[specter]

I read the manual and tried the demo and enjoyed it. I'll be purchasing the game as soon as I have some time.

Anyways, here are my thoughts:

Pros:
- Absolutely love the turn based tactical combat reminiscent of FG
- Graphics and sounds are superb for this type of game.


Cons:
- You don't get a good idea of what needs to be done at the start of a mission so you can't really judge how fast you should be pressing on. For example, in the human mission in the demo, I took more time than I should have assaulting the first castle, only to then find out that I needed to take another fort and church. I think that the number of turns to achieve gold should have a lower initial value and increase as you receive new objectives.
- A unit should auto-rest if it does not perform any action for that round.
- I felt rushed to complete the objectives within the alloted gold turns. I don't want gold turn limits and their rewards to be removed. But I would like to have the game acknowledge and record that I have achieved the objectives in the given time bracket, then allow me to continue the map at my leisure. So for example, I was able to finish the human mission in the demo within the gold time limit, but because of the rush, I was unable to explore the western part of the map. At this point, I would like to be able to continue the map without losing my gold trophy.

My Suggestions:
- Fantasy general was fun but it wasn't as in deep as panzer general. Things that could be added to this game:

Suppression fire: Lowers the effective number of enemy troops for attack purposes for a turn or combat phase.

Entrenchment: Each turn that a unit does not attack, move, or rest. It spends that turn "entrenching" itself. This increases its defense and offense up to an entrench max as long as it does not move out of its current hex.

Multifront combat: I don't remember what this was actually called in panzer general, but every time a unit was attacked in a given turn, its entrenchment and defense value was lowered.

Overrun attack: Tanks had it in Panzer General. Cavalry could get it in FW.

I'm not sure how all of these would fit in this fantasy universe (cavalry entrenching??...maybe rename it from entrenchment to combat preparation) but they did make panzer general more interesting to me.


- Strategic level gameplay:
One thing that I always felt was missing from games like fantasy general was the world conquering aspect. I almost want to try a game that goes further than just one mission after another. Remember the old Koei games like Nobunaga's Ambition II and Romance of the Three Kingdoms II (my favorites). They used a combination of nation and army building, diplomacy, spying, subterfuge, ect... When you attacked another province, you then entered a hex combat map.