Warlock 2: The Exiled

[muds_animal_friend]

I'm enjoying it more than Warlock 1 with the caveat that I've only played in exiled mode so far and didn't encounter another great mage until turn 100 thus I haven't yet run into Warlock 1's greatest flaw: the pushover AI. However, I did ally with King Rat in my current game and his empire is much better developed than mine so that's a glimmer of hope for more challenging AI.

Exiled mode is player versus environment for quite a few turns so it feels different to the usual steamroll over the AI from turn 10 onwards of sandbox mode. Also, now that city spam is limited, resource management is more of a factor.

 

[Emily]

Meh city spam is in fact not limited, it is still beneficial to put cities at every spare tile you can... It is just that it offers less rewards, but that is about it.

 

[anus_pounder]

Application aborted!
Array<32,32,itemsize=1>: overflow 36 of 0



And it was such a nice run until then. Fucks sake.

Too butthurt to try another round for now.

 

[Spectacle]

The AI doesn't seem to understand that you need to build a harbor to cross water. I'm playing the exiled game mode and my ally Anna is just derping around with her units on the shore of one of the splinter worlds that has a big ocean in the middle. She's got a fair amount of water on her home world so there's plenty of room to set up a harbor to enable sea travel.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Having restarted a new game due to a "can't find unit or building" fatal error I encountered another great mage almost straight away and found that my optimism about the AI was very ill-founded indeed. I watched my ally send wave after wave of unprotected settlers to their deaths in an attempt to reach a portal in enemy held territory while he marched half his low level units directly towards my capital, bypassing cities they could have easily taken, in an glaringly obvious, but doomed to fail, backstab.

 

[anus_pounder]

Having restarted a new game due to a "can't find unit or building" fatal error I encountered another great mage almost straight away and found that my optimism about the AI was very ill-founded indeed. I watched my ally send wave after wave of unprotected settlers to their deaths in an attempt to reach a portal in enemy held territory while he marched half his low level units directly towards my capital, bypassing cities they could have easily taken, in an glaringly obvious, but doomed to fail, backstab.

AI seems focused on Quantity over Quality. Watched the AI try that same backstab move with hordes of Stage 1 units that stood no chance whatsoever against my units. I can't say I didn't get some enjoyment out of kicking that horde's ass and then taking over several cities, but if this is how every match is gonna go...

Funny, the hardest time I ever had was having to deal some rage inducing shit by the 2nd of the United One's generals (terraforming guy) and by trying to colonize a lava world filled with tormentors and greater fire elementals using my PoS early forces. If the AI had attacked then, no way I would've survived.

 

[Galdred]

AI seems focused on Quantity over Quality. Watched the AI try that same backstab move with hordes of Stage 1 units that stood no chance whatsoever against my units. I can't say I didn't get some enjoyment out of kicking that horde's ass and then taking over several cities, but if this is how every match is gonna go...

Funny, the hardest time I ever had was having to deal some rage inducing shit by the 2nd of the United One's generals (terraforming guy) and by trying to colonize a lava world filled with tormentors and greater fire elementals using my PoS early forces. If the AI had attacked then, no way I would've survived.

Sounds like Warlock 1 AI to me. I'll wait for the W2:Armageddon DLC then...

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Funny, the hardest time I ever had was having to deal some rage inducing shit by the 2nd of the United One's generals (terraforming guy) and by trying to colonize a lava world filled with tormentors and greater fire elementals using my PoS early forces. If the AI had attacked then, no way I would've survived.

Yeah, he hit me with a spell that put all my capital's gold producing buildings underwater just before I'd almost saved up the 1000 gold to continue that questline. Then he hit me with really nasty resource destroying spells while I was desperately searching for monster lairs to make up the gold shortfall. I'm finding it's only the quest stuff and high-level neutral creatures providing any form of challenge. The AI mages are strictly whack-a-mole. Still enjoying the game though, maybe because the easy-going, everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink fantasy setting reminds me of Might & Magic/Heroes of Might & Magic.

 

[anus_pounder]

Funny, the hardest time I ever had was having to deal some rage inducing shit by the 2nd of the United One's generals (terraforming guy) and by trying to colonize a lava world filled with tormentors and greater fire elementals using my PoS early forces. If the AI had attacked then, no way I would've survived.

Yeah, he hit me with a spell that put all my capital's gold producing buildings underwater just before I'd almost saved up the 1000 gold to continue that questline. Then he hit me with really nasty resource destroying spells while I was desperately searching for monster lairs to make up the gold shortfall. I'm finding it's only the quest stuff and high-level neutral creatures providing any form of challenge. The AI mages are strictly whack-a-mole. Still enjoying the game though, maybe because the easy-going, everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink fantasy setting reminds me of Might & Magic/Heroes of Might & Magic.

