Civilization 1 Japanese Playstation 1 Port – English Translation Patch Released!

A talented fellow named riderr3 has successfully managed to partially translate the rather cool ASMIK Japanese Playstation port of Sid Meier’s Civilization 1 into English and released a patch. This is very cool as obviously I did a tour video on this version a while back and had to use a phone camera translator app to have any idea of what was going on, but now that is no longer needed! For the uninitiated the PS1 port of Civ1 is a special unique isometric 2.5D almost ‘Civ2 like’ looking version of Civ1 filled with FMV and new graphics that was never released outside of Japan. I imported a near mint condition physical copy of it from Japan a few years back and muck around with it occasionally so I’m very happy there’s an English patch for it now! I’ve tried to message riderr3 to see if he could be tempted into doing a translation patch for the similarly rare and unique ASMIK Japanese port of Microprose’s Master of Magic called Civizard (which I did a partial picture translation of at GameFAQs) but sadly didn’t hear back from him of course as that would be too good to be true lol!

Here’s the patch and links to tools for applying it:
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/5677/

Here’s some screenshots of his English patch in action (normally all this text is in Japanese):

Here’s the video I did a while back on the SNES and PS1 ports:
youtu.be/xZ9pNNOsr2A?list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Mystical Conquests (Retro 4X Civ, MoM, AoW, HoMM like game)

Have found a interesting up & coming 2024 retro fantasy turn-based 4X strategy indie game called Mystical Conquests that has a very classic Master of Magic like feel plus a bit of Heroes of Might & Magic thrown in too, however the author actually lists Civilization, Age of Wonders and Final Fantasy Tactics as it’s main inspirations. Naturally the game contains all the usual 4X fantasy strategy genre hallmarks of exploring a world map filled with lairs & treasures, building & developing cities, researching new technologies, fighting battles with heroes & armies of creatures, item crafting and spell casting too. The 8bit style graphics and sound give a very nice retro feeling, and the system requirements are accordingly low. If you feel curious about testing & giving the developer some feedback, there is a playable demo available on Steam.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2108270/Mystical_Conquests/

Theocracy (Civ 1 & 2 like retro 4X indie game with some MoM & Col influences too)

Recently found out about a retro ‘Civ like’ 4X indie game recently released called Theocracy which the author Marcel Strbak describes as his personal homage to Sid Meier’s Civilization 1 & 2. Much like with Civ you start in ancient times and work your way into the modern era with tanks & infantry etc however interestingly he has also added mythology & magic into the game with “miracle” spell casting & monster summoning which Master of Magic fans will likely find interesting too. It appears you can play as a number of native American cultures exploring the new world and competing for control of the Americas or as Europeans racing across to get there as well which Sid Meier’s Colonization fans may like too. The game supports easily accessible and very Civ2 like rules & graphic files making it good for modding and Marcel plans to add scenario creation tools and possibly unit animation (presumably Civ3 & Civ2 Test of Time like) in the future too. The game is currently part of the Steam strategy sale until Monday (not currently on GoG though).

Steam page (not currently on GoG):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2195530/Theocracy/

Age of Wonders 4 Announcement Trailer

Triumph Studios have recently announced what many had hoped for, a return to their mainline Age of Wonders fantasy 4X strategy series with AoW4! For Age of Wonders fans as well as many Master of Magic fans who feel AoW has been one of the best ‘similar to MoM’ series out there this is exciting news. What’s also interesting is that it sounds like they may be using a Warlock series multi worlds via portals system too. AoW2 Shadow Magic did something similar with one dark world similar to Master of Magic, however this time it sounds like there will be many different worlds much like in the Warlock games! I’m going to need to update my Age of Wonders Section at Blake’s Sanctum ASAP as here I am still not getting around to properly playing Shadow Magic when I’ve then got AoW3, Planetfall and now AoW4 to come too lol! Once day I’ll get to them all.. one day haha!

Here’s the trailer below as well as a video showing the full announcement show and extra gameplay. Oh and they’ve started making some really cool dev diaries on steam too so if you’re a fan go check them out and wishlist the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1669000/Age_of_Wonders_4/

Official Master of Magic Remake Released!

