Master of Magic - Sandbox Sorcerous Wizard Strategy 

The old version game was the main reason why I fell in love with strategy games. Master of Magic and Master of Orion are two masterpieces of old school strategy games. Master of Orion had a second version, but Master of Magic never had a sequel 😢

Literally the first game I owned was Master of Magic. 700 Schilling in the Before-Euro-Times and the box came with a like 200-300 page manual that not only explained gameplay but all the hidden mechanics behind the unit stats. From there I learned that a +1 to hit was way better than a +1 sword, etc. It also came with a spellbook(let) where you literally had every single spell the game had again in printed form and the basic stats. What also mage MoM so innovative back then was that it basically relegated the right mouse button to be the "what is this?"-button, the additional info popping out like in a tooltip. You know, before tooltips EXISTED. Also never got old to use Call of the Void, which is basically a magic nuke on a city, or Chaos Rift, which just opens up a tear in reality over a city where every turn population, buildings and units each have to roll a save throw or get utterly annihilated. Or cast Armageddon and watch the world turn into a shitshow of volcanoes. It was just such a good game. Needless to say I got the remake while watching this and will go try it out now myself.

I played the original back in the day and it was one of my absolute favorite games I am happy to see it modernized 😀

I was born when this came out in 94, i watched my dad play it for about a year and a half as a baby and then he let me mess with the mouse and I was actually able to go through the menus and move units (although I couldnt do much else yet), making it the first game I had ever played in my long long career as a gamer, which i recently discovered is likely due to me having ADHD and ASD. This game has such a special place in my heart and I can't wait to get home from work to play this remake with my 9m.o. daughter. Thanks for the video splatty!

I still own and play the original from time to time. It was one of my favorites back in the day.

I have no words to describe how much I loved the original game... I replayed it at least 50 times.. I was genuinely hyped when I accidentally found out about the remake a few weeks ago.

I was a MoM addict, back in the day. If it's like the original, you can choose Myrran if you customize. Dark Elves are pretty OP because every unit has a weak ranged magic attack. Absolutely brutal early game. Edit: after watching the video, it seems like it's mostly a graphical overhaul of the original. I'll have to play to see what, if anything, has changed.

Man I loved the original game back in the day and played it frequently. This new edition ticks a lot of the "old" boxes and you did a good job in presenting the game. Thanks!

The original had a great re-balancing recently called Caster of Magic. It looks old-school pixel art and is very challenging on the higher difficulties but it is a great update.

One of my favorite games of all time. That said, I think you nailed it. There is some polish here, but I just looked it up on steam. This isn't a $40 remake in my opinion. I would just go get the old one for almost free if I needed to scratch that itch. A full remake for $40, sure, but this one is looking like it should be a $12-$20 title.

Love how your channel brings all these great small indie games to light!

I literally have the manuals for the original sitting on my desk right now for nostalgia and my love of it. I'm truly hoping this is solid!

MOM and MOO2 really helped define the 4x genre. It wasn;t until Age of Wonders 3 and its DLCs that i found a game to mostly put the 1994 MOM up for good. I REALLY hope this remaster lives up to the original.

I remember playing this 1997 on my Pentium90. By then the original game was *already very old*. Played this maybe more than any game ever afterwards, and i have several Steam games 1-2k+ Hours, while even Steam is after my heaviest gaming phases in life. I hope so much, that this does not suck!

For what it's worth, Splatt, now having watched your play on this, if you account for the modern art and the change to a hex based map, it seems pretty faithful to its predecessor (that whole "roll a die for each sword and shield" thing is absolutely a carry over, and the kinds of strengths and weaknesses of certain opponents seems similar or identical--that fight with the Phantom Warriors was very characteristic for a group without a lot of archers, for example). Looking at the price, what I've seen so far doesn't seem to really justify that, but there may be more things hidden below the skin to make it worthwhile (if they did some rebalancing in a couple places, that'd help, and if the Diplomacy system and enemy AI behaviors actually works right, that would patch a good number of the problems with the old game).

