Master of Magic remake from Thea developers and Slitherine

[Cael]

Aggressively mid? I'd say that it was done by people who thought something was a good idea and so added it without thought of how the elements would mesh. One of the things I saw was the eruption of different damage types, like it was trying to make itself into a DnD RPG...

You can argue that the game is mid, but the following statement shows you don't know the game as much as you think

Magical ranged attacks were already associated to specific realms/schools in the original. eg Priest's magical ranged attacks are Nature etc https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Ranged_Magical_Attack
The remake did not randomly add it, in fact the UI choice here is superior as it made it easier for the player to know when spells like resist element, bless would help without looking up things!

Yes. And Resist Element helped against all of them. Are you telling me it doesn't have Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, etc., now?

 

[Axiomatic]

Aggressively mid? I'd say that it was done by people who thought something was a good idea and so added it without thought of how the elements would mesh. One of the things I saw was the eruption of different damage types, like it was trying to make itself into a DnD RPG...

You can argue that the game is mid, but the following statement shows you don't know the game as much as you think

Magical ranged attacks were already associated to specific realms/schools in the original. eg Priest's magical ranged attacks are Nature etc https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Ranged_Magical_Attack
The remake did not randomly add it, in fact the UI choice here is superior as it made it easier for the player to know when spells like resist element, bless would help without looking up things!

Yes. And Resist Element helped against all of them. Are you telling me it doesn't have Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, etc., now?

Sorry to be that guy, close but technically "Resist Element" spell only helps against Chaos and Nature attacks but two heroes Zaldron, Aerie in classic have Sorcery attacks. Frankly, classic MoM missed a trick here by not having any Death or Life type magical ranged (Death's Shadow Demons and Demon Lord are chaos attacks). Even Storm Giant lightning attacks in the original are oddly enough Chaos not Sorcery but for some reason in the remake it is Sorcery.

Also I don't think there is a resist fire, resist cold, resist lightning trait or spell strangely enough. There are fire/cold/death/poisoning/stoning/illusion/weapon/missiles/magic immunity trait though. The remake has lightning vulnerability (think does double damage?)

 

[Axiomatic]

Is this game worth playing? I need some fantasy 4x besides Endless Legend, Dominions & Age of Wonders.

The Master of Magic remake is not a bad game, but it's not a great game either. The designers have even said publicly (what most fan suspected anyway) that it's an indie remake of a big studio game... so keeping that in mind the result won't blow you away but because of the brilliance of the original game it's remaking, it's still pretty good.

This is probably a fair response though I don't think Blake has played the remake yet right ? I think the thing to stress here is if your experience with the remake was only at launch or even prior to Oct this year (where they improved most but not all of 2 roadmap worth of improvements, you probably want to retry the game again, particularly after the 8 Feb updates to the base game hit with the new DLC , since that gives substantial boosts to the AI and UI (e.g improvements to build queues, better display of city economic stats)

Was playing the remake and noticed "Floating Islands" now move over land and sea, WTF ?! I'm pretty sure they acted like summoned magical versions of ships in the original . Also since the update (did not buy the DLC), the option to start out with a hero does not work anymore. Furthermore I noticed that "Theria the Thief" starts with 30+ resistance (due to Charmed ability perhaps ?) - feels like another cockup. Of course despite such resistance, having equipment and several levels, she still got one shot killed by Jafar ?!

I think they fixed the issue with not being able to start up with Bshan already. Theria is working correctly and not a change, as you note charmed gives you 30 resistance which is overkill since practically nothing can overcome it in the original game. 30 resistance is pretty worthless since many spells that are direct damage ignore resistance. eg Psionic blast, Fireball are "physical attacks" , magic creates a physical threat and are blocked by normal shields.

