It's funny, but I didn't really start to get into this game until I found a busted combo. It wasn't my first time exploiting it, but you need the right combination of map conditions to make it work, so it wasn't the sort of thing you can do every time.
Here's how it works - there's this spell, called Paragon, that you can use to automatically boost one of your heroes up a level. Very powerful, but it has a downside. Every time you cast it, your leader permanently loses 5 hp. However, there's another spell, not part of your standard arsenal, called Blood Curse, and what it does is cut one of your cities' population in half and then add that amount to your sovereign's hit point total (while making them forever after immune to healing magic). But the only place to find Blood Curse is in a certain wildland, which is not guaranteed to spawn on any particular map.
The combination of the two should be obvious. Within just a few turns I had a whole party of high level heroes and a leader who, if she wasn't quite as high-level as the rest, did at least have more than 200 hit points and some powerful equipment. From that point on, it's basically just a rampage through a randomly generated fantasy world, slaughtering everything I see. Good times.
I think the most surprising thing I've learned over the course of playing this game is that I'm probably done with Fallen Enchantress forever. I still like the game well enough, but, you know, Endless Legend exists. And while Fallen Enchantress has its charms (in particular, the wildlands are just great, better than anything comparable in the genre), it falls down in one fundamental, but unforgivable way - the building and tech trees are completely bland. You more or less want to build every building in every city and your scientific progress is bottlenecked behind one of the three tech trees so alternate strategies aren't particularly viable. I like that there are repeatable technologies at the end of the tree (mainly because I love using stacking bonuses to get incredibly overpowered), but otherwise, it's not balanced very well.
Although, I probably shouldn't lay that entirely at the feet of Fallen Enchantress. The technology race is probably the most problematic part of the 4X genre. I've yet to see a game where bigger civilizations do not get significant advantages to technological growth. This is not only dubious as a gameplay mechanic, leading to runaway snowballing and the game being defacto finished long before the official end date, but it also doesn't reflect reality very well. If it did, China would be a sci-fi wonderland and Luxembourg would be a stone-age backwater.
I think the problem is that in 4X games, information has too much respect for borders. You've got situations where a global superpower is launching spy satellites and exploring the possibility of fusion power and then an otherwise non-hostile, but significantly smaller neighbor has to infiltrate their society with spies just to get ahold of the internal combustion engine. (Not so much a problem with Fallen Enchantress, thanks to the lack of an espionage system, but I'm working towards something here).
What I think is missing is that in the real world, it's not all top-down from some disembodied, immortal authority in the sky. Real civilizations are filled with private citizens that will have their own reasons for taking technologies to new places - maybe they can make money selling high-tech goods, maybe you'd want to offshore educated work to a less developed country's small, but sufficient elite class in order to save on wages, maybe a key discovery is made by someone who learned their field on a student visa and then returned home after graduation. The point is, when people move, they take their ideas with them, but in 4X games, people rarely move.
Maybe it would be unsatisfying if the system were too generous. It might feel like the AI was rubberbanding in order to keep a player from winning too handily. Or maybe it would feel like technology was too much out of the players' control, and thus a key strategic element is left to random chance.
I think, if I were designing a game, I'd probably try and tackle this problem by giving technology a maintenance cost, to represent the societal and infrastructure investments necessary to actually use the technology in a life-changing way (there's an old game Emperor of the Fading Suns that used a similar concept - if you couldn't pay to maintain your labs, you'd lose access to the technology those labs researched). These maintenance costs would be highest for "classified" technologies, ones that gave you enough of a strategic advantage that exclusivity is worth the price. Then, as the cutting edge advance, you could "declassify" your old techs, in which case the maintenance cost would go way down and they would quickly propagate along your established trade routes (possibly even to an enemy, if the two of you share a mutual friend). You might even get an economic bonus if you declassify a powerful technology while it is still new. In this way, trade networks would become the standard technological units and a tiny, well-connected nation might exceed a large, isolated one in technological achievement, because they're reaping a portion of the benefit of their friends' 100 different labs, whereas the empire has to make do with the full output of 50 of their own.
