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Mayhem Studios' upcoming RPG puts you in the shoes of Artemian, a wizard journeying to the city of Ishapur.

Get ready to enter the Empire of Magic. It’s just to the West of the Empire of the Sun and South of the Lost Kingdom. Actually, it’s a new turn-based strategy from Slovakia’s Mayhem Studios that’s knee-deep in RPG elements.

Empire of Magic (published by Summitsoft) puts you in the role of Artemian, a minor wizard journeying to the city of Ishapur. Mysteries and subplots ensue. And ensue, and ensue, and ensue. In fact, one of the features Mayhem put in is randomized subquests that’ll keep players going like the Energizer bunny.

Mayhem offers more than 80 different units and more than 120 spells for the game’s heroes – and it’s with spells that the hero units will earn their keep. Hence the “magic” in the name.

Units gain experience along the way and your heroes can beef up their spellbooks. Combined with the storyline, Empire of Magic aims to deliver a robust RPG experience amid strategic battles.

Empire’s strategic elements, though, aren’t the traditional fare you’d find in your favorite classic wargames. Starting out with a top-down view, it only allows units to stack three deep. When you engage in fights, the game switches from the 2D sprites you use on the map to an isometric 3D perspective for small-scale combat.

Because of the short stacks, enemy AI (which Mayhem touts as being “fair” and not able to “cheat”) can and will key in on the weakest member of a given group. The only drawback to that is the main character is a mage, and any D&D geek worth his salt can tell you that the weakest link in a group is the mage.

Wizards are as tough as the three-day old Corn Pops still sitting in the bowl of milk you haven’t bothered to clean up yet.

Empire of Magic is scheduled for an April release.

Preview by Jason Scavone.