Master of Magic

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This article discusses the 1994 PC game Master of Magic. For information on the 1986 Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum game of the same name, see Master of Magic (Mastertronic).

Master of Magic
Developer(s)	Simtex
Publisher(s)	Microprose
Release date(s)	/ / 1994
Genre(s)	Turn-based strategy
Mode(s)	Single player (hotseat possible with third-party programs)
Platform(s)	DOS

Master of Magic (MoM) is a turn-based fantasy strategic computer game published by Microprose in 1994 and developed by Steve Barcia (Simtex), who wrote the better-known Master of Orion. The game has many similarities with Civilization^[1], but is set in a fantasy world and includes tactical battles.

Master of Magic was considered a success but contained numerous bugs^[1] and failed to spawn a sequel^[2].

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 Story and world 1.2 Terrain and resources 1.2.1 Special resources 1.2.2 Nodes, lairs and towers 1.3 Magic 1.3.1 Magic types 1.4 Power and its use 1.4.1 Spells 1.4.2 Retorts 1.5 Races 1.6 Cities 1.7 Units 1.7.1 Normal units 1.7.2 Summoned Units 1.7.3 Heroes 1.7.4 Experience 1.8 Combat 1.9 Random events 2 Reception 2.1 Problems 3 Remakes and sequel rumors 4 Games similar to Master of Magic 5 Notes 6 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The player starts as a humble wizard ruling a small hamlet, and his goal is to defeat all other wizards, either directly by military operations or by casting the ultimate Spell of Mastery that will banish all other wizards from the mortal plane. There are many customizable starting options and a random map, making each game completely different.

Players can specialize in five realms of magic, each with a different purpose and philosophy and providing additional abilities, and choose his starting race, each having distinct advantages and drawbacks. The player explores the world and gains magical power by cracking magic nodes and lairs. He also improves his wizard by researching spells and increases his army by conquering new villages—which also provide access to strategic resources. Much of the game time is spent in tactical battles against monsters or opposing wizards' armies.

[edit] Story and world

In the game of Master of Magic, the player begins as a wizard ruling over a small hamlet and a few soldiers, with only basic magical powers. He has to research spells to increase his power, to expand his empire by building cities, to defend them with mundane and magical armies and to acquire magical resources as well. The armies can be used to research additional treasures or to battle other wizards. As the player's reputation grows, more and more powerful heroes join his cause. To win, he must either defeat all the other wizards or become powerful enough to cast the final spell, the Spell of Mastery that will deprive other wizards of their magic abilities.^[3]

The world where Master of Magic takes place is called Arcanus. It is quite similar to Earth, with forests, oceans, grasslands and rivers, albeit with magic and fantastic races and creatures. Existing in parallel to it, however, lays an alien world, which can accessed only by a set of towers or by special enchantments, called Myrror, even more impregnated with magic and possessing resources unknown on Arcanus. There is a proverb among wizards saying that "no one can truly rule Arcanus before cracking the Myrror."^[4]

[edit] Terrain and resources

Geographically speaking, the world of Arcanus is also similar to that of Earth, featuring rivers, grasslands, forests, oceans and other typical terrain features. As one might expect, grasslands tend to produce more food, hills and forests increase production, and rivers increase trade bonuses. In a similar way, areas such as mountains and swamps are harder to pass and require more time to get through than do grasslands and plains. There are, however, some differences with the real world, since magical resources are also present in the game.

[edit] Special resources

Dispersed here and there in the world, some terrain tiles provide special advantages to the city built near it. Coal and iron reduce the construction cost of military units, gems and precious metals provide additional income to the city, wild game increases food production and magical crystals generate additional power base for the controlling wizard. Some terrain tiles also contain a rare plant called a nightshade. When a city is built near a nightshade, the plant helps the wizard to protect his cities against negative magic cast by rival wizards.^[5]

Some specials also provide better weapons for troops built in a nearby city. Mithril ores enhance the attack strength of all units produced in the city by 1, while adamantium, a pink mineral available only on Myrror, does so by 2,^[5] making adamantium a much-sought deposit for production of shock troops. Not all effects coming from special resources are immediate; some require additional buildings to be constructed in the city before it can be exploited.

