Having finished two games over the past few days I think it's time to put some personal thoughts about the game on paper.

First of all :

[Champions]: I like them. It's really rewarding to explore the world and do quests with them. The new leveling system is interesting and gives some nice choices. I do feel that some of the harder to get level 4 and 5 heroes aren't always unique enough. I did see one or two special ones on the fallen side though and I did only get them quite late in the mob up phase so that might distort my view.

[Quests] From the couple of quests that I've seen I think that they're an intersting mix. I do think that having only 2 dialoge options is sometimes a bit limiting and most do seem to fall into the go to a location, fight a group and then return catagory ( but I guess that's to be expected in a fantasy wargame ). Still some bugged ones ofcourse but I'm sure that'll get fixed eventually.

[Cities]: First of all I want to say that I like the current city building. I know there are quite some people that don't but I enjoy making my custom cities especiall in the early to mid game when most of the cities that I own are still the ones I've build myself. I do think though that the city speciallisation isn't there yet. There's not much stopping me from just building everything in all my cities. The city level up buildings are a nice bonus. Prestige feels to early to tell. I haven't tried the mega city yet.

[Factions] Don't feel distinct enough. I don't think the current faction bonusses are enough yet to make me feel like I'm playing a diffent faction. The abilities I'm choosing for my sovreign feels more important in how the game playes then the faction I choose. I also didn't see much diffence in how the Ai plays different factions but that's more due to the current AI on wich I'll comment later.

[Wildlands] They can be intersting but at the moment it feels like they're missing a trick. Something to make them stand out from more then just a mob packed goodie hut area. Ofcourse I've only seen 3 of them and the scrapheap got looted by an AI which the mobs didn't attack and I think the Shroud bugged. The ruins of the Imperium felt disappointing. There was notting in there to make the city you build there special. Yes it had some decent resources around it but it was just a level one city.

[Magic] I'm having a bit of mixed feelings about this. It can extrememly overpowered and underwelming at the same time. I must admit though that I haven't explored it all yet. I've hardly touched the stratigic spells at the moment and for the tactical spells I've mostly used those from the fire and dead spheres.

[Tactical Combat] This feels a lot better then it did in War of Magic but I do agree with others that it still lacks something, although I can't say what that something is. It might just be some terrain influence like forest cover or extra accuracy from hills but I dont know. I like the innitiative system, makes it feel more flowing. What I do hate though is the lack of a way to organise your army at the start of ( or before)the tactical combat so that the archers aren't always in the front row like they are now.

[UI] The Ui is going the right way from what I've seen. There is ofcourse still room for some improvement, like the addition of a city's total production in the ledger screen or having the heroes abilities a bit more organised.

[AI] I think the AI is my biggest disappointment at the moment in Fallen Enchantress.

The two games I've played where on a Medium sized map with 6 AI opponents. First one on normal and second one on Challenging.

In both those games it felt that only 2 of the 6 AI opponents where really trying to play the game. These 2 where building cities, building outposts, grabbing goodie huts, asking for treaties and going to war. The other 4 where doing nothing, They just sat in their terratory, parading around with a couple of units just waiting to be slaughtered. They weren't even building outposts on resources right next to their one city. Nothing.

The tactical AI is better then it was in WoM.

Anyway this is a lot more then I planned to write. Overall I did enjoy Fallen Enchantress and I think that with a bit more ballancing and work on the AI that it will be a great game. It already feels more focussed then War of Magic was.

Ill include 2 zipfiles with a collection of savegames from my 2 playthroughs. Don't know if they're usefull but it feels better then just deleting them before I start on my 3rd playthrough

First one is from a normal mode game, medium map, playing as Capillar

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10491696/Fallen%20Enchantress%20Beta/Fallen%20Enchantress%20Beta%20Savegame1.zip

Second is Challenging playthrough, medium map, custom sovreign playing as Resolyn

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10491696/Fallen%20Enchantress%20Beta/Fallen%20Enchantress%20Beta%20Resolyn.zip