Warlock-Master of the Arcane: Review

Version Reviewed: 1.1.3.27

What I like: Unit perks and leveling, numerous special resources and spells, combat, multiple races.
Not So Much: City management a little too streamlined, some minor UI quirks, a bit easy, end game slog.
Other stuff you may like: Multiplayer in future patch?
The Verdict: B (Good)
About my reviews

Official site: Warlock: Master of the Arcane

Disclaimer: This review is based on a free review copy provided by Paradox Interactive


Introduction

If you’ve played any turn-based 4x strategy game, the following scene will be very familiar. One city, accompanied by a unit or two surrounded by blanket covering the unknown. These are the starting conditions of most games in this genre. For those unfamiliar with 4x strategy games, the game play consists of exploring the unknown to expand your holdings by building cities. Your cities exploit the resources of the land to fuel your war machine so you can exterminate your rivals. Comparisons are unavoidable, especially when looking for material to fill an introduction. Visually, Warlock shares much with Civilization V, but instead of a world filled with people - vampires, dragons, trolls and other mystical creatures share the landscape with humans. Much of the usual management that comprises a typical 4x game has been trimmed or eliminated from Warlock making for a much faster-paced game. Combat is always a major part of 4x games, but Warlock’s focus on battle is even sharper.

Currently the game is single-player only, but I believe multiplayer is planned for a future update. The lack of multiplayer is not a big deal for me, but I’m sure others will be disappointed.

Getting Started

The manual for Warlock is sorely lacking much of the information I expect to be included for a strategy game. There must be some agreement, because the developer also published a beginner’s guide after release. This fills in many of the holes, but there are still some explanations lacking, such as the mechanics of non-aggression pacts. There are also in-game hints that cover some basics which can be turned off once the player is comfortable. Since this is a familiar genre much can be gleaned from the tooltips and some experimentation, but I would have liked to see more comprehensive documentation.

Warlock provides randomly generated worlds to conquer. There isn’t any story-based campaign or handcrafted scenarios to provide specific challenges. While I do enjoy story-based campaigns, this is a $20 game, so labor-intensive extras can’t necessarily be expected. My favorite aspect of 4x games is to start with nothing and make my own way, so Warlock has me covered.

There are 5 different difficulty levels, but anyone with experience in the genre could probably start out at ‘challenging’ - the second hardest level. ‘Normal’ was too easy from the get go. The player can also control how much water and land they want in their world by choosing 1 of 4 world types. I would suggest going with the more land-based options since the AI isn’t always careful enough with their troops when deciding where to invade. There are 4 world sizes available. In general, the larger the world the more time it will take the player to conquer it. In turn, this leads to more time to research spells and get access to upper tier troops. The downside is that the end game can turn into a bit of a slog while working your way to the last enemy’s capital. Up to 8 enemy mages can populate the world, depending on the map size. There are a few other options to help tweak the experience.

Premade mages are available for your in-game persona, each specializing in a different aspect of the game. One mage may excel at providing food, while another can cast spells more rapidly than normal. Mages may also start with some spells in their spell book. The player can create custom mages by using a point-based system to select the desired perks and spells. This is a nice touch to tailor play for your particular style. I suppose the player could also select perks that don’t enhance their style of play for a self inflicted penalty too. There is enough variety in the mage perks and spells to create mages with varied abilities.

Game Play
Warlock is geared for a quicker pace than most 4x games due to streamlined play and rapid build times. In a game such as Civilization, it may take 20+ turns to build a building or recruit a unit. In Warlock these actions typically take between 2 and 5 turns. Whether this is a good thing depends on your preferences. I will highlight some of these aspects later in the review.

Economy

Some say love makes the world go round, but others argue it is the economy. Warlock employs a simple system. If your empire produces enough food, your cities grow at the normal rate. If not, a starvation penalty is applied. As your cities grow in size they consume more food. Food is also used for some units’ upkeep. Any food above and beyond what is needed is sold for cold hard cash. Undead cities don’t require food and aren’t affected by starvation penalties. Flesh to eat is easy to find if you don’t mind feasting on people.

Gold is used to purchase units and pay for some units’ upkeep. Unlike food, you can accumulate gold if more is produced than spent. Mana can be accumulated like gold, and is used to cast spells. More powerful spells typically require more mana. Again, some creatures’ upkeep is paid with mana. The last resource is research, which is used to unlock spells.

The above resources are gained by developing your cities with buildings. One of the simplifications of the Warlock economy is that for the most part it really doesn’t matter where you develop your buildings. A farm built on desert is just as productive as one built on plains. There aren’t any terrain improvements either, such as irrigating a farm. There are features on some hexes that enable a special building to be erected on them. This can add strategic choices to the game because some resources have multiple buildings to develop them. There are other considerations too, such as what hexes should be reserved for defensive towers, and travel is faster on developed hexes within your lands, but the system is simplified. I prefer a little more depth to the economic portion of 4x titles. Buildings can’t be destroyed even though there is reference to such a feature in the manual, so make sure you are happy with your choices. The buildings can be disabled, so the upkeep doesn’t have to be paid for unnecessary buildings.

