The best strategy for anyone looking to step up their Warlock II game comes down to this single piece of advice:


Like most strategy games, success in Warlock II is largely dependent on how well you manage your economy. If you can build your production up quickly and efficiently, you'll have a much stronger game.

Throughout this guide, I'll refer to both "goods" and "resources."

• Resources refer to the special resource nodes you find on the map, like Pigs and Magic Fields.
  
  
• Goods refer to the four... er... resources... that you generate each turn: gold, food, mana and research.

One of those four goods can be exploited to your benefit — more on that in the next section.

Optimizing your cities is all about producing the four goods:

• Gold
  
• Food
  
• Mana
  
• Research

Let's take a closer look at these goods, as they all function a little differently in Warlock 2.


Mana and Gold both accumulate in your stockpile each turn, allowing you to bank them for later use.

There is no limit to the amount of mana and gold you can have, however don't save up too much. Make sure you're constantly converting those resources into units, perks and spells — all the things you need to advance your game.

Unlike mana and gold, research and food don't accumulate from turn to turn.


The amount of Research you generate determines how quickly you learn new spells. The greater your research, the faster new spells will become available. The more spells you have in your arsenal, the more you can influence the game in your favor.

You'll get more out of research in the early game than in the late game. A single point or two of additional research early on can mean learning spells 2 or 3 turns faster than you would otherwise.


Food is another animal altogether, and you can exploit it if you know how.

As long as your food production is in the green (greater than 0), you technically have enough food to feed your army and empire. Whether you have 1 food or 10,000 food, your army is fully sustained.

If your food production dips into the red, your cities begin to starve (except for Undead and Infernal cities, which don't require food). When your cities are starving, they grow much slower and they generate unrest each turn. The greater your food deficiency, the more unrest you'll accumulate. Bad things happen when your unrest bar reaches 100.

Now, the good news...


For example, if you have +24 food, you'll also have +12 gold for the turn.

Therein lies the exploitation. If you are desperately in need of gold, you can use a large food surplus to help compensate. So if you have access to many food resources but not much in the way of gold, you can amp up your food production and watch your gold production boom.

This is an exceptionally viable strategy for factions that excel at food production – namely, Monsters and the Sylvan Order (and Dremers to a lesser extent).

When you're placing your cities, you should ALWAYS (without exception) know in advance what you're planning to focus your new city on.

• Will it be a food city?
  
  
• A mana city?
  
  
• A gold city?
  
  
• A research city?

If you're not focusing each of your cities on a particular good, that's a costly mistake. The one exception to this is your capital — there, you can diversify your production based on your early game needs.


When choosing where to place new cities, pick the most optimal locations. You can do this by visually imagining where the city borders will be when it reaches level 10 — its maximum size (i.e., the center hex plus 3 rings around it).

You want to pick locations where, within those imaginary maxed-out borders, there are at least 2-3 resources clustered together that lend themselves to producing the same type of good. For example, a mana city might have Pumpkins, Barrow and a Sea Glim all relatively close to each other. The closer these nodes are to the city center, the better.

As you move into the mid-game, be even more selective. Look for 3-4 resources clustered together to build your new city around. If you can find a spot with 4+ resource nodes, you're golden — these cities will be your top producers.


You might have the inclination to dual-focus a city if you see a cluster of 4+ resource nodes where some are geared toward producing one good and others are geared toward another good. You can, but it will never produce as well as a city that's singularly focused.

This is often an acceptable strategy under the following circumstances:

1. The goods you're planning to dual-focus are mana and research. For most factions, buildings that produce these two goods are found in the same branch, making it efficient to dual-focus such cities.
   
   
2. It's early in the game and you're just getting your first few cities going. Early on, you sometimes simply have to settle for what you can find. That may mean having to devote a single city to producing two different goods.

Still, in either case, I'd argue it's more advantageous to set a primary focus and a secondary focus, giving priority to your primary focus. The primary focus should be whatever good you need the most.


