In dire need of tips

[Silvers]

Hi!

Im playing renaissance mod, which is absolutely fantastic. Warlock is basically the first 4x type of game I have ever played. Because of that I feel like a fish outside of pond. I have read discussions, watched youtube videos with playthroughs, read the guides, however I constantly find myself in a position where I do not really have a solid plan for further expansion. Im riding along, but not driving myself.

My issues start even before the game actually begins - in order to explore and deal with local monsters, I have to generate more/better units, for which I need to provide buildings. The problem is, that when I do that, my economy suffers. What is more, the problems start piling up quickly (money, food) and at one point I cant even produce units without red-zoning food supplies.

I try to offset that by picking a few resource-focused character perks (talents/improvements before the game starts), but I feel that I am causing myself more harm than good by artificiially stimulating my economy instead of picking lategame perks (like archmage, for instance).


After the long intro... I'd really appreciate advice on how to approach the beginning of the game. Perks, races, what should I focus on in the first rounds, which resources should be prioritized, maybe even which units should be avoided.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

Cheers,
Silvers

[Davor]

I am no expert here. I love the game, and love it even more with the Renissance Mod. First off, are you playing with limited number of cities, or unlimited number of cities?

I am more of a builder so I usually play with unlimited cities on. So I make cities that can make farms for food and money if needed. Is it ideal? I have no clue but as soon I can make a settler, I make 2 or 3 so I can get more food, money and mana.


Sorry just got home from work, so tired so can't really thing what else to do. So let's start off in how do you play the game. What settings. With the Renissance mod, I had to lower the difficulty settings because I am still getting my butt kicked. So try lowering the settings as well.

Also what race to you play and what is it you would like to do. What is your play style.

[Silvers]

Thanks for the response Davor, I appreciate that.

I always play with the city limit turned on. As far as I remember, the author of the Renaissance mod himself said, that the mod has been constructed with a limited city number in mind. I do have to admit, that this makes things more complicated, epecially when the world map consists of small (and often difficult to deal with) planes connected by portals.

For this moment I do not have a playstyle or race "established", but the biggest success I had was with undead, mostly because I found it easier to focus on fewer resource types - especially if you get lots of mana and build vampires (ancient vampires, however, so extremely expensive). However, they have one drawback which made me doubt myself - lackluster, almost non-existent in comparison to other races, research engine. For this reason researching spells seems like a lot of work.

Out of all races, I have no played svarts, dwemers and humans (I have played Majesty 2 several years ago and Im kind of fed up with looking at warriors, rangers and cutthroats). I tried nagas a few times, but their movement speed on land is SO BAD, so I abandonded them. Planestriders are weird, the only playthroough which was semi-succesfull (which menas nothing...) when I god several ranged lords who dealt elmental damage. They rocked.

I will try monsters and sylvan order today a lot more - Im curious how I will manage if I invest in food instead of gold.

Kind regars,
Silvers

[Davor]

For now, since you are learning, try having city limits off, so this way you can build more cities for just food, money and mana. If you are going to go the limited city way, then try and still build more cities for farming but try and make more units to "garrision" the cities so they don't become so unhappy if you are passed the city limit.

Mind you I don't know if this will work or not since I am playing with city limits for the first time.

Since you are playing with the Renissance Mod, do you custom your race? There is a perk that I forget the name, the first one that is -1 to food, mana and money but you get an extra 5 points. Then I take the perks I want that makes me have more fun with the game.

I love playing Planestriders, just love the look of them. I also tried playing the Dragon version (again sorry bad with names) that was fun but took a while but it got me to imagine that I was the dragon and then basically had 5 heroes. :) Nice way to role play.

I like the perks where I can get a population boost to "other races" so I don't get the -50 hit on them.

As to the dev saying that city limits should be limited, I don't see why. After all, from the smallest maps to the largest maps, it's still the same number of cities we can control. If the number scaled up then I could understand, but since it doesn't, I don't see the reasoning. The two perks or three that increase the amount of cities doesn't justify the limited number of cities in my opinion. Not saying the dev is wrong, I just don't see it. At least the dev gave us the option so we can have our version of fun and for that, I just love this game so much.

[Silvers]

Davor,

I am still trying my best to avoid trying off the city limit (I have heard from different sources that it gets too easy down the road). I have only started experimenting with the concept of "free cities" - do you know at which point its worth turing a town into a free city/god-oriented city? The benefits seem a bit small (like... 6 gold/turn or sth like that). I do agree though, that "little" is still much better than "nothing".

