Just won as Ceresa on a medium map against 3 other Challenging AI opponents. I’ve played each iteration of the game since the initial Elemental release, in hopes that it would eventually become the game that Brad had promised when I pre-ordered Elemental 3 years ago. Thanks to Brad’s belated recognition of the true state of the original game, and his willingness to bring Kael on board to kick things into better shape, the game has gotten incrementally better over the intervening years. Unfortunately, for me, it still falls short of the bars set by both Master of Magic and Age of Wonders. I don’t have the energy to write a complete review, but here’s a basic rundown of what I found positive and negative about Fallen Enchantress:
THE GOOD THINGS
Flavor: I was pretty disappointed when I discovered that the alleged successor to MoM would not feature any true fantasy races, just various kinds of humans, vaguely divided into “Kingdoms” and “Empires.” And in the original Elemental they indeed turned out to be painfully, terribly bland. Kael has worked wonders with that material, though, and has brought to bear the same dark tone and suggestive writing that was on display in Fall From Heaven. At the same time, he worked hard to differentiate the factions mechanically. The result is a game world that, while still too flat and bland for my taste, is at least different from any other fantasy game world out there, populated by interesting factions that feel genuinely unique.
Unit customization: This hasn’t really been done well since Alpha Centauri, and it works pretty well in FE. The best part for me is that Kael has created custom units for each faction that you can use “off the shelf” when the right tech is researched, and each is tied into its home faction with a bite-sized chunk of flavor text.
RPG aspect: Tooling around the map, leveling up your leader and champions, and tricking them out with loot can be an engaging parallel exercise. Leveling up in particular is very well done, with a variety of paths and perks to choose that really lend a sense of purpose and personality to each character.
City growth: Although the mechanics behind city growth are needlessly complicated, the results of a city leveling up can be interesting, especially when it comes to the distinction between a Town, a Conclave, and a Fortress. Add to this the fact that a given city can host 1 city enchantment per Essence, and you end up with cities that feel pretty specialized, a plus in my book for any 4X game.
THE BAD THINGS
The world: It’s boring. So boring. There is pretty much nothing of interest or distinction about the landscape and its various “features.” Generate a hundred maps, and each will feel like the same flat surface broken into chokepoints by a regular pattern of ridges and rivers. I don’t know if it’s the 3D engine, the terrain generation algorithms, the barren appearance of everything, or what; all I know is that none of the table-like islands I’ve conquered have had any geographic character to speak of. FE’s random map generation does not come close to MoM, or AoW, or Warlock, or any of the Civ games, going back to the original Civilization. These are the most boring maps of pretty much any 4X game, ever. And for a game ostensibly set in a thrilling fantasy world, that’s a major lack. It should be noted that Kael’s “Wildlands” – custom-built map zones – are in fact interesting and unique, but they feel shoehorned into the surrounding terrain.
Magic system: This may just be a matter of taste, but I want all of the spells tied to the magic research tree. Every other fantasy 4X does it that way for a reason. I can’t tell if FE bucks its predecessors here just to be different, or if there is some sound reasoning behind the choice, but the end result feels unintuitive and confusing. Recruited champions could still know spells that have not yet been researched, but those spells would only become available to all spellcasters of the proper school when researched (cf Age of Wonders). In general, the magic side of the game feels like it lacks a coherent underlying philosophy.
Champion injuries: When a champion loses a battle, it is assigned a random injury and then has to spend some a few turns recuperating in your nearest settlement. This sounds cool at first, until you realize that it both lowers the tension level of any given battle, while making you feel like you’re saddled with the Legion of Handicapped Heroes. There is no leader or champion death in the game, which imo is an awful mechanic in a game about fantasy warfare. Yes, I will grow attached to my heroes and may not want them to die, but when they actually cannot die, just become lamer with each lost battle, guess what? I wish they were dead so at least my losses would feel dramatic. In any case, the random injuries break immersion when they have no apparent relationship to the fight at hand (cf my assassin who contracted pneumonia after fighting a fire elemental).
Diplomacy: Influence is a redundant resource that apparently exists for purposes of flavor. Influence and gildar can both be used to purchase favor with an AI player, so why have them both in the game? In any case, the end result of this purely numerical approach to diplomacy is that it feels more like cold math than negotiation. Brad’s talent as an AI coder was never applied to the diplomatic aspect of Galactic Civilizations II, and it remains missing here.
Tactical battles: These are just about as bare bones as tactical battles can get. Although enjoyable to a point, after that point the lack of terrain effects (beyond simple chokepoints), and the lack of range penalty for ranged attacks render tactical battles a mostly tedious and uninteresting exercise.
Roads: Roads just pop up between your cities and outposts when you research certain techs. The roads themselves conform to a ruler-straight grid, as visually uninspiring as the rest of FE’s landscape, but the real drawback here is the way this mechanic kills immersion. I understand the need for certain abstractions, but if it takes me literally years to build a single granary, while a massive continent-spanning road network appears overnight, in a single stroke you’ve erased whatever feeling I might have had that this world is being built up piece by piece from the ashes of the Cataclysm.
End-of-turn auto-move: When you end your turn, any units on pre-set paths will carry on, but if they reach the end of their pre-set path with movement points remaining, the game will not stop to tell you, so you lose those movement points. Both Civ V and Warlock will auto-move your units, but not end your turn if you have any with movement left, and prompt you to check on those units. It’s frustrating that FE does not do the same.
Event log: The column of icons on the right side of the screen is supposed to be a handy and helpful guide to what has been happening in your empire (or kingdom), allowing you to click on a given event and jump to the associated map tile. This icon stack is missing the only two icons I want to see on it: one that will show me the site of an outpost that has just been razed, and one that will take me to a city that is idle. I realize that an idle city’s icon on the left side of the screen shows a little “ZZZ” when it is idle, but it is a royal pain to have to scroll up and down to check for those cities once the number of city icons overflows the vertical limit of my screen. Alternatively or in addition, it would be helpful to get a warning dialog if I end my turn with some cities still idle (which could be checked on or off in options, of course).
Limited AI players: I was frankly stupefied when it finally sank in that the AI players do not pursue quests or clear out monster dens. This realization sapped my desire to continue playing. Without an AI that plays by all the same rules as the human player, FE just isn’t a 4X game in my book. How am I supposed to have a feeling of accomplishment when my opponents are not playing 40% of the game? It’s a drag to negotiate enemy territory in the late game that’s completely overrun by wandering monsters. I’m still flummoxed by the rationale for this “feature.” Talk about a dead world.
Minor niggles: Why are XP awards so all over the map? How is it possible that I get a defending archer unit in a city before I’ve researched archery? Why is the land uninhabitable after a city is razed? Why are the hotkeys so dodgy, and in some cases non-functional?
I lost what faith I had in Stardock as a game developer back when the original Elemental was released, but I have held out hope through each successive version of this game that it would eventually, against all odds, deliver on its original promise. Fantasy 4X is my favorite genre, and I really want to like this game, despite the way Brad handled the whole debacle and made those of us who pre-ordered feel like utter dupes. For me, Fallen Enchantress 1.0 has too many problems to sustain my interest. I have the greatest respect for Kael and his team for the great work they have done to date, and I will definitely check out the promised expansion when it arrives, but until then there’s not enough in this game to keep me playing.
