To whom it may concern at Stardock,

I have invested an extensive amount of time testing Elemental and the Fallen Enchantress Beta and have arrived at some conclusions that I feel may improve the playability and enjoyment of the final product. I hope that these suggestions are of value to you.

1) Cities:

- First of all, the idea of having graphical representations of the city upgrades is an idea that has had its time. The upgrades I am referring to include the workshop, school, barracks, etc.. I understand why it was designed this way, but in truth it is more of a deterrent to game enjoyment than a benefit. The cacophony of graphical images give little visual information and it is a hassle to position each upgrade on the map grid, especially with the new system of city placement. The only real game benefit is the ability to make 'traffic barriers' with your city, but this again is greatly diminished with the new city placement system (it is hard to position near geographic choke-points). Esthetically, this approach gives very limited value to the player, and sometimes looks actually looks ugly. For example, try building a wall around a city next to a river … the wall goes through the river!

I suggest that you eliminate this aspect of the game and make the city icon advance to reflect the stage of the city, culture of the city, and perhaps it's emphasis. For example, a city with high magical emphasis might resemble the darkling city (in the shroud I believe, called 'Deorcnysse' in my play-through) icon, although perhaps more city-like. Upgrades would be seen when you click on city details, but not otherwise.

There is an exception to this suggestion. Some upgrades would create high value for both visual and strategic enjoyment. These include 'water mill', 'docks', and 'lumber yard'. The appeal is that they are dependent on terrain types, are not good additions to the city proper, and offer high returns at a high building cost. I suggest that these could be built more like outposts, outside the city walls and without protection. I suggest that these improvements could only be built inside of a city's cultural area, be assigned to that city (for costs and benefits), and require a minimum space distance from one another. I also recommend that there be a limit to how many of each type a city can support based on that city's level.

This creates a challenge for defense and an opportunity for attack. Unlike outposts, they are not related to sources of critical goods, they merely provide bonuses. It would be annoying when they are destroyed (especially as they are expensive to build), but not critical. A threat may cause the player to choose to send troops to protect them; however, as they are close to the city, that city is also threatened. The player must make strategic choices.

If this idea is appealing, then perhaps two new features could be added, the harbor and the windmill. The harbor is the oceanic equivalent to docks and could affected the bonus given by trade with other civilizations. Should sea travel be added, this is where ships would be built. They could also be used, like outposts, to gain sea resources. Of course the ubiquitous sea cliffs would need to be replaced by shoreline. The windmill would be the lesser equivalent of the watermill. Its advantage is that is would be more accessible and require either a sea cliff or hill top for construction (windmills, particularly primitive ones, rely on wind shear for power).

Exclusive wonders, such as the great mill should be dropped. This is a concept from Sid Meier's civilization that works well in that game, but much less well in this one. They seem to be naturally disappearing from Fallen Enchantress anyway.

- Secondly, cities should be more defensible. I recommend that they have an automatic palisade defense (shown in the existing initial city graphic, by the way) that can be upgraded when the technology is available. The land is full of predators and a palisade is a basic technology. Exploration and defending resources and outposts already give the player plenty of strategic challenges. Also, loosing a city to the likes of a black widow is weird and unsatisfying (automatic reload for most of us, I think). If I loose a city, I expect it to be to a more advanced monster … and I pretty much asked for it through my city's placement.

Enemy armies (Kingdom/Empire) should be slowed when they travel through a cities cultural zone. This is the result of the city garrison and civilian population hampering their progress by felling trees across paths, filling wells, raiding supply lines, etc.. It would add to the defensibility of a city. This is reminiscent of the starbase abilities from both Galactic Civilizations and Sins of of Solar Empire.

- Thirdly I believe that the current implementation of roads requires a redesign. The automatic roads make the cities vulnerable to enemy attack (and not by my choice!) and are built in strange locations (i. e. past a drake's nest?). This is a design that I would borrow from civilization: manually build trails then upgrade them to roads on a square by square basis. Roads could be destroyed for strategic reasons (or to simply to avoid road clutter on the map). Bridges would also become an option for speeding friendly travel (or they could be demolished to impede enemy travel).

2) Outposts:

- I think the outpost idea is on the right track, but it needs some fleshing out. Here are my suggestions:

The name 'outpost' could be changed to 'hamlet' (with a new graphic showing a cluster of hovels). It would only influence one square away, not two (it should not be more influential than a new city, and this limitation makes the resource race a longer contest). Each hamlet would be assigned and dependent upon a city, and could be reassigned at the players choice (or reassigned following a catastrophe to the host city if alternate city was within the proper range). This idea is reminiscent of the mined asteroids in Galactic Civilizations. Hamlets should be positioned at least one square away from each other, perhaps more (it is important to prevent over-clustering, and hamlets would require some foraging space, wouldn't they?). Hamlets could also incur a cost to the host city, and/or be limited in number, to prevent a checker board of hamlets across the map.

