Thank you!  For so many months I followed the story of E:WoM, with misgivings and a measure of sadness.  Now it sounds (and looks) like you have a real winner at last.  I look forward to purchasing it, and enjoying it.  Incidently, (bearing in mind that I never purchased E:WoM) the artwork in Fallen Enchantress really looks stunning.  It's wonderful to have a game program, that has a quality of appearance, that matches the quality of the gameplay!

when wiill i get my paws on the beta? i bought war of magic when it came out in 2010.

Good choice that silly splash screen was really stupid and annoying.

if i was the boss i would have only had 4 different factions/races but make them play extremely different from each other in order to be successful.

all with different units and shit, just like starcraft.

I'm guessing no beta for people who preorderd yesterday?

You'll get into the beta eventually.  After tomorrow's Beta 1 access, there is no publicly shared schedule for future beta invites as of now.

I am really liking this game. Where as WOM was boring, FE draws you in from the very start. With the greater amount of quests, treasures and monsters it really feels a fantasy game. 

A few comments:

• Don't nerf the Maul its a great tool and fun to use, if you find a weapon enchanted with it. And its just as good when monsters have it.
• I would like to see more quests, monsters with unusual attacks and more spells and more spell books that can be unlocked with research.
• I like the pacing of research; however, the research trees need to be expanded with more branches to facilitate exploration of more strategies.
• The tactical battles are much more fun, and no-longer a push-over. I like the Bear's Maul attack, the charge of mounted enemies and the greater variety of monsters (though they need to use spells better).
• I would like to see cities be more diverse with a greater variety of buildings and defenses that can be built.
• Example: Archer's tower adds a perch to the tactical battlefield that can only be attacked by a ranged attack or a melee unit attacking from the rear
• Gatehouse that is only one or two units wide
• Tower of Sorcery that boosts magical research (NOT Civilization or War research). 
• Tactical Battle Terrain should affect combat and show its effect if you hover over a tile

With a maintenance cost assigned to each city improvement a player would find that his cities can't build everything, but that he must make a choice. As the game is now I can build every improvement for a city and improvements don't change the battlefield if a city is attacked.

That said, its looking good and its definitely not boring.

LOL Don't nerf Maul? It gives you infinite attacks against a single unit. I would say nerf it to max 3 attacks and -25% accuracy per attack. 

Or we just make it an AoE that autocasts at the beginning of the battle...   

This beta sucks because I don' have access yet.

Amen, brother.

Just about 12 more hours...

They did it on purpose cause they scared of all the dump files I'll pile on them.

P.S. I still say crystal balls should be a custom sov weakness. https://forums.elementalgame.com/403836/page/1/#2865377

I'm glad your not the boss. The more factions the better as far as I'm concerned. Yes make them different but please nothing under 8 factions.

If I were the boss I would have more than 20 factions. I would have multiplayer with the option to play the full SP game in MP. I would have the options to take out features for those that want a dumb down yet faster MP play. I would have all types of terran from lava to oceans and have abilities that can be assigned to creatures that allow them to move on them. This would allow ships seamonsters Lava creatures etc.

I would have terran matter as well. On the normal map have it affect the movement. On tactical maps have it affect your attacks, defense and movement. When attacking a fort or town with walls actully have the walls on the map. And the defender can be behind them shooting at the attacker (bonuses and penalties apply accordingly in this situation. Ave the attacker either break through the wal or fly over oe tunnel under wall to get in kind of like other games (AOW:SM comes to mind)

Make the tactical maps bigger.

And the number one thing I would change is the horrid dull looking cartoon art in the game.

but the problem is that the more factions you have the harder it is to balance, if you make them very different. i guess if you prefer factions to be similiar this doesn't hurt but if you want big differences you need to cut the amount of factions down.

though i guess with unlimited money and development time i would also like hundreds of factions that are vastly different, that's obvious!

Actually, if you want more factions you can create them in sovereign creation. If you want to get really fancy you could also assign them their own tech trees, equipment, buildings, weapons, races... need I go on? That's what can be so magical with Elemental.