On a side note, it isn't necessary for the AI to be able to use all the spells itself. Given say 12 spellbooks and a single player could use a maximum of 3 in a game, it would be sufficient for the AI to be able to use 6 spellbooks. AI 1 would have books 1, 2 and 4. AI 2 would have 4, 5, 6 and so forth. Sometime later you could expand the AI to cover even more ground. Most important is that the AI takes into account the books and spells the player has and knows how to plan accordingly. For example is prepared for some teleportation if the player has the spell.

Therefore as long as the books were balanced, we could add whatever books we wanted without compromising the AI - as long as they understand possible counter-measures.

Id like to see a some spells/abilities that involve moving the unit hit and/or the unit using it.  Disgaea had this and it opened up some interesting situations since you were able to target friends of foes with all of your attacks (though the effect of the attack being damage was usually targeted at enemies).  For example there is a 'cut thru' type attack with a sword equiped that has an attack zone three spaces long and one wide in the direction of your choice, with a 4th box reserved for your character to move to (or if Im remembering it incorrectly it was a space that had to be unoccupied as the character would cut thru the enemies moving to the reserved space and then jump back to their starting possition).  There could be a situation where you want to move the unit out of danger but have no movement left.  You could use the attack on a friendly unit (as it had to hit something) to get your injured unit back behind your line of defenders.  There were several times where I would target a friendly unit with an attack spell as the range I needed was just shy of what I needed, and the hit zone of the spell could reach my intended target(s) with the orientaion of the strike zone (a lvl 2 spell hits the target square and one square diagonaly).  I'll see about finding an example on youtube and adding a link when I get home (I cant do it from here due to restricted access).

Why so much comparison to MoM?

-.-

And that the developers have specificially mentioned MoM as the game they are looking most at when making FE.

Best regards,
Steven.

I suppose....

But if the games played the same (EWoM & MoM), then wouldn't that be copyright infringement?  And if EWoM played better than MoM then wouldn't that mean that it would be MoM but only better?  Still opens up possibility to law suits, me thinks... -- unless SD owns MoM.

The 0.7mm black uni-ball pen laying on the desk next to my paper work could be the "spiritual successor" to my junked 88 Honda Accord Lxi if I wanted it to be.  It's all psychological.

Perhaps some of us would enjoy EWoM more if we accepted it as an entirely different game altogether?  I'm still trying to figure out how to give my sovereign more wives -- one in each town.

-.-

If you're focused on some other strategy, how can you just hit a button at some point and suddenly have access to the ultimate spells? Someone who is focused on something else (assuming this is similar to WoM) won't have gone far enough down the magic tree to have those spells.

If you were focused on say building up the best armies on the map and STILL also have the best spellcasters on the map... then again you're playing at the wrong difficulty or the game is far too easy.

Also, no one's asking for a total clone. What would be reasonable to expect, is a game with at least a comparable amount of options and inventiveness. But as long as you go the other way in every field (less races, less types of movements, less spells and so on) there's little reason to be hopeful for a comparable level of fun.

Personally I've never played MoM.  The angle I was interested in was the 'fantasy civ type game', since I liked the fantasy mods for civ4 (and had enjoyed some gal civ by the time I purchaed WoM).  On the same note- I had purchased Gal Civ2 because I liked the space retool on civ4.  The aspect that I like the most (in both games) is the ability to customize your units and factions, even if I don't mess with it all the time.  For example on Gal Civ2 I created a Vocaloid race and built them around social an cultural aspects.  Named my planets with a music theme (Glorious Anthem, Grand Duet), but only changed the colors for my ships for the most part.

I like the same aspects in WoM- if a premade race or sov doesn't fit your intended play style, you can make one that does and give it an appropriate background.

As far as copyright infringement goes, I look to the glut of 90's fighting games (especially the bad ones) that were mostly clones of Street Fighter 2.  You can't copyright an idea. I think it comes down more to the technical side of things or the art assets for that kind of thing.

On the spell thing, the trait requirements help work as a throttle to spell spam.  I do like the idea of making shards usable to advance the other win conditions though, it would give a good strategic choice.  They could be made to perform more efficently or have bonus effects the longer the improvement is in play (making it a tougher choice on if a different improvement should replace the existing one), or need to be in play for a set time before an upgrade can be applied- it could also build up a little xp each turn to pay for the upgrades.  For example mana shrine generates 1magic exp per turn and 40 are required to make it aid spell research for that element by some % or fixed amount.  It could add to production of a resource such as 'great progress has provided new tools' giving an extra material every 4th turn, or giving a boost to the material production of other buildings in the same town.  Some could be repeatable such as the first example (increased cost or not) and some could be tiered where anouther improvement is required first, such as the second example if it needed the building to have an efficency trait first (reducing maintenance cost).  There could be general upgrades, and ones specific to a certain win condition path.

Ah, but how much mana you have has nothing to do with army size or even spellcaster strength. Mana is basically collected through shards which require next to no micromanagement. Even if you focus on say armies instead of magic you will still collect mana. You will probably even have more mana then someone who focused on spellcasters because spellcasters consume mana and armies don't. Thus someone who completely ignores magic except to grab a a few traits could mass a huge mana reserve and then unload for a win. If lv5 spells are nukes then that would be like nukes in Civ requiring no infrastructure or unique techs to build.

Building up that huge mana reserve in order to cast those massive spells should require something more then just not casting spells earlier. Players should actually have to invest in mana in order to get it. For other resources you have to spend it in order to make it, but more mana that simply isn't true.

Anyone else notice there are over half a dozen death special research or quest spells, more if you include Ceresa's Book, but only 1 life spell? Seems kinda stacked for death.

What about modability? I'm no expert, but I'm not aware of any particular mod tools for MoM. In my eyes, that's a huge advantage for FE. Correct me if I'm wrong!

Army Customization, you don't see that in MoM, which is really great.

The world, the quests, the monsters, the graphics + general feeling (FE will have more charisma than MoM)

(I could even add the Zoom option I really like)

The different environments

Boss

The dynasties (wife, child, ...)

Weapons

Maybe mounts (there I don't really know what FE plans for the mounts but WoM was okay I guess with Mounts)

Your sovereign is physically present and can act in fights, move, etc.

Customization of the sovereign won't stop at how many books of one school you posess and a couple perk/flaws

Customization of the city that you can do by yourself (those who played MoM will know what I mean, I think almost everybody here, lol)

The Tech Tree while in MoM Magic is the only research.

Indeed for fun, it really made me laugh, like Louist said it doesn't require DosBox ! LOOOL !!! (hi Louist, long time no see by the way)

+ I would say the economical system which looks like it will be more developped

As well as the diplomatic system !

I think the IA will be more developped too which will be a big + because everybody how dumb the IA is in MoM and how easy it is.

I even want to say the battle system which will be better, based on more attributes than MoM where it stays pretty simple even if MoM has still an advantage with the City Battle System we won't see here.

Now Artefact creation (might still come?), Spells (main goal of the game after all), City Battle (might still come?) and Races (FE's lore is set, we won't see our klackons, Trolls, Elves, ...) and finally flying units or Water Units (We might still get stuff like that) will be the down point of FE compared to MoM.

There, you see ? There's a lot in FE that will be greater than MoM I think but right now with how the spells are, it's a bit dull

I haven't been thinking that much but I'm sure if I think more, I can find more good points for FE =D

I'd really like to see Air and Sea units, don't tell me that FE's Lore won't have any Air / Sea creatures with all those demons and uuuh "stuff" (lol) it already has ? Any summon giant shark / octopus or giant Sharktopus or Octoshark (yes, little reference those movies for those who saw them ! LOL)