Heard of this one, never played. Must do in the future.
Do it. Absolutely. Every single time a fantasy 4X game comes out, they will inevitably compare themselves to this game. And they will inevitably come up short. We keep hoping for a true remake or sequel some day, but a) It's probably not going to happen (even if someone were willing to take it on they'd probably get sued into the ground by Hasbro because, let's face it, MoM cribs heavily and unapologetically from MtG), and b) It probably wouldn't be nearly as good.
MoM has the Brood War thing going on where its flaws have become some of the most appealing parts of the game for many, and the reason why they still play it. Case in point: The balance.
Honestly, MoM and MoO2 are still the unbeaten kings of the 4x genre. So much to do, so many lovely little details, it's amazing. Yeah, they're unbalanced as fuck but who cares, they're FUN and they let you DO THINGS!
Every time some newly sprung-up indie dev releases a space 4x that has been streamlined so far that planet management consists of adjusting 3 sliders and that's it, I just shrug and go back to MoO2 where I can actually DO THINGS.
Streamlining and balancing are cancerous design principles that have no place in the 4x genre.
I agree and I don't. I agree that the lack of balance is one of the things that make Simtex games so fun. I don't agree because I think they're the exception to the rule in this. I can't think of any other imbalanced 4X (and there are many) where I end up thinking "Yes, the lack of balance here is making it more fun."
To me, there are two reasons why imbalance is a good thing in MoM and MoO:
1. The fun of the games heavily revolve around emergent storytelling. The joy of MoM isn't in crushing your enemies (although that is fun), it's in the way that it seems to be a real fantasy world, come to life. It's in the way that when you encounter something overpowered, it's not a "Shit, I guess I'll have to restart" moment, but more of a "Day 34. Our Orc scouts encountered a strike force of well-equipped and trained cavalry called Paladins. We need to look for something to give us an advantage against them." It almost automatically arrays itself as a story in your head, and ends up presenting itself as a challenge to overcome. This leads me to the second reason.
2. The AI doesn't understand the imbalance. Let's face it. If the AI got how broken the game was, if they were capable of saying things like "Oh hey, I can just take 11 Death, summon some Wraiths and insta-win the game," it would not be fun. It would be frustrating until you learn to deal with those things, and then boring because you're basically locked into the few strategies that can stand against that sort of thing. Same with the above example. If the AI were to say "Thanks to my fame and magical AI gold, I have a bunch of Paladin mercenaries appearing for hire in the first few turns! Let's use them to kill the human player," the game would suck. The fact that the AI instead says "Dum de dum de dum, maybe these Paladins can go kill those Hell Hounds in that cave" is what keeps it from being frustrating.
In other words, I would go so far as to say that the Simtex games are more fun as sandbox games than as strategy games. The awesomeness stems from building a fantasy/sci-fi empire in your image and exploring a world.
I think if there's one thing MoM did right that other 4X games really need to pick up on, it's end-game encounter sites. In MoM, if you've got the enemy wizards on the ropes but don't want the game to end, that's totally fine because Myrror is dotted with nodes full of dragons that only the strongest of armies (or exploited heroes lol) can vanquish. It's the rare game where the first X continues to be fun and relevant well into the late game.