• Variety.

• Complexity.

That pretty much sums it up for me, lots to do, lots of different ways to do it.  I loath overly simple systems, like combat in Civ.

how do i get mom?

be born?

Seriously, google it. There are a ton of sites that have downloads of it, not sure if you can buy it off some of those other sites that sell old games or not, but basically, google knows.

• Units with different numbers of figures (and that been important in combat calculations).
• Small pool of heroes, but each one was charismatic and with its own set of abilities.
• Wizard creation (books and abilities picks).
• Magic schools and how they had really lots of non-direct damage spells.
• Races and their units, each one with a different feeling.

When I think of MoM the first thing that comes to my mind are the hero units and their stats screen.

Looking at those shield, attack and special ability symbols just did it for me. And just with a glance you could see by the amount of symbols how totally awesome a hero is.

If you know what I mean

Ahh, i still remember, warax the chaos sorcerer, with 32 magic attack points. He could roflrape anything. Then i gave him 7 dark elf warlocks and preist for giggles. That stack killed everything on the surface world. Everything.

I agree with virtually all the points brought up in prior posts, very well written.

I would like to add:

 - The contents of a dungeon would respawn after some time, so you could clear them repeatedly.  Also, monsters occasionally wandered out of the dungeons/nodes

 - AI problems aside, in the early game it was possible for things to get tough.  I had some games where constant spawining attackers made me fight for my life.

Don't do it.

I recently tried to play Fallout 2 and Starcraft becuause I had fond memories of them, but when I installed them I was appalled at the graphics and animation and resolution, they look absolutely decrepit.

You just can't play old games.

I beg to differ. To some graphic is not important at all.

I downloaded Command and conquer this week and I played an entire evening. Graphic suck but the game if fun and that is what is really important At least to me.

THe problems I have with MoM, Diplomacy aside, is that it needs DoxBox (cycles and all) and resolution is too small.

Its been a LONG time since I played MoM but the highlights I remember fondly were -

• Figuring out the strategy for the permutations of magic type and race.
• Differing resources - nodes and cities, capturing nodes giving additional spell types
• Expanding into the unknown - random maps with fog of war
• Unit tactics - figuring out good combinations on the tactical map, using spells to influence the battles
• Summoning big nasty crittas

I was much, much younger at the time, but here's what I enjoyed...

• Distinct heroes -- I think these are what really drew me in, as it gave faces and a little personality to normally featureless units.  Battles with heroes in them made it feel like a little more was at stake, especially with their EQ.  I eventually got favorites that I tried to get everytime, and the limit placed on the number of heroes per game forced some planning into who I used at which parts of the game.
• Tactical battles -- MoM's biggest improvement over other strategy games I had played prior, the battles (and the ability to use magic in them) made me feel like I had lots of control over the outcome.  That being said, having the option to skip them would be nice too, as some were just a waste of time.
• The magic styles were so vastly different that the race / spell combinations resulted in different tactics each game, and there were a ton of viable strategies to use.
• Random world building
• Exploration was worthwhile at all phases of the game -- in the beginning, finding a cave with 100 gold was huge.  Later on, artifacts and spellbooks made exploration still lucrative. 

Apart from the improvements others have listed above (Especially the AI....ugh), I would've also liked the option to customize my opponents in a game.  Random was fine, but I think it would've been fun to set up challenges and pick my opponent's setups as well. 

• Mage Development
• Hero Development
• Terrain Development (Change Terrain [except that permafrost is magic-proof{?}])
• Unit Development (Because cannon fodder should stink on ice)
• City Development
• Magic Item Creation

With Master of Magic it actually makes sense that a bunch of Swiss don't become expert pikemen and beat the snot out of everybody who tries to take their dirt, a failing most other strategy games share.  It would be kind of interesting if independent cities could develop power based on mutual committment to a shared idea of freedom, but then we'd be playing "Master of Constitution" and even Sid Meier hasn't figured out how to simulate that very well. (Too open-ended, I suspect.)

