Wizard Warfare 2: Cephalopod Wars

A great fantasy 4x that doesn't so much as do anything new but rather blends Master of Magic city building and neutral clearing with Dominions/Conquest of Elysium auto combat (with basic scripting) and magic to make a game that feels both immediately understandable but also interesting to explore how its played. I think there are 6 different magic paths and you choose one during map set up. Casters major in this path but have a chance to get cross paths. I do wish the units had sprites akin to Dominions as the unit icons are serviceable but don't inspire the imagination like Illwinter's game does. As it is the auto combats are still enjoyable to watch. I'd love to see this game take from MoM/Conquest of Elysium the idea of choosing a starting race, everyone has the human unit tree and there are orcs and others that could be made to be a playable race. Then you could include the MoM idea of limiting city buildings or giving race specific buildings. Maybe a big ask of the Dev but the game has potential to be a "everything and the kitchen sink" type hit with traditional 4x fans. The default pacing feels slow until you get going (especially on a primitive city start) but the turns pass smoothly and its perfect for playing on the Steam Deck as even the base control setup makes scrolling any menu easy. If you like traditional 4x titles, enjoy exploring a new game to find the best strategies and are not bothered by simple, functional graphics then for the price this is worth a look.

Having played Wizard Warfare 1, I was hoping for Wizard Warfare 2 to be Wizard Warfare 1 with more features and a better game interface. Well, that's exactly what we have a more features and a better game interface. Haven't really explored all the new navy stuff, but that does add another cool factor. But for me the big improvement is the map, the new map terrain graphics and variety and map generation is a huge step in the right direction. Great game, for this price this is incredible value.

There were really two main things I didn't like about it. #1 it is very slow. Like 10 turns in a row of doing nothing but clicking end turn, followed by queuing up a new building and then another 10 turns of nothing. I looked, but didn't see an overall gamespeed modifier found in other 4X games. #2 There is no indication of the relative strengths of armies. When you look at an army, it tells you what and how many they have, but there is no indication of whether or not you are going to win or lose if you were to fight. The only option is to fight and either crush or be crushed. As a full army can take dozens of turns to build, losing one is basically game over (or reload the last turn's autosave). It's all autobattled too, so the outcome is certain. It turns out rigging it so you only take fights you can win isn't all that engaging.

If you enjoyed the original Wizard Warfare, then Wizard Warfare 2: Cephalopod Wars is a must-buy. It takes everything that made the first game good and ramps it up to eleven. It feels very familiar, which is a good thing – it's like coming home, but your home has been completely renovated with awesome new features. This game perfectly scratches that itch for a blend between Civilization 2's empire building and Dominions 6's tactical battles and magic system. The strategic layer is engaging, with plenty of exploration and expansion opportunities, and when you clash with enemy forces, the tactical battles are deep and satisfying. The addition of fully simulated naval combat is a huge plus, adding a whole new dimension to warfare with ships, sea monsters, and even flying units. Destructible terrain in land battles also makes tactical play much more interesting. The new magic paths, especially water and weather magic, are a great addition, and the larger, more varied world map makes each playthrough feel fresh. Be prepared for some epic battles too, as there are significantly more enemies to contend with! It's easy to pick up and play, but there's a real depth here that will keep you coming back for more. You'll be learning new strategies and spell combinations for hours. It’s definitely a “easy to learn, hard to master” type of game. My only real gripe is that I wish there was more variety in starting races. Playing as goblins, elves, or other fantasy races would add even more replayability. Hopefully, this is something the devs will consider in the future. Despite that, Wizard Warfare 2 is absolutely worth the price for any fan of 4X strategy games. If you're looking for a deep, engaging, and magically charged strategy experience, look no further! Highly recommended!

Guys stop trying to give it an acronym, there's no way WW1 and WW2 are ever going to mean anything other than World War 1 and World War 2. Suck it up and spell it out. Excellent game, though.

Wizard Warfare 2 has an auto-battler system reminiscent of the Dominions series and a strategic turn-based layer much like Civ or Age of Wonders. You are a Wizard specializing in one of 6 magic paths. These paths will determine which spells your mages will be best at, although they can always multi-class as well. There are currently 3 schools of spells (Conjuration, Evocation, Enchantment), each with multiple 'levels' to unlock through research. City management is intuitive and your city's production is based on the resources available in the cities area, the buildings it contains, and the upgrades you've built on the city's area of control. Once a city becomes large enough, you can set it to specialize in a certain production path (this can always be changed). Once you obtain a large amount of cities, it can become a bit cumbersome to manage but this can be assisted a bit with production queues. You can currently only play as Humans and I'm not sure if the dev plans to add any other playable factions (I hope so) but there are over 200 fantasy creatures you will fight, each providing a unique challenge. You are able to enchant your units permanently on the overworld map so they come into your battles pre-buffed. No longer will your mages be enchanting units only at the beginning of a battle like in Dominions. This is a huge improvement! It's currently only Single-Player but has extremely high replayability so and anyone who likes the battle-system of Dominions or are looking for a fresh-take on 4X, I highly recommend this game. Well worth the price.

I really enjoy this game. I hope that more is added to it but even as is it was well worth the money for me. I bought the first game after this one and really enjoyed it as well. Out of the games that I play I'd say this is most like Deity Empires so if you like that one you might enjoy this and the first one too.

