Fantasy Wars: Elven Legacy - Review @ GameOver

Dhruin

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GameOver gives Fantasy Wars a score of 71%, citing a "tedious" campaign and difficulty:
The campaign that comes with Elven Legacy consists of 10 missions. You control the elves in all of these missions, and your army gains power and is carried along with you as you progress. In a couple of places, the campaign branches, giving you options for how you want to proceed, and if you play some of missions well enough, then you unlock bonus missions that can give your army special artifacts to use (heroes can carry three artifacts, while regular stacks can only carry one). The elves fight all of the other races during the campaign, including the elves, and so the campaign sort of acts like a tour of what the game has available.
Unfortunately, I found the campaign to be a little tedious. All of the missions are timed, you’re always wildly outnumbered, and because your army is saved with you, you have to be very careful during the battles to make sure that none of your stacks gets eliminated (because you probably won’t be able to afford to replace them, or you won’t have time to build a new stack up). That means you have to do a lot of saving and loading during each mission, which isn’t a lot of fun. I also thought it was a little boring that there isn’t anything to manage other than your army, and that the mission maps aren’t very large. The missions are mostly just fixed skirmishes rather than having any range or scope.
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I'm really liking this game, and I take exception with some points in this review:
All of the missions are timed, you’re always wildly outnumbered...
You are outnumbered, not that uncommon when facing computer opponents, but you don't actually have to fight everyone on the map either. Usually, if you are beyond your enemies' sight range, they don't come after you. Furthermore, most missions are not to "kill everything everywhere", but to capture a particular city or kill the commander, at which point the mission is ended. Though I love strategy games, I'm no wizard at playing them, and I didn't find this one overtaxing. You can also pick the difficulty for each individual mission, if you want to give yourself a break, and the Easy setting has no time limit.
...and because your army is saved with you, you have to be very careful during the battles to make sure that none of your stacks gets eliminated (because you probably won’t be able to afford to replace them, or you won’t have time to build a new stack up).
Each stack starts out with 10 units, so you usually have plenty of notice before one is eliminated. Sometimes it's a tactical error, sometimes you have to give someone up in order to advance. I've never given up more than one stack out of the 8-10 allowed. When I have lost a unit, it was to finish the mission in "Gold" time, which means a bonus which inevitably includes replacement units.
That means you have to do a lot of saving and loading during each mission, which isn’t a lot of fun.
The game auto-saves at the beginning of every turn.
I also thought it was a little boring that there isn’t anything to manage other than your army, and that the mission maps aren’t very large.
It sounds like you're having plenty of trouble just managing your troops, you want resources as well?
The missions are mostly just fixed skirmishes rather than having any range or scope.
It's true this game is about squad level skirmishes with basically no resource management. That's what I like, if it's what others like I say try it. There's supposed to be a demo, but it's unknown when it will be available.

I also get the feeling (and have read that) more content is going to be added. It would certainly make sense as there's potential for a lot more of what's already working fine, according to me anyway. It's open to custom content as well.
 
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I'm pretty sure Easy has limited turns as well.
 
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The thing is, if you don't get a gold medal on a mission, you won't get the reward that brings, and the next mission will be that much harder. "Slip up" a few times and it starts getting pretty hard, even on Easy. Once you start sacrificing/losing troops, it's all over.

In my experience, it's very important to know what you'll be facing and what path is the best to take, so a second replay of a mission (once you know all that) is pretty much a neccessity. For the record, I'm currently up to mission 4, which is the first one I'll have to replay to get gold, though I haven't really had much time to play.
 
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The thing is, if you don't get a gold medal on a mission, you won't get the reward that brings, and the next mission will be that much harder. "Slip up" a few times and it starts getting pretty hard, even on Easy. Once you start sacrificing/losing troops, it's all over.

In my experience, it's very important to know what you'll be facing and what path is the best to take, so a second replay of a mission (once you know all that) is pretty much a neccessity. For the record, I'm currently up to mission 4, which is the first one I'll have to replay to get gold, though I haven't really had much time to play.

I haven't played the second yet, but from what I remember from the first, and its precursors (Fantasy General and, ultimately, Panzer General), you are ok with silver wins.

I still have lots of games to finish, hopefully by then people will have some good user-created stuff like even campaigns to play, well at least I can hope :)
 
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I'm pretty sure Easy has limited turns as well.
I played the game yesterday and at least two different missions had no limit on Easy. I haven't looked at every mission to check since I typically play on Normal, but I also read this from a developer.

Regarding the Gold win and end-of-mission bonuses, there are artifacts to be found on the map if you explore. Capturing more settlements means more gold as well. That is the trade-off with not getting your bonus. You do have to think about what you're doing, even on Easy, but I don't call that a bad thing.
 
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