Cities

Cities are very much a part of the economic model, but I thought they deserve their own mention. Every time a city acquires another 1000 citizens, another building slot becomes available. So while buildings are built rapidly (typically 2-4 turns), there is a limit as to how much can be built. There aren’t ‘productive’ cities that build at faster pace like in Civilization. The build times are standard for each building. City population growth is also standardized and not based on food production. The only way to speed up the population growth is by casting spells on the city

Let’s Get Started

The first 10 turns provide a pretty good opportunity to see many of the mechanics in action. As you can see our starting city (our Capital) is surrounded by unexplored lands. Our first task will be to remove this shroud so we can locate unoccupied land with valuable special resources to exploit. The capital is the most important city because if lost, the game is over for its owner. Once a Warlock is eliminated all of his cities will turn neutral. Once capitals develop they become pretty strong and are not trivial to conquer.

Our units have uncovered some special resources, so I think we have found a good site for our second city. After a city grows it can develop hexes up to 3 hexes away, so these resources are out of reach for our starting city. We have also encountered one of the obstacles to early expansion – monsters that roam the land. Some hexes have lairs - monster generators – that periodically spawn monsters. If a player can move a unit onto the lair they recover some treasure (usually gold or mana) and remove the lair from the map.

Our capital also has an available build slot, so we get to plan how we might develop this city. There is a silver resource north of the city which will provide 1 of 2 benefits depending on which building we choose to build. Currently it is out of our radius, but once our city hits level 5 our radius will expand to 2 hexes in each direction so it doesn’t hurt to consider it for future plans. Many special resources can either provide an economic benefit (generate resources) or provide a perk for our units (such as an improved attack). I selected the Ratsman Guild for my first building since it leads to the tax office which will improve gold generation for my city. Since I have a silver mine by my capital, I may focus it on money generation. The ratsman guild also allows the recruitment of some rat-based units.

We also need to select our first spell to research. Research is handled a little differently in Warlock and is one of the more streamlined elements. 6 spells are randomly selected to occupy our research wheel, each having its own research cost. In general spells get more powerful as spells are researched. Our cities provide research by building particular buildings. As you can see in the above screen shot our capital is generating 5 research points (the books in the top bar).  Once our research is complete, the spell is replaced with another random spell. On the positive side, this randomized spell availability forces the player to adapt while still giving them some control. There isn’t a huge tech tree to memorize because the possibilities are not predictable. I prefer a bit more control and like the typical Civ-style tech tree, but Warlock’s method isn’t without merits. I decided to select the Heal spell to help keep my troops alive. I already have the lesser fireball to inflict damage.

I decided to cast a lesser fireball spell on the spider to weaken it. Each spell has a mana cost and a certain amount of time needed to cast it, expressed in number of turns. Since my mage has the archmage perk he can cast spells 20% faster than other mages. I have the available mana so I hit the spider with 2 lesser fireballs in the same turn. I couldn’t do that without my archmage perk. The spiders don’t have elemental resistance, so my fireball does normal damage.

There are 5 different types of damage and resistances (melee, missile, life, death, spirit and elemental). It pays to try and get favorable match ups where your enemy doesn’t have resistances to your damage type and / or you do have resistances to theirs. Units have several other attributes too; one or more damage types, movement type and speed, hit points, sight range, and upkeep. They may also have special perks or abilities that affect their performance. An important aspect of combat is that a unit’s attack gets scaled by their remaining hit points. A unit at 50% hit points will cause 50% of their normal damage. Also, melee attacks get counter attacked so be prepared to also take some damage on the attack.

Turn 2

My archer finished off the spiders and received 4 experience points for his efforts. Once a unit acquires enough experience, they level up and a perk can be selected. These perks improve some aspect of the unit’s performance, so it pays to keep your units alive. That is why I like to get a healing spell pretty early on if I can. My unit loots the spider hole to eliminate the spider threat and finds some gold for his efforts.

I would really like to build some settlers so I can claim this resource-rich piece of land, but the city needs to grow to size 5 before settlers become available. Requiring a city to be a certain size before producing certain units or buildings is a simple but effective way to throttle back their production in certain areas until they experience enough growth.

After scouting a little bit further south I uncovered a bear. They are susceptible to missile attacks (like all beasts are) so I would like to get my archers in position for attack.