Below, you'll see what could be an extremely lucrative gold city. Notice how at the maximum size (3 rings around the center) this city would have:

(1) Gems
(2) Dwarven Settlement
(3) Flooded City
(4) Elven Village

All four of those resources are geared toward gold production. As an added bonus, there is also Holy Ground (5). However, Holy Ground would end up hurting our gold production and, thus, may not even be worth developing in this city.

Knowing what you can build on a resource node really helps. If you haven't memorized what you can build on each resource, use the following list as a cheat sheet while you play:

• Food city — Pumpkins, Pigs, Fish (water)
  
  
• Mana city — Pumpkins, Magic Fields, Barrow, Magic Node, Mana Crystal, Amber, Holy Ground, Sea Glim (water)
  
  
• Research city — Barrow, Magic Fields, Amber, Ancient Ruins, Infernal Rift, Sulfur*, Gold Dragon Eggs*
  
  
• Gold city — Iron, Silver, Donkeys, Spider Hatch, Gold, Elven Village, Dwarven Settlement, Gems, Obsidian, Flooded City*, Gold Dragon Eggs*, Oyster Shelf (water)

*Additional production available only in Renaissance Mod


Keep in mind that some races can build special buildings unique to their faction on certain resource nodes.

For example, all factions can build a Silk Workshop (+10 gold) on a Spider Hatch. But Monsters can also build a Spider Farm (+10 food, +5 mana), which makes it a super-versatile resource for food and mana cities, in addition to gold cities.

You can check what each race can build by scrolling far down in its building tree (which can be opened from within the city screen — more on that in the next section).

Be a stickler about what you place in these cities. If you desperately need food, wait to build that new Farm in one of your food-focused cities — don't stick it in a gold city.

All those buildings that increase your production yield are most efficient when you're 100% committed to focusing your city on producing a single good.


One of the best tools at your disposal is your race's building tree. In fact, whenever you choose what to build next in any city, your best bet is to select the building from this screen. It makes it much easier to stick to a specific building branch (more on this below).

You can access a race's building tree by entering a city of that race and then clicking on the round 'building tree' button. This is found on the far left, just below the list of buildings.


Each race has a building tree with four or five "building branches" and each one of those branches is geared toward producing a certain good. For example, humans have a very clearly defined "food branch" that begins with a Farm and ends with a Bakery.

Food building branch of the human faction

As you build up a city devoted to a specific good, you'll typically stick to constructing buildings only found within its branch.


Sometimes there might be a building in another branch that can help your production of the good in question. For example, the Undead have two building branches that appear to help mana production.

In these cases, start with the building branch that can yield the most flat production (as opposed to percentage production). In the Undead's case, that's the tree that begins with a Mana Trap and ends with a Mill of Souls.

Once that line of buildings has been constructed, you can then decide whether to move on to another branch to try to max out production or stay within the branch you've already built up and focus on repeatable buildings (usually the better option).

Often it's simply not worth it to delve into a different branch if the production building you want is deep within that branch. Likewise, it's not worth it to stray if you expect to end the game before you have the chance to take advantage of building(s) in the other branch.


Most buildings you make are limited to one per city. But a few buildings are repeatable — you can build as many of them as you like. For example, you can build as many Farms as you want.

Scroll over buildings in the building tree to see whether they may be repeated. If it doesn't say "unique city building" at the bottom of its tooltip, it can be built more than once.

But just because you can build as many Farms as you want in your food city doesn't mean you should... at least, not right away. It's usually best to wait to until you've built at least a couple of your production enhancement buildings first — like your Granary (+50% food production) and your Mill (+75% food production). That way, each new Farm you build doesn't just give you +3 food — it gives you +6.75 food.

This same principal applies to repeatable buildings of all goods, not just food. Unless you're currently starving for the good in question, aim to build your production enhancement buildings BEFORE you start spamming your repeatable buildings.

