Slitherine

I'm a Fantasy General zealot. I played the game so often I can even quote part of narrative from memory.

If your fight to destroy the Shadowlord is to have any hope, this abscess on the world must be lanced with the keen blade of righteousness, before he can blight the land any further.

Naturally a game with the title Fantasy Kommander draws my immediate attention.

So far from the point of game design, narrative and voice acting I am having a good time. Considering that the game cost only 20 bucks I'm positively surprised about the quality of the voice acting. I read in the manual the Lead Designer studied military history. This certainly helped to create a believable world with more than enough room for potential expansions or follow up games.

The combat mechanics are certainly more sophisticated than those of Fantasy General. As much fun Fantasy General was, it still is a rather casual strategy game, but nonetheless thanks to the 4 different Generals, their unique abilities and creature roster entertaining to play repeatedly.
Fantasy Kommander is certainly not a title where you randomly click units around, see what happens, react to it and still get away with it. For example the early mission with the Skeleton King. It took me a few tries to figure out an efficient way to achieve an epic victory and Kill the King. I had great fun analyzing the game mechanics, unit stats, abilities, watching the AI behavior, then develop a plan and see it succeed. I focused my lights lonely on defense, had it further improved by their special ability and used them to lure the king to one side of the map. Before he could do any real damage Marcus used his charge ability to rush over and backstab the distracted skeleton king. In the meantime the rest of my army could secured the map objectives. I'm eager to enjoy the rest of my weekend with this game.

The technical side unfortunately is the weakness of this game. I peeked into the game folder and saw Adobe Shockwave files. Hmm. For a causal game run in your browser from some meaningless website this may be OK, but for a serious game is and odd choice. I fear the things that bother me with with this game are because of the technical limitation set by Flash itself and probably cannot be addressed.

Hotkeys
There are no hotkeys for anything except ESC. Not for next unit, entrenchment, rotate unit, special abilities or even end turn. If my left hand where instead a person to operate my keyboard, she would be really bored. If I could just use my F-buttons, number keys or the QWERT row to select abilities. I take anything. Oh and maybe Space or Return to end turn, yes?

Rotation
How great would it be if you could use the right mouse button to rotate your units. This alone would increase the usability a lot considering how important unit facing is in this game. But I guess because flash is more for web application it has limited support for the right mouse button. Maybe a left button double click instead to bring out the direction rose? C'mon, I know you want it too.

Entrenchment
The entrancement rules are almost the same as in every Panzer General game I think. Not adjacent to enemy units, no movement minus the random chance of success. So skip the unnecessary micromanagement and do like Panzer General series have entrenchment happen automatically at the end of the round.
In my army time one of the first things they taught me in basic training when standing still always look for cover or create it yourself. Even if you have to use your spade to create a shallow ditch and use the removed dirt to form a rampart high enough to just cover your head. You really don't want get caught in the open when the enemy moves by, because dying sucks. The sergeants don't even have to issue orders to create cover, people do it on their own and those that didn't you don't have to worry about them buying your game.
Consider to automatize entrenching, especially if don't have hotkeys for next unit and entrench.

GUI and font size
The windows size in main menu, briefing, HQ screen or just let say anywhere else except the battle screen what size are they? I guess it's 800x600 because on my 1920x1200 display you could fit the window 4 times and still have some room left. This may be OK for low resolution tablets like Ipad Mini or Kindle Fire but on a desktop PC with Full HD this is very unconformable. I don't like to sit 20" away from my 24" display. If the GUI would scale or you just had different GUI templates for various resolutions, that would be great. I think at least a GUI template with 1280*1024 should be implemented and please increase the font size. With a larger GUI the font don't have to be so tiny. Seriously my eyes will thank you so much.

Music and Speech
The voice acting your game features is really great. Your voice actor has a good voice and a crystal clear recording but the music sounds noisy like from low bandwidth. It's a bit annoying during a mission when there is speech sequences when it switch back and forth between speech and music. Especially if you take your time instead to just click through. Is it possible to stop the music or tone it down until the sequence has ended?

Troop reserve
This game would benefit from a troop reserve. There were several times where I though a different troop composition would be more optimal for a certain mission. It sucks if you have to sell a unit first to replace with a different unit type. Sometimes I would rather take an additional archer or mounted unit then an other grunt. You could distinct between army size and deployment size.

Mousewheel
The mousewheel does not work properly for me to scroll in game text. It moves only 1-2 lines up and down if at all.

Savegame
When saving a game during camp could you add to the description text which mission next? If I don't achieve an epic victory immediately I usually continue play but go back later. It's then sometimes a guessing game which save to load, especially if I don't track the time.

Demoralization/Armor
What are the exact rules for Armor and demoralitztion. I didn't find the formula for armor vs. damage and I didn't not understand the description for demoralization either.

If a unit suffers a damage equal to or greater than its unmodified maximum life must roll a moral check.

Huh?

