What you like and don't like about the new master of magic release (2022) ?

[GMBarak]

I personally liked:

Improved trading in diplomacy - you can trade any spell collection/mana/gold for each other.
Better graphics.
Combat odds estimation and XP gained indication (you get XP for killing enemy units even when both parties are exhausted).

Disliked:

That it's not Caster of Magic, missing many features of caster of magic.
Many animations and screens/pop ups notifications make the game slow, you are forced to watch the same animation again and again.
Removal of the flee in green option (flee the battle safely)
Only 4 wizards allowed.

Overall I will personally would prefer keep playing COM until patched/DLC/MOD will make the MoM 2022 better, although I did buy the game and IMO it was worth the money.
Let me know what you guys think...

[JustOneMoreTurn]

I hadn't heard about it, but from what you said, I won't bother to try it. Only 4 wizards? That kills it there. Extra eye-candy slowing the game: another killer for me. If simplifying the graphics with stick-figures made it run faster, I'd probably accept that version.

[unicurse]

It's not Caster, and honestly I find the base-game of MoM painful to play now after being spoiled with CoM. Also I find the art a bit hit and miss: some of the characters look like hobos, where others are pretty interesting and cool. MuHa have good artists and they're not shy about making stuff sexy, which I'm pleased about, but the darker tone is somehow at odds with what I wanted from the game. I miss Caveman Barbie Freya... and Halflings being able to crush the other races so easily is really immersion breaking for me somehow.

I just interviewed Mila from Muha for eXplorminate and she pretty much admitted that they didn't get much creative freedom for the project as they'd hoped, and reading between the lines, I think they've really struggled with it.

[unicurse]

Also leaving that "Press F8 to report a bug" in a finished game is utterly inexcusable. What were they thinking?!

[unicurse]

Ok I'm actually liking this a lot more than I thought I would. The pacing is definitely slower than Caster, I forget now whether CoM had a boost to population growth or I'm just imagining it, but 1.31 polishes up better than I remember it being. I expect I'll go back to Caster once the shine has worn off a bit.

[ioticus]

 and Halflings being able to crush the other races so easily is really immersion breaking for me somehow.

I thought Halflings were OP in the original anyway? How did they change Halflings in the remake to make them more OP?

[Intaka]

I have always wished Seravy had a talented art team to back up their dedication to CoM, so in many ways the MoM2022 is like seeing the opposite world version of my perfect game. It has the hexes, the art... but the game itself is still immature compared to CoM.

I'm not sure what it says about me that I will probably play CoM instead, but I was happy to support Slitherine and the franchise to show there is still interest in these kinds of games.

Seravy if you read this thread... get an artist to redo all the art that CAN be redone without completely overhauling the game. Maybe find a way to upscale everything. I will HAPPILY give you another purchase or two for that "DLC". I've bought this game so many times already, it's second only to Skyrim for repurchases due to new formats / vendors (Simtex CD RoM, updated CD RoM, Steam version, GoG version, etc)

Maybe the MoM2022 team will connect with Seravy and talk about balance and modding and someone will take them aside and whisper in their ear that Myrror isn't supposed to be so dark you can't see where the fog of war ends and in the end they willl get married and have a 2034 MoM baby with it all.

[Intaka]

MoM2022 version will probably be more commercially successful... if only because CoM (and Mom, etc) all look like pixel soup to any new player whom one might try to introduce the game. At 1440p stretch... it's almost comical how large the "pixels" are in CoM.

[ioticus]

I am now reading disturbing reports that the AI never casts overland enchantments or dispels the player's overland enchantments in the remake. That is a complete dealbreaker for me if that is the case. Not to mention reports that the AI diplomacy doesn't even work as well as the original 1.31 AI diplomacy. Apparently, you can't threaten or insult the AI or ask it to declare war on someone else or stop attacking someone else, etc.

[jhsidi]

Any bugs in the new release will probably be fixed with time. I'm not surprised or disturbed by some being present, as I think the team had either a set date or budget they had to work within. And as Seravy has shown over the years, polishing the balance and difficulty is something that takes a lot more time to accomplish.

What I like about the game is that it looks like it has a more solid foundation than the endless line of attempted copies that came out over the years. Stuff like Warlock - Master of the Arcane or the various Stardock disasters that were obviously unsalvageable from day one. I wouldn't say that about the new MoM, it definitely has potential, in large part because they planned for modders.

As for dislikes... well, I did play it but I couldn't get into it yet, even though I really wanted to. One thing that was jarring for me is that the team supposedly had a mandate to copy the original game. And they technically did, but only if you don't count the switch to a new graphical style (both for overworld and battle map). So for example, the battle maps are unnecessarily huge and the camera is constantly jerking back and forth between your units and the enemy. A lot of things aren't clearly communicated, either in visual style or the UI. Battles take way longer and just feel really annoying to me.

Yes, the world has moved on from pixel art. But an immense amount of visual clarity and speed has been lost in the move to modern art styles. And for some games, that's fine! I play Total War, for instance, and it's designed well for its art style. Battles can be really long in that game and as a result... armies are big, you don't have a lot of them, and there aren't many battles. By contrast, MoM is a game where you could have ten, twenty, fifty battles per turn in late game. That gets tiresome even with the fast, snappy battles of original MoM or CoM. In the new MoM it's a complete non-starter. Might improve with some polishing, but it can't ever be as clear and snappy as the original/CoM.

For my money, the "right" direction for a new MoM would be art and UI in line with the new wave of boardgame-style games. Stuff like Wildermyth or Gloomhaven. If I were a millionaire I'd hire some artists and send them Seravy's way. Alas...