Well I did manage to get it working and have been enjoying some nostalgic games. Funny how fast everything comes back to you, even when it seems like you've completely forgotten everything before you play again.

To solve my configuration problems, I downloaded and installed a DOS emulator called DOSBox (v 0.61). I had MoM installed in D:\mom. To get it to run, I'd launch DOSBox, which opened a Window with a DOS-like environment in it. I then typed:

1) mount d d:\mom
2) d:
3) magic

and voila, the game launched. I pressed CNTL+F7 several times to raise the Frameskip to 10, and CNTL+F12 once to raise the CPU cycles to 3000. That combo seems to work well on my PC (it may be different for others; mine is old and slow). The sound is a bit erratic (the music), but the most needed sounds (effects and alerts) work fine.

***

I, too, enjoy playing the Life/Sorcery combo, with either High Men or Dark Elves, and I tend to prefer starting in Myrror rather than Arcanus. My first couple of nostalgia games were with 4 Life and 4 Sorcery Spellbooks, and the Myrran special ability.

Of late I've been trying another, more unpredictable combo: High men, 1 spell book each of Life, Sorcery, Chaos and Nature, and the special abilities of Myrran, Warlord, Alchemy, and Node Mastery. Only choosing 4 spellbooks at the onset makes for a weak start, and it's challenging. I enjoy having to hunt down additional spellbooks and special ability retorts in order to advance my wizard's abilities throughout the game. It also makes it interesting as you don't know what you'll find, so you don't know exactly what kind of wizard you'll end up with. Only having 4 spellbooks also forces me to limit the speed of my research early in the game (if you research all of your spells before finding additional spellbooks, you'll be forced to research the Spell of Mastery, which will tie up your research efforts for a VERY long time, even if you subsequently find more spellbooks and have new spells available for research).

Adamantium-accoutered Pallies ROCK