Conclusion
You have a good game here, let me tell you that. If you can improve the technical aspect of the game you will have a great game. I can only hope the game is enough of a financial success that you guys can license a proper engine or even create one yourself for a worthy successor. My money you already have. I ordered a physical edition because I'm here for the long run.

Hi Dragoon

Thank you very much for your for the time that you spent to write this detailed (and very positive) report.

About our tech problems/limitations with flash you're absolutely right!

And in fact, I have already admitted in the first episode of our development diary this weakness: http://www.ageofgames.net/en/under-deve ... ary-1.html

Please let me say that, considering the resources and the fact that we used flash, we did a miracle.

Hotkeys and Rotation: Signed in the to do list, we'll see what we can do in the next patches.

Entrenchment: Mmm, I don't know, I like the idea that the player must plan this action. My first idea was to have units that builds fortified encampment (like the renaissance armies did, oh, and the romans)... but we had the right tech and graphics to do this. I think we'll not change the Entrenchment in this game, may be in the next

GUI and font size: You're right again and I'll give you, I know, an odd suggestion: change the resolution of your screen before you play. I suggest you 1280x720.

Armor: The Armor Value is subtracted from the final damage.

Demoralization: Damn! There's an error in the manual! The right rule is "If a unit suffers a damage equal to or greater than 40% of its unmodified maximum life must roll a moral check"
Apologise, I'll correct this. Same thing for retreat.
Anyway, if also with this correction is not clear, I'll try to explain better it with an example. A level 1 Human Infantry unit has 50 life points. 50 is the unmodified maximum life value. So if this unit takes a damage of 20 or more it must check the morale (and check the retreat also).

We're glad to have a new Kommander and we'll do our best to make great games (with really better tech) for gamers like you.

Looking forward to have your feedback when you'll finish the Heroes Campaign

Hi,
is it possible to add an option units turn automatically in the direction when they going to attack ?
In HPS games is the same problem ,you always have to turn the units by hand (in my oppinion ) A LTTLE FUNKILLER,
which interrupts the game flow.
Ok , the number of units is not high but will maybe be in later versions.

I just resumed my gaming session and noticed that save games do not track Military Fame or Battles won/lost. It just shows your current session. When loading a different save it keeps whatever the current values are. If you quit the game everything is reset to zero.



Thanks for your reply Fabio,

I have to read later your development diary. Thanks for the link.

Good to hear you're working to address rotation/hotkeys as this is what currently bugs me most. I often find myself moving my forces in a pincer movement to expose the AI flanks and when it closes there is often heavy rotation action. A more intuitive solution will be greatly appreciated.

Well you solution to reduce resolutions is certainly one way to enlarge the screen. However I running a dual display setup with usually several windows open I have to track. The resolution change mess everything up. Guess I have sit closer to the screen for now.

Thanks for clarifying the armor and moral check rules. This will help me to predict the outcome of my actions more accurately.

I get better back playing before a certain significant other comes breathing down my neck again and put an end to this gaming session again.

Micha wrote:Hi,
is it possible to add an option units turn automatically in the direction when they going to attack ?
In HPS games is the same problem ,you always have to turn the units by hand (in my oppinion ) A LTTLE FUNKILLER,
which interrupts the game flow.
Ok , the number of units is not high but will maybe be in later versions.

Autofacing could be a problem, hotkey will be probably added in the next patches.

You'll have a bigger army in the next battles and campaigns

Dragoon wrote:I just resumed my gaming session and noticed that save games do not track Military Fame or Battles won/lost. It just shows your current session. When loading a different save it keeps whatever the current values are. If you quit the game everything is reset to zero.



Thanks for your reply Fabio,

I have to read later your development diary. Thanks for the link.

Good to hear you're working to address rotation/hotkeys as this is what currently bugs me most. I often find myself moving my forces in a pincer movement to expose the AI flanks and when it closes there is often heavy rotation action. A more intuitive solution will be greatly appreciated.

Well you solution to reduce resolutions is certainly one way to enlarge the screen. However I running a dual display setup with usually several windows open I have to track. The resolution change mess everything up. Guess I have sit closer to the screen for now.

Thanks for clarifying the armor and moral check rules. This will help me to predict the outcome of my actions more accurately.

I get better back playing before a certain significant other comes breathing down my neck again and put an end to this gaming session again.

Mmm, apologise for Military fame and battles, it's a bug for sure. We have to fix it.

May the absolute be with you Kommander

FabioBelsanti wrote:

Micha wrote:Hi,
is it possible to add an option units turn automatically in the direction when they going to attack ?
In HPS games is the same problem ,you always have to turn the units by hand (in my oppinion ) A LTTLE FUNKILLER,
which interrupts the game flow.
Ok , the number of units is not high but will maybe be in later versions.

Autofacing could be a problem, hotkey will be probably added in the next patches.

You'll have a bigger army in the next battles and campaigns

Sorry, i was blind . If you make a unit to attack it turns automatically in the rigth direction, perfect.

Yes! I like the idea of automatic entrenchment! I really see no downside to it, honestly. And maybe on top of that, some sort of overwatch system could be implemented for the ranged units.

