Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes--is this going to be worth $32?

As long as there’s an Elvis impersonator for one of your advisors, I’m in

I feel the same way as Alstein–and I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. A big part of it is the monster-killing/empire-war divide, which is exacerbated by the fact that the monster units are pretty radically different from the troops–after defeating a wildland boss you’re never going to come up against anything like it when you then declare war on even your biggest rival, for example. The cities/armies divide is also a bit strange at times; you can level up your cities (which is awesome) but the bonuses, while cool, are not that big and really only help the city side of the game. The worst offender is the city-type city (I forget what it’s called), where the bonuses almost all seem to be about helping the city grow (granted some of them are empire wide but it still feels a bit disjointed). (But the city enchantments (especially the ones that confer bonuses on trained troops) do a lot to help unify the city/army split, for example.) The magic/melee divide is one that is not problematic, mainly because both sides of that feed into combat.

The other things that contribute to the “schizo” feeling, for me, are some of the minor things that feel a bit bolted on, or at least not fully realized. You can build golems as the dwarf-guys, which has the potential to be awesome, but they end up being kind of lame. You can amplify your spells by getting more nodes of a given type (though that has been toned down somewhat over the patches IIRC), but it’s impractical to choose your school of magic based on what nodes you find, and it doesn’t have a huge effect anyway. Being able to use crystals instead of iron for troops is really cool, but by the time you get far enough down the tech tree and have the production to build awesome units, you probably have sufficient stores of both. Dodge as an alternative to armor is also cool, but for some reason didn’t quite feel fully fleshed out to me either.

Wow, that became longer than I planned on, and it also sounds a lot more negative than I feel about the game. Also, I haven’t played since the Undead DLC came out, but now with the latest patch I want to spin it up again. Actually, talking about all these cool things really makes me want to start a new game…

  1. I didn’t know if it would be possible- but was thinking more the inevitable next attempt at the end of the decade.

  2. It just feels like everything doesn’t mesh together the way it could. In addition, many choices in the game have worthless options or one viable choice.

I hadn’t touched this one in a while, so I figured I’d fire it up for a few games. I tried playing as the Dead in my first one and got trounced. I need more time to get used to how they play I think. My second game seem to end with some weird bug. I got a message saying a lost due to conquest, but I still had my capital and other cities still very much intact. I played one more game and won that one.

I’m still so torn about this game. It shows flashes of being really fun, but is something holding it back.

  • Maybe the same is true for a game like Civ but I overlook it somehow, but the tech tree in FE:LH seems really dull. Need more food, research this. More production, research that. Civ has wonders of course to add some excitement. Not sure if that is the only difference or not.

  • The AI is still a bit confused when it comes to diplomacy. They declare war but don’t attack. They can be very passive when they have a similar or worse power rating. I was well on my way to victory, but the AI had a head start on the spell of making techs. I didn’t want to slog through the big map to try and eliminate them - I had just taken out one large faction. So I make a beeline to the spell of making and won that way. I’m not sure why they didn’t seem to make a larger effort to try and beat me to it. Nobody attacked me when I started making the towers.

  • Ranged units are a bit annoying with no range penalty, LOS rules / cover.

  • I don’t like designing units, but really feel I’m supposed to to take advantage of my techs.

I really enjoyed LH when it came out. I’m not sure why my opinion of it took a significant step down.

Whoah!

The ‘Battlegrounds’ DLC pack greatly enhances replayability by adding 15 tactical maps and more than 20 stamps for the map generator to use to create unique gameworlds for each playthrough. Stardock is also giving all customers the new monsters of the 1.8 patch for free on the same day.

The ‘Battlegrounds’ DLC is joined by the free version 1.8 patch, which adds six all-new monsters with unique abilities to the game, including the flame-wreathed Gilden Lion and the battle-frenzied Obsidian Legion. Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes version 1.8 is free to all owners of the game.

Available tomorrow for $4.99.

Changelog

Features
Added the ability for monster lairs to pull from a few random configurations of monsters, instead of always having the exact same monsters. (ex: instead of always having 3 Ruffians at a Ruffian Camp, sometimes it will have 3 Ruffians, sometimes 2 Ruffians and a Wolf and sometimes 2 Ruffians and Barren’s Witch).

Added the Barrens Witch unit. This unit is a spellcaster who can heal allies, curse enemies and cast contagion. She can often be found aiding bandit camps, or in larger covens in service to demons.

