Feedback Needed On Late Game Balance

1. I played customs factions in all of the about 10 games i played. Customizing my side is very important to me and i feel that the UI could be much improved in that area. Most of the time i chose Men as race for the experience bonus and the henchmen, which are cool. I taken a liking to Heroic, Wanderlust and Master Scouts. I take "No ranged weapons" as a weakness, because trained ranged units are useless in my experience.

2. I rush the early civics technologies and tech warfare up until mounted warfare - after that i avoid warfare like the plague; after all, weapons can be found in the magic tree, which is where i spend most of my research. As soon as i can train a group of 5 with lightning hammers, my trained units outclass all others, and that is the point where all further research is unnecessary to win.

3. Most of my mana is gained from meditation. Most of my research from inspiration. My faction power is always the lowest until the first conflict, because it doesn't take into account that my hero can wipe out armies, especially since experience gain has been made faster again.

4. I play against five on a medium map, expert difficulty. When a war breaks out, some dozen turns of whack-a-mole ensue as enemy troops plop up everywhere near my cities while i rarely train more than 2 or 3 units myself. After i cleaned that up, my sovereign takes their cities effortlessly. However, i take care not to war against more than one faction at a time, if necessary by paying tribute. One on one, no faction can compete with the high-level sovereign and his gang.

5. The enemy does train proper units but they are nowhere near the level of the units that travel with my sovereign. That means all they can hope is to conquer the garrison of undefended towns - by the way, town garrisons have never successfully defended anything in my games. They are occasionally using 5-man units, but their sovereigns are weak and rarely have any impact on the fights inspite of being assigned a dozen bonus perks.

6. Apart from 1 -2 of the trained units mentioned in #2 i have one or two henchmen and 2 or more heroes. I dislike training units that will soon become outdated,  so i avoid having more than one or two around in the beginning. That might change when unit size and equipment can be upgraded in the future. I rarely use anything beyond leather armor, my games don't go that long.

7. There is no late game. Once i took out one faction and the path to taking out the others is clearly mapped out i will often start a new game or end the game quickly by means of the master quest. I cannot be bothered to mop up the entire map, it's just not entertaining and the tactical battles against the AI are just not interesting enough at the moment.

1. I have played pretty much every faction. Usually my power level is 1.5 times the next players at the end of the game. I usually am low to mid ranked early game but slowly kill higher ranked players until I get to the highest rank. Late game all the factions play the same. My armor is composed of heavy armor infantry. By end game all monsters and elemental are useless because they don't upgrade. Dragons are perhaps the only exception but they are really late game. The only faction that is really different being Roseln because they don;t get heavy armor and instead have to use magic, or more specifically Dirge of Ceresa.

2. I also rush of the civics line and then research line. Depending on my situation I may get warfare tech. After that I usually just get whatever I think I need. If I am really threatened I go for armor tech.

3. My economy is fine I rarely run out of any resource unless I forget to upgrade my mines. I like high essence spots with at least 3 materials. Then usually make them conclaves because they can grow extremely fast and get super amounts of food from enchantments.

4. I play medium maps with 6 factions on Hard difficulty. Usually 2-3 of them put up a good fight. By end game usually 3 -4 are alive after I take our the rest and conquer their cities to become the highest rank player. They then cower before me and I go for a victory condition.

5. The AI tends to build a fair amount of full stacks although they are easy to take out using magic and a single stack of high level and defense units. The AI also really likes mages. My quality beats their quantity.

6. I have 2-3 champions plus some surrendered sovs. My units are usually upgradeable spearmen in leather or chainmail with strength and speed traits.

7. It gets boring because late game all monsters are nothing but fodder and the AI can't build stacks of high enough quality or wield deadly enough magic to kill my super elite units who just continuously walk through them.

Faction:
I play all factions, I (usually) play premade factions with custom sovereigns. (leaving my custom sovereigns for future AI's to play)

Tech:
I ALWAYS get the "Civics" tech first, then usually get first 2 warfare techs and all the way up to each 2nd line of civilization technology, slightly depending on starting location. (and faction, Magnar Faction usually get civics, then spears, then armour, then civilization research).

