In spite of its age, Master of Magic is, without doubt, still occupying a small space on many hard drives. The game is, in short, a clone of Civilization set in a typical heroic fantasy setting. However, the combat aspect of Civivilization has been greatly enhanced in this game : when stacks of enemy units meet, the game turns into a small tactical screen where you can direct them in a turn-based combat. Master of Magic also includes enough elements of role-playing game to interest RPG gamers. Ordinary units gain experience with time, and you can hire heroes representing the usual heroic fantasy classes. You can also create their own weapons to suit their powers. Your own personnage, the main magician, also obeys some RPG codes, with traits, abilities and magical specializations that can lead him, or her, to master dozains and dozains of spells of all types. The number of different units and races that exist in the game is astonishing. Everything is here, from all kind of invoqued beasts and undeads to the whole range of heroic fantasy units, belonging to 15 different races. Note that your realm will be multi-racial anyway. You choose a starting race but, while you expand, you'll conquer others and will access to their respective units. Finally, the map is randomized like in Civ, except that the game world is actually flat, with two different faces (a bright one and a dark one) that you can access through portals. This adds another welcome level of strategy.
Sometimes, you wonder why there is no add-on and no Master of Magic II. The answer to that question is simple : because it's pretty near perfect. There is nothing you could add to this game to make it better.