It has some similarities to all of those games, but it has distinct differences from all of them as well.
For starters, its setting is the land of Ardania, so it has its own distinct lore.
Several similarities to Mom in terms of gameplay, additional worlds. Its been a long time since I player Mom, but it was one of my all time favorite games.
HoMM and AoW are much more hero/army based then Warlock is. Warlock doesn't really have heroes or armies (all units fight individually), so combat is much different and more similar to Civ 5. The map presentation and exploration does remind me of HoMM and AoW to a degree. Resource piles and wandering monsters are definitely similar, though Warlock has wandering monster generating structures that keep spawning additional enemy (neutral) units if you don't deal with them.
The combat has some similarities to Civ 5, with the individual units. The city attacks definitely reminded me of Civ5. The user interface and map have a definite similar vibe to them, but then again how many ways are there to present a map in a TBS game? :happy:
I found the gameplay in the demo to be quite distinct from Civ 5. My normal experience in Civ 5 is to go a couple hundred turns researching and expanding before I really get into combat. In Civ 5 building structures and units is fairly time consuming and your cities will always be building something. In Warlock structures and units build quickly, and everything you build takes a set time, regardless of how developed the city you build them in is. There is no "production" resource like in Civ. So a unit of warriors takes 3 turns to build no matter if its built by your capitol or a brand new city. Building options are entirely dependent on what structures are in the city, and there are limits to how many buildings you can build and how quickly you can build them. My cities in Warlock spend a lot of time not constructing anything because they haven't expanded enough to warrant another building.
This really effects the pacing of the game. In the demo, I'm normally assaulting neutral cities in the first 3 turns of the game and I get into wars with other AI players within the first 10-15 turns frequently. The combat portion of the game is much more fast paced then Civ, at least the way I play.
Warlock, to me at least, really makes you think about the buildings you add to cities. Its not like Civ where you can generally build almost every structure given enough time. You have to think about what you need (short term and long term) because you can only build so many structures and you only get to add new buildings when the city grows. You also have to make frequent decisions about economy vs. military. I find it tougher to build "generalist" cities in Warlock than I do in Civ. I find myself really specializing my cities (this city builds 1 type of troop, this city builds another, this city is a mana city, this one is a gold city) and the types of cities you build are really influenced by the resources and what you choose to do with them. Most resources in the game have multiple building options, mostly along the lines of military vs. economy (building one unlocks/upgrades troops vs. building B gives you bonus food/gold/mana, you can't build both).
Overall I'd say Warlock shares traits with any number of previous games. There aren't any features I could point out as being absolutely unique/not found elsewhere. But I find the way the game is put together to be very different from any game I've played in a loooooong time (I'm an original MoM and Civ1 player and I love TBS games!). I'm looking forward to wasting a
lot of time on this game! Especially with my summer break coming up (its good being a teacher
)