Economy:
I usually run none taxes up till midgame, building a couple of early merchants to hold down troop wages, at the end of early game I increases taxes to low, and the core of midgame my taxes goes to normal, rushing buildings and units with excess coin
(Never bothered to go above normal, always swimming in cash at this point if I did it right, having a core of big cities).
Iron/crystal/horses/wargs are supremely plentyfull and the only thing keeping me from dropping resources to scarce is I know I will not have "less iron", but rather just not see iron at all.  (1 iron mine is enough to supply my empire, same goes for crystal, horse and wargs).
Mana is somewhat more balanced when playing mage sovereign, when playing a warrior type sovereign I have tons of mana.

Map Size, AI Left:
I play small or medium maps, number of enemies depend on mood, sometimes I go with preferred, a few times recently I tried to lower the enemy count to see how the game was like at that (Jehebus you get lots of cities then :D)
Been running Challenging after beta since I thought I saw a note about the AI being upgraded, upping it up to hard or challenging for future games, since it was nothing big.
Most players live, spare for 1 or 2 I got mad at during the start-up.

AI Army:
Usually see the AI armmies fitted with with maces only (Rarely see the AI use anything but maces) meaby its just a random impression as I was bashing they're faces in.
I usually can whoop them with my sovereign focused game-plan.

My Army:
My armies usually consist of:
some heavily armoured non-mounted defenders (dunno why I don't mount them though :S)
a group of heavily armoured heavily armed mounted knights
I Usually max out my midgame and lategame units, and never going to use ranged... any more (Tried it once, it was really rubbish).

Opinion:
Lategame needs balance, and needs some reappearing monsters.
Lategame would also be helped if monsters during the early stages of the game where more alive and aggressive, keeping the player down by eating outposts and non-defended cities (within reason).
ATM the AI is not really doing anything, (I know it is, but nothing noticeable, like declaring war, killing each-other).
I usually see the AI try to clear wildlands at best.
I'd love the AI to be better at managing to upgrade they're armies, also want to see the hitpoints gained for trained units each level lessened, compared to what they start with.
Also I love to see more interesting sovereign perks, but less powerful ones. (And less late-game accuracy for heroes, axes becomes useless except if they have high raw damage).

I did play my first games in a rather pacifistic way, and with some special things in mind, so next couple of games will be way different.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Version 0.951 - Final Save Game

Altar. Their power is greater only because it grows so fast. Whether it comes to leveling units or cities, they're the best. While they do have Henchmen available I never really needed to use them, nor was I attacked during this game. At most Pariden demanded Tribute from me early on which I accepted.

Always the civilization line (always start with civics) up to the second tier, then a detour into Leather Armor and Horde Riding which lasts for most of the game, then picking up Heroes, then back to Civilization which lasts until the late game. With Altar I also made an effort to pick up more Magic tech than I usually do for a few additional weapon choices. Overall I find that I only Civilization is worth going deep into at the start and then the game is over before I know it.

I believe I was getting around 68 research per turn. Didn't have a lot of luck with metal but I did end up catching one after defeating the Imperium Wildland. Crystal, Horses, and Wargs were in abundance. I only really needed Horses/Crystal (a lot of crystal) for the army that I did build. It felt unnecessary however.

My Faction Power was near the same as other races until Yithril went on a warpath, consuming both Gilden and Krax (the latter of which I managed to talk into this unfortunate war using diplomacy). During this time I was only using my Sovereign and three champions, who the game now properly values high-level units as well.

I started with the full compliment of vanilla champions. As mentioned above, two were destroyed by Yithril. Most are somewhat competitive although going over the end-game graphs it seems I kept a huge Population (likely thanks to Altar) and decent Research advantage. Difficulty was Hard.

Honestly, I didn't do any warfare so I can't say beyond the groups I saw moving past. They seemed to at least travel in relatively large groups (5-6) moving with Champions but the units therein were somewhat weak.