Here is a list of repeatable buildings common to all races:

• Farm (+3 food)
  
• Craftsmen District (+3 gold)
  
• Arcane Outpost* (+2 mana, +1 research)

*Arcane Outpost requires a level 10+ city and Renaissance Mod

Note that some races have other repeatable buildings unique to their faction. For example, Arethi Elves can build both a Mana Well (+5 Mana) and a Hall of Research (+3 research) multiple times. This makes them ideal for repeating in mana and research cities, respectively.


When you notice that you're beginning to run low on a particular good, that's when it's time to start another city devoted to that good's production.

As you play, be on high alert for new potential city sites geared toward a particular good. Make a mental note of their locations and keep them in mind when it's time to expand.

When it comes to unit production, simply build units right in your good-focused cities.

Unlike in some other 4x games, you don't really need to set up cities specifically to make units. You can, but you'll be much more efficient if you piggy-back unit production off of your existing good-focused cities.


For example, most races can create some sort of caster unit in their mana-focused building branch. So you'd recruit those units from your mana cities.

The same is true of melee units, which are often found in the gold building branch or food building branch.


For a few races (svarts and humans come to mind), there's a unit-based building branch. This branch typically ends with the 'Training Grounds' building and it really isn't geared toward producing any goods.

So to gain access to these units (and you'll want access to them, as they'll often allow you to upgrade your tier 1 starting units), you'll have to build up a city dedicated to producing those units. And unlike your other cities, this one won't really focus on producing goods... at least, not right away.

Once you've built all the requisite buildings to unlock your tier 2 units, consider refocusing the city on a specific good. The city won't be a super-strong producer, but at least it will add something to your coffers each turn.

Note that your capital (which tends to be unfocused throughout the early game), is a great candidate for housing your Training Grounds, and all the buildings that lead up to it.

For starters, you should always play with the city limit turned on. It makes the game so much more strategic and interesting, and Warlock 2 was balanced for this type of gameplay (which is why there's a note under the setting that specifically recommends you don't turn it off).

Having no city limit is actually a holdover from Warlock 1, which was criticized for its lack of strategic depth due to being able to easily "city spam" your way to victory. Warlock 2 adds the city limit (as well as other mechanics) to greatly improve gameplay.

As a veteran player of both games, I will strongly advocate for playing with the city limit enabled, as it was intended.


With the assumption that you're playing with the city limit (as suggested above), you'll want:

• 1 to 3 food cities
  
• 3 to 5 gold cities
  
• 2 to 4 mana cities
  
• 1 to 2 research cities

This varies quite a bit based on what faction you're playing and what resources you manage to locate, as well as how well they're clustered together. But the list above provides a good rule of thumb.

Another great way to boost a city's production is by using the terrain to your advantage. Different land types yield different production bonuses for every type of good except research.


Many land types in Warlock 2 offer production bonuses. Most lands offer a 20% production bonus, but a few rarer land types will boost a building's production by 50% — that's huge!

So if you find a high-yield resource node on a rare land type that boosts its yield, it's like striking gold! For example, a Mana Crystal (+30 mana) on Lands of Death (+50% mana production).

TIP: A building that boosts a good's production by a certain PERCENT (i.e., a Granary: +50% food production) does NOT receive any bonus or penalty for the land type upon which it's built. Only buildings that raise production by a FLAT value (i.e., a Farm: +3 food) are affected by land type.

Here are the different land types that work best for each good:

FOOD

• Fertile lands (+20% food production)
  
• Forests (+20% food production — will change to Fertile lands when construction starts)
  
• Blooming water (+20% food production for buildings on water)
  
• Lands of Life (+50% food production)
  
• Water of Life (+50% food production for buildings on water)

MANA

• Desert lands (+20% mana production)
  
• Magic water (+20% mana production for buildings on water)
  
• Lands of Death (+50% mana production)
  
• Water of Death (+50% mana production for buildings on water)

GOLD

• Frozen lands (+20% gold production)
  
• Icy water (+20% gold production for buildings on water)

Unfortunately, research receives no such benefit from any specific land type.