1:10 It was, in fact, the introductory 4X game for many of us who are older (I'm 49 and was finishing college when this came out). Along with Master of Orion, which was beyond awesome, and of course the 1st civ. 4:40 There is, in fact, something much more awesome than summoning bears to maul and destroy your enemies... and his name is Torin the Chosen! In my (surely very controversial) opinion, you haven't experienced the full glory of MoM until you do that right at the start of the game.

I remember this game as basically a cross between Master of Orion and Civilization except in a fantasy world. Great game and spent many hours on it back in the days. The original game had lots of customization for wizards (you could make your own) and neutral cities weren't much of a factor.

Coming back to this video a year later and seeing my former comment (about the game being easy to play, but hard to master) is really interesting ... especially as I have since waded through many online forums, searching for strategies and ideas (from decades ago) on how to play this game well. Make no mistake, there's a reason this game has been living, rent free, in the minds of video gaming nerds for decades. Once this game gets its teeth into you, it's hard to shake--the fundamental design has an elegance about it that keeps you coming back, even when the newer, "next big thing" has come and gone. I've been reading through the old official strategy guide, from the 1990s, and I'm still finding new ideas, strategies, and combinations I hadn't considered before. It's amazing that such an old game can provide such a rich framework/sandbox to play in. In today's world, most games are all but forgotten a few months after release.

I would love to see a modern lords of magic. One of my absolute favorites.

Looks like pretty close remake of the original legend... that does get my interest. Also, every time you said you need to improve your army, I was mumbling "Summon the ****cking bears, then!"

"[...] I've played the high men --" *Spits out coffee*

Interesting to note - There are 5 base schools of magic and 1 character for each of these schools. In theory, there would be 10 different 2-magic combinations between these schools. However there are only 9 more characters. 1 of the 2-magic school combinations is excluded; the combination of Life and Death magic.

Become a half-Sorcery/half-Chaos Artificer. Craft the ring of invisibility, plate of flight, and a phantasmal bow of haste for your hero(s). Summon flying creatures, and cast invisibility on them. Research Doom Bolt to surprise tough enemies. Conquer everything on both Planes. Ah, good old days :)

Love how the wizard selection goes from "some saxon hobo" straight to "two actual fucking gods"

Ah yes, 5hr good old days of gaming. Where if you bought a game second hand, and it didn't have a manual, you were screwed lol

Master of Magic was my favorite game when it came out! I remember buying it as a young adult with barely enough money in the bank to get it. Haha! My hubby and I played the crap out of it. I'll wait for this version to go down in price, even though it is already cheaper. Looks great. Thank you for the video.

Master of Magic was my jam back in the day. I hope they kept some of the OG characters.

I'm with you on the city view. The 2d art is so good, they should put it front-and-centre!

Splat, Mr.Splattercat, I know this is months ago, but I really want you to try using a custom wizard with Warlord and all life books. It's considered the easiest combo in the game but it's also SO fun. Basically Life is all about buffing units, and Warlord increases the max exp level by moving everything up 1 rung. So instead of 0 exp being recruit, 0 is regular, instead of 25 exp being regular, it's veteran. This combos with an early game life spell called Heroism, which lets a unit act like it's max exp, then when the unit actually hits max exp it dispels on its own. This becomes even crazier with the Crusade life spell, which functions EXACTLY like Warlord, then Altar of Battle is a town enchant causes any units created to be max exp. Speaking of life spells you skipped over one that just had me shaking my head 😂 Endurance, gives +1 movement. It's insanely useful for early game scouting, and that extra speed is useful in combat, endurance archers for example, able to run out of range and rain arrows at the same time. And if I remember correctly magic weapon gives plus to hit, it's a must have on archers. I would love to see just one playthrough of you using this, especially as a MoM original player, your reactions to things I consider standard for MoM just makes me genuinely happy. Also it's been 8 months and I want to see if they fixed all the basic units looking the same, you're right about that one, even the original had unique design to every race.