I expiremented with Sylvan order a bit, they seem fun (love the wood guardians or whatever they are called). I really do find it easier to focus on fewer resource types.

I have noticed, however, that on exiled mode I feel an insane pressure to invest in research so that I have fast and huge progress in the two non-godlike branches. The reason is this: teleport between planes and huge city limit benefits. Ill be honest, I find it more and more difficult logistically to move my units between planes when random heroes and units spawn all across the worlds.

With regards to plainstriders, could you please tell me which units are worth investing in? No offence to grey striders, but they are pitiful. I really do not trust them. Charmers seem worth the coin, I think.

Concerning the city limit perks - right now I have no opinion on this matter. I know one thing for sure though - these perks are pretty expensive, but if you play with the limit ON, they seem like one of the best perks to pick.

Really appreciate your insight.

Cheers,
Silvers

[Rakso]

You don't need to store money unless the game demands it from you through a quest, or you want to gather it for a Legendary Lord.
Keep on creating settlers from your main city all the time and building new towns in every free spot, proritize the main city spots over the puppet-cities, once your other towns reach level 5 start spamming settlers from the other towns closer to the "spread" target locations, and use your capital to create units & get upgrades(perks), because the best thing you can do with your capital to progress quickly is to miritarily make your Capital drain all the stuff, and make the other towns to fight against it's upkeep costs & replenish the resources.

It's good to specialize the towns you're going to have to make them produce 1 type of resource only and don't give a damn about the others(waste of time and population), Naming cities by names: Cap(Capital), Gold1, Gold2 etc. Mana1, Mana2, Food1, Food2, Research1, Free1, Free2 can help you in easier management. Threat the towns as they're named. If you have a resource in the vicinity, use it for whatever you need at the current moment.

Proritize the town specialized resource produced in, to depend of the allocated on-map resources, such as Donkeys(+12 gold, so Gold#) or Red dragon eggs(For example Monsters get +40 food from a building on it I believe, so Food#), Demonologists for Research# etc.

Know your race, especially the unique buildings it has for resources(also the one it's production has flaws with, to deal with it as soonest by terraforms or other-race town taking) and it's buildings tree, and be aware of what to head for to manage a pillaring strong start. For example when I play Svarts I always rush with my capital for the Flying spirit magic damage dealers with repair/heal skill(forgot their name, but they are very strong fighters too, spirit magic is the best of the damage types, most of units suck against it on late game, or either against melee instead). It's top handy unit for them.

If you are planning on using Temple units, focus the type of the troop, which is going to be the rank-upper. For example playing humans focused as a Helia militarist you wish to keep your very early game archers doing the most tasks to level up them quickly, bless them and keep them alive carefully, as you wish to level them up into Rangers, and then to the Archers of Helia.

Know the Gods - usually all you need to know is that Lunord & Fervus duo is the most spellcast overpowered in the game, althrough their units are mixed effective dependently of the race you're playing with, while Grum-gog is the ONLY GOD of PVP & PVNeighbours when it comes to negative offensive spellcasting.
Krypta will help you deal with your mana problems, so that you may cast extremely expensive and magic stones boosted to the top spells on late game, by gathering dozens of thousands of mana which you were storing for that reason. Helia, Dauros and Krolm have the strongest units and a handful of cool spells. Krolm is very good in boosting temporarly the damage of your already sickly boosted units through Fervus enchanting you performed earlier, Helia destroys enemies buildings-tree core buildings easly, Dauros makes your units Godmode invicible for some time.
Or you can either stay with Lunord always acting for two turns in a row, and destroying your enemies with weakenings and plagues of Grum-gog.
I always start the game with Fervus and Lunord for scouts(summoning), and blessings, then get krypta for terrafforming Mana# towns, then pick a portal dependently of the temple units I'm going to play with mainly on this playthrough, then I often go back to Lunord and Fervus for blesses again. End up the game often with Krolm & Helia, and a little of Dauros.

Regards the spell trees, if it's singleplayer always rush all the Anchor stuff of +# city, or spellcasting speed - always head for spellcast speed no matter what, it's the greatest quality of life you can achive in this game, you're going to especially appreciate it at the moment you'll have to bless every single main city of yours and terraform your whole territory terrain to fit strongly each of the buildings you have according to it's pros and cons, or spam-bless your units.