Level 30 Sovereign with too many swords.

Level 15 Non-Magical Assassin/Defender Champion

Level 6 Governor Champion

Level 9 or something mage? He was at best a courier for my other heroes.

Level 14 or so customized Lightninghammer/Leather (upgraded to Chain at the end)/Horses units.

Level 11 or so Shieldbearer Henchman. Was mostly useless. I should've made him a governor.

That was the extent of my entire army. I didn't really need more, and the non-heroes came way later on.

Honestly, it feels sorta rushed. I tend to finish the games in around 200 turns and that's with a lot of dawdling/exploration. At least the AI looked to be holding it together in terms of warfare and even managed to destroy rivals very quickly. However, they lack where it matters: Unit Level. Their sovereigns are much weaker. Their units are much weaker. And thus I never really felt threatened despite all that was going on.

Maybe that's just because I was able to walk over Wildlands as if their master's were small bugs I crushed on accident. The Mastery Quest's final boss I nearly killed in single attack action using the Berserker's Sword (he was 1 or 2 hits away) and might've been able to oneshot with my highest damage sword if I had Crushing Blow (this is without a critical). At that level of power, there's really not much left to fight you.

I never ended a game, I always get bored in the middle game. Early game is awesome, but the endless mooks the ai sends against you in the middle game bores me to death.

I haven't gotten to late game either. I love the early game so much and as the game continues it turns into a boring slog. I just start over when it reaches that point.

1. Magnar game in progress. My LP videos show a specific shift from Magnar early game to late game. The end of the midgame marks Magnar's rise to a powerhouse of a faction. The early game mostly depends on how good your starting position is. Nothing wrong with that. Their unique ability to focus solely on producing leather clad spear slaves en mass can get really powerful if you have a solid production capacity. If you have a mediocre start, they will at least keep you alive until you can expand in the late game. They are the faction you want for a vast war machine, using Slave Pits to utilize conquered cities as training hubs.

2. Getting Groups and Blacksmithing is the ticket to winning. Do what you have to do, but get those techs. Early on you want leather and spears. Then you focus on Civic until you have massive production levels and large armies. It's a simple plan. Avoid any techs with non-spear weapons, magical weapons, metal armor, mounts, or other weak choices. You just need a Boar Spear and Leather. The rest falls into place. Charge, Muscle, Might make for a very strong slave. Once you have these basic things, you don't need any other techs. 

3. The economy uses a little bit of metal. In the early game taxes are set to zero. Later on you can work towards increasing them to Oppressive. Just make sure each production center has a Slave Pit. If you still want research after having the basics, get a Conclave to take Tower of the Magi to ignore Unrest's effect on research. You can save up all other resources to make one or two very strong knights or sell it off to another faction. Faction Power will stay near the top three for the most part until you start your initial attacks. Then you will quickly become dominant.

4. On Challenging, Medium map, normal settings, with 6 factions. Up until about turn 210, I was in the middle as far as faction power. The lower factions were still able to defend their cities and once in a while take one of mine temporarily. After I gained the last tech needed for my strategy, Only the most powerful faction, Tarth, is ahead of me. All others worship at my feet or hang on my wall.

5. The AI's that I defeated were Pariden and Altar. I had made some nice cavalry units for Pariden, which were their best units. They relied on four level 10 heroes to defend against my 2 level 9 heroes and hordes of slaves. Bows are totally ineffective as they would cast Obscuring Fog and Air Shield every battle. Their regular troops were using Monk's Staff and no armor. They used Gift of Iron to become competitive. The only armies they used larger than 5 were in city defense. They were very smart about stacking an endangered city. I lost a few armies to Tenfell early on. 

Altar was less competitive with some basic club units and a few leather defenders. They had little metal, but did not see fit to use spears and leather. A shame really. They had 3 heroes, all of which were level 6 or less with many injuries. More after I finished with them. Their cities were scattered, making a solid defense impossible for them. I agreed to take their Sov in as my pet after it was clear he could not manage a war. He is however skilled at rubbing my feet at night, after a long day of smashing in skulls.

