StrategyFront Gaming

A World of Magic

Master of Magic is a fantasy 4X strategy game released in 1994, developed by Simtex and published by MicroProse. The game achieved a cult following but never the influence of Simtex’s other 4X series Master of Orion. Even today Master of Magic is more ambitious in its scope than many other 4X games that have come out in recent years.

The basic premise of the game is that you start as a wizard in a small village and work your way up to conquer the world.

Like the classic 4X series Civilization, you will produce units, build and expand cities, and hopefully crush your neighbors. Unlike Civilization you’ll research new spells, gather powerful heroes, and perhaps most strange of all to fans of Civilization, fight out the battles on a tactical map.

Master of Orion was the hugely influential Sci-Fi 4X game that went on to define the Space 4X genre. Master of Magic never had the wide-reaching influence that Master of Orion did, though it has spawned a number of “clones”.

Nevertheless both games were critical to redefining what a 4X game could be. 

Each blends the 4X management-style gameplay with tactical battles, breaking Sid Meier’s rule not to blend micro-level tactics with a grand 4X game. Both games manage to pull combat off in different ways. 

For Master of Magic, its unique selling point comes from the sheer amount of options you have at your disposal. Multiple units from multiple races, along with your wizard who wields a wide variety of spells from several realms of magic.

The game thrives on this wide-range of customization. With the number of potential options at your disposal being truly ludicrous for a game of 1994.

Note: Master Of Magic was recently re-released by Slitherine both in their store and on Steam.

Gameplay in Master of Magic

You’ll begin your game by choosing either a premade wizard or customizing your own. Then you’ll assign your abilities, spells, and what “realm” of magic you want to start with.

Already, this character creation is a huge step up from the relatively interchangeable factions of the original Civilization. 

After that you’ll choose what race to start as, this determines some of your faction abilities, and what type of units you’ll primarily be producing.

Most of these magic realms and races are ripped straight from Dungeons & Dragons, so anyone with a passing familiarity with classic fantasy will understand the basics. 

Realms of Magic are how Master of Magic groups its different magical abilities.

You will also be able to choose a special “Retort” which acts as a unique ability for your wizard. There are 18 Retorts throughout the game. Each one provides a different bonus which could be anything from increasing your Fame to increasing Gold or Mana.

As you create your character, choose a race, and retorts you’ll begin to notice the defining feature of the game: the asymmetry of your choices. 

Not all magic is equal. And for the races, well unbalanced is an understatement.

Some magic, like Chaos, will have you raising volcanoes and raining apocalyptic fire down on your enemies, while Life will see you doing some weird fairy nonsense until the late game.

The best example for assymetric races of this is probably, the Lizardmen. They will want to use the waterways to start an early rush taking as much territory as they can. This is critical since they can’t access most of the tech tree.

They seem to be at a disadvantage at the start of the game but with the alternatives at their disposal, they can overcome this imbalance.

In another game, this unbalance would ruin the gameplay but in Master of Magic, the number of and variety of those options will allow you to get around these obstacles. 

The asymmetry is frustrating at first as you feel your way through this strange world. But once you understand all the different spells you have and units at your disposal then you can begin to see these imbalances not as unfair but as interesting strategic challenges.

Campaign of Master of Magic

One of the most interesting aspects of Master of Magic is that instead of only one map to play on, the game takes place across two parallel worlds: Arcanus and Myrror.

Arcanus is a normal Civilization-style map with river valleys, mountains, etc. While Myrror is a fantastical underworld filled with giant trees and magical crystals. 

You can travel between these realms at special towers, giving you an added layer of depth as you’ll be coordinating armies between two worlds. 

Later games like Warlock: Master of the Arcane attempted to expand on this feature by adding more alternate dimensions. But I can’t help but feel that Master of Magic’s restrained approach is the superior one.

Technology

Instead of researching new technologies for your people, you’ll be studying new spells to increase your magical potential. But again, certain spells are locked off for some races. 

In that case, you’ll have less to work with and will have to come up with inventive strategies to get around this handicap. 

Still not being able to access the whole spell tree makes the game far more difficult as you may not know how to compensate. This is why I recommend playing as someone premade like Merlin first. He, at least, have access to the entire spell tree.

Dealing with Monsters

Where the real challenge comes into Master of Magic is the neutral ruins around the world inhabited by all sorts of nasty creatures. 

This is another difference from Civilization, the world feels like it’s been here before you and you’ll have to work your way up to be powerful enough to conquer it.

You won’t be strong enough to take many of these neutral caves and ruins down, in the beginning, instead, you’ll need to wait and bide your time until you’re strong enough.

Waiting is something you’ll be doing a lot of in Master of Magic. This often is not a “let me just play one more turn” kind of game. You’ll frequently have turns go by where nothing happens, and you’re just sitting there pressing the end turn and waiting for something to finish. 

It’s more about long-term planning what spells you want and what you’re going to do with them than about exciting turn-to-turn decision making. 

Besides the neutral enemies, the AI isn’t a real challenge most of the time. The problem comes from the number of customization options, spells, and units in the game.

It’s all too much for the AI to handle effectively, and even first time players will be able to beat the AI. 