[Rakso]

As for the Great Mage skills favour of Fervus is a really good one, so that you can summon bears for scouting and fighting the area all around(and pillage everything when possible for massive early game earnings and insight of location), meanwhile you focus on producing only settlers at the moment, and no need for making troops, I always do that when playing as Undead or Infernals(Would be good on the Sylvan order too tho), as they don't need food production at all(althrough It's useful to get it on the positive count later on, if you're planning for multirace'ing and don't strict to the one you own), and Archmage for quality of life.
What else? Mana vault? or something else. You can trade off summoned bears with Soul Syphon to sacrifice less mana cost(if you cast on your own territory) and the unit to selfsuicide for more mana restored.

Basically I won't help much about that what to do, because I often play using my styles, but I believe that if you're picking any skills for your character then you should think about also making use of them differently than they're meant to, to make them multifunctional and make up for the other ones that you didn't choose to go for.

[Silvers]

Damn Rakso, I will need an entire evening to go through your posts! Great stuff!

[Davor]

Originally posted by Silvers:

Davor,


With regards to plainstriders, could you please tell me which units are worth investing in? No offence to grey striders, but they are pitiful. I really do not trust them. Charmers seem worth the coin, I think.

For me, I just love the Plainstriders art work so I play them :) As for what unit, I like the Sargent of the Planes. I like to give them the upgrades for armour so they have an great melee and arrows defense. Then when I can get the spells that add to the defense I add them as well. They are hard to kill melee and arrow wise. I also try to give them defense against spells as well like fire and what not. Sorry so tired from work, my brain is blank for what everything is called.

I like to upgrade them as well but it takes a while. Since they don't cost food, I can have many units so when they do die early I can replace them. Just need to make sure I have enough money and magic mana for upkeep. It helps when food is low.

I also like the magic guys that look like Ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings. While the base version is not great, I can upgrade them into the third level and I just have fun with them. They may or may not be great, but for me it's fun. They can do good damage, but if not careful they can die easily.

[Silvers]

@ Rakso

Great piece of advice on naming the cities, I had no idea you could do that!

I am already trying to develop only one resource per city, especially if there are additional resources involved (like donkeys). I have seen in one of the guide a detailed expanation, that its definately way better to focus on one resource, especially if percentage based buffs are available.

Knowing my race is kinda tough, bacause I constantly jump from one race to another to try things out. I might try going with one race for a few tries and experience all stages of the game.

I'll keep in mind how my units can be upgraded into temple units from now on. To be honest I tried to stay away from them, since I tought temples are an unreliable resource (due to randomness).

With regards to spellcasting - do you think its worth investing a lot (and I mean a lot) into research in order to acquire the best spells/pasives earlier? Or would you suggest to invest moderately?

I will try out your suggestions with regards to passives, especially the one with archmage.

@ Davor

Thanks for the insight. I have to admit, that I avoided going for the seargons, because they are horribly slow :/. It feels like they are not moving at all.

Thanks you very much guys for your help. You have definately managed to channel some wisdom.

Kind regards,
Silvers

[Rakso]

I don't know. I often start the game with a God favor because it's good to have, so my early game doesn't really discover any good spells from the vanilla tree, but rush the powerful spells of the Gods. I pretty much choose to go for Fervus, because it grants you Bears summoning, also you can get plenty of useful in map conquest spells early on, such as +1 speed, +60 elemental magic resistance and +60 missile resistance.
So rushing strong spells is as much okay, as you will alltogether also rush mana towns to make up for it, or cast till 0 mana, and re-gather it later, it decreases your research tho.

About the original tree I don't renember much, I think it was always dependent of how did I feel like that day, but the very good way to go is to head for the terraformings, anchors(+# towns), city blessings, units blessings and % Increased spellcasting speed. Meaning I ignore pretty much the offensives, curses, time-limited spells and summonings. Short of saying, I head on for the permanent kind of developments, that allows me to snowball the game to research quickly all the rest later on.

That's one of my endgame units usually. Got usually like 10 of those at the ending.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1882618795

[Davor]

Originally posted by Silvers:

@ Davor

Thanks for the insight. I have to admit, that I avoided going for the seargons, because they are horribly slow :/. It feels like they are not moving at all.

Thanks you very much guys for your help. You have definately managed to channel some wisdom.

