JMiddleton

I've had my initial trained units survive until I could replace them with mounted units at which point I use them for garrison duty. The first mounted units I build often survive to the end of the game. I equip them with ranged magic weapons and use them as artillery - it's the only way I've discovered to take down more powerful monsters in the early game. I upgrade them so they are still relevant in the endgame - a level 12 company armed with hailstone or hellfire staffs can infl

If you play larger maps, you'll definitely want a broader selection of mounted units than are offered as standard, particularly cavalry with ranged weapons. You can start training these fairly early - you'll need to research horses and enchantment (unlocks ice staff & incineration staff). I find that Champions tend to make better melee units since weapons and armor far better than anything available to your trained units in the early game can usually be found in goodie huts and la

Two of the most useful tactical spells in the game are Flame Dart and Sunder. To get both, your sovereign must start with Fire and Air magic. Upgrading to Fire Disciple unlocks Flame Dart, you need both Fire and Air Disciple to unlock Sunder. Sunder will make short work of Elementals, Flame Dart will inflict serious damage on most other denizens of the game. I start my sovereign with Fire, Air and Water apprentice. That doesn't leave many points for anything else bu

You can research Enchantment and get ranged fire/frost weapons a lot earlier than you can research bows. They seem to be at least as effective. The only catch is you need a lot of crystal to build units with these weapons. Some powerful bows are available through quests or monster lairs. It's well worth equiping a Champion or Henchman with these bows if you find one. There is also an archer unit available through a quest that can make a huge difference if you get them early

Typically you will examine the location where you spawn. Is there a tile with a reasonable mix of grain/material/essence? 4-3-2 will give you a decent start and is fairly common. Is there a selection of resources in sight? Shards, Crystal, Metal, Horses, etc...? I like to have a shard and some crystal nearby because my style of play tends to focus more on magic than weapons and armor. You want at least 2 Essence, city enchantments like Inspiration (research), Enchanted Hammers (production) an

It will be interesting to see if it deals properly with custom ranged units as well as the built in archers. I've learned that I can research Enchantment a lot faster than Archery and have designed custom ranged units using Ice staffs and Incineration staffs. These are fairly expensive to build so it's quite frustrating when they are placed front and center in tactical combat where they can sometimes be killed before I can move them to the rear

ctrl-N generates a new map. Like starting the game except you don't have to pick a sovereign or opening screen options. Popular if the random number generator deals you a lousy starting location or if you find yourself boxed in by dragons and want to start over. Purists argue that you should play the hand you're dealt. I argue the game is supposed to be fun - if a really good starting location makes the game more enjoyable for you - regenerate the map until you get one. Be advised tha

Manually fighting every battle can be tedious, especially against weaker opponents but the standard order of battle places the weakest units in front. It would be nice if the game was smart enough to distinguish between melee and ranged units - placing the ranged units in the rear and the strongest melee units in front.

Putting a copy here on the web site would also be a good idea.

As a casual gamer who has been playing FE since April, I can sympathize - I find the current build very frustrating. In a strategy game, you shouldn't expect that all challenges can be overcome using brute force. Most need to be solved and that is part of the fun. I belong to the school of thought that all challenges presented to the player should be solvable and the process should be enjoyable. Thus far, the only solution I've found to the dragons infesting the landscape at the

Baby dragons that get stronger as they grow up should be fairly easy to implement - a number of current monsters get stronger (or more numerous or both) over time. I do like the idea of leveled lairs - you'd know because the lair doesn't disappear when you clear it. Current lairs will spawn more monsters if you neglect to clear them - I've discovered that to my chagrin because the plaguestalker lair is sometimes not visible and, if I don't clear it, a haunter will show up

I can't recall ever having an enjoyable game after accepting a poor starting location - and why bother. Regenerate the map a few times and you'll get something worthwhile. I generally hold out for a 9 point tile; 4-3-2 is quite common, with 3 resources visible including at least 1 shard but I'm a casual player and find the game challenging enough even with the bonus of a good start.

