It’s Civilization, But With More Fireballs | Warlock 2: The Exiled Review

<p>As a long time strategy fan&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ve always had  a soft spot for the 4X sub genre&period; From <em>Heroes of Might<&sol;em> and <em>Magic<&sol;em> to the <em>Total War<&sol;em> franchise&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ve lost countless hours of my life growing virtual empires&period; Recent years have seen this genre grow in popularity and Steam has been flooded with a whole variety of such titles&period; Leading the charge is Paradox Interactive&comma; a Swedish publisher who specialises in grand strategy titles&period; The company has already found success with <em>Crusader Kings<&sol;em>&comma; <em>Europa Universalis<&sol;em> and <em>Hearts of Iron&comma;<&sol;em> so where  does this new title fit in&quest; After their many historical titles&comma; Paradox moved into the realm of fantasy strategy with 2012&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Warlock&colon; Master of the Arcane<&sol;em>&period; Created by the Russian studio Ino-Co Plus&comma; the original developers are now back with their follow up&comma; <em>Warlock 2&colon; The Exiled<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For newcomers to the franchise&comma; <em>Warlock 2<&sol;em> succeeds where other strategy games fail in that it never feels too overwhelming&period; The tutorial teaches you as you play&comma; meaning that players can learn the game&&num;8217&semi;s various interconnected mechanics without becoming bored&period; A handy reminder system keeps you informed of all the different tasks to perform each turn which is incredibly helpful early on&period; Unfortunately this good work is somewhat let down by  a poor UI&period; In an effort to keep the screen as uncluttered as possible &comma; Ino-Co Plus hides a lot of the games options behind  clickable icons that are quite small and can go unnoticed&period; This is a shame as for the most part the game does an excellent job of introducing players to the series&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;61159" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-61159" style&equals;"width&colon; 750px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05111224&sol;exiled-2&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-61159" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05111224&sol;exiled-2-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Flying units such as Ghost Ships or Rainbow Dragons are out of reach for most melee units" width&equals;"750" height&equals;"421" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-61159" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Flying units such as Ghost Ships or Rainbow Dragons are out of reach for most melee units<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>It is a different story for <em>Warlock<&sol;em> veterans&period; When this game was first announced&comma; many fans were worried that with less than two years of development time that The Exiled would be more of an overpriced  expansion pack than a fully fledged sequel&period; In some ways their fears are not unfounded&period; <em>Warlock 2<&sol;em> looks and plays very much like its predecessor&period; You gather resources&comma; mange cities and build up your armies in order to expand your empire and crush the opposition&period; It does have a couple of new factions in the form of the Svarts and the Planestriders and it has a new campaign mode but these could easily have been added via an expansion DLC&period; The other changes are mostly minor adjustments to the game&&num;8217&semi;s mechanics but they do improve the overall experience&period; Magic research&comma; for example&comma; is now much more focused than before and Spells are now divided into three different  technology trees&colon; Sorcery&comma; Wizardry and Divine&period; You must research a certain number of spells at each stage of the tree to be able to move onto the next one&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>One area that could have done with some more improvements is diplomacy&period; Inhabiting the world with you is a host of different civilisation&comma; led by Great Mages who you can interact with&period; All the basic options are there&comma; from non aggression pacts and alliances to organising trade and making demands&period; What I would liked to have seen are more options&comma; especially when it comes to allies&period; Being able to request that an ally joins you in a war or even being able to give them specific cities that you want them to attack could have added a much needed extra layer of strategy&period; The Great Mages&&num;8217&semi; poor AI is also a big problem as they never seem to be able to make up their mind&period; One of my allies would constantly break our alliance agreement&comma; only to beg for me to restore it 6 or so turns later&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;61160" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-61160" style&equals;"width&colon; 750px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05111215&sol;exiled-3&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-61160" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05111215&sol;exiled-3-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"As units gain experience they can level up and gain new perks " width&equals;"750" height&equals;"421" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-61160" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">As units gain experience they can level up and gain new perks<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>These problems with diplomacy are a shame as <em>The Exiled<&sol;em> campaign as a whole is actually rather good&period; Tasking you with defeating the United One&comma; the campaign guides you through a series of story quests&comma; which sound like they belong more to an RPG game than a strategy one&period; Yet this actually works quite well as it means the game is constantly pushing you forward and giving you a clear path to take&period; In this campaign the map has been divided into various inter-connected shards&comma; each based on a different topographical feature&period; This means that as your empire grows you&&num;8217&semi;ll be discovering whole new worlds&comma; each with its own unique set of resources&comma; terrain&comma; monsters and cities&period; This feature is essential to giving the game that addictive &&num;8216&semi; just one more turn&&num;8217&semi; quality that has often kept me playing into the early hours of the morning&period; Capturing cities of different civilisations grants you access to a whole new building tree along with new units and upgrades&comma; which ensures that your army will be constantly evolving and changing&period; The side quest system&comma; which offers new and different challenges to the main storyline&comma; is also instrumental at keeping the game feel fresh&comma; even towards the end of the <em>Exiled<&sol;em> campaign&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For those who feel that this story based approach would make the game too linear&comma; a sandbox mode has also been included that allows fans to build the exact campaign they want&period; The degree of customisation options for each campaign is staggering&period; Everything from the design of the world to the opposition you&&num;8217&semi;ll be facing can be tailored to your exact wants&period; The game also comes with an in-depth editor to allow players to change almost any aspect about the game and even create their own scenarios and quests&period;  These options help the game enormously as it adds a great deal of replay value&comma; not only to the single player but to multiplayer as well&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;60599" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-60599" style&equals;"width&colon; 750px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114526&sol;Warlock-2-04&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"wp-image-60599 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114526&sol;Warlock-2-04-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Warlock-2-04" width&equals;"750" height&equals;"421" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-60599" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">City management is an essential aspect of Warlock 2<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Warlock 2<&sol;em> is at its best when it revels in its fantastical&comma; nonsensical setting&period; As well as the traditional elves&comma; dragons and skeletal warriors&comma; I also came across giant turtles and a vicious swarm of mosquitoes that could kill my bets unit in one hit&period; There is a huge number of spells to cast that range from summoning a pack of imps to unleashing Armageddon&comma; resulting in some truly insane battles&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s also a good deal of humour to the game&comma; complete with an announcer who does a rather poor Sean Connery impression and the obligatory Monty Python references&period; I would recommend the game to any 4X or grand strategy fan&comma; although owners of the original may find the lack of new content to be disappointing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;