Master of Magic clones are cursed. Alternatives?

[Captain Obvious]

There must have been a dozen or so. I remember Age of Magic looking really good and being officially 90% finished before disappearing without a trace. And now I google the current state of MoM clones, and lo and behold: http://www.illustrious-software.co.uk/s ... ?page=main

They still do pop up. I give them 6 months.

So, I'm quite out of the loop with strategy games. Are there any substitute drugs by now? How does Dominions compare? HoMM didn't do it for me at all.

 

[Jasede]

Umm, Age of Wonders 1 and 2, and Shadow Magic. As close as you can get. Not as good; but damn fine games, damn fine games.

 

[MetalCraze]

I agree with Jasede (Though AoW1 is not much like MoM though, however 2 and SM are pretty close), also play skirmish games (set AI to the hardest possible difficulty to make them at least challenging) - campaigns suck hard.

Multiplayer in AoWSM can be fun too - because you take turns simultaneously and can take part in the battle other players are fighting.

I also have Magic: The Gathering that looks much like AOW1/HoMM (except it is Magic: The Gathering - your armies still travel HoMM/MoM style but when it comes to combat - it is like the original card game if I'm not mistaken) lying around - though never tried to install it yet.
Disciples are in the same style afaik.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Umm, Age of Wonders 1 and 2, and Shadow Magic. As close as you can get. Not as good; but damn fine games, damn fine games.

I agree with Jasede (Though AoW1 is not much like MoM though, however 2 and SM are pretty close),

I tried AoW1 back when it came out. I don't remember anything about it except that I didn't like it, but if the second one is different from the first one, I should really give that one a try, thanks.

also play skirmish games (set AI to the hardest possible difficulty to make them at least challenging) - campaigns suck hard.

What I really hoped the clones would do was not so much fixing the bugs but implementing an AI that doesn't shoot itself in the foot every single turn.

 

[MetalCraze]

if the second one is different from the first one, I should really give that one a try, thanks.

They are very different. F.e. mage now resides in his tower. You can move him anywhere you want but that won't be effective as you will have the ability to cast magic on your controlled territory only when he is in a tower and besides mages are very weak now health-wise - no matter their level they can easily be killed with a few strikes or spells. So protect them (they will auto-resurrect though if they control at least one other city with a tower).
High-level heroes are now pretty vulnerable too compared to AoW1 where 20+ lvl hero could put down the whole army just by himself.
You can also build cities.
You can use random map generator with lots of parameters (though you will soon notice that it makes same looking maps).
You can change the race setup in any single mission (in AoW1 you can't)

Also play AOW:SM. It is the same as AOW2 except has more of everything.

What I really hoped the clones would do was not so much fixing the bugs but implementing an AI that doesn't shoot itself in the foot every single turn.

It doesn't (well almost - there is a huge exploit that AoW1 didn't have). However after a while AI gets predictable - as with all AIs out there.

As for exploit - it's a "buying" exploit - you can buy stuff from AI and thing is you can buy literally everything (cities, towers, sources of magic, items) even from the enemy AI except his capital (aka the place where the mage resides) - rendering him helpless.
And when you play properly money is never an issue (aka rushing to build more cities from the very start of the game)

But of course you won't exploit that, right? And thus will have a pretty fun game.

However there is other thing I don't like about AI much - it never builds cities.


I was playing AoWSM for a long time at work and it is a real time-killer when you have nothing to do - considering that some matches may take as long as 10+ hours to complete - and it runs in a resizable window.

 

[JarlFrank]

Basically, what Jasede and skyway say. AoW is a good game. AoW 2 even more so, though AoW 1 has the better siege battles. Skyway explained the differences pretty well. Both are good games, so you should definitely try them.

Also, I'm having quite a bit of fun with Dominions 3, although that game takes a little time to get into. In the beginning it seemed boring to me, now I'm having fun with it.

 

[Panthera]

Age of Wonders has an awesome soundtrack. IT files!

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

<a href='http://crystalshard.net/leylines.htm'>Leylines</a> is sort of Master of Magic-ish. I played it some a while back, but I don't remember a whole lot about it. As I recall, the combat was a lot weaker, but the basic gameplay was similar.

There's also the <a href='http://www.roughseas.ca/momime/'>Master of Magic - Implode's Multiplayer Edition</a>. Its been around for a long time, and some progress on it is still being made, albeit slowly. The game is more or less in a playable state right now, but kind of slow. I'm pretty sure you'll need the original Master of Magic files for this one, as the game makes use of some of the stuff.

And then there's a mod for one of the Civs (3, it looks like) - <a href='http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79607'>Master of Myrror</a>. I haven't tried it myself, so I really don't know what its like, or how far along it is. It *seems* to be pretty close to complete, but I don't feel like wading through the thread to check.

