So anyway, we were talking and…

I'm confused. That sounds like it might be backwards. The RPG part is the best part, it's the civilization and army building parts that need to move closer to it in depth (IE more than 4 armor sets, and double (or more) the city levels as quick examples), IMO at least. The only realistic improvement I can think of for the RPG part is a few more quests, everything else is really solid.

FTL is an amazing game. I got it for $5 and definitely got my playing time out of it. I only played it for about 30 hours or so before I had played all the ships and strategies, but there were several great moments of "Aha! My plan to suffocate the enemy crew has succeeded... now beam over and take all their stuff!" and the similar, "Well, I can die by either valiantly fighting in hand to hand combat or by burning to death trying to repair the shields, med-lab and door controls. Choices, choices..." 

Honestly I think the only thing differentiating DLC and Expansion Packs is the price. You pay less than ~$10.00 for DLC and over that for an expansion pack. I suppose you could try and refine it by saying DLC adds nothing more than content and an expansion actually adds new game mechanics, rules and features... but there's multiple instances of both types doing the other.

Unless you're a Call of Duty DLC, then you charge $14.99 for the privilege of owning you.

A brief overview of the best FTL mods here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/15o6c9/since_ftl_has_recently_skyrocketed_in_popularity/

Thanks Brad for some glimps of info on the great news to come this year. 

Really looking forward to the expanion pack, whatever the focus it will have.

On the other announcements this year I'm very excited to find out what Jon Shafer is working on. I'm very hopefull it's GalCiv3, and that's what feels most likely. If not it better be another epical 4X, Grand Strategy TBS-kind of game. Don't waste his talents on rubbish.... ;) 

Stardock has a space strategy TBS-series, and now a fantasy TBS-series, so if it's a third Grand TBS it should be an historical one, preferable one covering an interesting age like the Ancient World or the Age of Discovery, or perhaps whole the civilized history of man like Sid's Civilization? Ages have gone past since that franchise got competition from Call to Power. Who could better make it's own Civilization-series if not Stardock?

I like what I am reading and look forward to the FE Dlc.

 Thanks for the info.

Aww, I thought you had decided to ship out cake and beer to all your loyal fans...
(Do one need more in life?)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Well,  your endorsement got me to spend $10 on FTL.  Hopefully it will help pass the time until 1.2 is released.

FTL is a great game and just goes to show there is always room for the little guy to design something we haven't quite seen before.

I did not take FTL on the ground it can be repetitive, am I wrong?

As for the expansion pack, I think many of us want more 'high fantasy' content also, i.e new weird races and such like.

How about a playable race where the tech tree is more about unlocking new unit types (like a twisted faction that goes from darkling-ogre-troll) with unique abilities over weapon and armor upgrades?

nice post!

is this upcoming expansion going to be the third iteration, or version, or whatever it's called, of the franchise that WoM customers from 2010 are supposed to get for free? Or is that something else? Could you perhaps clarify how "free" and these expansions work together?

Good news indeed. I really hope GalCiv 3 is on the works with more "serious" graphics this time

This is one of the few problems I don't see in FE. I think the design is pretty good. Unless...

The theme of it is to evolve the overall game design of Fallen Enchantress to help bring the role playing elements closer to the civilization building elements.

... is a very cryptic circumscription for "provide more interesting tactical battles", which is the weakest part of the game IMO, I'll remain sceptic.

Until then I'm looking forward to quite a lot of bug and usability fixes. At least, pathfinding looks like a start.

Almost every review of FE said there was a disconnect between the RPG elements and the empire building. In other words, your champions and sovereign largely exist independently of your empire. One can play a whole game without even building an empire, or one can play without champions. While the player should decide for itself what path to follow, no game should be so completely without one part or the other as is possible now. This is probably what the expansion will try to remedy, by making champions more dependant on the empire, and the empire more dependant on the champions. More direct links between their progression, quite simply.

How heroes are recruited will definatly be one of the focuses in this expansion. I suspect they will be hired in the capital now under certain limiting rules, and that you will need a building before starting to hire the lowest level ones.

Benefits;

- This way it becomes one of the things you have to choose when to prioritize in the build queue, with the tradeoffs that gives the player. Ability to recruit heroes will depend on the development of your capital too.

- It may take longer to get many heroes up, and that makes armies more important in itself.

- You can not have a heavy Champion focused game without at the same time focus on growing and developing at least your capital City. (Founding alot of cities already makes a unit focused game easier, so this is a balancer. Growing tall earlier gives some benefits in Champion-recruitment). They can make better champion-classes reliant on better buildings that again need huger city levels. This will make for more importance on growing your capital (They may make these buildings buildable in capital only).

Growing capital early instead of building as many cities as possible becomes a slightly better strategy then today. (Combine it with stop in population growth while pioneers are getting built, and it becomes even better, because this way it will be possible to actually be able to get an edge in city level growth.)

- All players are garanteed a certain number of champions (if they do the investments needed and the effort to grow their capital).

- By limiting the amount of recruitable Champions more equally among the factions, a potential dynasty-system will be easier to balance off.

It could work something like this:

Capital:              Building:        Abilities:

City Level 1        Pub              Makes it possible to recruit one level 1 champion

City Level 2        Tavern         Makes it possible to recruit one level 1 champion   

City Level 3        Residence     Makes it possible to recruit two level 3 champions (or maybe just 1)

City Level 4        Estate           Makes it possible to recruit one level 5 champion 

City Level 5        Manor           Makes it possible to recruit one level 9 champion 

Also, one way to tie the two facets together is about how the items are sold. To equip properly your heroes, your should have the correct building built (which is also unlocked by a tech), this way either you totally rely on what you find in quests (and this is very random by nature) or you can equip your heroes with what your nation produce.

I wish someone would take FTL and combine it with XCOM game play... with some real persistent crew that you customize.... oh man, I'd literally throw money at that. If only someone would... *stares at Brad* ...

Actually it was exactly the other way round. I just looked up the recent (good) review from Gaming Nexus to make sure. Its resume ran as follows:

A collection of average mechanics combine to make a big, complicated, pretty good game.

I vaguely remember several similar ones.

Except for some pesky bugs, FE is a great game. All I want is a greater variety of content, especially magic items, so I don't end up with half a dozen of the same item during one game.

IMO, something like Stormworld is what you should "reach for".

Heck, take Stormworld, pay the creators for their efforts, polish it up (e.g. give the centaurs complete bodies in strategic combat), add content, and you've just made the game a lot better.

It better be a Galactic Civilization 3 in one of the upcoming announcements!

Galactic Civilizations + FTL = Galactic Civilizations 3

Funny I was just listening to Three Moves Ahead (http://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma) and they were talking about this.

Galactic Civilizations III: The Wrath of Jenna

Yeah I guess that's got a certain ring to it, especially since... well, don't want to spoil the plot for anyone who hasn't finished the GC2 campaign.

Think it might be early making an announcement about a sequel though.

I wonder if one the game announcements will be a true RPG game?

Personally, I would like to see one that uses the D&D Version 3 OGL mechanics (aka TOEE) in an Elemental world.