Endless Legend vs Fallen Enchantress vs Age of Wonder

[NinjaX]

I already own Fallen Enchantress and Age of Wonder. They are both fantasy turn based 4x games. Endless Legend is intriguing me, but the question I ask myself is what does this game offer over the other two?

Hopefully some of you guys have played the others. Why play Endless Legend over the others? Thanks

[TheDeadDude]

Warning this post is biased mostly towards Endless legend. Mainly because i don't like the other two games mentioned.

Fallen enchantress = garbage don't buy it.
I own fallen enchantress, the game is very boring because heroes are incredibly over powered. You can run around the map with mostly heroes and take out armies and armies of units. Certain spell classes can make a war city produce incredibly over powered cavalry that just trololols the game. The learning arc is incredibly steep at first and the game doesn't offer anything that games of older 4x has. With all 4x the AI is a cheater and is very dumb.

However! this game can be fun with a huge ass amount of mods/balances etc. That you can download.

Fallen enchantress legendary heroes = Dunno never bought/played it. Looks like heroes are stupidly weak cept for spell caster endgame and party heroes. Boring unchanged units are your army now, not much has changed no?

Age of Wonder is incredibly well done in its own right. I haven't played it very much because i dislike the style and tech trees. If you watch the "lets play age of wonders video" it is a really good game. Other than that i don't know enough about this game to say anything else about it i only played a demo.

Endless Legend is a really well done game. Story is decent, it truely shines in the many strengths and weaknesses of each faction and many ways to win. You can win being a total diplomat, science nerd, warmonger and economist (money). Where you battle, when you battle and how you battle is redefined in ways most games are to unambitous to try out.

Example if you fight an army of rangers/treants with infantry or calvary where there are lots of hills and lakes that can funnel you into 1v1. You are totally screwed. Those archers gonna shoot your men down like pinatas. (Some players bring a few tanky units to make walls too so archers + walls on favorable terrain is garenteed to hurt/win).

However if you attack rangers in the open plains with no forests (they get buffs in trees) your calvary are going to run them down and kill them unless your equipment is weaker than theirs. (more on that in the next paragraph).

You can retrofit your units with a limited amount of options based on what the units specialize in. You can give infantry units spears, claws, axes and swords. Each weapon specialized against a certain opponents. Spears for calvary, swords for infantry, axes for archers, claws for slow units to hit 3 units at once when attacked.
Calvary can use swords and spears, are slightly less tanky than infantry but has incredible movement inside and outside of battle.
Archers can use crossbows and shields or long bows, crossbows offers extra defense and 1 more item slot which could also mean more damage. Longbows shoots down flying units like flies (huge damage buff vs flying).

[Ueffe]

Fallen Enchantress LH is the best game of the genre, there is nothing boring....
AoW III is boring for me, really boring.
So everybody has his own opinion...

[Nasarog]

EL is on one end. AoW3 is on the other. E:FELH is in the middle. You nailed it with your title.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

FE sucks. I have about 136 hours into it and EL Is by far the better game. FE is better in that it has better customization of units and magic is more prevalant (but broken at times, see Mana Blast) and it has dragons. Otherwise, EL has better combat, better city management, better visuals, better game mechanics and frankly a better story. Plus FE is a buggy mess, especially late game. EL lags at the end, but it doesn't crash. FE last I played was a crash prone mess.

FE's heros become absurdly over powered to the point you can simply run around with a single unit and wipe out entire armies. If you can build henchmen and then mana powered level them, you can just go straight up hero armies. Really unbalanced at times.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=133260240
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=132167402

1 power leveled henchmen vs a dozen enemy units and he handily won.

Plus FE combat requires not much tactical thinking. Where EL, the terrain is often a force multipler itself. Plus EL just looks better:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=365519696

[Ueffe]

Got 1250 hours in FE LH and I'm not willing to agree with you... :).

The graphic is indeed a little bit aged. But I'm not so interessted in fully polishid graphics, if the rest of the game fits me.
The "simply-run-around-and-kill-everything-with-one-army" you can have in EL too.

But no need to discuss this over and over again. Everybody has its own feelings, game- and play style. I just wanted to say, that you cant give tips for other people which based on own feelings instead of facts and figures.

[chon]

It is a matter of taste really..

[simest]

I got all three games. And I like both FE LH and Endless Legend. AoW on the other hand was really boring to me.

If you want to know what is different in EL than in the other two games:

EL is a lot more simple in some aspects than the other 2 games. For example there is almost no magic spells for combat (except for one faction).
Combat is a lot faster than in EL or AoW, it is turnbased but will only take 6 turns. If neither side wins within 6 turns it is a remis and you can attack again next gameturn.
You are also given the option to flee from an unfavourable combat. Fleeing units loose half their hitpoints. This means, you don´t need to worry about the protection of every settler or scout you send out.
Every faction has only a few different units. But you can also recruit units from more than a dozen minor factions, like ogres, minotaurs, demons, ...

