Elemental - Fallen Enchantress First Impressions

From a person with little expectations

from Elemental Forums

Master of Magic was probably the very first video game I've ever played and has earned its place in my memory as a great game for this reason. I've played other games that have gotten close to recapturing the feelings I had when playing MoM, most notably Disciples II and Age of Wonder. I watched as the original Elemental came closer to release and even had an opportunity to try out a pre-release build - it's an opinion that has been expressed quite a few times, but it just wasn't for me.

 

Elemental - Fallen Enchantress, on the other hand, seems like it might be for me. It's compelling (I couldn't say why), it's got great art direction and I like the spells and combat system.

 

But currently my play style will always lead to me being extorted by the AI, bullied and then forced into waging a tedious war, that by merit of the AI's seemingly endless cities and resources, will become unwinnable or not worth the time and effort. I could adapt my playstyle to this new game but that would warrant a level of micromanagement that would render the game unenjoyable. 

 

Here are a list of general observations I noted during my first day with the beta:

 

- The game remains very unintuitive. 

- Diplomacy seems to have taken a big step backward since Galciv 2.

- The system for determining a faction's strength needs to be retooled to incorporate heroes with high levels and great equipment. I'd often be against an opponent where I'd be rated 20 and they'd be rated 200 but I could hold them indefinitely at a bottleneck. Their soldiers crashing and dying against my two champions without a second thought. At a certain point they should realize that my military is not "20" and re-consider their attack.

- Starting a game always feels slow and the early technologies seem like we should start with them.

- The AI needs to be toned down in their expansionist desires.

- None of the factions seem particularly unique. I haven't yet spotted the difference between "kingdom" and "empire" even.

That said, I feel that this game has plenty of potential. I really hope that it succeeds and I think that the team has learned from their mistakes. I think that by Fall, this game really could get it "right."

4,235 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Most of the stuff on your list sounds like its fixed in next patch, except for unintuitive, help us work this out with forum posts and ill be happy! :D

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

But currently my play style will always lead to me being extorted by the AI, bullied and then forced into waging a tedious war, that by merit of the AI's seemingly endless cities and resources, will become unwinnable or not worth the time and effort. I could adapt my playstyle to this new game but that would warrant a level of micromanagement that would render the game unenjoyable.
End of quote

Yeah, this is my biggest complaint with the current beta -- compared to, say, Galactic Civ II or Fall From Heaven 2 (or even Civ 3/4/5), the political options are very limited. You're basically in an arms race, and if you fall behind, more and more AI empires will start attacking you and keep attacking you even when they're losing badly.

I trust, as per the response above, that this will be addressed in subsequent major beta releases -- in fact, one video posted for the next beta showed the ability both to demand tribute of other factions or to pay tribute pre-emptively. I'm hoping there will be quite a few more political options that will allow more efforts at political/cultural/technological dominance than the current beta. 

I will note, however, that this game has grown on me tremendously, and I've been spending far too much time playing it for the last week, which is a good sign as far as the game design goes. In some ways, the limitations of the beta help: I have spent more and more time focusing on the character/unit attributes and buffs, particularly on how they play out in tactical combat. ..bruce..

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

- Starting a game always feels slow and the early technologies seem like we should start with them.
End of quote

On the other hand, this doesn't bother me at all. I've been playing around with different early-game approaches as far as characters, units, cities and techs go. I like the fact that my characters have to dodge around a lot of dangerous units early on; it makes it all the more satisfying when I finally have a stack built that can go back and wipe them out. I smile every time I can use the 'auto-resolve' button, though I've learned not to be overconfident as to when I can use it.  ..bruce..

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

One more thing:

- I think I like the pacing of the game, but usually when I run into my first AI I discover how far behind I am. The kind of "auto-turn" feature may be responsible for this. I don't seem to put as much emphasis on getting every action out of a turn that I can, because they seem to go by so unceremoniously. I wouldn't know if this is worth changing.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Don't use auto-turn, its rubbish, and it skips all the important stuff you an do each turn, this sounds very harsh but that is my experience, auto-turn in this game is a mistake ATM, since it have a rubbish interface to help you through the turn so far.

That said, the beta is here so we can help the developers create a proper interface which can assist the player at every turn, so the auto turn feature will be feasible, so I hope you 2 will help point out stuff you think could be improved to the interface :D

Game have some flaws, wait till after 3rd beta (think its the 12th this month) and try again, see how much you like the changes, I am excited anyways :D

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes.  The default option settings are very strange - to put it politely.

OT: OMG Kongdej you have transformed from an alien!  I like it. 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

+1 for auto-turn sucking. I was watching a let's play of Fall From Heaven and auto-turn frequently delayed many actions for him.

+1 for steve argyle's artwork.