Turn 3

The UI provides some reminders along the lower right side when certain events occur. The top small circle notifies me that my unit recruitment is complete, the 2^nd that I can now build settlers since my city grew to level 5, and finally that I have 3 units to move. You can end a turn at any time by pressing the enter key, so you don’t have to address each alert. My settlers are now in the recruitment queue. Normally I would also be able to start creating a new building since the city grew a level, but the city is still finishing the guild. Build times are only based on the building or unit being constructed. One city isn’t more or less productive than any other. This is one illustration of the simplified city management. There are no workers to improve the terrain or to build a road network between your cities.

I’m going to hold off attacking the bears until next turn so I can weaken them with some fireballs, arrows, and then melee since the bears get a defensive bonus for occupying a hill. My units are also on a hill so they will have some protection if the bear attacks.

Turn 4

The bear did attack my ratmen robbers and scored a critical hit. The manuals don’t give any indication how critical hits are calculated or what the effect is. It’s one of the places the documentation is a bit weak. Critical hits cause more damage, but I have no idea how the frequency of critical hits is determined.

Since my building finished, I can now construct the building I’m entitled to when my capital grew from size 4 to size 5. Notice how the city’s radius is now 2 hexes, so the silver mine can now be developed. The radius will eventually increase to 3 hexes after more growth. There are essentially 5 ways I can improve my capital at the moment:
- Increase its protection by building a fort or tower. These provide a ranged attack from the hex they are built in.
- Increase its money production by building a silver mine, tax office, or craftsmen district.
- Increase the food production by building a farm, pub or granary.
- Provide access to unit perks by building a smithy or silverwork brewery.
- Increase mana production by building a mana trap.

Most buildings can only be built once per city, but towers and some economic ones can be built multiple times in a single city.

Even though I would like to develop the silver mine, I decided to build a pub for food production so I don’t slow down my city’s growth. As you can see in the top bar I only have a small positive net amount of food. I will have a tough choice to make when it comes time to develop the silver mine as I will have to choose between a building that provides more money, or one that provides access to a unit perk.

It would be suicide for the ratmen robbers to attack the bears at this point. Since the ratmen retreated they now occupy the plains and receive an additional uphill attack penalty if they attack the bears on the hills. Some fireballs and an archer attack finish off the bears. Since the bears are dead and the ratmen robbers don’t have any adjacent enemies, they can rest to recover some of their hit points. There are 2 lost caravans on the map now, 1 by the bears and the other several hexes to the left. They are the ‘goodie huts’ of Warlock. Looting them will be my next objective.

Turn 5

Yeah, my settler is produced! Boo I now have negative food production so people are starving. This will be quickly remedied when my pub is built and my settler is used to create a new city. The two looted caravans added some gold and mana to my coffers.

I don’t have as much room to expand as I would like as I found another great mage to the south. I did add one more AI opponent then the default amount for my normal map size, so things are a little more cramped than usual. We start off at peace, but if this is like my other games it won’t be long before he demands resources. I could comply to maintain peace, but I typically opt to destroy him. I could initiate some diplomacy on my own too. The diplomacy options are fairly limited. By fairly, I mean very. On the peaceful side I could gift some mana or gold, or propose a trade if I am short on one. I could also propose a non-aggression pact, but I would have to part with some resources to do so. Mouse over the blue bar to see what is affecting your relationship with the other mage. Relations and diplomacy are only briefly covered in the manual. This area could use much more explanation. From what I have observed, diplomacy is only really used to try and delay the inevitable, war.

Turn 6 & 7

My pub is complete so food production is back to normal. My new friend is sending out a settler, which is definitely going to put a damper on our relations because I feel I have to kill it. My healing spell is also researched and my new option is wind walking, which provides travel benefits. Instead I select the lesser shadow bolt in case my neighbor has units with elemental resistance for my fireball. What is the Boy Scout saying? Be prepared to kill your enemy in as many ways as possible? War is declared and the settler is eliminated. My units back off because I’m not ready to take his capital, which now has 250 hit points. I need more firepower for that, something which gets a bonus to city attacks would help.

Turn 8

My spot for a new city is even better than originally thought. In addition to the magic field and magic nodes, pigs and donkeys will also be in range once the city expands. Resources such as these are always fun to find and develop.

Turn 9 & 10

Finished my research and now lesser heal is available even though I have already researched the more powerful heal spell. I wish the random spells came up in a more logical order sometimes. The less powerful spell uses less mana and heals less, so it can have its uses, but seems backwards to learn after heal. I decide to learn summon imp so I can whip up a unit in a hurry if need be. It’s getting a little crowded with these neutral cities, so I think the one closest to my capital will be the next target. At 50 hit points it shouldn’t be too difficult with the addition of the archers I just produced.

And Now For Something Completely Different…

Well not different at all really. Time to touch on some of the game play not covered above.

