Hey all I just bought this game less than a week ago mainly due to some of the revues I read and the fact that Heroes of M&M3, Master of Orion 2, Master of Magic, Age of Wonders and Disciples are all in my top 10 games and it has been favorably compared and likened to them.

All in all it is an ok game with quite a few annoying quirks which can sometimes ruin the game play for me sadly.

1) Hero ability cannot be known before you waste your darn money on him. I mean come on some of those abilities just suck especially at the start.

2) I like how your units can gain exp and levels, but it is just so frustrating to lose a Rank 1 guy at like level 5 and above as it's not easy to get them leveled. I wish the dead unit stayed with you able to be resurrected like in Disciples.

3) Creatures and Command Rating. I think there is just a bit to much improvement in general in creatures of the higher Ranks compared to even the creatures just below them. Would also kind of like to see you be able to use your creature slots better, by having say Rank 2 creatures take up 2 spots, Rank 3 need 3 spots and R4 need 4 spots. This would make a newly hired hero be able to actually be of use, because by the time you get them there are really no more easy spots to level up on.

4) Resources. Lets face it the resource system in this kind of stinks. By capturing ONE source of each of them you get unlimited of that resource?! They really should have made this like Heroes 3, the only real game to use anything besides mana crystals that I listed above. The current system makes it WAAYY to effected by getting a lucky placement at start.

5) Spell System 2 issues. 5a) Sadly the spell system is quite annoying. No Spell Caster will be able to compete with the other classes when they have so much trouble getting anything besides first level spells, having to build 4 level 1 schools and then other buildings before you get access is nuts especially when taking into account my next point. 5b) Combat Spell Casting, it's annoying that you have to choose how many of EACH spell to carry around with you as you can only use them ounce per combat. It makes it seem like your carrying around 1 shot scrolls not like your an actual spell caster who knows what he's doing. Should just be able to choose a number of the available spells and be able to cast them depending on a Hero mana pool or Spell Skill (ala Master of Magic) with of course Mages having the highest pool available along with the skills to enhance them.

6) Creatures - They have one unit that i know about in game that can "Upgrade" to a different unit (Millitia may upgrade to Spearmen after like level 2, same rank though). This feature should be available to ALL rank 1-3 units when they hit say level 10, Like Healers to Priests and Swordsmen/Pikemen to Guardsmen. It just sucks that a high level'd Rank 1 Creture will never really be able to stand up beyond a low level rank 2 most times Time invested in creatures needs to matter more.

That's pretty much all I have for now. I never really played the campaign but went right into single scenarios, as they campaign treats you like a moron and if you turn off those annoying tips it messes up the battle making you have to surrender as your only option. Been playing for almost a week and will prob keep the game around but unless some of these issues are dealt with I cannot see myself getting into the 2nd one I here is out.

"1) Hero ability cannot be known before you waste your darn money on him. I mean come on some of those abilities just suck especially at the start."

Not sure what this means -- I thought all heroes of a given class had the same starting stats, and most of the classes are pretty self-explanatory.

"2) I like how your units can gain exp and levels, but it is just so frustrating to lose a Rank 1 guy at like level 5 and above as it's not easy to get them leveled."

From what I've seen the level of individual units doesn't matter TOO much -- it's more important to have a balanced army composition for what you're trying to do, and hero levels are considerably more important. I haven't found that it takes that long to level them up, though, and definitely nowhere near as long as in Disciples 2. Also there should be some buildings that give newly created units bonus experience.

Also, with regards to your comments on upgrading creatures, if you lose a Level 5 Pikeman by the time you have access to guardsmen, you can just role out a Level 1 guardsman, and it'll be about equivalent, but without the need to spend any time building them up.

"By capturing ONE source of each of them you get unlimited of that resource?!"

Only sort of. Some buildings/units need multiple sources of a given resource -- this is shown on the purchasing menu.

Also, in HoMM3 I never found that resources were scarce enough to make defending production facilities THAT useful, and it also seemed like anything besides wood, stone, and gold wasn't used enough to matter that much (especially if you were humans). Didn't most races get access to Marketplaces anyway? And with HoMM3, the lack of upkeep and the way that the unique resources were only used for very specific things meant that it was very easy to stockpile a surplus of resources.

It wasn't like Disciples 2 where you HAD to fight tooth-and-nail to keep up your mana income, and would be completely sunk if you lost it because your spells burnt through it so quickly. Eador works the same way -- it's a BAD thing to lose your base of income, because when it's gone, it's totally gone.

"Would also kind of like to see you be able to use your creature slots better, by having say Rank 2 creatures take up 2 spots, Rank 3 need 3 spots and R4 need 4 spots."

I don't think this would change much. Upkeep costs increase with rank as far as I can tell, so you already have that limiting the number of higher-rank creatures you can take.

Even if you did got the route of setting hard limits based on rank, wouldn't it make more sense to... just set a hard limit on the number of Rank 4 slots to two?

"Combat Spell Casting, it's annoying that you have to choose how many of EACH spell to carry around with you as you can only use them ounce per combat."

This is based on how Dungeons and Dragons handles magic -- mages have to "memorize" a specific set of spells ahead of time. This doesn't change the total number of spells you can expect to cast in a given battle, in comparison to an MP driven system. What it DOES do is force you to prioritize ahead of time what you need your spell-casters to be able to do. You have to plan and can't rush in blindly, having free access to everything.

