No, I don't have a different definition, and neither does the individual with whom I'm having a discussion over these matters.  Thank you for your friendly and ever so pertinent comments, however.

Well, here's the interview which among other things mentions modding or lack of:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/04/speak-spell-warlock-master-of-the-arcane-interview/

I hope you're right

Sorry, didn't realize you were having a private discussion in this public forum.  Silly me. 

Maybe you should use PMs if you don't want others to comment.

Feel free to suggest that to the person who began this discussion with me. :)  For the rest, I wasn't aware that "You must have a different definition of "tactics" in your dictionary, one that insists on a separate map," constituted a serious attempt at understanding the context of our ongoing remarks, and an attempt to engage in thoughtful discussion--commenting upon movement, spell options, stacks vs single attackers, hex vs squares, one battle map versus zoomed battle maps, and all matters that affect an evaluation of two different combat systems, each of which can be reasonably defended.  While taking into account that all this is perceived from the standpoint of game design depth.

How did you put it...?  Right.  Silly me.

Nice to see you sticking up for them.  Your voice should carry more weight.  I also agree that the game is good.  I'll certainly be able to enjoy both Warlock and FE and in general I appreciate their differences.

On the upside, the $20 price point will make the 70ish meta seem more tolerable to potential buyers.

Bought Warlock today, and it is a solid game.  Reminds me of MoM.  Not as deep as FE, but that's fine.  $20 is a steal for this title.  I'll definately purchase any worthy DLC.

Overall, Warlock is a good game, but is has a few issues that really need looked at.  The limitation to three races is a little worrisome, though some of that is alleviated by taking over other cities and exploiting various resources.  The Diplomacy is non-existent and, IMO, actually deters from the game, so that really needs to be addressed in an expansion or sequel.  Lack of heroes and items doesn't bother me too much, since there is no tactical battle and units do not stack.  The inability to drag the world boggles my mind, and after a few hours in I still accidentally move units when all I wanted to do was drag the world to where I could see the unit better.

As for comparing it with FE, I don't really think I can, as they are so different.  FE uses troop stacks with heroes and plays out on a tactical battlefield, has research paths, and quite a bit more variety on city building, troop customization, more varied sovereign and race customization, etc.  Both games do what they do quite well, but they really cannot be compared any more than you could compare Warlock with Civilization, Age of Wonders or King's Bounty.

Warlock and FE are substantially closer than either of them is to any other game of this genre. Sure, one has heroes and plays combats on a tactical map and the other doesn't (and Elemental has a gorgeous character creation system), but the introduction and the behavior of random monsters and the presence of so many resources to me makes Warlock and FE very similar, and most of all being the OP of this thread I tried to point out that Warlock succeeds from the very first turn in being a fun and strategically deep game, while the original Elemental sadly failed to work.  Sure W. has less races, no heroes, no items (but they will come believe me) and personally the tactical combat being played directly on the strategic map to me is a huge success and will make the difference when Multiplayer is introduced... because even in Age of Wonders Shadow Magic (which to my taste is still the best game of this genre around) when playing Multiplayer guess what... the combats have to be cut from the game, or many turns will be wasted on the tactical map for each combat!!! While in Warlock you still have a "tactical" combat right there on your complex and performing strategic map! ...And just as complex as any traditional wargame!

I also find that Warlock successfully resolved and balanced in the very first version of the game, many of the issues Stardock have been going crazy trying to deal with. Like for example having cities fighting back even if no unit is in them (one of the points I made several time actually when noticing how roaming monsters become annoying in Elemental), or the tuning down of teleport (teleporting one unit is really not a big deal, while in Elemental you can teleport "uberstacks"), even the city spamming in Warlock (to my taste) feels more natural than it ever was in Elemental not to mention how cities really feel unique and the way the economy is well balanced... And that game just came out all polished and nice! So that instead of wasting the forum's time trying to fix things that don't work the community there is free to discuss the future development of the game. I am really enchanted with Warlock, not to mention the introduction of hexes to which I am really biased toward (I will never be convinced that it feels natural when a unit takes the same time walking a side of a square than it takes walking its diagonal!!!)

