Hey, I've been looking at Master of Magic for quite awhile, but I'm not sure if I'd actually like to buy it. Can anyone give me a more detailed rundown of the mechanics that make MoM so well loved? Thanks in advanced.

Well that depends what you are liking - this game is a great mix between 'Age of wonders' and 'Civilization'. If you liked both of these games - MoM is for you. You get city/empire building from Civilization, and exchange technology tree with creating magic/spells. It also has good replayability: you can choose different magic circles (necromancy/fire/life/nature/pure magic) , traits , and races: enjoying new combination in game (casting 'fly' spell on your ships and creating sky armada :p). But the game has its flaws - non-existing diplomacy , stupid AI, and gamebreaking victory condition (you can destroy main cities of each enemy and you will win - no matter how much of their units will still be on the field).

The game is not Civ-like in my book. It plays a lot like Civ game, but it is only superficial looks of it. Also, I never loved Age of Wonders, but I still very much like MoM. First, this game is *not* for players who
- dislike slow beginnings
- don't like a bit slower gameplay in general

The battles take longer, the movement is slower in general. I've thrown the game away twice before finding the gem inside. MoM spots deep levels of gameplay but they are hidden at first. It plays more like a RPG than a true strategy. You are on a crusade to change the world to your image. You may subdue all magic nodes with wild creatures, you may create a small army of unique heroes of improbably powers, you may turn your enemies into dust with perfect magical tricks, you may use global spells to change the very basics of the game itself. In which game one can stop the time for other players, turn the whole continent into volcanoes or let flying warships destroy any earthly creature?

The MoM game lacks balance. It was a lucky choice by the creators, it's one of its greatest strength. The magic is shown as something totally unbalanced, that can throw the whole life into chaos in one click, for or against you.

(a ggod bunch of opinions can be found on this page (be warned, Elemental is a stupid game, hyped up, would-be MoM sequel): What was the magic of MoM

Conquering the main cities of the computer opponents will not win you the game unless they do not have enough spell points to cast the spell of return.Or if it is their final city.
The game can be a very quick start depending on how you want to play it.

Your battles against lesser enemies can be very fast by fighting in auto mode, or even faster by fighting in strategic mode.

It is a single player game, lack of balance between races or even spell groups is irrelevant.

Oh, come on. You ever used the "AI stupid" auto mode? And strategic combat is actually a game exploit, because it has unnatural, very good results for human player. So why do you use irrelevant arguments?

The game is simply slow by modern standards, so I warned the guy. With patience he'll have a gem. Without it, he lost his money.

I don't mind slow beginnings, since I play Civ on Epic speed for hours at a time, this sounds like something I'd like. Thanks for the help.

MoM is actually the inspiration for AOW and shares a lot of common units, ideas, races, and spells with AOW2 and AOW:SM.

MoM is also much older, however, so don't expect cool rendered 2d Iso graphics as you get with AOW2/AOW:SM

It is very much like Civ in that you start off weak, there are other players equally as weak controlled by the AI, and random goodies to find (abandoned keeps, monster lairs, etc.) but the similarities end there; In MoM there are independent cities which can get quite tough and even send raiding parties out, so don't neglect your defense early in the game! Also, your 'vital resource' will be Mana which you gather from Nodes which are ALWAYS guarded by something nasty.

And Kyrub is right to point out that MoM is an RPG in Civ clothing - YOU are the protagonist in the story and even your favorite hero is but a pawn in your grand scheme. Just like in most RPGs your wizard will eventually rise from a weak, upstart despot with a single city in his/her grip to bestriding the planes like a Colossus, warping the very fabric of reality with a single spell.

Is the game unbalanced? Not really, IMO. Though you can stop time for other players, you can not keep it up indefinitely; your food, gold, and unit production are set to 0 while you receive an automatic -200 mana income, so you'll burn through your reserves right quick. Cover the world in volcanoes? Your spell could be disjuncted by a sorcerer. Befoul an opponent's land with a corruption spell? priests, shamans, and Nature wizards can counter the effects. For every power, there is a counter-power. Are some magic domains easier to win with than others? Sorcery says yes, but that doesn't make it 'unbalanced' - there are counter-sorcery spells in other domains (Death units are immune to illusion and Life has 'True Seeing' which ignores illusory effects) which can make life inconvenient for the sorcerer, especially early on.

Patience, a healthy economy, and the right mix of units and abilities will make your army unstoppable, just like in Civ (where it's a mix of patience, a healthy economy, and unit upgrades) or in a CRPG (where it's time, research, and magical abilities).

> Is the game unbalanced?

Absolutely. And it rocks.

Using 11 Death Books, you can have a Wraith out by turn 30. It can kill any number of normal units and low level heroes (your enemies/neutrals will have very little but these things) *and* raise most of them as free undead units. That one wraith used carefully will take a city (and its defenders) on average every 3-5 turns. And you can easily have another one out before turn 60.

And that's not the only broken build, just one of many noticeable ones.

But it *is* a one-player game. You choose your build, and whether to play something fair or something painfully one-sided. Really, you never feel like the game is so unbalanced that you don't want to try a neat-seeming strategy. People play zero-book games all the time, and enjoy them.

MoM is one of the best examples (in terms of fun) of the 4x genre, and the best, hands down, in the fantasy 4x genre.

We must be talking about apples and oranges.In some scenarios you can conquer neutral cities minutes after starting a game.Are you talking say compared to Civ ? Empire Earth ? I guess i Warcraft 2 and up Or starcraft?
I find getting into the meat of those slower than Mom.
You can pick your game with Mom, from quick and easy to long drawn out affairs.

Master of Magic is close to the perfect game, IMO. It has it's share of flaws, sure, but the perfect game has the right kind of flaws, and that's MoM. I think you could try to design a game like this 100 times and come up with a gem of this caliber maybe two or three times.

As for what type of game it is, I think of it this way: if you've ever played a wizard character in a PnP RPG, Master of Magic takes over at about the time you would retire the character because he's getting too powerful. You start off as a wizard who is powerful enough to rule a whole city by himself, so the next step is to rule the entire world you start off in, plus another world in another dimension that connects to your starting world, so you can become (ta-da!) the Master of Magic. Naturally, you're competing against other powerful wizards.

I would not say any builds are broken, it's just that there are many different ways to try and win the game, and some of them are a lot easier than others. Even the most reliably dominant builds don't feel like cheating though, IMO. You can play the same build several different times and have a significantly different experience each time. And you're free to choose the difficulty of the game based on what sort of combination of skills you give your wizard at the start, and which race you choose as the one you rule over.

Personally I would never use strategic combat mode, though. You're missing a lot of the fun if you do that.