If I remember correctly CIV 1 was released by now defunct company called Microprose which was specializing in Strategy Games.
So basically we had few similar great games (I call them titans, as they literally playable even today):
1. CIV 1 with mod called Colonization
2. Master of Orion
3. Master of Magic
We obviously know what happend to CIV franchise, MOO had some terrible accident (MOO3:/), but it is comming back (fingers crossed).
Hovewer can anyone tell me what happend to Master of Magic?
Were there any spiritual successors, who own rights to franchise now?
Hmmm, that is an interesting subject. If I recall correctly Stardock tried to buy the license for MoM off Atari but didn't succeed with it, so they produced their own canon and the much hyped but lacklustre Elemental series. Legendary Heroes was their attempt to make a TBS worthy of MoM and it came a very long way from the original Elemental game (and is well worth buying if their is a Steam Sale) but it doesn't quite get to where MoM was. Although there is apparently a Version 2.0 coming out (it's free so not an expansion) that is going to polish some things and revamp the combat system. Considering the game has been out for a while to get a big new patch is pretty cool and shows that the developers are still interested in the game. So I'd definitely check out Elemental - Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. It blends city managment, with armies, spells/magic and a lot of roleplaying. The civ, economic and resource side of the game is certainly the weakest and the roleplaying/questing and player vs environment the best. Thus it doesn't feel exactly like MoM but it's not bad.
Endless Legends is another but I was disappointed with Endless Space so I never bothered with it.
More recently I think Worlds of Magic was another attempt to reboot it but judging from the reviews it flopped. Maybe it'll be patched but the reviews don't paint a good picture. Apparently they even had people that worked on MoM and MOO, so I dont know what went wrong. It seems like an undercommitment of resources and a rushed schedule leading to an unfinished product, much like what brought Stardock's Elemental down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Magic
It seems a bit of a cursed name to be honest. Anybody that goes near it seems to go bankrupt or ends up failing spectacularly.
Maybe its a game made by the gods and fallen from olympus and anyone who tries to make it better gets struck down because they try to outdo the gods!
As far as Master of Orion goes maybe you should have a look at Free Orion
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page
This page is outdated but it gives some info on how they progressed since 2003
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Roadmap
It's a fan project but it's been the marathon runner of all the TBS fan projects that have come and gone. It has been around for well over a decade! I really don't know how they pull that off. Maybe the developers don't need to work because the scale of what they are building is enormous. I've seen literally tens of projects like this pop up and disappear over the years. This one is the sole survivor. It is playable according to the wiki but not finished yet. If you have programming, bug-testing skills or any other media producing (music, art etc....) they seem very keen and welcoming to contributers. Maybe that is how they have kept going so long.
