Elemental: Fallen Enchantress

[ArkhanTheBlack]

The new game from Stardock is out.
Anyone from the Dom3 veterans played it yet? Opinions?
It seems to have 'some' similarities with Dom3 because heroes seem to be able to catch lots of strange injuries.
I don't like the art, but the game mechanics might compensate for it, since Kael the creator of the outstanding Fall from Heaven 2 Civ4 mod is the lead designer.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

I pre-ordered it a while back. It has improved through the beta, but Im still not pleased with it. I regret buying it, and wouldn't recommend it. It feels like less than the sum of it's parts, success and failure often feel arbitrary, and the AI is so bad/strange you feel cheap when you are winning.

It's got some good features, but again, it just doesn't deliver. It might be worth it to pick it up on sale, but certainly not at full price.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Hmm, I think I've heard the "It feels like less than the sum of it's parts" thing before. Seems like a common complaint. Though, if it's just the "success and failure often feel arbitrary" problem, then it's probably the balancing issue at the early game they currently seem to have. However, something like that could be probably patched easily.

[Ragnarok-X]

Barnacle, how does it compare to Elemental Base game ?

[DonCorazon]

I have it as a result of having made the bad mistake of pre-ordering the first Elemental. I am having a tough time getting into it, but it is better than the first iteration (which is like saying a morsel of cockroach is better than starvation).

I haven't played enough to provide an educated opinion, but the fact it hasn't really grabbed me, someone who loves this genre, may say something.

When I have played, it almost feels like an RPG. I seem to mainly be moving my mage around trying to level up. It kind of bothers me how slow everything is - the research system is a hassle. I wish I could build units and buildings at the same time. You look at the tech tree and it takes a while to get to a bow? It just doesn't make much sense to me. I never found the world very interesting either - one of my main gripes with the first game when I cared enough to be vocal was it was totally soulless. The world even looked barren. The first manual was laughable with no flavor for the various nations - it felt like a spreadsheet with ridiculous fantasy names pasted on. The new FE is an improvement for sure, but still it feels to me like the nations/mythology etc is bland and maybe that's from being a Dominions player where everything is dripping with an awesome sense of history/mystery/myth.

The main thing FE has done for me is caused me to start playing Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, which had been sitting on my shelf for years without getting much play. Also, I've been thinking about Warlock: Master of the Arcane, which I had more fun playing the Steam demo than I have had puttering around with FE. But sometimes it takes a while for a game to click with me so I wouldn't want to push someone away from FE - there might be a good game in there, it just hasn't gotten me interested enough to spend the time to see where it is.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

I haven't played the first Elemental, but most people on the Fallen Enchantress forum seem to feel that it's significantly better.

Im sure that some balance issues could be fixed by patching. But I think it needs a lot more than that to be good. As Don Corazon said, the core gameplay isn't very engaging- most of the game involves slowly moving around your heroes, killing monsters to level them up, and building up your infrastructure at a glacial pace. Even though city-building got way better in the last patch, it's still bland, and there's no real incentive not to city-spam, so the initially inhospitable land because an urban jungle by midgame, which really take away from the atmosphere.

Also, Im kind of bitter because after so many promises to the contrary, I feel like the game was released too early. I understand that they have to make back their investment, but most people on the forums were still telling the devs that things weren't quite right.

Once again, I think you might be able to get a decent money: enjoyment ratio if you picked it up on sale, but not at the full price. Especially not as a player coming from the rich world of Dominions.

[Minor Kitty]

The AI could definitely use some help, considering what they managed with the AI in Galactic Civilizations.

It's also very very slow, with all the high level monsters around you will have turtled half the game before you start fighting others.

Also many of the starting traits are not balanced: for example the veteran trait that gives the player +1 level start could be replaced with 2 battles, the adventurer trait could be replaced with the wealthy trait which can hire the heroes in addition to rushing production (by the time you get to recruit higher level heroes the few settlers you rushed with your wealth would've given you hundreds in income).

Also I cannot stress the importance of finding a refugee camp, it will give you since mid-level archers that you won't have access to till mid-game and make sure that you kill most low-level monsters without taking damage. It's just luck.

Quite frankly it's an orge version of the 2nd disciples + expansions. It has potential but it's stumbling like a bull in a china shop and it needs a lot of tweaking.

[sansanjuan]

I played one game to completion on a tiny map. Took quite a while. Agree the traits are not balanced and the research can be slooow. My 12 year old likes the battles. I'll probably pick it up again after a patch or two.
ssj