| Title | Warlock: Master of the Arcane is down with QQP |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Game reviews |
| When | May 14, 2012 |
You have to come to Warlock on its own terms rather than holding against it that it looks like Civ V. This isn't an epic strategy game in the traditional sense of the genre, where you build farms on plains and mines on hills and watch the cities grow accordingly..
Read the full articleIs this the game Bill was on about in that silly Julian Sands episode of Jumping the Shark?
Julian Sands is deadly serious.
Whoa, someone else remembers QQP! I had a lot of fun with Grandest Fleet and Perfect General 2 while growing up.
Great Review Mr. Chick. I think you've assigned the perfect score. I've been having a lot of fun with Warlock but my main point of contention is diplomacy. It's just pointless. You meet an opponent, wait a few turns, opponent asks for money and you only option is to accept it or go to war. As you're about to destroy their capital they offer you money and mana for peace (haha, should have thought of that before trying to extort me).
Anyway, if they just removed the diplomacy option and gave you a 10 turn grace period before you go to war with an opponent it'd be fine.
What? You're crazy. He's a hoot in Boxing Helena.
I couldn't believe Brandon and Todd had no idea who he was. Philistines.
Don't forget Conquered Kingdoms! That was their fantasy themed game, which I think came after Perfect General and Lost Admiral.
The diplomacy is a bit weird, but I've played games were I kept someone off my back the entire time and basically had a safe border going once an alliance was formed. In fact, I've had games where everyone allied with me and I was just hanging fire on my way to one of the victory conditions!
I've only just started playing Warlock and it makes a descent first impression. I started on challenging since many people have said it is pretty easy on the forums. While I haven't been threatened, I am having a hard time navigating a choke point and taking two of the AI's cities. My gut tells me that it needs the variety of factions that Conquest of Elysium 3 has to have long term replay-ability. That would be a holy alliance, the variety of factions from CoE3 with Warlock's streamlined city management and focus on combat. CoE3's hands off combat just didn't leave enough meat on the proverbial bone, but if a Unity spell was cast combining CoE3 with Warlock, that would most likely be a magical union.
Heh, the Unity spell would also have to combine Conquest's imagination with Warlock's production values!
I gathered you enjoyed this from both your first impression and review. Is there any chance you might still be playing or at least dabbling in Warlock : Master of the Arcane should the developer release an AI or multiplayer patch?
That alliance would be incredible.
You're telling me. I can understand youngsters being ignorant to the brilliance of Julian Sands but Brandon is my age (40) and Todd only a few years younger. How's that possible?
I believe it is five from looking in the review section. I think I like the star system better (if you must have a rating system), but without 1/2 stars, I think the gulf between three and four stars is perceived as larger than is usually intended. Especially in this case when Tom's review is a generally a positive 3 Star review while I have read 3 star reviews elsewhere that are just lukewarm on the game being reviewed.
Oh, I'll definitely keep up with this one as it gets patched. I'm particularly looking forward to whatever plans they have for multiplayer.
Dan, sorry if that's not clear. We're a 1-5 star scale. I have a link at the bottom of every page to a brief explanation of the ratings:
Thanks for mentioning this, Tyler. 3 out of 5 stars is not the equivalent of the 60% many sites use to punish a game. To my mind, 3 stars is still a thumbs up.
Oh my god. How badly do they need to do a new version of Lost Admiral?
SO BADLY
Here's what I've been running into.
AI: Good tactically, poor strategically. I never see them taking advantage of metal upgrades for armor or weapons. I never see them get naval or siege units. I never see them specialize their cities as they go hodge podge with all of them.
The pocket dimensions: They just seem totally pointless. If you're strong enough to defeat the monsters there, you're strong enough to wipe out all the AI players a dozen times over.