Elemental: Fallen Enchantress

[silvaril]

Heya

Downloaded, installed, checked for latest updates, started game, changed settings, restarted game manually as a result, read Sovereign descriptions, created a Sovereign, started a game, founded my first city, attacked a wildling and beat it, crashed to desktop...

Not even time for the Autosaves to kick in, dang it...

It looked like a sweet start too.

[Stuie]

I really, really want to like this game, but its just not doing anything for me. The presentation is blah, the gameplay doesn't grab me - no "one more turn" feeling, and the more they change the more it feels the same.

I suppose I'll try again over the weekend, but every time I play a few turns I start thinking about the other games I have installed that would be *fun* to play.

[LordMortis]

Need to find time to give the next round a try and pray the memory leaks (or whatever they are) don't kill me after a hundred turns into a game.

[ColdSteel]

I really, really want to like this game, but its just not doing anything for me. The presentation is blah, the gameplay doesn't grab me - no "one more turn" feeling, and the more they change the more it feels the same.

I suppose I'll try again over the weekend, but every time I play a few turns I start thinking about the other games I have installed that would be *fun* to play.

For me it's just the opposite. At least as far as the .86 beta went. I had a very hard time pulling myself away. It has everything I like in these kinds of games and I thought it was a lot of fun despite all the beta issues with broken quests, balance, etc. I haven't played Beta 3 enough to have an opinion about how it' plays yet. I like the decisions they're making but I need to play it some more to see how they work in practice.

[Butterknife]

I really, really want to like this game, but its just not doing anything for me. The presentation is blah, the gameplay doesn't grab me - no "one more turn" feeling, and the more they change the more it feels the same.

I suppose I'll try again over the weekend, but every time I play a few turns I start thinking about the other games I have installed that would be *fun* to play.

For me it's just the opposite. At least as far as the .86 beta went. I had a very hard time pulling myself away. It has everything I like in these kinds of games and I thought it was a lot of fun despite all the beta issues with broken quests, balance, etc. I haven't played Beta 3 enough to have an opinion about how it' plays yet. I like the decisions they're making but I need to play it some more to see how they work in practice.

It has one-more-turn appeal. I've been playing the latest version this morning and they have definitely been improving the balance. I'm playing as the Ironeers and I went with a strong melee champion (Defender focus). AI is still a bit weak (I put the game on Normal AI but seem to be handily dominating) and there are plenty of annoying bugs, poor interface choices (that will probably ship) and so on. Overall though the game is looking very good and after playing for 4 hours or so I intend to get back into it.

[ColdSteel]

.91 is up. That was quick.

[silvaril]

Heya

Subsequently, I did start another game, and played for 8 hours straight with no notice of time passing, so I am inclined to think they have me on the 'one more turn' train with the gameplay thus far.


Have had to dive into the rules a couple of times, as I did not grasp initially the difference between Settle and Outpost.
( as only Outpost showed up in most areas of the new map I was playing. )

Now that I know the difference, I think it makes life much easier compared to the sprawl that Elemental required.

[silvaril]

Heya

Bugs:

+ Fixed an issue with the strategic version of the Wellspring spell

+ You can no longer choose the Iron Golem animation pack when creating a custom sovereign

+ Fix for white screen issues

+ Fixed the compass bonus so it correctly applies to the entire army

+ Fixed an issue with Hunters and Mercenaries having no unit models when they take damage in tactical

+ Fixed the Heartseeker reward on the Arena of the Slakhanan quest

+ Fixed an issue keeping the Abandoned Dig quest from progressing

+ Dispel Enchantment now correctly requires the tech to unlock it

+ Berserk correctly does 1 damage per round to the target

+ Fixed an issue where designed units don't get a sound pack assigned

+ Fixed an issue where designed units don't get their tech requirement set



Cosmetic:

+ Corrects the provides tag on the Guardian abilities.