6. Bows are too useless and too easily countered to continue using them. I got rid of them early on in favor of 6 Pawns and a hero. Pawn is a unit that has leather, spear, charge, muscle, strength and that +1 fire attack item that costs no crystal. They are so called because they move the same as a pawn in chess. They are equally expendable. A group of these does plenty of damage and can pierce armor. Losing one or two is not horrible because they are so easily replaced.

7. Overall I have only one serious threat left in my game of 6. I warred and competed with two factions from the start. Tarth has a few outposts near, but their cites are unknown. Yithril and Gilden are somewhere locked in a 30 year war. I am now able to focus on Tarth with no one getting in the way. They have 50 more faction power than I do. I am confident they will be using weak bows that do little against my slave legions. There is a Wildlands nearby, but I see no reason to attack it unless Tarth begins to worry me. I could extend our fragile peace and go for about 5 new shards in the Wildlands if needed. The midgame rise in power I experienced was due to me forgetting to prioritize Blacksmithing and lacking a good start. The AI played well, but after I upgraded all my soldiers, there was little they could do. Their armies were weak, yet they had ample technology. If it was a matter of resources, there should be some better choices in warfare that don't require metal. Clubs don't cut it past turn 100. Even then they are weak to spears. The AI also needs to use leather. Gift of Iron will run out if I force them into a war of attrition. By the end Pariden had no magic left to use in battle.

As soon as I got Blacksmithing no one could keep up with me. I rose to power in about 30 turns. Now I have 3 factions worth of cities. Tarth really should have attacked me earlier. She has been dominating me since we began. Why would she not help out the other Kingdoms? Keep in mind that I am not even at turn 300. It is at this point I would like to see some balance and AI refinement. I don't think that Tarth will have the ability to defend in a large scale war. They have better units and better technology. I should be seeing their soldiers on my doorstep now that I have risen to power so quickly. Tarth should have magical armor and burning bows. I should be way behind. Perhaps things will turn out differently. I will post the final result as soon as it happens.

1. Tarth with a custom Sovereign (Life II, Water II, Brilliant, Cruel, Shortsword). The start was difficult, because of the missing offensive spells, but the attack bonus of Tarth, the Shortsword, the Heal spell and the Slow spell helped. The late game was always Mantel of Oceans + Blizzard and a Slow spell against big monsters or heroes. The initiative bonus of Tarth is great, because it helps to cast Blizzard faster.

2. Civilization first and Magic later.

3. My faction power was 1/4th to 1/3rd of the other factions, because i had only my Sovereign and two cities. I razed the other cities.

4. Hard difficulty, medium map, standard settings. None of the factions were able to survive two Blizzards in a tactical battle and the AI did not cast any strategic spells against me.

5. The AI had powerful melee armies of 5 units, but it should have build more ranged units and it should have equipped them with cold resistance items.

6. Sovereign (level 17) with Adept Robe.

7. The AI should notice if the player uses always the same tactic and should try to counter it with items or tactical movement and the AI should cast strategic spells against the player.

Continued:

Tarth ended up having strong chain units and most of them were level 6 or higher They rampaged into my territory and took two cities fairly quickly. By the time I was able to catch up to them and lay siege, the cities were too well defended to attack. The next turn Irane and her familiar left the city and went scouting. Two additional armies made it past me and were out to do some guerrilla warfare. I sent one army after the guerrillas and then regrouped to confront those cities I had lost. Since Irane was sitting outside, the cities fell rather easily. Seems most of her armies were beefy, but only at party size due being trained early on. My groups of Pawns cut them to pieces. Once I got the cities back, Irane was an easy fight. She glitched once, so I killed her twice for an extra 140XP. After that it was simply a matter of taking her most defended city. An easy battle since I just weakened all her heroes and most of the defenders were useless crude bow or useless wildings. At that point I played out some more easy sieges and then made everyone surrender to me. The battles were interesting, but there was too much dullness inbetween. Tarth for some reason did not attack when I was weak and payed the ultimate price. 

