The computer is very capable when it comes to the defensive

May 28, 2012 22:31 GMT  ·  By

The Earth Elemental was holding a very narrow mountain pass and right behind him was a gathering of skeletons, bats and bears that were ready to pounce on any sort of assault force that managed to get around the main individual in their monster line.

I needed five turns and the death of two groups of dwarves and one minotaur to get through that area only to discover that the land beyond it had already been settled by one of the rival mage lords, which meant that another tough offensive was probably in my near future.

But my disappointment was tempered by the simple joy of maneuvering units around the hex map and choosing when and where to attack.

This sits at the core of Warlock – Master of the Arcane and differentiates the game from the behemoth of the turn-based strategy space, Civilization V.

Civilization V also had one unit per hex and the developers promised exciting and meaningful tactical fights, but the Artificial Intelligence was never able to handle the variety of troops and the ever-evolving technology present on the battlefield.

It did well when swords and shields were the norm and tended to lose its way when modern weaponry was brought in.

The fantasy universe of Warlock – Master of the Arcane means that fighting is always linked to a mix of close quarters, hard hitters, ranged attackers and magic.   The development team at Ino-Co Plus has been able to teach the computer to perform very well defensively, fighting for every hex and exacting a price of blood for the more reckless advances.

It’s true that the prowess of the Artificial Intelligence doesn’t extend to offensive operations, which means that players can often get away with under-defending their cities in order to force the offensive.

Fortunately, the thrill of fighting a decent computer enemy more than makes up for it.