Floating islands is a sad case where they had coding issues. This wasn't the first and only example when they went to beta-testers saying they couldn't duplicate something in the original (e.g. web, 9 figure Hydra, flying fortress) but this was a case where they couldn't come up with anything that wasn't totally different. There are like over 100+ known differences to the original but this one is a major one. How major? The growing consensus among the MoM remake community is that this spell is now so good, it is almost always better to start 1 or 2 sorcery books to get this for rush strategies. Essentially there is now a new super strategy since this makes traditional strategies like life warlord Slingers even better by speeding up mobility.

It's sad, they often cant duplicate something done in the 90s but we already know they are limited in resources.

How does this game have the sales to justify further DLC, lol.

You be surprised. They apparently did well in steam sales, with the spokeperson saying it topped the strategic sales for them in terms of units and revenues generated? . Sounds funny to me too but I always thought the price was too high.

The consensus seems to be that the remake is the same as the original but with worse graphics. But is the UI at least improved? I don't really care about the graphics, and if everything else is mostly unchanged, it might be worth it (on discount) for a less antiquated UI.

It's a mixed bag. I mean it has build queues (and the next patch will allow you to finally add stuff you haven't build the prequisities), you can do city sorting of city lists by an insane number of criteria (or add mods to do more) and manage cities from there, you can more easily check building requisites etc. But there are quite a few irritating things about the UI where arguably the classic is better. I personally think overall it's better but reasonable people can disagree.

It's not the same as the original. The most egregious change is how the game is hex-based now instead of square-based, which has a massive effect on how the battles play out. As for the UI, it's not improved enough to matter.

Did they impore AI at least?

Again this is a mixed bag. The forums occasionally get complaints from players claiming to be veterans of the original who find the game too hard. Like there was a guy who claimed he lost all 5 tries at easy level. But I think the AI plays different from the classic 1.31 but not necessarily better overall. In general, the AI ("Master AI" level) is far far more aggressive early game than classic v1.3 so if you sit back and develop (e.g. Noobs seem to love to do the Race to paladin strategy), you will be in trouble. But they are horrible at defense, so if you play a rush game like 11 book whatever or life+warlord+wolfriders it will be easy. Master AI in the remake is very poor past mid game though. It rarely cast globals unlike "Impossible AI" where it is a race to kill the AI before it wrecks the world. In other words, "Impossible AI" is like a slow burner, you must beat it early or its bonuses will kill you. "Master AI" in the remake (which has less bonuses but plays better early game), if you can survive it's early attacks, you can take your time to win because it snowballs less. Don't get me wrong, if you let them live to say turn 300, they will have a ton of cities and armies but they are still beatable by grinding them because they dont cast crazy globals like armeggon, time stop etc.

So yeah this isn't Caster of Magic level AI (where also the rules of the game are engineered to be AI friendly). My impression is they ran out of time to do the AI and shipped. There was no AI improvements in the year since it launched because it had bigger fish to fry (QoL issues) but the latest 8 Feb upcoming DLC will come with base improvements to the AI , mostly makes it way better at defending and improves the crazy love of ships. I will be a cynic and say the AI improvement only comes now at the end of it's two roadmap improvements because this will also be the last of the planned DLCs, so might as well only work on the AI now

Is this game worth playing? I need some fantasy 4x besides Endless Legend, Dominions & Age of Wonders

I think it is for some people. I think if you are so into fantasy 4x, you owe it to yourself to try.

But if AI is your focus - if so stay with CoM. The UI is also kinda rough, so if you the type that wants slick UI, nice flashy graphics, probably this isn't for you.

If you an obsessive type that cannot stand any change at all with MoM - stay with MoM Classic.

I actually think the remake actually borrowed the best parts of CoM (e.g higher default movement, Wizard fortress defenses etc) and had some interesting subtle changes that were brilliant e.g. making boulder attacks do AOE per figure attacks which creates counter for high figure buff strategies for example.

I also love the DLCs and free content such as the Halloween update. I particular enjoy how all the new Wizard traits/retorts buff the strategies and races people think are weak or boring and have a lot more fun thinking how these new strategies change or do not change traditional strategies like 11 book (various types), Death trolls, Runemaster-artificer, flying invisible warship, warlord+life + wolf rider/slingers etc .