Kind regards,
Silvers

Yeah they are slow and it's annoying. Love the teleportation spell that allows you to transport them or any unit to anywhere you want. Not the first teleportation spell but the one after it. It helps. That is why I try to build a Planestrider city close to the battles otherwise they take forever to get there. Then I can destroy some buildings (watch out for the unhappiness for a certain amount of turns) then I can build more farms, or what ever I need later on.

At least the archers are fast but sadly they are really squishy.

[Chumley]

Hi Silvers,

I'm the author of Renaissance Mod -- glad you are enjoying it!

Rasko and Davor have both offered some great tips so far. I'm happy to chime in with 12 more tips that could really help your game.

1. Master your economy.

If you haven't already, read through this guide:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=839923490
I wrote it specifically with beginners in mind. It's all about how to make your economy work to best effect. A strong economy is the foundation for a good game of Warlock 2.

2. Practice with the city limit turned off.

The game devs (and I) would both suggest keeping the city limit on once you've got your bearings. But I do think it's ok to disable it while you're learning. The game is vast and there is a lot to learn!

Once you're doing well enough and the game no longer feels challenging, turn it back on. The game is balanced around it being on.

3. Don't underestimate free cities.

When you're ready to turn the city limit back on, build lots of free cities to fill in the gaps between your major cities. Free towns provide extra gold (and more of it as they grow), while divine cities provide extra mana (and more of it as they grow).

In addition, your units move at 0.5 speed through these towns (and any buildings you build in your major cities). So you can also use them as a makeshift road network.

4. Preserve your units at all costs.

Pick and choose your fights carefully. Be overly cautious. Units gain experience and perks the longer they live. So plan your battles carefully with an eye on preserving your best units.

Make sure to look at what types of damage your units deal and what types of resistances the enemy target unit possesses. And try to shore up poor resistances on your own units with buff spells, purchased perks and level-up perks. Once you have 50+ resistance of a certain damage type, you can weather most hardships caused by that damage type pretty well.

Also, watch for the "eye" perk that appears on some enemy units. If you don't pay attention to nearby enemies' sight range, your units will get ambushed. As a good rule of thumb, your units should end their turn at least 2 hexes away from enemies. If you see an "eye" perk, keep them 3 hexes away from that enemy. If an enemy can see you, it will almost always attack (and it's best if you and your units can get in the first shot).

5. Research is invaluable.

Do not underestimate early research -- especially with slow-research races, like Undead and Human. Prioritize buildings that offer research for a given race, and seek out resource nodes that provide it. Amber is possibly the best resource in the game for an early boost.

6. Some spells are game-changing.

Many spells are good. You'll want a healing spell to preserve your units. A solid damage spell, like Fireball or Shadow Bolt (both researchable early on) are indispensable at times. And, of course, terraforming spells are useful for a variety of purposes. But there are a few spells that are simply extraordinary. Here are four that I use every game:

Summon Fey Serpents - These cheap fliers make great scouts. They can keep an eye on hot zones and be used as throwaway scouts in new worlds. They also make good thieves. Cast them near a monster lair that the AI never grabbed and enjoy some free loot!

Call of Suzerain - Lords (hero units) are great because they have better survivability and the potential to do crazy damage as they level up. This spell ensures you'll get a lord to offer their services to you on the next turn. Try to get 4 lords working for you by turn 50 or 60 if you can. They really help.

Prosperous Tidings - At 250 mana a pop, it's definitely expensive. But you'll get your mana's worth as it ramps your entire game for 5 turns. It boosts your economy and the growth of ALL of your cities. It also mitigates unrest. Cast it as often as you can.

Meta-Teleportation - As others have noted, being able to instantly move units from one location to anywhere else is incredibly helpful, both for offense and defense. Unfortunately this spell does take a while to cast, so it's not spammable. Still, I use it every game I play. It's also great for quickly moving settlers into new worlds -- my #1 use for it.

7. Focus more on ranged units.

Melee units have their place, but ranged units are arguably better for a number of reasons:

A) First and foremost, they can hit fliers.

B) You can position more of them around a city that you're sieging (as opposed to melee units where only 6 can fit around the city to attack).

C) Since they hit units from a distance, they don't take damage in return when they attack.

D) The elemental, spirit and death magic attacks of ranged casters are damage types that are often harder for enemy units to resist.

8. Cast Levitation on your best melee units.

The Levitation spell is a godsend for your melee units. Once they fly, like ranged units, they can hit anything. And they can traverse the map so much easier.

