I haven't played much, about forty minutes or so of a game. I'm enjoying it, but it does still have things that need to be ironed out. Unit movement and selecting units still feels weird. Everything's done with left click and right brings up info. Still bugs me.

The biggest that is somewhat annoying is the game spawns a lot of neutral cities but spawned them in this game within about two/three squares of portals or holy grounds. Which house Elementals with 40/60 health and 18 or more strength. So while you're trying to sack a city you're constantly trying to avoid being within eye sight of those elementals who'll swoop down and kill all your units.

It's clearly a combat orientated game though. Even if you don't go after the AI, there's so many neutral cities and no penalties for having a large empire that you'll constantly be attacking this or attacking that. There's no incentive to play a peaceful game in this it seems. That may change over time though.

I think if people want a more diplomatic game then Crusader Kings 2 might be for them - far more options on the diplomacy front than most turn based strategy games (were in general diplomacy is fairly simplistic and normally a case of just fending off people until you're strong enough to crush them ;)).


Thus far I'd say I like having to be a be careful around neutral settlements - although I've seen the AI get beaten by them - one in my last game was basically living off only 2 settlements because of nearby high level creeps that had distracted it.

The other thing is that the AI isn't all that aggressive - it seems quite happy to be very turtle and rather passive - even when at war I've seen it march units by or retreat from nearly captured cities.

Hopefully the AI is one of those parts that they can continue to work upon in the game. Another thing I'd like to see is more races added over time - with only 3 core races its surprising how fast you can end up running all 3 over your empire - adding in a good half a dozen more would really spice things up a lot (plus it would be neat to have more than just the undead as randoms).

Damn.Forgot about this game.
Anywhere that sells it cheaper than Amazon right now? (shame GOG isnt selling it).

Played for 2-3 hours yesterday, new game on Continents map, human faction, and normal difficulty.
Think my progress is pretty cool. Pretty much took the neutral troll city right at the start, and continued to build another 2 of my own cities around my Capital. Encountered another human mage that was on my left border, he declared war on me shortly after we met, managed to fend off his attacks with a magic tower, archers and warriors. I played around with summons and spells like Firestorm that damaged his whole army around the city. His city was level 10 so I had difficulty with sieging it with just warriors and hunters. But I just kept up with the human waves. Then I finally got mages and Shaman unit which made it slightly easier. Took his city and it turned out he had only 1 city because he was sandwiched by me and another Great Mage.

One of the gods gave me a quest to defeat a neutral hero unit or something, incredibly tough, only managed to defeat them with several warriors, archers, a mage and a Shaman healing. Afterwhich your relationship with the god increases and he gives u a unique spell.

After that I attacked the level 5 neutral Undead City, this time with a Catapult, made things alot easier. Well, that's where I am now in the game. I think I have most of the land on my continent. And the Great Mage beside me is facing me on two fronts though we're stil at peace. I'll continue building up first and hope he isn't too tough. The other Mage is on another island currently with a non-aggression pact.

Not to mention that the "bonus" sountrack is available for 9.99€...

Honnestly, the multiple dlc ( ikea style game if you want ) will be my main reason for not rushing any paradox games purchase anymore. I've learned from my Hearts of Iron III experience. So I keep crusader king II on hold and will only purchase it if they release a complete edition and I will probably add this one to my "patiently waiting" list as well...

Edit : And yes, I know, "buying early is a way to show support to the industry etc.". But in this very case, not buying early is a way not to support commercial practices I do not like ( the in game dlc store of CK2 and the use of steamworks + the probable flow of separate dlcs of Warlock )

I'm waiting for Magna Mundi this year. Originally was a mod for the popular Europa Universalis III. Seems like grander than Warlock. But both are different genre, this is fantasy, Magna is more toward history.

Played two full games already. Very addictive :s

The game is heavily focused around combat and unit upgrades/buffs, which I like, although the economy game of balancing the three resources and specializing towns is fun too. The AI is not all that smart. It tends to favor masses of weak units that repeatedly die to a few sensibly placed, highly upgraded and buffed units. It also sometimes does silly things like build a whole bunch of boats in a totally uninteresting little lake with no way out. Still it's more competent at basic tactics than Civ 5's AI. It does properly pull back wounded units and keep the pressure on with fresh ones. It also tries to focus on a single unit at a time.

My second game was on "challenging" against three AIs. I got a terrible starting position in the middle of all of them. Still I managed to beat all three one at a time although one managed to backstab me and take my food-producing town for a while, so there was a bit of a tense moment when I had to build farms everywhere before all my cities starved. Still, that AI had maybe 100 turns to freely build up while I was dealing with the other two and the most challenging thing it could throw at me was a few groups of dwarves and vampires. The masses of skeletons were easily crushed with any type of fully upgraded medium teir unit.

I agree that the UI needs a bit more work. All leftclick seems error-prone. You can't get rid of a selected spell by right-clicking. Notification icons sometimes stack. Also, it seems you can't destroy a fort/tower since clicking on it selects it for firing. I'd also like buffs and curses to be better visualized, although I understand that's problematic since a unit can easily have 5-10 active spell effects in addition to 10-20 skills and upgrades. A heavily buffed unit can be an order of magnitude stronger than its unbuffed counterpart. Cities suffer from the same problem. I often forgot to dispel curses on my cities, or buff growth etc on important cities.

Complaints aside, it has a very strong "one more turn" feel. I'd say 83/100 with a potential for 87/100 with UI fixes. This is for the single player experience. There is no multiplayer at the moment.