To celebrate Master of Magic's 30th Anniversary this month I thought I'd do something similar to our recent Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Civilization Call to Power, and Sid Meier's Colonization Anniversary Celebrations and take a look at what's been going on in the Master of Magic fan communities over the last few years so pour yourself a cup of coffee/tea, sit back and enjoy the big read below!
Firstly it's worth mentioning that for those who no longer have the CDs or a CD drive Master of Magic is currently available on both Good old Games and Steam. MoM was rescued/purchased a few years ago from Atari's IP dungeon by publisher Slitherine who re-released the game as a package that included the original release and the community fan patch release. They then renamed it to 'Master of Magic Classic' hinting that a official remake was to come and also offered the popular fan mod Caster of Magic as official DLC addons but more on them later! To celebrate MoM's 30th anniversary Slitherine have put all MoM games on sale too!
MoM GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic_classic
MoM Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1146370/Master_of_Magic_Classic/
Master of Magic Classic
Secondly I should mention that while sadly most of the old MoM communities are quiet or gone there are still some surviving forums and some modern social media groups where MoM fans meet to discuss their love of the games and even work on new projects. The Discord is recommended for fans of MoM mods & rebuilds as there are several going on there!
MoM Fan Discord: https://discord.gg/wFNQf36
MoM FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MasterOfMagicGame
MoM Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/masterofmagic/
CivFanatics MoM: https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/other-civ-related-games.534/
Realms Beyond MoM: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=15
Slitherine MoM: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=590
Steam MoM: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1146370/discussions/
GoG MoM: https://www.gog.com/forum/master_of_magic#1720129003
Master of Magic Classic
Thirdly it might interest people to know that Master of Magic has a number of cool fan patches, mods, and rebuild projects. Many people have contributed to community MoM patches over the years that fix bugs and enhance the games features, limits and AI toughness. Seravy, Kyrub & others work over the years are already included in the latest GoG & Steam MoM releases however Drake178's latest patches that continue the community patch work to this day can be found at Realms Beyond.
Drake's Patches: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=10633
There are many mods for Master of Magic that change the game in various ways. The biggest being Seravy's Caster of Magic which I'll cover later but there are many other little ones too which can mostly be found at Realms Beyond:
MoM Mods: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=55
A number of fans have tried to remake/rebuild Master of Magic over the decades and while some failed, some succeeded or are currently succeeding! Implode's Multiplayer Edition of MoM is so far the biggest success story as he has finished recreating the entire game with cool features such as up to 14 Wizards in one game, strong AIs, multiplayer support and modern HD resolutions! Many are excited about JimBalcomb's MoM Reassembly project as he is doing a full disassembly and 1:1 accurate reassembly of Master of Magic creating a new source code that many modders will be able to use in the future to create even more amazing things and he is much further along than any previous attempt at this. Other promising MoM projects such as Simbey's rebuild with upscaled graphics and Jakz & Kazzmir's old rebuilds are working and code sharing with Jim now days as well creating quite the MoM coding think tank! If you're interested in helping/watching them come visit the 'mom-reverse-engineering' channel on the MoM fans Discord (linked above).
MoM Implodes Multiplayer Edition: https://sourceforge.net/projects/momime/
JimBalcomb's MoM Reassembly: https://github.com/jbalcomb/ReMoM
Simbey's upscaled MoM Rebuild: https://github.com/SimbeyGit/simbey
Kazzmir's MoM Rebuild: https://github.com/kazzmir/master-of-magic
Jakz MoM Rebuild: https://github.com/Jakz/openmom
MoM Implodes Multiplayer Edition in HD
Fourthly did you know that Master of Magic has a rarely seen Japanese Playstation 1 console port called Civizard: Majutsu no Keifu! Interestingly Civizard is pretty much an exact copy of MoM however it is in Japanese and has completely new graphics, modified music and a new FMV intro sequence. A number of years ago I created a English picture translation guide on GameFAQs that allows people to play the game on a basic level (you'll need the Google translate camera app on your phone for the rest!) and in recent years Starwisp has been working on extracting the world graphics out of Civizard for use in a possible future graphics mod for the PC Master of Magic (via Jim's reassembly project) which would be pretty cool. It's been hard going as the assets are heavily embedded inside the games files so please check out his github page if you think you can help!
