So let me preface by saying that I rarely post, but I've been playing and checking in on the forums quite frequently. I am greatly looking forward to Fallen Enchantress being a great success and I think it now stands a very good chance of being well received.

I played a game through and through this weekend in one long sit-down, and ended up winning after 16 hours with only 18 seasons to spare. Played on expert, custom faction (not the most ideal setup either) as Trogs with 5 opponents (all custom as well). All in all its the first time in a very long time that FE has gotten me to play all the way through! SO I was quite happy. Some observations I thought I would share, that I haven't seen a ton of already on the forums.



1) I like training units, its why I couldn't win to save my life in my previous beta games. Now I can stomp through an AI opponent or two with my armies, is it optimal? No not really, but we are way closer to a good hero vs unit balance. My favorite unit is brutally effective, an Archer on Horseback... and CHARGE trait. (I also have the good specialty bows). This with a bunch of initiative and dodge bonuses means that I can kite all day, all night, and just destroy the piddly AI armies.

---I recommend a -5 or 10 accuracy penalty for ranged weapons when on a mount, its realistic and can be balanced out easily using the accurate perk (+10). I also recommend putting one tech between Long Bow and the first Bow tech. There is no reason to stop researching through to Long Bows. The tech between could actually negate the mount penalty for bowmen and add a little damage to the previous bow design if you like!---



2) Cities and production is still a problem. Many have said as much. It makes me think back to EWOM and having multiple ques. Was it really so bad? Perhaps it was just too EASY to get that bonus in EWOM since we could spam cities like no tomorrow and every city had double ques. I had more ques than gold! I realize good strategy is about choices, but now with city locations being so restrictive, us choosing city type, and the tech tree being what it is, I'm wondering if my choices are strangling my armies to death.

---I recommend having a separate que for units with Fortress Cities (possible dependent on being level 2 or 3? or having a set of buildings) and have it divide production evenly. I don't mind a little longer training times on a few of my cities who are just building up and producing garrisons---

---Alternatively, could have this be a special perk for heroes who choose path of the Governor---



3) Magic is pretty darn wonky, and I'm a little frustrated with Enchantments. There are a lot of odd choices and I don't know which spells should just get removed or altered. I feel like I need more room than 1-2 enchantments because some enchantments are not worth a slot but should get some use.

---I recommend having a tech that allows each city to have 1 additional enchantment, also where is my wall of fire spell? You bastards!            Someone mentioned bigger global spells the other day... this would probably solve this problem. Firewall could be global to all cities, not super great (like 4-8 damage or something), and cost 200 mana and 5 per turn to maintain, etc.etc.etc.---



4) Others have mentioned defending cities being quite difficult, my standard defense is 1 unit of spears and 2 of archers, it won't hold a real enemy but it does make it pay a little and stop stupid attacks.

---I recommend city defenders possessing full armor one level down from your highest available or maxing out at chain mail. IE, if I have metal armor level 1, my defenders should at least have leather armor.---



5) I can't seem to raze a resource improvement I've built... like say an Ogre Camp... or a Mercenary Camp. I start having little piles of Ogres. Disbanding them gives some population, but I just don't want to bother with the effort in the late game... I might be missing a button.



6) The end techs that are exponential are great and help speed the game up. I do think its pretty absurd though to increase my mana generation by 25% in a mere 5 turns lol. I did that 4 times, had 8000 mana and just volcanoed the rest of the map. That being said, I suppose it is meant to work that way to speed up end-game in conquest modes.

---I recommend reducing that bonus to 10% though.---

7) Allow units to upgrade in size or Merge to create upgraded size units please.


Ideas for the future DLC:
1) Armor for specialty units like Juggernauts and mounts.
2) Espionage abilities and spells for path of the assassin heroes
3) Terrain Spells (like making a region wintery and slowed movement)
4) Add underground world layer. Have cave entrances here and there that allow units to move under ground and a separate cloth map. Underground world would have the meanest monsters allow under-water traversing to new areas, and no cities.

PS: Can't say I enjoy turn limits, and even though I have Random Events to More Often, I only saw 1 occur in my 16 hour game to max turns. Should have been about 7-10 events in my opinion.

Thank you for your hard work Star Dock. Keep going! Almost done now, and I know you will really ratchet up the cool stuff when you have a little RnR and break from working on the project post-release.