I would say the biggest problem is that I was able to spend 25 Gildar per groups and just one metal to upgrade all my pawns. It should have been more like 25 metal and 100 gildar per unit. That, combined with the AI's inability to counter boar spear units with charge made for a perfect conquest victory.

I've played two games to completion, and found that the AI just can't keep up with properly designed units. I tend to run a lot of cavalry units for the map bonuses, and by the time I hit late game, I'm just unstoppable. The only thing the AI can do, and it's getting annoying honestly, is start spamming formations, which means I need to kill 6 or 7 separate armies, none of which do anything to slow me down beyond needing to keep attacking. I would love to see the AI get smarter about better units rather than more units.

I haven't found a whole lot of use to non-magical weapons, which has me concerned, along with a real lack of understanding why you wouldn't mount an army beyond expense. Cavalry can move further, get more weight, and I usually have no trouble getting horses. I'd like to see more of a difference between Cavalry and Infantry, but I'd rather see a buff to infantry rather than a nerf to Cavalry. Maybe give Infantry a higher defense or something? Or perhaps give Infantry more units per 'size' so that Cavalry start feeling more elite than necessary.

Agreed with this. Quality > Quantity in FE's combat system by a large margin, so the AI tends to suffer but can be very annoying to fight with the waves upon waves of poorly armed peasants. The pieces are there to be a terrifying foe, especially when the AI gets difficulty bonuses, but they aren't being utilized.

I don't entirely agree with you here. Horses are (theoretically) a limited resource and you need 1 horse per mounted unit. Though this ends up being less of a problem than it should. Perhaps horses and other mounts should have a counteracting drain so that they work like Strategic Resources in Civ5? Either the same cost as the original or 1/2 or whatever value works to limit their numbers based on how many sources of horse you have available.

Alternatively, they could just have greatly increased wage costs, so keeping a ton around has a significant financial impact on your empire.

One thing I notice is the limited resource of horses causes the AI to train smaller units at times. In my latest game they did eventually manage to upgrade their stables and train full size units. But by then it was too late.

I suppose it might just be me and my games, but I just finished a game with 6 units of 7 cavalry each, and several hundred horses just sitting there not being used...and the game before that was similar. I suppose it really might just be me, but I haven't found horses to be a limiting factor. Crystal, now, crystal has slowed me down.

I never really make it to "late game" I think i won the last game before turn 100.

Challenging, Medium/Normal every setting except pacing set to fast.

I choose a custom faction that is really strong, Enchanters is my main pick but I also like to get scholars for the research bonus. I pick scholar on my sovereign too as well as a bunch of perks, not so many spells since they raised the price to 2.

Basically I recruit heroes early on using the leadership trait so I don't need to raise taxes. Taxes are at None for the entire game. I always reduce unrest to zero first on a new city to maximize research, also use inspiration whenever possible. 

I like to build a few structures and research some techs before building my first pioneer. This gives me time to explore with my two champions and see if there are any spots to settle nearby.

I usually get my first city up around turn 30-40, when a pioneer takes only 3 turns to build. Then I will quickly expand to 4 cities, usually outpacing the AI if there are enough spots available. My faction power will be about 40 at this point, using only champions, sand golems, pet wolves, and rescued units. 

In my most recent game I encountered an AI around turn 30 who was at Faction power 20 when I was 40 and he was about to settle where I wanted to settle a city. I demanded surrender... and he did. Same happened to the next AI I met 20 turns later. The last AI I just attacked right away when I found his first city with my sovereign, some rescued archers and spearmen. He sent some big armies to take back the city but I rushed out some militia and spearmen using the gold I got from rushing buildings.

I ended up killing his armies that didn't attack as well as defending against those that did attack. Once he lost enough units I just demanded his surrender and won. 

