TBS Fantasy General II by Slitherine Games

[Fishy]

When even turn-based hex wargames have limited availability seasonal events... I still had the game at the back of my mind for sales, but now they can go f**k themselves.

I am not sure I would feel like missiong out if I couldn't get the christmas event...

Xmas or not, the whole idea of a single player wargame scenario not being playable whenever the person who paid for the game wants to is utterly dumb. Looking forward to the next Panzer General where you can only start operation Barbarossa for 2 weeks late June.

 

[AdamReith]

When even turn-based hex wargames have limited availability seasonal events... I still had the game at the back of my mind for sales, but now they can go f**k themselves.

I am not sure I would feel like missiong out if I couldn't get the christmas event...

Xmas or not, the whole idea of a single player wargame scenario not being playable whenever the person who paid for the game wants to is utterly dumb. Looking forward to the next Panzer General where you can only start operation Barbarossa for 2 weeks late June.

I would agree if not for the full moon bonus level in the original dungeon keeper.

 

[Archibald]

Many old games had secret levels and easter eggs that had some weird conditions and many people playing those games never found it. But while these new "secret levels" might look similar at a first glance we all know that this is just a continuing trend of turning every game into always-online service.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://www.slitherine.com/news/dea...ew-expansion-for-fantasy-general-ii-onslaught

Death comes from above in the new expansion for Fantasy General II, Onslaught!

Published on December 18, 2019
Armoured Giant Eagles roar in the sky and nosedive into enemy lines, while flying Night Mares spell doom for their targets down below. A Firebird screams high in the clouds, and a Pegasus-riding Transmuter flings his magical potions at the enemy.

In the war for Keldonia, the sky has become a battlefield.



Death comes from above in the new expansion for Fantasy General II, Onslaught!

13 new aerial units are introduced, greatly expanding the original roster and allowing for daring new tactics and manoeuvres. Eagle Bombers, Firebirds, Pegasus Flamers, Monster Hunters, and more: you’ll have no shortage of options.

Deploy these units in the brand-new ONSLAUGHT campaign, where a strange dream leads you to hunt for the mysterious Book of Krell. The campaign has over 30 procedurally generated maps, from the abandoned castle of King Dragga to the Lizard infested shores of Eastern Keldonia, until you must finally face The Unspeakable. Choose your General from one of several heroes, each with different skills, armies and advantages, pick your rewards for winning maps and evolve your strategies: the campaign provides endless replayability. Combined with the new Iron Maiden mode, Onslaught offers the ultimate Fantasy General II challenge.

A bonus map has also been added to the Invasion campaign, introducing the new aerial units and a Barbarian Clan of Eagle Riders that you must help in order to gain the Giant Eagle’s support.

Onslaught is due to release in Q1 2020. You can join the Beta and apply now!

Last but not least, don't forget that Fantasy General II is currently 25% off, so if you'd like to try the base game this would be the perfect time.

 

[Fishy]

I'll add that their xmas scenario turned out to be solidly in easter egg territory and not GaaS shite. It's just linked to internal clock and not outright added/removed from your game client, so fair enough.

 

[LESS T_T]

They released a new, procedurally-generated campaign as a free standalone app, kind of a demo:

The fantasy wargaming classic is back! Lead powerful heroes and mighty armies into battle in this free-to-play turn-based strategy game. Level up and train your units and guide them through the Curse story campaign.

The Curse Campaign
The Curse is a free procedurally generated campaign for Fantasy General II.

Everyone can play the Curse by downloading and installing Fantasy General II: Prologue, completely for free. You don't need to buy and own Fantasy General II in order to play it. The Curse is a free campaign giving you a taste of what Fantasy General II has to offer.

Select one of three Heroes and embark on a quest that will unveil a dark secret.

Level up your Hero and customize your Army
Battle after battle, your Heroes and units will gain experience and gain upgrades or powerful new skills... provided they survive.

Mighty artefacts and powerful spells
Dominate the battlefield by employing powerful artefacts, ancient weapons, magical medallions; turn the tides of war with devastating arcane spells.

Undead, dragons, lizardmen, harpies...
Keldonia is a land of variety. Recruit (and fight against!) all kinds of mysterious and arcane creatures, from Werebears to Trolls.

A taste of a richer world...
If you liked the Curse campaign and you would like to play the full version of Fantasy General II, with more heroes, more units, a longer story campaign, skirmish mode and multiplayer, look no further.

 

[Hobo Elf]

This mini campaign/demo also added a new Imperial Hero that can also be used in the Onslaught campaign, giving the player access to Empire units. Pretty cool.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

This mini campaign/demo also added a new Imperial Hero that can also be used in the Onslaught campaign, giving the player access to Empire units. Pretty cool.

Thats the one I played with.

I had not played FG2 at all, loved FG1.

I have to admit, this game is better than I thought it was going to be, I will likely end up buying it now. Smart of them to release a free version, because I probably would not have tried it or ever purchased it otherwise. I did not realize there was as much depth with upgrading units etc.. although I have only played a couple hours so its possible it is not as deep as it first appears.

