I do. I have a friend whom I meet in quite regular fashion twice a week (our wives are having evening out for whatever type of physical torture they indulge themselves to). We meet and play CivV usually. I'd love him to buy FE so we could play MP just like I hoped we would with WoM and I couldn't force myself to advice him buying it. 

We spend at a meeting around 4 hours, we save and reload the game on next meeting. We can finish a typical small map to the end within a month (if it last that long, games are usually won in two meetings since backstab attacks are most satisfactionary event). 

This is the style a of MP gameplay I look for. This can be achieved by hotseat if needed, though LAN connection would work better (I'd rather not having Stardock servers option only, as my connection can be firewalled, but I'll work around this either)

Most of the codebase required for MP is already in place. It is there since WoM (just like dynasties). It was ported from some other game released just before WoM. What's needed is enabling it and adaptation to FE, which I believe can be difficult but an order of magnitude or two easier than writing from scratch. Mind you also that MP was a huge selling point of WoM for me, so missing this feature in replacement game is irritating (for lack of other word).

I am (as many others from that vocal minority) willing to pay for that effort. I've given up hope it will be in game or expansion (Fb said so multiple times). I still hold onto idea of DLC enabling it.  I'll myself bring another $50 for the game (friend copy), $10 for the MP DLC (on both copies) and $5 for the map DLC which I don't need or want but I'll buy if it will make MP DLC planned for delivery in 2014.

at first i was not going to buy the expansion map pack, but when you said there were stamps in it as well i will def pick it up for 5 bucks.  I care about the stamps only.  I will buy anything you guys make that can be incorporated into the random generation of the maps.  You guys put together an awesome high quality set of random stamps, items, spells, whatever and i will buy it every time. The more games i play and see new stuff each time the more i will play this excellent game.

Even if that means the idea of MP gets scrapped the tactical battles are a must in multiplay. There is just too much kiting still possible, too much is depending on tactical movement and protecting wounded units, that autoresolve won't be ever able to mimick even in current state, that probably will be highly expanded as we move on. Plus it's a huge feature that shouldn't be scrapped easily.

That said I think that sequential turns with multiplay tacticals and a possibility to look at the world while waiting is a way to start this real easy in an oldschool fashion. Simultaneus turns that are featured by Civ have their own set of issues and worth separate thread for discussion over it.

I'm confused.

When E:wom was deemed a failure, you said early adopters would be getting two expansions for free. Fallen enchantress and the next expansion.

Are you saying we get the expansion to FE as well, or are you saying that the expansion to FE is the second game we are getting? I'm asking because there's a difference between getting FE (a two year game in development) and getting an expansion (6 months in development at release?).

Also, I don't suppose you have a name you'd like to throw around for the expansion? So we can all start making our wishlists for it.

WoM was multiplayer game. 

and as far as the trade-off, I'd rather have multiplayer than a campaign. I love unit design, and random events, but I wouldn't hestitate to trade-off Jon's production for a rehash of WoM MP engine. I'd sink multiple hours into competitive human play rather than that single playthrough of scenario, that feels like a loose add-on that don't even use the engine to the full like HoMM campaigns do in their own games. Check out the reviews, they're all writing it off as a simplified experience of the Fallen Enchantress and hastily point for sandbox game for the real experience and justification of the score.

Can we please have this size for the random map generator too?

I agree.  I sort of thought that the second one we get would be FE level size and quality.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

WoM is a 4X strategy empire building game set in a fantasy setting, that had an MP game mode (to appease the half dozen of you that actually play MP in a game like this).  It's hardly an MP game though.  I agree about campaigns, I could care less about them, or MP.  I care about a great sandbox mode, with tons of options, for endless re-playibility...

Here's a pertinent quote from the article: "I remember a game called Master of Magic back in the early 90s. It was a great game. But it was only a great game because it was single-player.  The things that made it really neat would have been a disaster in multiplayer." -Brad Wardell

I believe Fb didn't actually play a MP hack to this game. I did. It would have been great had it not been a hack instead of the mod at the time (not sure if there ever was created an MP mod). the main issue was that in tactical battle only one player was allowed to give orders. other than that the game benefited greatly and we spent many hot-seat hours on it in times were internet was mainly dialup connections in my parts of the world.

wow looks great. will definitely give some thought into getting it!

Fallen enchantress,was originally called an expansion for wom,but after wom was killed,it was then called a stand alone game that was not an expansion.