Race

Each mage leads one of the 3 races – human, undead, or monster - which determine the available buildings and units in their starting city. Many buildings are common between the races, but each has their own unique ones. The unique buildings allow each race to raise an army different from the others, providing a somewhat different play experience. You can take over other races’ cities by force giving access to those buildings and troops, but resource production will receive a penalty due to the racial tensions. I would have preferred some type of troop penalty too for mixing the races to keep each player more distinct. By the end of the game a player can probably field troops from any of the races which eliminate some of the uniqueness of your starting race.  

Other Worlds

In concept a cool idea - provide portals to other worlds which have powerful creatures and untold riches. The other worlds can provide unique resources to exploit providing some worthwhile benefits. There are some issues with the implementation. First, I haven’t ever felt I needed these resources to defeat my foes. Second, the other worlds have so many strong units inside them that I would need to divert my forces away from the enemy to gain a foothold. So far focusing on the enemy has been a good strategy. Third, I haven’t seen the AI take advantage of the other worlds.

Quests

The game throws frequent quests at the player. Some don’t inflict a penalty for failure, but some do. If the gods offer a quest and you don’t comply, your relation with them suffers. Make them happy and you may receive rewards. The quests are not interesting in and of themselves – kill monster A, build building B, settle a city. The quest system also has some quirks. I received a quest to kill a monster and never did so. I’m assuming an AI player killed it because I eventually got credit for the task.

Spells

I’ve talked about spells and their research, but haven’t covered the variety of spells available. Spells are a nice mixture of direct attack, unit buffs and curses, city buffs and curses, etc. There are over 50 spells to research and have a significant effect on the game. Spell cast times keep magic from getting too crazy.

Victory Conditons

There are several ways a warlock can defeat his rivals. Probably the most common method is to kill them all! So far all of my victories have been acquired with this method. The second way is called domination and involves seizing the majority of the holy grounds – a special resource where a temple can be built. The third involves researching the Unity spell and casting it. Researching the Unity spell can be started only after researching the other 50+ spells and then takes another 10-20 turns to cast. During this time the casting can be interrupted if a rival mage casts a relatively cheap counter spell. This makes it a tough way to win, but I did lose this way for my first loss. I never researched the counter spell and couldn’t conquer his capital fast enough. The last way is to anger a god enough so he sends down his avatar to squash your mortal being. If you can defeat this avatar, you win. I haven’t ever angered a god enough to see what this is like.

The AI & Difficulty

I found the difficulty setting needs to be set to at least challenging (second hardest) to well, get a challenge. I may need to try the hardest setting. I haven’t seen a lot of absolutely dumb moves by the AI, so I’m not sure where the problem lies. The AI pulls back units to heal, blasts you with appropriate spells and can protect his cities well with towers. The biggest failure I have seen is when the AI relentlessly makes aquatic assaults into areas protected with towers. It occasionally passes up on a target of opportunity too.

Graphics and Sound

I find the game to be attractive, but readers can decide for themselves with all of the screenshots. It can be difficult to distinguish similar looking units when zoomed out, but tooltips help in that regard. The terrain is attractive and identifiable. Music and effects are appropriate.

Technical Performance

I didn’t have any performance issues, but experienced some minor bugs. The mini map sometimes remains black, but other times it works. You can see this in my screen shots. The early ones are black, but start working towards the bottom. I don’t recall if they started working when I restarted Warlock. There were times the interface didn’t properly reflect the correct information. During setup, I had the AI opponents set to 4, but the text still stated 3. When I disabled building within my city, the display of the amount of resources produced got out of sync and didn’t reflect the proper values.

My Specs: Windows 7 64-bit. Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80 GHz. 8 Gig RAM. ATI Radeon HD 5850.

In The End...

Warlock: Master of the Arcane is a wordy title to a worthwhile game. Those looking for a more combat oriented 4x title will appreciate the streamlined city management and research while those looking for something a bit more meaty may find Warlock a bit light. I tend to like a bit meaty, but still found Warlock fun. Magic has a significant impact on play and gives the game much of its flavor. The variety of unit perks, both from leveling up and special buildings lets the player have a significant effect on how his units perform. In my opinion, combat is more enjoyable in Warlock than in Civilization 5, but I do enjoy the greater number of options in Civ when it comes to managing my empire. Warlock also does a better job at managing its troops.

All isn’t rosey. So far the game is a little easy. Some units and skills seem over powered - the vampire ability (absorb health with attack) let me create a killing machine. The other worlds don’t have the impact they should for reasons I mention elsewhere. As I mentioned, the documentation can still be improved, even after adding the beginners guide. A strategy game should really take the time to explain the mechanics.  The player can reduce the end game slog by choosing a smaller map, but this is at the cost of researching less and getting less access to higher tier units.

The developer has shown an interest in improving the title with several patches, so I am hopeful it will continue to be improved. The recent DLC shows work is still being done on the product. For $20 you get quite a bit of game even if it doesn’t have the legs of some other 4x titles. Hopefully some expansions will take the game to the next level.

Score: B (Good)