 

[ricolikesrice]

Fall from Heaven 2 TC for civ 4 is pretty much the best thing you can get your hands on that is master-of-magic-ish. its quite different in many things, but definitly inspired by MoM, definitly great and definitly awesome. no seriously, this is a mod that blows the shit out of most commercial games in scope, depth and fun to play, only drawback beeing wonky AI, but then again as a master of magic fan you re already used to that.

its already been mentioned here that stardock is also working on an spiritual MoM sequel called "elemental: war of magic" which will come out in 2010 or so. first screenshots looked utter shit but who cares about graphics in those games anyhow.

 

[Captain Obvious]

<a href='http://crystalshard.net/leylines.htm'>Leylines</a> is sort of Master of Magic-ish. I played it some a while back, but I don't remember a whole lot about it. As I recall, the combat was a lot weaker, but the basic gameplay was similar.

It's free software, so I'll check it out in any case, thanks.

And then there's a mod for one of the Civs (3, it looks like) - <a href='http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79607'>Master of Myrror</a>. I haven't tried it myself, so I really don't know what its like, or how far along it is. It *seems* to be pretty close to complete, but I don't feel like wading through the thread to check.

Hmm, I skipped Civ3. Probably not worth the effort getting into that first.

Fall from Heaven 2 TC for civ 4 is pretty much the best thing you can get your hands on that is master-of-magic-ish.

I used to play Civ 4 a lot, but never gave that mod much thought. MoM had so many subtle (or not so subtle) gameplay differences to Civ that I figured that this can't work, especially without the tactical combat with spell intervention. But this does look quite awesome, and it seems the modders really taught the Civ4 engine a few new tricks. So I'll definitely give that a try, too.

its already been mentioned here that stardock is also working on an spiritual MoM sequel called "elemental: war of magic" which will come out in 2010 or so. first screenshots looked utter shit but who cares about graphics in those games anyhow.

This is quite awesome news. I remember that there were rumours about Stardock buying the MoM license, but it seems they're going for a "spiritual successor" now, which is fine, too, since nothing about the art content was too original. And with Stardock being a rather clueful developer, this could be turn out really great.

 

[Eldritch]

Umm, Age of Wonders 1 and 2, and Shadow Magic. As close as you can get. Not as good; but damn fine games, damn fine games.

*first post accuracy* - It's almost science.

Captain Obvious, play precisely AoW:Shadow Magic. That's the best and the only thing to quench the MoM thirst. Don't listen to the tasteless mofos suggesting pimped out Civilization mods, it won't work.

I'm saying exactly Shadow Magic because AoW2 alone is pretty bland compared to the stand alone expansion and while AoW1 has a very good campaign with lotsa C&C and an excellent atmosphere, it's gameplay is inferior to SM and fails as a MoM fix overall. It *is* a pretty good TBS to play in terms of gameplay with the excellent "Warlock's Mod" alone though. Dig it up.

Interesting thing about the AoW series is that even if it had a pretty low profile release and is pretty old, the games still have an excellent online community producing excellent content for it be it maps or mods.

Shadow Magic being the most popular game of em' all has the biggest modding community and has a lot of great mods for it that really improves the game both in content and gameplay.. I personally like the Multiplayer mod 1.6 for online play and the excellent The Stranger's DWIGGSmod 5.0 for both single and multiplayer because that even makes the AI much better. (It builds cities, uses shipyards, kicks the shit out of you) Even the official patch 1.3 alone makes for a really well balanced gameplay. Shadow Magic is by itself an awesome game.

I found a perfect bundle that sets it up with all the mods ever created in the bay where the pirates dwell ages ago, I could try digging it up if you're interested and PM you the link. It's almost impossible to buy it anywhere and the only copies I've seen were on ebay for like 200 bucks(!) Triumph studios p. much abandoned the series and seems to be just focused on the Overlord games which are pretty meh compared to AoW even tho it's a different genre. Kinda like Bungie going Halo after the Myth games only not that extreme of an example.

Trust the sacred first post accuracy and listen to Jasede's advice, it's not MoM but very very good.

P.S.

PM me if any codexer fans of the game (skyway?) are interested for a PBEM game. Prepared to get your faces rocked, homos!

 

[Eldritch]

Btw Jasede, what can I do for you to be arsed to make a SotHR LP?

 

[Xerxos]

I'd say get Fall from Heaven II (Civ 4 Mod). Best Civ4 mod EVAR ;-)

 

[Eldritch]

Yeah FFH2 is a good Civ 4 mod but the guy wants the MoM gameplay. Even though some features in FFH2 *resemble* those found in MoM it's not even close in terms of basic friggin gameplay. It's a fucking Civ mod ffs. Totally different empire buiding, pace of progression, absence of decent MoM like tactical combat, different spellcasting/hero system, different everything. It plays like Civ because it IS Civ.