It would be nice to have:

• Trade Development

Unique concepts of MoM

• pyramidal unit structure. The wide base are the most encountered typical units with the obligatory race flavour (hords early in the game), later you get to the early magic creatures and specialised city units (lesser herd), only very late in the game you get the likes of Paladins, Warlocks or Sky Drakes (rare creatures - and their "rarity" is perfectly timed). The timing is crucial for the game design and it works.

• multi-level strategy that leaves waste plains of content you may easily ignore (they are not crucial for winning), like city management, mana economy, diplomacy, terraforming, even spell research! - but if you feel like it you can explore them and benefit from them. It gives a great freelancer feeling (I can do what I want besides the obvious "save the world through conquest") to the strategy game.

• mathematical depth combined with easy concepts (heritage from Master of Orion I), so that everybody can play it (6 swords against 2 shields will be a slaughter) or big bang dispel, but there's a LOT to find out under the surface.

• 3 very different game stages (excellent design!). 1) Early game - you explore the world, early settlement, first hero, first contacts with AI (short peace), enemy = raiders and monsters, neutral cities. Big lairs with "Demon lords" and "Hydras" loom over your poor settlement.    2) Middle game - you conquer easy lairs, collect the loot, conquer the nasty lairs, get more heroes, you get to Myrror (or vice-versa)   3) Late game - you crush the AIs with all you collected and build in 1) and 2). Sometimes you crash the biggest lairs just for fun.  All three stages combined are incredibly rich and rewarding from the gamer's view.
  

• BTW, the spells are also influenced by it (and so are the heroes). Weapon immunity, Guardian wind are for the 1) - don't work against creatures. Magic immunity, Invulnerability and other Rare spells should save your skin against the big lair foes. Very rare spells should have been game-winners (it failed).

• Overpowered spells are incredibly fun to use and to win. The designers let the balance ideas intentionally loose, but at the end they failed to contain some of the cheasiest winning formulas... which is pity.
  

Besides all of the things already mentioned I liked the battle system:

1st it was turn based - so no need to hurry ;-=

2nd I liked the diversity in the battles, including fortifications, terrain etc.! So many possibilities and the rewards after every battle (upgrading heroes etc.)!

Made the most fun for me in that great game!

- Trolls that were massive and awsome and got up after being killed, not just some rubbish 5% health regen.

For me, what made Master of Magic compelling was the attention to detail. 

- When you researched a new spell, you got a neat little video of your chosen magician hunkered over their spellbook as it was hit with a beam of magical energy.  Then, you see the text of your spellbook morph from some ancient and unknown language into a description of the spell. 

- Your cursor was a hand clutching a magical wand which left a wake of magical energy as you clicked on the interface.

- Casting spells (at least things like global spells, summonings, etc.) came with custom animations for each, which did more than just make a unit pop up on the map somewhere.  It made you feel like you had actually done something important.

- Those who have only downloaded Master of Magic and never owned a hard copy would not know this, but the game, when it shipped, came with a full historical supplement, detailing the world, the factions within it, and the history which had brought it to the point in time when the game begins.  It was extraordinarily well-written, and only added to the immersiveness of the game.

• The races played differently due to the buildings they had access to and the unique units.
• How each little guy in a unit actually represented a combatant.
• The enormous customization through spellbooks and special abilities.
• How you not only explored and conquered the overland map, but entered and explored parts of it through the tactical battles.

You missed the "c" in compelling.. sorry, I couldn't resist.

I unfortunately got my old copy from a friend, and he didn't have all the supplemental content. Just a stack of floppies. I which I had the history stuff.