While not a special resource per se, roads are also treated as specials, since they increase the trade bonus between cities and allow faster troop movements. Roads are built by engineers (and not by settlers like in Civilization) and can be enchanted by an "Enchant road" uncommon sorcery spell to require no movement cost for armies using them, much like railroads in Civilization. Additionally, roads on Myrror are automatically enchanted.^[6] Note that contrary to Civilization, not all races can build roads - only three Arcanus and two Myrror races possess the technological knowledge required to construct a road network.^[7]

[edit] Nodes, lairs and towers

Magic nodes are places on Arcanus and Myrror where raw magic power is available. There are three types of magic nodes: chaos, nature and sorcery nodes. Some special abilities allow skilled wizards to gather double power from certain or all types of nodes. Every node is guarded by powerful magical creatures of the same color as the node; i.e., chaos nodes are guarded by chaos magic creatures, nature nodes by nature creatures and so on. All nodes on Myrror are twice as powerful as nodes on Arcanus,^[8] making them much-sought sources of power for all wizards; however, they are also better guarded.

Once the guardians of the node are defeated, any wizard can send a spirit to meld with the node. By melding, the spirit transfers the power of the node to the summoning wizard, although this process destroys the spirit. There are two kinds of spirits, the magic spirit and the guardian spirit. The former is available to all wizards, while the second is available only to wizards knowledgeable in life magic.

In addition to these characteristics, magic nodes influence combat and magic around them. When a combat takes place directly on the node tile, all magic spells belonging to a different color have a certain chance of being dispelled, spending mana in vain. For example, a Life spell of Healing has a strong chance of failing in all types of nodes.^[9] This fizzle property is negated if the wizard has the power of Node Mastery, which also generates double power from all sources,^[10] making it a very useful pick. Furthermore, magic creatures belonging to the same magic realm gain additional attack strength not only when fighting on the node tile, but also in all tiles bathed in node's magical aura.^[11]

Moreover, a lot of lairs, caves and ruined temples are disseminated everywhere through Arcanus and Myrror. Controlled by hostile creatures, they contain precious treasures for the wizard powerful enough to crush the opposition. The more powerful the guardian monsters are, the better the treasure is. These treasures can be additional money and mana crystals, new spells or heroes, and even additional abilities for the wizard. A special kind of lair is a wizard tower. Once the player overcomes the monsters guarding it, he will be able to use the tower to shift his units from one plane of existence to another for free.^[12]

[edit] Magic

Magic is the focal point of the game. It allows the player to improve his cities, to summon otherworldly creatures to do his bidding, to send destruction on his enemies or to trick them. With adequate magic spells, a moderately strong army can overcome a powerful one with ease, a city can be turned into a virtual paradise with an outstanding trade and industry production, and terrain can be altered to suit the player's needs.

[edit] Magic types

Magic comes in six different types, or colors. The Arcane magic is the most basic of all and is available to every wizard, regardless of any other choices or starting conditions, as the arcane spells allow only some simple functions, such as dispelling other wizards' magic, summoning heroes or creating artifacts. Additionally, the Spell of Mastery is also an arcane spell. Apart from this basic magic, five additional types of magic can be chosen by the player when starting a new game. A maximum of eleven picks, identified as books on a shelf, can be selected.

Life magic, identified by white ankh symbols, is the magic of healing, enhancement and creation. A wizard skilled in life magic can use his powers to heal his armies (and even raise them from the dead), enhance their fighting abilities and instill happiness in his citizens. Life magic strongly opposes death and chaos magic.

Death magic, contained in books stamped with a black skull, concentrates on controlling the forces of darkness and evil. It allows a skilled wizard to summon terrific undead creatures, to possess and create undead units and even kill a whole group of armies with a mere gesture. The antagonism between death and life magic is so strong that no wizard can choose to specialize in both of these magic trees, it even being impossible to discover a book of the opposite color in dungeons.

Chaos magic, marked with a red fireball on its books, is the magic of offensive and destruction. A chaos wizard can summon fire minions to do his bidding and wreak havoc on his enemies with fire and lightning attacks. Some chaos spells even allow the casting wizard to destroy or damage a city located on the other side of the world without sending a single soldier, or even corrupt and alter the whole world.

Nature magic, recognizable by the green tree symbols on its volumes, is centered on fertility and growth. It is deeply rooted in the power of the land and can even alter the shape of the world by transforming sterile deserts into fertile grasslands. It also allows the skilled wizard to use nature's wrath to punish his enemies by raining ice storms on them and to summon terrific creatures to send on his enemies.