+ Mana Maintenance is displayed on Enchanted Hammers now (and it doesn't have a cooldown anymore)

+ Fixed a typo in town halls provides tag

+ Shrunk Fire Elementals in tactical slightly



AI:

+ AI will expand more aggressively

[ColdSteel]

Well, I played a .90 game for about 50 turns and had 3 crashes. Then, whatever they did with the followup .91 patch seems to have really stabilized it on my PC. I've played a .91 game for 200 turns and not a single crash on my XP 32bit system. Pretty good.

There's been a few odd graphical glitches, such as one or two of the unit hitpoint bars turning funky paisley patterns in tactical combat. But, for the most part, it's been solid. The gameplay is most certainly fun. I really like how they are diversifying the races. I absolutely love what they've done with Tarth. I've tried a few other races but Tarth just grabs me. I think it's the bows plus the movement bonuses.

There's some pacing issues that I think are directly related to the maps being generated randomly instead of hand built by a map maker. For random maps they are really quite excellent but as a map designer you can hand place everything and that makes such a huge difference for coherence. You can build scripted encounters and quests that funnel the player where you want them to go or keep them out of areas until they meet some requirement. You can build custom quests that further a story. You can't really do any of that with random maps. It's the biggest difference right now FE has with other 4X games like HOMM and AoW where the scenarios are all hand built by map makers.

I really hope they have a robust map and campaign editor because that'll mean the real fun from this game will come when we get some user made campaigns and scenarios. I wonder if they are going to build a few hand crafted scenarios go with the official campaign? They'd be well served if they did. If they don't have time, they should consider holding a pre-release map building contest once they release the modding workshop tools later on in beta. They could then ship the contest winning user maps with the game. I also think another big test will be what the official campaign looks like. I hope they do a good job on it because that will be a lot of buyers first impression of FE.

In Beta 4 they are supposed to revamp the cities and I think they need it. managing city structures is certainly the most 'blah' and unfun part of the game for me right now.

There's a long way to go until release and a lot of work still to be done but I think they are very much on track.

[silvaril]

Heya

My biggest issues of the moment all have to do with the Quest system.

Quest 1: The Dig Site
- spawns Scrap Golems in weird locations such as just offshore, 3 Golems, on the wall of a chasm and some more I haven't found yet meaning I cannot complete the Quest

Quest 2: Spider Silk
- requiring questing through multiple Spider Lairs, and where I think the next one to do is currently under water meaning I also cannot complete the Quest

Quest 3: Dragon Eyes
- Where I triggered a Dragon Statue holding one of the eyes to receive the Questline in the first place, and now the second Dragon Statue refuses to trigger, both before and after going to the end point Dragon Statue where the eyes are to be delivered to


But Mostly:
- Left or Right Clicking on the Quest Icon in the list on the left does nothing! One Click should highlight the required map object for quest progression, while the other should centre the Map on the next Quest object...
[Edit] Have since discovered that Double Left Clicking works for some Quests for getting the Map to Centre on the quest object [/Edit]

Beyond that frustration though, I am still enjoying the gameplay that does exist.

[LordMortis]

After the craziness of Capitalism killed the game for me, I spent a chunk of the weekend blowing off yardwork and playing the latest build of FE.

The game keeps getting better. No crashes, per se after over 250 turns on the huge map with 9 opponents!

The worm quest (Aighghgthgx?) is borked and can only be done by quick play.

Two of the green area quests with similar rewards don't give it to you twice, IE the Worm Quest, and Fire Deamon King quest.

I don't understand the dragon eye quest.

Why does the green area stay green after completing some of the real big quests? Isn't that land reclaimed, like it is when you finish the Titans quest?

A lot of times what your kill says the item is and what you receive as item are different, so I never "equip" from the "you found" window.

Maul is a "broken" ability and by broken I mean it is too powerful. I run have heroes in one uberstack with Maul weapons and they hit unstoppable fairly quickly... While broken, they're still a lot of fun.

I still don't like every one pulling from one mana pool but I may eventually break into trying magic now because you can now build building to generate mana.

I still don't like the way you do or do not scroll through heroes that have or haven't moved.

The UI to scroll through units and cities on the left is clunky and the scrolly mouse lots of times scrolls the landscape in and out.

