Warlock: Master of the Arcane

The Power of Magic

When you study the city construction list, you will immediately notice, how precious are the special map spots, should your town get close to any of them. The Warlock: Master of the Arcane offers you many kinds of such ranging from mineral deposits up to ancient ruins and Mana nodes scattered all over the map. Each of such tiles will provide you with unique buildings, as soon as your settlement expands enough to make this tile workable. More often these structures will give you new bonuses for weapons, armor and experience for the new recruits, but in most cases it is merely a chance to unlock rare new units, which could not be found elsewhere.

All the soldiers and creatures have their basic characteristics: Melee, Ranged and Magical attacks ratios as well as the Resistance to all of those, splitting it into four scores tied to the four main Magical schools: Life, Death, Spirit and Elemental ones. It would be good to be a tank, but without the defensive capabilities such a unit won’t survive for long. Meanwhile, with a large number of different units the developers were trying hard to balance the powers. Now in this game the most efficient army consists of some infantry covered by the archers and mages with the Recon functions moving on to the flying creatures, which could be additionally protected on the high seas by the heavy cannons of Galleons.

The game world of Warlock: Master of the Arcane is dangerous, thanks to the abundance of rampaging neutral monsters having enough intelligence to attack cities and patrol nearby tiles close to their own dens. When they are losing, they prefer to retreat to their homes or run away to heal the wounds. The waters are guarded by Krakens and evil Sea Serpents, which move rapidly and can attack coastal tiles as well, when they have a free time from hardening the life of reckless sailors. After the successful battles your units will gain experience, and you will select new upgrades for them to improve mobility, attack or defense traits and more.

It comes definitely inspired by the ideas of the Civilization series, which not so long ago incorporated ranged attacks allowing a unit to shoot the targets from a distance just like here. Although looting of camps, mage towers and other things to earn various trophies is more related to the Master of Magic concept. Perhaps, someone will be upset, but the developers went away from a separate tactical battles more, focusing more on a Hexagonal Wargame with a heavy sense of a Grand Strategy experience. Just for that here you can’t combine several units in one stack or tile working with them all individually.

Very important would be all the occupied terrain, the proper sequence of orchestrated attacks, the management of reserves and being lucky enough to send wounded to the back lines for recovering. Even without a separate tactical screen there is a lot to like in the Warlock: Master of the Arcane game: most of the time you will have to coordinate the efforts of several armies scattered all around huge maps in various war campaigns, where losing just one precious unit can influence the outcome of your winning strategy. Moreover, considering the improved skills of your seasoned veterans, you wouldn’t want to lose any of them in battles.

There is also a usual pack of Ardanian Gods you can worship getting access to exclusive powerful units and special bonuses. However, improving your relationship with one of the Immortals can make another one upset. The basic Diplomacy features are included too, though you will unlikely use them often, since your rivals seem to be not willing to negotiate. The Soundtrack includes some nice Fairytale melodies, while the lack of critical technical problems is even more pleasing, although the balance of power might still receive some future adjustments.

So far, fighting the spellcasters is the most difficult thing, while the AI rivals rely a lot on protecting their borders with shooting Forts and Towers. The defensive element in the Warlock: Master of the Arcane strategy title means a lot for the gameplay providing you with more time to muster your army and repel the invaders. Graphically, you have limited control over changing the scale, but, basically, it all looks just as it is seen at the Screenshots, which you can find in our Gallery at the Game’s Page here, when clicking an appropriate Tab above. The animation for monsters looks very nice being funny at times marking the unique Majesty branded style of humor.

For now, the Multiplayer got lost somewhere, but let us not rush with the conclusions here, because it has the much needed potential, and the question only remains with how it can look inside this concept, and when it will be added by the Russian developers from the Ino-Co Plus studio.

GameScope Expectations

Warlock: Master of the Arcane is aimed at all the fans of the Turn-Based gameplay in a Fantasy setting. Working with an already well-known material, the authors mixed the best ideas in the right proportions, while not forgetting to add something new and stay true to the core Ardanian values. Our last game session for this title ended with Dawn of the new day, and that means much for us, since previously we encountered such an experience only with the Civilization and Total War (2000-2012) games.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane

• Epic battles with large armies of Warlock: Master of the Arcane marching across the land;

• Use the forces of three races, along with summons and wild creatures including greater variety;

• Innovating city management system with less routine actions in Warlock: Master of the Arcane;

• Research and master dozens of spells, conjure strong enchantments and find out powerful spell combinations.