Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes

[Martok]

Anyone else still playing this one?  I just fired up a new game yesterday for the first time in a little while, and am having a blast.  I forget sometimes how good this game is, despite its flaws.  I really wish Stardock would make a sequel. 

[bbmike]

I need to. I don't know why but Fallen Enchantress and GalCivIII just can't seem to suck me in like Civilization does. I should love them both but hardly ever play them.

[Martok]

I need to. I don't know why but Fallen Enchantress and GalCivIII just can't seem to suck me in like Civilization does. I should love them both but hardly ever play them.

FWIW, I didn't take to FE:LH right away myself.  I was initially less than enthralled with both the somewhat-darker atmosphere and the artistic style.  I've since come to appreciate both, but it took me a few attempts at getting into the game before that happened. 

Fortunately, I stuck with it.  In doing so, I discovered that FE:LH does a very nice job of balancing 4x strategy combed with RPG elements, probably better than any other game out there.  There are also some fairly elegant systems embedded into the game, such as how the tech tree and upgrading your cities work. 

I also like that you pretty much have to make certain choices: Your characters (your faction ruler, plus whatever champions you recruit along the way) aren't going to be able to level up anywhere near enough to grab all the abilities available, so you have to pick & choose.  And as a practical matter, you have to specialize your cities, as you're not going to be able to build all the construction options that are available to you. 

The multiple victory conditions are appreciated as well:  In addition to the traditional conquest and diplomacy victories, there's also the "Master Quest" and "Spell of Making" victories, which offer a somewhat different way to win the game than simply painting the map your color.  It's not perfect, of course, but I really appreciate that the options are there. 



I hear you on Galactic Civilizations III.  It has a ton of neat mechanics & features (I like the "alignment" system, and they finally found a good way to implement Starbases!), and I even enjoy the lore.  However, there's something about the game itself that always ends up leaving me feel...cold, I guess?  I suspect the GC series has long suffered from a problem of feeling "generic", which is a shame. 


For GalCiv4, I think Stardock needs to: 

1.)  Implement lore-based events and event-chains (ala Stellaris) into the sandbox campaigns.  (Also, ditch the separate story campaigns entirely.)  Brad Wardell created an entire backstory for the GC universe; it's long past time that he fully embedded it into the main game. 

2.)  Get a professional writer or two on-staff to tackle everything from writing out descriptions for the stock races (Terrans, Drengin, Altarians, etc.) to planet types and technologies.  (One of the reasons I got sucked into Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes was because of the atmosphere/immersion factor, which in turn was largely due to text descriptions for every faction, spell, creature, etc.) 

3.)  For the love of all that is holy, do something about the space combat!  Just about anything would be an improvement, as the current auto-resolved battles and battle-viewer is a complete turd.  (I continue to find the lack of tactical combat utterly baffling, especially when juxtaposed against their in-depth ship-designer.) 

[bbmike]

Yeah, I think #3 is my biggest problem with GalCiv. A good tactical battle system would be a HUGE improvement to the game.

[BanzaiCat]

Hmm, I have it but Steam says I haven't played it since 2016. But I put in over 21 hours so I must have liked it.

[bayonetbrant]

Hmm, I have it but Steam says I haven't played it since 2016. But I put in over 21 hours so I must have liked it.

or some shiny new something-or-other caught your attention at hour 22   

[bbmike]

 

[Martok]

Yeah, I think #3 is my biggest problem with GalCiv. A good tactical battle system would be a HUGE improvement to the game.

Agreed.  It's probably the single biggest critique of the series overall. 

What I find especially frustrating is that Brad always talks about adding tactical combat to the next game, but then never does -- he did this with both GC2 and GC3, and is already waffling about the idea with GC4.    I suspect it's at least partially because a certain portion of the fanbase is weirdly -- and loudly -- in opposition to it, which utterly bafffles me.    I mean, if tactical combat were implemented in some form, then they could simply choose not to use it; just automate the battles like before.  I just don't get why some of them shout it down all the time, *and* why Brad continues to listen to them.  But I digress. 

Hmm, I have it but Steam says I haven't played it since 2016. But I put in over 21 hours so I must have liked it.

or some shiny new something-or-other caught your attention at hour 22   

Knowing BC, I would be astonished if it were any other scenario.   


But in all honesty, if you have any sort of hankering for 4x/grand-strategy games set in a fantasy world, you could definitely do worse than FE:LH.  It gives me that "one more turn" vibe that few other games do these days. 

[bbmike]

Didn't FE:LH get a fairly large patch recently?

[Bison]

I remember playing Elemental: War of Magic prior to its repackaging as Fallen Enchantress. It was quite the debacle of PR and QA/QC from Stardock ends.

GALCIV III is a good game but I always found the graphics to be uninspired compared to CIV.

[Martok]

Didn't FE:LH get a fairly large patch recently?

I guess it depends on your definition of "recently". 

In May of last year, Stardock dropped version 2.5, a fairly meaty update that included some nice AI improvements and numerous performance optimizations, along with the usual balance tweaks and bug fixes.  They then released the 2.51 patch in October, which was a smaller update with additional AI tweaks, a few more optimization improvements, and addressed some balance issues. 


