Master of Magic

aka: Civizard: Majutsu no Keifu, MOM, Master of Magic Classic, Maître de la Magie
Moby ID: 200
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

The plot of Master of Magic is to become the dominant wizard on two 'planes' of existence, the normal Earth-like one and the fantasy based plane "Myrror". You can do this by destroying your competing wizards (up to 4 computer players) or by casting the Spell of Mastery.

Game play is carried out in a 2D top down perspective. You move your armies around the board, fighting monsters to get treasure, and more importantly 'nodes'. Once you control a node you can summon a spirit to meld with the node and gain mana from it. You also must build up your cities so you can support and train your army. City management is very much like Civilization. You also must allocate your mana for use, or research. You must research to learn new spells. You can do battle with the enemy in a quasi-isometric perspective or you can have the game simulate the battles.

The game ends when your home tower is destroyed; you banish all the other wizards (by destroying their home tower) or someone casts the Spell of Mastery.

Spellings

  • シヴィザード 魔術の系譜 - Japanese PlayStation release (Japanese spelling)

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Credits (DOS version)

48 People (46 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

Design
Programming
Art
Composer
Music Producer
Sound Effects
  • Midian
Marketing - Product Manager
Marketing - Packaging
Producer
Art Director
Quality Assurance Lead
Manuals - Writer
Manuals - Editor
Manuals - Design & Layout
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 19 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 119 ratings with 11 reviews)

Civilization meets Magic: the Gathering.

The Good
The Magic system. It's like in Magic: the Gathering. Very quick to learn, and the summonings are handled similiar to the Wizards of the Coast game too! Town managing system was carbon copied to Master of Orion II, because it was so good. Another easy-to-use interface! The battles are also nice, no complaining in them. And the spells! IMHO researching spells instead of tech as in MOO is more... well, fun because you can use them right away, instead of waiting years to the Stellar Converter ship of yours to construct in Master of Orion 2.

The Bad
It's 21th century. If I had played this game 5 years ago, I would have said that graphics are good and sounds are average. Now I must say that graphics do their job, but sounds are terrible! First time I heard Fire Elemental grunt like bear, I laughed. But after 50th time...or Night Stalker move sound is pounding of horse hoofs? Or.. okay, unit sounds are few. And musics? Terrible. First I tried adlib sounds. Worse than midi. Then SB Pro. A bit better, but still below the line. Star Control 2 was released two years before MOM, and it had better, MOD-style musics. Come on SimTex, you can do better (as in MOO 2). Also, diplomacy has no versatility, as in Orion games. Why? Not even in version 1.31. And AI is stupid diplomat in this one. If SimTex had corrected these flaws, Master of Magic would have been the greatest strategy game of 20th Century!

The Bottom Line
Combine the best sides of Civilization and Magic:the Gathering and you have Master of Magic. Strategy-game, that is based on two planes, Arcanus (near to Earth) and Myrror, chaotic plane. Build up your armies and cities, deal with other wizards, these are the Civ elements. Summon horde of fiendish monsters or noble heroes, cast fireballs and life drains, these are the Magic: the Gathering elements. Absolutely worth of trying, because it's nowadays abandonware. You can get it free.

DOS · by Lord Zimonov (8) · 2000

A classic for sure, but with some issues

The Good
First off, I grew up with this game. I have played this game probably more times than I care to admit, and I still find it infinitely entertaining. The fact that I also love Civ games probably didn't help matters either.

But really, that's what this game comes down to. It's a Civilization game but with magic. There are very few turn based games out there that allows you to play an empire building game with this level of freedom.

One of my personal favorite parts of this game though? The exploration and the heroes. Sure, fighting other wizards is fun and all, but sending your heroes to go around and exploring dungeons and what not? For some strange reason, it made the game for me.

I especially like the fact that you can have your multiple heroes, and deck them out from head to toe in full battle gear that you crafted yourself.

The addition of spells also means that your tactical choices are not as simple as you would with most Civ games. Civ games have you discover techs to unlock units. In MoM, your spells unlock not units, but tactical options.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the game is not without it's flaws.

