Greetings! Over the next day, tens of thousands of new beta testers will be added to the Fallen Enchantress beta.
Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is a turn-based strategy game in which the player takes on the role of a powerful Sorcerer called a Channeler. As one of the very few beings in the world who are capable of channeling magic through the various elemental shards, you have become leader of a people who hope you to lead them to building a great civilization.
Here, I’ll walk you through the few turns and for those familiar with War of Magic, I’ll try to find some way to tie the two together (they’re drastically different but they’re both fantasy strategy games).
In the beginning…
The first question is, who are you?
You can choose amongst existing sovereigns or create your own. Balon is a character I made who is an adventurer gifted with magical power.
The second question is, where are you.
This is where you set up the world conditions for yourself. Maps are randomly generated so you will never see that map again. Ever. The World difficulty determines how aggressive monsters are and how powerful they will become.
You can also choose which opponents you will have to play against. Your opponents races include Trogs (think Urakai Orcs from LOTR), Urxen (Goblin like creatures), Quendar (essentially evil elves), Amarian (essentially good elves), Ironeers (dwarves), Wraiths, and more. This is a screen that is still a work in progress (since I’m having to explain in text here more about the factions than is displayed).
One criticism of WOM (which I agree with) is that the distinctions between the factions aren’t great enough. This is something we’re working on, particularly in helping make clear that the name of the faction is not the race. I.e. in LOTR, the Kingdom of Gondor doesn’t mean that they’re Gondorians, they’re men. So we have some work to do here.
You can have up to 32 players in a game regardless of map size. It all depends on what kind of game you want to play.
You can also choose what victory conditions that shall be active:
Conquest, Diplomatic (ally with everyone), Master Quest (complete the master quest), Spell of Making (cast the spell of making which requires a ton of mana and magic knowledge).
After that, you’re ready to go.
The lands
So the game comes up with a backstory for my character (since I didn’t type one in myself because I’m dangerously lazy).
When the player enters the world, they’re alone. When you decide to settle your first city, you’ll want to find a location that has good food and production potential. This is represented by grain and materials which are displayed either by mousing over the Settle button or clicking on the terrain detail button in the top right of the screen.
These numbers look at all nearby tiles to give a summary of just how much food and material are in the surrounding countryside.
Once I settle, I start to go out and explore the world, gather loot, recruiting allies, fighting monsters.
The Monsters
To be candid, the world wants to kill you. It will try hard to kill you.
For thousands of years, there were great civilizations across the world. But that’s all gone now. And various creatures have settled in to the places that civilized beings once dwelt. You will have to build your empire by making it safe for people to live in it.
The further you travel from your starting location, the more dangerous they get. Worse, the longer they hang around, the more powerful they become.
Loot
One of my personal favorite features of Fallen Enchantress is the loot. Exploring the world, going on quests, fighting monsters, etc. will result in you gathering a lot lf loot.
Here I got a skullcap from a ruin, an arctic wolf cloak from a traveling merchant, a telescope from a destroyed caravan I came across and a backpack from a the stomach of something I really don’t want to talk about.
And even though it’s a little thing, the things you equip will show up on the map even though this isn’t an RPG, it’s a strategy game. Hence, every unit in the game, and there can and will be thousands of them depending on the map, can look different.
Your Empire is more than your cities
One to emphasize is that it’s not as much about having lots of cities but rather having lots of territory. Anything in your territory can be made use of and will build up the closest city it is to (even if it were on the other side of the world). The goal here is so that late game, you’re not wrestling with dozens of cities but instead a handful of really good ones.
There are still advantages to having lots of cities too but it is very viable to have a few, very powerful, cities.
BTW, here’s what things start to look at if you wander too far away from your starting location…
Battles
Early on, battles are a pretty small affair. Most of our screenshots of battles are from early stages of the game. Later on, they get much bigger.
The battle system is fairly straight forward (at least to understand it) but has a lot of nuance.
First, you have initiative. This determines how often that particular unit moves.
Next, you have accuracy, this is put up against the other unit’s dodge. If your accuracy roll beats their dodge roll, you hit.
Next, is damage, Balon here has a War Hammer which does 11 Blunt damage. Luckily, Ash Serpent here has no particular defense against blunt weapons (but has a general defense of 4).
As a quasi-Fire elemental, he is very vulnerable to cold. Hence, if I had a weapon that did cold damage, it would be doubled against him. He is also immune to poison and fire which, this early on, means little since I don’t have anything that good to attack him with.
Magic
So I’m in a battle with the Ignys and I do have one decent spell…
But…unfortunately, it does fire damage. Feel free to cast it, it won’t do anything to the Ash serpent because it’s immune to fire.
But anyway, after killing the creature the old fashion way, I am ready to start getting my magic mojo going.
Magic comes from the elemental shards that are spread across the world. If you build a shard shrine on them, their power begins to flow into you (channel you might even say). You, in turn, can bind your champions to you by Imbuing them with some of your magical essence. Thus, what magical knowledge they have becomes yours to use and this is how you learn most of your spells.
