Why Master of Magic is Cool. Might want to get a drink and cancel any appointments.
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Master of Magic
Every once in a blue moon, a strategy game comes along that blows the doors off of the very genre. Before Heroes of Might and Magic, there was Master of Magic, a game published by Microprose, the hands down king of turn based strategy in the early ‘90s. Similar but superior to the popular Warlords series, Master of Magic offered a remarkable variety of gameplay options that rivals the most intricate of turn based strategy games but does so in a very easy to learn interface. Master of Magic created by Simtex, the creators of the first two Master of Orion games and is frequently regarded as the fantasy sibling of those.
Lending a great deal from the popular Civilization series, players take on the role of a sorceror king ruler who must expand, explore, and eventually conquer the world by building cities, creating armies and wielding powerful magic that can do anything from damaging a single unit, to altering the terrain around a town to give a boost to its economy, or even blanketing the entire world in night to give a permanent bonus to undead armies.
At the very beginning of a Master of Magic game (or MOM as it’s known to its fans) players must select or customize their own wizard, choose which plane they are on (yes, there are two) and choose a starting race for your first town.
Wizard Creation
Wizard creation options are legion. For starters there are five types of magic. Players can choose to specialize in one particular color, which will make the acquisition of spells from that set much easier, or diversify, gaining access to fewer spell research options but giving the ability to mix and match useful complimentary spells from multiple colors which can be useful since players can also trade spells through diplomatic negotiations with rival wizards or find them by conquering lairs and magic nodes throughout the world.
To make things a bit more interesting, instead of selecting books of magic from a given color, players can also select traits that give added game benefits. These include things that give a boost to spell skill when casting from certain colors, charisma for charming the socks off of rival wizards, or my personal favorite, Warlord, a skill that not only automatically upgrades the experience level of your armies one step higher but actually allows them to go one step above and beyond what is possible for non Warlord wizards.
Choose Your Race
There are 14 races in Master of Magic and choosing which one start your game with can complement a number of different strategies. Races are differentiated by a number of factors including population growth, how many of the different types of structures they can build, special bonuses to trade and mana (that which allows you to cast and research spells), and most importantly to the army builder in all of us, specialty units. Most of the fun to be had in building armies in this game comes from capturing cities of other races and mixing and matching specialty units to create even more powerful armies. The races are:
High Men: Your basic righteous humans of medieval fantasy. They get most of the standard units but also some of the best specialty units in the game including magic immune Paladins with a first strike ability that allows them to cripple their foes before their counter attack, Priests which are an enhanced version of shamans, and Wizards that throw a devastating ranged magic attack or cast the fireball spell damaging all figures in a unit simultaneously. High men can build most structures but otherwise have no other special race bonuses. Their early units are all standard with few special abilities which tends to put them at a disadvantage against races that can get stronger units much earlier on in the game, but once they’ve got a well developed city they can create some of the most powerful armies in the game.
Nomads: Sort of a misnomer since they build settlements and settle down like any other race but these guys get a nice bonus to trade, can build fairly well developed cities, and have some useful specialty units like the ranger that is an excellent scout giving a wide view for exploring and reasonably competent in both ranged and hand to hand attacks.
Barbarians: The weakest city builders of the human races, most of their standard units come equipped with the ability to throw axes in melee combat that do some damage to enemies before they get a chance to counterattack. This works great with their cavalry who also have the first strike ability. Their only specialty unit is the Berserker, a melee unit with low defense but very high offense. These guys are nasty when endowed with armor enhancing magic like iron skin. Barbarians are a strong early raider race.
Halflings: My personal favorites. These guys have a population bonus and can build reasonably well developed cities but almost none of the top tier structures. The pop bonus allows them to develop quickly however. Nearly all of their units receive the luck special ability which gives an across the board percentage bonus to attacks, defense, and spell resistance. Their smaller size allows for their armies to have a couple more figures for all of their standard armies making them superior to most other race’s standard units. To top it off they get the Slinger standard unit, the most deadly physical ranged combat unit in the game.
Gnolls: Intended as an early raider race, Gnolls are lousy city builders, and although their standard units get a sizable bonus to stats, they just don’t compare to the across the board benefits that so many of the other races get for their units and their wolf riders are a joke. Oh well, I guess every game has to have a crappy race.
