Amazing Game, 100% worth the money, specially the dremer expansion!

Crappy civ like game with bad optimization, medicore graphics, shallow as hell diplomacy, and a lot of wasted potential.

Warlock - Master of the Arcane is mostly a fantasy army strategy game. The city/empire building management isn't the stand out portion of the game. In that respect the magical spells that you can research and cast don't really stand out to me much either.

If you are looking for a fantasy version of Civ with decent combat options for units and don't really care about the building and management of your empire then this game might be right up your alley. If you are looking for an in-depth strategy game with far reaching diplomacy options and deep empire management and combat isn't your primary concern then maybe this isn't the game for you.

NOTE: Since people will see this game and say: "this looks like Civilization 5." I will say it right now that the only similarity between this game and Civilization 5 are the Hexagon Based Grid Map, Leadership Choice and User Interface (UI). Everything else is completely different.

INTRODUCTION:
Warlock: Master of the Arcane, despite sharing the same look as the more popular Civilization series, is definitely NOT the same game. Warlock: Master of the Arcane plays differently with its own mechanic that delivers a lot of fun to strategy and fantasy world players alike.

It is an X4 Strategy game originally released in 2012. It lets the player take the role of one of several 'Great Mages' who vie for control of the world of Ardania (from the Majesty Series of games) using vast armies and mighty spells to aid them in their struggle.

PROS:
+ Fantasy Theme: -This game places you in a fantasy world populated by different mystic and magical creatures. Raise an empire of the Undead, Monsters, Humans or Elves and utilize a wide variety of magical spells to buff your forces or smite your foes.

+ Combat Focused Gameplay: -The Empire building on this game is based primarily on combat, fighting with the other factions and the different monsters that constantly threaten your borders. It delivers a very satisfying gameplay since most Magical Spells will make for some very interesting strategy. (Ex. Having problem crossing that lake? = Waterwalk.)

+ Extensive Upgrades: - Each military unit has so many upgrade choices each time they level-up that once they reach max level, they can be called Hero units in their own right. Add to this your Tech upgrades and Spell buffs, then you will have beast of an army.

+ Epic World: -The game offers your standard Small, Medium, Large and Huge map sizes but it also allows you to add more 'Worlds' that you can invade. Just look for the portal that goes there and fight extremely dangerous monsters inside before reaping the rewards.

CONS:
- No Vsync: -This is inexcusable. The game suffers greatly from Screen Tearing and yet the options menu offers no Vertical Synchronization option to mitigate this. The player will be forced to use manual Vsync provided by the Nvidia Control Panel (or its AMD equivalent).

- Brain-Dead AI: -The AI really needs some more work to be done. I have seen the AI countless of times mobilize for an invasion, only to cancel it the last moment and just have its army run around in circles rather than coordinate a proper attack. The monsters roaming the country side poses more of a threat than the Faction AI. (It might be different on Hard or Impossible)

- Lack of Variety: -There are 16 different Great Mages you can play OR your own Custom Mage, but the bonuses or faction specialty is so negligible that it almost makes no difference. Add to this, there are only THREE, playable starting races in the game.

- Poor Research Tree: -Instead of Tech, you research Spells, which is good, but there is no Research Tree available. as far as I know, the game randomly generates 5 spells and will require the player to choose one of those spells to research.

CONCLUSION:
In its own rights, Warlock: Master of the Arcane is a very refreshing take on the 4X Turn-based Strategy Genre. I definitely feel this game deserve your attention if you are a 4X or Strategy fan in general. It provides a fun and enjoyable experience.

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Civilization + Age of Wonders mash-up with magicks, mystical beasts and various races!