Use your spells to buff your units, cities and wreak havoc on your enemies.
From here, it’s up to you. Feel free to ask questions in this thread. We still have months of work ahead of us.
For all those who have not played yet - get a couple of games under your belt then post your thoughts in the FE beta forums. For those of you not in the beta be aware that it is shaping up to be a great game buts going to be a while before its finished.
Beauty ! I love the concept that it will be viable to run your empire using a relative handful of very powerful cities (and outposts too, I suppose); as opposed to having a game that pretty much requires you to build (over time) the maximum number of cities, that you can fit into the geography. This issue (city spamming) has never really been properly tackled in any 4X game that I can think of; at least none that were earth-based or planet-based.
Fixing this one, perpetual, 4X game weakness, should go a long way toward reducing drudgery, and maximising fun!
P.S. Posting this walkthru is another great way to build anticipation ... but, clearly, you guys already know that.
P.P.S. I made my first-ever pre-order purchase of a game (your Fallen Enchantress) yesterday.
Walkk through very nice. Thanks.
If I may say, what's there now are some of the fundamentals missing from WoM, with some new neat stuff, and with some nagging issues still there. What isn't quite there yet is the content (including city development options and technology upgrades) that will keep players hooked over the longterm.
It will be a while before the game is ready, but there's a whole lot of reasons to be cautiously optimistic!
Oh... I err wasn't aware of this...
I had assumed that most new spells would be acquired through research and some acquired through loot... but I didn't realize that Imbuing magical champions was suppose to be the primary to expand one's spellbook o0
Question: When settling a city do all the tiles around a city square (like Civilization) matter or only the settle square is the one that matters in terms of choosing for food and production?
All adjacent tiles to the one you are settling matter. The total grain and production is shown on the center tile. When settling, your capitol needs at least 4 and hopefully 5 grain. Production might start slow on a 5/2 (Grain/Material) tile, but your population will make up for it once you get the city up and running. Grain is much more important than Material unless your goal is to make a level 2 city that can trains basic units very quickly.
Remember, the more settlements you have, the slower they grow. Leveling your Sovereign will increase growth rate though.
From other people's comments and my own preconceptions, I was expecting more from FE. It still feels like WoM, with bells on. 18 months after the first release, there are still issues with the same things:
The cursor remains annoying in battles, with that red circle still there, and the crossed swords icon remaining after an attacking action. I mean, this is basic polish that should have been sorted in September 2010.
The Quests are still often baffling, and feel like an afterthought - some show you the target location, some don't. Some are just broken (like the Ice Staff one).
Cities feel uninspiring and unimportant. Each one should feel unique, but they're all a bit blurrrghh and formulaic, even with the random upgrades (which feel arbitrary). You don't feel that your actions are having meaningful consequences, which is a basic requirement of any game like this.
The rotate map thing is broken - it spins when you hold down the middle button, but then snaps back to default.
Character creation - why can't you choose a colour for each piece of clothing? Why does it seem worse than WoM?
Battles - this might be a minor one, but important for that sense of immersion - the sound effects when many creatures move is just a tinny clicking. Why aren't there more atmospheric sounds? And to continue with sound, can't we have some new music, that doesn't constantly remind you of WoM?
The one great feature of WoM - Dynasties - is gone, and I miss it - please bring it back!
Champions - if they are killed, they should be dead. Whilst I quite like the random injuries thing, it seems a bit weird that being bashed on the head should give you typhoid. You get the feeling of invincibilty, which is not good for the necessary tension of the game.
The landscape still feels flat, with wide expanses of nothingness.
The UI often feels unintuitive - eg why do we have to exit the equip page to trade items with other players?
Diplomacy still feels very underwhelming, and clunky.
I really don't like the squareness of everything - FE should have moved to hexes.
Terrain still seems to do nothing in tactical battles.
Ok, some good things!
I love the new items and loot, which were badly missing from WoM.
Loving the spells and effects in battles - although some of the effects seem strange and inappropriate.
I'm struggling to think of much more, here. And I don't get that feeling of wanting to go back and play more - not until many things have been improved. But based on the unresponsiveness of Stardock to my previous comments, I don't hold out much hope. Having said that, I do think that much could be done to make this game great. Please, someone, do it!
I like that. But you can switch this ON or OFF in the options...
Ah ok, thanks!
...Ok, some good things!I love the new items and loot, which were badly missing from WoM.Loving the spells and effects in battles - although some of the effects seem strange and inappropriate.I'm struggling to think of much more, here. And I don't get that feeling of wanting to go back and play more - not until many things have been improved. But based on the unresponsiveness of Stardock to my previous comments, I don't hold out much hope. Having said that, I do think that much could be done to make this game great. Please, someone, do it!
I think you are being overly harsh here. The game is significantly different and improvements are easy to see across the board. yes, there are issues that need to be taken care of, but they are polish issues, perfectly appropriate for a beta.