Anyway I already like the game more than I thought I would have. Having low expectations is always a good way to end up liking a game I have found...lol

 

[Hobo Elf]

This mini campaign/demo also added a new Imperial Hero that can also be used in the Onslaught campaign, giving the player access to Empire units. Pretty cool.

Thats the one I played with.

I had not played FG2 at all, loved FG1.

I have to admit, this game is better than I thought it was going to be, I will likely end up buying it now. Smart of them to release a free version, because I probably would not have tried it or ever purchased it otherwise. I did not realize there was as much depth with upgrading units etc.. although I have only played a couple hours so its possible it is not as deep as it first appears.

Anyway I already like the game more than I thought I would have. Having low expectations is always a good way to end up liking a game I have found...lol

It's definitely a lot better than I expected. There seemed to be some real issues with it on launch, such as level scaling (why I didn't buy it then) but the developers have actually done things to address peoples' complaints in ways that ended up making the game more fun and deeper (level scaling is now a choice, too many useless resources was a common complaint so they added a new system to add permanent passive benefits on your soldiers for gold + resources etc.). The map design is consistently good and I enjoy the unit variety. So far it's one of the highlights of this sale for me. I'm looking forward to trying to DLC scenario with Empire troops next. Should be fun. The only complaint I have for the game is that the missions in the Lizard swamps are extremely heavy and slow. It took me a 2 hour average per mission there with one being 3 hours long. Definitely a lot longer than I'd like, but after leaving the swamp the missions became faster paced again. Not that the Lizard missions were bad, I just find it hard to have my mind focused for that long since they were an almost constant barrage of something.

Edit: finished the campaign. Took me 40 hours in total. I wasn't expecting it to be this long, so I'm a bit surprised by that. Was a lot of fun.

 

[Lagi]

Holy Roman Empire! There is demo of FG2. Its free, has loads of features and have great replay value. Just finish it first time, and i think i gonna replay it again checking different hero, different mission and unit composition.

I seriously consider buying FG2, even for 31 pound price.

------------

I get beta access, but I download it, launch once and delete... there was nothing... i mean I had back then, few chest-naked vikings, called barbarians for whatever reason, some of them throw javelins.. and that was it. I stare for 6 minutes on loading screen to tell few dudes to come close and hack the other guys until they dead.

I'm happy to discover a lot have changed. On the same laptop, the game loads now in few seconds! I can turn off all animations, and the game is instant fast. Still the main screen graphic is unreadable blend of 3d objects. I spend more time looking on mini map, to locate troops, settlements, cave/ruins, than on main screen . Telling which hex is rocks and which are ruins or cave is just hard.

Now here is completely new quality in terms of available units!
I have ground and flying rooster of units, each with melee, missile, skirmish, hit and runners, bombers, siege units, animals (eagles, wolfs, spiders...) There is a lot of combination. Plus the units have a great upgrades to higher tiers, and interesting skills (like pegasi can make cloud that grant missile protection for unit below, or bear that lower morale of adjacent units when he roar - its more useful than claw attack).

Flying units cannot capture objectives which is great! Because you need ground units for that. I change all my Air units into bombers because they seem more useful, until computer start using flyers, then i regret I didnt keep something for interception :D

Look at all this loverly pictures of Stags. Each with different flavor. I LOVE IT. I remember that in FG1 the unit upgrades make no sens. You were upgrading chicken into stone tower.

Spoiler

Rules of the game are a very good and sensible.
There are 2x type of attacks physical that are reduced by armor (standard), and magical that are reduced by Morale.

Spoiler

I roleplay game mechanics in my head, who will take more damage from Voodoo magic? a frightened tribes man from African village or skeptic rebel? So i tend to imagine that when my Maidens strike with their glowing sticks, stupid lizards dont even try to defend because they believe its supernatural.

from gameplay perspective, there is not just one defense good vs everything.

I love that melee units move into the attacked hex, if defender is gone. It allow you to save turn with capturing objective. It have also tactical implication, you can capture temple that grant whole army speed bonus, and rest of your army can reach further!

Maps are littered with many places where you can find items, global buffs, resources... its nice to explore it.

Very nice is approach to amount of guys in unit. Some attacks are pseudo-AoE and are way more effective against swarm of low HP targets, while other grant extra damage hitting one big monster. The more unit in squad the more attack you have (=higher damage), as an advantage dying is not that harsh for swarms (10 dudes in team => 2 die, vs 2 mates in squad => 1 die).

The wound healing mechanic on rest is still here, work as good as in FG1. There is nice XP recalculation when you have to recruit too many greenhorns into experienced unit.

Higher tier units require more population slots, so in the last mission, you can have fewer but stronger troops under control (for same pop limit).

Between mission you can train units, to give them extra passive ability (bottom right dummy icon).


loading screens are "moody"

Spoiler

the 2d artworks are amazing. Unit portrait, between mission map, loading screens, items. They should make whole game in 2d. Make 2d sprites from 3d units model, and hand draw detail over them.