PRO:

+Surprisingly well done round based strategy game with interesting races and ressources
+ Level up your troops with important skills! Build smithies and supply your troops with weaponry and armor upgrades!
+ Hire heroes, equip them with weapons/armor/wands depending on their class to pimp their combat/spell-capabilities!
+ Research and cast awesome spells reminiscient of Age of Wonders that greatly impact combat and economics!
+ Modify map tiles to change their bonus ressource output, sink islands to drown troops or create hills to give combat benefits!
+ Races all have greatly differing play styles!
+ Pick a Lord(Avatar) and personalize your starting spells and skills!
+ Multiple planes of existence work seamlessly!
+ Finish little quests to boost your finances, defeat "barbarian"-style beasts and loot their lairs for XP and artifacts!
+ Multi-Player has bots!


CON:

- No Single-Player Campaign! Only "Skirmish"-esque maps with default bots for solo play!
- Gameplay will get repetetive after 3 rounds
- Multi-Player is not simultaneous, you have to wait for others to finish their turn before you can act...
- Races are not equally newbeginner-friendly
- Tech trees not available ingame, google for them/ninja them from the game's webpage
- A lot of content splintered over DLC in an attempt to make the Ultimate Edition more attractive
- "Barbarians" spawning in regularly can become a nuisance later...

DLC WORTH THE CASH?

Only if you can get the Ultimate Edition cheap, the items and Elf race are worth it to enhance the experience!



Recommended purchase if at 10-15 bucks, improve replayability with DLC and multi-player!

Great game! While you get the feel of Civ 5 with the grid layout, the comparison ends there. The focus of the game is combat and everything you do is related to this. I love how the city management is focused. You can't build every single building in every city you build. You have to focus on which resource your city with produce. And this can change depend on which resource tiles you have in your city limits. This game has hooked me better than both Civ 4 and 5 did. The low price is also a big +.

Warlock is a turn-based strategy game similar to Civilization series with a fantastic world view, full of sorcerers, elves, orcs and legendary creatures. In a nutshell, it is the fantasy version of Civilization but a bit simpler and easier. The player plays the role of a mighty mage, ordering your people to build cities, construct facilities and recruit army to expand your territory. Just like Civilization series, there are many different routes to achieve victory. The player can occupy a specified portion of the world, cast an ultimate unity spell, or conquer all of the other mages to win this game.
But There still are some fine features makes it pretty different from Civilization. Firstly, the player study powerful spells in this game instead of technology in Civilization. And differing from other magical games, the player can not only cast combat and healing spells, but also many powerful auxiliary spells to raise the land up beyond the sea level or fertilize the land. Besides, the combat unit the player can recruit needs a upkeep expense, thus limiting the number of army to smaller scale. This mechanism save me much time in mid to latter stage of gameplay. Also from time to time some legendary heroes with special ability might come to seek the opportunity of servicing you, though the expense of hire and upkeep is amazingly huge. They might also turn to service other mages and become your nightmare if you decide not to hire them. And don't forget that you are a mighty mage. You can cast powerful spells to interfere the war when your troop are engaging your rivals on the frontline.
Anyhow, if you don't have much time to play a whole campaign in other grand strategy games like Civilization and don't want the gameplay to be as complicated as Civilization series, Warlock might be a good choice then.

I got this game free from the Humble Store and this are my first impressions after completing an 5 hours Skirmish match.

-There is no campaign, you have only the skirmish mode which you can play offline or in multiplayer.

-You get really fast into the game since there are not much ressources and the buildings are pretty much self-explanatory.

-Normal units get pretty fast useless when high-lvl heroes appear on the battlefield, since they casually oneshot entire unitgroups with one attack when they are highlvl.

-Defending and attacking castles/citys feels cool and not too hard.

-The AI is really acting "nice". The AI doesn`t send 781 drones into every corner of the map and is building expansions until you give up because the game would take 2 weeks to finish. They try to handle the threats on their own continents, isles and barely explore other continents with ships.

- The diplomacy system sometimes doesnt make any sense, they declare you war for no reason or want incredibly stupid high tributes from you to stay in peace.

- The graphic looks beautiful and is definetly to enjoy.


All those impressions were made on normal mode difficulty 3/5.