If the game had gone on longer I would have been producing groups of 5 mages on wargs that would have destroyed all of his armies. I usually neglect warfare tech and go pure mages since their attacks ignore armor. 

Using 5 units vs 3 and having mounted units vs ground units is a pretty big advantage, throw in ranged vs melee and the AI is really out of its element fighting you. Since its too stupid to run around your blocker units and just sits there in combat once engaged, you can even win with inferior troops.

 
1. I use a custom faction. I always get enchanters and scholars, sometimes I will take weakness to magic and get a random other benefit. My sovereign is either a warlock with fire magic and brilliance or a warrior with might and hardy. I always get the research bonus and free champions, as well as tactician. 

2. Which technologies do you rush for? Which ones do you avoid? What is the worst payoff in the late game techs? What is the best tech?

I always go pure Civ until I get the lending house and the iron works, and then switch to magic for weapons and armor. The only exception is horses/wargs and recruiting champions. Burning Axe is a great weapon for troops early on, mages are very powerful against armored units and monsters, and champion armor is better and easier to research than plate armor.

3. What are is your economy like? How much of each resource are you getting per turn? What is your Faction Power compared to others?

My gold comes from killing enemies and selling wolf pelts and such. Quests help alot, usually I get down to about 0 once per game and some random treasure will boost me up. My only costs are champion wages. 

Metal is useless I only focus on crystal and mana production, obviously quarries are the best resource since you can build faster. Early game I conserve mana and use it for arcane monoliths, I usually have more than I need for combat spells.


4. How many factions did you start with and how many are still alive? How many are able to compete with you? At what difficulty?

I usually play with 4 opponents on medium, 2 Kingdom, 2 Empire. They suck at challenging. 

5. What kind of armies does the AI have? Are they building powerful armies or wasting their potential in small weakling groups? Did the AI ever use anything larger than a party?

The AI only builds groups of 3 units, though juggernauts that yithril build might be challenging late game. They do eventually get pretty nice gear on these units but the traits are poorly chosen and the composition sucks.

6. What do your armies look like? What level are your units? What weapons do you use? What armor? How many heroes do you have?

My armies are 1 or 2 champions plus free units from quest/treasure. Eventually I add in mages on wargs. I get as many champions as possible, usually getting one every 20 turns or so until they run out (at 5 or 6), plus surrendered sovereigns!

7. What is your overall opinion of the late game for Fallen Enchantress?

Never really experienced it, but it seems like if you let it get to late game it will be a drawn out tedious micromanagement against a swarm of AI armies that are annoying but not lethal. 

UmbralAngel has some interesting feedback. If I were Derek, I would take a long hard look at how this angel is able to circumvent the game mechanics. Playing the RPG aspect so efficiently definitely breaks alot of the basic balancing factors. Getting 300 Gildar from a quest for instance is way too much. This is a chance to really fine tune the length of time when adventuring is a strong tactic.

If I may ask, how are you able to compete with the AI when you apparently don't start building your economy until later in the game? How quickly are your cities growing? How do you outclass them in technology? Did you say that you don't even have a capital until later in the game? 

I do focus on economy... just not gildar economy. My research is as high as it could possibly be, and since the AI don't actually create cities until around turn 30 anyways, its easy to catch up.

And I meant I build my first NEW city later in the game, of course I build my first city on turn one or two. 

Its more efficient to increase your production early on, and then come back later with buildings that give you resources. 

My cities are usually growing at +4/5 per turn even when I have 3 or 4, so I get them to level 3 pretty quickly. I build two conclaves, then a town, then a fortress to start pumping out units. The town gives that tiny bit of extra food you need to get to level 3 or 4 if you don't have enough food tech.

I think in terms of questing strength they need to turn down the occurence of free units and give you starter gear like leather armor instead. If you get 3 sand golems early on that is a huge boost. 

