By some back of the napkin math I believe I've spent about 3 months playing this game, that's 90 days or 2160 hours or 129,600 minutes... and before I sound too much like a poorly spoofed version of Rent, let me try to say what I think attracted me to this game. Simply, the attraction to the game is the grandiose level of customization. It was the first game that i felt let me play exactly how I wanted to play, from the design of my world to the growing of my empire to the way I ran the tactical battles. Do I want to be a life giving, peaceful wizard? Or today do I feel like playing a zombie loving, ghouly death wizard? Or, and here was my favorite part, do I completely blow off magic and spend my traits on making me a Genghis Kahn like warlord? That last piece was what started my longtime love afair with MoM: I didn't have to play a wizardly wizard, and yet it still made sense in the realm of the game's mythos. Next I would choose my opponents. Some days I felt megalomaniacal and chose a bunch of opponents but made them dumb as dirt, and some days I felt masochistic and played on the Impossible world, even winning sometimes. Then I chose my starting race of, shall I call them, worshipers. Here's another area where I believe that MoM shined: the races are, in my humble opinion, NOT balanced, not really meant to be balanced, but they sure are different, AND you can beat the game with any race. Besides, if you get tired of the race you start with? Just take over other cities of other races and pacify them with sword or spells. There's nothing like razing the early world with a bunch of crazed Gnolls, followed by a surprise amphibious assault on your opponents with some Lizard Javelineers and Dragon Turtles, only to march over the final hold outs with some Doom Bolt dropping Dark Elf Warlocks. It's not easy to make all the races play nicely together under your wizardly umbrella, but there are lots of ways to accomplish this problem. And let's not forget about the heroes. Honestly, most of the heroes are overpowered tanks. But that's half the fun, because they don't start out that way. The early hero's life is precarious, and an accidental trip battle against an invisible Phantom Beast that is helping to guard a wizard tower, this when you only expected some wimpy Phantom Warriors, can be hazardous to the young hero's health. When a hero does survive long enough, or you have the opportunity to summon Torin, which you will if you play a life wizard, they can be dispatched against certain foes and in certain situations mopping up entire armies like some medieval special forces. And yet, like a few other games that I like, it seems that no incident can't be counter acted. What makes the game so much fun is that there are so MANY different strategies and tactics that what seems, and often is, impossible early on becomes only a challenge later on. Master of Magic is not wholly perfect. Then again, I don't know of any game that is. It's graphics could really use an update, but they do qualify as retro. The AI could use an upgrade, but they are good enough, especially once I got comfortable enough to play the Hard setting. And even with the 1.31 patch, I have still occasionally found minor glitches, especially in late, large world games against a lot of opponents on hard or impossible difficulty. Save games are your friend. But where Master of Magic is perfect, it is really, uniquely perfect. No other strategy game ever, and I play a lot of games, has yet to give me the feeling that I'm in another world full of seemingly endless possibilities and things to try. I'm hoping that day will come soon when I can finally put Master of Magic away for good, but I have this sneaky feeling that even when that day comes, once a year around Christmas I will still break the game out, like I have always done, and give it a go for old times sake.
