In a Nutshell
In Warlock: Master of the arcane, you play as one of many powerful wizards whose goal is to be the most powerful one in the land. To do so, you need to Explore the land, Expand your empire, Exploit the resources and Exterminate your enemies. Oh, and you have spells and magic and such.
Story
This being a 4X Strategy game, the real story is your own. But, that being said, there is a sort of premise that can be inferred, as this is loosely a sequel to the Majesty games. Basically, there was a period of time called The Troubles during which powerful warlocks vied for power. And that's where you come in and forge ahead. The world is richly detailed, every unit having a colorful story to be found in its information window. it is entirely charming.
Gameplay
In this game, you start at the very beginning, generating an entire set of worlds, plural, inhabited by monsters, kingdoms and a few extremely powerful, if a bit maniacal wizards. Each game is unique, which is always a selling point for the genre, and helps make the game especially addictive. The game feature 3 races, Humans, the Undead and the Beastmen. Your race only decides what your capital city will be, as you can easily capture cities from other races and gain access, in that city, to their units and buildings, which includes the settlers that allow you to start more of the race's cities. Additionally, multiple resources allow you to gain access to a new type of unit, from donkey knights to minotaurs.
Of course, the world of Ardania is not without peril. The world is peppered liberally with neutral cities and monster lairs, which generate a steady stream of hostile creatures until you move one of your units over it and claim a bounty. You also will receive quests throughout the game, asking you to build certain buildings or deal with threats that range from rival cities to elite troops aligned with one of Ardania's many Gods. On top of all that, you have multiple worlds. Indeed, throughout the land are gates leading to other worlds, usually filled with powerful creatures and a source of trouble as those often get through the gate and into Ardania, the main world.
As you grow your empire, you research spells, and are given a set of 5 randomly generated spells. Each spell you research gets replaced by a new spell, which means there is no traditional "tech tree" in this game and you very well may learn spells in a different order each time. It's not a particularly great way to handle research, but it does mean every game truly is different, since you can't really predict which spells you'll have access to. Spells each have a cost in Mana, and a casting time, which adds a strategic edge to casting spells, as you often need to choose whether you cast a few quick spells or monopolize a few turns to cast a big, powerful one.
A weak point in the game is the Diplomacy, which is reduced to asking for tribute in Gold or Mana, declaring war, non-aggression or Alliances. You can't trade resources, units, cities or spells, which would certainly add a degree of diplomatic flair to the game. Another missing feature is Multiplayer, which is kind of a shame, this would probably be quite fun with friends, playing by e-mail, perhaps. It might be an antiquated idea, but this kind of game is always fun with friends.
A detail that personally annoyed me a bit was how you use the left click to select and move and the right click to deselect and get more information. Sometimes it leads to mis-clicking and it would be nice if you could change it. There are also a few bugs, such as towns being sometimes un-renameable on some turns and saves being un-nameable on others. It's a bit weird and it does show a bit of a lack of polish.
Still, this is a game that plays rather well, is quite addictive and has quite a nice number of units to play with. If this is the sort of thing that you like, you'll probably find something you like here, alongside a few interesting new twists in the spellcasting and multiple worlds.
Presentation
The game looks rather nice. The environments are lush and varied, from deserts, to forests, to plains to tundras. The models have a nice style to them and fit well on the backdrop of the game. Each unit has a few colorful voice clips which identify the units as well as add a bit of flair and personality to them. The music doesn't get in the way, but isn't particularly noticeable. Then again, this sort of game works better with unobtrusive ambient music over music that's too grandiose.
All in all, the presentation fits the gameplay and gives the game a lot of personality, from the unit's stories to their voice clips.
Verdict
Warlock: Master of the Arcane is an interesting game that adds a few new and interesting twists to an old genre, and does it with a lot of flair and personality. It ends up being very addictive, monopolizing hours where you tell yourself "just one more turn" over and over again. it might be rough around the edges at some places, but overall, it is an Addictively Fun Game. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a Strategy itch to scratch and would like to inject more magic in their 4X games.
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