Warlock 2: the exiled

1 unit / tile?

icarr757_sl said:

1 unit / tile?

Click to expand...

The first one was, so I'd imagine so.

The first one had absolutely awful AI, but the mechanics allowed for crazy overpowered stacking/combos, so it was actually some pretty good fun if you don't mind steamrolling the AI.

I'll probably pick the second one up when it's on special some time, probably not right away, at least until being sick of AOW3, no point in running two games so similar concurrently.

velk_sl said:

I'll probably pick the second one up when it's on special some time, probably not right away, at least until being sick of AOW3, no point in running two games so similar concurrently.

Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat. I plan to play the shit out of AOW3 so it doesn't really leave room for this one. At least not right away.

I played the pre release version for a few hours and I found it a bit dull, the fractured world while an interesting idea wasn't implemented very well; it creates choke points everywhere leading to near complete isolation of competing mages which means you (& the AI mages) end up fighting random wild enemies and quest spawns most of the game instead. There are a lot of spells to research but many of them are gimmicky and go unused most of the time, aside from that they do the usual direct/ae damage, buff/debuff and world manipulation things as needed. My main gripe is that I never felt pressured by my opposite numbers (playing on hard) which is a real problem in a TBS. The difficulty is instead caused by mass monster spawns inside your territory via quests and random events that rampage around your home island and force you to recall units; it just drags the game out and is tedious in general.

As for pros I really liked the unit variety and some of the heroes are pretty impressive; I ended up with a balrog later in the game that raped face and looked impressive while doing it. Capturing unaligned cities are fun as well as you can explore the units of other races; it adds an element of diversity and discovery that I found enjoyable. Apart from that there wasn't much else of note, hopefully the full release will have a solid campaign and some good updates to improve the experience.

Well this released today and from what I have seen of it nothing much has changed from my previous look; random mob spawns and quests like find the spell, slay the undead, kill the dragons still dominate the early game... in the exact same order... every time. Call me crazy but I don't find the appeal of having your direct competition, the opposing great mages, take a back seat to random trash spawns and predictable quests (in exiled mode at least) in a turn based strategy game. Of course you could play the sandbox mode over exiled but it is too much like Warlock 1 for me.

Also there still isn't a campaign for some reason which boggles my mind considering this is supposedly now a retail game that has a campaign & a map button that do nothing. If they intended these features to be mod exclusive then they should provide an in game indicator at the very least despite how lazy it makes Paradox look. This isn't Europa or Crusader Kings, the mechanics that make those games playable and more importantly re playable in a pure sandbox setting are absent and are instead IMO inadequately replaced by flashy spells and fantasy flavor.

Has anyone spent any time with the editor? Maybe its a bit soon, but I can't find much info on it besides a few trailer peeks and almost no reviews of it (the editor).

Game play reviews concur with what you all say. Its a full retail patch more than an expansion/reboot.