Lords of Magic begins with a promising premise, the struggle for primacy between eight different religions on the fantasy world of Urak. These religions differ little from one another, and play relies on the fantasy standbys of the four elements, plus life, death, order and chaos. Nonetheless, it's a plus that religion, a dominant theme of history, makes an appearance in a game. Building up resources allows you to develop bigger and better armies and research bigger and better spells. Lords of Magic adds the interesting element of a quest, a factor that spices the fantasy flavor and helps keep the game from bogging down into bureaucratic micro-management, often the death of games of this type.
Atactical level is incorporated via combat, which operates rather like a poor man's Myth.
But Lords of Magic, in attempting to do many things, ends up doing none particularly well. The story and setting are mundane, the strategy involves more management than generalship, and, just like Myth, your tactical combat units are too stupid to be allowed to fight without close oversight. I hope a fantasy game developer someday will analyze what makes a game strategic, then put the focus on how combat resources are used instead of how they are constructed. Lords of Magic, with its wealth of detail, will reward the patient player who wants to delve deeply into a fantasy game. But those gamers hoping for a big step beyond Fantasy General must continue to wait.