I'm finding that the wildernis in FE is more special and alive. I love it that there are lairs that spawn monsters and that they are more differs. But there isn't any treat toward my cities. I play FE on dense monsters and "hard" world settings and did the same in WoM (in FE I also play with low magic and research). When I played WoM (1.4), I was realy scared that the monster would come to my city and destroy my newly founded town. I always used a kingdom/empire that could build parties in the beginning and almost rushed building a peasant party just to protect my town. In FE I only build units when I have  researched leather-armour, sqauds and better weapons. Getting to these techonologies means nothing to me, it just means I can start building troops. But I don't need these troops in FE for protection. In WoM It felt realy great to have leather-armour, that meant that I could make strong defenders that made my towns safe and let my sovereign and heroes be able to go out into the world. I do like that your sovereign and heroes can now go questing in the start of the game, but it had a surtain je ne çe pas to it. This is all in the beginning of the game.

When in the middle game, that's when FE shines. There are still places that are dangerous and unconquered. With WoM, when I had some armies of chainmail soldiers, the world was mine. With FE, this is just an upgrade, not a turningpoint. At that point, I stopped playing in WoM. There wasn't any challange except steamrolling the other factions. In FE there is still a challenge when building up, I like that. Also I find myself playing the tactical combat in FE, just because it's fun (Until I get überheroes and the challenge is gone). In WoM I never did tactical, always auto-calc.

For the most part, I think this game is better than WoM. But I still look fondly back to the time, just before (or around) the time that Derek joined. Brad just released a private patch that bettered the AI, but with a much angrier world. There were armies of monsters roaming the world, destroying your town if you where not prepared. Resources where scarse, but much sought after. The adrenaline pumped trough my body, scared for if the monsters would come any closer to my town. The joy that I felt when finaly I was strong enough to let a caravan run between my city and a the fragile second town that I had. The joy of finding another player so I could set up some trade relations, or the dread when a hostile nation was near. I realy had a joy playing those days, and well worth my money. FE is just a treat for me.

I'm hoping that there will come more setting, to pick for harder difficulties. Roaming monsters that will attack your town, even when the'll lose, but at great cost to you. Also it bothers me that cultural expansion is not always an happy event. I hate it when a lair disapears and the monsters go roaming. This does not make sense to me, why can't there be a lair in your borders? It could be cool if lairs start spawning attack groups when there within your borders, but I don't know if that would work out nice.

I don't know what to type next, so I'll just leave it at that.

P.S. I'm excited about the next version of the beta. ^^