9. Naval units are extremely economical.

Renaissance Mod is fun in any mode, but it especially shines in sandbox mode. There, on a continent or island map (or even with one large land mass surrounded by water), naval units are supreme.

Because they are water-only, naval units are very powerful for their cost -- especially their tier 2 upgrades. Send out a fleet of 3 or 4, keep them together to support each other, and scour the sea of resources and monster lairs. That can give your economy a nice boost.

If you spot some Nevril later on, build an Aeronautics Facility and you can give your ships the "Flying Machine" perk, allowing them to become a formidable force on land, too.

10. Shard worlds are a resource unto themselves.

In exiled mode and the two campaigns, every world is a shard world. But in sandbox mode, you can set the number of shard worlds. I encourage you to add a bunch. They are full of wonderful resource nodes, artifacts and boss monsters that can give powerful spells and units. They do, however, take a group of strong units to explore. But boy are they worth it!

11. Temple units are tier 3 bombs.

The Holy Ground resource node lets you build a temple. Temples give your units access to epic perks and also some amazing units. All of them are good in their own ways. And some of your base units can upgrade into temple units if you've built the right temple. Check out this page for details:

https://warlockmota.fandom.com/wiki/Religion_(Warlock_2)

12. Always be casting a spell (if you can).

Assuming you've got a good supply of mana (and you should if you've got enough mana cities), you'll want to always be casting a spell of some sort. Whether it's just a sight boon or a an experience boost (with Illumination or Prophetic Dreams), you should never let your casting gauge sit idle.

With that in mind, speed buffs that improve your casting time (like 'Experienced Mind') are super-useful later on. You can start casting a ton of useful spells every turn. Try to get all three casting-speed buffs available in the Sorcery tree.

----

I would say to take all of our advice with a grain of salt. What works well for one person won't necessarily work well for another. Eventually you'll find your own grove.

Just stick with it and have fun. ;-)

[Mazer]

Hey Chumley, this merits a place in your main guide! Add it as some Quick Notes at the end or at least link it. Its too good stuff to be missed.

[Silvers]

Hello again everyone,

Thanks to all of your tips I have managed to grow from a complete noob to completing the game a few times on normal (battle for outer planes and exiled mode - sandbox still on my list). I have a few conclusions after my playthgough:

1. I absolutely recommend keeping the city limit ON. The amount of gold and mana from free towns and various temple cities is more than enough to make the difference. There are 2 problems with unlimited cities - constant need to build (you lose track of your towns) and making the resources on the maps obsolete (since you make up with sheer number of cities). The game is much more enjoyable when you have to analyze the map (I even make screenshots and use paint to simulate my cities placement).
2. Early access to best spells is absolutely a must. Invest in research... At one point, with the right amount of mana and spell casting increasing speed you will be casting lightning storms twice per round, you will be unstoppable...
3. Some armies I like, some I dislike playing. Monsters are way too good imo (court werewolves and old trolls), I liked playing the infernals (though I had to play against dwemers, it was a lot of work...), undead lack good melee unit, I had money issues with svarts, I feel arethi elves are weird and underperforming (and their research building cost A LOT). I HATE NAGAS, I dont care what people say, they are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess.

I would like to thank everyone for guidance, thanks Chumley for your insane work, I still intend to play Warlock. Right now I tried playing Arethi on Difficult (just below impossible) on battle for outer planes mode. Around round 100 i got informed that on of the great mages started casting unity and I absolutely could not reach him (my only available portal was for shadow world (4th world), so I deduced I was fried.

Kind regards,
Silvers

[Davor]

You do know that you can still make free towns and what not with unlimited cities.

As for making resources obsolete, I do not understand. Please explain. When you convert your cities to free town or what not I thought you loose everything, resources included. That is one of the reasons why I like unlimited cities. I do not like loosing my resources. If we could have kept them, that would be a different story but since we don't keep them I don't like converting cities with resources.

There is no right or wrong answer, just preference. For me, I hate playing large maps with basically once city per shard. That for me is not fun. I have been playing limited cities on medium maps it's bearable but doesn't add anything for it. I guess I am just not seeing it.

Just found a game made by these developers, that I didn't know of. It's another fantasy game but we control the combat in turn based combat. Oh why coudln't Warlock have that? Would have made the game more fun and then I guess having limited cities would be a reason why to have it with turn based combat added into the game to keep things from not dragging out.