Sometimes when I try to improve a city, rather than queueing and improvement it chooses another city. I may have to repeat this problem twenty times to queue a building.

I don't like how the north is the default orientation on the minimap (Hud). If I go to the top of HUD, I want to go to the top of the map.

Some quests should give you more information in the summary than "Collect 2 Dragon Eyes" or "Defeat Dervin" and then leave you no recourse to find more information about the quest you took on or where you undertook it or where you're supposed to go to keep things moving (if there is a place you are supposed to go).

Computer player AI is still very weak (though I was playing on easy)


But I'm really digging on the game.


Oh and yeah to Silverail, there has been on going problem with open dungeons that spawn critters on to mountains or in the ocean where they can't move and I can't get to them. Annoying.

[silvaril]

Heya

I started another game, and in this one I found all three Dragon statues before trying the Quest on with them.
This time I did not complete any part of the Questlines before moving to the next statue and getting that part of the Quest.
Once I had all three quests, then I started on completing them.

This seemed to work, as I ended up facing the badness, and it really was bad. Next time I'll know to have lotsa more Badness myself before bringing on that Badness...

Oh and yeah to Silverail, there has been on going problem with open dungeons that spawn critters on to mountains or in the ocean where they can't move and I can't get to them. Annoying.

So long as I can see them, I can do stuff like Raise and Lower to get to them.
The issue is that the 3 Scrap Golems that spawned in the Ocean were not visible to me, so I didn't think to look there. And as that Quest never completed, there were obviously more that I never found, either deeper in the water or where ever they ended up.
If the UI pinged them for me when I clicked on the Quest item on the left, at least I would have been able to adjust for it.

As for things like the Dragon Statues, then yeah, it is an Open Quest to find the other Statues needed, so I am okay with the game not pointing out where they are.
But if the Quest moves the UI to say "Look, go there!", then the Quest Object on the left should move the Map view when you double click on it. Though I was not aware of that capability initially, and was not expecting a double click to be required given that single clicks only are required for moving to a City FFS...

Why does the green area stay green after completing some of the real big quests? Isn't that land reclaimed, like it is when you finish the Titans quest?

I found I had to end the turn for the Game to update itself to the point that those borders disappeared.
Sometimes it took multiple end turns before I noticed the border had gone...

[LordMortis]

I tried the raise and lower land in the last game and it took a lot of mana to bring snowy peaks down enough to become terrain I could enter (or the monsters would leave)

I may try again. I'm far enough into the game that winning is a foregone conclusion and I'm just playing around.

I found I had to end the turn for the Game to update itself to the point that those borders disappeared.

I end turns all of the time but I still have two green bordered areas with not quests associated with them any more.

I wasn't aware that I had to find two more dragon statues. Now I know and knowing is half the battle. The quest just says find two dragon eyes.

[Stuie]

Ok - gave this another chance. The first 20-30 turns are boring. Many of the creatures are too strong to tackle, the building in my city is painfully slow, so there's just not much to but wander avoiding monsters you can't fight or sit in the city and click next turn. Once you get established though, things start to pick up. My favorite method of expansion seems to be by letting the AI build cities and then I take them. In the game I'm playing, I started near three Kingdoms (no Empires) and so it was easy pickings all around. Gilden put up a pretty good fight, but once I finished him for good there was no one to contest my majesty.

Three hours of one more turn later, I think I've conquered about 1/4 of the map (playing on large) and now I'm looking at some of the neutral areas to see if I can tackle them. Its fun, but I'm still looking forward to Warlock in a week and a half.

[Jaymon]

Yes indeed, still a lot of trouble with quests, especially the bog ones involving the elemental areas. I have slain the elemental lord, but his land ownership does not revert. yes I have also seen the golems and spiders appearing in places you cannot travel.
Quest completion seems to depend on the hero who picks it up. Whatever hero was leading the stack when you obtained the quest also has to be the hero leading the stack when you complete the quest. This is very difficult thing to keep track of during the long quests like the elemental lords and the dragon eyes. Especially since you can open those quests long before you have a stack strong enough to complete them.

