AoW2 Shadow Magic has some really cool flavor features and magic system elements (I love how they handle magical influence range).

For a space themed 4X check out Star Ruler. It's not turn based, but it has some really cool features and relevant, gameplay effecting scale.

I think he's still at Zynga... Derek would know I'm sure

Oy!  I never asked about Soren Johnson.  It's that nasty quoting mechanism on this forum at work, again, confusing everything!

EFE, is definitely something different, and there is no telling what the masses may make of it. Myself, I love it.  It has that old school play style, that can keep your attention for millions of years, and not like most of the use-and-throw-away games that are appearing for sale these days.

It may be that it will become a missive hit or even a classic, it is very hard to predict with such a game as EFE.  I can't see it being a flop at least. 

It deserves to be a hit, the devs have worked very hard to make it so, and they are beautiful people, so that should count for something.

I absolutely love the game, even though I get frustrated with it sometimes. I'm currently playing the Game of Thrones mod for it.

Recent games that I have played:

CIV IV (getting a bit old now, but still the yardstick)

Warlock: Master of the Arcane - Very good, but a bit simpler than many 4x games

Tropico 4 - Very good game. Wished I had more time to play it. Will go back some day

Endless Space - OK, but didnt quite grip me. 

Skyrim - Not 4x, but it was good.

Kings Bounty series - next one coming out next week. This series gets far less credit than it deserves. GREAT games

So to put FE in this context, I would say that CIV IV keeps the gold medal, but FE steals the silver from Kings Bounty.

I still find both AoW 2 and FFH more fun but elemental is going to be up there, with one expansion I'm sure:)

On my "how addicted am I to playing this game?" scale, this game is already right up there. 

I do not understand why people like AoW2 more than the original AoW. I mean, I enjoyed the sequel, finished it, and never went back.  I still replay the original Dark Elf campaign from time to time, and I still play some of the mods.

Fantasy:

Warlock - great game, but once you explored the content and the map, it had nothing to offer in terms of AI or multiplayer.

Might and Magic Heroes 6 - great tactical combat, absolutely horrid strategic gameplay

Dom 3 - so much well-written content/lore, the depth of the gameplay evaporated somewhat as several cheese-tactics dominated

Conquest of Elysium 3 - felt a lot like dom3 except the interaction with your main character and the world is much better (in dom3 your god decided your entire gameplay, in this it is much more random which is better). Too bad the sprites were just re-used from dom3.

King Arthur 2 the roleplaying wargame: A good game, I loved the first game in this series and game 2 just improved. They brought that extra dash of fantasy missing from nr 1. Unfortunately it felt like the game was just underdeveloped, lots of mechanics that were only "good", not really great.

Non-fantasy:

Crusader Kings 2 - Not my cup of tea, some people love it with all that dynasty stuff and diplomacy, I find the tactical "battles" absolutely lackluster.

Shogun 2 - Best tactical battles to date, too bad they suckered us on the mod tools and the AI just cheated to put up a challenge in strategic mode. Smart to do the different clans to add replay value, didn't work though.

Civ5 - I was bored when I played it. Some people manage a non-scifi non-fantasy setting well, Civ5 didn't. No surprise mechanics, the game was tedious very quickly. Decent graphics.

vs FE: The tactical battles are just "ok" to me, they intentionally lack depth as the devs don't want to make them what decides wars. I really want more summon spells (as in, players should be able to base an entire faction on summons). Also more high-end spells that change the map (summoning a volcano = most awesome thing ever). No sieges. No crafting. No naval warfare. The un-modded game has a cool fantasy setting but it falls short to me. I'd rather have Undead and Frost giants fight it out than grey muscular men vs human-looking men. Outside the factions, the lore in E:FE is supremely well-done.

I'm going to put my vote down for FE, despite its shortcomings. My vote is swayed by the fact that I'm a modder, and FE beats the other games hands down in that area (except Civ5 obviously, but no fantasy setting from start = no models). If I wasn't modding then Dom3 would probably beat it.

I still play Civ4, SoTS, SoaSE, and other older strategy games more than FE. The title of "The Best" is a matter of opinion, and I'm not really sure how you could possibly play a game of FE and think "polished, totally not beta" it is heavily bug-ridden right now including still retaining some of the major bug complaints of the first game! Which honestly have been ignored so long I doubt they will ever be fixed as they must caused by a deep flaw in the gaming engine being used.

