Wizard Warfare

This has been a fun game and well worth the price. I played the 2nd game first and then decided to buy this one. I hope that more is added to them, or maybe it's time for a 3rd game. They remind me a bit of Deity Empires but there's many differences. I'm happy with both purchases.

[h1][b]6/10[/b][/h1] It's basically Age of Wonders without the graphics, and with automated combat. [h2]Pros:[/h2] - Runs well - Has all the conveniences you'd expect from a 4x, and some I've not seen before like auto-summoning - Turns can go by extremely quickly compared to other 4x games since the AI turns are usually instantaneous - Despite the complexity, if you've played any 4x or AoW game, you'll catch on pretty quick - You can trade gold for mana or mana for gold at any time - Music is pretty good. Reminds me of Lords of the Realm 2 [h2]Mehs:[/h2] - The automated combat can be convenient, but even with battle orders, often my units don't really do what I want them to. Casters can often make or break 4x game battles, and it's the same here except you're at the mercy of what your casters happened to decide to do - Defender advantage is a bit too severe in this game. It does help protect your cities, but draws the game out too much - Has many units and spells, but there's nothing original there at all [h2]Cons:[/h2] - Worst thing: there's no campaign. Unfortunate because a campaign could really help make it unique and set it apart. The game needs something li…

An impressively complete 4X game comparable to the juggernauts of the genre as well as the classics but lacking in core-identity. # Strategy The only distinction in strategy is picking a starting point of one of the fairly-generic 3 schools and 4 types of magic. That is not a lot to work with to give you a long goal or reasonable difference in play-styles or strategic paths. As such this feels more like a board-game to me and less like a deep strategy-game that could be fully-immersive for hours. It seems like it is fairly easy to use all magical schools and types in a single game, again diminishing any sense of identity. The world is barren with only minor resources; neutral armies; and enemy players which again feels like an empty board-game. # Interface The experience is reasonable for the price and complexity and that is worthy of praise but it is not by any means great. There is no automatic end of turns for example so just pressing *next* a dozen times in a row is a large part of the experience. # Combat Being entirely passive may be a problem for some but not for me. Its problem is balance and transparency. I had an army of 40 sword-men and cavalry and figured I cou…

MoM type 4X game that isn't supremely impressive but has good fun/cost ratio. It is pretty basic, but functional. Probably best to stick to smaller maps to keep the endgame from becoming too tedious. Some features can be a little annoying, but can be turned off or skipped so they are not as bad as they could be. The turn based tactical combat, that you only view, can get really slow with huge armies, but you can skip viewing it so it's not really a problem. There's also my pet peeve with similar games that also appears here: Monster lair spawning tends to be out of control, forcing you to play annoying whack-a-mole with them. You can turn it off, so it's not that bad. I just wish there was some setting that toned it down without removing it completely. Good enough to make me intrigued of the sequel, but I'm not rushing to buy it. Just wishlisted for now.

Low budget 4X. I think it's always worth supporting development of genres like 4X, RTS, etc at the indie level so we don't get stuck with only AAA output in these categories that's devoid of risk-taking and creativity. As for this indiviudal implementation it's actually so far as design brief goes EXACTLY a game I have long been dreaming about (fantasy wizard/magic themed true-4X in the mould of Civ, think like HoMM meets civilization), but regrettably this particular implementation doesn't quite meet up to the expectations of the beautiful potential vision I have in my head for the idea. It's a nice little development effort and I'm still exploring the details, but so far at least I'm already finding myself irritated by what feel to be fairly poorly implemented controls and limited QoL. All the same there's nothing to hate so far, I might add some extra notes once I get a feel for the way the early-mid gameplay shakes out and how fun the general 4X snowball and late game power play is once I know more.

Very enjoyable fantasy 4x. Combat is similar to Conquest of Elysium, city building more like Master of Magic, magic like Dominions. Had a lot of fun with it, but the sequel essentially supersedes this version.