Lizard Men: Another favorite, Lizard Men have very limited city building options but all of their units can traverse water without the aid of magic or ships and they have some excellent units that are very easy to meet the building requirements for. Their Javelineers are quite strong in both melee and ranged attacks, and their dragon turtle units make a great meat shield. Both are relatively easy to acquire and this combined with an across the board health bonus and the swimming ability make them the best early raider race in the game.
Elves: Elves are similar to High Men, but get an added bonus to mana production for every unit of population they have. They suffer from low population growth but can build very well developed cities. Specialty units include Longbow equipped archers, the second best physical ranged attacker in the game, Pegasi, and Elven Lords which are essentially Paladins without the magic immunity. Elven units get forestry across the board, allowing them to cross forest squares with ease.
Orcs: One of the more blasé races of the game, Orcs are the only race that can build every single structure in their cities. Unfortunately their standard units tend to not have even the typical special abilities associated with those units like “Negate First Strike” for halberdiers and their specialty units like the Wyvern Riders are pretty pitiful. Not a bad race to keep the money and mana flowing with all those top tier structures, but not a very exciting lot to capture where the mixing and matching of specialty units from different races are concerned.
Klackons: Heisted straight out of the Master of Orion series (MOO 1 and 2 and MOM were all developed by Simtex) Klackons get that same bonus to building structures, a pretty handy bonus to armor for all their standard units, and one of the toughest meat shield units in the game, the Stag Beetle, a giant bug that can take a serious beating.
Myrran Races
Eventually, either by discovering and conquering one of many portals throughout the land or by casting certain spells, players will gain access to the parallel of Mirror. Mirror tends to be a much more mineral rich world and has a few quirks like enchanted roads that when built by engineers will bring travelers to any destination they lead to in one turn. Players can also choose Myrran during Wizard creation to start on this plane.
Dark Elves: A tough race to start with due to having a growth rate even slower than the Elves, the Dark Elves can build most structures and have access to some very cool units including the only naturally invisible nonsummoned unit in the game, Nightmares (flying hell horses, the Dark Elf answer to pegasi) and Sorcerors that are an upgraded version of the High Men’s Wizard.
Beast Men: Another one of the so-so races of the game, Beast Men can build decent cities but their specialty units while cool, aren’t extraordinarily powerful. They tend to get more monstrous units.
Dwarves: These guys get a great build bonus and some interesting specialty units like Hammerhands that are kind of like Berserkers but a lot tougher on defense. They also get the very hard to kill Golems and Steam Cannons, a fairly strong ranged attacker with only one figure per unit. Their city building options are middle of the road but they do build fast.
Draconians: While costly, all their standard units fly and have fire-breathing, which is similar to axe throwing. They make pretty good city builders and have some strong specialty units, including the very useful flying ships, which ironically don’t help them much since they can all fly anyway.
Trolls: Hideously slow city builders with limited options, Trolls are a much better choice to capture than to start the game with. Most of their units have the regenerationa bility, allowing them to heal during every turn of battle and returning at the end of any battle you win even if they get killed so they make great meat shields and sacrificial pawns. Their units are all quite tough and their shamans are excellent healers since they aren’t killed as easily as most other race’s shamans are. They are quite large so have only a few figures per unit, but this is compensated for by huge stat bonuses.
Heroes
One of the more exciting aspects of the game is the ability to acquire up to six heroes. These super units don’t start off particularly powerful, but they can exceed levels of experience far beyond those of standard city built units and can also equipped with magic items that you either find or create yourself to bolster their stats and add more variety to their abilities.
There are 40 in all and the strength of their abilities coincide directly with how rarely they are encountered. Heroes are typically found in lairs or acquired through random events, but can also be summoned with magic.
For the most part, heroes have roughly three “classes.” They are either melee units, archers, or wizards themselves. Wizards are great, because they can add to your mana pool when garrisoned in the same city as your own personal tower but also frequently have access to useful spells that you can’t learn due to your starting game spell picks. Heroes all have their own unique sets of special abilities that can make or break them depending on your needs.
Magic
Magic is a key player in the game. I’m not insane enough to detail all of the spells in the but there are plenty. My rough guesstimate is at least 150 spells, at least thirty for every color of magic in the game and they are all quite useful.
The cool thing about magic in this game is that it has so many uses. Offensively, spells can be cast as direct attacks during combat, or used to damage units without even engaging them from overhead map view. There are also numerous spells that do direct damage to cities like Earthquake and Call the Void or particularly nasty ones that do things like cause permanent famines that can only be stopped by dispelling.
