A Warlock 2: The Exiled Mini-AAR

Lone Wolf

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This is a brief chronicle of a game of Warlock 2, a flawed, but occasionally enjoyable civ5-like fantasy. Also posted on Steam forums.

I was playing as Anna the Benign (Huge, 8 opponents, 4 pocket worlds) in the classic Sandbox mode, intending to win a Defeat the Avatar victory. However, I knew from experience that the Avatars are very strong and that to defeat them I probably need Dragons or Temple units, for which I likely needed to enter one of the worlds.

I had certain mods of my own installed, as well as the mod that returns the GM's from Warlock 1 to Warlock 2.

The initial phrase of the game was marked by the repeated attacks of Tendral on my realm. It was rather hard to deal with his swarm of units, and twice his powerful capital repelled my attacks. Finally, however, me and Amberon on the other side of Tendral joined forces against him and partitioned his territory, with me receiving the capital, Ogrendell. Here's one of the last stages of the war, with my Caravels, Veterans and Cutthroats and Amberon's Noble Werewolves (recruited in a Tendral city he captured) in action:

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Then I devoted time to the improvement of my economy....

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While Gorgon Sfeno, Amberon and Nicolas the Frost (purple) fought some rather epic wars for the AI, with cities often changing hands.

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I repelled an attack from Empress across the sea, with her Golden Dragon dying to my capital and the arrows of my Rangers.

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Amberon also attacked me for rather mysterious reasons. I almost captured his Beast city, but had to retreat due to him correctly defending it with an Elder Vampire lord.

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Finally, I found a portal to an autumn world with a melancholy name of Summerdie. The fortress of Penguin Point was captured by the monsters (and later, the Nagas of Sfeno), but it held long enough for me to Teleport units and a settler near the portal.

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I discovered how to summon Earth Elementals (the bluish ones on the picture). They and me casting Fire Spit/Elemental Resistance managed to defeat Greater Fire Elementals assaulting Fort Autumn. My allies Sfeno and Nefertari (greenish) also helped me clean the pocket world, and, in particular, defeat the annoying Mossy Troll that was guarding the treasure that were Gold Dragon Eggs.

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Here're the Eggs (NW of Sunville, making a building on them enables production of the powerful Gold Dragons) and the Troll in the initial stages of this victorious mini-confrontation:

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Sfeno was also useful in eliminating Amberon, after a concentrated assault on his capital Sa-i-Tirn. Despite being "the Light", the elf was getting too cranky for my tastes.

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The Empress summoned another Gold Dragon, helped by Ghosts, but once more, my capital proved to be tough enough for them.

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The Dragon Farm on the Red Dragon Eggs of Summerdie helped me in recruiting the costly Gold Dragons.

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However, one thing was disturbing: Nicholas Frost was casting the Spell of Unity, a MoM-Spell-of-Mastery analogue.

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I thought I easily would manage to train and teleport the Gold Dragons to his capital. But then, hostile Dremer Mages assaulted the city with the Dragon Farm...

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They were defeated, but they held the city for some time, and destroyed the Dragon Farm, causing me to rebuilt it again. This greatly damaged my perspectives for dealing with Frost. Furthermore, Sfeno stupidly cancelled her alliance with me, preventing me from easily teleporting the Dragons to her territory (she, as you can see on the minimap, was closely bordering Frost across the sea, being the one who earlier captured his outlying possessions). Still, I summoned one, and than two dragons, who assaulted Frost's capital.

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I was busy trading stuff to the greedy AI's for mana to cast Fire Spit at his capital again and again.

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But just as his capital's defence was at 60, and I was sure that my Dragons would take it the next turn, Frost cast his Spell.

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He won the game by a single turn. Despite Sfeno's random betrayal, I could've defeated Frost, if I did proper optimization and micro. But for the want of it on my part, the whole Ardania is now a dystopian snow wasteland, with Frost as its Supreme Potentate, able to arbitrarily deal rewards and punishments to those whom he deigns to be naughty or nice (I don't even want to think about what happened to the water-dwelling Nagas).
 
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