Lords of Magic

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Lords of Magic
Lordsofmagicbox.jpg
Special Edition cover art
Developer(s) Impressions Games
Publisher(s) Sierra On-Line
Director(s) Chris Beatrice
Producer(s) Glenn Oliver
Designer(s) Jeffrey Fiske
Gregor Koomey
Steven Serafino
Programmer(s) Mike Gingerich
Composer(s) Keith Zizza
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release
Special Edition
  • NA: September 15, 1998 [2]
  • EU: 1998
Genre(s) Turn-based strategy
Mode(s) Single-player
multiplayer

Lords of Magic is a turn-based strategy Microsoft Windows game designed for Windows 95/98 by Sierra On-Line. The game was intended to combine elements of Heroes of Might and Magic II and Lords of the Realm II . The special edition also contains the Legends of Urak quest pack, a set of five individual quests that revolve around stories unrelated to the main plot of the game.

Contents

Gameplay

The world is filled with wandering monsters and fixed buildings filled with monsters. Lords of Magic is notably different from other strategy games in that it has only one map, with each faith starting at a different location. This results in a somewhat repetitive nature, counteracted somewhat by a supplied map editor.

Throughout the game, players travel across the high-fantasy land of Urak (which is split into 8 distinct regions, one for each faith), building an army composed of archers, infantry, cavalry, and creatures. The overworld map gameplay is turn-based; here, players manage cities and move their armies. When beginning a battle, the gameplay switches to real-time. Champions and Lords can be equipped with treasures found throughout dungeons or from other factions. As the game progresses, many faithless marauding parties will attempt to disrupt the faith's economies and progress. There is also a loose diplomacy system that can be used to interact with other factions as well for trade or the exchange of research.

The main goal of the game is to defeat Balkoth, Lord of Death, by any means necessary. After finishing the game once, players can begin a new game as Balkoth with the goal of conquering all of Urak.

Lords are the avatar characters used by the player. They are like champions, but colored differently and have higher stats. When a lord dies, the faith is removed from play, unless the player has obtained an "heir". Heirs are obtained by befriending another faith, then liberating their great temple before they have, in which case the faith becomes the player's and their lord in turn becomes the heir.

There are eight different factions: life, death, order, chaos, air, earth, fire, and water. Each faction represents their element with their own set of units, heroes and spells. The Heroes of the game consist of three different types which offer unique game play and tactics. They are Warrior, Thief and Mage. The Warrior is a close combat specialist who is best at leading armies into battle. The Thief works best alone, being able to steal money and spy. The Thief can even kidnap other heroes, ransoming them for money and artifacts. The Mage is very weak with low hit points, but can use spells which can change the entire battle in his army's favor, summoning great monsters or raining down fire and lightning from behind the front lines. There are over 160 different spells and they are different for each faction. These spells are divided into four types: "offensive", "defensive", "overland" and "general knowledge". There are over 90 different artifacts as well to discover and collect.

The game includes a single-player mode and limited multiplayer features on LAN and the Internet as well.

Story

Lords of Magic on the cover of Interaction, the Sierra On-Line fan magazine. Interaction-Magazine-1997-Holiday.jpg
Lords of Magic on the cover of Interaction, the Sierra On-Line fan magazine.

The game takes place in the land of Urak. The people of this world worship one of eight religions. Each religion has an opposite in the circle of life and the people of those faiths are bitter enemies. The atmosphere of the game is high fantasy, loosely inspired by the works of Tolkien, as well as Dungeons & Dragons . Balkoth, the lord of Death, has embarked on a campaign to destroy all other faiths in honor of the dark god Golgoth. The other lords scramble to expand their ranks to defend themselves against this dark threat but also to once and for all destroy their lifelong nemesis.

Each faith has its own weaknesses and strengths. One of these considerations is that each faith's polar opposite (e.g., Chaos vs. Order, Fire vs. Water) begins the game extremely hostile to its counterpart. Diplomacy is possible between these factions but difficult. However, all faiths (other than Death itself, which strives for global conquest) have the same ultimate goal: to defeat Death.

Development

Lords of Magic was developed by Impressions Games for Microsoft Windows and released by Sierra Entertainment in December 1997.

Legends of Urak expansion

Legends of Urak expansion pack was released in 1998. It was included in the Special Edition of the game. The expansion revolves around various fables and stories. Earth, Fire, and Death each have a unique quest while Order has two quests.

The Earth quest is based on the epic poem Beowulf but involves many original battles and adventures Beowulf partakes in. The Fire quest revolves around a fire sorceress named Crispin who seeks out and slays a colossal ice drake in order to return the flow of lava to the fire capital. The Death adventure focuses on the necromancer's ability to raise the dead and employ them in battle. The adventure ends either by defeating a lich in battle and retrieving his staff for the death lord, or by keeping the staff, taking control of the death capitol and defeating the eldren queen. The first Order adventure is loosely based on the legends of Merlin and King Arthur and ends with the retrieval of the Holy Grail and death of Mordred. The second Order adventure is only activated by clicking in the center of the circle of life in the quests menu and has a unique lord named Sigfried who transforms as the game progresses. He saves the valkyrie Brunhilde and defeats Attila the Hun.

Legacy

To run on most modern operating systems adjust the screen resolution to 800 X 600. Current known highest playable resolution is 1360 X 768.

After the end of the official support with patch 3.01 for the Special Edition, the game's community tried to take over the support and created own fan patches to address remaining issues and enhance compatibility. [3]

Reception

Lords of Magic

Lords of Magic received average reviews.

Special Edition

The Special Edition received above-average reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. [15]

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