It was much more magic orientated and the MoM magic system was much better designed than Warlock's. MoM's magic system was largely a steal from the card game Magic the Gathering with the same magic colours and the relationships between them and even some spell names.
I think my points become a bit clearer if I expand on this self quote.
In Warlock every GM can eventually research all the normal spells in the game or acquire them from looting monster dens. There are a few special spells that require the favour of a particular god to research and use, but these are often a small part of the overall spells available. This makes the magic system seem very similar in every game despite the random selection of spells available for research. Also in the late game even though increasingly more powerful spells are known and massive mana has been accumulated spell casting rate is severely limited to 1 or 2 GM spells per turn. Various units (e.g. mages) and some lords have their own special spells that can be cast for zero mana on a cooldown timer. Generally in the late game GM magic only provides a small boost to the tactical battles or the economy it doesn't affect the game in the same way that the availability of large amounts of gold does. In Warlock the key resource is gold and mana is a side show.
MoM has an entirely different "feel" magically. As I mentioned in the quote, the concepts behind the magical colours and spells was based on the MtG trading card game and like that game it is not possible to have access to all the most powerful magical spells of all colours. Indeed if you pick any Death spell books you cannot pick any Life spell books and vice-versa. If you want to access (gained by research, trading or monster loot) the most powerful rare and very rare spells of each colour you need to have a large number spell books in that colour and it's almost impossible to have very rare spells in more than 2 colours and they are not guaranteed in the research list unless you choose at least 6 books of a colour. Very rare spells are only available at all if you have 3 spell books in that colour. Picking a large number of spell books in one colour reduces the research costs and casting costs (and hence casting time) for all spells of that colour.
This much more restricted access to spells has a huge impact on the way the magical aspect of the game is played in MoM. Picking a large number of Blue (Sorcery) spellbooks and Sorcery Mastery is just not going to produce the same sort of game as having a large number of Green (Nature) spell books and some other retorts, even if the same starting race is selected. The green spells are radically different from the blue ones and have different effects in the various mana nodes, city growth and combat. It is not possible to have access to a lot of powerful blue spells and a lot of powerful green spells let alone red and white spells as well. Spell choice and combinations is severely limited by spell books and less than half the spells are available in any one game.
Warlock goes a small way towards this idea by starting with the favour of a god (or gaining it later on by quests and temples) but the bulk of the spells will still be from the general pool. Each God in Warlock has 8 spells and gaining enough favour with 1 god to cast its most powerful spells means access to a few of the spells (about 4 low level) from the 2 neighbouring gods on the chart. This adds about 16 "flavour" divine spells to the basic pool of about 50 arcane spells that are available in every game to all the Warlock GMs. Many of the divine spells are just improved versions of spells already available in the arcane spells so this small addition to diversity is often less than even these numbers seem to offer. All Warlock games could end with temple units with Vampire Weapons, Levitation and zooming around with Meta Teleportation
A huge difference between MoM and Warlock comes from the way spell casting is controlled. In MoM all spells have a casting cost and all GMs have a spell casting ability which determines how much mana can be spent per turn and this controls many small spells can be cast per turn or how many turns a large expensive spell takes to complete. A important part of the MoM gameplan is to increase your GM's spell casting power so he can cast bigger and better spells more often. This is primarilly what gives MoM its magical feel for me. If I want to play a magically based game this concept is central to the way I develop my cities, do my research and capture the nearby magical nodes.
GMs in MoM have two sorts of spell casting, global spell casting and casting spells in tactical battles. Some spells can only be cast globally, some only in tactical battles and a few can be cast in both situations. For those that don't know, MoM has a limited stacking with up to 9 units per tile and when one stack moves onto the same tile as an enemy stack a tactical battle occurs on a mini battle area. Both GMs (the one starting the combat and the defender) can cast spells to aid their units up to the limit of their spell casting ability as long as they have sufficient mana. There can be many tactical battles each turn (5 or 6 is not uncommon) and each is treated separately and the full spell casting is available in each. So for instance a GM with a spell casting ability of 100 can cast 3 or 4 combat spells up to a total of 100 mana in any of the tactical battles. And this could be simultaneous with casting a global spell creating an artifact that costs 700 mana which takes 7 turns to complete. Casting spells in a tactical battles is a parallel ability to casting global spells.
Spell casting heroes in MoM can cast the same spells as the GM using their own mana, which is free. Heroes can be equipped with artifacts that increase the amount of mana available and / or that increases the effectiveness of the spells. Artifacts can also have spell charges that can be cast for free. Any tactical battle can have any mixture of spell casting from the 2 GMs involved and any heroes present with each casting one spell per combat round per unit or GM.
This is a complete contrast to the spell casting in Warlock where the Global and tactical spells are combined into one ability and they interfere with each other. This makes Warlock a much poorer game tactically and strategically as far as magic is concerned. In MoM the use of magic can be the central part of your gameplan or you can choose to use it as merely a supporting role for a mainly military gameplan (see my Example A in the previous post), the classic Might versus Magic choice I love in fantasy games. In Warlock magic is always relegated to the supporting roles.
This is a long post,
but I hope I have shed a little more light onto what is a complex set of ideas that underly both great games. I'll end by repeating what said in my last post, the reason Warlock lacks replayability is the weakness of its magical system. It needs something closer to what MoM has to be more diverse in its game strategies.
JJ
