Warlock : Master of the Arcane

[Zibu]

Looks like there's been another patch:

- Fixed the bug with enchantments staying on an enemy Great Mage upon his/her defeat.
- Dragon Farm now has the correct model.
- The attack of capital cities was improved - damage was increased, attack now have elemental magic damage, and becomes aoe from certain level of a city.
- The attack strength of defence towers was improved.
- The resistances of several units were slightly decreased.
- Appeared the option to switch off the intro movies.

From what I've noticed, the capital cities really hurt now, especially early on, and they also got range increased to 3.

[Carlo Curiosus]

That was a week or so back. There's been another one since:

- Changed Domination victory conditions - now it is enough to control >50% of Holy Grounds in all worlds combined (it was needed to control all of them before)
- fixed crash with click on news about new building in destroyed city
- fixed no upkeep bug with units in transport stance
- fixed exploit with clicking on debuffs
- fixed difficulty settings bug
- fixed experience gained by Powerful Lords

[Carlo Curiosus]

New DLC on the 29th (although it doesn't appear to be on Steam yet). Giant Turtles!

[Lilalaunebör]

Heh, apparently the difficulty bug was that it got reset to normal whenever you saved/loaded that save (i.e. also on resume game). Explains why hard/impossible felt like such a cake walk.
Im quite happy that they are releasing miniupdates at such a pace, maybe itll be perfect around the time of the multiplayer patch.

On the other hand, recently replayed a bit Fantasy General (in dosbox), its basically turnbased hex fantasywarfare without the city management, and im sad to say that still no modern game holds a candle to it.

[Overspark]

This game plus the DLC is 50% off this weekend on steam. Even more worth it!

[Winged Nazgul]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...k-multiplayer/

[Lilalaunebör]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...k-multiplayer/

Bumb, MP patch is out.

From the patchnotes:

Behavior of AI Mages improved with personalities and new factors

A player may turn on/off Victory Conditions on the Game Start.
Player can now destroy his buildings from city interface

The Unity Spell cannot be counterspelled anymore, but its casting time was made longer. Also starting to cast a Unity spell worsens relations with all Great Mages.

AI now uses Dispels smarter and more aggressively.

No idea if AI finally learned how to deal with other planes, or if its still stuck on them if it encounters one.
All in all, sounds good.

[DevilDude]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...k-multiplayer/

Bumb, MP patch is out.

From the patchnotes:

Behavior of AI Mages improved with personalities and new factors

A player may turn on/off Victory Conditions on the Game Start.
Player can now destroy his buildings from city interface

The Unity Spell cannot be counterspelled anymore, but its casting time was made longer. Also starting to cast a Unity spell worsens relations with all Great Mages.

AI now uses Dispels smarter and more aggressively.

No idea if AI finally learned how to deal with other planes, or if its still stuck on them if it encounters one.
All in all, sounds good.

the game really needed this.

[Rhaegor Stormborn]

Had pirated originally and felt it was pretty meh, but just bought for $11 to try out multiplayer and improved AI which I am reading is much smart and more aggressive now.

[Mi Lai]

WRT other Planes: Is there any reason to go there? By the time I get units strong enough to survive out there, I can also use these units to crush the enemy mages. The only resource I found there that I couldnt find on the normal world where Dragon Eggs.

[DevilDude]

WRT other Planes: Is there any reason to go there? By the time I get units strong enough to survive out there, I can also use these units to crush the enemy mages. The only resource I found there that I couldnt find on the normal world where Dragon Eggs.

The Dragon eggs allow you to breed dragons or stupefying amounts of gold. The dragons are exponentially more powerful that practically anything else, even the wild ones take massive effort to defeat. Once you start stacking the golds with buffs they get ridiculously strong.

[Zibu]

WRT other Planes: Is there any reason to go there? By the time I get units strong enough to survive out there, I can also use these units to crush the enemy mages. The only resource I found there that I couldnt find on the normal world where Dragon Eggs.

You can try to do some tricky stuff like taking the creature lairs (or whatever the game calls them) without killing whatever is guarding it with some cheap units and summons.

For example you move right next to a greater fire elemental and leave a unit there, the elemental will take a step back and shoot. Next turn you can summon something (imps I guess, as they're the fastest to summon) and take the lair for some loot.
I use this technique with black shadows (the darker bats from undead) and sea serpents - make sure your black shadow can take at least one shot from the serpent, then fly it right next to the serpent spawning wreck and leave it there, watch the serpent move away from the wreck, next turn just collect the loot from it and run away.