That being said I think its a good game, and it could be an excellent game, but I'm not sure if it will ever be a great game. I'll probably give FE a month or two of patches before I decide. I'm not sure how it could ever be a great game when it is lacking vital features of a proper strategy game like naval/air/multiplayer aspects without some sort of unconventional substitute such as underground, alternative dimension, super smart AI for example. Honestly the only thing setting it apart right now is the terrain manipulation which is pretty gimmicky and massively OP, so best avoided unless you wanted zero challenge. The mod support should help with longevity, and I support games like FE as there are many terrible, terrible strategy games out there that should never have been given the green light. At the very least its launch won't be the train wreck of its predecessor and SoTS2, and I would probably recommend it to anyone who enjoyed playing Age of Wonder alone.

While I think FE is a very good game I'd be worried if it was considered the best strategy game of the Windows 7 era.

FE has problems with game pacing (even the tutorial gets bogged down ending turns), user interface annoyances that haven't been addressed fully - such as when a city stops producing the game doesn't flag it, lack of movement type variation (flying, sailing etc), and tactical battles that require little actual strategy.

Not sure if these will be addressed in patches - I doubt it because to correct many of them would change the game design.

FE makes life difficult for itself because it combines so many different mechanics. Each needs to be great in its own right and then the combination of them also needs to great. They've done a great job juggling so many different game mechanics in one game though. But this aspect makes the game an easy target to be slammed because a reviewer just needs to dislike one of the game mechanics and whole game will suffer.

The purer games with less mechanics are likely to be considered the long-term best strategy games of the era. Shogun, Men of War, Distant Worlds, Unity of Command etc.

actually no... rotk12 came out april this year for pc... will be on ps3/wii u x'mas this year.  not in english, obviously. thing is... don't think it's strictly tbs anymore.

I wonder if the forum software supports tables. If it does I can't tell.

Since we are talking about eras I'm gonna define my eras like this -->

Era 1: Golden Age of PC games

+ Wing Commander

+ Master of Orion

+ Civilization

+ Star Control 2

+ Master of Magic

+ DOOM

+ Ultima VI

vs. Fallen Enchantress. It's a great game but it doesn't measure up to those classics.

Era 2: Silver Age of PC games

+ Civilization IV

+ Half Life 2 related stuff

+ WoW

+ Starcraft

+ Diablo

+ Warcraft 3

+ Galactic Civilizations II

+ Baldur's Gate

+ The Sims

vs. Fallen Enchantress. It doesn't quite reach any of those games but comes in striking distance of Civilization IV and GalCiv II.

Era 3: Modern Era

+ Call of Duty series

+ League of Legends

+ Skyrim

+ Civilization V

+ GTA

+ Company of Heroes

+ Total War games

+ Source engine games

vs. Fallen Enchantress. Of the list above, you've got Civilization V, Total War games, and Company of Heroes. 

I think FE beats Civilization V and its expansion. I think it's a toss-up against Shogun 2 but better than the others. I think personal preference determines CoH love or not.

As for the other games not mentioned that might be favorites. I think of all the strategy games released this year, only Fallen Enchantress will be remembered in the long run. But I would not feel comfortable rating it as better than Shogun 2 and I think Crusader Kings 2 fans would have a good case to say that it rivals Fallen Enchantress.

I think the game sets itself up as a good place to launch future sequels that could make it the undisputed king of the fantasy strategy genre. But as it is now, it's at the top of the class but I don't think you could make the case that it's the obvious valedictorian.

No, of course not. "Strategy" and "modern times" cover a lot of ground. But it still seems like it will be a very good game. There's no shame in not being the best strategy game of modern times. 

Also, calling it "comming off the mass market conveyor belt"... What? It's one of the most unique games produced in the last decade, ffs. COD is a conveyor belt game. Not XCOM.

OP:  you just sold me on the game, which I'll be ordering tonight.  ;)  I've been desperate to fill my Civ fix and was starting to worry that it might be years coming.  I'm not betting on Firaxis as a strategy game developer anymore.

But to respond to your post, you might like Distant Worlds: Legends.  I haven't played it enough yet to give it a fair review (it's a complex game), but there's depth in it that doesn't exist in most current games, excluding Paradox titles.  According to the link, you need the Legends expansion to see the game shine.  Other than this and hopefully EFE, the only company that's even trying to make deep strategy games is Paradox.  Their games are worth checking out, but they're not builder or 4x games so they don't entirely scratch the Civ itch.

