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luckily i purchased it from them just a couple weeks ago because i wanted to play it.

i still have the original box and manuals for Master of Magic.

Stardock were trying to make a sequel but were unable to make a deal with Atari, who is sitting on the Master of Magic rights with seemingly no plans to do anything about it.

Yeah, I picked up the Stardock game on release (Elemental: War of Magic), but it's very rough right now. It will be another few months before its "fun factor" can really be assessed.

Which happens to be my all time favourite game! No game has stolen more of my time than TTD. It's too bad Locomotion, even though it's a good game, failed to capture me in the same way.

Another game that utterly destroyed my spare time was Master of Magic, and I just got hooked on a Stardock developed MoM and Civ inspired game, Elemental - War of Magic. Anyone who loves turnbased strategy, the fantasy setting and/or the MoM or Civ gameplay should check it out. It had a horrible launch but the latest patch to 1.06 fixed most of its troubles.

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According to Stardock's CEO, these numbers are wrong. Going by raw sales numbers, he says the digital number is actually closer to 25%.
Why the discrepency? Well, he has actual numbers for retail and Impulse (which he happens to own). He doesn't have numbers for Steam. Of course, neither does NPD. Their digital numbers are based on an online survey. These are not real sales numbers by any measure of the word, they're the sales equivalent of a biased online public opinion poll.
If I stood in the electronics aisle of Walmart and did a survey there, I'd find shockingly different numbers too. Unfortunately since we don't have accurate sales data for anybody, we're left with this kind of guess work.

Try looking at how the game Elemental, War of Magic development is going, that might be more your cup of tea.

Its been developed with the Mod tools, and they are realeasing them with it, its currntly in a true Beta, you know the kind where one can post feedback, and sugest changes that are more then cosmetic or extreamly minor.

Your unit creation system sounds a lot like what Elemental (by Stardock) is doing

http://elementalgame.com/gameplay.asp
and http://forums.elementalgame.com/365950

Your unit creation system sounds a lot like what Elemental (by Stardock) is doing

http://elementalgame.com/gameplay.asp
and http://forums.elementalgame.com/365950

Most publishers are evil, but there are a few exceptions. Stardock is probably the most notable, but Valve is pretty good with Steam. Oddly enough, they run the 2 largest digital distribution platforms. Blizzard used to be in the generally good category, but I doubt they will stay in that category since they sold out.

On a side note, if you want unparralleled input on the development of a new game pre-order Elemental from Stardock and jump in on the beta. It's a multi-phase beta and they are just barely beyond the point where they make sure it doesn't fry your PC. You can actually join the forums even if you aren't in the beta and contribute that way as well. There is currently a spirited discussion on how resources will be accounted for. Right now it ranges from "If you have Iron you can build stuff that requires Iron anywhere" to "Iron from your mines is stored in the city the mine is built in and must be transported to other cities using caravans. Individual equipment can require specific amounts of Iron." It's really interesting seeing these decisions be made.

Link: http://forums.elementalgame.com/

Bad artwork wasn't really too much of a problem in the old VGA game, but the screenshots have a weird feel to them that I'm not sure I like... The gameplay area looks very cartoony while the UI is very detailed.

You mean this? Working on it.