Added the Gilden Lion unit. This unit a strong fire elemental that does fire damage, including burning anyone that attacks it. Like other types of fire elementals it is vulnerable to cold. It shares the speed and high dodge of the cats it resembles, and gets an Attack bonus against Champions. It is typically found in service to Wilding Shamans or around ancient desert temples.

Added the Obsidian Legion unit. These are powerful warriors wield 2 scimitars and gain a charge each time they are struck in battle. If they get at least 5 charges they go into a frenzy that gives them 3 free immediate actions. It is good to kill them quickly. The Obsidian Legion are mercenary’s and though they can occasionally be found in their own forts they can also be found working for Syndicate or more powerful organizations.

Added the Malayan Devilman unit. They claim to be ambassadors from a distant continent. They are powerful fire casters, lobbing flame waves and fireballs with equal ease. They have no stronghold of their own but can sometimes be found meeting with other creatures like the Brood, Dark Wizards and Demons.

It may be worth skipping a monster lair if a Malayan Devilman is in their ranks. Or at least be sure to bring some protection against fire magic.

Added the Darkling Overseer unit. Only found in the largest gatherings of Darklings the Overseer grants bonuses to his entire Darkling Army. A horde of Darklings can be a nuisance, headed by an Overseer they are much more dangerous.

Added the Coal Golem unit. Like the rest of his kind this Golem is a sturdy, if not slow, unit. But the fire burning in this one gives him a unique vulnerability. If he is struck 3 or more times he will explode, doing damages to anyone with 2 tiles of him, ally or enemy. They can also breath out a choking gas that blinds and poisons nearby units. Coal Golem’s are fairly rare and used by other armies when more reliable golems aren’t available (sometimes to their misfortune).

Balance

Stalkers gain +5 Attack vs champions
Plaguestalkers gain +10 Attack vs champions
Increased later game tech costs slightly
Increase Improvement costs slightly

Both the patch and the DLC should be out around 1pm Eastern today :)

Any recommendations on which DLC is good? I’ve heard the undead one is good but the others - more items and leaders…meh. I’ve barely played the game as I find it bland so this latest patch has me interested.

I thought the same and got the Undead DLC, but the AI is unable to decently play the Undead race and as such every game I de-select them unless I’m playing that race. Don’t think any of the DLC are must haves, just add variety to the game.

In talking with many people in the community, I’d say the Dead World DLC is one of the most popular. As was said, each can add it’s own variety to the game.

Legendary Heroes 1.8 and the DLC is out now, so let the updating commence! :)

I agree that the undead DLC is probably the best. I would follow it with the quest DLC (forget the exact name), because I like the quests in general and felt that the DLC added more of a good thing. And quests were probably the most noticeably repetitive part of the game.

Did anyone ever put out a patch/mod that adds other players unit designs for the AI to use?

There are a few mods that do this out there in the mod forums on Stardock’s site.

I played the game after 1.6 was released and was let down yet again: the AI still (at that point) felt lifeless and aimless. The AI loved to declare war but do nothing about it or, send in unprepared heroes to be slaughtered. I don’t own any of the DLC if that makes a difference.

Is the game worth putting time into now with the 1.8 patch?

There’s a free weekend for Legendary Heroes on Steam, and it’s also on sale for 75% off (DLC is 50% off). :)

I’d recommend FE:LH to anyone who likes 4x, its a unique experience that I’d rate a solid 8/10.

Thanks for this update. I’ve had it on my wishlist for a while. Now it’s a guaranteed purchase. I’ve been playing it for free for a while now and it keeps dragging me back in. Superb game. Well done!

Edit: If you haven’t already, buy this game.

Since Fallen Enchantress is on a free weekend, I figured “Hey, let’s try it out!”. After downloading it, I’m forced to register a Stardock account. When I try to do so through the pop-up that appeared, I get an error message saying “Unhandled error 113. Please contact [email protected]” Of course those guys are probably at home, it being weekend and all that. So I decide to register at the stardock site itself. There I get the message passwords need to be at least 8 characters long. Perhaps that’s error 113? So I registered, but I’m not getting an activation e-mail, despite asking for a resend. It’s been half an hour, while the site claims it can take up to 15 minutes. And it’s not in my spam folder.

End result, I’m unable to play Fallen Enchantress this weekend. Not exactly good advertisement for Stardock and their games…

A Steam free weekend offer with the announcement in the front-page could have overloaded their login servers.