Master of Magic

[Locklear]

I've played this game almost more than any singleplayer game (probably tied with Morrowind).

I've been playing Rome a lot lately, and got to thinking how utterly, completely, totally PERFECT any game would be, as a MOM/RTW hybrid. Think about it. On one level, you have a TW game, with all its tactical/terrain considerations (that MOM tended to lack, with necessarily featureless landscapes). The units for MOM mostly have TW counterparts (with the exception of heroes, flying units, and mythical/summoned creatures), and it's easy to picture a MOM sans magic (without which it would still be an awesome game) in the Total War style.

On top of that, you add a whole layer of MOM, the ludicrously in-depth magic system. The global/map/unit/combat spells would apply very well to the current campaign-map approach for RTW: You can focus on unit enchantments and simply buff up your "normal" armies (flying halfling slingers anyone?), or use summoned armies of fearsome creatures, or rely on overland spells (raise a few mountains around your cities, sacrificing farmland for defense), or all-powerful-but-draining global enchanments. I can just imagine being a necromancer again, and casting that global spell (forget the name) that makes every killed unit on the map rise again as ZOMBIES under your control. ARISE MY ZOMBIES!

I'm not even going into the strategic implications of the dual worlds. Anyway, I've just described my dream game.

[Togakure]

MoM was one of my first, if not the first computer-based strategy games that I played, and I absolutely loved it. I still have my hardcover manual.

Wanting very much to relive the hours and hours of enjoyment I had playing this game when it first came out, I downloaded an abandonware copy today. Unfortunately, I am getting an error message when I try to run magic.exe. The message is a DOS message: "reconfigure hardware options."

I was VERY disappointed, and rather embarrassed. I am an IT professional, and used to know DOS like the back of my hand. But I seem to have forgotten everything! Damn Windows brainwashing ~:) .

I use Windows 98 OS on an old PC. Does anyone have any advice as to how to resolve my problem so I can play MoM again? A good start would be a copy of the text from someone's autoexec.bat file, someone who can successfully run MoM on their PC. Another thing that would be helpful would be a link to any site or forum where i can chat with folks who still play the game. They might be able to suggest things to try.

I can hear the little song that plays, in my head right now! I really wanna play again ... :cry:

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

I remember playing that game. a healthy dose of fun.

On which settings were you playing? What were your favorite custom wizard? I always took a custom wizard, others were too bland ~:)

I liked to play on Impossible.... Opposing wizard would start then with a really big advantage and cast global enchantment like they are battle spells. Could proved quite hard. I actually lost games in Impossible (thanks to Armageddon kind of spell on trun 15 th ~:eek: )

My favorite combination was... err.... Infernal Power with Myrran and taking the Beastmen. Beastmen gives extra mana per 1000 people. They have access to cathedral (effect double with Infernal Power). With the Dark Ritual spell (+50% ? to power from shrin/ cathedral...), you could get anywhere from 40 to 50+ mana per fully developped city.
Divine Power was not as good because there is no divine equivalent of Dark Ritual...

And army wise, the beastmen were good enough ~:) I liked to have cast Lycanthropy on my Beastmen ~D

It was a really funny game. Thanks for reminding me I played it. It's good memory ~:)

Louis,

[Togakure]

It's been a VERY long time ... um ... I'm pretty sure I played on hard difficulty, one less than Impossible. Impossible was frustrating because Sss'ra (that ultimately annoying lizard wizard). would cast--as you said--Armageddon very early in the game. I didn't enjoy trying to build an empire under constant global artillery fire. So I would reset and play on hard difficulty, and make it a point to kill Sss'ra FIRST, just to vent my ire.

I liked playing Dark Elves and High Men, because I identified best with their units. I liked the ranged attack that the Dark Elves have, and their Nightmare and Warlock units. For me, roleplay factors a lot in my level of enjoyment. I'm not usually one to play a faction just because they are harder.

I always designed a custom wizard. I can't remember the combinations of skills/spellbooks I prefered. I definitely had some that I used regularly, but I'm old, and my bio-hard drive just isn't what it used to be. I bloody can't remember. I'm hoping that when (if ... :cry: ) I play again some of it will come back to me.