Sorcery magic, accessible in tomes with an engraved blue diamond, allows the control of the air and illusions. A skilled sorcerer can use his magic to bestow the power of flight or wind walking on his armies, turn them invisible, or summon minions that tear directly the flesh of most enemies, ignoring almost any kind of armor. Moreover, Sorcery magic has yet another aspect: meta-magic, or the ability to control, dispel and resist other wizards’ spells.^[13]

The more picks a player chooses in a given color, the more advanced spells he will be able to research and learn. Additionally, a player can pick a certain number of spells in the beginning of the game. These spells are free and do not require any research.^[14]

[edit] Power and its use

To finance his research and his spells, a wizard must gather power. Power comes from three sources: magic nodes melded with a spirit, buildings such as shrines and cathedrals, and sometimes from the population for some races.

This obtained magic power is converted into mana on a one-to-one basis. Mana can be used in three different ways. First, it can be put into a reserve for subsequent use to cast spells. However, gold can be transformed into mana reserve on a 2-to-1 basis (1-to-1 if a wizard has the Alchemist trait), which is a more efficient way of obtaining mana reserves. Therefore, most MoM players don't allocate mana to storage, unless playing a heavy chaos magic wizard whose spells drain a lot of mana. Second, it can be used to research new spells, as they require mana to learn. Third, power can be used to improve wizards' spell skill, which is the maximum amount of mana points a wizard can put into non-combat casting every turn, or into each battle.

[edit] Spells

Spell are divided into four categories, according to their rarity and research cost, and can be common, uncommon, rare and very rare. Less common spells are more powerful and can greatly help winning a game, but also cost more to research, to cast and to maintain.

However, raiding ruins and towers and trading spells with other wizards are good ways to get more spells than players' magic picks normally allow. Ten books or more in a given color allow the player to research all spells in this tree.^[15] Furthermore, N picks in a given realm of magic allow the player to pick N-1 free common spells in this color. 11 picks in a single color allow the player to have all common spells from the beginning of the game and to be able to pick 2 uncommon and 1 rare spells.^[16]

There are many different spell types, which can be roughly subdivided into several broad categories. Combat spells can only be cast during combat; however their effects may sometimes outlast the former. Unit enchantments increase or decrease the attack, defense or resistance of an army, or endow it with additional abilities, such as flight or regeneration. Summoning spells allow the wizard to summon a magical creature to fight for him. City enchantements allow the wizard to buff his own city, or to attack an enemy one. Finally, global enchantments are planetary events, affecting both planes of existence.

These spells can be instant, being a one-time effect (for instance, a healing of an army or a dispelling of enemy's enchantment); maintained, requiring additional mana every turn; or permanent, affecting its target permanently and requiring no further upkeep. These categories are overlapping: for instance, a global enchantment can be a unit spell because it improves the characteristics of all players' units at once.

Any combat spell is subject to distance penalties depending on the distance between his capital and the battlefield. If a wizard's fortress is very far away or located on the opposite plane of existence, the mana cost is tripled. Note that this penalty only affects the actual amount of mana used, not the base amount, meaning that a wizard with a spell skill of 100 will always be able to cast two 50-point spells in combat regardless of location, albeit with the actual mana cost varying from 100 to 300 depending on the battlefield location.

Note:

• The distance penalty is halved if the spell is cast in combat at the wizard's fortress (50 skill point spells cost 25 mana to cast, 10 point spells cost 5 mana to cast, etc.).
• The distance penalty is negated if the casting wizard has the Channeler ability (except, in combat at the wizard's fortress all spells will cost the same in mana as they cost in spell skill).

[edit] Retorts

Retorts are special abilities that provide benefits to the wizard, similar to leader skills in the later Civilization games. For instance, the Charismatic retort allows the player to better deal with diplomatic negotiations, the Warlord retort allows the player to grant a higher level of experience to his units, while the Node mastery retort grants the player double power gathering from all nodes. There are 18 different retorts in the game. Additional retorts can be picked up when defeating powerful nodes, lairs and ruins.

