14 DAY TRIAL // With the Fire Elemental blocking my expansion and with my armies unable to put him down, I remember that spells are one of the core features of Warlock – Master of the Arcane and opened up the list of available magical powers.
There were quite a few options when it comes to offensive ones, from a Lesser Fireball to a Lesser Shadow Bolt, and quite a few support spells to help heal my units or boost their resistance, but I wasn’t seeing any ice-based spell to take down the Fire Elemental with.
So I resolved to wait a little bit more and I discovered a place where I could create Dwarves and made their settlement. Then I tackled the Elemental problem again, with stronger units and healing spells allowing me to take out the obstacle in less than four turns.
I am now more than 70 turns later in the game and I still lack an offensive Ice-based spell, although I have managed to discover an Ice Trap that has an area of effect attack.
Instead I resolved to fight fire with fire and worked my way up through the magic ranks in order to be able to summon my own elementals, both Fire- and Earth-based, which can wipe out most neutral enemies.
This little story shows one of the strengths of Warlock – Master of the Arcane, the fact that it can create such organic stories instead of forcing players into a lost-game state. it further shows one of its weaknesses, the fact that it rarely gives players all the information they should have when it comes to unit upgrades and spell use.
Despite their fumbling, the development team managed to get one thing very right: the game is cheerful and bright enough to persuade me that there’s always a solution to a tactical problem, which means that I always pushed on with my gamers rather than simply restarted to get a better position or a better outcome.