Just a thought. Fallen Enchantress isn't really the sort of game where you'd implement this kind of system anyway. Its fantasy milieu means that your "scientists" are more likely to be eccentric sorcerers, researching dusty old tomes in their lofty towers. Not a great deal of progressive, "information wants to be free," sharing economy ideology to be had there (though that gives me an idea for a fun fictional setting - something like an inverse Shadowrun, where you take a base fantasy setting, but then insert cyberpunk elements and the characters could be down-on-their-luck anarchists who hope to one day get a big score by surreptitiously copying a wizard's spellbook).
Anyway, the point being, before I got distracted, is that the technological race is a key part of any 4X experience, and one that is difficult to implement in a fair and satisfying way, and for as much as I enjoy tromping around in Fallen Enchantress' wilderness, it doesn't really do the essential 4X stuff especially well. So I think 172 hours is going to be my ultimate limit. Farewell, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, I was obsessed with you four years ago, but probably never will be again.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes - 15/20 hours
Playing on Insane mode was a mistake. The first time I tried it, I died on turn two. The second time, I fell so far behind I was basically defeated in the first couple dozen turns, even if I was never technically eliminated. Humiliated, I retreated back to normal mode with my tail between my legs.
It was fine. I won the game easily, but strangely, it wasn't as satisfying as winning on beginner mode. I think it's because of the level scaling on the environment. On normal environmental difficulty, monsters have no level adjustment, making low-level monsters less common. This results in more early deaths, fewer experience points, and less treasure. It's not insurmountable, but it means my adventuring party has to stay closer to home and takes more casualties along the way. Since your characters suffer a major injury every time they fall in combat, it becomes tricky to avoid falling into a death spiral.
Also, the injury system can be kind of absurd if you let it go on too long. You can have a single hero with a cracked skull, pneumonia, gangrene, and a broken leg, who's blind in one eye, missing an ear, and suffering from hallucinations. And while it's unlikely to stack quite so many injuries, it is difficult and expensive to heal even a single wound, and thus you almost inevitably have to worry about at least one of your guys becoming almost comically mutilated. It really undercuts the game's whole heroic feel.
Which is why I tend to prefer the easier difficulties. High-level monsters are still nontrivial, even with the three level penalty, but the extra experience points from the weakened chump monsters makes the fights feel more fair (in other words, more likely for me to win).
I think my plan will be to set the environmental difficulty low and the game difficulty high, so that my AI opponents are challenging enough to make me think, but the environment is forgiving enough that I can actually move around in it. Or maybe I'll just dick around, considering there's not enough time for a full game. As long as I get to kill monsters and win treasure, I should be fine.
It was fine. I won the game easily, but strangely, it wasn't as satisfying as winning on beginner mode. I think it's because of the level scaling on the environment. On normal environmental difficulty, monsters have no level adjustment, making low-level monsters less common. This results in more early deaths, fewer experience points, and less treasure. It's not insurmountable, but it means my adventuring party has to stay closer to home and takes more casualties along the way. Since your characters suffer a major injury every time they fall in combat, it becomes tricky to avoid falling into a death spiral.
Also, the injury system can be kind of absurd if you let it go on too long. You can have a single hero with a cracked skull, pneumonia, gangrene, and a broken leg, who's blind in one eye, missing an ear, and suffering from hallucinations. And while it's unlikely to stack quite so many injuries, it is difficult and expensive to heal even a single wound, and thus you almost inevitably have to worry about at least one of your guys becoming almost comically mutilated. It really undercuts the game's whole heroic feel.
Which is why I tend to prefer the easier difficulties. High-level monsters are still nontrivial, even with the three level penalty, but the extra experience points from the weakened chump monsters makes the fights feel more fair (in other words, more likely for me to win).
I think my plan will be to set the environmental difficulty low and the game difficulty high, so that my AI opponents are challenging enough to make me think, but the environment is forgiving enough that I can actually move around in it. Or maybe I'll just dick around, considering there's not enough time for a full game. As long as I get to kill monsters and win treasure, I should be fine.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes - 8/20 hours
I should probably try to stretch myself a little with this game. I've been doing the thing I usually do when I start a new 4X, where I play on the easiest difficulty so that I can get used to the tech tree and build orders, but I'm coming to realize that I already knew them by heart. It is entirely reasonable that I should be going after a high difficulty victory (I don't even remember what level I got to back when I was playing all the time because there are no achievements for beating the game on hard mode).