Yeah, that lower landmass shit is annoying as hell....and the deadliest thing the AI has ever done. Wondering if we can actually use it ourselves?

 

[cvv]

Yeah, that lower landmass shit is annoying as hell....and the deadliest thing the AI has ever done. Wondering if we can actually use it ourselves?

I'm p. sure you can research all sorts of lowering and rasing spells. With those you can actually repair the damage.

 

[Misconnected]

You can indeed. You can also insta-kill the Dremer Lord - the Big Bad in Warlock 1's Armageddon mode - with a lower land spell. Which I guess makes Dremer Lords the monsters from Signs.

 

[kris]

Yeah, that lower landmass shit is annoying as hell....and the deadliest thing the AI has ever done. Wondering if we can actually use it ourselves?

I'm p. sure you can research all sorts of lowering and rasing spells. With those you can actually repair the damage.

Yes, but when those spells happen they can be really bad. Since it would take a lot of time to repair and it comes at a time when you might be low on mana.

 

[anus_pounder]

So apparently my crash up there will be fixed in the next patch. But when is the next patch coming? Release date?

 

[cvv]

An interesting post over at the ol' Steamforum (I know), sort of confirms the PvE nature of the game:

***

"Finished the 4-man FFA Game mode on Impossible! What a ride that was!!
OK, seriously guys, I strongly suggest you try a game on impossible. It is a great ride with lots and lots of challenge. Everything matter - from Great Mage perk selection to unit complement, as you cannot spam them so easily due to the constant battle with the upkeep.

Some minutes ago I finished the game by beating all of United one's lieutenants and sheesh, what a challenge that was. I had a great game in which I managed to destroy one and bottleneck two of the mages in one of the maps, just mopping up anything they sent through the portals. That was easy, but the rest of the game wasnt. I felt I could easily finish them off, but I really wanted to reach Ardania and kill the big guy... and the game sure didnt make it easy for me. I'd say that the biggest problem on impossible arent the other mages - it is the neutral enemies. After a while they start spawning at an alarming rate, and especially on impossible, it is a pain to deal with them. I found myself hard pressed to tuck my tail between the legs and just haul ♥♥♥ to the mirror world where I set up my base of operations, conceding all other worlds (save for the starting one) to the neutrals and the other 2 mages (if they ever managed to do something aganst those Tier 3-4-5 enemies anyway). There were high Tier enemies spawning pretty much every 1-3 turns - I think some say it is a bug, but I think it is a feature - like the game telling you "Finish me or I will finish you!", cause especially on Impossble, without a good Emergency Response Team you will find yourself overwhelmed in no time by Shadow Dragons, Tormentors, and all kinds of lower-hp stuff... And to top it all, you still need units to push forward throw the lands of Ardania and beat up the Lieutenants. Good times, good times

That is a challenge I strongly recommend to anyone. Most imortant thing is never to give up, even if the neutrals are eating away at you big time. There were a number of times where I just wanted to throw the game away and delete the saves cause the neutrals were sure ♥♥♥♥ing me the hell off, but then there always was a light in the tunnel telling me - "Wait, what if I do this..." So do it. My best wishes lie with you "

 

[Emily]

The problem is that those high tier units are incredibly OP and unbalanced. I had some sand god attack me that had the following
250 hp
70 attack
and some magic aoe that did around 90
He also had about 80 percent resistance to everything
It is simply not fun to attack him for 2-3 damage per turn with my units, while he just stands there and kills one after another. IT was just boring and tedious.
Then after him some insane wolves spawned , and i stopped playing there.

 

[anus_pounder]

The problem is that those high tier units are incredibly OP and unbalanced. I had some sand god attack me that had the following
250 hp
70 attack
and some magic aoe that did around 90
He also had about 80 percent resistance to everything
It is simply not fun to attack him for 2-3 damage per turn with my units, while he just stands there and kills one after another. IT was just boring and tedious.
Then after him some insane wolves spawned , and i stopped playing there.

I thought Tormentors were some bullshit at 150HP and 60 ATK. You mean theres worse? wtf? Are we ever able to build/summon something remotely comparable to these high level neutrals? I know the Rainbow Dragon has 150HP, but it has a much lower attack of 25 or so, not to mention costs 300/600 mana to summon and 15 to maintain.

