The game
What Lords of Magic is
A fantasy strategy game from 1997 that mixes empire management on a world map with real-time tactical battles, wrapped around eight faiths that each play very differently.
The shape of a game
The world of Urak has been broken. Eight faiths once shared it; the Lord of Death shattered that arrangement, and each faith has been driven back to a single surviving stronghold. You pick one, and you rebuild it.
Play alternates between two layers. On the world map you take turns: claiming territory, mining resources, raising buildings, researching magic, recruiting soldiers and sending heroes out on quests. When two armies meet, the game drops into a battle where the action runs in real time and you steer one unit directly while the rest follow orders.
The character you lead with matters as much as the faith you pick. Each faith offers a warrior, a thief and a mage, and they start with different resources, different followers and a different idea of how the game should be won. The same faith played as a thief is not the same game as the faith played as a warrior.
Special Edition is the expanded 1998 release, and it is the version this site is about: extra scenarios, a scenario editor, and the multiplayer mode that everything in the multiplayer research is about.
In this section
The eight faiths
Order, Chaos, Life, Death, Earth, Air, Fire and Water — what each one is built to do.
Units
Every unit the game defines, with stats, costs and requirements read out of its own scripts — and a plain account of the things those scripts do not say.