Why talk only about MoM? At your command i'll say that it was all good and absolytely no wrath-inspiring by all of economic system which horrid twisted version was then made into Civ by evil Sid, the magic system felt as genuine and the AI that wasnt doing something more stupid than low-level waves. My only disappointment through all the game was when Werewolves spell turned out to be buggy, and i quit it only after used all spells and have succeeded with a herosteamroll "strategy" at Impossible few times a row.

But there also are:

- the Age of Wonders, which i consider being better than MoM for athmosphere and design

- the Fall from Heaven II (and its modmods with their abundance of truly great things upon the base of horrid civ4 ruleset, and outright profanities of some hamsters; i expect that... BEING shaped Demigod shall heavily influence also the Elemental)

- King Arthur the Wargame which i would have played for weeks in freemode if only such thing would have existed

- and Sacrifice, don't overlook the Sacrifice just because its not a TBS! "Souls" as a resource)))

Currently my favorite game is Age of Wonders Shadow Magic, but I think a "modern" version of MoM (with a map/campaign editor, modding capabilities, multiplayer, better AI and fixed bugs, graphics is not important for me) would beat it.

Instead of AoW2 better try AoW: Shadow Magic, it's a standalone expansion to it (and install the unofficial patch, which I was involved in making )

  Will be doing that _PawelS_.  I heard Shadow Magic was pretty fun.  Its just one of many really good games I haven't gotten around to yet.  Same with the Fall From Heaven 2 mod.  Don't know when, just someday..    I am trying to stay away from Dwarf Fortress also until the 'right' time for me.  These days in gaming I'm usually showin up to the party after all the other revelers are leaving out the front door.

FYI.

MoM was just released at Gog.com!!!

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/master_of_magic/

So does this version from GoG:

1) Include the latet patched version

2) not require DOSBOX to run?

I think it is good news since it costs peanuts, is ready patched and bundled with dosbox so that you have to do no fiddling whatsoever to play it Just install, click shortcut, and vóila. This at least on my WinXP machine, no idea about Vista/7...

• Heroes with RPG-like abilities, equipment, advancement
• Customizable items for those heroes
• Random maps with rich strategic terrain
• Customizable 'side' (combination of self and starting side)
• Complex unpredictable combat (but see below)
• Wide variety of units, spells, etc.
• All this led to HUGE REPLAY VALUE

Stand-out problems:

• Weak tactical AI
• Poor difficulty scaling (basically a huge effect on the early game and all the same if you survived the early game)
• Happiness vs. unrest, food supply systems a little too simple.
• "One true build order" for cities most of the game. Should be more situational.
• Related: Balance issues - heroes, especially 'hero stacks' and a few summoned units became vastly overpowered compared to anything the AI could come up with - you rarely if ever saw an enemy hero with even two items, for example.
• Limited terrain variety/effects in tactical combat
• No diplomatic continuity (allies would break and go to war apparently suddenly)
• No modeling of chain of supply/national boundaries/etc. - there was no drawback to scry-and-die on an enemy capital if they became a threat. You (and moreso the AI) had to defend each city against a fast-moving army independently.
  • Magic roads exacerbated this.
• No multi-player (out of the box, at least)
• Some things encouraged reload syndrome - e.g. trying a battle out hoping you'd win, avoiding it if not, in the early game. Reloading after a hero or critical city fell or an alliance broke. Not saying that won't be the reaction, but making these things somewhat easier to anticipate and either avoid or react to reduces it.

Good old Master of Magic, probably my favorite strategy game of all times.  It's actually how I heard about Stardock back in 2004ish.  There was a rumor of a sequal in the works by stardock.  To bad it never came to be .

Elemental is looking like it has the potential to dethrone MoM as my favorite strategy game, let's see if it happens

Nice thread.

zero. There is no resurrection in EWOM

My list

• wizard customization--risk reward for specializing in one school
• unique races--had to play each race different differently
• world changing magic--global enchantments could alter the game completely
• battlefield enchantments--battle field enchantments could salvage a no win situation
• really like how the nodes effected spells and creatures.  helped the same school and hurt others
• Heroes--customizing with items (with a limit on it) plus they gained experience by guarding cities.  Some were better at traveling and some were better at protect cities.  However, if I had a hero for a long time and made special items for them, it really sucked when they were killed.
• easy city management, but also had a big affect on the game.  Gnolls were so hard to play because their cities were worthless
• not worried about balance--this was probably the most unbalanced game in history and it was great because of it.  I think today's games worry to much about balance because of multiplayer.  Hurts single player gaming.
• Completely random starting--your starting position could be absolutely awful.  made it fun