However, the problem is that hard mode scares me. Moreso than other 4X games, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is combat-driven. It's not so much that you have to conquer the world to win (building the Tower of Mastery is far and away the fastest way to victory), but that you're constantly recruiting these legendary heroes and fighting is what they do. At the very least, you need them to clear out the monsters that occasionally wander into your territory, but honestly, if you're not doing thorough exploration in order to find exotic quests and fabulous treasure in the wildlands, then you're really missing out on half of the game (and the better half, at that).
Which shouldn't really stress me out as much as it does. I enjoy this game. It's got that soothing 4X rhythm that lets me slip into it easily and for hours at a time. The trick is finding a balance that keeps me engaged and challenged while still allowing me to do all those building-type things that I most enjoy.
I think what I'll do is crank the difficulty up to maximum just to test my limits. I may wind up surprising myself, like I did with Alpha Centauri (I played that game a lot back near the turn of the century, but always two or three steps down from maximum difficulty. When I went back to it four years ago, I was gratified to learn that my skills had increased, despite my hiatus). Then again, I may find that I'm a lot worse than I always thought and that I spent 150 hours adapting myself to easy mode.
It's the risk that makes a gamble exciting.
However, the problem is that hard mode scares me. Moreso than other 4X games, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is combat-driven. It's not so much that you have to conquer the world to win (building the Tower of Mastery is far and away the fastest way to victory), but that you're constantly recruiting these legendary heroes and fighting is what they do. At the very least, you need them to clear out the monsters that occasionally wander into your territory, but honestly, if you're not doing thorough exploration in order to find exotic quests and fabulous treasure in the wildlands, then you're really missing out on half of the game (and the better half, at that).
Which shouldn't really stress me out as much as it does. I enjoy this game. It's got that soothing 4X rhythm that lets me slip into it easily and for hours at a time. The trick is finding a balance that keeps me engaged and challenged while still allowing me to do all those building-type things that I most enjoy.
I think what I'll do is crank the difficulty up to maximum just to test my limits. I may wind up surprising myself, like I did with Alpha Centauri (I played that game a lot back near the turn of the century, but always two or three steps down from maximum difficulty. When I went back to it four years ago, I was gratified to learn that my skills had increased, despite my hiatus). Then again, I may find that I'm a lot worse than I always thought and that I spent 150 hours adapting myself to easy mode.
It's the risk that makes a gamble exciting.
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes - 4 hours
I think there may have been a balance patch since the last time I played this game. There's a whole new "stamina" mechanic and I'm not sure I care for it. Your major non-magical abilities have a stamina cost and stamina builds up over time.
I get what they're aiming for. The new system prevents you from frontloading your most powerful attacks and forces you to plan your tactics over the course of several turns. The problem is that I actually liked unleashing all my best abilities on the first turn, and so far my battles have not lasted long enough for extended planning to come into play. I'll have to wait and see what high-end combat looks like before I make a final determination, though. My favorite part of the game is when my heroes are hugely overpowered and can take on giants and dragons and demons from before time and whatnot. If I can still get ludicrous power interactions and over-the-top character stats, I'll be happy. If I find myself bogged down by excessively punitive "game balance," I will be unhappy.
Other than that change, Legendary Heroes is still the same game I remember. It's more similar to the original Fallen Enchantress than I remember, but it has a ton of little improvements that are not huge game-changers individually, but which make the whole experience more enjoyable. For example, you gain new heroes by reaching certain thresholds in your "fame" resource, ensuring a steady stream of new characters to play with (whereas in the base game, your acquisition of new heroes was mostly up to chance). Similarly, the leveling up system is just outright better, as it allows you to visualize and plan your characters' advancement through one of four different hero classes. And there are new spells and quests and treasures and monsters that are nothing on their own, but combine to give the world a lot more life (when, in fact, the exploration and setting was already the strongest part of the original).
