I know this is an old game and the graphics will be clunky.
But the way units look is beyond terrible.
I know monitor is probably too big and thus everything is blown up.
I thought that by lowering the resolution to 800x600 might help but that
doesn't seem to be the answer.
I think an old monitor might make things look better. Squish the units so
they look less blocky.
Any way to improve the looks on a big monitor.
I wish I could tell my monitor to act smaller.
Thx

Run it in windowed mode. Everything will be nice and crisp.

Well, you could change your graphics cards settings in its control panel -- tell it not to scale. But windowed mode is probably a more attractive option.

Change scaler type. It will probably take a bit more cpu, but should look a bit better.
Examples here: http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Scaler
So for example in your mom folder there is a file dosboxMOM.conf. Make a backup of it and then change scaler=normal2x to something else. scaler=hq2x for example.
If you are on win7/vista you will have to copy the file to your desktop, then edit it and copy it back.

Danger in that is that it can muddy up the graphics considerably if you change the scaler type, especially on a relatively low-resolution game like Master of Magic. I generally avoid scalers for this reason.

If you prefer fullscreen mode to windowed, change the line
fullresolution=original
to your monitor's native resolution, such as
fullresolution=1280x1024
If the scaler is off, the game will run in a tiny space in the center of the screen with a HUGE black border around it.
If that is *too* small for you (likely), start playing around with scaler settings.
scaler=normal2x
will double the simply size of the of the picture. It's very crisp, but if you don't like huge pixels, try
scaler=hq2x or
scaler=super2xsai (This one is usually my preference)
See how all the scalers incorporate the number 2? With most scalers you can substitute a 3 or 4 ie: scaler=hq3x to increase the magnification effect if 2 is still too small for you.
Note these will still have a black border! That's what changing the fullscreen resolution was for, it keeps your monitor at it's native resolution no matter what. So even with exactly the right scaler settings, you will always have some border around the image, unless your monitor's resolution is a perfect multiple of game's original resolution.

So far I have changed the full screen off.
That got me a little box on my 20" monitor. I am getting a 24" tomorrow which may not help.
I think the native resolution is 1800 by 1000. I will have to check. I am at work now.
I changed the resolution to 640 by 400 (or something close to that). Then the box took up most of the screen. Units were still too blocky. Hard for me to tell the difference between units without looking real close. The terrain is fine with me as is the rest of the game.
The units look like they are 16 x 16.
I may try experimenting with the scaler. At least at 5.95 I haven't lost much.
I am hoping Elemental will solve the problem when they get around to finishing the game.
I wonder whether MOO and MOO2 will look like this. I may buy them though I am addicted to Galciv2 right now.

Early to mid 90's graphics do take me awhile to get used to. MOM , Jagged Alliance and Realms Of Arkania i thought all looked like a bag of sick and i just wouldn't be able to play them; but the gameplay was still there and i got used to the graphics and dated interface. Give MOM some time to work it's charm on you and the graphics may cease to be a problem..thats how it usually works for me anyway. As for MOO, the second one has much better graphics than MOM and has lots of nice, clear details (colony buildings, leader portraits, ships and different weapon effects).

Moo2 should look beautiful. Moo... Not as much, but not nearly as bad as the MoM does.

I agree that some races have incredibly badly designed units, so that you cannot discern them at all. I dislike playing Draconians for the simple fact that I cannot make a simplest of distinction between totally different units.
So I suggest you try to change the starting race as well.
Also you should check the Options screen under Game menu to see if the option "Auto unit info is checked". That helps a lot in the combat.
Finally, before you throw the game out of your window, try to read this thread: [url=]http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=242961&page=1&pp=50[/url]
This is a great intro into the game. I find the displayed picture nice as well, in their simplicity.

I use a .72 CVS build of DOSBox with the opengl-hq output method. This is what it looks like with aspect=false, windowresolution=1280x1024:

Pffft. You think MoM's graphics are bad, wait until you meet Darklands...awesome game but the graphics...

See, I never get why people think just because the resolution is low, that automatically makes the graphics terrible. If you really think games like MoM, Civ 1, MoO, Jagged Alliance, etc have bad graphics, then you haven't seen games with really bad graphics.
When these games came out, they were actually known to have pretty good graphics, especially for the genre. Sure, they're not hand-drawn, painted and scanned, but they're still well done.
You young 'uns...

I am not exactly a young un at 60. For that reason, I have never been able to get into RTS games.
And I would much prefer gameplay to graphics. But if I can't tell one unit from another, I may not be able to handle it. But I can going to try some of the above suggestions, because I would really like to play MOM. I did play MOO and MOO2.
I go far enough back that I played the original Empire where the map and units were just letters. Hey, it worked.

32 is young now??? O_O