There is only 1 scenario left to finish the first campaign of the game.
Outstandinfg work.Fantasy General is reborn !
I think 20 euros is to cheap for this game. There are so many game which have not nerrly the same quality
but they cost 40 euros or more.

Micha wrote:There is only 1 scenario left to finish the first campaign of the game.
Outstandinfg work.Fantasy General is reborn !
I think 20 euros is to cheap for this game. There are so many game which have not nrarly the same quality
but ty cost 40 euros or more.

You must be kidding. Though i agree that it is a good wargame i feel like playing a title from the 90s. Graphics are very ILD stylish and the Animation of the battle units while moving and attackibg is awful to be honest. In Addition the GUI seems to be frim the stone age. Small Icons you ned glasses for and ni Keyboard Shortcuts make playing very hard. 20 bucks is alot while i get Fantasy General for much less and which offers Same graphics and gameplay. To be honest, im disappointed from the game mainly because of its very very old look and lack of comfort. Hoping Drums if War makes it better :-/

For me the graphics are almost irrelevant. Good graphics are a bonus in a strategy game but sometimes they can be even distracting. Quite the opposite for an action game or movie. If the CGI is good or the actors pretty enough you can still play it and watch it.
But the important thing is game mechanics for a strategy game that want to be taken serious. You can have the best looking strategy game if the design or mechanics are bad it's not worth playing. On the other side if the game design & mechanics are great it can even get away with 320x200 and 4 bit graphics. Gary Grigsby Pacific War 1992 anyone here? But then again thanks to dosbox I can scale it up to play fullscreen.

About Fantasy General. It's really my favorite after People General and before Allied General. It came out the right time. Back then people liked the General series but started to show fatigue for the WWII theme. FG was new, fresh and had what I consider one of the best soundtracks up to this date. If you never heard it search it on YouTube, seriously.
But the game is still rather simple and the implementation of higher difficulty awful. In fact on hard difficulty you had to game the system with cheesy no-kill strategy and conjurors became one of most important units to have early on. The problem is that not matter what difficulty you play, the pre placed units on designed scenario (not random maps) are the same across all difficulties.
The difference is when you kill a unit and the AI recruit reinforcements their level depend on the difficulty setting. On some maps this could mean you kill some shield 1 units and mid game you come across a town where the AI just recruited a bunch of shield 3-4 units. Early on this means game over. No way you get through that in time.
So you would often, especially when playing Krell or Mordra where you lag behind in tech until much later, avoid killing AI units so the AI don't recruit high level replacement or you blitzkrieg remote towns with invisible skirmishers. Today I would considered this to be a severe design flaw, but back in 1996 it was still an awesome game.

generalgonzo wrote:

Micha wrote:There is only 1 scenario left to finish the first campaign of the game.
Outstandinfg work.Fantasy General is reborn !
I think 20 euros is to cheap for this game. There are so many game which have not nrarly the same quality
but ty cost 40 euros or more.

You must be kidding. Though i agree that it is a good wargame i feel like playing a title from the 90s. Graphics are very ILD stylish and the Animation of the battle units while moving and attackibg is awful to be honest. In Addition the GUI seems to be frim the stone age. Small Icons you ned glasses for and ni Keyboard Shortcuts make playing very hard. 20 bucks is alot while i get Fantasy General for much less and which offers Same graphics and gameplay. To be honest, im disappointed from the game mainly because of its very very old look and lack of comfort. Hoping Drums if War makes it better :-/

Sorry, but i"m not agree. For me the graphic could be improved but is not as bad as you say. The Problem is roundbased games are hard to sell except
ww2 games becourse many people of the rouNdbased community are only intersted in ww2 . So they have a budget problem i think.
I"m really happy they made fantasycommander .

Micha wrote: Sorry, but i"m not agree. For me the graphic could be improved but is not as bad as you say. The Problem is roundbased games are hard to sell except
ww2 games becourse many people of the roudbased community are only intersted in ww2 . So they have a budget problem i think.
I"m really happy they made fantasycommander .

No, there are many examples out there, where this is simply not true. One actual is i.e. "Expeditions_ Conquistador". Maybe you will have a look at - no WW2, really good Animation graphics and an intense game with good tactical gameplay. Same with "Eador - master of broken world"!
There is a good community out there for Fantasy round based games but with an engine from back in the 90s this game will sadly be forgotten. Look at his Forum. It´s really empty, guess why ?
Don´t get me wrong, I like the concept of Fantasy Kommander and bought it immediately but to be honest the graphics and GUI layout (very small Icons) are from the past century and could be done better without big Problems!

Belive me there are players like me who does not want a 3 d landscape like in the games you told me.
I could never like games like "total war". Its a interactive film but not a stratgame from my view.
Years ago i play"d such games, the neverending rotating , zooming and moving of the maps killed my nerves.
Thats why i stoped playing this games. When i want to see great animations, 3d landscapes and such things i whatch
a blueray. Maybe players like me are a minority.
But i"m glade People like the makers of Fantasie Kommander has a heart for our minority.