If you really feel that the landscape is empty, then crank up how many "things" are placed in the landscape (this is an option you know). If you feel this is really just WoM with a few bells and whistles, than you didn't play WoM very much or you haven't given this enough of a chance.
Let's let newcomers come here and ask questions without bombarding them with personal dislikes okay?
Every color means another render pass, which decreases performance, especially on lower end machines, or else more memory used. It's just one of the many decisions a game developer has to make on thousands of details to try and make the game perform well and yet look great.
You'll have to be more specific about how it feels worse than WOM.
It's just my personal opinion, which as a paying customer for a product that was not as 'advertised', I am quite within my rights to do. FE has not been hyped, which is good - but I was expecting a little more for a game that is 76% complete. For something which has been a work in progress for 18 months, I really did anticipate some great things. Of course newcomers can, and will, make up their own minds - my opinions are just these.
I know that I'm being quite harsh, but this is the only way that FE will become the game that it could be.
More specific how it feels worse - well, it feels even more cartoony than WoM - the colours are way too lurid. But maybe I'm just disapointed because it's not much better. I'm sorry, but in 2012 I cannot believe that having a different coloured tunic to trousers is an insurmountable problem.
The cursor in tactical battles was a polish issue in August 2010 - it is still a polish issue in January 2012.
I just played a Looooong game as Umber. I am really starting to enjoy this
What rights? You are "given" the opportunity to come play a beta of a game and post on the forums. You have no rights to that. Its a gift from Brad. It's fine that you post things about the game you don't like and it's fine to disagree with design choices. But, one, I don't think you paid a dime for this game, and two, if you did, it still doesn't give you these magical right that you seem to think you have. We can have disagreements without becoming insulting or entitled.
I paid for WoM, which was and still is broken. And please show me where I have been insulting. You are insulting me by saying so.
I really think that this is just not the game for you. Also your general negativity is and harshness as you call it is in no way going to help the development of FE. If anything you'll only be discouraging those people that are working on it. And discouraged people are not effective workers. If you have criticisms they need to be accompanied by REASONABLE and SPECIFIC suggestions. Otherwise you are wasting everyone's time. I'm seeing this a great deal on the forums currently and I find it frustrating and disappointing.
No right to an opinion? I appreciate all the work that has been done on FE, that's why I'm disappointed. We all have the right to an opinion.
I love (and always have) the concept and basis of this game, and that's why I'm passionate about it being great. I have been reasonable and specific. And I'm not trying to discourage the developers. I'm just not going to get on a bandwagon, if I think one of the wheels is broken.
Sorry, I meant that as a general statement about conversations on the board. Also, you paying for WoM still doesn't entitle you for anything. You got WoM, they patched it to 1.4. You don't like it still, that's fine, but that's also life. If you wanted a refund when the game came out, you could have received one. Brad knew people were unhappy, so he decided to give you a FREE game, is letting you play the beta and letting you post of his forums. He doesn't need to let you do any of those things. He didn't need to give you this game.
What rights do you think you have? You paid money for a product. You have product. You didn't like product. It's too bad you don't like this product either. You don't seem very interested in solving the things you don't like, such as adjusting the video settings to your liking.
More to the point, this is a walkthru discussion. People are reading this so that they can see how the game is played. If you want to complain, make your own thread or find some other complaint thread. Your rights end where others begin. You don't have the "right" to derail this discussion to vent your spleen.
Mortenart, I don't want you to think that I am in any way picking on you. I want you to continue to post what you don't like about the game, what you think could be fixed, etc. But the attitude of entitlement gets in the way of healthy discussion. Please continue to post what you like and dislike, but please leave those kind of entitled statement out of it.
I didn't say that I don't like WoM 1.4 - I've had a great time playing it, and it's a huge improvement on the original release. And I didn't say that I don't like FE, just that I had hoped for somewhat more. I realise that this is the wrong thread for this, so I apologise for that. And I do need to give FE more play-time - I'm sure that there is far more than I have experienced thus far. It's just quite surprising for there to be such a vehement backlash to my words. Our goal is all the same - to make FE as good as it can be - that's what we all want. No-one has to give my opinions a second thought, or rage aginst my criticism. I could have said nothing, but I care about the game and feel passionate about how games are made. I think that we should move on in a more positive frame of mind, as I will do as I play the game more. I apologise if I have been too hasty with my opinions, and look forward to the progress. I have been making and running online rpgs for many years, so I get frustrated sometimes when I see great potential that isn't realised. That's all.
I will continue to do so. It was in response to the first reply that prompted my words, but I'm not hung up on it (you've mentioned it more than me). Let's move on..
Please lets get back to the subject at hand.
The game. You can argue somewhere else
I like the game.
I want a bigger more straegic playing feel when it comes to combat. Right now it feels like once click and battle is engaged. No real stategies.
In MOM it could take 3 or 4 turns before you could get in mele here one click and it's done. I would prefer bigger or less moves.
Spells, I thought the spell effects would be bigger. Maybe I just did not play enough but I hope they are a bit more grandiose.
For now I like what I see.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
