also have poor race relations. Longbows pack a punch, but only in large, experienced groups, and they still only have one move. Elven Lords have good abilities, but they don't have the attack, defense, or hp to let them go up against stronger targets.

Trolls only have four figures per unit, but they compensate with more swords and hp per figure. Their regeneration is absurd, letting a stack of swordsman go conquering without needing reinforcements while the city works toward War Trolls. Attrition just doesn't work against trolls, which is a huge combat advantage.

Slow growth, poor race relations, and lack of infrastructure keep them from being B Tier, but Regeneration easily pushes them to C Tier all by itself. Just avoid the poor, irrelevant mammoths.