Spells can also be used to enhance units, by upgrading the stats or offering experience level upgrades. Most of these spells can be cast as temporary upgrades during battle for a one time cost or permanently on the map, requiring a mana maintenance cost that is deducted from your pool at the end of every turn.
One of the more impressive things about the game is that virtually every single creature you fight at nodes and lairs can be summoned, some only temporarily during battle, while others show up at your summoning circle and require mana upkeep until killed or dispelled. Generally speaking, the best units in the game are the specialty units of the races at full experience, but some of the summoned creatures can be Just as powerful with the right unit enhancing spells and offer special advantages like teleportation or flight. Even the weakest of units like skeletons make a great meat shield and can help save a town with minimal defenses when an unexpected raiding party shows up. Since they cost mana rather than gold, summoned creatures can be very economical when the money is tight but the magic is not.
The most powerful spells in the game are global enchantments. These are nearly always spells that require upkeep and typically do things that offer across the board advantages like Wind Mastery, a spell that gives all your ships a huge movement bonus making it essential in archipelago maps, or Time Stop, a very expensive spell that’s typically impossible to maintain for more than a few turns but literally freezes the rest of your opponents while you run amuck.
The colors represent the following:
Red/Chaos: The best choice for those sorcerers who like to break things and kill people directly. Red magic gets all the fire based attack spells and some really neat stuff like a mutate spell that will cause units to either grow wings, gain fire breathing, or get enhanced spell resistance for a one time cost. When Red wizard starts casting a global enchantment, it’s generally a good idea to put an end to it as quickly as possible since these spells typically have some very serious consequences for all other wizards like Armageddon, which raises random volcanoes all over the map every turn, destroying valuable resources and screwing up your cities ability to support themselves. The casting Red mages territories, of course, are not affected. Red magic has some of the weaker summoned units in the game, however.
Green/Nature: Typically representing earth, Nature has some of the better unit enhancing spells and some fantastic city enchantments that can really crank up food growth and gold income. A great choice for people who like to build the perfect city, Nature also allows you to alter terrain squares to whatever you desire and will even enhance mineral deposit squares, from say, coal to diamonds, or silver to mithril. Nature also lays claim to some of the tougher and more useful summoned creatures in the game like Earth Elementals and Great Wyrms that can teleport and do gobs of damage.
Blue/Sorcery: Definitely the most diverse color of the lot. The dominion of water, air, and the fabric of magic itself, Sorcery has some very neat spells. It is the only color that lets you summon phantasmal creatures during a battle, which can be very effective, and it has enhanced versions of the generic dispel magic available to all wizards, making it a great choice for people who like to toss their magic around while being able to inhibit other wizard’s abilities to do. Sorcery is a little bit weak in unit enhancement where direct attack and defense spells are concerned but has great utility enhancements like windwalking that allows a unit to carry all the rest of the units in its stack at its own speed and giving them all the benefits of flight. It also has one of the strongest summoned units in the game. Blue is a great color to specialize in due to its diversity.
White/Life: This is the holy stuff. Great for healing units on the fly and it has some phenomenal unit enhancing spells like Heroism, a spell that elevates units to Elite and then automatically dispels itself when they reach that experience level naturally. White magic is probably the best choice for people who are into army building and complements Warlord quite nicely. White magic allows players to summon Torin, the Chosen One, arguably the best hero in the game.
Black/Death: This is definitely the more challenging color to specialize in as it isn’t very powerful early on. It has some exceptionally useful spells but derives the majority of its power from summoning/creating undead, which can’t heal naturally (or with heal spells) and tend to cost a lot of mana. Rather than having useful unit enhancing spells, Black magic tends to focus on degrading your enemies, which is less ideal since you have to get past their spell resistance in order to successfully cast a spell. Still, a very fun color to play and the tendency for defeated armies to occasionally rise from the dead and join your cause when killed by your undead minions is pretty entertaining. Black magic is roughly on par with Chaos for messing with other people’s cities.
Diplomacy
Definitely one of the weaker aspects of the game due to the AI being completely unreasonable at times, but you can use diplomacy to start trade and research agreements, trade spells, and all the fun stuff like demanding that rival wizards give you stuff or you’ll go to war with them. Anyone who has played either Master of Orion game or the original Civilization will notice that diplomacy is essentially identical to those games.
Whew... Time for some beverages now.Maybe I'll write some kind of conclusion tomorrow but I think the details speak for themselves. The truly cool thing about this game is that you can focus on any one aspect of it while giving less attention to to others and still do quite well with it.
