Which is just an alternate way to get additional generic, underpowered, and boring champions. It's also not much of a dynasty, it's not like there's any kind of succession happening. You just get 4 more champions that you can sell for diplomatic purposes but that otherwise you still don't care about.

Pretty much agree with everything the OP said.

You guys have the right general vanilla framework.Time to sprinkle some awesome on it. A great multi-colored variety of sprinkles. And pop rocks maybe. And the chocolate syrup, with magic shell!

And Master of Magic is sooooo much better. So far i don't really have a desire to play Elemental. Why should i, if the original game is more fun and has a better gameplay?

Besides, for a Civilization player, it's kinda weird to see a supposedly "strategic" game that hides all the information possible. Arguably, Civilization I, that was released 20 years ago, has a better civilopedia (after all, it has a "concepts" section that explains important things about the game).

Tooltips in Elemental are almost useless as they are (even if they don't outright lie). A comparision with Civilization 4 tooltips or especially tooltips of some Civ 4 mods, is a total overkill.

Actually, I'm just back from a two-hours long MoM game (not finished yet, still the early game of course), and I still love this game. No, if it actually was released today, I would not hate it. Despite its age, it still has only two glaring flaws : balance and diplomacy. The only drawbacks I find in this game are the cheap "you're at war against everyone as soon as you see them, and they have insane bonus" (making all the diplomatic options completely pointless and wasting the fun of having different AI players) that was so common in the days (remember the two first Civ...), and the horrible balancing (some units are so completely overpowered it's funny).

Patch me those two flaws, update the graphics (and they are still tolerable because of great "drawn" design) and I'm going back to spend half my waking time on MoM.

So no, I disagree with what you say. We want IMPROVED MoM, but not something DIFFERENT than MoM. The only reason I was interested in EWoM in the first place was because I heard that it was supposed to be the spiritual heir of MoM.

Well, the list is rather simple : make it more like MoM :p

Of course we'd want an updated version of MoM on balance, AI, graphics and all. If those weren't needed, we'd just keep playing MoM (which remains, BTW, the FUNNIEST game I've ever played).

We were led to believe (or we allowed ourselves to believe!) that EWoM would be somewhat similar to MoM, so it was only reasonable to hope that with a little modding it could be indeed made into an "improved" version of MoM. Sadly that is not the case, at least not now. The game is very different, and I fear it will never replace MoM.

That applies to me too. If EWoM's future expansions will make EWoM closer (or "more easily transformable") to MoM, then they will be worth every dollar.

Of course EWoM can even become its own, separate wonder, but it's not there either yet, as it's generally accepted by now. We shall see.

Well i guess we were wrong it wont be a 2010 MoM2 new game, it will be different and lets hope it will be even better .

(but i liked MoM so much .. damn :p )

26 year old with a 286...yeah ok. Animosity? take a good "read" at most of your posts. You attack those who bought this piece of *** and complain about it. This is pointless.......later.

Affects what?  AFAIK charisma only has a small effect on the hiring price of wandering heroes.  What else would it affect?  I've never seen a random event in EWOM, just stuff that was triggered by accessing a quest hut or goodie hut.  Am I missing something?  The manual literally says: "Look, you have stats!  They're used to calculate stuff, and you can make them bigger when you level!"  Gee thanks, guys.

Same here, I would pay the price of two or thee games to get a true remake of MOM!

I would also pay for a MOM remake, but I doubt most of us here on the Elemental forums want Elemental to BE that game.

No, we want something BETTER.

We want to see Elemental have the depth, complexity, nice features, pretty UI, etc that have come to be expected from a game in this day and age. It stings when you see a game like MOM  still delivering a more 'fun' experience. You cannot help but to compare these two similiar games to one another and when the much newer game drops the ball on what we feel have become fundamental concepts to the genre, thanks to the pioneer games like MOM, heck yes we aren't happy.

Why CAN'T Elemental be better than MOM in terms of features and polish?? It should have come out of the gates besting a game 16 years old. Period.