AoW:SM's tactical combat part is even superior to MoM's barring unit customization (Although even THAT is possible with certain mods to some extent) even though most of its aspects are inferior to it.

And it's really fucking great for multiplayer too with its relatively fast pace for a tactical TBS with the simultaneous turns so PM me already you sonsa' bitchez.

 

[Jasede]

Btw Jasede, what can I do for you to be arsed to make a SotHR LP?

Giving me the link to the HOTU version would be a good start because it worked fine in XP and setting up SotHR in non-XP is a bitch.

 

[Korgan]

Dominions 3 is fucking incredible. No direct control in battles, but the mechanics are quite complex. An immense variety of units and magic, great and quite original fluff. PM me if the latest version refuses to be removed from inventory.

 

[Eldritch]

Btw Jasede, what can I do for you to be arsed to make a SotHR LP?

Giving me the link to the HOTU version would be a good start because it worked fine in XP and setting up SotHR in non-XP is a bitch.

http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/warhamme ... orned-rat/

DJ Old Games to the rescue hahaha. Just download the "download (exe)" one, ze jews ask for monies for the full iso. Follow the simple commands and voila. I just tested it and it works like a fucking charm complete with the videos/music and all.

Now git' workin on that LP.

 

[Jasede]

Dosbox? It isn't a DOS game...

 

[Eldritch]

Yeah, sorry it seems I got the terms mixed up from fiddling with dosbox mumbo-jumbo for days to make daggerfall work.

I think it automatically tweaks your registry to make it work. All you have to do then is to set it to win95 compatibility and 265 colors& 640x480 fixed resolution for the application. It's an already installed package so there's no installation, it just unpacks, sets up the registry and works after your simple application tweak.

I didn't have to try any tomfoolery for Dark Omen to work. Just disabled anti-aliasing from the global settings and set it to win98 compatibility I think. I played dark omen more recently but it's been ages since I've played SotHR. I just checked it out for you on oldgames.sk and it just worked. Took me five minutes. I haven't really had the time to read how exactly it made it work, just followed the simple instructions and it did. The game is extremely difficult to find on the net btw, much more so than dark omen. Zero seeds on every few torrent you can find, HOTU dead and Abandonia with the ESA faggotry. DJ Old Games seems to be the only place other than some really shady looking torrent with like 4 seeds probably trojan ridden to the core on some obscure torrent site. Gawd bless those slovakian sonsabitches. I'm using XP Home SP2 btw.

 

[Jasede]

Will try out in a bit, thanks dude. Best game EVAH; I like it more than Dark Omen. It's harder, too.

 

[Eldritch]

It's fucking brutal.

 

[Trash]

Really? Dark Omen kicked my arse harder than Shadow of the Horned Rat. Mostly because all the optional missions kept draining my forces so that I showed up at the story missions with less than perfect rosters.

Anyway, nothing ever even got close to the awesome that is MOM. I really wept when Mech Lords was cancelled due to legal problems and the developers of gems like this and MOO went out of bussines shortly after.

 

[Eldritch]

Maybe you shouldn't have helped every single liberal elven sodomite on the road asking you to join their merry band to rid the forest of the evil spirits violating their sacred barebacking groves, hmm?

They did give you an insane archer regiment in the end though.

 

[Jasede]

Idk, SotHR has so many paths and optional missions; and they're all hard-ass motherfuckers of a bitch.

Also, Dark Omen NEVER has a mission of fighting a ton of Black Orcs in like the fifth mission with only some elf, a wizard, crossbows, infantry, cavalry and some sucky skirmisher-slave troops.

For the record, when I LP'd Dark Omen I never played it before; and I never "won" SotHR before. It's far more challenging to me!

Heh, maybe my tactical understanding got better with the years or something. (Yeah, right..)

Edit: Oh, that's right. See, when I LP'd DO, I didn't, ever, accept high losses; I kept repeating the missions until I found a way to save as many troops as possible since I didn't want to seem like a loser; except at the last mission (which I tried exactly once, and won, with heavy losses; but it sure was worth it). I can imagine the game being tough if you do accept heavy losses; they'll just keep piling up and up and incur even more losses.

 

[abstract]

I thing you're just a faggot Jasede (oh wai--), SotHR is not as hard as you make it out to be. Sure, it's possible to get raped in the beginning if your amber spear fails to kill the ratogre or whatnot, but when you get the longbows, the mortars, the artillery and the elves it's possible to win battles without even engaging in melee.

And the Black Avengers do not suck, you goddamned furry queer.