As other reviews have stated, a mix of Civ-style 4x gameplay with cities/settlers/workers, and some Dominions-lite gameplay via magic research and troop orders. It is not as deep as either, but runs smooth and quick and scratches a certain itch. Expect to hit end turn a lot while waiting for things to happen, especially in the first 20 turns. City management is familiar with a few twists: buildings or units require Production to complete, cities population grows with enough Food, buildings and units have upkeep paid with Gold that you earn in cities. There are Raw Materials that you need 1:1 with Production; if you have 9 materials in city and 10 production, you will only reach 9 production points. You can ship food or resources from city to city (within 8 tiles over land, unlimited range but requires a harbor over sea), so it is viable to have a settlement focused on raw materials shipping its resources to a city focused on production. (Spend gold after at least 50% production costs are paid for to rush construction.) Cities grow their hex radius they can work resources at 5 pop and 10 pop; these milestones also unlock 'Specializations' for their respective settlement. These are only locked in once you build a corresponding structure, and can be changed out (as long as you sell the structure. IE, Raw Material specialization unlocks a Lumber Yard. Once you have built the Yard, you are locked into that specialization until you sell the Lumber Yard). THE UNITS YOU CAN PRODUCE ARE TIED TO THE SETTLEMENT'S SPECIALIZATION VIA THE BUILDINGS THAT SPECIALIZATION ALLOWS. The Lumber Yard via Raw Material spec is required for tier 2 ranged units (Longbowmen and Crossbowmen), the Foundry via Industry spec is required for tier 2 melee units, etc. I did not learn this til my third or fourth game, though I was able to achieve victory with summoned units. If you have played Dominions, the magic research tree will be immediately recognizable. As of this review (5/2/25) there are 6 flavors of magic (Astral, Death, Chaos, Water, Nature, Holy) broken into 3 schools of research (Conjuration, Evocation, Enchantment). Each school goes up to level 5 (rather than 9 like Dominions), which means it is likely that you will reach the end of at least 1 of those schools in a match. There is no crafting or site searching to find gems; all magic (and magic upkeep costs) are paid for with a universal mana resource, earned similar to Gold via cities. Battle scripting is also less indepth than Dominions. There ARE neutral creep camps (respawn in Fog of War every ~75 turns by default) that can spawn small, roaming neutral armies that are mostly a danger to unescorted workers or weakly defended settlements. Conquering a camp provides resources (gold and mana), occasionally boosts to a nearby city (onetime injections of food or production), occasional recruits, and occasional equipment to be put on units. Equipment can range from 'Dwarven Melee Weapons' or 'Mithril Ranged Weapons' to minor magic/research boosters (Magic Tomes, +1 element and +3 research) and in between. I found equipment to be unexpected bonuses rather than something to be planned around. There are naval tiles, including naval based creep camps/creeps. I did not engage with this mechanic at all, because the cost and difficulty of raising a navy strong enough to begin creeping. The primary issue is it might take you 6 turns to build a crappy ship, and another 6 to build a second one. By the time you get a second ship out, there are reasonable odds a wandering naval creep will float into your harbor and murder your slowly growing navy. Dev has mentioned this needs toning down, so I expect that it will be adjusted. It is a less finnicky (but still somewhat finnicky) take on the Dominions formula married to the classic 4x hex based map style. There are currently some busy work QoL features that the dev has mentioned working on, primarily an easier way to continually cast Rituals (like summoning undead or something) that doesn't involve repeating the same clicks. Absolutely enjoyed untangling the systems and doing some light theorycrafting, will keep on eye on it for the future. EDIT: Changed some wording to be more accurately represent how I feel about some things.

The thumbs up comes with reservations. If you have the first game I'm not sure its worth buying again, the changes aren't sufficient to warrant a new release, things that were annoying they haven't fixed and some of the new changes are bland and not terribly interesting. I would probably frame that by saying I've not experienced meaningful naval combat because its bugged. However, if you haven't got the first game, this is like a single player kinda bland Dominions 4x game. You take on the persona of a Wizard and battle the other AI players in a traditional fashion. Each wizard has a different magic preference (holy, water, life etc) - this determines the spells they can cast and the spells any priests etc can cast. This is exactly the same as the previous game and is woefully limiting. Battles are like Dominions; its not too bad to be honest. They've added items to the game; maybe the idea is to make the Dominions equivalent of a thug but in my experience they add negligible abilities. City building looks the same apart from the addition I think of specialisations, which is ok but in a small game really limts what you can build. Some of the buildings (Arcane Jeweller) sound great but really as far as I can tell give incremental advantages (10% cheaper monks / mages / priests for example) so in practice they are dull. So still ok but could and should have been so much better. All in all an incremental

This game is a tasty blend of Civ-like city building, Conquest of Elysium-like exploration, and Dominions-like combat. While it is single-player and lacks the insane depth of content of any of those individual games, its simplified presentation and mechanics make it a refreshing change of pace for fans of the genre. I think it's worth a pickup if you have ever played any of the above games, or games like them, and thought "does it really have to be this complicated to be fun?" The Wizard Warfare series proves that it doesn't.