I'm looking forward to the rest of my time with this game, though. For all that it is not a revolutionary overhaul of the original Fallen Enchantress, it is still the definitive version of the game. I just can't wait to get another dragon.
I get what they're aiming for. The new system prevents you from frontloading your most powerful attacks and forces you to plan your tactics over the course of several turns. The problem is that I actually liked unleashing all my best abilities on the first turn, and so far my battles have not lasted long enough for extended planning to come into play. I'll have to wait and see what high-end combat looks like before I make a final determination, though. My favorite part of the game is when my heroes are hugely overpowered and can take on giants and dragons and demons from before time and whatnot. If I can still get ludicrous power interactions and over-the-top character stats, I'll be happy. If I find myself bogged down by excessively punitive "game balance," I will be unhappy.
Other than that change, Legendary Heroes is still the same game I remember. It's more similar to the original Fallen Enchantress than I remember, but it has a ton of little improvements that are not huge game-changers individually, but which make the whole experience more enjoyable. For example, you gain new heroes by reaching certain thresholds in your "fame" resource, ensuring a steady stream of new characters to play with (whereas in the base game, your acquisition of new heroes was mostly up to chance). Similarly, the leveling up system is just outright better, as it allows you to visualize and plan your characters' advancement through one of four different hero classes. And there are new spells and quests and treasures and monsters that are nothing on their own, but combine to give the world a lot more life (when, in fact, the exploration and setting was already the strongest part of the original).
I'm looking forward to the rest of my time with this game, though. For all that it is not a revolutionary overhaul of the original Fallen Enchantress, it is still the definitive version of the game. I just can't wait to get another dragon.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes - Initial Thoughts
About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
The Fallen Enchantress seeks to destroy the civilizations that have risen from the ashes of the Cataclysm. Fortunately, your fame has spread and great heroes have been drawn to your banner. With your new champions, you will confront new horrors like liches, brood hunters, banshees, and the dreaded hergon.
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is the new standalone expansion to Stardock’s turn-based, fantasy strategy game. Players will forge a new empire in a world sundered by powerful magic, fight against terrible creatures, complete quests and rediscover lost secrets in their bid to rule the world of Elemental.
Previous Playtime
150 hours
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This
It was probably something along the lines of "oh, god, I just bought Fallen Enchantress two weeks ago, my timing could not have been worse, at least they're giving me a discount." Honestly, I should have waited to buy it, but this was back in 2013 and I was still naive to the ways of Steam. Since my resentment didn't outweigh my curiosity and I was willing to part the twenty bucks, I just went with it.
Expectations and Prior Experience
This is one of the few games for which I have every single Achievement. There was a period of a couple of months where I played it religiously. I don't think I ever tried the highest difficulties, but I did manage to slay all the worst monsters and recruit all the rarest heroes.
As a consequence, I expect few surprises, though since it's been such a long time since I last played it, there may be one or two things I've forgotten. In all likelihood, this will go as quickly as the original Fallen Enchantress, but without the constant reminders of things that have been improved in the expansion.
I probably should have played the two games closer to one another. I'm certain it will be a chore trying to remember which features I need to point out by way of contrast.
The Fallen Enchantress seeks to destroy the civilizations that have risen from the ashes of the Cataclysm. Fortunately, your fame has spread and great heroes have been drawn to your banner. With your new champions, you will confront new horrors like liches, brood hunters, banshees, and the dreaded hergon.
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is the new standalone expansion to Stardock’s turn-based, fantasy strategy game. Players will forge a new empire in a world sundered by powerful magic, fight against terrible creatures, complete quests and rediscover lost secrets in their bid to rule the world of Elemental.
Previous Playtime
150 hours
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This
It was probably something along the lines of "oh, god, I just bought Fallen Enchantress two weeks ago, my timing could not have been worse, at least they're giving me a discount." Honestly, I should have waited to buy it, but this was back in 2013 and I was still naive to the ways of Steam. Since my resentment didn't outweigh my curiosity and I was willing to part the twenty bucks, I just went with it.
Expectations and Prior Experience
This is one of the few games for which I have every single Achievement. There was a period of a couple of months where I played it religiously. I don't think I ever tried the highest difficulties, but I did manage to slay all the worst monsters and recruit all the rarest heroes.
