Hadn't posted this yet since I was content to let dead enchantresses lie, but here are some updated Legendary Heroes impressions.
Played a game over the weekend on version 0.87. For reference, the current version is 0.90 which is only some bug fixes and adding the scripted campaign. And final release is supposed to be May 22nd so they're probably not going to change much at this point.
Changes between Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes? They added two sovereigns to two factions that existed in Fallen Enchantress but didn't have sovereigns (You could create factions with their blood type of course). They added a handful of new items.
They added a sprinkling of new heroes.
They added something like 15-20 new monsters, such as "Skeleton" and "Skeleton that is on fire" and "Spooky ghost".
They added a few new quests.
They removed the encumbrance system, instead locking items behind proficiencies and giving them flat initiative penalties instead of initiative penalties coming from encumbrance. This also mangled some of the traits in the game, where things that were originally balanced to increase encumbrance were hastily changed to flat attack bonuses without paying attention to it. So there are a couple traits that each give +1 attack and one costs single digit production and the other costs double digit.
They rejiggered the graphics as I've already shown, if it looks better or worse is up for debate.
They rejiggered the combat maps so they're smaller and opposing armies start closer together. They also somewhat half-assed trying to add choke points to the maps so I guess there's that, but they also are inconsistent. On some maps that giant fountain will be blocked terrain, on others units will move through it and stand in it. Variety in the tactical maps has improved since launch but it's still largely the same.
They rejiggered hero recruitment so instead of finding heroes on the map and hiring them for money, you automatically get a hero forced upon you when you hit a "Fame" threshold. Two randomly drawn heroes show up and are selected from fame threshold specific pools, and you pick either one. If you've got nothing but wizards and you draw two more wizards you're shit out of luck.
They rejiggered hero leveling so instead of randomly drawing a selection of skills to choose from (Some being ok, some bad, some ridiculously great) each time a hero levels, you're now stuck with static skill trees. No more deciding to take your hero in a different direction due to a lucky early skill draw. On top of this you have to spend some of your level-ups on item proficiencies if, for example, you want your warrior to wear chainmail or your defender to wear plate. Since leveling in Legendary Heroes is annoyingly slow, spending your level-ups on "+1 attack" prerequisite skills is painful as fuck, and "You can wear chainmail" feels even worse. They also still have the mostly uselss governor class (Now called commander) which has a bunch of city/general empire improving skills, but basically the only way to level heroes up is through combat and questing so that sack of shit you want to leave behind to boost your city has to soak up XP that your actual fighting heroes could use to get good at it.
They also rejiggered the damage and weapons in the game. All weapon damage is a single type now, and each weapon type has a special move. Axes can hit a fan in front of a unit. Spears can pierce a unit behind the unit you're attacking. Swords get counter attacks. And blunt weapons can do double damage and then miss their next turn. As you can probably imagine this means you should never ever ever use blunt weapons.
TLDR summary: Mainly sidegrades at best with only a minimal amount of new content.
Quick rundown of the game I played now that I've gotten the general rant out of the way. Was playing on a medium/large (I forget which, whatever had 6 recommended players on it. I think large) map with 5 AI opponents on challenging (Full AI difficulty with no cheats) difficulty and all map settings to normal and default. Was easy as usual until I started bumping into other empires.
I was stronger than 3, but the one that ate the fifth was stronger than me. Didn't have good relations with any of them but I kept questing and expanding and doing my thing. Strongest AI finally declared war on me, and I ran past her front line with my primary army and razed 4 or 5 of her cities until she wanted peace. Taking cities in Legendary Heroes is still ridiculously easy, there's no siege at all you just attack as soon as you want and an undefended city even with upgrades just has some basic militia with minor defense bonuses. Each turn I was able to take a city, raze it (Which is also instant), then move to the next due to the massive movement bonuses roads give you and begin again, so all those cities were lost (Including her capital) one turn after another. I fought her with my secondary weaker army and it looks like the AI at least BUILDS armies now, so I guess that's an improvement.
After that I was the most powerful faction left. Decided not to go for a conquest victory since I couldn't be assed mopping up 4 civs so I decided to try for the "Quest" victory. All stages leading up to the last were reasonable considering I had an end-game fully upgraded army with a powerful level 14-ish hero. Then I got to the final stage.
The final stage has you fighting some guy riding a dragon. The guy can cast a spell that deals massive damage to your entire army, the dragon can breathe a cone of fire that essentially instakills anything it hits (Even if they're wearing fire resist gear), and he has so many HP my best run didn't even get him to 80% health. Earlier in the quest you get a hammer that does way more damage than any other weapon in the game, I can only assume you're supposed to use that but since it requires level 20 and the leveling is so goddamn slow even if the hero is by himself I couldn't bring myself to spend hours grinding XP to use the hammer.
Change of plan, I'd go for a tech victory. As it turns out, the tech victory in Legendary Heroes/Fallen Enchantress is hilariously easy. It's not even at the end of the magic tree so you can gain access to it early on, then you have to build 4 towers in your cities (Easy enough to do, and they don't have to be spread out so you can build them all in your major production city), then your hero has to spend 10 turns casting the spell and you've won. That's it. The other factions get massive diplomacy penalties once they see you starting down that path so I GUESS they're supposed to stop you if you rush it early game, but I don't know.
So there you have it. A lot of poorly written text typed up spur of the moment. The game's still less shitty than galciv2, and I'd say it's less shitty than Sins of a Solar Empire even though Stardock didn't make SoaSE, but it's still disappointing as hell. Even with Master of the Broken Worlds' bugs and flaws, and even with Warlock's low budget and heavy emphasis on combat, they're pretty easily better games. It also makes me appreciate Endless Space more, honestly.
And one final thing I thought of, the diplomacy's still awful. Your options and choices are miniscule and there's even less flavor to it than galciv2 diplomacy. It's not much of a step beyond Warlock's super simple diplomacy.
Edit: Although I will say that spur of the moment just kept spurring. Goddamn.