The new hero level up system has been hit or miss with me. On the plus side, opening up the higher tiers of recruiting and getting the higher level heroes is a worthwhile action, especially since some of them have enhanced or unique abilities.
But, the experience gain is still haphazzard, not all the monsters have exp and difficulty properly balanced.
But once you start whacking the opposing leader, its like the exp money train. Whack him, earn a lot of exp, he gets sent to the next city, and unable to move. Level up, ride on over and whack him again, rinse and repeat.

I tried, I really did, I tried going with mounted units. They are expensive, require a slow resource, and get hurt every battle. Archers are cheaper, and tend not to get hurt in battle. Archers need to tech up until you get bows. For mounted units you need to tech up for riding horses, armour, and weapons. The arches are just quicker and cheaper, with the advantage of ranged attack.
Yes you need to have a couple of troops in front of them to block charges or whatnot, but the stack hero or some slow dumb defender will do just fine.

Still seeing that the Ai floods the landscape with pioneers, without fear of wandering monsters. I still suspect the AI does not have restrictions on where to place cities. I struggle to find farmable land. Get maybe three cities stood up, dodging Deadly wandering monsters the best I can, and encounter AI with 10 cities as closely spaced as they can be.

I am not swimming in money any more, with the hero nerf its more important to have regular units, and they suck away the gold.

I do appreciate the new racial variance, there is now reason to play the various races. I have been with Ironeers so far, will try others.

Still the occasional crash to desktop, and the occasional end turn button not working any more.

[Brad Wardell]

Pretty significant AI update released tonight FYI.

Also, the AI definitely plays by the same rules as humans do. Keeping pioneers alive has been a real coding challenge and the AI will lose a lot of cities in a given game to monsters which has been an area of focus to make them smarter about knowing which monsters attack cities and which don't (guardian creatures almost never attack cities but will attack nearby units occasionally).

[Stuie]

(guardian creatures almost never attack cities but will attack nearby units occasionally).

If that's the case, then the creatures must be reacting to the units when the player takes over a city, because they ALWAYS attack if they are standing next to a city which has just been taken from the AI.

Good to hear there's an AI update - I'll have to try it out this weekend if I can pull myself away from Endless Space.

[Island Dog]

Here's the full changelog for the 0.913 update.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/423567

[Malacheye]

.914 is now available

[Kael]

0.915 is out: http://forums.elementalgame.com/425056

edit: one of these days I'm gonna have to update my sig line

[ColdSteel]

Wow, Kael!! Thanks for dropping by the old OO stomping ground.
I've seen you posting over at Qto3 but thought you'd forsaken us here at OO. Good to see you still coming here occasionally. Don't be a stranger.

[Sepiche]

0.915 is out: http://forums.elementalgame.com/425056

edit: one of these days I'm gonna have to update my sig line

Man, looks like some great changes in there Kael! I think you're definitely on the right track with giving each faction a powerful ability like that.

Although when I think about it Tarth's seems like it might be a slightly double edged sword. Sure they have the bonus of being able to sneak around monsters and use them for protection, but eventually they are going to want to kill creatures off I would think to get the loot and resources from them. Seems like that would give their ability diminishing returns as the game went on.

Also Gilden and Yithril's abilities sound a bit similar. Is there more to it than each just having a big creature they can summon?

Lastly, how do those abilities apply to custom factions? I assume you just get to pick which faction bonus you want?

[Kael]

Man, looks like some great changes in there Kael! I think you're definitely on the right track with giving each faction a powerful ability like that.

Although when I think about it Tarth's seems like it might be a slightly double edged sword. Sure they have the bonus of being able to sneak around monsters and use them for protection, but eventually they are going to want to kill creatures off I would think to get the loot and resources from them. Seems like that would give their ability diminishing returns as the game went on.

Tarth isn't attacked by monsters, but that doesn't keep them from attacking monsters at whatever time they choose. So they can pick their fights (and attacking one doesn't turn the rest against them, they can pick off some wolves and leave the ogres be, etc). But it definitly isn't as simple as just leaving monsters alone for optimal gameplay. At some point they want the exp and loot the monsters offer. Of course if the monsters leave their lairs to go chasing after other players its a good time for a Tarth player to step in and take any valuables that have been left behind.