 

[Inf0mercial]

Heroes like the first game get hilariously op one of my mage lords did 200 damage or so before he got one shotted by a shadow dragon, fucking shadow dragons but revive spell makes that trivial later, it really is a pick a few high tier units preferably heroes buff the shit outa them and have them stomp my last push into demon world, mirror world and main place proper was a warrior hero and a mage hero who killed all 3 lieutenants and citadel. i just wanted to end the game by that point i was getting red dragons spawning all the time every time i had just cleared the last ones. every 2-3 turns, side note if your hero gets option in level up for spirit resist get it no matter what late game shadow dragons every where. I am playing servits now and they have flying spirit damage units makes everything trivial so far.

 

[cvv]

I thought Tormentors were some bullshit at 150HP and 60 ATK. You mean theres worse? wtf? Are we ever able to build/summon something remotely comparable to these high level neutrals?

Monster HP is not a problem, there were 400 HP neutrals in W1, or maybe even more. And your heroes, esp. the caster ones can be easily levelled up to 150+ dmg per attack.

The problem is some monsters' attack value, anything above 50 is extremelly nasty.

 

[anus_pounder]

I thought Tormentors were some bullshit at 150HP and 60 ATK. You mean theres worse? wtf? Are we ever able to build/summon something remotely comparable to these high level neutrals?

Monster HP is not a problem, there were 400 HP neutrals in W1, or maybe even more. And your heroes, esp. the caster ones can be easily levelled up to 150+ dmg per attack.

The problem is some monsters' attack value, anything above 50 is extremelly nasty.

Yup. 60ATK Tormentors were tearing apart the armies of 3 Great Mages, myself included. Of course, because their attack is elemental/death magic based my healer hero could solo them.

 

[Emily]

I thought Tormentors were some bullshit at 150HP and 60 ATK. You mean theres worse? wtf? Are we ever able to build/summon something remotely comparable to these high level neutrals?

Monster HP is not a problem, there were 400 HP neutrals in W1, or maybe even more. And your heroes, esp. the caster ones can be easily levelled up to 150+ dmg per attack.

The problem is some monsters' attack value, anything above 50 is extremelly nasty.

the problem was that he had 80 percent resistance to all damage, and also had regenerating.. It was just tedious as fuck. Also he could 1 shot my great mages with ranged aoe...

 

[cvv]

the problem was that he had 80 percent resistance to all damage, and also had regenerating.. It was just tedious as fuck. Also he could 1 shot my great mages with ranged aoe...

Isn't there some kind of resistance lowering spell in the game? My memory may be derping now but I think there was one in W1.

Also did his resistances include 80 for spirit? Cause I think the high-res mobs in W1 were usually weak to spirit. You had to pound them with your priest-type units or heroes and they went down p. easy.

 

[Emily]

the problem was that he had 80 percent resistance to all damage, and also had regenerating.. It was just tedious as fuck. Also he could 1 shot my great mages with ranged aoe...

Isn't there some kind of resistance lowering spell in the game? My memory may be derping now but I think there was one in W1.

Also did his resistances include 80 for spirit? Cause I think the high-res mobs in W1 were usually weak to spirit. You had to pound them with your priest-type units or heroes and they went down p. easy.

here are the wolves that spawned after.
You can only cast spirit damage if are aligned to a certain God AFAIK

 

[cvv]

You can only cast spirit damage if are aligned to a certain God AFAIK

So I checked it out and in W1 it's as follows: Humans and Monsters can recruit Healer type units (with a Spirit attack) without a God affinity, the Elves can recruit a Healer with Agrela affinity and the Undead don't get jack, naturally.

And of course many Heroes have Spirit attack too.

http://warlockmota.wikia.com/wiki/Units

 

[muds_animal_friend]

What's the story with getting heroes? I find that I either get one or two for the whole game or there's a dozen lining up.

Finally reached Ardania on exiled mode set to challenging and the PvE focus of the game is really hammered home. Lost a couple of outlining cities to the high-level independents spawning everywhere and it's now a race against time to finish the final quest before my empire is overwhelmed by creature spam. The AI great mages are utterly irrelevant which is a shame. With decent AI and a functional diplomacy system this would be a great game but as it stands the only staying power it has is multiplayer.

 

[cvv]

What's the story with getting heroes? I find that I either get one or two for the whole game or there's a dozen lining up.

Finally reached Ardania on exiled mode set to challenging and the PvE focus of the game is really hammered home. Lost a couple of outlining cities to the high-level independents spawning everywhere and it's now a race against time to finish the final quest before my empire is overwhelmed by creature spam. The AI great mages are utterly irrelevant which is a shame. With decent AI and a functional diplomacy system this would be a great game but as it stands the only staying power it has is multiplayer.

Yep, agreed, although if I get 3 playthroughs out of this game it would be more than enough for me. With so many other game available and incoming and not that much free time I don't really need anything deeper.