Civizard Info & Screens: https://psxdatacenter.com/games/J/C/SLPS-00618.html
Blake's (partial) Civizard English translation: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/572749-civizard-majutsu-no-keifu/faqs/75959/
Starwisp's Civizard Graphics Extraction: https://github.com/starwisp/Civizard-tileset-archeology
Civizard: Majutsu no Keifu
Fifthly it's time to finally talk about the biggest Master of Magic mod of them all! For 2 decades Seravy has worked on the awesome Caster of Magic mod that overhauls and expands MoM in many areas especially in AI difficulty. It is so popular that some fans even consider CoM a replacement for Master of Magic and the official license holder Slitherine made a deal with Seravy to release it as an official DLC addon to MoM on GoG and Steam! On top of that Seravy painstakingly rebuilt MoM and CoM in his own new engine allowing him to create a sequel 'Caster of Magic 2 for Windows' that has also been released as official MoM DLC. Similar to Implode's MoM rebuild CoM2Win also supports up to 14 Wizards allowing for some epic battles against extremely tough AI opponents. CoM2Win also has excellent modding support leading to the popular Warlord mod by Suppanut that dials some of CoM's changes back to feel a bit more like classic MoM again but also expands the game with many new spells, factions and creatures! Similarly Slinger's More Stuff mod also adds many more new spells, factions and creatures into CoM2Win as well! To celebrate MoM's 30th anniversary Slitherine have put all CoM games on sale too!
CoM Classic GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic_caster_of_magic
CoM Classic Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250690/Master_of_Magic_Caster_of_Magic/
Com2Win GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic_caster_of_magic_for_windows
CoM2Win Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557960/Master_of_Magic_Caster_of_Magic_for_Windows/
CoM2Win Warlord Mod: https://www.moddb.com/mods/caster-of-magic-for-windows-warlord
CoM2Win More Stuff Mod: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=10726
Caster of Magic 2 for Windows / Warlord Mod / More Stuff Mod
Sixthly we can't go any further without talking about the official Master of Magic Remake! Yes Slitherine teamed up in MuHa to recreate Master of Magic with modern graphics and gameplay enhancements. The official MoM remake was released in 2022 and has since received several DLC addons (Through the Myrror, Rise of the Soultrapped, and Scourge of the Seas) adding new factions, heroes, spells, abilities, and creatures along with new ocean based lairs, treasures and boss battles. There are several official communities setup for the remake and a number of cool fan mods have been made adding many new factions, creatures and spells into the game such as Mythical Realms and Rise of the Planewalker along with many smaller rebalancing mods. Longtime MoM community member Aaron has also written up a huge strategy guide for the remake as well. To celebrate MoM's 30th anniversary Slitherine have put all MoM remake content on sale too!
MoM Remake GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic
MoM Remake Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/
MoM Remake DLCs can be found on above store pages.
MoM MuHa Discord: https://discord.gg/QUxWmCJn4a
MoM Slitherine Discord: https://discord.gg/Yu6m66zNKN
Mythical Realms Mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/masterofmagic/mods/21
Rise of the Planewalker Mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/masterofmagic/mods/33
More Remake Mods on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1623070/workshop/
More Remake Mods on Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/masterofmagic/mods/
Aaron's Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072319125
Official Master of Magic Remake
Seventhly it's also worth mentioning that Master of Magic has plenty of other spiritual successors out there offering a similar 4X fantasy strategy experience playing as Wizards conquering fantasy worlds with spells and armies of heroes & magical creatures! Most notably the Age of Wonders series, Endless Legend, Elemental / Fallen Enchantress series, Warlock series, Worlds of Magic / Planar Conquest, Deity Empires, Mystical Conquests, and more we're probably forgetting. Most of these games can be found on Steam & GoG.
Endless Legend / Age of Wonders 4
Fallen Enchantress / Warlock 1
Eighthly being a Civilization community we can't not also mention that Master of Magic fans can also get their MoM fix from a whole bunch of excellent Master of Magic themed scenarios for Civilization games too! Here's some of our favourites..
Civ4 Master of Mana: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/403123/
Civ3 Master of Myrror: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/79607/
Civ2 MoM Jr Remaster (WIP): https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/638588/#post-15666138
More MoM scenarios for Civ games: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/657805/
Civ2 MoM / Civ3 MoM
Civ4 MoM
Finally here's a few other things that might be of interest to Master of Magic fans...
MoM Wiki: https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Master_of_Magic_Wiki
CoM Wiki: https://casterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Caster_of_Magic_Wiki
Master of Magic 2 Discord Discussion: https://discord.gg/wFNQf36
Master of Magic 2 Wishlist: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=94518
Well that's everything we know about! If you know of something else awesome and Master of Magic related from recent times that we haven't covered then please let us know in the comments and if it's your project please make a thread about it so we can follow your work! Happy anniversary MoM fans!