Also Gilden and Yithril's abilities sound a bit similar. Is there more to it than each just having a big creature they can summon?

Gilden can craft Iron Golems. They are huge defensive units with lots of hit points and the best defense in the game with Markin's boost (he gives +25% defense to all his units). They absorb a lot of damage but aren't very good at dealing it out. Though they can use any weapon you outfit them with they are still only only unit swinging that weapon, so they will be more limited than a group of 7-9 units using that same weapon.

Yithril gets Juggernauts. They are also big single units. But they are the opposite of the Iron Golem. Although they have a healthy amount of hit poitns they don't have any meaningful defense. Instead they dish out lots of damage. They have an inherent splash damage that inflicts 25% of the damage they do to all surrounding units (enemy and ally) and that can be increased to 75% depending on the traits the player selects for them. They can also get the Maul trait which allows them to continue attacking until they miss (with a cumulative penalty to hit each time), and traits that's that double their damage. Maul and Splash damage together mean they start throwing out a lot of damage (they love big slow things they can get lots of maul attacks on).

Beyond that Iron golems cost a lot of Iron to produce. Rewarding Gilden players that focus on their infrastructure. Gilden has to out produce you, and they are the faction in the most desperate need of Iron mines, they should be looking for them early and wars fought to get them in the midgame will pay dividends later.

Juggernauts dont require any special resources. They take a while to train but Yithril doesn't need a robust economy to win, they win on the battlefield by getting into melee and doing more damage to you than you do to them (shields just get in the way).

In general Juggernauts beat Iron golems on the battlefield. Gilden has to dramatically out produce Yithril to beat them. The best faction's against Yithril are the ones that can slow them down. Yithril doesn't use any ranged weapons, those juggernauts have to reach you. Resoln's spiders work well for trapping the units before they cross the field, or Tarth archers can often whittle them down before they reach them. Slow, shrink and blindness spells are also handy (a shrunk juggernaut is fun to watch in combat).

This doesn't include the other benefits of these factions, Gilden upgrades their equipment for half the cost, all Yithril's units start off at level 2. These also help play into their roles.

Lastly, how do those abilities apply to custom factions? I assume you just get to pick which faction bonus you want?

Yes, you can create a custom faction with any of the faction abilities (and there are some extra ones the preconstructed factions dont use). And some traits are racial abilities. Juggernauts, for example, are always Trog (Yithrils race). You can create a custom faction that has Trog as its race (so you get juggernauts) but doesn't have Yithrils No ranged Weapons weakness, instead you choose the Master Archers faction ability so they have beter bows than the normal faction.

Or the combo players are having fun with right now (the cheaters) is picking the enchanters faction trait that allows you to place outposts with a spell and the Master Scouts Tarth trait that keeps monsters form attacking you. Then using that for instant land grab with built in monster protectors.

[ColdSteel]

Someone said that in the latest patch you get the same random map over and over when you start a new game. Anyone actually seeing that? I know that wasn't an issue in previous patches.

All these changes look great, I think maybe I can tear myself away from Tarth and try another faction now.. maybe..

Also looking forward to the Beta 4 changes down the road.

[ColdSteel]

For what it's worth, I'm loving the new patch.

[Jaymon]

Tried it, played as Ironeers on easy. Was having a good time, even got a couple of cities running pretty quickly, got lucky with the fertile land this time. Ran into Krax, had a few words, and suddenly we were at war. Despite our power levels looking almost equal, he came in with multiple stacks of doom that I could barely scratch. More advanced weapons,more advanced armour, more units per squad, more squads per stack.
Not sure what I did wrong that he got so far ahead on easy. I will try again.

[LordMortis]

I found it hard to get into the new patch. Mainly because if you allow me to game a system then I will. If I can hire both sides of the coins and hire them for free, I can get myself off to such an incredible early game jump that I didn't feel up for even getting to the midgame much less finishing it.