Some retorts possess prerequisites and require spell picks. For instance, the Node mastery retort requires at least one chaos, nature and sorcery book, while the Sage Master ability requires at least one book in any two realms of magic.^[17]

Choosing retorts is essentially a matter of trade-off between spell powers, given by book picks, and non-spell abilities, provided by retorts. Because the number of possible combinations between selected magic realms and retorts is so big and because there are only 11 picks available for both spell books and retorts, a game of Master of Magic is always different from another and each player has his/her personal preferences.^[18]

[edit] Races

Each plane of existence is inhabited by sentient creatures, some of them humanoid and some not even remotely human, yet capable of building cities and waging wars. There are fourteen different races in the game, nine on Arcanus and five on Myrror. All races have their distinct advantages and drawbacks: some of them produce mana just by existing, giving a wizard an increased power base, some are naturally tougher warriors, and some are able to produce advanced research buildings. Some races also get special benefits, such as innate flying or swimming. Not all races get along with others well, and are subject to much higher rebellion rates both when captured by races they don't like and when capturing other races. For instance, Klackons and Dark Elves are known to cause rebellions both in enslaved races and when captured, while Halflings are the most "pacifist" race.^[19][20]

For the player, the choice of his starting race is one of the most important in the game. While neutral cities exist and can fill important military or technological gaps, the choice of neutral races is random and one cannot reliably depend on these for victory. Most players tend to choose powerful races possessing powerful offensive units, such as High men or Halflings.

[edit] Cities

City management in Master of Magic is loosely based on the Sid Meier's Civilization, the main difference being the fact that the player does not need additional technologies to construct all possible buildings in a city. Available buildings fall into several broad categories: food increase, industry increase, trade increase, military training buildings, shipyards, holy places and research buildings. These categories may overlap in some cases. Note that not all buildings can be built by each race; only Orcs can build every building in the game, with all other races being subject to various restrictions.

The population present in the city is divided into three categories: farmers that produce food, workers that produce industry and rebels that don't produce anything and cannot be taxed. Additionally, a city also produces gold from trade, mineral deposits or buildings, mana from buildings or population and spell research points from research buildings.^[21] Overall, the city controls a territory consisting of a five-by-five square of tiles with its corners removed, called a "grand cross" in Civilization. A terrain or a special resource must be located within this limit to be exploited by the city. Magic nodes, however, do not suffer from this restriction: a node on the other side of the world will still produce power provided there is a spirit melded with it.

Each farmer produces two units of food (three in the case of Halflings or of a city equipped with an Animist Guild) from a map square. The game automatically allocates the right number of farmers necessary to ensure the correct amount of food for the citizens. Additional amounts of food are necessary to support armies. Much like in Civilization, more food allows the city to grow quicker; however, it is the potential food and not actual food production that matters. Indeed, the greater the difference between the actual number of people and the total number that can be fed in the city, the faster the city grows^[22]. The growth rate is also influenced by the construction of appropriate buildings, such as farmers' markets, as well as by racial bonuses or penalties. This food and industry production is then multiplied by bonuses conferred by buildings.

Cities must be built in the right places in order to maximize both food and industry output and bonuses conferred by special resources and trade routes. In order to help the player choose his/her starting location, a tool called Surveyor is available in the game. By activating this tool and pointing at any square on the map, the player will know what food, trade and industry bonuses are available on this tile, and most important, what maximum population level a city built on this square can reach. Once the location is decided on, a settler can be directed to that location to create an outpost. An outpost can garrison units but cannot produce anything yet. Several turns later (with the speed depending on racial bonuses as well as mineral specials located nearby), the outpost is turned into a city with a population level of one. At this point, the player can start to create buildings and train units in the city.

[edit] Units

Machiavelli's quote about war being the only study of a prince is true even for a magical world such as Arcanus. While some spells can dispatch enemy armies remotely or wear down cities without actually sending troops, nothing can replace an army, both for defense and offense. Thus, a major amount of cities' production is devoted to building and maintaining a military front able to withstand other wizards' onslaughts.

Units are subdivided into normal units, summoned creatures, and heroes. A unit is identifiable by several parameters. First, it possesses an attack strength, which can be melee and/or ranged, with several possible media for a ranged attack, including--but not limited to--arrows, stones, magic and fire. It also has defense and resistance ratings, making it able to withstand, respectively, normal and magic attacks. Additional parameters also include hit points and movement rating. Movement can be different from unit to unit, since some of them walk while others swim or fly. Finally, a unit has one or several special abilities they can use either in combat or overland. For instance, an Archangel increases the strength of those armies joining him in a battle, while a unit of Nomad Rangers can move through any terrain with the same speed as if they were traveling on a road.