And no, you do not need to pay for a single DLC you still get the first one free and the Halloween update that greatly improves death strategies with necromancer, death eater and orcmancer abilities.

I am also looking forward to try the amazing mods people have made and trying my hand at them once official support stops.

 

[Cael]

Aggressively mid? I'd say that it was done by people who thought something was a good idea and so added it without thought of how the elements would mesh. One of the things I saw was the eruption of different damage types, like it was trying to make itself into a DnD RPG...

You can argue that the game is mid, but the following statement shows you don't know the game as much as you think

Magical ranged attacks were already associated to specific realms/schools in the original. eg Priest's magical ranged attacks are Nature etc https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Ranged_Magical_Attack
The remake did not randomly add it, in fact the UI choice here is superior as it made it easier for the player to know when spells like resist element, bless would help without looking up things!

Yes. And Resist Element helped against all of them. Are you telling me it doesn't have Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, etc., now?

Sorry to be that guy, close but technically "Resist Element" spell only helps against Chaos and Nature attacks but two heroes Zaldron, Aerie in classic have Sorcery attacks. Frankly, classic MoM missed a trick here by not having any Death or Life type magical ranged (Death's Shadow Demons and Demon Lord are chaos attacks). Even Storm Giant lightning attacks in the original are oddly enough Chaos not Sorcery but for some reason in the remake it is Sorcery.

Also I don't think there is a resist fire, resist cold, resist lightning trait or spell strangely enough. There are fire/cold/death/poisoning/stoning/illusion/weapon/missiles/magic immunity trait though. The remake has lightning vulnerability (think does double damage?)

I know you are that guy who is simping for a turd. It is OK. Many do it in here on the Codex. You are simply trying to split hairs in order to make the turd look more polished, but all you are doing is making my point for me. You don't even realise why a lightning attack is Chaos. You can keep your DnD wannabe. I'll stick to my original.

 

[Axiomatic]

Aggressively mid? I'd say that it was done by people who thought something was a good idea and so added it without thought of how the elements would mesh. One of the things I saw was the eruption of different damage types, like it was trying to make itself into a DnD RPG...

You can argue that the game is mid, but the following statement shows you don't know the game as much as you think

Magical ranged attacks were already associated to specific realms/schools in the original. eg Priest's magical ranged attacks are Nature etc https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Ranged_Magical_Attack
The remake did not randomly add it, in fact the UI choice here is superior as it made it easier for the player to know when spells like resist element, bless would help without looking up things!

Yes. And Resist Element helped against all of them. Are you telling me it doesn't have Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, etc., now?

Sorry to be that guy, close but technically "Resist Element" spell only helps against Chaos and Nature attacks but two heroes Zaldron, Aerie in classic have Sorcery attacks. Frankly, classic MoM missed a trick here by not having any Death or Life type magical ranged (Death's Shadow Demons and Demon Lord are chaos attacks). Even Storm Giant lightning attacks in the original are oddly enough Chaos not Sorcery but for some reason in the remake it is Sorcery.

Also I don't think there is a resist fire, resist cold, resist lightning trait or spell strangely enough. There are fire/cold/death/poisoning/stoning/illusion/weapon/missiles/magic immunity trait though. The remake has lightning vulnerability (think does double damage?)

I know you are that guy who is simping for a turd. It is OK. Many do it in here on the Codex. You are simply trying to split hairs in order to make the turd look more polished, but all you are doing is making my point for me. You don't even realise why a lightning attack is Chaos. You can keep your DnD wannabe. I'll stick to my original.

For someone "simping" I do admit to so many of the game's issues.

Also, I do know the arguments for why lightning attacks are classified as Chaos, my point is design wise it is more interesting to have a broader variety of attacks.

But all this is just a distraction to avoid admitting you were factually wrong about the remake adding "different damage types". Shocking for someone who is supposedly a big fan of the original or do you prefer Caster of magic now?