[Phatose]

I seem to remember being very fond of Life/Sorcery mages. Played chaos mages a good bit though, simply because nuking cities was fun. Maybe I try my luck at getting it to run, I know I've got a copy around here somewhere.

[Togakure]

Well I did manage to get it working and have been enjoying some nostalgic games. Funny how fast everything comes back to you, even when it seems like you've completely forgotten everything before you play again.

To solve my configuration problems, I downloaded and installed a DOS emulator called DOSBox (v 0.61). I had MoM installed in D:\mom. To get it to run, I'd launch DOSBox, which opened a Window with a DOS-like environment in it. I then typed:

1) mount d d:\mom
2) d:
3) magic

and voila, the game launched. I pressed CNTL+F7 several times to raise the Frameskip to 10, and CNTL+F12 once to raise the CPU cycles to 3000. That combo seems to work well on my PC (it may be different for others; mine is old and slow). The sound is a bit erratic (the music), but the most needed sounds (effects and alerts) work fine.

***

I, too, enjoy playing the Life/Sorcery combo, with either High Men or Dark Elves, and I tend to prefer starting in Myrror rather than Arcanus. My first couple of nostalgia games were with 4 Life and 4 Sorcery Spellbooks, and the Myrran special ability.

Of late I've been trying another, more unpredictable combo: High men, 1 spell book each of Life, Sorcery, Chaos and Nature, and the special abilities of Myrran, Warlord, Alchemy, and Node Mastery. Only choosing 4 spellbooks at the onset makes for a weak start, and it's challenging. I enjoy having to hunt down additional spellbooks and special ability retorts in order to advance my wizard's abilities throughout the game. It also makes it interesting as you don't know what you'll find, so you don't know exactly what kind of wizard you'll end up with. Only having 4 spellbooks also forces me to limit the speed of my research early in the game (if you research all of your spells before finding additional spellbooks, you'll be forced to research the Spell of Mastery, which will tie up your research efforts for a VERY long time, even if you subsequently find more spellbooks and have new spells available for research).

Adamantium-accoutered Pallies ROCK :charge:

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Anything with a few books of sorcery rocks ~:)

Life, Death, Nature and Chaos requires a lot of books to get all the good and rare spells. Sorcery is the only kind of magic that you can be very happy with, with only a couple of books.
Very good common easy spell; how many fights have you won with phantom warrior only in the begining? Is there a more valuable speel in battle against another wizard that counter magic? Don't you feel relieved when you find disjunction true?

1 spell book of each is... interesting :)

Having very few spellbooks is almost an exploit to research Spell of Mastery fast, and win very fast ~:) . But less fun I got to say.

Favorite retort; Myrran, Divine/ Infernal Power, Archmage. I always focus all my magic power on skills, never on mana or research: I got mana either with mana crystals or with alchemy (convert gold to mana), and research is done by building; and I like skils, and being able to cast spell fast.

Louis,

[Ii Naomasa]

I loved Master of Magic and agree that a redone version that featured a Total War battle engine would be very, very cool.

Instead of going off on my memories of my own playing the game, I'll relate a story about a secondhand experience. A friend of mine who used to work with us came across MoM a few years after its release and fell in love with it. She'd play it religiously. In order to tell her heroes apart quickly, though, she tended to rename them after whichever friend or coworker he/she looked most like. So she'd often come in in the morning and start regaling us with tales of her latest in-game conquests. So we'd here about how 'Andy' took over this town, or how 'Neal' died in battle, or how I got this great magical sword. Nothing like sitting at work and someone telling you they're sorry but you died last night. :)

[the Count of Flanders]

Isn't Age of Wonders (1 & 2) based on Masters of Magic? I really liked the Age of Wonders games.

[Togakure]

Many of the features found in Masters of Magic can be found in games that came out after it. I've always wondered if MoM was indeed a source of inspiration for many of the turn-based strategy games that followed.