As a consequence, I expect few surprises, though since it's been such a long time since I last played it, there may be one or two things I've forgotten. In all likelihood, this will go as quickly as the original Fallen Enchantress, but without the constant reminders of things that have been improved in the expansion.
I probably should have played the two games closer to one another. I'm certain it will be a chore trying to remember which features I need to point out by way of contrast.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Kerbal Space Program - 20/20 hours
I think Kerbal Space Program might be educational. It felt educational. Obviously, it was not perfectly so. I'm almost positive that, in real life, if your booster rocket fails to clear your flight-path at 14 thousand meters and winds up running into your liquid-fuel rocket, sending your spacecraft into an out-of-control spin, that's basically certain death, and not something you can overcome by cutting your engines and making adjustments with your maneuvering thrusters until you regain control. But aside from the concessions made to the fact that, in unskilled hands, ninety-nine out of a hundred rocket scenarios end in fiery death and thus would be unsatisfying to play as a simulation, I think I was getting some pretty good information about the effects of retrograde acceleration, conservation of angular momentum, the nature of gravity, etc.
I don't want to overstate it, of course, but the the feeling of having learned something is a good feeling. I'm trying to think of other games that have been similarly enriching, and I'm coming up short. Maybe the Civilization series, if I ever bothered to read the civopedia entries (although at that point, why am I not just reading a book?) Possibly Ship Simulator Extremes or Never Alone, although in both those cases, the educational elements mostly came from unlockable video extras.
Kerbal Space Program is notable because its educational properties come about in the gameplay itself. It would have been better if I'd read a science book beside it, so that I could have some hard numbers to go along with the visualizations (or, more accurately, when I studied this stuff in college, it would have been useful to have some visualizations to go along with the numbers), but even so, on its own, it was neat to see the relationship between acceleration, inertia, and gravity.
It also helps that Kerbal Space Program is a fun game on its own. Building up a new model of spaceship was super-easy, in a purely practical sense, so there was very little delay between my most recent horrifying disaster and a new, slightly-modified prototype that would theoretically prevent it (but often didn't). Similarly, flying your ship with its realistic physics and overly-sensitive controls was often satisfying on its own.
I ended my game on a pretty high note. I'd finally got to Mun and back, and then all my science experiments burned up on re-entry, so I redesigned my ship and did it again after only two or three failed attempts. Then I had about a half-hour left, so I messed around trying to complete contract assignments in the hopes of squeezing out some better automation technology. It was immensely satisfying to overcome what seemed to be an impossible technical challenge. I never actually landed on Mun, or got any probes outside my home planet's orbit, but I figure it's only a matter of time.
I'm definitely going to play Kerbal Space Program again. There's still so much of the Kerbol system to explore, and from what I understand, there are mods that make the experience even more hard-core educational. I look forward to an endless series of ill-thought-out, improvised rockets exploding in ever more convoluted ways.
I don't want to overstate it, of course, but the the feeling of having learned something is a good feeling. I'm trying to think of other games that have been similarly enriching, and I'm coming up short. Maybe the Civilization series, if I ever bothered to read the civopedia entries (although at that point, why am I not just reading a book?) Possibly Ship Simulator Extremes or Never Alone, although in both those cases, the educational elements mostly came from unlockable video extras.
Kerbal Space Program is notable because its educational properties come about in the gameplay itself. It would have been better if I'd read a science book beside it, so that I could have some hard numbers to go along with the visualizations (or, more accurately, when I studied this stuff in college, it would have been useful to have some visualizations to go along with the numbers), but even so, on its own, it was neat to see the relationship between acceleration, inertia, and gravity.
It also helps that Kerbal Space Program is a fun game on its own. Building up a new model of spaceship was super-easy, in a purely practical sense, so there was very little delay between my most recent horrifying disaster and a new, slightly-modified prototype that would theoretically prevent it (but often didn't). Similarly, flying your ship with its realistic physics and overly-sensitive controls was often satisfying on its own.