Blake's Master of Magic Collection
Firstly it's worth mentioning that for those who no longer have the CDs or a CD drive Master of Magic is currently available on both Good old Games and Steam. MoM was rescued/purchased a few years ago from Atari's IP dungeon by publisher Slitherine who re-released the game as a package that included the original release and the community fan patch release. They then renamed it to 'Master of Magic Classic' hinting that a official remake was to come and also offered the popular fan mod Caster of Magic as official DLC addons but more on them later! To celebrate MoM's 30th anniversary Slitherine have put all MoM games on sale too!
MoM GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic_classic
MoM Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1146370/Master_of_Magic_Classic/
Master of Magic Classic
Secondly I should mention that while sadly most of the old MoM communities are quiet or gone there are still some surviving forums and some modern social media groups where MoM fans meet to discuss their love of the games and even work on new projects. The Discord is recommended for fans of MoM mods & rebuilds as there are several going on there!
MoM Fan Discord: https://discord.gg/wFNQf36
MoM FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MasterOfMagicGame
MoM Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/masterofmagic/
CivFanatics MoM: https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/other-civ-related-games.534/
Realms Beyond MoM: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=15
Slitherine MoM: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=590
Steam MoM: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1146370/discussions/
GoG MoM: https://www.gog.com/forum/master_of_magic#1720129003
Master of Magic Classic
Thirdly it might interest people to know that Master of Magic has a number of cool fan patches, mods, and rebuild projects. Many people have contributed to community MoM patches over the years that fix bugs and enhance the games features, limits and AI toughness. Seravy, Kyrub & others work over the years are already included in the latest GoG & Steam MoM releases however Drake178's latest patches that continue the community patch work to this day can be found at Realms Beyond.
Drake's Patches: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=10633
There are many mods for Master of Magic that change the game in various ways. The biggest being Seravy's Caster of Magic which I'll cover later but there are many other little ones too which can mostly be found at Realms Beyond:
MoM Mods: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=55
A number of fans have tried to remake/rebuild Master of Magic over the decades and while some failed, some succeeded or are currently succeeding! Implode's Multiplayer Edition of MoM is so far the biggest success story as he has finished recreating the entire game with cool features such as up to 14 Wizards in one game, strong AIs, multiplayer support and modern HD resolutions! Many are excited about JimBalcomb's MoM Reassembly project as he is doing a full disassembly and 1:1 accurate reassembly of Master of Magic creating a new source code that many modders will be able to use in the future to create even more amazing things and he is much further along than any previous attempt at this. Other promising MoM projects such as Simbey's rebuild with upscaled graphics and Jakz & Kazzmir's old rebuilds are working and code sharing with Jim now days as well creating quite the MoM coding think tank! If you're interested in helping/watching them come visit the 'mom-reverse-engineering' channel on the MoM fans Discord (linked above).
MoM Implodes Multiplayer Edition: https://sourceforge.net/projects/momime/
JimBalcomb's MoM Reassembly: https://github.com/jbalcomb/ReMoM
Simbey's upscaled MoM Rebuild: https://github.com/SimbeyGit/simbey
Kazzmir's MoM Rebuild: https://github.com/kazzmir/master-of-magic
Jakz MoM Rebuild: https://github.com/Jakz/openmom
MoM Implodes Multiplayer Edition in HD
Fourthly did you know that Master of Magic has a rarely seen Japanese Playstation 1 console port called Civizard: Majutsu no Keifu! Interestingly Civizard is pretty much an exact copy of MoM however it is in Japanese and has completely new graphics, modified music and a new FMV intro sequence. A number of years ago I created a English picture translation guide on GameFAQs that allows people to play the game on a basic level (you'll need the Google translate camera app on your phone for the rest!) and in recent years Starwisp has been working on extracting the world graphics out of Civizard for use in a possible future graphics mod for the PC Master of Magic (via Jim's reassembly project) which would be pretty cool. It's been hard going as the assets are heavily embedded inside the games files so please check out his github page if you think you can help!