The stongest point of EL in my opinion are the different factions. In FE and AoW all the factions play more or less the same way. Endless Legend on the other hand gives each of its 8 factions some special traits, that make them all feel unique.
For example the Necrophages generate food for their cities by killing units in battle.
The Cultists are unable to build more than one city, but get the ability to take over the villages of minor factions.
The Broken Lords use money instead of food to generate more population.

There is a story for every faction, that you discover by solving a series of quests.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Originally posted by Ueffe:

Got 1250 hours in FE LH and I'm not willing to agree with you... :).

The graphic is indeed a little bit aged. But I'm not so interessted in fully polishid graphics, if the rest of the game fits me.
The "simply-run-around-and-kill-everything-with-one-army" you can have in EL too.

But EL's heros don't reach the overpowered status that FE does. Hell, my hero in my screenshot can solo dragons without blinking, hell, I paired her with a level 30 Great Wolf and there is nothing the AI can throw at me that can even begin to challenge her. An army of two units where one actually does the work is the single greatest threat on the map. It's like Kerrigan where EL's heros are more like Raynor. Plus the whole city spam on FE IMO isn't as good as the single city per region.

FE last I played was still a bug filled mess of crash to desktop every chance it got. The only things I miss from FE is the mass customization where you weren't restricted on what unit could carry what items and dragons. Pretty bad ass to run around with an army of three storm dragons.

I do agree that the other guy that FE's factions kind of all play the same, where Cultists vs Necrophage is wildly different. That's a criticism against Civ too, as Civ factions are essentially identical at their cores, wjhere as if you tried to play Broken Lords like Wild Walkers...well that wouldn't go well.

[5 Bears On Patrol]

The combat in this game is complete garbage, since the AI controls your units as well. At best you can give "manual" commands telling them who to attack, beyond that your lines will charge in and provide paths to your vulnerable archers and casters.

I suspect they couldn't make an AI that was challenging and decided to hamstring the player into using it's crap as well. Just spam infantry. Ugh.

[Zanzibar]

I've played all three.

FE I just couldn't get into. Wanted to like it, but never got that "one more turn" feeling from it.

EL and AOW3 I enjoy about the same. They are completely different games. AOW3 is primarily a _tactical_ game, whereas EL is a _strategy_ game. What I mean about this is AOW3 is all about the battles, pumping out units, and getting them where they need to be. That makes it sound shallower than it is... this part of AOW3 is infinitely stronger than in EL. I also found AOW3 to be hmmmm how can I put this... "quicker" to control. I found getting what I wanted to happen on screen more efficient in AOW3 than EL (although it was certianly possible to misclick...), which in comparison is slightly clunkier. My other overriding impression of AOW3 at least in the campaigns (something EL doesn't have) was that you needed to be a _lot_ more aggressive there to win. Random maps were a little better.

EL is _much_ better at the overall strategy side of things. I haven't played as much EL yet, but I can already see that whereas in AOW3 you are only going to win via sheer force, in EL you have many more options. Diplomacy is better in EL, it is a stunted runt in AOW3. The race differentiation is much more pronounced in terms of strategy and to a lesser degree tactics. I prefer the tech tree in EL, you have slightly more control over what you get (there's a random element in AOW3).

I enjoy the graphics in both, although to me EL's seem a slightly fresher style. Music is good quality in both. I found the micromanagement in both to be similar in quantity.

I played the crap out of AOW3. I think it took me slightly longer to get interested in EL, but it now has my full attention. Maybe wait until it is on special again and just try it?

[BoNeZ]

1 EL , very good , can get a bit dull and bland at times
2 FE , good game but EL just about nicks it.
3 AOW3 , pretty crap tbh so many problems and god awful sounds.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Originally posted by ('"\ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ/"'):

The combat in this game is complete garbage, since the AI controls your units as well.

Um...you can control where you units go and who they attack. The AI is only in control if you didn't give your units commands. Which means you failed to plan.

At best you can give "manual" commands telling them who to attack, beyond that your lines will charge in and provide paths to your vulnerable archers and casters.

It's called telling melee units to move to a location and hold it. It's right there in the planning stage.

I suspect they couldn't make an AI that was challenging and decided to hamstring the player into using it's crap as well. Just spam infantry. Ugh.

It's more like you don't understand combat.

[chon]

You are in total control in EL if you want to.. Before commiting into combat check the average initiative of the enemy army first.. If you have lower initiative than them try to choose where the battle will be fought and set your units to defensive or stand ground mode. Do I need to tell you to check the initiative bar before giving orders? If the enemy moves first many of your orders can become irrelevant.

Actually EL has a deeper combat than meets the eye. Preperation is really important though. You can't expect to win battle with no properly equiped units.

[Diablowe]

To be honest, being an EL veteran, I still prefer AoW3's combat.

[GA01]

This same thread shows up over and over again in the forums of all three of the mentioned games. There is no definitive answer since it is a matter of taste. Fallen Enchantress was my favorite until I got burned out on it. At first I did not care much for AOW3 but the game has improved so much after the last expansion that now it is my current favorite. Other than the lore (which is fantastic and innovative) I find EL to be extremely boring and lifeless. I've tried several times to get "into" this game but it never grabs me.

In the end, get all three on sale at cheap prices and just find out for yourself which you prefer.