I play on normal. 1. Monster behaviour doesn't bother me - as long as they are at a level I can cope with. 2. In Beta 5 I find myself surrounded by extremely powerful monsters - dragons, Juggernauts and others that I have no reasonable chance of defeating until midgame. Typically they are guarding the most fertile tiles for expanding my kingdom - that part is really frustrating. 3. I continue to see the AI settling in close proximity to powerful monsters, dis

I like to have an inexpensive trained unit lead my forces into a major battle. The AI will always attack them first and they will always die but they buy me time to organize my forces and I usually get a free shot before the real engagement begins. For combat troops, henchmen are awesome. A torch bearer with heal and fire dart is a major asset. They are available early, don't cost a lot, seem to level up quickly and can be equipped the same as Champions so you have a h

I agree that cities need and deserve better defenses. In my perfect world, fortresses would have a fairly large zone of influence within which they offer protection to towns, conclaves, outposts and resources. A game mechanic might be to require invading armies to defeat fortresses before they can attack anything else. The battle for an established and well defended fortress would be epic - think Stalingrad. Victory should be expensive, loss should be devistating. Once all the fortresses are

You should at least get the "pass" button if the unit has no other options - having to toggle autoplay to advance the action qualifies as a bug by my definition.

Quest rewards that are 2 or 3 levels above your heroes make sense but 15 levels is ridiculous. Might as well turn it into cash - more useful at this stage of the game.

The current implementation forces you to make choices about your research path. The one-per-world buildings are powerful and worth pursuing but, if you want them all, you'll be way behind in military research!

There are those who want the monsters to be even more powerful and aggressive, others are frustrated by the monsters we already have - especially with the new random events. This isn't simply a question of experience with the game, style of play is also important - the community includes empire builders who will spend most of their game at war, adventurers who enjoy exploring and questing and a few who simply want to putter around in a fantasy world and have fun. The nice thing about the

The master quest needs to be solved but, once you know how to get through the second gate with your army intact the kill is easy, even without Mana Blast. I recall in beta 3 you had to study your major opponents and know their strengths and weaknesses - no sense going after dragons with fire weapons/magic, for example. Now the major monsters are a lot more common but a lot easier for a late game army to kill. To truly qualify as a master quest, I believe we should have to solve the oppo

The de facto truce between AI and wildlife has been an issue as long as I've been playing the game. In some builds it wasn't a problem - monsters were challenging but manageable and the fact that they didn't attack the AI was minor. Other builds, including the current one, monsters are exceptionally tough and there are lots of them guarding the available fertile land. It takes time to build enough strength to defeat them. I wouldn't mind if the AI was progressing at the s

I find that the tactical spells I use the most are at the disciple level. I've noticed that the spells (including heal) get more powerful as my heroes level up and selecting level up traits like evoker make a big difference but I haven't noticed a correlation between the power of a spell and my level within a school of magic so there isn't much incentive to advance beyond disciple. To me, it would make more sense to determine spell strength using the heroes level within a school o

I find strategic spells like enchanted hammers, inspiration and propaganda extremely useful. I rarely bother with the other city spells because I've never had a city with enough essence to use more than these 3! I've used tornado to scatter armies getting set to attack one of my cities and pillar of fire to soften up an opponent so the city militia could cope. Regeneration is useful. For tactical spells haste, slow, heal and burning hands are very useful, flame dart is m

If there is some reasonable way to cope with these and continue the game, there should be hints that this problem has a solution so the player is encouraged to look for it instead of hitting N. If the problem doesn't have a solution, it shouldn't be part of the game - in GalCiv II, I never found a way to get past the pirates so I turned them off. Hopefully that option exists in FE. In GalCiv II turning off random events was non selective, a pity because some of

The ability to purchase horses for trained units - instead of training a special horseman unit - would make early troops a lot more valuable and it would be nice to mount archers and mages so we have ranged units that can travel at the same speed as the rest of the army.