So what if that gold city you've created is in the middle of a desert rather than the arctic? Or if that food city is in a frozen wasteland rather than a fertile basin?

Terraforming to the rescue!

Use various terraforming spells to create the ideal environment to help each your cities thrive. Here is a list of each good and the spells you can use to terraform the land, as well as where to find each spell in the research tree (in parentheses):

FOOD

• Fertile Lands (sorcery) affects 7 hexes - adds +20%
  
• Lands of Life (divine - Agrela) affects 7 hexes - adds +50%
  
• Blooming Water** (sorcery) affects 1 hex, water buildings - adds +20%
  
• Water of Life** (sorcery) affects 1 hex, water buildings - adds +50%

MANA

• Desert Sands* (sorcery) affects 1 hex - adds +20%
  
• Desertification (divine - Helia) affects 7 hexes - adds +20%
  
• Lands of Death (divine - Krypta) affects 7 hexes - adds +50%
  
• Magical Water** (sorcery) affects 1 hex, water buildings - adds +20%
  
• Water of Death** (sorcery) affects 1 hex, water buildings - adds +50%

GOLD

• Cold Wind (sorcery) affects 1 hex - adds +20%
  
• Lands of Order (divine - Dauros) affects 7 hexes - adds +20%
  
• Icy Water** (sorcery) affects 1 hex, water buildings - adds +20%

*Spell requires Renaissance Mod
**Spell requires Renaissance Mod or Water Terraforming Spells


There are a few pesky terrain types that will greatly reduce your yield, so make sure to terraform those as soon as possible. Here are four bad land types:

• Raw magic land : -50% mana, food and gold production
  
• Contaminated land* : -50% mana, food and gold production
  
• Lava : -50% mana, food and gold production
  
• Swamp : -1 gold (building upkeep)

*-50% food production (only) in Renaissance Mod with bonus pack

Don't forget about building shrines and casting enchantments on cities. Both are great ways to add to a city's production.


For example, Lunord is geared toward gold production, Krypta toward mana production, Helia toward food production, etc. So placing these shrines into cities focused on the corresponding good can give your production a nice boost.

Note that this tactic works even better in Renaissance Mod, where the goods produced by shrines have been improved.

Shrines also help you unlock unique divine spells and units which can be very powerful and greatly aid your game. Keep that in mind.


There are a few city enchantment spells that can improve a city's production of a specific good by various percentages. For example, Harvest Blessing can increase a city's food production by 50%.

The following list includes all city enchantment spells that can improve good production, as well as where to find each spell in the research tree (in parentheses):

• Harvest Blessing = +50% food production (wizardry)
  
• Blessing of the Sun = +60% food production (divine - Helia)
  
• Blessing of Fertility = +75% food production (divine - Agrela)
  
• Mana Spring = +50% mana production (sorcery)
  
• Dark Ritual = +100% mana production, -25 population (divine - Fervus)

What... no gold-increasing city enchantment spell? Nope, afraid not.

But don't forget that ANY city can build a Harbor of some sort, provided there's at least one water hex nearby. And if there's no water, use a terraforming spell to create some. 'Lower the Lands' on flat land works, or use 'Clear Water' (requires Renaissance Mod) to create a single water hex.

The Harbor boosts gold production by 50%, so it's a vital addition to any gold city.

With this city optimization strategy, it's not uncommon to end a game by turn 200, generating 750-1000 mana and gold per turn and 150-250 food and research per turn.

Whether you're a beginner or an experienced W2 player, make sure you're placing your cities carefully and focusing each one on a specific good. That is the biggest key to victory in any Warlock 2 game mode.


Hundreds of hours of development and playtesting have given players the most extensive mod for Warlock II, Renaissance Mod. It adds three new races, more than 100 new units and lords, new quests and artifacts, AI improvements, and it fixes many of the game's flaws and bugs.

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Renaissance Mod does require most of the DLC to run, but it literally transforms this game into one of the finest 4X games you'll ever play.