Master of Magic: Scourge of the Seas

Release Date: February 8, 2023

Strategy, fantasy, turn-based, 4X, pirates, Polish, singleplayer

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Second expansion for Master of Magic - a turn-based 4X strategy and a remake of the 1994 game with the identical title. The add-on tells about the pirates and sea adventures. It expands the game with new mages, races, resources and other content.

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Master of Magic: Scourge of the Seas Description

Plot
New content
Mechanics

Scourge of the Seas is the second expansion - after Rise of the Soultrapped - for the turn-based fantasy strategy Master of Magic, which belongs to the 4X genre. It was released in December 2022. It is a remake of a game from twenty-eight years before with the same title. Just like the "base game", the add-on was developed by the Polish studio MuHa Games. The company named Slitherine released it.

Plot

Scourge of the Seas follows the story of Horatio and Gayn. The first was once a disciplined soldier, and the second an experienced mercenary. Fate made them serve on the same ship and become friends. The ship with the main characters was attacked by cursed orc pirates, led by a group of wizards. Only Horatio and Gayn survived from the entire crew.

Both quickly understood that as mere mortals they are helpless in the face of dark magic. That's why they decided to acquire the secret knowledge and become Masters of Magic, to then be able to bring order to the seas.

New content

In addition to a fresh plot, the Scourge of the Seas expansion introduces many strictly gameplay elements to Master of Magic. The most important of them are:

four wizards (Belit, Gayn, Horatio and Xar'xla);
new skills, spells, traits etc.
the Scourgers race (orc renegades who because of a curse became ghostly beings driven by insatiable greed and jealousy);
three heroes (Ph'ym the Philomath, Big Bertha and Slithers the Sea Scourge);
three water resources (pearls, fish and reef);
three water locations (Reef Island, Wind Caves and Pirate Scum), each closely guarded and hiding precious treasures;
new bosses - some are encountered only in camps, and others also on open waters.

Mechanics

When it comes to gameplay, the Scourge of the Seas expansion does not differ much from the rules known from the base version of Master of Magic. We choose one of the many available mages, and then with each subsequent turn we strive to conquer two parallel worlds - Arcanus and Myrror.

The key to achieving this goal is proper resource management and winning battles. The game takes place on a map covered with a hexagonal grid. However, since the Scourge of the Seas expansion deals with the topic of pirates, the developers significantly diversified the fun coming from playing the game.