[Message Edited]
Every once in a blue moon, a strategy game comes along that blows the doors off of the very genre. Before Heroes of Might and Magic, there was Master of Magic, a game published by Microprose, the hands down king of turn based strategy in the early ‘90s. Similar but superior to the popular Warlords series, Master of Magic offered a remarkable variety of gameplay options that rivals the most intricate of turn based strategy games but does so in a very easy to learn interface. Master of Magic created by Simtex, the creators of the first two Master of Orion games and is frequently regarded as the fantasy sibling of those.
Lending a great deal from the popular Civilization series, players take on the role of a sorceror king ruler who must expand, explore, and eventually conquer the world by building cities, creating armies and wielding powerful magic that can do anything from damaging a single unit, to altering the terrain around a town to give a boost to its economy, or even blanketing the entire world in night to give a permanent bonus to undead armies.
At the very beginning of a Master of Magic game (or MOM as it’s known to its fans) players must select or customize their own wizard, choose which plane they are on (yes, there are two) and choose a starting race for your first town.
Wizard Creation
Wizard creation options are legion. For starters there are five types of magic. Players can choose to specialize in one particular color, which will make the acquisition of spells from that set much easier, or diversify, gaining access to fewer spell research options but giving the ability to mix and match useful complimentary spells from multiple colors which can be useful since players can also trade spells through diplomatic negotiations with rival wizards or find them by conquering lairs and magic nodes throughout the world.
To make things a bit more interesting, instead of selecting books of magic from a given color, players can also select traits that give added game benefits. These include things that give a boost to spell skill when casting from certain colors, charisma for charming the socks off of rival wizards, or my personal favorite, Warlord, a skill that not only automatically upgrades the experience level of your armies one step higher but actually allows them to go one step above and beyond what is possible for non Warlord wizards.
Choose Your Race
There are 14 races in Master of Magic and choosing which one start your game with can complement a number of different strategies. Races are differentiated by a number of factors including population growth, how many of the different types of structures they can build, special bonuses to trade and mana (that which allows you to cast and research spells), and most importantly to the army builder in all of us, specialty units. Most of the fun to be had in building armies in this game comes from capturing cities of other races and mixing and matching specialty units to create even more powerful armies. The races are:
High Men: Your basic righteous humans of medieval fantasy. They get most of the standard units but also some of the best specialty units in the game including magic immune Paladins with a first strike ability that allows them to cripple their foes before their counter attack, Priests which are an enhanced version of shamans, and Wizards that throw a devastating ranged magic attack or cast the fireball spell damaging all figures in a unit simultaneously. High men can build most structures but otherwise have no other special race bonuses. Their early units are all standard with few special abilities which tends to put them at a disadvantage against races that can get stronger units much earlier on in the game, but once they’ve got a well developed city they can create some of the most powerful armies in the game.
Nomads: Sort of a misnomer since they build settlements and settle down like any other race but these guys get a nice bonus to trade, can build fairly well developed cities, and have some useful specialty units like the ranger that is an excellent scout giving a wide view for exploring and reasonably competent in both ranged and hand to hand attacks.
Barbarians: The weakest city builders of the human races, most of their standard units come equipped with the ability to throw axes in melee combat that do some damage to enemies before they get a chance to counterattack. This works great with their cavalry who also have the first strike ability. Their only specialty unit is the Berserker, a melee unit with low defense but very high offense. These guys are nasty when endowed with armor enhancing magic like iron skin. Barbarians are a strong early raider race.
Halflings: My personal favorites. These guys have a population bonus and can build reasonably well developed cities but almost none of the top tier structures. The pop bonus allows them to develop quickly however. Nearly all of their units receive the luck special ability which gives an across the board percentage bonus to attacks, defense, and spell resistance. Their smaller size allows for their armies to have a couple more figures for all of their standard armies making them superior to most other race’s standard units. To top it off they get the Slinger standard unit, the most deadly physical ranged combat unit in the game.
Gnolls: Intended as an early raider race, Gnolls are lousy city builders, and although their standard units get a sizable bonus to stats, they just don’t compare to the across the board benefits that so many of the other races get for their units and their wolf riders are a joke. Oh well, I guess every game has to have a crappy race.
Lizard Men: Another favorite, Lizard Men have very limited city building options but all of their units can traverse water without the aid of magic or ships and they have some excellent units that are very easy to meet the building requirements for. Their Javelineers are quite strong in both melee and ranged attacks, and their dragon turtle units make a great meat shield. Both are relatively easy to acquire and this combined with an across the board health bonus and the swimming ability make them the best early raider race in the game.