As for the new version - I haven't tried multi yet, but the game has had quite a few changes.
Two things that I've noticed:
- you get some random unit spawns around your cities together with new lairs every now and then
- other mages has gotten way more friendly - before they would just demand some gold or mana or declare wars, in the game I've played last night they all wanted either non aggression pacts or alliances and kept sending me gifts to accept.

I haven't had the DLC with lords before so that was new as well (now in the base version) but so far the lords looked pretty useless (but that's just an opinion based on one game).

[Hel OWeen]

As for the new version - I haven't tried multi yet, but the game has had quite a few changes.
Two things that I've noticed:
- you get some random unit spawns around your cities together with new lairs every now and then
- other mages has gotten way more friendly - before they would just demand some gold or mana or declare wars, in the game I've played last night they all wanted either non aggression pacts or alliances and kept sending me gifts to accept.

To add to that
- Every now and then knights offer their service to you (can be hired for gold), accompanied by
- Merchants offering armor/weapons/misc. items (rings and stuff, all were resistance buffs) for those knights. All those items may also drop from the NPC spawn hives (like previously sometimes spells dropped). You can (re)equip all items, although some bind on use on that knight and need to be dispelled (costs mana).

Although the random spawns around your cities can be a PITA sometimes, overall these additions are good, IMHO. Best change is to how AI mages behave in diplomacy. The old "Give <x> or war" was just stupid. Although in the match I'm currently playing one mage consistently declares war on me (without diplo offer) and offers peace a few rounds later, without anything happening (i.e. attacking me) in between. Seems he's caught in a loop.

[Aramendel]

WRT other Planes: Is there any reason to go there? By the time I get units strong enough to survive out there, I can also use these units to crush the enemy mages. The only resource I found there that I couldnt find on the normal world where Dragon Eggs.

The Dragon eggs allow you to breed dragons or stupefying amounts of gold. The dragons are exponentially more powerful that practically anything else, even the wild ones take massive effort to defeat. Once you start stacking the golds with buffs they get ridiculously strong.

Yes, but the point is that you do not really need their strength because they are so strong that you can just kill the enemies with the troops you needed to get the dragons.

[Mi Lai]

WRT other Planes: Is there any reason to go there? By the time I get units strong enough to survive out there, I can also use these units to crush the enemy mages. The only resource I found there that I couldnt find on the normal world where Dragon Eggs.

The Dragon eggs allow you to breed dragons or stupefying amounts of gold. The dragons are exponentially more powerful that practically anything else, even the wild ones take massive effort to defeat. Once you start stacking the golds with buffs they get ridiculously strong.

Yes, but the point is that you do not really need their strength because they are so strong that you can just kill the enemies with the troops you needed to get the dragons.

Exactly, I got curious, so I send in my legion of buffed to the hilt Dracoliches, GFE's (thats Greater Fire Elementals) and my Panzerdwarfs and kill every motherfucking thing out there, just so I can a Gold Dragon from my Cities in that world now. All fun, but I could have used my 'Otherworld Genecidal Armeegruppen' to just winb the game by killing all wizards ages earlier.

[DevilDude]

well I just had this little guy join me after I looted a hermits house in the outplanes:



best game ever.

[Steph]

Because it has a Monty Python reference?

[DevilDude]

Because it has a Monty Python reference?

I find it fucking hilarious, look at it's stats immune to melee and ranged, the first special ability it gets is "terrifying leap" where it jumps two hexes and does melee damage to all adjacent units. The Rabbit is one of the funniest things Monty Python ever came up with (and that's fucking saying something) and now I get to send it tearing around the world map, I love that.

On the topic of the extra dimensions, I think it comes down to playstyle and map choice. Undead for instance don't need dragons, because they're ezmode. I'm playing on an extra large island map, so I need flyers or water walking troops to invade, this isn't a problem if you have dracoliches or flying galleons but I don't the one undead city I've captured grows too slowly to be truely useful. So when I found a portal I started invading with mid level troops (wizards, clerics, Koatl spearmen/warlocks and a couple of heroes). In order to survive in there I've had to use magic very carefully, a unit of flying serpents with eagle eye and invis enchantments running recon and spotting for tactical spell strikes. with about mid level units I was able to clear the plane, and now I've got an easily defended enclave, fucking full of resources not found on my island, once I complete my colonization armies will pour out of it and sweep the prime plane of my enemies.