Warlock Released

[Tpek]

Well, taking out creep-lairs and minor cities has really forced me to expand A LOT, and now I am fighting huge amounts of ever spawning monsters :P
Also, met my first victim...errr... fellow mage, Rjakh the faceless idiot. He was wise enough to automatically sign a non-aggression pact with me so I could focus on him later.
Still "2" more AI mages remaining (early on though I received a message that rat looking mage got himself thrashed, probably by creeps).

What difficulty level are you playing?

Relaxed  ::)

[son_of_montfort]

Three things that have frustrated me about the game.  1.  The incredibly long load times with just a black screen when firing up the game and 2.  I have to start the game twice every single time, because the first load I get the mouse does nothing issue and need the second one apparently to have my mouse work, which of course leads to 3. see number 1.

I haven't had either of these experiences. Weird.

[Barthheart]

Three things that have frustrated me about the game.  1.  The incredibly long load times with just a black screen when firing up the game and 2.  I have to start the game twice every single time, because the first load I get the mouse does nothing issue and need the second one apparently to have my mouse work, which of course leads to 3. see number 1.

I haven't had either of these experiences. Weird.

Me either.... game boots up quick and runs smooth as glass...

[JasonPratt]

James gave it a 6/8, and that being a pre-release review copy with my impression being the biggest complaint was about the economy & diplo being too easy/simple.  And notably that spamming extra cities has no restrictions, extra costs, or penalties.

If it has some punishing upkeep costs, then I'd probably consider that a good thing.

I've been keeping track of the Warlock discussion page at Wargamer, and people have said that there are in fact restrictions to city building: can't build too many close to one another (although still enough for some people to mention spamming cities to protect a resource point), popcap has to increase for new buildings, buildings do require upkeep.

I was worried about new buildings costing no initial gold, too, and moreso about just spamming cities, but in practice this doesn't seem to be as much of a problem.

Anyone actually playing it want to chime in on that?

[Barthheart]

Only played a short while but so far I have no problem spamming cities. The population growth for new buildings is on a per city basis. You don't have to build more building in a city if you don't want, just build on resources/specials. Food might be come a problem but haven't played long enough to tell yet.

The diplomacy is the weakest thing to me so far. Three choices, non-agression which I haven't had anyone accept yet, demand/give gold, demand give mana(I think that's the third). But again just very early in the game.

[Nefaro]

Yep, there is no building spam as they are regulated by population advancement in each city.

Spamming cities is limited to distance from other nearby cities and they can't be placed in the lava flow hexes (or mountains of course).  You can still somewhat spam settlers but there's only so much space. 

I'm not sure if knocking off one level's worth of population growth, from a city that creates setters, is going to change things much if it's in effect for all sides.  That's probably their thinking, too.

[LongBlade]

James gave it a 6/8, and that being a pre-release review copy with my impression being the biggest complaint was about the economy & diplo being too easy/simple.  And notably that spamming extra cities has no restrictions, extra costs, or penalties.

If it has some punishing upkeep costs, then I'd probably consider that a good thing.

I've been keeping track of the Warlock discussion page at Wargamer, and people have said that there are in fact restrictions to city building: can't build too many close to one another (although still enough for some people to mention spamming cities to protect a resource point), popcap has to increase for new buildings, buildings do require upkeep.

I was worried about new buildings costing no initial gold, too, and moreso about just spamming cities, but in practice this doesn't seem to be as much of a problem.

Anyone actually playing it want to chime in on that?

I'll add to that. I have no idea what they mean by "building spam." As both Barth and Nefaro noted, city infrastructure is regulated by population. I haven't figured out exactly what inputs there are to city creation, but in the first 100 turns of the game bringing in extra buildings is somewhat rare. Toward turn 150 I found that, with good attention paid to shepherding all resources, I had a couple of buildings to create each turn. Keep in mind I probably had well over a dozen cities by that point.

There is some spacing restriction - you must send settlers at least two hexes away from the nearest friendly border to found a new city, and the land must be favorable.

Now the AI will evenly space its cities in such a way that you'll generally take fire from at least two castles or forts (which have ranged attacks) no matter where you are in enemy territory. However, if you're smart and don't try to take out the AI before you have a solid advantage you can send two armies to deal with each threat each turn and you'll generally be OK. The downside to creating so many defensive structures is that they soak up resources instead of creating them. It's sorta overkill. I find that one defensive tower on a hostile border is usually enough.

I'll post a screenshot for you to look at and ask questions if you'd like.

[Nefaro]

In my wars with AI mages thus far, I'm finding that they turtle up in their own territory and don't attack into yours.  :-\

[Deadskin]

I've had the neutrals and 2 different mages attack me in my campaign. One attack was blunted by running into a group of monsters that where pushing into my territory.His whole force got smacked around by an ogre and some demons, then I moved in and moped up what was left.

[LongBlade]

In my wars with AI mages thus far, I'm finding that they turtle up in their own territory and don't attack into yours.  :-\

Agreed. Not sure how it behaves at higher difficulty but normal isn't very challenging. 

I kinda like it, though. It will take many hours to win the game even if the AI doesn't bug you.

[Bison]

I think if they do two things: 1. improve AI invasion aggressiveness after declairing war and 2. give more diplomacy options; this game is going to be a real gem.

I'd also like to see a multiplayer option even though I wouldn't use it too much.

[LongBlade]

I think if they do two things: 1. improve AI invasion aggressiveness after declairing war and 2. give more diplomacy options; this game is going to be a real gem.

I'd also like to see a multiplayer option even though I wouldn't use it too much.

Can you imagine how long a five player MP game would take? I'm guessing six months. Maybe more.

[Bison]

Yeah.  It's how I feel about CIV V and monster wargames.  It's a serious long term commitment.

[LongBlade]

I'd also like to see a multiplayer option

[Gusington]

Is there no MP option right now?