There's been sporadic talk of doing another patch, but honestly I doubt it will happen.  (I get the impression Stardock came out behind doing these last couple updates, if only in terms of man-hours spent versus subsequent sales on an older game.)  Even if that's the case, however, I'm still impressed with how Brad & co. has supported this game as much -- and as long -- as they have. 

Considering that FE:LH was only a moderate success for them financially, they didn't really have much incentive to come back and keep updating this old gem, but they did anyway.  I suspect Brad has a bit of a soft spot for this game, which (if true) certainly doesn't hurt.   

[Martok]

I remember playing Elemental: War of Magic prior to its repackaging as Fallen Enchantress. It was quite the debacle of PR and QA/QC from Stardock ends.

Oy, you're definitely not wrong.  Elemental: War of Magic was an absolute train wreck.    When it came to PC strategy titles, it was easily the most disastrous launch of the new decade.  (At least until Paradox & Kerberos said "hold my ale", and released Sword of the Stars II the following year.)  I still remember how both angry and -- even worse, sad -- I was when I fired up the game, only to discover it was nothing like what Brad had described. 

At least he seemed to learn from his (many, many) mistakes during that whole episode.  Just as importantly, he set about doing his best to make things right -- hence, why those (like myself) who'd either pre-ordered Elemental or purchased it within the first 30 days of release subsequently got the next two games in the series -- Fallen Enchantress and Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes -- for free.  I know that still wasn't enough for some folks, but I personally was happy with how he handled things, especially given how much improved the next two games were (and FE:LH in particular). 

GALCIV III is a good game but I always found the graphics to be uninspired compared to CIV.

Yeah, there is something about the art style that I find off-putting.  I can't really put my finger on what exactly it is, other than that it's an unfortunate combination of bland and/or borderline cartoonish.  That, and it simply looked too much like its predecessor GalCiv2 -- as in, you might have honestly believed you were looking at the same game if you'd compared the two side-by-side. 

It's not the worst of the game's offenses by a long shot, but it does hurt the atmosphere, its immersion factor.  And atmosphere/immersion is often crucial to enjoying games, especially those in a fantasy or sci-fi setting. 

[bbmike]

I agree that Brad did his best to make things right for us that pre-ordered Elemental: War of Magic. One thing I've always wished he'd try his hand at is making a Civilization-type game. I think he's stated before that he has no interest since it's "been done already" but that's a weak argument IMO.

[Martok]

I agree that Brad did his best to make things right for us that pre-ordered Elemental: War of Magic. One thing I've always wished he'd try his hand at is making a Civilization-type game. I think he's stated before that he has no interest since it's "been done already" but that's a weak argument IMO.

I suspect Brad has always had a more practical objection to making a Civ-style game as well, which is that Stardock has long struggled to hire people for their game division.  So with limited personnel, he decided to focus on making the games he really wanted to make (GalCiv, The Political Machine, Star Control, etc.). 

To be fair, I think Brad also has been reluctant to make a Civ game out of...call it a combination of professional courtesy and fanboy-ism, I guess?  His love for the Civilization franchise isn't exactly a secret, and I think he feels to make a competing product would be not only unnecessary, but...discourteous. 

When you combine that with the fact that he's never really had the resources to make a competing product anyway, it makes sense that he doesn't want to bother doing so.   

[Martok]

So this past week, I made a few tweaks to my usual setup for when starting a new campaign.  Thus far, I'm pleasantly surprised by how much it's improved my enjoyment of this game. 


1.)  Toning down enemy strength.  After years of being stubborn about it, I swallowed my pride and decreased the strength of enemies all the way down to "Beginner".  (Note: this only affects creatures & peoples in the untamed wild-lands between the civilized nations that are beginning to (re)establish themselves -- it does not affect the army strength of the other Kingdoms & Empires.)  Doing so has made it much easier to level up my Sovereign and the Heroes he's recruited. 

Next campaign, I think I'm going to increase their difficulty to "Easy" (the setting in between Beginner and Normal) and see how that goes.  I may also increase the amount of enemies in the game, so that I can farm more of that sweet, sweet XP.   


2.)  Playing on smaller maps.  This is a fairly radical departure for me, as I typically prefer playing 4x games on the largest map sizes available.  Sure, it means the late/end-game tends to be tedious (since you're also usually having to manage a sprawling empire with tons of cities/colonies), but I love the "epic" feel of those big maps so much, that I generally consider it a fair trade-off.  Realistically, however, I often run out of steam on big maps before achieving full victory, which is obviously frustrating (particularly as I've gotten older). 

Given that, combined with the fact that I rarely shoot for a "total conquest" victory anyway, made me realize that perhaps a smaller map might actually be a better fit,  especially in FE:LH -- I prefer to win by completing either the Master Quest or the Spell of Making.  I'm currently playing on a Medium-sized map, and am definitely having a better experience so far.  Simply seeing how much smaller the world is has given me more patience & willingness to actually play the campaign through to the end.  Next time, I plan to try an even smaller map to see how that goes. 


3.)  Trying out different factions other than my usual favorites.  Prior to this week, I'd pretty much only played Kingdoms in my campaigns, with only the occasional tinkering around with Empires.  Now, however, I'm finally getting into the Empires in a big way, and damn are they fun!  Death magic is awesome.   

Playing as the Empire of Resoln in particular has been a blast thus far; their army roster includes lesser elementals and some of the giant spiders.  It's great to have some of these bastards on my side for a change.