I get this feeling all the time and have never played a game dependent on trained troops.  I just don't think it's that big of a problem to fix.  

The reason I don't play with trained soldiers is because heroes allow me to increase in power so much faster, because heroes allow me to explore in a way no trained unit does and because, and I think this is the key, because researching upgrades and training soldiers is SLOW.  But Brad has acknowledged that the team is aware of both of those problems and that Beta 5b will be the first shot at addressing them.  

The real question is do you think this imbalance (between the rpg side of the game and the empire side) is a design problem or a balance problem.  I think it is a balance problem, but I'm not sure.  I guess we'll find out as we continue to go through the beta.  

My other suggestion, and I don't know if this would violate the feature complete state or not, is that scouts should be changed to allow them to at least pick up goodie huts.  Only heroes can go on quests, but any old schlub should be able to pick up an axe and store it somewhere.  That and proper balance would go a long way to bringing the sides in proper alignment and making real choices between play style viable.  

the problems you encounter are all about balance

game is too easy, ai is not enough smart, some choices shadow all the other because they are too op etc etc

in fact since i started modding the game i enjoy much more playing, many times i end up losing too thats the challenge and replaybility i seek

also factions are very much different, the point is the same, when with a single sovereign you can conquer the world you dont care about unique traits, when instead you play a balanced game you start loving faction traits, unique units and weapons and stuff like that, because they matter

playing with magmar and slaves is quite cool for example but in vanilla magnar after 50 turns is lvl 10 and can deal 100+ dmg with 5 mana, or markin you never know what weapons he can build you never use armies because after 10 levels he can kill dragons solo

just let stardock time to work these things over

We will just have to agree to disagree. While CIV 4 does have more options to it CIV V IMHO is more fun to play because of this

That is the problem with game companies. Many times the people that made the game great leave. So you have the same name, but a weaker dev team. I still play GalCiv2:TA and wish for that UI to be imported to FE. It should be a simple concept, since they made such a wonderful unit and logistics UI less than a decade ago, but we still have to deal with so many annoy UI problems in this game. I think that is mostly because those wonderful UI designers were off doing other projects and WoM's UI was done by someone with less experience. So now they are back and have to upgrade an inferior concept, which takes forever as we have all observed.

But Civ V lost a ton more devs and got even more new ones. So I don't really consider them the same game, except in the basic concept and name. TBS square tiles and TBS hexagon tiles should be considered different genres IMO.

While WOM had a different game team from our other games, FE is the same games team that made GalCiv:TA plus new additions.

I can't say I agree with the original poster, particularly with regards to our development process.  We have a traditional QA/development process in addition to having public betas.

The public betas help us make a better game. And we appreciate the feedback we get. But something like 87% of the actual serious bugs are reported and handled by our internal QA process.

By contrast, the community is really good about identifying balance issues, UI issues, and subjective issues.  That's why I think many people are comparing the beta of Fallen Enchantress to games that had multiple expansions.  The goal is for FE to ship feeling like it's a v1.1 game.

I'm hoping that Beta 5-B (tomorrow's build) will feel like a "released game" and then everything after that is what you'd normally see in a v1.1.

We can talk about endless polish but I think people should go back and play the aforementioned GalCiv:TA.  It's no where near as polished as FE is *now*.  

I think what makes us all want to keep iterating on FE is because it's something really unique. I've been making games for twenty years and FE is really something different than anything I've worked on before.  I feel like I'm in this living world and each iteration ties it all together just a bit better.

I got into some media trouble in my defense of Warlock. I love that game. But FE is a very very different game than Warlock. It's not trying to appeal to the same group necessarily (though I think most Warlock players will like FE just as I like Warlock).

well im sorry for them but thats the price they have to pay

you want to make a movie and call it BATMAN?

its ok, that guarantees you millions more ppl than if you call it brickman but you have to pay a price, you have to keep the standard as high as other batmans or ppl will not be happy

same is for games, if you want to use a popular brand you have to keep the standard at that lvl, if ppl is not working for you anymore invest more money, hire better ppl, you have to find a way

I love this comment!  Thanks, Frogboy, for making my day, once again.   (And, of course, thanks to all your FE design team, for all the work they have put into this game; which makes it possible for you, to make this kind of statement.           )

Even if you don't perfectly hit the mark tomorrow, this continues to be a great effort ...

I am gladdened by your warm thoughts of GalCiv.

But, in terms of *polish* (not raw content, AI, balance, etc.) I can't see how the two can be compared.  The mechanics are largely hidden from the player. The game doesn't even have a real tool tip system. Why is my colony making X instead of Y? Trial and error.