If what Elemental placed on the table was well thought out, planned and executed instead of being bare bones, outright missing ( and buggy, but we can all understand bugs will be fixed in time and most of us CAN wait on this one ), then Elemental would simply reign supreme.

I am sure at the root of it all, what bugs most of us MOM lovers is that this game could have been such a powerhouse as to BURY what MOM ever delivered. In it's current state though, it is simply inferior in many ways, many listed in this thread.

I will be the first to admit, I love the graphics. I love being able to make my own units too. There should be more though! LOTS more! Features like your faction being able to make certain units or having unit bonuses exclusive to that faction, for example, would go such a long way to making the game more interesting and varied. I think that is one of the key things missing and what a lot of us miss from games like MOM.

Buggy?  Hell yes.

Packed with features?  Also an emphatic yes.

Lots of variability (magic, races, troops, items, etc.)?  Big time.

Simplistic but very satisfying tactical combat with lots of special abilities?  See the pics above.

Unfortunately, Elemental only got the first one "right".  Yeah Elemental might be great one day, but MoM was oozing with personality, a huge variety of just about everything and lots of groundbreaking features.

This is what baffles me about the crowd that chants "Elemental's great already and will just keep getting better!"  Given Stardock's experiences (including some VERY rough and buggy launches) you'd think they'd have brought a LOT more to the table than a bare framework with which to build on.

Yes, it's very moddable (in theory since only the XML is open at the moment) and has the love and dedication of Stardock behind it, but it's still going to come off as buggy and content light to ANYONE who's not "in the know" about Stardock's past efforts.  And reviewers.

I think that what stings the most is that, as the developers admitted themselves to love MoM and to want to make a spiritual successor of it, it's really hard to understand how they could not SEE how and where the older game was better, and design EWoM accordingly.

Exactly, who's complaining about bugs in this thread? Bugs are just a fact of PC gaming and they'll get fixed fairly quickly. I'd be ecstatic if this game was buggy but had as many features and options as MoM. Heck, I've got Win 64 and an ATI card but that's not what bothers me. It's the astounding lack of depth and content that's the real problem.

Well there is always Age of Wonders Shadow Magic. It is the closest the gaming world has ever gotten to a MoM2. Although I had much much hoped Elemental would have been even closer.

We eventually will have to face it: creating a GREAT game takes more than good or even great mechanics, logic and balance. In the end a great game is also an expression of ART. If there is no personality to the game it won't capture you like MoM captured a lot of people. That's why people keep playing MoM despite of bugs, bad graphics and some balancing problems. All that can be forgiven if the game has a SOUL and is a real expression of art. Just like making a good movie takes more than a good script and a huge budget, geat effects etc, making a game is an artform. What struck me with also the first AoW was the FEEL of the pictures and graphic and the whole game. There was something magical about it, like you saw a fairy-tale unfold before your eyes.

Now, with Elemental we are definately not there yet, but let's hope there are some creative people at Stardock that Frogboy have kept downtrodden and silent so that these can now come out and infuse some SOUL into this game, if ever it is to become a classic. Giving weapons and armor to another one of your ugly if realistically looking peasants just doesn't make me think fairy-tale just yet. 

This point can't possibly be emphasized enough!

Magic had FLAVOR!  Retorts were potentially HUGELY powerful and had seriously game altering effects (and associated high costs for the big ones).

5 kinds of "does INT damage at range of X for 2 mana" and the like isn't variety.  It's cut and paste.

All about the good combos.

Halflings with a heavy investment in life books was big on my list of fun

Also something that Stardock ought to look closely at.  Limiting magic by making the mana pool very small, neutering regen (1 per game turn?!?!?) and forcing you to use a potentially large amount of your precious essence to make even a second very weak caster.  Couple that with pitifully ineffectual magic and you have a really UNmagical experience.

O ye gods, yes!

Great thread. MoM is my favorite game. Period. I bought it at release and back this year on GoG. For 5€. so, if I want to play Mom, I just start it.

So far, E:WoM I think succeeded in being different in a globally very positive way. They at least freed themselves from the over-used city management everyone has learned to know since Civilization. Many thanks for that. And for me, economics work good or only requires slight adjustments in the tech tree.

