My Impressions - after all campaigns completed

[drudeboy]

First, I would like to mention that there are a number of technical issues, but I will try to avoid those and speak more directly about the campaign, and the gameplay.

My past:
I am a Fantasy Kommader veteran. Although I never played Fantasy General, which I have heard many players mention, I have played the first FK, Kaos Kommander, FK 2 - Fascination of Evil and Chroma Wars; and beat each game with each hero on the hardest difficulty (FK 2 only had 1 difficulty setting). I am not saying this to brag, but i don't want anyone calling me a noob or a liar when they hear some of my complaints. I have always enjoyed the very difficult challenges this series has given, but they were always achievable and there were multiple levels of difficulty so that one didn't have to suffer hundreds of restarts to play through the game until things finally went their way - Well FK 1 was pretty brutal thanks to the Masterful Criticals that would instant kill my units. The other games in the series got better with the balancing of attack/defense/luck/criticals.

SPOLIERS - below

Objectives:
I always enjoyed the division of primary objectives, and secondary, but what I don't like with FK-EW is that a few missions require too much luck or "seem" to be impossible to achieve the secondary objective. There are 2 missions - the second mission in the dwarf campaign - where the secondary is to capture an enemy fort, but the primary is to kill a certain number of enemy units, and a mission in War of Heroes campaign, with a similar set up - kill so many units for the primary objective and capture a fort/city as the secondary. I am sure there is a way to beat these 2 missions with perfection, but it seems impossible as the AI always maneuvers its units to block any of mine that I send to flank and attack the fort/city. And even when I did successfully do so, my units ended up killing all "required" enemy units simply by counter-attacking. SO it would be nice to either give us some starting positions near the forts to place some elite units that can take it, or completely change the secondary objective, or make it so that I can end the mission manually (without it counting as a defeat) when I have already completely the primary objective.

The third problem mission, which is way too luck based was the second 1 in War of heroes, where the heroes return to Fable to lift the siege. I restarted the mission 6 or 7 times because on the very first turn, which the enemy gets to attack first, I had lost the fort due to the enemy getting criticals hits on the infantry defending it and either killing it or demoralizing it. I think it is pretty annoying/stupid to be forced to restart a mission simply because the enemy captures my secondary objective on their first turn and my unit placement can do nothing to prevent this. Thus, my perfect victory is based on luck, not skill. I did eventually get lucky and I beat it with an epic victory and all objectives completed.

Bonus missions:
I like the addition of the bonus missions and needing to get heroic/epic victories to have them eventually open up (according to the manual). Although, I got all Epic victories in every mission in War of Heroes, the bonus mission (if there is one) to meet Endhor never opened up, and thus I never got that achievement. So now I am wondering if I need all secondary achievements as well before that mission will unlock??

Speaking of achievements, there are several which never unlocked although I had achieved them: The 'Epic Elf' although I beat the elf campaign twice with all epic victories, 'Epic Dragon Slayer', 'Epic Hero' and 'Knight Avenger' - killing Kudrus with Marcus - in War of Heroes. I am going to play over the War of Heroes campaign and see if any unlock on the second play through.

War of Heroes campaign:
I enjoyed it. It was challenging, but still win-able. And of course I got to use my elves, dwarves and humans to fight side-by-side against some powerful dragon bosses. Epic!!! However, I would have liked to be able to upgrade my 3 heroes powers/abilities myself, since they start at level 3. Not that it was a major hindrance, but the upgraded spells were not necessarily suitable to my play style.

Units:
I don't have much to say regarding units as everyone will always have their preferences or bias, but they are each different and interesting and mostly balanced. I do think that the war machines are way too slow. I mean there were missions where my war machines never even reached the city/final city to assault due to their super slow movement. If you would increase their movement by only 1, I would prefer plus 2 movement, it would be greatly appreciated (and I am sure I'm not the only one who thinks this).

Hexagon vs Square grid:
Originally I was worried about the change to Hexagon grid from Square grid. I guess I got so accustomed to it. However, I was pleasantly surprised how much more fun/tactical it was to play on the Hex grid. It added a whole new layer of strategy to flanking, for both the computer opponents and I.

Map Size/ Unit Limits:
Most of the maps were small and unit caps for armies were somewhat small, especially compared to the previous games. Again, cause for concern, but I still found the battles exciting and engaging even though I had fewer units etc to battle with and smaller maps to maneuver through. And it added a different strategic element that very few other games provide: learning when to sell a unit in order to purchase and level up a more versatile or more powerful unit. Or choosing to keep the weaker unit and using it as a meat-shield to sacrifice during battle.

Conclusion:
I know you guys didn't have much of a budget to work with, but you guys still managed to produce an engaging and fun game, that I plan to replay for quite some time. I really do hope that you can fix the multiple technical issues soon, make some tweeks with the current campaigns and find the time to develop and bring out the Kaos campaigns soon. Thanks for another great game.

[FabioBelsanti]

First, I would like to mention that there are a number of technical issues, but I will try to avoid those and speak more directly about the campaign, and the gameplay.

My past:
I am a Fantasy Kommader veteran. Although I never played Fantasy General, which I have heard many players mention, I have played the first FK, Kaos Kommander, FK 2 - Fascination of Evil and Chroma Wars; and beat each game with each hero on the hardest difficulty (FK 2 only had 1 difficulty setting). I am not saying this to brag, but i don't want anyone calling me a noob or a liar when they hear some of my complaints. I have always enjoyed the very difficult challenges this series has given, but they were always achievable and there were multiple levels of difficulty so that one didn't have to suffer hundreds of restarts to play through the game until things finally went their way - Well FK 1 was pretty brutal thanks to the Masterful Criticals that would instant kill my units. The other games in the series got better with the balancing of attack/defense/luck/criticals.

