Warlock - Master of the Arcane

K. Fields
2025-07-25T09:56:14-04:00
Video Games

It's been a few years since I played a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) turn-based strategy game. I think the last two were Master of Magic and Civilization V. The drought is over as I just completed my first game of Warlock - Master of the Arcane. Most of these games are in some way inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization series. Warlock - Master of the Arcane puts a fantasy twist on it as did Master of Magic. In this case, the setting is Ardania, the world of Majesty and Majesty 2. I wasn't familiar with Ardania but that wasn't an impediment.

As with many 4X games, there is a bit of customization to decide on before starting a game. I stuck with most of the defaults and ended up with a total of four great mages vying for control of a medium sized world on normal difficulty. For my character, I selected the Grand Librarian, a human with an interest in magical research who had the favor of Dauros, god of law and order. The computer controlled great mages were the two-headed dragon Tendral, Son of Vendral, rat leader King Rrat XLII, and the Elven Dragon Queen.

The first great mage I discovered was King Rrat XLII. Our relationship was friendly for quite some time building up to a non-aggression pact and later a full alliance. I encountered some hostility from Tendral, the next great mage I found. King Rrat went to war with Tendral. As Rrat's ally, I was dragged into the war as well. There were periods of peace with Tendral but inevitably the conflict would resume. Eventually, I crossed paths with the Dragon Queen. We formed a very cordial relationship early on, which eventually blossomed into a stronger alliance than what I had with King Rrat.

After defeating Tendral by capturing his capital city, tensions with King Rrat began to break down. We shared too many borders and I expected an attack from him was imminent. I was right and he declared war against me. I eventually conquered him as well, leaving just the Dragon Queen as my only great mage competition. Things followed a similar path with her as she broke our alliance and then canceled our non-aggression pact. She started a war with me but I was able to capture city after city from her until only her capital was left. I could have easily have won the game at that point but I decided to contain her and keep playing. I wanted to research more spells, explore the last unvisited lands, and investigate the magic portals. The magic portals lead to other worlds but I never had I chance to use them up to that point. I went through two portals and found Princeland, a desert world, and Hellplains, a volcanic world. The terrain in those worlds were harsh and the monsters were much more challenging than on Ardania. After another twenty turns or so, I decided to capture the Dragon Queen's capital city and claim victory.

This was a really fun 4X game. I had as much fun with it as any of the Civilization games I've played.

Victory for the Grand Librarian