Frankly, I thought the many critiques of the remake here are fair (maybe a bit outdated by the some of the latest patches) but calling it a DnD winnable is a really weird one. BTW have you heard of Planar Conquest? That one actually uses D20 system but otherwise is a attempt at copying Master of Magic and has some interesting ideas. Calling that a DnD wannable is a better fit.

But ok, ok, I know I am not welcome here, because I don't toe the party line here that the remake is total rubbish. Have a nice life all...

 

[Cael]

Aggressively mid? I'd say that it was done by people who thought something was a good idea and so added it without thought of how the elements would mesh. One of the things I saw was the eruption of different damage types, like it was trying to make itself into a DnD RPG...

You can argue that the game is mid, but the following statement shows you don't know the game as much as you think

Magical ranged attacks were already associated to specific realms/schools in the original. eg Priest's magical ranged attacks are Nature etc https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Ranged_Magical_Attack
The remake did not randomly add it, in fact the UI choice here is superior as it made it easier for the player to know when spells like resist element, bless would help without looking up things!

Yes. And Resist Element helped against all of them. Are you telling me it doesn't have Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, etc., now?

Sorry to be that guy, close but technically "Resist Element" spell only helps against Chaos and Nature attacks but two heroes Zaldron, Aerie in classic have Sorcery attacks. Frankly, classic MoM missed a trick here by not having any Death or Life type magical ranged (Death's Shadow Demons and Demon Lord are chaos attacks). Even Storm Giant lightning attacks in the original are oddly enough Chaos not Sorcery but for some reason in the remake it is Sorcery.

Also I don't think there is a resist fire, resist cold, resist lightning trait or spell strangely enough. There are fire/cold/death/poisoning/stoning/illusion/weapon/missiles/magic immunity trait though. The remake has lightning vulnerability (think does double damage?)

I know you are that guy who is simping for a turd. It is OK. Many do it in here on the Codex. You are simply trying to split hairs in order to make the turd look more polished, but all you are doing is making my point for me. You don't even realise why a lightning attack is Chaos. You can keep your DnD wannabe. I'll stick to my original.

For someone "simping" I do admit to so many of the game's issues.

Also, I do know the arguments for why lightning attacks are classified as Chaos, my point is design wise it is more interesting to have a broader variety of attacks.

But all this is just a distraction to avoid admitting you were factually wrong about the remake adding "different damage types". Shocking for someone who is supposedly a big fan of the original or do you prefer Caster of magic now?

Frankly, I thought the many critiques of the remake here are fair (maybe a bit outdated by the some of the latest patches) but calling it a DnD winnable is a really weird one. BTW have you heard of Planar Conquest? That one actually uses D20 system but otherwise is a attempt at copying Master of Magic and has some interesting ideas. Calling that a DnD wannable is a better fit.

But ok, ok, I know I am not welcome here, because I don't toe the party line here that the remake is total rubbish. Have a nice life all...

And my point was that EXTRA damage types is bad. You know, the extra damage types that you just admitted to. I didn't say it didn't exist, you moron. I said that trying to emulate DnD with a thousand different damage types is BAD. Let me bold that part in the original post that you quoted, you unutterably retarded simp.

 

[Axiomatic]

Aggressively mid? I'd say that it was done by people who thought something was a good idea and so added it without thought of how the elements would mesh. One of the things I saw was the eruption of different damage types, like it was trying to make itself into a DnD RPG...

You can argue that the game is mid, but the following statement shows you don't know the game as much as you think

Magical ranged attacks were already associated to specific realms/schools in the original. eg Priest's magical ranged attacks are Nature etc https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Ranged_Magical_Attack
The remake did not randomly add it, in fact the UI choice here is superior as it made it easier for the player to know when spells like resist element, bless would help without looking up things!

Yes. And Resist Element helped against all of them. Are you telling me it doesn't have Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, etc., now?

Sorry to be that guy, close but technically "Resist Element" spell only helps against Chaos and Nature attacks but two heroes Zaldron, Aerie in classic have Sorcery attacks. Frankly, classic MoM missed a trick here by not having any Death or Life type magical ranged (Death's Shadow Demons and Demon Lord are chaos attacks). Even Storm Giant lightning attacks in the original are oddly enough Chaos not Sorcery but for some reason in the remake it is Sorcery.

