Avis sur Fantasy General

[h2]Read the manual to understand the game![/h2] Part of the old games legacy is that "tooltip techniques" were not there. Technically there are a lot of important mechanics to find in the game manual: such as: - how heroes help nearby troops recover their Morale, - how Wounded units are more prone to retreating when attacked, - how it is important to leave room for your units to retreat, - chances for Wounded (25% at same attack/armor) and Killed (if <= 6% on same roll), - how you can still recover Killed units if you are near an allied settlement, - cavalries receiving +8 in attack in plains (but not in defense), - Light Infantry, Skirmishers, Spellcasters using the "Open Mode" movement which gives bonus in rough terrain, but there are also some Archers and heavy infantry that does it (the manual tells which ones) - or the advantages of the Lord you pick in the beginning. [h2]... and now my review![/h2] "Fantasy General I" is nothing comparable to the second episode. Evil has won and overlords rule over the five continents. You can pick one Lord among four options, recruit your troops and battle for freedom. Lords are quite different in their powers and units (you should read the manual about your options), and please note that every Lord has advantages and flaws. The game is then played with several consecutive campaigns against the overlords with you having an army that you entirely keep between battles, make evolve, also with sometimes "volunteers" being added to your core troops and to keep between battles. [h2]Strategic Phase[/h2] The game has a strategic phase where you can recruit and upgrade your troops, move magical items between troops and heroes, adjust your Research Spending, and then pick one of two or three options for next territory to liberate. Research has a very original implementation here: it has some mystery and a lot of freedom and also feels like being completely wild somehow as you would not feel in total control. You decide on priorities and what you will "miss", even if you feel that you need everything, you are forced to invest in some elements and leave others behind. You can decide to spend anything between 1% to very large amounts of your income in any field of research between flyers, heavy infantries, cavalries, spellcasters and so on ; and then you'll see them "being unlocked" very progressively between your battles. You will be tempted by some units because of how reliable their attributes seem to be, but then you will forget that light infantries fight well in hills and rough terrain, or that skirmishers can receive half of their losses converted to morale if they are attacked by someone slower than them, or fail on air superiority. I like this implementation because it has mystery, decisions and risk management. Only human units can be upgraded (beastmen cannot be upgraded but can be replaced with superior versions, making you lose the experience so it's harder to manage), and that is if you have unlocked the next step. Some units will lose some ability if you choose some upgrades rather than another (for instance, pikes can negate cavalry bonuses, but some heavier troops cannot). The last choice, picking a territory, has a huge flaw because you only see a vague name before making your pick. Once you have clicked on a territory to know more, this also validates your decision to go there. I would have preferred to read a pre-briefing then be able to cancel. [h2]Battle Phase[/h2] Once a territory is picked you will do your battle there. I can confirm that some maps are random, with a lot of terrain variations, but you will still have planned enemy forces to fight there. You will have limited turns to conquer all settlements or at least force your enemy to surrender. It seems AI has a good understanding of when to surrender, as it will propose it to you once it's defeated and you are merely mopping up the remnants of its forces. I suggest to accept this surrender because it won't be offered twice. Most battles are extremely tough especially in the second third of them, you don't want to lose your veterans ; so you need to use your units to their advantage and to give space for them to retreat if attacked. The AI sometimes forgets about your covering fire but also sometimes manages to use its forces well to attack a unit "where it hurts" and destroy it with several combined attacks of air and ground. Units make as many attacks as their current life (15 for troops, 10 for heroes) and can wound or kill enemies. The interested point of Fantasy General, and actually I did not find any panzer-general-game having a rule like this, is how you recover your Wounded. Wounded almost act more like suppressed units in this game. You receive a lot of them, and recover all of them in one Rest action at least 2 squares away from enemies (and at no cost). As they constitute most of the casualties you give and take you are very encouraged to "take a break from combat" with your units but also to "finish off" enemies, which can often expose you to risks or make you end up in worse terrain. The game fails to share most critical information such as chances to wound and kill, you also have to put your mouse over the "Rest" button to see how many wounded you can recover (if no enemy is nearby). Enemy makes a heavy use of its spellcasting powers, to cause a lot of damage to your already vulnerable units. The screen is a bit wild in its presentation and it's hard to figure out if that unit is stronger than this one. Oh, and I suggest to use the "Go to Unit" menu to see which unit has played or not. [h2]In Closure[/h2] This game triggers my imagination! And imagination is also what you will need to enjoy it fully, to better represent the battles you went through. Maybe you should describe your strategy to yourself, when you position your heavy infantries to repel enemies from the plains, send a task force of light infantry on the hills and forests, and lead a cavalry charge to outflank the entire enemy army but from far away in the map. The game accepts multiplayer and random scenarios but the main interest is the campaign of course. Because the game, unfortunately, will otherwise leave you a bit confused and more especially, make you easily take huge risks if you don't play your advantages. You have so many options, beginning with your starting Lord. Fantasy General is unique thanks to its research and freedom of play, yet woven into a very long and very tough campaign. Then you tend to build up and keep the "same army around", and do not have that many dynamics to change your roster though you DO lose units from time to time. I find the game is very hard as you go on. Of course you may not feel like this in the first battles and enemies, but this risk may build up. This makes you keep the "one more turn effect", but after one full battle you tend to want to rest because of all the risks you had to take at the beginning! I have to play the music tracks from youtube rather than ingame to avoid some repetition and have superior CD quality. Sound effects are fairly repetitive and I dislike the "swoosh" of troop movements. The game confuses you a lot as you feel overwhelmed by the combination of so many enemy troops and terrain difficulty, distracted by the game graphics and not really understanding what chances you have in a fight between units. However, the game does give you a lot of freedom in what you do. Although I would give it a 7/10 at best, the positive points are still that there is no game that followed this system after it, with a so open-ended research (yet iterative), Lord, and so tough difficulty. I would love systems to improve on that take!