Q: Is Elemental: Fallen Enchantress an expansion pack to Elemental: War of Magic?

A: No.  Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is a stand-alone game. It exists in the same world and is a 4X strategy game, but beyond that, they are very different.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/419478

So while this is kinda confusing,it appears we get fe and one expansion to fe.As things stand now.I stress the word appears.

The part about changing what fe is called from expansion to stand alone game makes sense also.Originally it was an addition to wom,but after wom was killed it became a new attempt at wom,or a new game per se.

This does leave me wondering though,if the map pack IS the expansion,which seems odd....OR...if they are separate BUT the map pack is included in the expansion ...which makes sense in a "way to sell it to those who dont get it as part of the wom deal ",while giving it to those who do qualify under the wom deal......or some other option....

How does any of this confuse anyone? It's incredibly simple. You would have to be trying to be confused. The map pack is not an expansion. It's a test to see the market potential of DLC. An expansion to FE is coming out in January. WoM preorder people get it free. It will be a huge expansion relative to other games. Something like what TA was for GalCiv2. Really not complicated.

I've been making larger random maps -- I added a "huge" and an "epic" map size and have been playing some games on them to test them out. If you want me to provide the xml I can do so -- not sure if it's cool to cut and paste it or what.  I also add a couple gold mines on the map... not enough to go around, but they should be fun to find.    

That being said, larger maps might do with some refinement or enhancement in the stamps area, but so far I'm having fun with them.

Not at all. All people who bought WoM before october 2010. Thats how i understand frogboys comment. Another reason, why i will buy all dlcs. Even a dlc with a shiny pony armor.

The question isn't if the DLC is the expansion we get for free. We know it's not. What we are getting for free was FE.

We were also promised a second expansion/game. The question is if this second something is what is coming in January or something else. The reason this may be of interest is that there's a huge difference between getting FE which has 2 years in development, and getting a 6-month expansion for free. So I want to know, is the second part of the promise the expansion we are getting in January, or something else.

It's the January expansion. But expansions for Stardock are massive additions that feel like a sequel to the game. After the expansion, there won't be anything more besides patches from what Fb has said. January does seem extremely soon to me, but that date I suspect is not a deadline.

lol - Love your style (when it's not directed at me

That's what I mean. I don't see how it is possible to bring out another game of FE quality and content 6 months after releasing FE. Not to mention we basically haven't heard anything about it., and it's already mid november.

What was said when E:wom failed was that we'd get two expansions free. We got FE, and I was overjoyed, because (barring catastrophic events) there would be a third game coming of the same scope, to go as far from FE as FE had gone from E:wom. And now it is starting to sound like we got FE (a full game) for free, and a tiny expansion to it.

I'd love to try them out.  Do they balance pretty well?

Yeah, a game of that scale is hard to playtest through the end -- but the first couple hundred turns has been good, with 10 players on the map and lots of room for expansion.  There are a few of the big super-fertile spots that allow for tightly packed towns, but I haven't played far into one enough yet to know whether or not that's a truly bad thing.

I'll post the xml later when I get to the house tonight.

Originally, Fallen Enchantress and the next expansion pack were going to be expansion packs for WOM.  But once we realized that WOM's design was unsalvagable and it wasn't fair to saddle Kael with WOM's baggage, we decided to make FE a new game.  So it's FE and the expansion to FE.

FE and LH were supposed to be micro expansions originally (ala Sins Diplomacy and Sins Retribution).  Obviously, we FE, we went a little overboard.  The second expansion will be back in line with what we originally intended, more of a micro expansion.

No.  It's much larger.  It still is classified as "Large" as far as the game is considered but I'd guess it's 3X as large as large.  Someone might be able to do a rough measurement to get the exact difference.

It's really the tactical battles that are the issue.  They were written in a way that is very very unfriendly to multiplayer. They're like their own little box. It would require largely a rewrite of them.  And that's where we're at too. I think you need MP tactical battles. But I'm not sure whether we'll have the dev resources available (hey, we're hiring network coders btw).  

Thank you for the reply. I guess in that light it makes sense, although I was sort of expecting "another FE" I can buy the argument of "going overboard". In that sense, it isn't really like getting 1.5 games instead of 2, it is more like getting 2.5 instead of 2.

And "LH"? Now you're just teasing us. Elemental: Light's Heart? Elemental: Looming Hellfire? Elemental: Loony Hthoons?