Empire of Magic
Genre: Turn based strategy
Publisher: Different for every territory
Release date: April 2003
Platform: PC

Somewhere far away lays the land of powerful demons and breath taking beauty. The land of brave knights, doom and salvation. Land of many faces where marvelous adventures await your arrival. Sharpen your swords and gather up enough magic power because in the end of this spring a strategic delicacy arrives - Empire Of Magic.

Story:
In a time long ago the whole world was ruled by the Empire Of Magic. There lived many mages and the most powerful amogst them held the power in his hands. One day however his fate fullfilled. Mayhem and terror took control over the land as everyone was fighting for power. In the meantime strange thing began to happen in the border territories. Troops of soldiers became to vanish and sometimes even the settlers. Well, a situation worth a closer look but none of the superior mages wants to leave the capital city in the time when there are hot places in the government being severed.
One of the minor mages (embodied by the player) is sent to the southern border. Little by little he uncovers the complex story and finds out that the first look is sometimes wrong and everything is totally different.

Welcome to the Empire of Magic!
Empire of Magic is an unusual turn-based strategy presented by Mayhem Studios. It captures the adventures of the young mage Artemian, which are the background for a story about the fall of a mighty empire. The player becomes a witness of a tragedy, which develops from mysterious raids of the undead to a bloody civil war within the heart of the empire. Thanks to the extraordinary concept of Empire of Magic, it stands out against the masses of fantasy turn-based games and its genre approaches that of RPG's. The atmosphere of a real adventure gives a new, yet unknown dimension to the game.

Key features

List of characteristics that this fantasy-set strategy game disposes:

Stylish calculated and by hand finished graphics.

A lot of tactical possibilities, whereby you can use the siege of the castles and 3D segmentation of the terrain. Your units can hide behind the hills or prepare an ambush from the behind.

The main storyline will be widened by a lot of extra quests and tasks that diversify the story and help the player to sink deeper into the world of Empire of Magic and last but not least they also carry some rewards.

The game world consists of different types of terrain. It takes you into the snow-covered mountains, fiery deserts, rainy hills and idyllic meadows.

The single parts of the campaign are held together by a thrilling story. Thanks to an ingenious web of sub-quests and tasks, every scenario becomes unique even after numerous games. Most of them can be won (or lost) in several different ways.

Empire of Magic offers flexible levels of difficulty, which will satisfy occasional gamers as well as hard-core fans acquainted with tactical problems. The difficulty can be adjusted by the player himself. The harder he makes the game, the more bonuses he will gain.

The game has its own pseudo 3D engine which uses 2D as well as 3D acceleration.

Expect atmospheric 3D scenes combined with additionall hand-drawn graphics.

While planning suitable strategies it is essential to count on a variety of environments. The speed of the units depends on the terrain they are moving on, their spotting range depends on the 3D segmentation of the environment. The units can hide behind hills or prepare for ambushes.

The game can be joined by four sides at a time. The players can be fighting a war with one another, they can be close allies or neutral to one another. NPC characters, who build the background of the story, also have their role in Empire of Magic.

The artificial intelligence is behaving fair, it does not cheat and is in not favored in any way. The AI only sees what the units (allied units) have within their spotting range, and upon this basis it tries to develop its strategy.

There is a variety of units. The game offers 80 basic characters, as well as further unique units - the heroes.

According to the experience gained, the units will proceed to higher levels and their overall qualities will improve as well. In some towns, the player will be able to buy his characters a stay at the healer, the mage or the teacher of martial arts, which will further improve their abilities. There is a possibility of creating groups out of units, which can then fortify themselves and build up camps.

There is a lot of attractive, and most of all strategically and graphically different spells. There is a total of 122 spells in the game.

The weather (snow, rain, desert storm...) influences the qualities of the units.

There are three basic magical professions in the game: the druid, the mage and the psionic. Every one of them has a limited number of spells which they can learn after gaining enough experience. Another more than 80 spells and abilities enhance "common" characters like soldiers, skeletons, palladins, minotaurs...

A complex scripting language is used to incorporate the storyline right into the game. It makes everything possible, from creating simple linear tasks to fantastic scenes influencing the action on the whole map.

System requirements
Windows® 95 / 98 / ME / 2000 / XP, Direct X 8.0TM
Procesor 600 MHz (or better)
128 MB RAM, 32MB Graphic card with 3D acceleration
300 MB free disk space (this demo)
16-bit Direct XTM compatible sound card