Also I don't think there is a resist fire, resist cold, resist lightning trait or spell strangely enough. There are fire/cold/death/poisoning/stoning/illusion/weapon/missiles/magic immunity trait though. The remake has lightning vulnerability (think does double damage?)

I know you are that guy who is simping for a turd. It is OK. Many do it in here on the Codex. You are simply trying to split hairs in order to make the turd look more polished, but all you are doing is making my point for me. You don't even realise why a lightning attack is Chaos. You can keep your DnD wannabe. I'll stick to my original.

For someone "simping" I do admit to so many of the game's issues.

Also, I do know the arguments for why lightning attacks are classified as Chaos, my point is design wise it is more interesting to have a broader variety of attacks.

But all this is just a distraction to avoid admitting you were factually wrong about the remake adding "different damage types". Shocking for someone who is supposedly a big fan of the original or do you prefer Caster of magic now?

Frankly, I thought the many critiques of the remake here are fair (maybe a bit outdated by the some of the latest patches) but calling it a DnD winnable is a really weird one. BTW have you heard of Planar Conquest? That one actually uses D20 system but otherwise is a attempt at copying Master of Magic and has some interesting ideas. Calling that a DnD wannable is a better fit.

But ok, ok, I know I am not welcome here, because I don't toe the party line here that the remake is total rubbish. Have a nice life all...

And my point was that EXTRA damage types is bad. You know, the extra damage types that you just admitted to. I didn't say it didn't exist, you moron. I said that trying to emulate DnD with a thousand different damage types is BAD. Let me bold that part in the original post that you quoted, you unutterably retarded simp.

LOL. Still trying to twist and turn. There is no EXTRA damage type in the remake, or as you put it emulating DnD with "thousand different damage types".

The remake uses the exact same damage types as the original. Moreover, all units use the exact same damage type in the original except oddly Storm Giant which is different (but still using a damage type from the original)

I do think it would be nice for units to have other damage types like death, but it's my idea, it's not in the remake...

 

[Blake00]

Well that was all a fun read lol.. although considering my previous experience (in other places) with both parties involved I'm kinda surprised there isn't 10 bloody pages of it lol!

This is probably a fair response though I don't think Blake has played the remake yet right ? I think the thing to stress here is if your experience with the remake was only at launch or even prior to Oct this year (where they improved most but not all of 2 roadmap worth of improvements, you probably want to retry the game again, particularly after the 8 Feb updates to the base game hit with the new DLC , since that gives substantial boosts to the AI and UI (e.g improvements to build queues, better display of city economic stats)

I have but only briefly as it ran terribly on my old PC and I couldn't get very far, however I don't blame them for that, I plan to finally stick a proper graphics card in it later this year which should make the game pretty playable, plus I gotta get all the latest patches to see if that helps. So yeah my opinions here are generally based off observations and comments from the hardcore members of my Master of Magic communities and in the reviews as like you I see it all.. so you know as well as I do that some like it and some don't & would rather stick with classic MoM or CoM. That being said my opinion is probably also tainted by the fact I felt Master of Magic deserved the big budget treatment and not the little indie project treatment. That's nothing against MuHa though, they're good people who did the best they could with what little they were given from Slitherine.

However yes I should have pointed out that anyone who played the base game will find it much improved now. While I'm really not thrilled about the art/story/universe direction of the DLC addons I do like some of the gameplay additions behind them so it should be pretty fun to play now. Will also be interesting to see what modders do with it over the coming years considering some of the cool stuff that's already come out.

.
Anyway speaking of the DLCs here's some more updates from MuHa & Slitherine about the next Scourge of the Seas DLC as well as details about the next big patch too that I hadn't got around to sharing here...

New Sea Wizard..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/3901870710018197613

More Sea Wizards..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/3985189205477911855

New Sea Heroes..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/3957042341680425823

 

[Tweed]

Is this game good yet?