Elves: Elves are similar to High Men, but get an added bonus to mana production for every unit of population they have. They suffer from low population growth but can build very well developed cities. Specialty units include Longbow equipped archers, the second best physical ranged attacker in the game, Pegasi, and Elven Lords which are essentially Paladins without the magic immunity. Elven units get forestry across the board, allowing them to cross forest squares with ease.
Orcs: One of the more blasé races of the game, Orcs are the only race that can build every single structure in their cities. Unfortunately their standard units tend to not have even the typical special abilities associated with those units like “Negate First Strike” for halberdiers and their specialty units like the Wyvern Riders are pretty pitiful. Not a bad race to keep the money and mana flowing with all those top tier structures, but not a very exciting lot to capture where the mixing and matching of specialty units from different races are concerned.
Klackons: Heisted straight out of the Master of Orion series (MOO 1 and 2 and MOM were all developed by Simtex) Klackons get that same bonus to building structures, a pretty handy bonus to armor for all their standard units, and one of the toughest meat shield units in the game, the Stag Beetle, a giant bug that can take a serious beating.
Myrran Races
Eventually, either by discovering and conquering one of many portals throughout the land or by casting certain spells, players will gain access to the parallel of Mirror. Mirror tends to be a much more mineral rich world and has a few quirks like enchanted roads that when built by engineers will bring travelers to any destination they lead to in one turn. Players can also choose Myrran during Wizard creation to start on this plane.
Dark Elves: A tough race to start with due to having a growth rate even slower than the Elves, the Dark Elves can build most structures and have access to some very cool units including the only naturally invisible nonsummoned unit in the game, Nightmares (flying hell horses, the Dark Elf answer to pegasi) and Sorcerors that are an upgraded version of the High Men’s Wizard.
Beast Men: Another one of the so-so races of the game, Beast Men can build decent cities but their specialty units while cool, aren’t extraordinarily powerful. They tend to get more monstrous units.
Dwarves: These guys get a great build bonus and some interesting specialty units like Hammerhands that are kind of like Berserkers but a lot tougher on defense. They also get the very hard to kill Golems and Steam Cannons, a fairly strong ranged attacker with only one figure per unit. Their city building options are middle of the road but they do build fast.
Draconians: While costly, all their standard units fly and have fire-breathing, which is similar to axe throwing. They make pretty good city builders and have some strong specialty units, including the very useful flying ships, which ironically don’t help them much since they can all fly anyway.
Trolls: Hideously slow city builders with limited options, Trolls are a much better choice to capture than to start the game with. Most of their units have the regenerationa bility, allowing them to heal during every turn of battle and returning at the end of any battle you win even if they get killed so they make great meat shields and sacrificial pawns. Their units are all quite tough and their shamans are excellent healers since they aren’t killed as easily as most other race’s shamans are. They are quite large so have only a few figures per unit, but this is compensated for by huge stat bonuses.
Heroes
One of the more exciting aspects of the game is the ability to acquire up to six heroes. These super units don’t start off particularly powerful, but they can exceed levels of experience far beyond those of standard city built units and can also equipped with magic items that you either find or create yourself to bolster their stats and add more variety to their abilities.
There are 40 in all and the strength of their abilities coincide directly with how rarely they are encountered. Heroes are typically found in lairs or acquired through random events, but can also be summoned with magic.
For the most part, heroes have roughly three “classes.” They are either melee units, archers, or wizards themselves. Wizards are great, because they can add to your mana pool when garrisoned in the same city as your own personal tower but also frequently have access to useful spells that you can’t learn due to your starting game spell picks. Heroes all have their own unique sets of special abilities that can make or break them depending on your needs.
Magic
Magic is a key player in the game. I’m not insane enough to detail all of the spells in the but there are plenty. My rough guesstimate is at least 150 spells, at least thirty for every color of magic in the game and they are all quite useful.
The cool thing about magic in this game is that it has so many uses. Offensively, spells can be cast as direct attacks during combat, or used to damage units without even engaging them from overhead map view. There are also numerous spells that do direct damage to cities like Earthquake and Call the Void or particularly nasty ones that do things like cause permanent famines that can only be stopped by dispelling.