The moment so many of us Master of Magic fans have been waiting decades for has finally arrived guys! The official Master of Magic remake from MuHa & Slitherine is out now! I still don’t have a rig that can play it yet but since I run the MoM Fan Discord and Facebook groups I’ve been eagerly watching everyone else talking about it along with the steam & GoG reviews. Opinions seem to be pretty mixed at the moment with many enjoying it and believing it’s everything they’d hoped for while others have been very disappointed with the ‘low budget’ feel of the remake and it’s high price tag set by Slitherine. MuHa are already planning lots of patches and some DLC, plus no doubt they’ll be plenty of mods coming so hopefully some of those negative reviews will turn into positives ones over the next year, and if all goes well this will pave the way to sequels in the future! And hey if all else fails then at least we now have Caster of Magic 2 (+ it’s Warlord Mod) and Implodes’s Multiplayer Edition that rebuilt the original MoM game and enhanced it in so many cool ways. 🙂

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/
GoG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/master_of_magic

First Master of Magic remake gameplay video

Attention fellow Master of Magic fans! Last Tuesday Slitherine streamed their latest ‘Home of Wargamers’ event from Venice on their Twitch channel, and what made this one extra special is that they kicked it off by showing live gameplay video footage of the official Master of Magic remake for the first time! For those that missed it and don’t want to sift through the whole stream here’s just the MoM gameplay part:

Warlock 2 Renaissance Mod – The Warlock 3 we’ll probably never get!

Visitors to my Master of Magic webpage will see in the similar games section that I played the similar Warlock 1 – Master of the Arcane a few years back and quite enjoyed it. It’s clearly MoM inspired but uses a Civ5 style world map without tactical zoomed in combat, and uses a Civ6 style city buildings on the map system. What made it very fun was it’s MoM and Civ2 Test of Time multiple linked world maps system in that while there’s a Myrror like dark world there’s also lots of other mini elemental plane worlds to visit too. Realising they were on to something good the studio were fast to do a Warlock 2 – The Exiled sequel that pushed the multi world system even further. However it was met with poor reviews due to bugs, bad AI, lack of depth and other issues so I never bothered to try it out. However the guys over in the MoM Discord group I run informed me of an awesome total conversion fan project that fixes the bugs, and bad AI and adds a HUUUUUGE amount of extra content (races, wizards, heroes, units, spells, buildings etc) known as The Renaissance mod. I watched the below youtube let’s play series on it and was super impressed. The modders have essentially labelled it the Warlock 3 we never got and they’re probably right as this thing is epic in size. So I think I’ll be buying Warlock 2 after all now haha!

Warlock 2: https://store.steampowered.com/app/205990/Warlock_2_The_Exiled/
Renaissance Mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493257789

Official Master of Magic REMAKE Announced!!!

Oh My God!! After 25 years of nothing it really is an amazing time for us diehard Master of Magic fans! There I was a week ago getting excited about Seravy’s new Caster of Magic 2 for Windows release and now something even more amazing has been announced, as we finally have confirmation of the Slitherine mystery project I’ve posted about here before! Slitherine are working with Thea series creators MuHa games on a Official Master of Magic Remake!!! You can find the announcement videos (they’ve remade the old intro!), some nice pictures, and game info on their new steam page here!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/
And on the GoG page too!
https://www.gog.com/game/master_of_magic

But of course I’ll post a few below here too! 🙂

Master of Magic – Caster of Magic For Windows (CoM2) Released!

Some of you probably know of Seravy’s Caster of Magic mod for good old 1994 DOS classic 4x TBS Master of Magic. Well he’s painstakingly rebuilt CoM in a new windows based engine and it’s been officially released on Steam, GoG & Slitherine’s own store a few days ago! Turns out it’s still 320×200 stretched sadly but there’s heaps of improvements eg a gazillion bug fixes & balance changes, super smart AI opponents, more spells, more buildings, more advanced game modes & options, and best of all NO MORE 5 PLAYER LIMIT!! So umm 14 Wizards going at it in one game? Yes please!

I know some people aren’t huge fans of CoM’s changes but maybe Slitherine will take Seravy’s new engine source and do a ‘MoM for Windows’ one day too. Probably wishful thinking but you never know!

Feel free to drop by the Master of Magic fans Facebook and Discord groups to discuss. Seravy himself is kindly answering questions and bug reports on the discord too!

Familiar but not quite the same 

Caster of Magic II Sequel (CoM2) Alpha Testing

Recently posted the great news about Implodes Master of Magic HD Multiplayer remake getting a new release (with functioning AIs) well recently there’s been more awesome Master of Magic related news that I forgot to post here (shame on me I know lol). Seravy has started semi-public alpha testing of his new Caster of Magic 2 sequel game! This is not another mod of MoM and is actually a rebuild from the ground up!

Seravy showed me a private screenshot of an older build earlier this year and have been super excited about this going public due to it being a total rebuild of the MoM engine allowing him to have far more control over things so he can do the sort of things he couldn’t with assembly hacks of the original MoM in CoM1 (eg fight more than 4 players). Sadly he has no interest in increasing the viewing resolution to modern ones (like Implode has done) though.. but if he releases the source code one day others could do that in a mod!

Here’s his thread about CoM2 if people are interested in playtesting and want more info (you have to msg him to get a copy as it’s not a true public free for all test):
https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=10020

And here’s a video he made for the announcement (You may need to fast forward the intro as I think he needs to buy a Microphone haha):