A few weeks ago I bought Fallen Enchantress...Even if I like the graphics from Fallen Enchantress more, the game couldn`t catch me. I can enjoy Warlock way more, thats why I am going to buy the dlc pack when its on sale.


Peace, Hexor.

I got this game when it was being offered by the Humble Bundle store for free, and it has easily been one of the best free games I've received in the year 2014. A lot of reviews mention this game to be "Sid M's Civilization, but with the fantasy theme," and they are actually pretty accurate.

If you like the Civilization series (especially military victories), 4x games, turn-based strategy, fantasy themes, and disregarding diplomacy, then you should enjoy this game.

The aesthetics are great, and there are a lot of different unit types and character models. The detail put into the "world board" is very good. The music and sounds are great, and the feedback is always helpful in showing stats like how much damage is done and taken by units.

Warlock offers a helpful tutorial for people new to this type of game, however, if you are familiar at all with the Civilization series (or other games in this genre), then this part is easily skippable. Compared to Civilization V, Warlock is much simpler, and also heavily combat-based (as there are no cultural or economic victory routes). The learning curve is minimal to moderate, depending on your experience with turn-based strategies.

The gameplay is very fun - you start off by building something in your home city, and the game does a good job (like in Civ) of prompting/reminding you when you still have tasks to do (like building when your queue is empty, or moving idle units). After you building completes, you must wait x number of turns before you can build again, and this is indicated by a number next to your city name, which fills up each turn. I do not believe there is a "pay gold to rush build (instant-finish)" option.

The diplomacy is actually quite comical, as there is no negotiation ability - if the AI sends you a demand, you have to either accept or immediately go to war. You will probably notice that the AI enjoys making demands then randomly offering peace after a few turns, only to repeat this again and again.

Since the game is heavily combat-oriented, you will be focusing on building an army to destroy your opponents. There are also random creeps that will periodically spawn around the map, so it is essential that you invest in home armies in case one pops up close to your cities. The leveling up system for units is similar to Civ V, where you can choose different stats to increase (or perks) every time a unit reaches a new level (from battling). There is a large variety in the units you can create and the buildings you can construct, When you take over a city, you will have access to that particular race's build tree (ex: goblins, humans, etc).

In the pre-game screen, you can select from existing races, or create your own (you can pick from a pool of magic skills and perks like extra gold per turn).

Periodically, hero mercenaries will come, offering their service. They are very important, and boost your army strength considerably. Also, traders will come, offerring items that can be equipped by mercenary heroes. Consider investing in both of these whenever you have sufficient gold reserves.

Magic spells are helpful for winning the game, but not essential if you strengthen your stats in other things, like having a massive army, or a very high-level one. Spells include things like offensive attacks, heals (one merc hero has long range attacks AND heal spells; my personal favorite), summoning different units, and map alterations. Something fun to do to your enemy is to turn all of his city tiles to frozen plains or mountains.

Overall, the game is very, very fun, and it is easy to get into the "one more turn" mentality that results in you playing for 5 more hours when you originally told yourself you would only play for 1. If you like fantasy turn-based games similar to the Civilization series, give this game a try.

Highly recommend!

Cheers,
DJSF @DJSF's Rogue Reviews

Essentially the fantasy version of Civilizations, Warlock is a game that is easy - and criminal - to overlook. Possessed by a surprising levity to match itself with the common run of modern fantasy parodies, but not nearly as overbearing about it as most, Warlock is a game of many subtle pleasures and joys. The interface is more accessible than Civ, there is virtually no micromanagement, and there are very few turns of empty waiting for researches to complete or diplomatic tensions to crumble: the world is always larger than it seems and there are always scarier monsters lurking in the wings, protecting prime real estate for colonization. I have no qualms about calling it the most exciting, entertaining, and most streamlined turn-based strategy game I have ever played. It lacks some of the sophistication and depth of Civ or the Total War franchise, but it makes up for it in sheer playability.