As a child of the 80s, I AM THE TARGET AUDIENCE!

This one passed me by back in the day. I have to say I like the idea of a simple 4X game, as I find the latest civ game too complex to enjoy now. The extra complexity just makes decisions more frustrating, instead of more enjoyable.

Hey, I wanted to comment as a long time player of the original game: A lot of the lackluster aspects you mentioned, the absence of voiceover and interior combat, these are all very faithful to the original game and the limitations of software and hardware back then. I fully agree with you that they would have been improvements but from what I have seen this version has decided to be INCREDIBLY accurate to the original by leaving them out. That said, I still love the old game and will be buying this as soon as it goes on sale. Just keep in mind, it'll probably be a slightly unpleasant experience for most modern 4x fans.

One of the gems from my early computer games. It has been way too long for an update and I am so happy that there is one now

Heh. One of the things with Master of Magic- the original, that is, is that it came out in 1994. Earlier than late nineties- it was pulling off the game that it is during a time when DOS was required for said game. I remember that it was *eight* disks. CD Rom drives were just starting to catch on at the time. The game was something ridiculous for the time like 80Mbs... which seems ridiculously small nowadays. But the game contained so, so very much. I really enjoyed later in the game being able to make my own artifacts- weapons and armor and things I could give to heroes with enchantments from the magic that you know. So a favorite was giving windwalking (basically flying). I liked playing Klaxons, because their special unit is a giant seige-beetle that's the strongest non-summon unit in the game (not counting geared-up heroes). Master of Magic actually was my first 4x game, unless Defender of the Crown on the Commodore C64 counts. ^_^' I mean... you can go for the point of modernizing it- they did that with a fair amount of the artwork, it looks like, but the gameplay is faithful to the original and probably what those who did play the original want. Or at least, speaking for myself- the 'spiritual successors' to Master of Magic just didn't do it justice, and though it looks like a few things changed a little, basically what you see would have been what you would have seen in 1994. Yeah, almost thirty years ago, two years before the N64 came out. At least from my perspective, not seeing more bells and whistles is nostalgia factor. I get it, for those who didn't play the original, it would have been nice- for those who did, it's nice to leave it mostly in-tact the way it was. All that said, this is like artwork in a museum; a seven wonders of the world for video games, because it was so beyond its time back then. Kinda like FF VII when it came out- it looks very dated now, but not being top-down view was a wild new frontier at the time. I imagine many people who played the original also do have the happy nostalgia wave I feel from it's re-release, and understand that the feelings of that nostalgia aren't there if you didn't play it back then. Think of a different game that you absolutely loved when you were young that was your absolute favorite, and imagine it getting re-released. That's basically this. :)

Waited so long for this! Thanks for showcasing it Splat!

As a longtime AoW fan, I'm really digging this game. I never played the original, but I've been playing AoW for decades. It's weird to me how people are calling this a 4x-lite kind of game. Sure, the UI is clean, and the options fairly limited--but there are an absurd number of combinations when you take the schools of magic, units, wizards, etc. into account. I'm finding this game to be a lot more interesting, despite it's facade of simplicity. The magic system is familiar but completely different. The combat system actually takes wounds into account. Managing your economy is straightforward. I think this game might provide one of those "easy to play, hard to master" scenarios, which is great.

I am so hyped about MoM was one of the first games I played back in the day and absolutely fell in love with it. Glad it will be available soon.

1) Are you able to purchase neutral cities instead of fighting the garrisson or somehow open diplomacy with the neutrals? 2) The Ai probably defeated the fire elementals by having some fire channel defense - nullyfying the elementals attack 3) Does the game have the neighbouring hex rule? - Any unit standing on a hex next to the attacked hex gets pulled into the fight. (if allied to the attacker or defender)

I like how you gave Stoneskin to the unit you kept OUT of combat ;p

I was three when the OG came out and I probably played it when I was 5. It set my gaming habits in stone.

