Like Master of Magic, WoM also keeps all the original fantasy/strategy basics:
pick up number of planes (Prime and Mirran were in MoM, there are 7 now in WoM: Prime, Water, Fire, Earth, Air, Shadow, Paradise)
Select the size of the planes (the largest possible world is incredibly huge. Best to give maximum exploration joy)
In MoM one could select power of nodes, in WoM you can also select the density of neutral cities, features (nodes, shrines, ruins..) and resources.
In addition also choose land mass % (30, 50, 70%) and type (islands... Pangaea)
By selecting a race you may with many other attributes also impact starting world (Unhallowed start on Shadow, Gray Elves on Paradise, High Men on Prime, Draconians on Air). Differences between races are common to those in MoM or other similar games: fast development vs high production vs power/mana vs powerful units... you can never have it all, so choose wisely.
Should the mentioned units of your selected race be not strong enough, fill you ranks with summoned/magical units. In contrary to MoM, these may gain XP, also reduce Unrest in cities.
Think about this when selecting your Sorcerer Lord (SL) -> as in WoM there are much more options.
12 magic circles (6 basic + 6 metacircles)
Disciplines are now as positive so negative, to enlarge your possible selection. When you plan to summon powerful dragons or hydras, choose Summoner (-10% cost of all summons) for example.
The possible combinations are countless... unless you know of exact spell or strategy that is proven as effective, just try your intuition. Of course there are more useless combinations than truly powerful ones, especially when you don't know the true power of some combos. The same army/unit may fail utterly, or win 50 battles in a row with just the right enchantments or supporting spells (damage, debuff/ buff ...)
Everything evolves around cities - main source of power. Of course one needs also food, gold, hapiness (or Unholy energy in case of Unhallowed were selected, very intriguing race indeed. Good job Wastelands Interactive), to keep the empire running. But that was never the goal, was it?
Like in Civilization is "one city challenge" something similar is the goal in WoM. Not that there is such achievement or that you will get extra final score or anything. The point is to survive and prevail in this huge, chaotic and open world. Doing so with limitless resources is boring. But succeeding with the lowest possible investment is the most satisfying goal game like this can provide. In many other 4x games, the power of your Empire/army/armies was usually logarithmic... it of course kept all in balance, but become boring in time. While in WoM you can exploit the right selected magic+race+army combo with the right resources/magical items... on smaller maps you can achieve victory before turn 40 or die as well. Do it right and all the defeats you had to bear will multiply your victory satisfaction and happiness.
Or are you true strategist, a genius, Julius Caeser of 21st century? You will probably win on your first trial. Even better, increase the difficulty, select the most difficult spells and race. You can try to start on most unfriendly plane for all living races (Shadow), where you have to purify each tile before your cities can use it. Still most resources would not only be useless, but some will even increase your unrest.
Each of the basic 6 magical circles have 40+ spells. But during combat you can cast always only one/turn. Learn if some of your units can cast magic by themselves. Find out which units cast the best spells and combine.
Like in MoM, fast movement on the strategic map was the key. Especially when you needed to capture enemy's Tower. In Most cases the safest/fasted way was to send your best equipped heroes. In WoM you can replace your heroes with powerful units. I mentioned exploit few rows above. One of many is to combine one Tier 1 (basic/weakest) unit of Dark Elves with few spells, and unless facing truly much stronger enemy, this unit will become unstoppable. Although this will bring victory only on small worlds, on Huge or Colossal worlds this will give you the advantage you need.
As per build 1.0.12, there are still few bugs, but none I have encountered could be considered game-crashing. There are also few tweaks expected. But overall, the game can be played and completed by any possible combination of spells/strategy you will choose.
Should you own this game sooner or later, or you are still considering. For more info refer to:
http://wastelands-interactive.com/Worlds_of_Magic_Manual.pdf
or (for spells, units/races, item crafting, unit/hero skills...)
http://wastelands-interactive.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page