 

[Axiomatic]

Is this game good yet?

Depends on what you found "not good".

If your requirement for "good" involves it not being hex based, needs Multi-player or >4 AI Wizards or the fact it must be Caster of Magic based, then it's still "not good" yet and likely won't be for forever.

If it's more about missing QoL features and UX, then yes it has improved a lot - but it's still not perfect.

If it's the AI, you have to wait until the 8 Feb updates to the base game to tell.

I personally enjoying the variety of new strategies made available by the new Wizard traits and races which breathe life into decade old strategies.

 

[mastroego]

I might end up getting this after all.
Better at a discount, of course.

 

[Axiomatic]

Well that was all a fun read lol.. although considering my previous experience (in other places) with both parties involved I'm kinda surprised there isn't 10 bloody pages of it lol!

Yeah, I am surprised. People (all but one so far) are so kind. Must be my winning personality.

I have but only briefly as it ran terribly on my old PC and I couldn't get very far, however I don't blame them for that, I plan to finally stick a proper graphics card in it later this year which should make the game pretty playable, plus I gotta get all the latest patches to see if that helps. So yeah my opinions here are generally based off observations and comments from the hardcore members of my Master of Magic communities and in the reviews as like you I see it all.. so you know as well as I do that some like it and some don't & would rather stick with classic MoM or CoM. That being said my opinion is probably also tainted by the fact I felt Master of Magic deserved the big budget treatment and not the little indie project treatment. That's nothing against MuHa though, they're good people who did the best they could with what little they were given from Slitherine.

Just a minor jab at you Blake for talking about a game you haven't really played ha. I did say your comment was fair.

Everyone in the MoM community knows you are the original MoM "simp" or "shrill"....

I am biased I guess as I was one of the early batch of beta-testers (who wasn't a Muha cheerleader) and together with other MoM fans tried our best to help the game but lack of resources is lack of resources, pretty much every serious negative feedback on launch was flagged by us from the start. No surprise, I thought it was a disaster at launch Dec 2022, but you have to give them props for slowly digging themselves out of the hole.

The UI/UX despite all its improvements after launch I think will be at best servicable, basically because the basic fundamentals just isn't very good and Muha just doesn't seem to understand UX. A lot of improvements they added feel like adhoc patches to workaround issues that shouldn't exist (like implementing a favourite spell in the spellbook instead of fixing the order in which spells appear in the spellbook). Of course, this is not to say there aren't features improved from the classic, like the surveyer allows you to see at one glance which tiles are best for colonization etc.

Also as you say this is Master of Magic, it's a flawed game, but we still love it anyway because of the design and mechanics.

However yes I should have pointed out that anyone who played the base game will find it much improved now. While I'm really not thrilled about the art/story/universe direction of the DLC addons I do like some of the gameplay additions behind them so it should be pretty fun to play now. Will also be interesting to see what modders do with it over the coming years considering some of the cool stuff that's already come out.

Yeah I know you and many don't like the Tech magic thing in the last DLC. Funnily that's how I feel about the ocean based, pirate theme in the upcoming one, but at least for this one, many people seems excited (overly excited?).

The modders are actually doing quite cool stuff already, but of course as per modders they always wish more is exposed for modding. I hope they get their wish.

 

[Axiomatic]

I might end up getting this after all.
Better at a discount, of course.

Can I say I'm not that surprised? It seems to me if you are even half a fan of Master of Magic, you going to end up getting the remake eventually, if anything out of sheer curiosity.

You won't get it at full price sure, but at 50%? If it was 10 bucks? 5 bucks? You will eventually get it.

It is in your interest I think to hope the game continues to improve for as long as possible....

That's why I don't understand why a thread full of supposedly MoM/CoM fans are like cheering on the remake to fail drastically or so it seems to me.

 

[Cael]

Well that was all a fun read lol.. although considering my previous experience (in other places) with both parties involved I'm kinda surprised there isn't 10 bloody pages of it lol!