So by focusing on Essence with the Oracle you get a significant research advantage. That makes more sense. I would say there are some early game balance issues with extremely high growth and leveling towards the Oracle. If you can avoid needing gildar and trained units, research is all that matters really. So Conclave is the best choice. Then it gives you +1 Essence. The best citylevelup option you will see till level 5. This, combined with Civics being the best choice in technology early on, leads to perhaps too much advancement too quickly. Being able to level heroes to extreme levels makes the AI even less competitive. Even without extreme leveling, you can generally get some very overpowered weapons and armor too easily. Thus, the AI stands little chance at competing on a fair scale.

The question I am want to ask is how to reign in these issues. Any ideas from testers?

Yeah my suggestion would be to make champion wages go up by 0.5/level or something like that to make it so units aren't prohibitively expensive. A unit of 3 militia should probably cost less than a champion in wages (less than 1 gold/turn) since a champion is way better.  Unit wages should also go up slightly (maybe 5% or 10% per level) so that a level 10 militia with 100+ hitpoints costs more in wages than a level 1 with 30 hit points.  

They could also make inspiration be a researched spell in the magic tree so you don't get it right away. This would require you to build studies early on instead of pioneers or workshops and thus penalize you a little bit for going full into tech and trying to maximize your research. 

1. Which Faction did you play? How does their late game power compare to earlier in the game? What makes that faction feel unique at this point compared to other factions you have gotten to this point in the game?

Custom faction based on alter with binded, uneducated, adpets, heroic, sov with summoner with magic traits. At late game, there really isn't much difference based on faction-related differences. It is based on more of sov/hero specialization (either go mage or warrior) One thing I realized was that air magic is MUST since it is one route allow you to move across map very quickly and it comes later (I think water magic also has global movement ability, but I think it comes much later level)

2. Which technologies do you rush for? Which ones do you avoid? What is the worst payoff in the late game techs? What is the best tech?

Obviously Civic some points on War then focus on Civ and magic. Civ is always the best tech followed by magic, War tech gets better when game goes really late when you are running non-magic army (but again, it hardly happens.)

3. What are is your economy like? How much of each resource are you getting per turn? What is your Faction Power compared to others?

With normal/challenge setting, tax is always zero because most of resources are coming from buildings instead of population anyway (and this fact annoys me so much). When normal, I am on par with other factions. Regardless of the situation, I will eventually get 2x to 5x compared to other factions on both challenge and normal.

4. How many factions did you start with and how many are still alive? How many are able to compete with you? At what difficulty?

Usually large map with full 9 factions, I usually wipe them all out or do diplomatic victory with just 1 or 2 allies. Normally they just can't compete against me (with both normal and challenging). Probably a bit easier with current version with pioneer spamming intentionally gimped for AI side.

5. What kind of armies does the AI have? Are they building powerful armies or wasting their potential in small weakling groups? Did the AI ever use anything larger than a party?

For my games, they actually make full-stacked armies against me, and most of the times better equipped/numberous than me (challenging). I usually maintain the army as just a sov + 1 or 2 heroes + a few meatshield for early to initial late game to counter their army spam. And then when it is able, I also create fully-stacked armies, but at that point, the game is almost over.

6. What do your armies look like? What level are your units? What weapons do you use? What armor? How many heroes do you have?

Again, with cloud walk, I usually run with just a mage sov + 1~2 heroes + meatshield and it works really well til beginning of late game where I eventually need large armies. With binding trait, I can get free elemental armies from shards buildings, tho they get weaker as the game progress. I don't really concern about weapons/armour as long as it is functional and does job for me.

I don't hire no more than 2 heroes..... but again, thanks to AI spam, most of the heroes are gone from field before I have to chance to meet them.

7. What is your overall opinion of the late game for Fallen Enchantress?

It has huge balance problems (good thing at least there are enough contents. With balance and bugs fixed, this game is good for release.)

(1) Population is hardly a matter now. Too much reliance on buildings.

(2) Pioneer spam.

These two alone suck the all the fun from the game, and really need to be fixed.

Just wanted to add my thoughts here too about the tech victory/ spell of making.  Comes way too soon in the tech tree.  Feel this should be a lot further back and/or harder to research.