"Time invested in creatures needs to matter more."

I don't think you're supposed to invest a lot of time in your regular units -- heroes are permanent, units are transient. They die pretty readily for the enemy too, so it's not like they're going to have a ton of high level units to stomp YOU with. The main danger with regards to the AI is them getting high level heroes.

I will say that I didn't think HoMM3's unit upgrading was terribly interesting to me -- you had a base unit, and you had a stronger unit, and you could start deploying the upgraded units very early in a given mission, rendering the whole upgrading process... I don't know, it feel irrelevant to me. Disciples 2 did it a lot better, where you had unit /trees/, and could only pick one of several upgrades for a unit in a given mission. And you couldn't upgrade everyone immediately in that game, either.

1. Yea, that is annoying, there is an online manual that is russian only, you can use google translate but it only does a "meh" job of it.

2. Eh, that would be too cheap. Anyways leveling up troops gives insignificant benefits, just don't worry about it.

3. you can find more easy spots later on via exploration. just don't make too many heroes and don't split the XP too much. I make my secondary hero just explore and never fight anything until primary is somewhere betweeen level 10-15 (haven't nailed down the exact number yet). Oh, and I dismiss all troops from secondary so he doesn't waste gold.

4. I am ok with it actually. A lucky placement doesn't help when there are a dozen different resources you need. Luck only determines which you get and you deal with it... but you can also explore to find more (only really viable when you have the right castle upgrades which reveal resources that have not been found yet).

5. I agree the spell system sucks hardcore.

6. yea, its a feature that was never really properly implemented. But not really gripe worthy. It would be nice if it was fully implemented but I am ok with things as is... mainly because troops are disposable and only ever got one of them to pass level 10 (a higher rank merc)... who then died on me.

The campaign is awesome, what do you mean it treats you like a moron? The banter with Zarr is awesome, and it plays just like a string of random maps, so I see no reason not to play it. It is much better than the linear scripted scenarios in campaigns of similar games.

Answers to each point are in the quote bolded after a A). I really think most of my problems with the creature system in the game would be solved by having them stay in your heroes party afterwords as dead units able to be resurrected again like in Disciples 1. This makes upgrading creatures to higher Tier versions of themselves not needed, as they would be fine to just level up by themselves and make it worth keeping them.

You have to pay both Iron if you have no mine, and you pay none if you have one mine. It is working as intended and very well explained if you right click any resource.
This mechanism provides a gradual penalty for building stuff without the resource.For example building things with only 1 iron lacking is no too bad, but if you need 4 you might really need to think about postponing it.

Of course I have, I just did the math and saw how little those bonuses mattered. Oh sure they help a bit, but its not all that significant in the long term. You CAN spend the extra dosh and buy resources you know. It wouldn't be the end of the world. I just conquered my 20th shard (and killed 3 AI opponents) already.

On a rare occasion it actually messes with you but there are plenty of alternatives you can explore on such shards

Sounds like your a fan of "Acceptable Losses", which to me has never been a good way to play. I rather pay more for a few GOOD units then pay less for lots of crappy idiots just for cannon fodder. rofl

Also why should you not be able to roll out a Hero that can at least do something later in the map? As it is they are totally worthless except for perhaps ferrying extra cannon fodder and equipment to your main lol.

I don't really try to go beyond 2 heroes anyway but you should at least have 2 with 1 usually being a Scout.

"Sounds like your a fan of "Acceptable Losses", which to me has never been a good way to play. I rather pay more for a few GOOD units then pay less for lots of crappy idiots just for cannon fodder. rofl

Also why should you not be able to roll out a Hero that can at least do something later in the map? As it is they are totally worthless except for perhaps ferrying extra cannon fodder and equipment to your main lol. "

This is where I think you're approaching this wrong -- the heroes are your few, good units, that are really well developed, and the standard units are cannon fodder.

Instead it sounds like you're trying to emphasize building up the cannon fodder, in exchange for emphasizing numbers with regards to the heroes.

Actually I am not, I hate this concept but I adapted to reality rather then wishing it was different. the game works a certain way and so that is how I play it.

O usually use Tier 1 units as fodder and try to keep the higher ones alive. Leveled Dryads are pretty hard to kill, especially if theres a forest tile somewhere

Also a veteran HOMM, AOW, Warlords etc player here.

Just to say i disagree with almost everything the OP wrote.
Especially the spell system, inspired by Dungeon & Dragons, which is perfect imo.


My own impression of Eador Genesis is simple :
This is the **best 4X game in YEARS**, on top with Master of Magic & Age of Wonders.
Disciples sucked big time & hopefully the game mechanics won't be dumbed down to look like it.

I liked Disciples mechanics it's just that... Okay, in Eador, building up a hero's level? Happens really fast. Disciples? You needs to put some serious grind into that. And it gets tedious, fast.

(I had to force myself to quit playing Eador for a bit. It's digital crack and I have a bunch of other games I've been neglecting).

Disciples is about the only fantasy strategy game I tried and didnt like. It all felt so simple, not much choice and the battles were incredibly lame. And I tried some really old stuff for the first time in the past few years and enjoyed it, like Hammer of the Gods,Stronghold SSI and Master of Magic.