I ended my game on a pretty high note. I'd finally got to Mun and back, and then all my science experiments burned up on re-entry, so I redesigned my ship and did it again after only two or three failed attempts. Then I had about a half-hour left, so I messed around trying to complete contract assignments in the hopes of squeezing out some better automation technology. It was immensely satisfying to overcome what seemed to be an impossible technical challenge. I never actually landed on Mun, or got any probes outside my home planet's orbit, but I figure it's only a matter of time.
I'm definitely going to play Kerbal Space Program again. There's still so much of the Kerbol system to explore, and from what I understand, there are mods that make the experience even more hard-core educational. I look forward to an endless series of ill-thought-out, improvised rockets exploding in ever more convoluted ways.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
End of Year Retrospective - 2016
For all that 2016 was a tough year for politics, entertainment, and my personal financial situation, it was a good year for the blog (so that makes it all right . . .) I reached three significant milestones - My hundredth game, getting to the bottom of my challenge list, and having only sixty unplayed games remaining.
All told, I averaged a game a week for the entire year - fifty-two and a half games in all. If I keep this pace up, I could be done as soon as February 2018 (or three months later if I also acquire new games at the same pace and get 11 over the course of the next year). It may be a distant glimmer, but it feels like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Which is good, because I've started to feel ambivalent about this project. I really enjoy playing the games and writing about them, but all of my other hobbies have fallen by the wayside. I've had some interesting fiction ideas I want to develop, and Exalted 3rd edition has a lot of room for homebrew patches, and I kind of want to make a dozen different Magic: the Gathering decks. Focusing so exclusively on video games has narrowed my horizons.
I comfort myself with the idea that it's only temporary, but it's the sort of temporary that's been going on for at least a year by now. I think I've got two options. Either I can chill out and slow my pace. If I played a game every two weeks, I'd have a lot more time for reading and writing and card-sorting. Alternately, I could try and power through, picking up the pace and getting through my list as a fast as possible. I'll probably settle for an ineffectual compromise between the two.
My immediate goal for 2017 is to finish all the games from my initial list. I've got fifteen left, which should take 4-5 months, and then, at least, I'll be able to say I technically accomplished what I set out to do. After that, maybe I'll tackle the remains of that Star Wars bundle. Ideally, I'd be in a position to finish the blog by June 21, 2018, its four year anniversary. By that time this year, I'd gotten through 25 games, which means I need to play at least 32 games in 2017. That should allow me to pursue a fairly relaxed pace and maybe get some other shit done this year.
Or maybe I'll just play a ton of games and get a strong start on 2018. That would be a pleasant surprise.
All told, I averaged a game a week for the entire year - fifty-two and a half games in all. If I keep this pace up, I could be done as soon as February 2018 (or three months later if I also acquire new games at the same pace and get 11 over the course of the next year). It may be a distant glimmer, but it feels like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Which is good, because I've started to feel ambivalent about this project. I really enjoy playing the games and writing about them, but all of my other hobbies have fallen by the wayside. I've had some interesting fiction ideas I want to develop, and Exalted 3rd edition has a lot of room for homebrew patches, and I kind of want to make a dozen different Magic: the Gathering decks. Focusing so exclusively on video games has narrowed my horizons.
I comfort myself with the idea that it's only temporary, but it's the sort of temporary that's been going on for at least a year by now. I think I've got two options. Either I can chill out and slow my pace. If I played a game every two weeks, I'd have a lot more time for reading and writing and card-sorting. Alternately, I could try and power through, picking up the pace and getting through my list as a fast as possible. I'll probably settle for an ineffectual compromise between the two.
My immediate goal for 2017 is to finish all the games from my initial list. I've got fifteen left, which should take 4-5 months, and then, at least, I'll be able to say I technically accomplished what I set out to do. After that, maybe I'll tackle the remains of that Star Wars bundle. Ideally, I'd be in a position to finish the blog by June 21, 2018, its four year anniversary. By that time this year, I'd gotten through 25 games, which means I need to play at least 32 games in 2017. That should allow me to pursue a fairly relaxed pace and maybe get some other shit done this year.
Or maybe I'll just play a ton of games and get a strong start on 2018. That would be a pleasant surprise.
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