Master of Magic

Master of Magic took the skeleton of the space 4X genre and transplanted it into a fantasy world, where rival wizards fight for dominance over two interconnected planes of reality. Before starting a game, the player builds their own mage: distributing points among five books of magic, adding special abilities like alchemy or an innate gift for spellcasting, and picking the race to start with. Each race has its own buildings, units, and temperament, so dwarves play completely differently from elves, lizardmen, or dark orcs. The player then founds cities, builds walls and temples, explores the map, and stumbles upon ruins and towers full of monsters guarding treasure and magic items.

Magic is the heart of the game. Spells are researched from books and cast in combat, on the strategic map, and against rivals, with the most powerful ones changing the rules of the entire game. Added to this is the world's second plane, the harsh and dangerous Myrror, reachable only through special gates, offering better resources at the price of tougher enemies. Battles take place on a tactical field where units of several figures each face off, with terrain, morale, and heroes all mattering — heroes who can be recruited, equipped with forged items, and gradually improved. The combination of empire building, artifact collecting, and hero-party development gives the game a depth that no one managed to replicate for a long time.

Technically, it was a solid DOS production with colorful VGA graphics, a clear interface, and music that keeps a fairy-tale mood running beneath the calm empire-building. The game did, however, have a rocky launch due to bugs that only later patched versions gradually cleaned up. Even so, it won an exceptionally devoted audience, and a community still exists today that tunes and expands it with its own mods. Anyone who enjoys turn-based strategy with an emphasis on spellcasting and exploration will find in Master of Magic a title that, even decades later, offers more possibilities than most of its successors.