Once, some time ago (but still after the release of 0.63), I spent some time fiddling around with DOSbox and succeeded in getting Master of Magic to run. It was slow - no more than about two-thirds of the expected speed, which is too slow to really have fun with - but other than that, unless my memory is failing me even more than it usually does, it worked just fine.

Nowadays, I track DOSbox CVS, when I need to run DOS programs at all. Master of Magic still runs fine, up until the point at which it tries to load the actual game-play world map (either loading a saved game or starting a new game); at that point, it hangs for an extended period, then fails with "CPU:GRP5:Illegal Call 7". I understand that this message most likely means that there is something going on which DOSbox doesn't support, but that seems like an odd thing to be happening in this case, since the game did once run without problems other than speed - and since the game appears to work well for other people, since it's listed as "supported" in no fewer than three entries in the game database.

In my attempts to get the game working properly again, I've gone so far as to revert to earlier versions of DOSbox (0.63 and various CVS versions) - and, much to my surprise, they now produce the exact same error as the current CVS version does. This leads me to suspect that the difference is something which has changed on my system, rather than something which has changed in DOSbox, but I'm not sure what it could be.

(For the record, I have gone through the archives of this forum, and have read some of the responses made to other people who have posted about the same error message in various other programs. The only thing I've seen suggested as a possible solution is loadfix; when I try that, if I tie up less than a certain amount of memory there is no change, and if I tie up more than that amount then the game fails immediately with an "insufficient memory" error. Also, on a vague memory of when the game worked before, I have gone in and turned off all sound in the game's configuration program; doing so produced no change, it still failed in the same place with the same error.)

I'm running Linux, with an Athlon XP 2200+ CPU, 512MP of PC3200 RAM, sound card built in to the motherboard (and has produced sound just fine in DOSbox in the past IIRC), GeForce FX 5200 128MB, and the version of Master of Magic which gets installed directly from the CD (I don't remember where to look to find the exact version number). If more information is needed, I'd be glad to provide it.