Some features are just freaking awesome. There's nothing like seeing your troops with the gear you want, even the haircut. Dynasties. Again something that doesn't exist in MoM and makes for a lot of potential. (it could be the best of Crusader Kings/Guild 2/Total War and MoM). Feature wise, this is my greatest disappointment however. Sovereign just can't die without a game over and children taking over. I like the fact that there are few magic units. It's also a fresh take on fantasy universes that are just overcrowded with mythical creatures. So, I'm all for the sovereign is a force to be reckoned with (aka the evil/good sorcerer/mage in its tower) and the only ones on par are other sovereigns and their children. It is (could be) just epic. Imagine in MP: your sovereign killed mine, but his son took revenge! Awesome moments to be remembered in perspective.

But the most urgent is combat system and balance. And possible crashers if some people can't even launch the game. After a few games, I realize balance is not as broken as I thought it was, but definitely this is the only case I wish they just shamelessly copied MoM. Those little swords/crosses/shields and hit rates . So easy to understand, so full of possibilties (will I give that Unit a +1 to hit, a negate defense, a first strike, some more swords, etc...). Yeah I miss that. And like others said, it was easy to invent spells that would effect units in one of these areas. So far, I've seen two unit enchantments : Giant Strength and Stoneskin (I should try some other sov configurations). Having no spell resistance is heresy. In MoM a Mega death machine could still be vulnerable  to magic.

And for the record, I don't understand people too critic about Elemental. They are overreacting I think (I'm french speaking and a French site gave it a 3/10 : I just can't stand this; it's pure arrogant bashing).  Like the reviewer would have accomplished something in writing a page compared to the works of a team a year or more. Respect, enthousiasm, tolerance  to mistakes and humility are not worth anything today. Elemental is not perfect, can be improved in many ways (and unlike many game companies, the team looks ready to just do that), but the game is playable. The world needs dreamers even if they fail sometimes.

MoM is my favorite game since 1993, but maybe not for long... In SD I trust !

Not to discount anything else you said (which is all entirely correct), I truly long for the days of comprehensive game manuals.  Mind you the MoM ones were eclipsed by the insanely awesome strategy guide by Prima...  time to go buy myself a replacement copy of that one if for no other reason than nostalgia alone

Perhaps because, due to the incredible blandness of the magic system, picking a single book or picking all of them has basically no gameplay impact.

You hit the nail on the head.  I don't mind that Stardock and particularly Brad were so sure they could top the reigning king of fantasy TBS while ignoring many of the lessons it taught us...  the fact that they fell so very short yet can't seem to quite admit that at least part of the MoM formula was/should have been their goal is a bit saddening.

The only potential legal issue would be copyright infringement which covers artistic elements of a game such as art, story, music and sometimes "feel".  Game design does not fall into this category.  And, even if it did, Stardock could simply argue laches with regard to MoM; Microprose/Atari did not litigate game design issues when Age of Wonder came out therefor they would not have a cause of action today.

Besides, MoM was heavily, heavily influenced by Magic the Gathering.  If the holders of the Microprose IP were to sue Stardock, then I would see no reason why WotC wouldn't sue Microprose.

Anyways, I agree with the original poster.  I don't think Elemental is anything like MoM.  It should be evaluated on its own terms.

This thread is making me seriously nostalgic. I think I'm going to go buy MoM again!

Sadly I'm pretty confident that I'll have more fun playing MoM again despite its bad AI and balance issues than I am currently playing EWOM now that the shiny newness has worn off and I'm left feeling that the game is currently quite shallow. Luckily I purchased EWOM knowing I was getting this game for the long haul so I'm not too disappointed with all the current issues.

However, I heartily agree that Stardock should reconsider incorporating many of the gameplay concepts and mechanics from MoM that made that game so much fun (and I deliberately say reconsider because presumably they already went through that exercise).

Who is selling MoM and is it run off of dosbox?

Good Old Games is selling it in a ready to play version, using dosbox i think

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/master_of_magic

And you can download the original manual, the spellbook and the soundtrack after your purchase