I agree that TA has a ton more maturity behind it in terms of practiced game mechanics. But that's only because it's the second expansion pack to a sequel of an existing game.  I can assure you, each faction getting its own unique tech tree is somethign I desperately want to put into an Elemental game at some point.

But in terms of polish - which game, upon loading, is going to feel like a "better" game to a new user? To me, it's obvious that FE is much better in that regard.

Just like in GalCiv, you'll see lots of post-release updates where we put in or tweak something that takes into account real player stuff.  But at this stage, most of our feedback is coming from people who have put in 50+ hours into the game (if not more). 

I can't even remember the last time this game crashed or had some real glitch. It's all tweaks, polish and balance and that's where I agree with many people here. 

A single variable can wreck a game.  And so great care has to be taken on balance.

You are correct that the UI is definitely more polished.  The game system is also better from the ground up.  In GalCiv you were still ascribing to the simulation vs. board game approach to gamedesign.  Tsk tsk.  Lessons learned in FE.

But I don't think it's a balance issue yet.  You need to more fully implement existing features.  To make them worth inclusion at all...

I hate to be so negative without offering a suggestion, so here's my advice.  Hark, and take heed!  Or something.  Also, lo.

Step 1:

List your features.

Step 2:

Make each feature AWESOME and integrated into the whole.

Step 3:

If you can't do that, or you don't have time to do it, cut the feature.

My attempt at the above:

----------------------------

Features:

1) Sov/Champion leveling.  Awesome.  Done.

2) City buildings.  Pretty awesome.  I'd mark as done.  Some balance tweaks.  Some buildings feel out of place.

3) Spells.  Just needs some small balance work to be awesome.  The hard work here is done.

4) Tactical Combat.  I think this needs a *lot* of work.  This should have been a whole beta phase, it's so core to the playing of the game.  This is somewhat tied to spells.  Use the gaps in spells to add tactical spells.  Not damage dealers.  Not percentile spells.  AoEs stuns.  Walls.  etc.  

5) Monsters.  Also, making monster combat interesting.  Giving monsters good abilities.  Example: Mites.  Might as well be fighting rats.  Make them blink.  Or split when you hit them into two.  Every monster should be interesting in some way.

6) City leveling.  On the right track, but feels like it could use more city levels, really.  Or maybe I'm just not able to get them.  It's so much work to actually get the grain to level up your cities.  I'm not sure I've ever even gotten to a level 3 city in the last couple of builds.  Compare the difference between a Civ 5 1 pop city and a pop 30 city.  :-/  I don't expect thirty levels, but some range of strength would be nice.  Even just a: "Hey would you like to add a grain, material, essence at this new level?"

7) Unit design.  Awesome.  Done.

8) Outposts.  Not awesome, and no real plan to get there.  Cut it.  Outposts provide territory to get resources.

9) Resources.  Oh, resources.  I look back on resources and wonder if it was all just a bad idea to begin with sometimes.  Maybe it would have been better to go the civ model.  Probably too late to change that now.

10) Tech tree.  Debate-able.  Man, I hate the magic tree.  I *hate* the magic tree.  Civ tree is fun.  I wish spell levels for sovereigns/champions were linked to the MAGIC TREE.  How sensical would that be?  And not to level ups.  It'd give me a reason to research the dang thing.

11) Quests.  ...  Guys, I know you've put a lot of effort into it.  But quests are not fun.  I've wanted them to be fun.  I know it's all extensible.  And great.  No, here's what it is.  Go to A.  Then, go to B.  Fight something.  I'm sure they could be made fun with a lot of effort.  But currently not awesome.  Cut it.  Especially the noblewoman quest.  Cut that twice.

12) Equipment/Loot.  Sounds like you're tweaking this in the next release. Yay!

13) Diplomacy. Seems pretty good from what I've seen.  Honestly, it takes a loooong time before I even wind up dealing with other civs.  Maybe too long.

14) AI.  Haven't played enough to determine this.

Many times throughout WoM's and FE's development I've had this image forming in my mind. You have The Wheel (MoM) and you feel like you should re-invent it. So you go ahead and make it square. Then you figure that in order to make it "roll" you have to arrange carefully spaced, triangular holes in all the roads of the world.

Even if you make it work, it will be clunky.

Luckily much of this is behind us, by now. FE's wheels are now "octagonal" and manage to roll without needing a "converted" road. Problem is, some of the roads have been converted already and they're going to stay that way... at least until modding kicks in