All units in Master of Magic possess a number of figures, or characters, varying from one to eight, showing the "size" of the unit. Each attack and defense roll is actually calculated per surviving figure. When a figure within a unit dies (this happens when the total damage done to the unit is greater than the number of hit points of an individual figure), the attack strength of the entire unit goes down by the attack strength of the individual figure. If the player wins a battle, damaged units that have lost individuals during the battle can slowly regain them, healing over time.^[23] This process can be accelerated by stacking units with healing abilities such as shamans with the wounded armies. A very rare Nature spell of Herb Mastery also allows the player to completely heal all of his wounded units at the end of each turn.

[edit] Normal units

Normal units are mortal armies trained, bred or produced in the cities. They're not among the most powerful units in the game, but can be mighty opponents if properly trained and enhanced with various magic spells. Ordinary units cost both food and gold to maintain, with more powerful units having a higher upkeep cost.^[24] There is an exception however, for a skilled death wizard or one of his minions can turn a slain enemy army into a vile undead being immune to many kinds of attacks and costing neither food nor gold to maintain, but losing any ability to heal except with regeneration or life stealing attacks.^[25]

However, the units built by different races will have different characteristics and costs, reflecting racial particularities of that race. For instance, a Troll swordsmen unit will be four times sturdier than a human one, while a unit of High Men magicians will have six figures instead of the usual four.^[26]

In addition to these standard units, each race has a certain number of unique units, which can't be built by other races. For instance, High men will be able to produce Paladins, fast cavalry with innate magic immunity.

[edit] Summoned Units

Summoned units are otherworldly beings summoned on the plane of Arcanus and Myrror to do some wizard's bidding, or to defend a battlefield. They range in strength from frail warriors able to handle only the very beginning of the game to fighting machines able to take down a stack of lesser units without even taking damage.

Summoned units cost mana to call and additional mana per game turn to maintain. Nature spells have the highest number of summoned creatures, followed by Chaos, Death, Sorcery and Life. ^[27]

Compared to normal units, summoned creatures may be more powerful and also feature additional abilities, making them invaluable additions for an army. For instance, some summoned units are able to see invisible units, some enhance fighting abilities of the army and some can travel instantly between any two points of the battlefield.

[edit] Heroes

Heroes are powerful warriors and mercenaries that can join a wizard's service for a price. Heroes are typically more powerful than ordinary units, benefit more from experience gains and have important attributes that can be beneficial to him or even the other units. Furthermore, heroes possess abilities unavailable to both normal units and summoned creatures, such as the ability to help the wizard to research new spells and cast overland enchantments. Overall, there are 35 heroes in the game.^[28]

A hero can be recruited when he presents himself to the wizard at random, rescued after a battle in a lair or summoned through an appropriate "Summon hero" spell. Heroes' upkeep varies from two to ten gold pieces per turn, with more powerful heroes demanding more upkeep. A hero with the maximum upkeep is a champion, who can be summoned through a special "Summon champion" spell and usually requires at least one spell book of a given color to be summoned. A special hero is Torin the Chosen, who is not hired or summoned through arcane spells, but created only through the Incarnation life spell. Torin is one of the most powerful heroes available and possesses several benefits that extend to armies that join him on the battlefield. Torin can be summoned repeatedly if slain in battle and retains all the previous experience from former reincarnations.

To become more powerful, heroes must be equipped with items, also called artifacts. A hero can carry up to three items, usually a weapon, a shield and a miscellaneous item such as jewelry or a cloak. These items can be either retrieved in lairs and ruins after defeating the guardian monsters, bought from merchants that appear at random at the player's tower, or crafted by the player through special arcane spells. Benefits of such artifacts extend from adding attack, defense and resistance ratings to flight, regeneration or magic immunity and even phantasmal (ignoring armor), disintegrating or life-stealing attacks.

[edit] Experience

An older, experienced army is far more powerful than a Recruit one, and can slay the same type of "green" troops with little to no difficulty. Therefore, Master of Magic features an experience system for the armies, allowing them to become more powerful as they take part in combats.

Ordinary units can get up to four experience levels: Recruit, Regular, Veteran and Elite, gaining attack, defense and resistance with each level. Moreover, there are two special experience levels available for the most skilled wizards' units: Ultra-elite and Champion. In order to get his units to ultra-elite, a player must possess either the Warlord retort or the Crusade spell and must possess both of these to be able to promote his armies to champion level. Heroes get as many as eight experience levels, ranging from Hero to Demi-god and benefit even more from experience gains than do normal units. Summoned creatures don't have experience points and are summoned at their full strength.^[29] Furthermore, undead units lose any ability to gain experience.