Did I mention the UI, how practical and quick it is? At the beginning of each turn you just get a list of things you have to do in order to complete your turn. You just click on the icons which are nicely organized by "constructions" "movements" etc... and each turn takes just a few minutes even when a xlarge game is toward the end. I really think some players tend to underestimate Warlock because of its apparent simplicity of use, but (apparent) simplicity sometimes takes a lot of planning and it's not a "simple" achievement to obtain!

(By the way I actually think that Warlock has more spells than FE, but it's just an impression: I haven't counted them since each god has its own spells that are only available when getting closer to that specific divinity)

Metacritic score: 70

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/warlock-master-of-the-arcane

Apparently the world doesn't share in the gushing seen here.

Actually the world does because the user scores are quite good. It's the "professional" reviewer scores that are lower than they should be. And at 70 the score there has actually improved as several good recent reviews have come in.

This game is a good example that most professional game reviewers these days are either idiots, have an agenda, are in some company's pocket, or are just pathetically lazy. Game reviewers do far more harm than good and I wish they'd just go away. They made sense in a world of print magazines 15 years ago but not anymore. I'd much rather trust the opinion of posters I know on a game forum somewhere like this one that have put real time into actually trying the game out in detail and that I know don't have some hidden interest that runs counter to fairness.

Quite a few problems with Warlock, still.  While bugs have been ironed out, two constant complaints since its release have been it's poor strategic enemy AI, and its braindead diplomacy AI.  These are important areas, at least if you're a serious strategic gamer (as I assume most people are, here).  In tactical battle, both non-affiliated enemies and AI opponents make good choices, but even on hard difficulty it's relatively easy to beat the AI.  And I'm far from being a genius at this sort of thing.

Is Warlock an attractive game?  Yes, it is.  Visually, it's a stunner, and the components of gameplay mesh well.  It's a much less ambitious title than FE, but sometimes you don't want to listen to Shostakovich.  You just want to hear some ABBA.

No, actually you never want to hear ABBA.

Well if in your opinion our Frogdude has done Shostakovich with Elemental War of Magic, man I got no answer for you!!!

Certainly "ABBA" in your post is used as "commercial bullshit", which no strategy turn based game ever is. If someone wants to go commercial they make a RTS not a TBS game! So the comparison doesn't really work.  Probably the professional reviewers mentioned above just try to anticipate the tastes of the masses who like those silly games. Obviously it is easier to make the AI in a RTS where the computer players can just build faster and rush, instead than a TBS where the AI is really challenging a human brain. Just for that a TBS should always deserve a few extra stars, like an author movie deserves them over a Hollywood flick... Evenn if an author film takes sometimes the chance to appear slow and boring to some. But then again I doubt videogame reviewers tend to have the same cultural depth of a (real) movie critic. (some of them are kinda young too)

Anyay the game is fun and has potential. True that the AI needs work. They are apparently working on that, meanwhile its multiplayer inclination makes me feel that the game will maybe work well even with a not so great AI.

Warlock was cool... the first week. After that... I dunno, it just seems exactly the same every time. I tried it a couple of times after thinking about cool resource possibilities for the ultimate unit, and then get bored out of my mind once those units roll everything. Once you figure out how to set up your economy (and it's not exactly hard) and starts pumping out those uber units, you find out that the game doesn't even bother putting up a fight and all that effort seems wasted. Having three different races should have made the lifespan of the game a lot longer, but you can use all three in the same game... which completely defeated the purpose. I don't know if I even want to try multiplayer given the outrageous balance issues with various units. What's to prevent someone from walking over a random goody hut, pick up one of those insanely OP god units, and just steam roll everything?

Since I was just going for humor and certainly not for a comparison, the line works. ;)  I'm honestly not sure how one could compare any game to a work of Shostakovich.  There's just no grounds for comparison.

They also say they're working on fleshing on the quest system, which is very lean at the moment.  I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, though their work on Majesty 2 was underwhelming.

EDIT: New thread by the lead developer states the DLC and major patch coming in August will also feature heroes who have special abilities and objects, very much like MoM.