For starters, there are a staggering number of bugs in this game that render a large number of powers and abilities simply useless.

second, there was little in the way of game balancing and proper AI control. The AI will know how to overwhelm you with forces (by basically cheating like crazy just like any Civ-like game), but they won't know how to combine them to make them more effective. (Or rather, how to undo some tricks that you might employ.)

The end result is that you'll have situations where a single nightstalker (the night elf unique unit) defending the city is more than enough to hold off a 9 stack unit, as the AI does not know how to handle an invisible unit that is intrinsically invisible. So it will sit around until the clock runs out and end the battle in a stalemate.

It is also the reason why late in the game while you're running with storm giants and the like, your foe could still be sitting around with spearmen.

And then we have the game balance issue. Races are not created equal, so god help you if you picked the kracken or the lizard folk as your starting race, you'll be spending the rest of the game trying to get another race that doesn't suck quite as much.

But even more infuriating is the diplomacy model. Or rather, the lack of it. Sure, you can try to create treaties with other wizards. but quite honestly, their personalities are so volatile that said union will probably dissolve in a matter of rounds in a orgy of schizophrenic messages. There is no point to it. And really, the only effective purpose of diplomacy in this game is to just make a treaty so that they don't attack you for now. Can't say how long that will last though, as these computer wizards seem to have a wild mood swings that makes a bipolar clown look sane by comparison.

The Bottom Line
Civilization in a fantasy setting

DOS · by Elliott Wu (40) · 2008

An extremely innovative game typical of the old MicroProse style.

The Good
Everything, starting with the super addictive gameplay, wonderful graphics and renders, the research tree, the battles, the strategy... everything indeed!

The Bad
It's simply marvellous - what's not to like?

The Bottom Line
One of the best games ever invented.

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Dragonsword has moved to Realms Beyond Hans Noe Oct 23, 2010
MoM unofficial patch v1.40 kyr ub (1) May 16, 2010
Active fan site at dragonsword.com Hans Noe Apr 24, 2010

Trivia

References

One of the merchants may try to sell an item called "idspispopd". This is a cheat for Doom.

Release history

The original game had an onslaught of bugs that almost prevented playing. Microprose released a patch and later a completely new version of the game (which had a different manual and disc). The original disc and manual can be considered a collector's item.

Unofficial patch

There is an fan-made, unofficial patch (v1.40) that focuses on the correction of many bugs still left in the 1.31 version and tries to improve the game's AI performance. The download link can be found in the related links section.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #141 in the "150 Best Games of All Time" list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #13 Most Rewarding Ending of All Time
    • May 1997 (Issue #154) - Introduced into the Hall of Fame

Information also contributed by Andrew Grasmeder El-ad Amir, and kyr ub.

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Related Games

Master of Orion
Released 1993 on DOS, 1995 on Macintosh
Magic Academy
Released 2007 on Windows, 2011 on iPad, 2012 on Android
Detective Solitaire: Inspector Magic
Released 2019 on Windows
Empire of Magic
Released 2003 on Windows
Magic Academy II
Released 2009 on Windows, 2011 on iPad, Android
Heroes of Might and Magic II: Gold
Released 1998 on DOS, Windows
MahJongg Master 3
Released 2000 on Windows

Related Sites +

  • Help Site for Master Of Magic
    This is an interactive guide on Master of Magic. For those who do not have the manual paper because they download abandonware version of this video game.
  • Master of Magic: Hero Page
    A site dedicated to everything about heroes in Master of Magic, including cheats, oddities and descriptions.
  • Sector 5, Ratai's Realm
    Master of Magic Online Guide. Has other things like chat rooms and custom wizard submission.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 200
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tomer Gabel.

Windows added by Picard. PC-98 added by Trypticon. Linux added by Lugamo. PlayStation added by Yanis Lukes.

Additional contributors: Andrew Grasmeder, Kalirion, Laey'zur Tiberius Hawke, Thibault Droulers, 6⅞ of Nine, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Plok, Yanis Lukes.

Game added August 10, 1999. Last modified February 13, 2024.