[edit] Combat

Whenever an army enters a screen occupied by an enemy army, a city or a ruin, the game switches to combat mode. The combat screen represents a battlefield in a pseudo isometric 3-dimension, representing the defender (army or city) in the top left corner of the screen. The terrain reproduces more or less the map square on which combat takes place, including roads crossing it. If the combat takes place in a city, the defenders are pictured within.

Each unit is represented with its number of remaining figures, showing losses taken by each army. The combat is turn-based, with each side waiting for its turn to attack. While in combat, the player has the choice to move his units, to attack an enemy unit (either in melee or with ranged attackers if available) or to cast a combat spell. One also has the option to flee if the situation is desperate; however, fleeing carries a fifty percent chance of losing any unit during the retreat and reduces the player's fame. Defeating an army, either neutral or belonging to another wizard, provides the victorious wizard with fame points. With a wizard's fame increasing, powerful heroes and mercenaries start joining his cause, and rich merchants appear in his tower to sell him powerful artifacts for his heroes. Fame also increases the player's final score.

However, there is an option allowing the player to skip tactical combat entirely, called "Strategic combat". With this option enabled, the computer goes through a complex calculation replacing the combat screen and just presents the player with the results. However, this solution carries two strong disadvantages. First and foremost, it denies the player his tactical skill and judicious use of combat spells, which can allow him to overcome superior computer armies, since the computer is usually not a very good tactician. Second, while playing strategic combat, the computer assumes the player uses all his spell skill in every battle, draining the mana reserve.

[edit] Random events

Master of Magic features a random events system that is very similar to the one featured in Master of Orion 1 & 2. Each turn, there is a small chance that a random event will occur, either beneficial or detrimental to the player. Once occurred, the random event has a random chance of 5% to end every turn. Much like in Master of Orion, these events range from donations to a wizard, population booms, earthquakes, mineral depletions, plagues and piracy.

However, there is also a category of random events linked to magic nodes and enchantments. For instance, a bad moon or a good moon can appear in the skies of Arcanus and Myrror, doubling the power of temples controlled by death or life (respectively). A triad of stars, whether green, blue or red, will double the power output of magic nodes sharing the same color and halve the power of all other nodes.

Finally, a magic shortage can also occur, temporarily cutting the power production of all magic nodes, which can be somewhat problematic for the player. A global phenomenon called disjunction can also occur, dispelling any global enchantments previously cast by all wizards.^[30] However, random events can be disabled.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Problems

The original release of the game contained a large number of bugs, making the game crash for no apparent reason.^[1] Version 1.31 was a major improvement which eliminated a lot of bugs.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Remakes and sequel rumors

Contrary to Master of Orion, which spawned two sequels as of 2007, Master of Magic never had a sequel. As of 2007, no remake is expected^{[citation needed]}. Several remakes have been attempted by fans, involving the redevelopment of the game from scratch. Most of them never advanced past the alpha version or were abandoned; however, one was completely finished albeit with substantial modifications of the game rules.^{[citation needed]}

Furthermore, in 2006 Stardock made a poll to gauge public interest in a Master of Magic sequel. The results were positive, and they have since then pursued the game license by negotiations with Atari, which is the current license owner. However, negotiations failed and Stardock decided instead to go ahead with their own Fantasy style turn-based game. However they have announced that this game will at earliest be developed after the release of their expansion to their Master of Orion-style strategy game Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, as well as their free MMOG Society, with the latter having an expected release in 2007.^[31]

[edit] Games similar to Master of Magic

The Age of Wonders has distinctive similarities to Master of Magic.^[32][33] The Master of Orion series, also by Microprose has numerous similarities to Master of Magic. ^[34]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

General sites

• Master of Magic at Home of the Underdogs
• Master of Magic at MobyGames
• Master of Magic at GameFAQs
• Master of Magic Heroes Compendium Detailed information on all heroes in MoM (a fan's backup of the original site that no longer exists)
• www.masterofmagic2.com/; fansite to rally support for an official MoM2 to be made

Fan remake projects

• Age of Magic; Unfinished remake of MoM (appears to have been abandoned)
• MoM++; open source MoM remake. This project had shown no progress since December 2005, so this has probably been abandoned.
• Leylines; finished remake (but heavily modified)
• Master of Magic Clone; another remake of MoM in progress
• Master of Magic Clone; Russian remake of MoM, in progress
• Master of Magic - Implode's Multiplayer Edition; customizable multiplayer MoM remake
• Xarvh; OpenGL MoM remake