Crossposted this over at Chris M’s But Is it fun on the Master of Magic thread. (Sorta… got a socket error)

There’s been 4 classic Expand, Explore, Discover, Conquer games: Civilization [Civ](the archetype), Master of Orion [MOO](sci fi galaxy), Master of Magic [MoM](magical version) and Alpha Centauri [AC](sci fi singularity).

Of all of these, only MoM appears to have DIED a horrible death of obscurity. Civ is going strong and deserves to be reviewed. MOO is succeeded by Galactic Civilization, which gets a big thumbs up from me. (Friends do not let friends waste money on MOO3). And AC looks to be dying a graceful death.

So why is MOM so hard to repeat? Why is it not sexy enough for a game?

Let’s look at the basic design challenge to do a EEDC for “Magic Genre”.

1) Have to introduce a brand new fantasy IP in an overloaded market. Meaning: the learning curve cannot be steep, potentially “lightening” the content. The content is the standard how many races and what types (GO KOBOLDS!! DOWN WITH ELVES!!!) and how does magic work.

2) Clearly identify the goal - just like Civ/Alpha Centauri. MoM had Tech Tree (Magic) win and Conquer win. I suggest adding a “Mana Market” win, a Diplomacy win, and 2 unconquerable threat loss in the game (after so many turns, Magic dies and super apolitical race gets stronger, conquering all).

3) Decent AI. “Cheater” AI or “True Strategy” AI doesn’t matter - but just make it decent. Yeah, lots of people whine the cheater AIs, but they’ve never designed a game.

4) Turns that DON’T waste the player’s time. Fork a process that is deciding actions while the player is performing his/her turn. The problems with Turn-based now is that players are bored while the game is playing. Having that not be the DEFACTO way that turn-based works is a waste of players’ time. Design it in from the start.

5) Online interactivity. Wouldn’t it be cool if players could design races , units and spells and share them? Give them a toolbox (Not an SDK) to design and then post for others to try out? With this, you have a viral effect of “Come see what I built and try it out” that they’d be able to share with others, and between games. For example, a player could design a Orc Geomatic Rotdamerung Eviscerator unit, and post that unit to the IP-branded website. Someone else would then create a Gnomish Epedited Velociraptor in retalliation… you get the idea

6) And multiplayer. *Sigh* The bane of our existence. You could drop this if you definitely had #5, but publishers would be nightmarish about it.

Now that I’ve spent 20 million on the game already… Does anyone know if the Civ4 engine is something that could be licensed and adapted for this?