Spells can also be used to enhance units, by upgrading the stats or offering experience level upgrades. Most of these spells can be cast as temporary upgrades during battle for a one time cost or permanently on the map, requiring a mana maintenance cost that is deducted from your pool at the end of every turn.
One of the more impressive things about the game is that virtually every single creature you fight at nodes and lairs can be summoned, some only temporarily during battle, while others show up at your summoning circle and require mana upkeep until killed or dispelled. Generally speaking, the best units in the game are the specialty units of the races at full experience, but some of the summoned creatures can be Just as powerful with the right unit enhancing spells and offer special advantages like teleportation or flight. Even the weakest of units like skeletons make a great meat shield and can help save a town with minimal defenses when an unexpected raiding party shows up. Since they cost mana rather than gold, summoned creatures can be very economical when the money is tight but the magic is not.
The most powerful spells in the game are global enchantments. These are nearly always spells that require upkeep and typically do things that offer across the board advantages like Wind Mastery, a spell that gives all your ships a huge movement bonus making it essential in archipelago maps, or Time Stop, a very expensive spell that’s typically impossible to maintain for more than a few turns but literally freezes the rest of your opponents while you run amuck.
The colors represent the following:
Red/Chaos: The best choice for those sorcerers who like to break things and kill people directly. Red magic gets all the fire based attack spells and some really neat stuff like a mutate spell that will cause units to either grow wings, gain fire breathing, or get enhanced spell resistance for a one time cost. When Red wizard starts casting a global enchantment, it’s generally a good idea to put an end to it as quickly as possible since these spells typically have some very serious consequences for all other wizards like Armageddon, which raises random volcanoes all over the map every turn, destroying valuable resources and screwing up your cities ability to support themselves. The casting Red mages territories, of course, are not affected. Red magic has some of the weaker summoned units in the game, however.
Green/Nature: Typically representing earth, Nature has some of the better unit enhancing spells and some fantastic city enchantments that can really crank up food growth and gold income. A great choice for people who like to build the perfect city, Nature also allows you to alter terrain squares to whatever you desire and will even enhance mineral deposit squares, from say, coal to diamonds, or silver to mithril. Nature also lays claim to some of the tougher and more useful summoned creatures in the game like Earth Elementals and Great Wyrms that can teleport and do gobs of damage.
Blue/Sorcery: Definitely the most diverse color of the lot. The dominion of water, air, and the fabric of magic itself, Sorcery has some very neat spells. It is the only color that lets you summon phantasmal creatures during a battle, which can be very effective, and it has enhanced versions of the generic dispel magic available to all wizards, making it a great choice for people who like to toss their magic around while being able to inhibit other wizard’s abilities to do. Sorcery is a little bit weak in unit enhancement where direct attack and defense spells are concerned but has great utility enhancements like windwalking that allows a unit to carry all the rest of the units in its stack at its own speed and giving them all the benefits of flight. It also has one of the strongest summoned units in the game. Blue is a great color to specialize in due to its diversity.
White/Life: This is the holy stuff. Great for healing units on the fly and it has some phenomenal unit enhancing spells like Heroism, a spell that elevates units to Elite and then automatically dispels itself when they reach that experience level naturally. White magic is probably the best choice for people who are into army building and complements Warlord quite nicely. White magic allows players to summon Torin, the Chosen One, arguably the best hero in the game.
Black/Death: This is definitely the more challenging color to specialize in as it isn’t very powerful early on. It has some exceptionally useful spells but derives the majority of its power from summoning/creating undead, which can’t heal naturally (or with heal spells) and tend to cost a lot of mana. Rather than having useful unit enhancing spells, Black magic tends to focus on degrading your enemies, which is less ideal since you have to get past their spell resistance in order to successfully cast a spell. Still, a very fun color to play and the tendency for defeated armies to occasionally rise from the dead and join your cause when killed by your undead minions is pretty entertaining. Black magic is roughly on par with Chaos for messing with other people’s cities.
Diplomacy
Definitely one of the weaker aspects of the game due to the AI being completely unreasonable at times, but you can use diplomacy to start trade and research agreements, trade spells, and all the fun stuff like demanding that rival wizards give you stuff or you’ll go to war with them. Anyone who has played either Master of Orion game or the original Civilization will notice that diplomacy is essentially identical to those games.
Whew... Time for some beverages now.Maybe I'll write some kind of conclusion tomorrow but I think the details speak for themselves. The truly cool thing about this game is that you can focus on any one aspect of it while giving less attention to to others and still do quite well with it.
[Message Edited]