If the hamlet falls within a cities cultural influence, it will upgrade, like a settlement through population increase, to a 'village' (with a new graphic showing more prosperity than the hamlet). The village could gain some benefits: 1) provide a small amount of tax to the host city, 2) have an automatic palisade defense, and 3) have one militia unit. Perhaps it could garrison additional forces limited to three. This would complicate city conquests and add to strategy. This upgrade potential would certainly make the hamlet more interesting and valuable than an outpost.

Hamlets would be founded by pioneer units as they are currently in Beta 2. Cities require more specialists and skilled citizenry, so perhaps they would be founded by a new and much more expensive unit, the 'settler'. This would slow the city race and make it more interesting. It would also give the player time to concentrate more on early adventuring, if they choose to pursue that. Because of the use of the names hamlet and village, the city stages could be named settlement, town, and so forth.

Enemy hamlets can be captured or razed. Hamlets could be abandoned (for diplomacy reasons or to avoid losing it to an enemy), and perhaps, if located in territory that allows city building, upgraded with a settler unit (making a slightly more populated settlement as it combines the hamlet's population with the settler). Lastly, for esthetic reasons, consider changing the appearance of the pioneer with a family, not just a cluster of women that follow the same grouping numbers as military units. The settler unit, if adopted, could be graphically represented by a larger number of people possibly with wagons or livestock.

As a final note, monsters should view hamlets (not villages) as easy pickings (they are). This makes remote hamlets difficult to defend.

4) Forts (a new feature):

- While I endorse it, the new method of positioning cities makes fortification difficult. It would be nice to guard strategic locations and choke-points would add to the game play. I recommend that you consider a new feature, the fort. Forts may provide a new and interesting element to the game.

Forts could exist in three grades: 1) 'motte', 2) 'keep', and 3) 'castle'. The motte is a basic (dark age) design built on a hill that uses palisade for defense. They would be immediately available to the player. The keep is a more advanced design that uses rough stone construction to create a central tower with a outer curtain wall (sometimes called chemise or shell). Historically, upper structures where often from hewn timber (some representatives have survived in Germany and Eastern Europe). This would require the the first level of fortification technology and would be an upgrade for the motte. The castle is the classic high medieval design of finished stone or brick. It would require the final level of fortification technology and would be an upgrade for the keep.

To limit early game proliferation, a fort would be built by a 'Retainers' unit, which would be quite expensive. This could be graphically represented by a noble with some men at arms. It should also take a while to construct the feature leaving a period of vulnerability to enemy (or creature) attack. Fort building would be limited not only by their high expense and time to construct, but by a maximum number per city and city stage. A city might be able to support a fort at stage 2 and another at stage 4, for example. Forts should require some level of distance from each other (maybe six squares?).

With respect to their military function, forts should have a better basic garrison units than cities. For example, I suggest that the motte have one spearman and one archer unit (if technology allows). Perhaps a primitive bow should be added to the technology tree, to be obtained when spearmen is obtained (primitive bows are a pretty basic technology after all.). The defensive capabilities of the fort should be higher than normal (perhaps + 50%). They should also be able to garrison additional troops (up to six).

The fort would have some features of a city in that it could contain specialists (possibly a stable, a weapon-smith, barracks, etc.) and could train military units. Perhaps the specialist options improve with a better grade of fort (e. g. barbican, outer bailey, scorpions).

Forts would be assigned, like hamlets, to a city. As an advanced idea, a champion could be assigned as lord of a fort. This could give the champion some added benefits and add a little more depth to the game.

5) Monsters:

- In order to make the 'adventure' and 'discovery' portion of the game last, consider allowing new 'monsters' and their lairs to spawn in area that are not civilized (i. e. controlled by any player) when their numbers begin to become depleted.

6) Sea Travel:

- Ships would allow for wider exploration, island exploitation, and avoiding territory violations when traveling. They could also provide a source of adventure in the form of sea battles and sea monsters, and would add possibilities for the water school of magic.

To adhere to the setting, I recommend that ships be of a medieval type, not 17^th century designs. This means smaller vessels with very little, if any, superstructure and one or two masts with simple square or lateen sails. An Arab dhow might be a good prototype. Ships could follow the same grouping progression as land units (3, 5, 7, etc.).