SPOLIERS - below

Objectives:
I always enjoyed the division of primary objectives, and secondary, but what I don't like with FK-EW is that a few missions require too much luck or "seem" to be impossible to achieve the secondary objective. There are 2 missions - the second mission in the dwarf campaign - where the secondary is to capture an enemy fort, but the primary is to kill a certain number of enemy units, and a mission in War of Heroes campaign, with a similar set up - kill so many units for the primary objective and capture a fort/city as the secondary. I am sure there is a way to beat these 2 missions with perfection, but it seems impossible as the AI always maneuvers its units to block any of mine that I send to flank and attack the fort/city. And even when I did successfully do so, my units ended up killing all "required" enemy units simply by counter-attacking. SO it would be nice to either give us some starting positions near the forts to place some elite units that can take it, or completely change the secondary objective, or make it so that I can end the mission manually (without it counting as a defeat) when I have already completely the primary objective.

The third problem mission, which is way too luck based was the second 1 in War of heroes, where the heroes return to Fable to lift the siege. I restarted the mission 6 or 7 times because on the very first turn, which the enemy gets to attack first, I had lost the fort due to the enemy getting criticals hits on the infantry defending it and either killing it or demoralizing it. I think it is pretty annoying/stupid to be forced to restart a mission simply because the enemy captures my secondary objective on their first turn and my unit placement can do nothing to prevent this. Thus, my perfect victory is based on luck, not skill. I did eventually get lucky and I beat it with an epic victory and all objectives completed.

Bonus missions:
I like the addition of the bonus missions and needing to get heroic/epic victories to have them eventually open up (according to the manual). Although, I got all Epic victories in every mission in War of Heroes, the bonus mission (if there is one) to meet Endhor never opened up, and thus I never got that achievement. So now I am wondering if I need all secondary achievements as well before that mission will unlock??

Speaking of achievements, there are several which never unlocked although I had achieved them: The 'Epic Elf' although I beat the elf campaign twice with all epic victories, 'Epic Dragon Slayer', 'Epic Hero' and 'Knight Avenger' - killing Kudrus with Marcus - in War of Heroes. I am going to play over the War of Heroes campaign and see if any unlock on the second play through.

War of Heroes campaign:
I enjoyed it. It was challenging, but still win-able. And of course I got to use my elves, dwarves and humans to fight side-by-side against some powerful dragon bosses. Epic!!! However, I would have liked to be able to upgrade my 3 heroes powers/abilities myself, since they start at level 3. Not that it was a major hindrance, but the upgraded spells were not necessarily suitable to my play style.

Units:
I don't have much to say regarding units as everyone will always have their preferences or bias, but they are each different and interesting and mostly balanced. I do think that the war machines are way too slow. I mean there were missions where my war machines never even reached the city/final city to assault due to their super slow movement. If you would increase their movement by only 1, I would prefer plus 2 movement, it would be greatly appreciated (and I am sure I'm not the only one who thinks this).

Hexagon vs Square grid:
Originally I was worried about the change to Hexagon grid from Square grid. I guess I got so accustomed to it. However, I was pleasantly surprised how much more fun/tactical it was to play on the Hex grid. It added a whole new layer of strategy to flanking, for both the computer opponents and I.

Map Size/ Unit Limits:
Most of the maps were small and unit caps for armies were somewhat small, especially compared to the previous games. Again, cause for concern, but I still found the battles exciting and engaging even though I had fewer units etc to battle with and smaller maps to maneuver through. And it added a different strategic element that very few other games provide: learning when to sell a unit in order to purchase and level up a more versatile or more powerful unit. Or choosing to keep the weaker unit and using it as a meat-shield to sacrifice during battle.

Conclusion:
I know you guys didn't have much of a budget to work with, but you guys still managed to produce an engaging and fun game, that I plan to replay for quite some time. I really do hope that you can fix the multiple technical issues soon, make some tweeks with the current campaigns and find the time to develop and bring out the Kaos campaigns soon. Thanks for another great game.

Hi drudeboy

Thank you very much for your great feedback.

We'll try to release a patch soon.

About some of the problems you found.

Endhor: Did you see the secondary mission in the War of the Heroes Campaign? Did you fight the Beholder?

Achievements: We have to check them because I think there's a bug. Probably this is the reason why you did not win them, simply a bug. Apologise for this.

War Machines: I agree with you and I'll increase their movement.

Secondary Objectives: I'll see if I can do some changes in the next patch.

Thanks for joining us from the beginning!

[drudeboy]

That was a quick reply.
Yes I did fight the Beholder, but when I played that mission, I won an Epic Victory, and the mission ended when I captured the tower, and that was it.
And I figured it was a bug with the achievements.

Thanks for listening Fabio.

[drudeboy]

Update. So I uninstalled and reinstalled the game. Then I replayed the campaigns and got the missing achievements; well all except one - "Epic Elf" achievement. I was also able to meet/recruit Endhor.

[FabioBelsanti]

Update. So I uninstalled and reinstalled the game. Then I replayed the campaigns and got the missing achievements; well all except one - "Epic Elf" achievement. I was also able to meet/recruit Endhor.

Thanks for your playtests, we'll see what we can do asap.