I could just make a different guy/kingdom but for some reason, intentionally gimping myself in a game feels off unless I am overwhelmed by how much I love everything else.

I'm hoping the custom kingdom/sovereign sees a bit more care and possibly sees skills that end up mutually exclusive from each other.

[MadMarlin]

Like many, I really wanted to like this game but couldn't enjoy the original version.
I am eagerly waiting for more news on its current state.
Specifically, is the AI much better?

MM

[LordMortis]

Specifically, is the AI much better?

MM

That AI is not particularly good. But the game is still pretty good IMO. I think MP could be fantastic. Right now, I'm still getting late game crashes and I'm wondering if this is a known issue or if I should be sending my saves off to Stardock. It's sad to Monty Haul your main hero up to level 55 or so after many hours of play and then have the game get to a constant crash state, well before you are ready to claim your victory.

Also I found that when I chose the free champions attribute I could only hire 10 champions then the cost would read a negative number making all future champions unhirable.

Also sometimes you can't clear the swamp land (the one where you collect skulls that poison your opponents)

Also the find your own quest scrolls don't work more than half of the time and unquestable quest huts spam up the lands.

As to the AI at this point, they build an empire pretty well but then overland their key to victory is to just amass a lot of units and throw them at stuff. 1) I don't know how they can afford so many units 2) They aren't used defensively or establish lines or anything. 3) They don't kill enemy champions or steal quests or use champions hunt and gather loot. Tacticly, the game is about what you'd expect. I still ignore tactical magic and most the game is just jockeying for better position on the board which is best done buy getting better movement and better initiative through the strategic portions of the game.

But it's still beta.

I'm waiting for the next build, as unrecoverable game crashes aren't so much fun for me.

[MadMarlin]

Thanks for the update/opinion. Always good to get more input.
I played Warlock-MoA a few times, but it is dead simple to beat and was hoping this game was closer to where Stardock game AI normally are. Guess I'll have to fire up Gal Civ for the time being...

Thanks again.

[T]

I played Warlock-MoA a few times, but it is dead simple to beat and was hoping this game was closer to where Stardock game AI normally are. Guess I'll have to fire up Gal Civ for the time being...

Over on the QT3 forums they say the Warlock AI is good on the highest 2 difficulty levels, putting it at or near the top of TBS games. A couple of guys said they were heavily assaulting an AI front and the AI took another force and attacked one of their weaker cities on the flanks.

[Smoove_B]

According to this update from Stardock, Fallen Enchantress will be coming to STEAM. Now, if they'd only activate Elemental as well, I could completely uninstall my ImpulseGameStop client.

Stardock is in the process of re-evaluating its global retail strategy with future games. As a result of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion's success, The Political Machine 2012 and Elemental: Fallen Enchantress will be released digitally through Steam, GameStop and other digital distributors, skipping retail.

[tgb]

Whew. I was afraid you were reporting it was done. Following the Summer sales I am juggling 5 games, and just don't think I could handle any more.

[IceBear]

I thought you owned Elemental from the beginning. Don't you get FE for free in that case?

[Smoove_B]

Yes, Fallen Enchantress is a stand-alone title provided to all owners of Elemental (prior to a certain date).

[IceBear]

Oh nm, I misread tgb's post. Thought he was saying he spent too much money as opposed to not having enough time

[Smoove_B]

Unfortunately, I don't think money is the issue for most of us anymore. When I was younger, I had no money and lots of time....now it's the other way around.

[IceBear]

True... I know that's my problem

[Moat_Man]

Unfortunately, I don't think money is the issue for most of us anymore. When I was younger, I had no money and lots of time....now it's the other way around.

Ditto, and yet I still have a hard time paying more than $10-$20 for a game. Steam sales have ruined me.

[tgb]

Yeah, I only bought two titles in the last sale. But throw in Decisive Campaigns from Matrix, Bioshock 2 gifted to me by Gromit (which I fired up out of curiosity and was immediately drawn in to) and the Drox Operative beta I bought based on the forum effect, and I'm pretty jammed up.

Not to mention going back to Endless Space, the newest CK 2 build, and Gods & Kings from last month.