I love looking at hex maps in 2d strategy/ war games... I dont like playing wargames, but there is something captivating in looking at the maps with coutners. I think its how easy is to spot everything with just brief glance (until you have to move the units :D).

Spoiler

Too bad i cannot tell this about FG2. I have 24 " monitor, but for fuck sake i cannot tell where are caves and where are temples on main game screen, without molesting it with mouse.

Spoiler

Spoiler

This game would really benefit from UNDO move button. Multiple time i misclick or select wrong unit.

Campaign scenarios are random. Which is good for me. Because I have fresh start each time, instead trying to memorize the best moves and where are best treasures, like in some puzzle game.

iron man and disable unit-scaling option.

you can customize your keys (i put next/prev unit on mouse scroll, E - unit upgrade, Q - inventory, TAB - endturn)

 

[Trash Player]

Wait for Empire Aflame, the next dlc with imperial campaign that is coming in 3 weeks, along with base game and Onslaught discount.

 

[Lagi]

Can someone correct me if Im wrong:
buying FG2 base game invasion for 31 pound do NOT grant access to flying units, i need to buy DLC for +12 pound (=43) for that?

if so then its better to stick with free prologue.
---

oncoming DLC also look meh

- New units: 5 new Frost Trolls and 5 different types of Shadow Creatures

so +5 upgrades to trolls, and 1 cheap "shadow" in 5x colors as map creep?

---

they could make Lizards as playable nation - here you go low work/high profit idea.

 

[Trash Player]

Yes, the aerial unit trees only come with Onslaught. Base game have a few odd fliers here and there but those are mostly non-controllable or specific in the Invasion campaign.

The coming dlc has a new narrative campaign though, and it is confirmed that pegasus /nightmare tree is available whether Onslaught is installed or not.

Maybe buy the base game and skip Onslaught for EA if you are not into procedural campaign. It is rather lackluster anyway compared to Invasion campaign.

 

[Theodora]

Haven't tried it yet, but it's very cool to see a strategy game of this scale get a demo.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I really, really enjoyed Onslaught. I thought I wouldn't since it's RNG and I enjoy more tightly designed campaigns, but it was pretty well realized in this case, and the overall faster pace makes it more replay friendly if you wanna just have a quicker game than the heavier, longer main campaign. Plus you have the different starting armies and heroes which is great for variety. I've heard that Empire Aflame will be a mix of Onslaught and Invasion, as in it'll have more RNG elements for replay value, but a more tighter narrative than Onslaught as well. Looking forward to it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Many old games had secret levels and easter eggs that had some weird conditions and many people playing those games never found it. But while these new "secret levels" might look similar at a first glance we all know that this is just a continuing trend of turning every game into always-online service.

You can trick the old games into triggering season-related secrets by changing your system clock's date. If you can't do it here, it's not the same.

EDIT:

I'll add that their xmas scenario turned out to be solidly in easter egg territory and not GaaS shite. It's just linked to internal clock and not outright added/removed from your game client, so fair enough.

Ok forget what I said, it IS the same. Nice!

 

[chuft]

Can someone remind me, is there a reason to play this instead of Age of Wonders 3?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Can someone remind me, is there a reason to play this instead of Age of Wonders 3?

This has barbarians.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Can someone remind me, is there a reason to play this instead of Age of Wonders 3?

FG2 is a shit tier game, but that's still a very dumb question.

 

[sser]

Game is currently on sale along with a chunk of Slitherine's catalog:

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/slitherine-publisher-sale/

 

[Lagi]

Game is currently on sale along with a chunk of Slitherine's catalog:

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/slitherine-publisher-sale/

Woow armageddon -80%!

 

[chuft]

For me, the Gladius stuff. Nice. Thanks.

 

[razvedchiki]

any mod reccomended?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Uninstall.exe. Then edit the dosbox config file for FG to fix instascrolling and play that.

 

[Lagi]

replay demo (im not gonna pay monthly African salary for half backed base game) with Filos on IronMan. Without proper anti air weapon, Swamp Dragon and Spiders severely hurt my already crippled army. After that all was a slow agony.

Empire is boring, Alisa is most interesting (converting neutral animals is godlike gambit). The mechanical empire units are the only interesting bits, that resemble the magnificent unit rooster from FG1. Rest is mundane archers, spearmen, and cavalry.

Balance-wise this game is good. Personally i have a felling that flying units are a little too weak, and archers are too good, because you can shoot without retaliation and there is excellent defensive fire, its also core defense vs enemy flyers. Empire has Volunteers upgrade with 3 tile range, which make them a mobile artillery. All the stealth and ambushes are underused due to nature of single player game, where you advance constantly instead waiting for opponent.

I think Im done with FG2, I enjoy the units, the game mechanics are decent, but the main map is atrocious to look at. Plus selecting units in 3d environment drive me nuts.

I will wait another 10 years for resolution hack to FG1.