• "Blank Canvas" -- 
  • Customization/Player-Led Sandbox -- Master of Magic was in many ways a "blank canvas" containing generic races and an abstract background. This allowed the player to "invent" the world as if in sandbox of sorts. Imagination led the story, not the other way around.
  • Diversity -- While diversity caters to "blank canvas," it really is a feature all its own. The useful diversity (and not merely diversity for diversity's sake) of spells, wizards, races, and starting conditions added immense player-bred flavor and replayability. Some mistake repetition for diversity, but not Master of Magic.
  • Tiered Play -- Master of Magic successfully stacked layers upon layers of strong, well-designed elements upon each other, both literally and figuratively. Whether fighting above or below or attempting to balance magic vs. might, the many tiers of play are what ultimately made the game a legend.
  • Controlled Destiny -- Players were not forced by the whim of a narrow vision by developers. They could pursue an immense range of strategies but play each with a controlled and focused bent. 
• Balance --
  • "From So Humble a Beginning ... " -- The game was easy for a beginner to delve into but was fraught with anxieties for both new and experienced players alike. It achieved an impressive amount of tension (excepting AI weaknesses) in empire building, magical development, and even simple resource management. As important, it maintained a balanced tension across an entire game session.
  • Unpredictability -- A degree of randomness, such as with random maps, can lend an air of unpredictability and a lot of replayability in games. We all know this, but randomness can be destructive to a game's value as well. Master of Magic benefited from the random elements it provided but not so far as to diminish other areas, such as the "sandbox" traits it embraced.
  • Kinetic Play -- Master of Magic offered what I like to think of as "kinetic" play. The play is methodical, investment-centric, yet balanced. A player senses the distant energy he is building toward as a result of strategic thinking. This generates tension (of the very good kind) and later, great satisfaction when strategies come to fruition. It relies heavily on Sid Meier's notion of "a series of tough decisions" as the crux of a good game.
• Single-Player -- 
  • Retained Focus of Play -- I know some will scoff but I sincerely believe Master of Magic benefited from its existence as a single-player game. MP would have severely diminished aspects of the original that made those features so compelling.
  • Exploration -- Exploration of the type found in Master of Magic existed because a player could be more methodical and able to pursue strategies, including exploratory ones, that would almost certainly end in disaster during comparable MP games. (Take MP Civilization games by way of example.)

Bah.  Must have deleted it when I was changing some of the wording around.   I did mean compelling though, yes.   Thanks for catching that.  It really would be great if Elemental took a similar approach in terms of immersive detail.

I don't think you can write the phrase "attention to detail" without missing some detail.

I've been thinking about this since this thread was started, since I think distilling the essence of MoM is important.

• Heroes were very cool, and I'm pretty sure Elemental is going to do fine here, and probably improve on them in many ways.  I'm not too worried.
  
• Many people have mentioned the variety, and I do think that is key.  The vast ways to start are great, but it's also a factor in game as you can end up near vastly different enemies.  Even in the early game there were sizable differences in early units.  It seems that it will take some time before we'll see much differentiation between races in Elemental.  I could be wrong.
  
• Multi-racial empires: Too my knowledge this is something that is truly unique about MoM.  Conquering enemy cities and producing their top units can make for fearsome combined armies.  It also allows the rather unique strategy of starting with a fast start race hoping to conquer a neutral city with a better race that will become the backbone of your army later (usually high men and their Paladins).  I would really love to see something like this in Elemental and I think that we can really improve on it.  Ideally I'd like to be able to even gain this ability through diplomacy.  This would be a very intersting way to give Diplomatic races some real teeth in the late game, since they may have top teir units from multiple races.  It could require both diplomacy and military research to integrate them into your troops, in addition to whatever civilian and military research are necessary just to build them.  You know, I should probably just go start a thread in Ideas forums.
• Not quite balanced: Certain races and choices were definitely weaker than the others, but they were still fun.  Elemental will probably have to watch balance closer than MoM due to multiplayer.  Still, there should be some interesting options that most people would agree are not as powerful.  The key is that those options should still be fun.  In many games some options were not only less-powerful, but less fun as well.  Being uncreative in MOO2 comes to mind.  Difficult and not generally much fun either.

• The use of heroes.
• Having interesting abilities for heroes, and having heroes grow in experience and power.
• The ability to create equipment for heroes.

You can alleviate that somewhat with the 'scaler normal3x' command before starting the game.