7) Neutral cities:

- This is a concept that was under-developed in Galactic Civilizations and undeveloped in Elemental, but it did have potential. I suggest that you re-introduce the concept as 'old cities', ones that survived the conflict, but suffer from many internal problems that make empire building impossible. Consider Rome or Constantinople in their waning stages. They were powerful, had all the trappings of advanced societies, but suffered from infighting, intrigue, bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, and a lack of a forward unified vision. The old cities could be the crumbling husk of the civilization that came before.

As for their game value, they could be the source of adventures, disillusioned or persecuted champions, and relics of the bygone age. They would also be a source of contrasting cultural and historic flavor that could add considerable depth to the game.

In terms of diplomacy, they would have limited ability to exert their power into the wild-lands (due to internal problems), but would be very, very difficult to conquer and a headache to govern. Trade and military agreements would be less than favorable to the new kingdoms/empires (the old cities are pompous, greedy, and corrupt). They would attempt to extort money and resources when they exist in proximity to a kingdom/empire, but their political/economic/military inefficiencies would limit this threat. They would also be treacherous. Most importantly, they are dying embers of a civilization with a fixed sphere of influence; they do not grow.

As an additional idea, old cities could be a source of 'tax' collectors, raiders, or pirates (should you choose to reintroduce sea travel). One criticism of previous games: please keep pirates realistic. They are way to powerful to be believed in Sins of a Solar Empire (living on an asteroid?) and their 'Disney'esque dialogue ('Shiver me timbers' or 'Avast ye matey') has no place in a medieval or science fiction setting. Stardock's environments are sophisticated, imaginative, and refined. This isn't … it is annoying. I don't mean to be rude or condescending, this is simply my humble opinion.

8) Dynasties:

- You did not get this concept wrong in Elemental, I thought it had brilliant potential; however, it was very underdeveloped. The existence of old cities may allow the reintroduction of this element of game play, as they would provide a source of potential mates from various 'rival' families of noble birth within each old city. Marriage could affect prestige and allow offspring, but may also pull the player into old city intrigues, including visits from assassins … or the need to hire them. You could always choose a mate from one of the new kingdoms/empires (if available ...) as part of an alliance agreement. This might bring its own challenges for the player to solve.

9) Champions:

- Injuries could be an interesting feature, however, it would be much superior if some of them (at least half) were time limited in their effects. As it stands, the accumulation of injuries makes the champion unappealing and possibly a detriment to the players success and game enjoyment. It is also illogical to have a champion with permanent typhoid or some such malady. In its current form, most players will reload from save … which means that the feature is not providing fun value and is a general nuisance. Also of note is that non-player champions tend to show lists of injuries demonstrating that the A. I. isn't using champion's well. This could help compensate.

- Inspired by the background descriptions and the desire to add dimension to the champion's character, I think it might be advisable to link quests to champion recruitment. Rather than paying gold to every champion, some might request a boon … “find my twin brother” or some such task. Successful completion would give the player the champion and perhaps other benefits, such as prestige.

- In Beta 2, many champions are essentially sovereigns. They have magical ability in several schools. This eliminates the unique nature of the leaders, such as the player's avatar. I confess that I do not like this.

Here is an alternative idea. There are sovereigns, the avatar is one, who has complete access to all schools. Then there are channelers who have access to a single school. Natural channelers are rare, usually higher level, champions that may be recruited.

The 'paragon' spell could allow the leader to imbue a non-magical champion with channeler capability. That champion gains a level and selects their school as that level's bonus. The 'Path of the Mage' now becomes a potential future bonus option for them. The attribute costs of the 'paragon' spell remain to avoid overusing this ability, but it would now give more value than Beta 2's version of the spell making it more attractive to cast. This might be particularly beneficial for players with few champions and, comparative to their rivals, limited resources and territory, as the sacrifice may have a greater relative effect by evening the odds. It also allows the player to balance the schools or favor a school if desired.

10) Territory violations:

It would be nice if territory was respected. Currently, rival units cross your territory with impunity while the player gets a reprimand for crossing rival territory most of the time. Telling a rival not to use your territory simply results in repeated attempts making the whole process tedious and pointless.

How about having a dialogue automatically appear allowing the trespasser the possibility of negotiating passage for a few turns, perhaps for a fee? Otherwise, they cannot pass. A special trait could be added to units (Disguise?) to allow for spies or assassins to sneak onto rival territory. If sea travel in reintroduced this would provide an alternative route of travel, and make the whole process better.