MoM - one of best game of my childhood!

Watching you play this was super frustrating. It’s an OG 4x strategy game!! It doesn’t need any bells and whistles, it’s the blueprint! Then you didn’t take any nodes or crank out units, but you understood that the orcs are cheap and expendable, but didn’t crank them out! I think you should spend more time playing this, because you really don’t get it and what makes it great. Thanks for letting us know it’s out though, but you really should spend more time playing it.

I was around for the first one. One of my favorite games of all time

Quick tip for when you have the mana for it. The stone wall spell for your town is a neat way to help defend a city, once the threat has been dispatched you can sell the wall. Rinse and repeat for a early boost of gold.

Glory days of Civ 1 MoM Wing Commander Privateer and Xcom.... absolutely amazing time to Start Gaming way back in the Time :)

Oh, nice. I used to play this all the time, and recently bought the original and the Caster Of Magic mod/patch. Now it looks like I've got yet another new version to play with.

The absolute last old game I was expecting to get a remake. I loved the original.

NO WAY!!! I LOVED those games back in the day!!! Edit : The “poop more hammers” comment threw me into Monty Python headspace… Edit edit: Seems like they kept a lot of the mechanics. Funny how I can still spot where what you’re doing will/won’t work.

The "HEY BOO BOO" had me dead!! :D

There was another atempt to recreate the title a few years back. It was also called Master of Magic, Then changed its name to Worlds of Magic, and then it was abandoned and rebooted as Planar Conquest. None of those attempts were succesful. Perhaps Slitherine succeeds where others failed, but I remain sceptical.

Man played this back in high school, thank you for the nostalgia.

Ok. I WANT THIS GAME. I NEED THIS GAME. Feels like I am 14 years again. :)

The original is one of my favorite games of all times. Even though 40 bucks is a bit steep for my wallet, it was an instant buy.

This game was somewhat of a contemporary of Civ 1, which followed just after the classic EMPIRE released for PC.

3:18 This why AI art will never replace talented artists.

Oh man, I was born in '82, this was like my favorite game as a kid.

The units you couldnt select are from a paralell world. Which world you start determines the starting set of troops. If you find a portal you can go to the other world.... so you're not just trying to conquer 1 world, but two. Well, that's how the original worked. In town stuff worked like Colonization, the New Word game inspired by the Original Civ game. You set everything enemywise as advanced, with a medium world size. The smaller the world size, the less space for all of the factions.

The original was one of the first games I played on my first pc back in ... 1994? 1995? God, it was glorious. It only crashed every hour or so, and it was amazing! Nuking enemy cities with magic.

It's good to notice this was the development build.

Hey hey people. Would Seth like this version?

I was 7 or 8 when MoM came out but was lucky enough to get a demo for it from PC Gamer or some such, it was awesome!

Slytherin is very good at developing mechanically solid, reasonably complex, and nicely varied (in the context of valid tactics and strategies that will work) 4X games. Their production polish (regarding things like voiceovers, fancy graphics, etc), on the other hand, is routinely... acceptable. For comparison, I'll point you to their Pandora: First Contact game, which worked better as a Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri sequel than Beyond Earth did.

A friend of mine had this game waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the days and I'd borrow his game manual to look at all the spells and stuff

I played the heck out of the original. It was a very deep strategy at the time. Different races with different buildings, units, and resource traits. Designing your wizard with different leader traits and spells Multiple maps Crappy diplomacy (not that any game does that part well) The closest I've found since then was Endless Legend

My favorite strategy is select all white spell books and use either high men or halflings. Get Torin the Chosen out asap and just destroy everything on the board! Halfling slingers are ridiculously powerful with Torin and High Men Paladins are practically invincible with him!