I know there have been some good recent games like Endless Space, but IMO they're in the "lite" category, and are more about whiling away time rather than losing vast swaths of it.  I would never even think of Endless Space, AOW, or most other games during the middle of a workday, or a busy weekend.   So here's hoping EFE will fill that gap, and dump my social life into the gutter--or at least make me want to do that.

Yes, the new X-Com is very good.  There was a point when I was not sure "Classical Ironman" was even possible to beat, and now I am trying the next difficulty.  Any game that gives me this experience WHILE having fun and wanting to take one more turn is A-OK in my book.  Fallen Enchantress has had this since late Beta 3.

Could have X-Com been better? Absolutely. But then, what could not be improved upon? 

@Xan, thanks for the kind words and support.

I really hate trying to compare something as subjective as love of a game.  Especially such disparate games.  

I'll be happy if people enjoy Fallen Enchantress and think it's a good game. It doesn't need to be "better" than X, Y, or Z.  Each game can stand on its own merits.

I'm really enjoying XCOM (other than not having used the auto save feature).

"Modern" is a vague and inaccurate term if you, in fact, mean 'recent,' and is completely meaningless in a discussion of computer games.  "Modern" essentially means post-medieval ... the "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device" patented in early 1947 and arguably the first video game, definitely came many centuries after the medieval era and is thus modern.  "Modern" is an era name, just as Medieval, Classical, Stone Age, prehistoric, etc.

I even more despise 'best.'  There are different strategy games I enjoy differently.  I really enjoy Microprose's Master of Orion II and Interplay's Mechanized Assault & Exploration (both published in 1996), as well as all except the most recent iteration of Civilization (I in 1991, II in 1996, III in 2001 and IV in 2005). they are each different games, and I do not feel there is any objective way to assess which is 'best.'  Mechanized Assault & Exploration I consider the hidden gem of them all, exceeding all the others for the ability to customize unit capabilities through technological research but, for whatever reason, the game was and remains largely undiscovered (and had a sequel that was an even worse disappointment over its predecessor than the abysmal-but-not-quite-as-bad subsequent iterations to Master of Orion II and Sid Meier's Civilization IV).

The Elemental games (yes, including the disaster-at-release original, but certainly Enchantress) are definitely games I enjoy.  I still go back to playing M.A.X., Civilization IV and Master of Orion II now and then, of course.  It is way too early for me to predict whether I will still be playing Fallen Enchantress in 10 or 20 years, or if it will fall by the memory wayside.

This has been a great year for PC games. Not such a great year or two for strategy games. Crusader Kings II was pretty good. I didn't get a chance to really play Sins Reb so I don't know how good that game is.

If they have a strategy game of the year, I think this will be on the short list.

One thing this thread has pointed out to me is that Strategy Game of the Year is like winning a beauty pageant in North Dakota. 3 contestants and one of them was literally a cow. The test should be Strategy Game of the Decade. And how do you compare a single player TBS to a multiplayer RTS? It's not the same genre IMO. The rush I get from wrecking someone in say Red Alert 3 before that damn idiot rage disconnects to avoid losing is totally different than the rush I get from a slow methodical torture of Lord Karavox after I have sacked his Citadel and taken advantage of his womenfolk to create a human-trog slave race. It's not comparable.

You're a seriously disturbed person.  I can respect that.

If we're talking about RTS games now, I suggest you try Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (with FAF the community modpack) best RTS out there for strategic depth arguably. 

Here is a link if you want to watch some commentary  on youtube.

Back to 4X

I think CIV IV Beyond the sword with mods is the current best 4X game and I've played the majority of 4X and RTS since CIV I & colonization came out and I played them on my PC.

However FE is still in beta and the scope to mod this game seems immense compared to say CIV IV, and look how great CIV IV became.. In two years (and a good modding community) I can see FE becoming the greatest 4X of the decade easily. 

Really nice post Xan, love to see the happier posts here on the forum.

Gj man came to say: Good job... Except ofcourse I turn on the auto-save feature since MY xcom freezes and crashes like a.... (FE was more stable 2 beta's ago).

O_o Evul Sean!

Sincerely
~ Kongdej