So, Elemental : War of Magic (War /for/ Magic? Not sure.) came out a while back, as a spiritual successor to Master of Magic, one of my favorite games of all time. And it… kinda sucked. I played with it for a while, but felt like I was just groping around in the dark, unable to hope for a victory.
The game was a bomb, and in a rare move, the head of Stardock Games admitted they screwed up. They announced they’d remake the game - and if you bought the first one before a certain date, you’d get the new one for free - and if you bought the old one after that date, you could get a nice discount on the new one.
The new one, Fallen Enchantress, is in Beta, version 0.77 - and while there are a couple of UI glitches and at least one crash bug I can reliably reproduce, it’s good. Very good. I lost six hours this past Sunday to it - just kind of blanked out the time between lunch and supper.
And thanks for posting this thread. I was really, really excited about Elemental but the negative reviews killed it for me and I never bought it. If Fallen Enchantress is ready for prime time, I’ll probably pick it up.
War of Magic was a debacle, but there was enough there for me to believe that there was a good game hiding underneath the surface. Has another game developer ever taken a mulligan like Stardock has?
Thanks for pointing this out. I’m eligible for a free copy, which I guess gives me beta access, which I’m downloading now. The time between now and when I report back will be directly proportional to how much I like it…
Yeah, no kidding. I love Elemental’s implementation of the Master of Magic-style tactical combat. I mean, I’d probably play a demo of that other game before judging it, but I like unit stacking. @FinnAgain : I don’t know. I was emailed a link to where I could download the beta, in my Stardock account. Looks like it’s not wide-open :
Not to mention that the Civ V AI doesn’t know how to play the game very well under its terrain and stacking rules. Does anyone expect Paradox and Ino-Co Plus to do any better? Maybe a year after release, if they’re lucky.
Nevermind, I thought I was eligible to test the beta, but I guess not. I logged into Stardock, and it confirmed I was eligible for a free copy of the new game. It also let me download and install the beta version of the new game. But then you have to register the game by entering a serial number. And the serial number for my copy of Elemental War of Magic didn’t work. Anyhow, I’m looking forward to Fallen Enchantress or reading more from those who test it.
Well, that’s the thing about Stardock - they’ll get it right eventually. They’re kinda like the Microsoft of games. It’s not the flashiest or the fastest, but five years from now you’ll still have Europa Universalis installed.
The page where I had download links to the Beta had my serial code, which was a code specific to Fallen Enchantress. I missed seeing it the first time, honestly. Double-check?
Damn. I ran into a bug with the current build - corrupted save files, crashing on load. I lost my main save and both autosaves of a 600 turn game. Augh!
I think I’m going to take a breather until 0.78 comes out in a week or two.
I suppose I haven’t really gone into detail at any point, have I?
I really like it. I think when they iron the bugs out, this will be a fantastic game right up there with the best 4X turn-based strategy games.
You have a lot of resources to manage in the game - at the most basic, there’s gold. Then there’s also metal, required for advanced weapons. And crystal, which I actually hadn’t used for anything yet, but I think it’s used for magical weapons. There are horses, used for mounted units. And wargs, used for superior mounted units. And mana, generated by mana shards.
All units have levels, and customizable equipment and unit sizes. My initial ‘lancers’ might be three spearmen, but then I can redesign the units so that future ones I build are groups of five mounted spearmen. You can even customize their clothing, hair, et cetera.
I particularly like the quest system - some of them are simple battles, others are ‘go here, go here, come back’ with battles interspersed, but a couple of the chains have some nice variation - you find an assassin’s blade that promises you great power if you finish its work, and the first two people you’re supposed to kill seem to deserve it, but the last is a nice guy. I was given the option to refuse to kill him, and then the sword shattered, revealing the demon within that I had to battle.
Can you tell I’ve been jonesing for a turn-based strategy game lately…?