Hi,
I was (and still am) a big fan of Fall from Heaven II, so buying a game designed by Kael was inevitable. And I also love Fallen Enchantress (despite its lack of multiplayer and Hotseat) and will certainly get the next expansion. Creating my own fractions and playing against them is huge fun.
I have some suggestions, how this game could be made a bit more living and so more interesting:
- you could include neutral villages (like in the campaign) in random maps and scenarios, where you can sell and buy stuff (especially healing potions to cure permanent wounds) and send caravans to. Those villages can be conquered (or acquired through influence), but have a strong garrison.
- People traveling between cities (like caravans): not only gold could be exchanged through caravans, but also people. For example, when a city is at the borders of the country and threatened by monsters and enemies, people could start to flee from the city to safer places (and enemies could try to catch and enslave these people). This would add a new kind of fluctuation to the world (people fleeing from war, starvation, etc.) and make the player care more about his citizens (since you don't want your citizens to leave your kingdom/empire)
- Monsters building new lairs on neutral ground: When a monster lair is in the influence of a player, the monsters start to wander around. But why not allow the monsters to build new lairs, when they walk on neutral ground
- Some more ideas with terraforming: I'm missing some fraction traits for specific terrain: for example the traits arctic, dessert people or folks of the wasteland (you may only choose one of those traits; fractions with those traits could have some unique looks, like fur for arctic people). This fractions could found cities on those terrains (which shouldn't give much food and grow extremely slow, off course).
Sorry, if some of these ideas were already (and often) suggested.
Cheers,
Andreas
P.S. And one bug I've found: Once I was attacking a city of a computer enemy, who somehow had a boat in the city. I defeated the boat, but after that I wasn't able to end the turn and the game came to a halt