There is no point going nuclear over a shitty game with shit AI and retarded current year "improvements". Like all remakes so far, it is nothing like the original and worse in every single way. Arguing about it would be like arguing with the retard who thinks that woke all female Ghostbuster remake is in any way comparable to the original at all.

 

[Lacrymas]

It seems to me if you are even half a fan of Master of Magic, you going to end up getting the remake eventually, if anything out of sheer curiosity.

You won't get it at full price sure, but at 50%? If it was 10 bucks? 5 bucks? You will eventually get it.

I don't see why I would get it tbh. The original is still eminently playable and has better mods. On top of that, the graphics of the remake are worse than the endlessly charming sprites of the original.

 

[Axiomatic]

It seems to me if you are even half a fan of Master of Magic, you going to end up getting the remake eventually, if anything out of sheer curiosity.

You won't get it at full price sure, but at 50%? If it was 10 bucks? 5 bucks? You will eventually get it.

I don't see why I would get it tbh. The original is still eminently playable and has better mods. On top of that, the graphics of the remake are worse than the endlessly charming sprites of the original.

You don't HAVE to get it, but you telling me you wouldn't be curious to get if it was at $5 which it eventually will reach? I mean i suppose there are people who will be stubborn out of principle... but more power to you.

BTW there's this really interesting MTG like mod (not full conversion) just default wizards , plus two other full blown mods and other interesting minor mods like ones that modify how spell of mastery work...

 

[Lacrymas]

If it's 5 Euro or part of a (humble) bundle, maybe, but the price isn't the only problem. There are other, better, games vying for my attention as well.

 

[Axiomatic]

If it's 5 Euro or part of a (humble) bundle, maybe, but the price isn't the only problem. There are other, better, games vying for my attention as well.

Fair. My argument works only if you are like a super big fan of Master of Magic that you just have to give a chance to any MoM like game. I mean how many such new games are there even now that are close to that genre? Age of Wonders 4? Dominions (a bit of a stretch)?

To me, MoM (2022) with its DLCs and free content hits the sweet spot for being close enough to the MoM i love but is different enough due to the new stuff added from the DLCs and free stuff to excite me. Like I was playing Necromancer+Death eater+ Fanatastic Warlord and spamming super strong skeletons and ghouls. I then realize black channels on units now becomes very strong because this combo makes undead units much stronger and solves part of the lack of healing problem!

But i guess if you want to see it through the lens of it's the same game and hence not worth playing, it's a valid opinion i guess/

 

[Lacrymas]

There aren't any good contemporary fantasy 4X games, that's true. Well, it depends on your definition of contemporary since both Endless Legend and AoW3 could potentially be in this category. AoW4 is a disgrace. My main issue with this remake is that it's essentially the same game as the original but worse.

 

[Blake00]

Anyway speaking of the DLCs here's some more updates from MuHa & Slitherine about the next Scourge of the Seas DLC as well as details about the next big patch too that I hadn't got around to sharing here...

New Sea Wizard..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/3901870710018197613

More Sea Wizards..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/3985189205477911855

New Sea Heroes..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/3957042341680425823

Urgh.. my steam links were somehow converted wrong when I pasted them in from discord and just created stupid discord links which are useless out here. Have fixed and put in the proper steam ones..

 

[Axiomatic]

Posting on Blake's behalf - https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1623070/view/3957042975578230491

A Klackon default Wizard . Looks like they have added pretty much default Wizards and heroes? for all the Master of Magic races?

 

[Axiomatic]

I might end up getting this after all.
Better at a discount, of course.

Well, it's 50% off on Steam until Feb 13. So, there's your chance!

Do note there is a major update to the base game on Feb 8 that improves AI, UI (eg build queues with unbuilt prerequisites) and WILL break saved games.

So it's up to you if you want to get it and start playing now.

Still undecided? Here's a recent review by eXplorminate (a niche gaming site focusing on 4X). It's in my view a comprehensive, knowledgable and honest review of the game as of Feb 2024.