In the hands of experienced players, the AI stands no chance, as the unbalanced nature of the game means you can easily create sweeping death stacks to crush everyone. 

On most difficulties, your rival sorcerers will barely make an impact while you will be leveling geography and raising new continents from the sea. 

They do have specific affinities or hatreds though. Chaos wizards will try and actively harm the player and can do some damage. If they unleash spells like Armageddon you’ree going to have a bad day but it probably won’t ruin your game.

“The AI will, at random, slam on red buttons like Armageddon and Call the Void without thinking twice. We might call such incidents a “trailing indicator” that they should have been eliminated or at least crippled before getting their hands on such toys.”

From the Master of Magic Wiki

Diplomacy with other wizards is limited. One interesting feature is that you can choose to trade spells that can give you something you’re missing. Sadly, you also can’t interact with neutral cities besides conquering them, which is a shame. 

Races will have their own diplomatic affinities. Everyone seems to hate the Dark Elves(I wonder why) and everyone loves the Halflings. This creates some uniqueness to each race in terms of who you will want to crush first.

There are 14 races in total. Each with its own unit sprites, lore, and bonuses. Each race is home to one of the two planes. The Dwarves, for example, are home to Myrror along with their friends the lovable Beastmen or Trolls.

There are also the odd work-obsessed Klackons, who are first appeared in Master of Orion.

On top of managing your magic and conquest, you’ll manage your resources to improve production and expand your power. 

The three resources are gold, food, and magic. Some races will have a bonus to some meaning it’ll be much easier for them to get them at the beginning of the game, but by the late game, you should have a good surplus of each resource.  

Armies, Cities, and Spells

The armies you’ll lead can feel small compared to something like Total War. With the max amount of units capped at 9 per army.

This often means you’ll have to wait for a unit to die before you can summon a new one to the battlefield. 

Each army can be incredibly diverse due to the number of units available. This makes armies feel interesting and unique, as it’s unlikely you’ll have any two filled with exactly the same units.

Heroes also have their own stats and can be equipped with magical items to boost their power. As heroes grow in experience they’ll achieve more fame eventually becoming champions. You can use spells to summon heroes or thee higher-level champions.

On the unit’s side, Humans have the most overpowered unit in the entire game: the Paladin. In a game entirely about magic, the Paladin is immune to magic. This means it can rip through your near-godlike wizard and your carefully prepared armies with ease. 

Other units like Phantom Warriors can crush most other units in the early-game and summonable units just make the problem even worse.

Cities are handled well. If you’re a human empire and you conquer an orc city, that city won’t suddenly become human. Instead, you’ll now be able to recruit orcs to fight alongside you, which adds to that unit diversity. 

The realms of Magic themselves do what they soundlike. Chaos focuses on fire, Death on the Undead, Life on Healing, Nature on the natural elements, and Sorcery on air spells.

Regardless of the realm, that you choose to focus on, all wizards can use the Arcane realms which involve things like artifact creation or Spells of Return.

Magic generally works as it should. One of the most interesting features being that you can manipulate the terrain of the map to your advantage. For Chaos, you can raise volcanoes which give you certain bonuses. One spell called “Armageddon” starts randomly spawning volcanoes on the map often in your opponent’s territory. 

This is mirrored by games like Populous and Alpha Centauri. But few other 4X games let you play around with geography in interesting ways. 

The game has alternative endings, besides just conquering your enemies which is a great addition to a game that already has a huge diversity in its options. 

Legacy of Master of Magic

Master of Magic did inspire several other games though. The Dominion Series, Endless Legend, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, and Warlock: Master of the Arcane all take bits and pieces of Master of Magic, and build on its foundation. 

Other more direct successors like Planar Conquests and Worlds of Magic were generally not received well by fans of the original.

Mods like Fall From Heaven II for Civilization IV specifically draw from Master of Magic for inspiration. 

But each of these games went in their own unique direction and there’s never been anything quite like Master of Magic since. 

Conclusion

Unlike Master of Orion, Master of Magic had no sequel. Master of Magic never made its way into the strategy game discussion as well as Master of Orion did. 

Partially this is because the game is a mess. The AI simply can’t handle the systems even after the many patches the game received. 

While the asymmetry of the game is generally a good thing, it does mean when you know what armies work you basically have the game figured out. 

With Slitherine’s recent release, Master of Magic’s greatest fan mod, Caster of Magic, has become an official DLC for the game.

Caster of Magic is the definitive experience to play Master of Magic today. There’s better AI, rebalanced units and economy, and allows for more effective customization. It makes the game better in almost every way. 

Also, you can queue units in Caster of Magic, which you couldn’t in the original, and that’s amazing. 

Above all, Master of magic is ambitious, it’s almost rash in its push for you to be able to customize everything and giving you such a wide array of options. Although it’s still messy, it’s sad to see the game not impact 4X the way the Master of Orion did, because it’s still a great game. 

If you enjoyed our article on Master of Magic and wanted to purchase the game, please consider doing so through our Affiliate Link on G2A.com. When using this link we receive a commission that helps us keep writing strategy game content! Thank you for your support!

If you’d like to purchase: Master of Magic G2A.com