Apparently there's a DLC for Master of Magic. A glorified mod, but still.
Yeah, it rules!! I've got- oh wow, that is TOO many hours for how little I've mastered it. It hits a sweet spot of casual and mechanically crunchy for me.
Caster of Magic was originally a pretty incredible mod which worked within the original's severe limitations. Kinda like classic Pokemon romhacks that way. The main manual from that period is really interesting as the dev justifies replacing various spells because the *slots* are a limited resource, for example. Lots of balance talk. That manual is somewhat outdated, but I still recommend (maybe even more than buying the game) because it really goes into the balancing concerns and development process:
https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/CasterofMagic/caster%20of%20magic%20manual.pdfNowadays that guide is somewhat out-of-date because the game has been ported to native Windows, allowing it to get a bit crazy with scale. In a good way, IMO. There can be like 15 wizards IIRC, TONs of worldgen options including a lot of choice in how large the game is, and generally a lot of good balance stuff.
I think my favorite example might be the "omniscient" retort. The manual makes no bones about being balanced for high-magic games, and that supports specialization in one field of magic so you can get access at least one Very Rare spell to conclude the endgame. Dabbling in other fields allows some really interesting synergies, but sacrifices endgame power. Omniscient makes a non-specialist viable. Boiled down, it gives you a significant bonus for your first book in each field (tailored to that field). So taking ANY death books gets you a flat 16% production bonus, nature gets you +2 population limit, etc. So obviously I took 1-2 books in every field. This gave me a run where I had incredible flexibility, but my power had to come from my mundane units- even more so than a life-magic run because even *that* gets angels (and some combat summons now). I had functionally unlimited power to channel into early-game tricks like phantom warriors or hordes of sprites, which are GREAT but I really felt the lack of midgame gamechangers like Invisibility. I ended up massing dark elven warlocks with their guaranteed-damage spell, but they died in droves whenever they were on offense (allowing the enemy a turn).
Yeah I like it. I did a challenge where I ran each color (mono, 10-books) with Specialist and then one final retort (usually Astrologer: nodes give +2 mana
per game year, and no longer counter my spells. One of many ways to ramp up power production in lategame). I love how different each run was.
Guardian is also a cool pick for how it changes the game. For 2 picks you get a whopping +6 to max population, which is incredible, plus garrison troops get accuracy boosts which scale into lategame. The downside- it only works on cities of your race. It's the genocide retort, essentially. Really makes me think.
Anyway I've posted a couple of summaries in the How Did You Last Own thread.
Here is the Omniscient run as Lolth,
here is a mon-Life run. Life gets so much potentially-creepy stuff... particularly since there's no longer a barrier to having both Life and Death books.
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Topic: Blurb on Games that probably don't deserve their own threads. (Read 328413 times)