JudasIscariot: So tell me, what makes MoM more challenging than the games in a similar genre coming out today?
Crosmando: It's not about challenge as much as actual gameplay features, the depth and complexity of the gameplay systems. Everyone knows MoM has primitive AI and unbalanced elements.
What I'd ask you is what's the point of buying new strategy games when they all have but a fraction of the features of older titles. Heck, even Age of Wonders III has less races, and less overall options than Shadow Magic. I just don't get it, perhaps people WANT simplistic strategy games nowadays, because I'm pretty much ready to abandon the genre entirely.
Perhaps it has less races due to the fact that some races might've been far too similar?
For example, let's take MoM...again :)
You have how many Elven races? Dark Elves, Wood Elves, and I think High Elves? For me, they're
almost cookie cutter. They all have an innate magical attack but the graphic for it may be different, their units until you get to the later parts of their tech tree are almost the same technically (correct me if I am wrong :) ) and, well, they're all Elves :P
I can definitely see your point about losing unique races in a series but I also don't see the necessity of having three races do pretty much the same thing.
(please don't take this as me ragging on MoM, everyone, I still like the game but it helps to step back and try to look at tit critically :) )