 

[mastroego]

Thanks, though tbh I was thinking about stronger discounts, the kind they make years down the line.
Not because I'm cheap (well, I sort of am), but because I have a huge backlog of stuff to play already, it'd just sit there.

BUT, a week to ponder is a good thing, I'll have a look at that review.

 

[Blake00]

Scourge of the Seas DLC is out now...
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/4054997065315016839

Slitherine have done another cheesy trailer (though not as cringe as some of their previous ones lol) too...



Big free update is out too..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1623070/announcements/detail/4054997536258791012

Greetings, wizards!

We are pleased to announce a new update. Please see the patch notes below for the details:

• Diplomacy/AI - improvements to both diplomacy and general AI behaviours
• Visual improvements to water combat - rafts for units without swim
• Breakdown of a town's production incomes
• Ability to queue items that require prerequisites (in construction manager)
• UI button to show resource icons on map

The AI Improvements include:

- Changes to AI ability to traverse water including fixes to transport settlers targeting oversea locations
- Treaty evaluation improved and relying on relationship as gain from the treaty is beneficial regardless of the situation
- Visual Feedback within treaty requests helping the player decide when they are ready to ask for the Treaty
- Visual Feedback within conversation after diplomatic actions resulted in relationship change.
- Visual Feedback within diplomatic trade to the relationship as a result of a trade and changes to the trade evaluation. Including Fear and Relationship influencing trade acceptance, and potential of an acceptance of a tribute or unfavourable trade.
- Changes to city defences, towns should have sensible armies defence appropriate to AIs current production ability.
- Fixed AI danger rank estimation for towns which used incorrect scale and was either in peace mode or panic mode without ability to manage intermediate stages
- Fixed AI relationship change on one side only, which could result on later override from the other side and loss of data (negative or positive change that was initially applied)
- Changes to an AI war trigger level opening more space for diplomatic efforts (Note, Master AI will still be extremely aggressive from the start, but you will be able to bribe them for a while).
- Changes to an AI treaty offer levels opening more space for player initiative (Ai is willing to accept treaty earlier, but have smaller chance to offer treaty on their own)
- Visual improvements to show the current status of a relationship with the AI. Those include a relationship metre in trade window and visual aids on the diplomacy screen (glowing eyes, text coloured to match the eyes)
- Making the Spell of Mastery more attractive for the AI to cast and research
- Improved AI city defences
- Improved AI’s ability to manage their units

General fixes and improvements:
FIX Defeated wizards no longer own nodes they melded (nodes turn neutral)
FIX Black Channelling cannot be cast on Chaos Channelled units
FIX Difficulty settings not being correctly loaded between games (this should also fix the problem with town distance being 4 even if the player changed it to 5 in a new game)
FIX Wasteful frame end call from doomstack which fails to happen in some cases (minimal performance tweak in late games)
FIX Ruins spawned after cities destroyed by neutral groups showed a location marker but shouldn't
FIX Trait enchantments on captured towns, after taking town enchantments from seamaster or power for people is delated.
FIX AI trying to dispel worthless targets - AI do not try to dispel non battle enchantments any more
FIX Tweak battle HUD death animation
FIX Death units in battle won't update MPs anymore
FIX Death units under mind control effect won't change side anymore
FIX Miners Guild no longer mines fish and the such...
FIX Landing armies unable to do that directly on target
FIX A crash when switching pages on race selection screen, if there was more than 1 page of races present
FIX Sorting units to be build in cities using their estimated power instead of the cost (ie to avoid building armies of settlers or engineers which happened in some cases)
FIX Road path building to avoid water bodies
FIX Crash when AI was trying to estimate the best craftable defender but the city had no defenders available to build

MOD AI characters more in line with their database definitions (less randomization)

Thank you

 

[mastroego]

hhhmmm, so, if I get it while discounted, skipping DLCs for now... do I get all the post-release updates?
Except pure DLC content, of course?

What I mean is, are there general improvements or revisions that ONLY come with the DLCs?