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And so another time has come, which would make me join Good Old Games, if I hadn't done that already :)
People often refer to this game as "the best" one of its genre. I personally consider such statements should be avoided when it comes to something heavily determined by taste. Thus I'll just say "my favorite".
The first impression was probably similar everywhere, regarding its resemblance to Civilization, mostly caused by the looks of a map, city screen, units, etc. Each further step though, I've been realizing how much it differs, how many of its own concepts it's introducing, making it totally represent the quality of its own.
One of the most important general aspects, distinguishing it from most of the earlier MPS strategy titles, is that your initial choices, of the characterand its abilities, of the starting race, really do affect the gameplay heavily.
Would you be a Nature magic "ultimate landlord"? Choose Life and immediately rumble through the land with Torin? Become a Chaos wizard and overwhelm whole business at the start with your flame strike? Maybe few books from various realms, hoping to get the Change terrain, Chaos channels and Flight at the same time? Maybe start on the Myrror, and save on logistics? Maybe get the grunty Dark Elves and breed them and power? Maybe start with the cute mighty Halflings whom everybody loves, so you can conquer other races with your Slingers, not causing too much unrest? What armies would fit better against your enemies - the Warlocks and Hammerhands? The Paladins and Longbowmen?
Such wide range of narrow choices can make each played game significantly different.
Another important thing is a progressive nature of the game, each level of your development having its own aims and joys - no boredom at start, no micromanagement-overdump by the end.
Spiced with its own specific climate, combined with and all the interesting concepts (two planes, the units' expanded properties and ways of improving these, the armies and heroes, combat solution, power nodes), it all guarantees the ultimate (re)playability value, potentially making Master of Magic the game to go back to once in a while, certified for at least as many years as have passed so far since its release.
The game had been heavily underestimated by the time, due to the amount of technical issues present when first released, sadly making the game hardly playable, especially at the advanced stage. It did quite spoil the impression of the great design work and ideas put into this title, making them hard to enjoy or even discover.
As we all know though, that chapter's left somewhere in the previous century, the game has been well patched in the meantime (not perfectly, but gotten rid of the showstoppers), thus we can safely go back, and give it another chance / discover it again / play it again / finish the High Men Life game and start the Chaos Beastmen one, underline the appropriate :)