Civizard Info & Screens: https://psxdatacenter.com/games/J/C/SLPS-00618.html
Blake's (partial) Civizard English translation: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/572749-civizard-majutsu-no-keifu/faqs/75959/
Starwisp's Civizard Graphics Extraction: https://github.com/starwisp/Civizard-tileset-archeology
Civizard: Majutsu no Keifu
Fifthly it's time to finally talk about the biggest Master of Magic mod of them all! For 2 decades Seravy has worked on the awesome Caster of Magic mod that overhauls and expands MoM in many areas especially in AI difficulty. It is so popular that some fans even consider CoM a replacement for Master of Magic and the official license holder Slitherine made a deal with Seravy to release it as an official DLC addon to MoM on GoG and Steam! On top of that Seravy painstakingly rebuilt MoM and CoM in his own new engine allowing him to create a sequel 'Caster of Magic 2 for Windows' that has also been released as official MoM DLC. Similar to Implode's MoM rebuild CoM2Win also supports up to 14 Wizards allowing for some epic battles against extremely tough AI opponents. CoM2Win also has excellent modding support leading to the popular Warlord mod by Suppanut that dials some of CoM's changes back to feel a bit more like classic MoM again but also expands the game with many new spells, factions and creatures! Similarly Slinger's More Stuff mod also adds many more new spells, factions and creatures into CoM2Win as well! To celebrate MoM's 30th anniversary Slitherine have put all CoM games on sale too!
CoM Classic GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic_caster_of_magic
CoM Classic Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250690/Master_of_Magic_Caster_of_Magic/
Com2Win GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic_caster_of_magic_for_windows
CoM2Win Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557960/Master_of_Magic_Caster_of_Magic_for_Windows/
CoM2Win Warlord Mod: https://www.moddb.com/mods/caster-of-magic-for-windows-warlord
CoM2Win More Stuff Mod: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=10726
Caster of Magic 2 for Windows / Warlord Mod / More Stuff Mod
Sixthly we can't go any further without talking about the official Master of Magic Remake! Yes Slitherine teamed up in MuHa to recreate Master of Magic with modern graphics and gameplay enhancements. The official MoM remake was released in 2022 and has since received several DLC addons (Through the Myrror, Rise of the Soultrapped, and Scourge of the Seas) adding new factions, heroes, spells, abilities, and creatures along with new ocean based lairs, treasures and boss battles. There are several official communities setup for the remake and a number of cool fan mods have been made adding many new factions, creatures and spells into the game such as Mythical Realms and Rise of the Planewalker along with many smaller rebalancing mods. Longtime MoM community member Aaron has also written up a huge strategy guide for the remake as well. To celebrate MoM's 30th anniversary Slitherine have put all MoM remake content on sale too!
MoM Remake GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic
MoM Remake Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/
MoM Remake DLCs can be found on above store pages.
MoM MuHa Discord: https://discord.gg/QUxWmCJn4a
MoM Slitherine Discord: https://discord.gg/Yu6m66zNKN
Mythical Realms Mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/masterofmagic/mods/21
Rise of the Planewalker Mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/masterofmagic/mods/33
More Remake Mods on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1623070/workshop/
More Remake Mods on Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/masterofmagic/mods/
Aaron's Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072319125
Official Master of Magic Remake
Seventhly it's also worth mentioning that Master of Magic has plenty of other spiritual successors out there offering a similar 4X fantasy strategy experience playing as Wizards conquering fantasy worlds with spells and armies of heroes & magical creatures! Most notably the Age of Wonders series, Endless Legend, Elemental / Fallen Enchantress series, Warlock series, Worlds of Magic / Planar Conquest, Deity Empires, Mystical Conquests, and more we're probably forgetting. Most of these games can be found on Steam & GoG.
Endless Legend / Age of Wonders 4
Fallen Enchantress / Warlock 1
Eighthly being a Civilization community we can't not also mention that Master of Magic fans can also get their MoM fix from a whole bunch of excellent Master of Magic themed scenarios for Civilization games too! Here's some of our favourites..
Civ4 Master of Mana: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/403123/
Civ3 Master of Myrror: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/79607/
Civ2 MoM Jr Remaster (WIP): https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/638588/#post-15666138
More MoM scenarios for Civ games: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/657805/
Civ2 MoM / Civ3 MoM
Civ4 MoM
Finally here's a few other things that might be of interest to Master of Magic fans...
MoM Wiki: https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Master_of_Magic_Wiki
CoM Wiki: https://casterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Caster_of_Magic_Wiki
Master of Magic 2 Discord Discussion: https://discord.gg/wFNQf36
Master of Magic 2 Wishlist: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=94518
Well that's everything we know about! If you know of something else awesome and Master of Magic related from recent times that we haven't covered then please let us know in the comments and if it's your project please make a thread about it so we can follow your work! Happy anniversary MoM fans!
Blake's Master of Magic Collection
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