Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes appreciation post

I've been playing a lot of city building games lately, but kept thinking "why are there so few fantasy city builders?". Then, suddenly, I remembered something - a memory unlocked from a simpler time, of a fantasy strategy game that had you build cities, and I mean really build by placing buildings around with workers and citizens doing their thing if you zoom in to take a closer look (albeit, purely cosmetic). That game was Fallen Enchantress. It's not a city building game, it's a 4x game with a pleasant illusion of building cities, but that's beside the point.

I opened my library and found that I had 20 hours in Fallen Enchantress and 10 hours in its sequel, FE: Legendary Heroes. I vaguely remembered the gameplay, but not really. Just a portfolio of visual imagery. So I decided to give it a shot and, you know, have a peek.

And got sucked in. It's surprisingly fun, has a metric ton of content and features you wouldn't expect from one of the first fantasy 4x revival games of the early 2010s. Yeah, people like to bring it down for the graphics, but it's not that bad after you fiddle with the options to tailor it a bit to yourself, like turning on pedestrians, vegetation, unit scaling, unit outliners, etc. I mean, I've enjoyed Solasta, and its character models are atrocious. Still, a good game if you cut it some visual slack.

Note that I'm not that far in, it's just my first game of FE:LH in 10 years, and I barely knew 'em. So I can't really comment on long-term balance or AI issues, I'm sure at least some of the critique I've seen is perfectly warranted.

Anyway. The things I enjoy in FE:LH:

  • Good tech trees with meaningful research options, unlocking new buildings, denser squads, bigger armies, roads, items, spells, etc. It does make you feel like you're starting as a ragtag bunch of settlers lead by some ambitious dude(tte) and progress through the ages.
  • Cities look nice. They build nice, they feel nice. Just make sure you have manual building placement and have pedestrians turned on in the options and zoom in. It's got probably the most visually detailed cities in the 4x genre. After all these years this was the part that stayed within my memory and made me revisit the game.
  • Kinda riding on the last point, but city building itself is pretty deep. AOW4 has decent city building, but it doesn't even compare. Shitload of buildings, upgrades, city specializations tied to city level tied to population, further specializations, base resources, modifiers, bonus resources, fucking WONDERS. It's much closer to Sid Meier's Civ than its fantasy brothers and sisters.
  • Combat is fast and deadly. Might be a turn off for some, but I've read much criticism towards AOW4's pace and length of battles, so might be worth mentioning. It is certainly simpler, though, and nothing beats Age of Wonders in tactical combat department.
  • Unit customization is probably the main selling point of the game, as you're basically creating bipedal spaceships with specialized modules, and you're not limited by unit type like you are in Endless Legend. I'm personally not a fan of the system, given how it's the main source of other kinds of limitations of Fallen Enchantress with questionable returns, but I can appreciate the openness of it.
  • Spells that feel powerful. That fireball you're hurling at the bunched up enemies is going to explode like it's a gender reveal party, in all its 2010-ish glory.
  • Special zones on the map that are controlled by neutral entities and offer unique rewards. Can't remember anything like that in similar games. No, not city-states but e.g. a frozen wasteland protected by a massive ice monster.
  • Several victory conditions that do not directly pit you against other players. You're allowed to be the diplomat.
  • Interesting division of players into kingdoms and empires that on one hand stimulates conflict, but on the other does not prevent you from maintaining good relations with anyone.
  • A good variety of spells. City enchantments, unit enchantments, strategic spells, tactical spells. There are spells to permanently weaken your ruler and strengthen other heroes, or spells to kill friendly heroes to enhance your ruler and so on.
  • There are TRADE CARAVANS ON THE MAP that move between trading nations. I don't know why it makes me so happy. Brings more life to the game, I guess?
  • City shops that you can visit with your heroes to buy/sell stuff. Includes selling wolf pelts and bear asses, for us WoW veterans o7

  • Quest huts with quest text. Its simple, but I enjoy reading those. The way a lot of things are annotated brings out character and reminds me of something like HOMM 3/4, where just picking up an item would describe you the circumstances of you finding said item.

  • The main menu reminds me of the Temple of Elemental Evil by Troika. Disregard this.

Now, things I don't particularly enjoy in FE:LH:

  • Square grid, no hexes in sight.
  • Only humanoid nations to pick from/create. Humanoid as in reskinned humans. Can seem refreshing and be a good thing, depending on your outlook.
  • After picking through all the points of interest around you you'll quickly find yourself on an emptier map, because most of them (aside from resource points) are one-off and then they disappear. However, not long after the world will be populated by you and your neighbors, along with roads, outposts, caravans, armies snooping around... so it's not that bad.
  • No water gameplay. Like, there's water, but without gameplay. The most you can do is build a dock on a river, I think. Oceans are basically untraversible lava lakes.
  • No clear indication that you've not moved your armies/units this turn.
  • Cannot rebind hotkeys.
  • Left/right mouse clicks in combat are sometimes confusing, as you use right click to move and attack, but confirm abilities and spells with left click.
  • The interface is... okay. It's not bad, it's just a bit more clicking than is generally accepted nowadays and some things are a bit hidden.
  • I found no way to upgrade units from one type to another. Created designs will stay the same, with the same traits and most of the equipment, and you can't cross-tree upgrade it. You can only upgrade their weapons, armor and squad size. If there is a way to update an existing design, please tell me.
  • The game WILL CRASH. Stardock CEO explained it here on Reddit that the game is fundamentally flawed - coded in 32 bit and unable to manage memory properly. Make sure TO USE AUTOSAVES. I've crashed once in my game of 15 or so hours, and it was not a big deal, but YMMV.

Alright, so it's all I could think of for now. Just had this urge to voice my appreciation for this game and Stardock for creating one of the first modern fantasy 4x games that still surprisingly holds up in many areas and offers a different experience. It's also worth noting Stardock kept releasing updates, and the last one was I think in 2021. So, points to Stardock! If this post turned your head and made you look at the game, I'm happy and my mission here is done. Have a nice day.

P.S. any cool mods to check out?