Master of Magic

Game review

Very well-done game, similar to Civilization, from a not very well known company Simtex Software - Master of Magic. The game has gained great popularity and favor especially among fans of fantasy and role-playing games. At the time, strategies simulating real life were very popular and Master of Magic has come as a breath of fresh air. In the game you go with your master magician on a journey of magic (surprise!). But you are not the only one who so chooses, and so you find yourselves in a beautiful fantasy world along with several magicians, small town, a few simple magic tricks and a whole horde of legendary and less legendary monsters, raiders, treasures, heroes and adventures. How it all turns out, it depends only up to you. If you like fantasy and also love strategy games, this game is made ​​for you.

Master of Magic belongs to the so-called 4X (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) strategies and looks like Civilization at first glance. The same designed map consisting of squares, the same keyboard shortcuts indicating what the given unit should do (Settlers - B - Build = will build a city), the same solved movement not only with the mouse, but also with the numeric keyboard in all directions.
In the city, you also build buildings that improve production, help with magic (equivalent to science), make new units available, you can build roads connecting cities, etc.

On the other hand, here you have heroes who have different characteristics from ranged attack, through resistance to magic, or defense. Heroes can wear various artifacts that improve their stats or give them new characteristics. Each hero can move around the map with up to 8 other units, and in the case of battles, the game switches to an isometric window, where the player controls all units in a turn-based manner on a square field and takes turns with the opponent until one side is defeated.

The main difference between Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic is the presence of magic. Yes, Heroes have magic too. But not at Master of Magic level. It's not for nothing that the game is named as it is. Each player is a mage, each player chooses which school of magic they prefer. Is it nature magic with healing spells or terrain modification abilities? As you wish. Prefer fire magic? Spread death with fireballs, summon devastating meteorites to the ground. Or how about dark magic with undead units? Or air magic with elementals made from winds and the ability to ignore a lot of attacks? Have some. You don't see such a variety of spells and units. Each magical school brings a huge amount of its own spells, each type of nation (elves, gnomes, dwarves...) has different units that completely determine how you will fight.

At first glance, Master of Magic cannot stand the test of time. The graphics side has simply aged, but I really like the visuals of this game. The music is very good, different for each nation, with subtle strumming while moving around the map normally and emphasizing the action during combat. The ability to get to the second world, which is accessible through the green magic towers, greatly contributes to the gameplay. This is an inhospitable world that is closely connected to the classic one, but has significantly harder conditions for life, but you will also find stronger monsters or rewards in various corners of the caves. To this day, a community lives around Master of Magic, which was originally released in 1994.