There were tons of games that came after this one that tried to copy its formula but failed miserably. If your into building cities and armies, diplomacy, magic research, and leveling heroes this game is still the king.
I think most people (especially on this site) try to hold on to good old games but when compared to todays standards those old games fail. This does not.
Its Kings Bounty, HOMM, Civilization, Magic the Gathering ,all mixed together with alot more details thrown in. MUST HAVE.
I am a huge fan of Master of Magic. The play style is similar to Civilization II, but more in depth. You build cities and manage resources, but you also have a whole line of spells to research and use. There are global spells that effect various things even your combat. When you attack or defend you zoom in to a battlefield. Here you compete in turn based combat. You can cast spells from your Keep or have Heros and some types of special units cast them. It is definitely one of my all time favorite games. I very possibly have spent more game hours playing this game than any other game. Great Replayability!
Masters of Magic is a "traditional" city building game in the family of the civilization type. But with a twist.
It takes place on the world of Arcanus and the magical alternate world of Myrror. The player assumes control of a Wizard and aims to build up his/her empire and assume mastery of the magic or eradicate the enemy wizards with the help of troops, magical beast and spells.
Magical abilities divided into various spell schools; Chaos, Nature, Death, Illusion and Life. Schools which should be familiar to "Magic the Gathering" players.
The player builds up his empire by building up cities and advancing them and building troops (different troop types for different races) akin to how it happens in Civilization and those games.
But outside this the player has access to a wide array of magical beasts (different beasts per school) which can be summoned.
The player can hire heroes and equip them with magical equipment obtained either by summoning or by conquest and exploration of the caves and dungeons of the world.
Heroes and troops increase in experience and becomes increasingly powerful.
Magical abilities can be enhanced by leeching magic from magical nodes throughout the worlds.
Combat takes place in a tactical overview with rules for flying, ranged, city walls.
Unfortunately - the game's age does means some game breaking bugs and a couple of "easy" and cheesy strategies, but the game still provides countless hours of entertainment to this day.
It can be incredible difficult if played at the highest settings as well, so it isn't just a walk in the park if one does not want it to.
Masters of Magic is a deep and rewarding game, build inside a simple interface with many nuances. It is second only to Civilization 1 when it comes to this genre of building game. It is a great mixture of some RPG elements and city building.
If one hasn't tried it but enjoyed Civilization or a spin-off, this game is a must buy. No doubt, no questions, no regrets.
I was unsure about this based on the screenshots and how old it looks.
Having read the reviews I took a punt.
And yes, I concur, this game is amazing.
If you want a game that plays like Civilisation but in a fantasy setting then this is it.
I only have one small criticism, it is a bit buggy (issues with saved games disappearing and occasional crashes), but not enough to warrant stopping playing.
What actually baffles me the most is how this game has never had an upgrade, I would absolutely love to see a newer bigger version based on the civ 4 engine.
Be warned, it's another in the "just one more turn" category, and it will suck you in.
This game works anywhere DOSbox does. Unfortunately GOG/the publisher hasn't packaged it for MacOS. I ended up installing it in a windows VM, and copying the files to my MacBook. From there it just took a few minutes of tweaking the setup to get it running on my machine.