I've been playing the game and I really like it. Definitely has that 'one more turn' feeling.

The original Master of Magic (and Age of Wonders) was mainly about conquering neutral cities to expand, rather than settling new ones. It's more in line with the time scope of the game (unlike a Civilization-type game where your faction grows over thousands of years).

Splat: You def have the old contingent as fans I'm 60 and have investigated maybe 100 games on your recommend

oh wowowowowowowowowowowowoowowow this is STILL the BEST 4x game that Age of Wonders simply can't as goood.

Looks like there's finally going to be a decent successor, rather than- the previous messes that claimed to be spiritual successors.

Splat, during your playthrough on your own time, did you come across the portals that lead to the other world? Basically, it is like a whole other map. If I recall correctly, if you started as the lizard people in the original game, you automatically started on the second world map.

at 22:00, it is shown two button on the bottom of the summary: Accept or Choices. It is sometimes worth to take Choices instead of Accept.

Man, i had a friend playing the original for hours in high school 😁👍

I had a copy of this back in the day; good game.

Surprised you covered this as I don't think of this as an Indie game. Appreciate your perspective on it though.

Lords of the realm and lords of magic were my jam!

I used to play this all the time! Loved this game.

I loved this game in the 90s and really looking forward to a remake.

Klakons!!! Fire-breathing stagbeetles! So fun!

ooooooh an absolute gem of my childhood! it was more or less the copy paste template for master of orion 2 another gem of long gone times

You said it Splatt, it's the lack of atmosphere. The old DOS version did have a lot more of it, mainly because of the beautiful evocative music, I guess.

Holy cow, I loved lords of magic... Super underrated

Bab's first 4x? That's exactly what I need!

The Yogi the Bear impression caught me off guard 😂

How did I not know there was a remake of this? I remember playing the original because I thought it was a sequel to Master of Monsters (still sort of think it is more than Disciples of Gaia). It was all just a set of stepping stone to what I play now.

So excited for this...I played a ton of the original and the mod's.

Always a great time for a splat video!

The graphics of the original is better than the new one. The artwork, feel and quality of the old one is way more immersive, gloomy, mysterious, detailed and filled with ambience. The artwork and feel of the new one makes me feel like I am sitting in MS Word... ?

As a kid i loved this game. 4 spellbooks where enough to qualify for the highest spell level of a certain element. New spellbooks could be found in nodes. Wizards could trade spells. I had no problems to settle with settlers. I still play it once a year. Good game. As was MOO 2. 😉

The sheer amount of spells able to do all sorts of crazy things and units and summonable fantastic creatures with tons of different abilities makes this game way less "simple" than your run of the mill "Civ-like 4X". The combat system with the various stat interactions is also more complex than usual as you've pointed out. P.S. the best way to play MoM isn't this lacklustre remake however, it is "Caster of Magic for Windows" you can get on Steeeem for a lot cheaper with the "Caster of Magic Warlords" submod (I prefer the "lite" version for faster end turn times in 12 player games which doesn't even seem possible in this lazy remake with max 4 opponent Wizards) applied on top of it. *That* is the true MoM "remake". I am however liking the modding potential of this one too if the devs manage to improve upon the game further to provide a better base game for modding.

Thank you for the guide

I played the ever living fuck out of this in the 90s! I can not wait to see what they've done with it.

I have so many fond memories of the original.

I loved this first game. Hope the "remake" is as good.

AI was probably not cheating, Jaffar can summon temporary Phantom Warriors during the fight like crazy. You should try to research spells in the Nature magic to access your summons too. The game is about wizards and magic, not about stock armies 😊

I played it way back in the day and it was pretty good

Excellent walkthrough game, many thanks for the excellent content good luck to you and good mood👍👍💯💯

Looks like Age of Wonders

You know the video game media has matured when there are just as many re-makes now as new offerings.

Omg I own the original still have the box and floppys!! This is a spectacular game!!!