Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes

To be honest I felt Civilizations to be terrible because war and combat was tedious and boring at best with reliance on ranged and siege weapons to surround cities and quickly bust them down and have a single melee unit rush in and capture it. Also, there were virtually no missions or respawning enemies to kill once the starting barbarian camps had been taken out (if done right). And they wonder why Sid Meister's Civs is one of those "just one more turn!" games. Well it's because each turn is boring and feels like barely anything happens... you just click technologies and improves and let them go with the occasional skirmish or betrayal here and there and leads to boring and tedious combat. Did I mention how each upgrade of a unit into the next age pretty much instagibs units of the previous age? Yeah combat sucks. Thankfully, Fallen Enchantress's combat and unit system is beyond better than that of Civs. Heroes can actually obtain and equip gear and use items in combat. They level and are able to gain passive and active traits or spells and add a new element to combat. Instead of just ordering your unit in one square to attack another on the large world map, you are able to group multiple units onto one square to form a unit (which can be split up again on command). Upon battling an enemy, you are taken to a randomized battlefield where you control the units in your squadron to fight (similar to that of Queen's Bounty or Might of Magic). Your hero and units then gain experience and can level up to further improve the combat potential of the units that see and survive combat the longest over the period of each game. One of the biggest improvements is when attacking towns. Instead of beating on an iron wall that turns to paper with a few siege weapons, the takeover of the city is determined in a single fight. Cities give buffs to units defending it such as armor, initiative, and attack depending on the route you upgrade your town (yes there are different ways to upgrade a town for specific purposes such as growth, military, or science). Cities will also provide militia in addition to the units stationed there to help defend the town. Whoever wins the battle in the end will have control of the town. If the town was attacked and taken by neutral monsters, then it is destroyed. Oh, did I mention that you can actually raze every town including capitals? No more unwanted unhappiness ratings. There are also now random events that occur! And monsters actually spawn on the map to a good degree that can be changed prior to the start of the game! So you don't have to declare war on a random poor city or empire, you can have your fill of fighting from the monsters that threaten your cities from time to time if you are not careful. The research system has been improved! Instead of combining every single research in a bundle, there are 3 categories. Growth, Military, and Magic. You can pretty much guess what each one improves upon. What's great about these is that once you max out on one of the technology paths, you gain access to research for permanent benefits to resources and production, as well as attack and defense for your units. This gives you something to look forward to in prolonging the game, or playing after the game has been won or lost. This game however, cannot be played for hours on end without feeling a bit bored. However taking a break and jumping back in renews the entertaining feeling. It may just be how I feel about civilization development games such as this and Sid Meister's version. Fallen Enchantress however, is ultimately many tiers better than Sid Meister's Civilizations in my opinion for depth and balance, especially in the combat and research system.

Elemental War of magic is a first game on the series, second Fallen Enchantress was a good game, but thrid game Fallen Enchantress Legendary Hereos is just briliant! If you like 4x strategy games like civilizationn and turn based like Final Fantasy Tactics, this game is for you! Many great mods make almost perfect game. Play with Children of Storm and Wizards and Demons for more new events, items, spells, champions, monsters, units and much more! As a fan TBS games this one is my favorite... i just love FE LH :P

The third installment of the Elemental/Fallen Enchantress series has become the best one, by far. The first Element wasn't good at all, Fallen Enchantress then took me by surprise as a great fantasy kingdom builder, with a lot of rough edges. Most of those edges have been improved or removed completely in this third installment, Legendary Heroes. The random maps are a lot more diverse, the heroes level system has improved, the monsters are more diverse, the AI is better (still kind of weak on the lower settings, but you can go up quite a few levels that are more capableof giving you a challenge), the turn based battles have become fun and interesting, and it looks great now. I would like to give special mention to the possibility to design your own factions and units, because this is VERY detailed, allthough it is absolutely optional, since there are more then enough factions and units in the original game. Also, check out the mods for this in the coming years, there is a lot of potential in this one. In 50+ hours of gametime, this game crashed exactly once, so no problems with bugs as far as i am concerned. Fans of the earlier Heroes of Might&Magic, Age of Wonders or Kings Bounty, should give this game a real chance. I know i have fallen in love with the amount of detail and options this game gives me.

Legendary Heroes is a significant set of improvements to Fallen Enchantress, and anyone keen on the original should pick it up. All elements of the game have been improved, but still many are imperfect. The graphics engine which underpins the game is remarkable. There has been significant work to 'balance' various aspects, but there is more that could be done. I have played for a few hundred hours, and there are still interesting surprises to be found. I recommend it to TBS fans especially. Makes a good change from Civ or similar. I don't think it can be given a 100, as it still has some rough edges and occasional bugs.