I'm playing Elemental:
Fallen Enchantress, a fantasy role-playing 4X strategy game
by Stardock
Entertainment.
This is a semi-sequel offered for free
to early adopters of the first Elemental game, War of Magic. It’s
obviously similar in approach (a 4X game with role-playing elements)
but much better overall thanks to streamlined mechanics, added
content, and a more accessible interface, among other things.
Starting a new game offers good hero customization and rules options;
victory conditions include conquest, diplomacy, researching the top
spell, or completing the final quest. While the tutorial is terribly
short, there is extensive in-game help with short movies describing
each game mechanic. The interface features plentiful tool-tips, a
handy city and unit list, and event icons that need accompanying
sound effects. Fallen Enchantress also has more varied graphics than
War of Magic, although the ground textures are still blurry. The
cloth map is a good way to play the game faster and figure out what
all of the locations are. Founding a city is now restricted to
locations that have grain, although you can construct an outpost near
resource sites scattered around the map. Each city can specialize in
population, defenses, or research, and will get a different selection
of buildings based on your choice. On-map resources can be reaped by
nearby settlements, so there is some planning in where to place your
towns, rather than resorting to city spam. The technology tree has
been streamlined and offers several paths in civics, warfare, and
magic. Spell variety has also been drastically increased, and the
spellbook is much more organized, placing magic into unit, city,
strategic, and tactical categories. Diplomatic options remain the
same, with specific values to assist you in getting the deal you
want. The world of Fallen Enchantress is full of roaming monsters and
loot, both of which can be farmed for experience, money, and items.
There are also many quests to undertake, but they lack variety and
usually involve defeating some powerful enemy. You will also
encounter other champions you can recruit (for a price); all heroes
level up with combat experience (unlocking a choice of skills) and
suffer injuries when defeated in battle. Improved equipment can be
purchased for your heroes once researched, increasing their stats.
Fallen Enchantress also has many more default units to choose from,
so you don’t feel like you have to customize a new soldier every
time research is completed. Tactical combat is improved because of
more interesting spells and unit abilities, but still a little bland.
The multithreaded AI is strong and efficient and provides a capable
foe. Though still complex and requiring trail-and-error to discover
optimal strategies, Fallen Enchantress is much improved over its
predecessor War of Magic and features a pleasant combination of
role-playing and 4X conventions with enough variety to keep the game
fresh.
