Look What I Found

[Darkspire]

Update: D-Fend Reloaded installs and runs Fantasy General perfectly fine on Win8, although to be safe I allowed it to run the installer for the game off the CD so DFend could track what was happening.

One thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to stop the game from trying to access the CD for the music and movies, which tends to make for stuttering. I went for the full install, and I watched ALL THE SOUND AND MEDIA be installed on my C drive, so I shouldn't need the CD anymore... hm.

Write a script that is used to boot the game, make a directory on your C: drive called DOSgames, in that put a folder called FG in, then mount that as the CD drive from within the script.

Darkspire

[Greybriar]

....I was just thinking about getting this out and running through it again. Even though in almost every way Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy is better, I just like the basic story of FG better (and the music more, duh)....

If I remember correctly, Fantasy General is the only game in the 5-Star General series and its more recent successors that has research.

You might consider Fantasy Wars and its Elven Legacy sequels to be better than Fantasy General, but since Fantasy General was released in 1996, Fantasy Wars was released in 2007, and the first of the Elven Legacy games was released in 2009, I feel the technological advances made during the interim period should be taken into consideration. Another consideration is that the missions in the newer games are on a timer and are a lot harder to win and a lot less fun to play for many gamers.

As an aside, the original version of Fantasy Wars had StarForce as its DRM scheme, so you might want to bear that in mind should you decide to buy the game somewhere.

One final thing I feel should be mentioned is that abandonware is not legal and posting links on this forum to downloads from abandonware sites could jeopardize this site.

[Darkspire]

One final thing I feel should be mentioned is that abandonware is not legal and posting links on this forum to downloads from abandonware sites could jeopardize this site.

Removed, apologies.

Darkspire

[JasonPratt]

You might consider Fantasy Wars and its Elven Legacy sequels to be better than Fantasy General, but since Fantasy General was released in 1996, Fantasy Wars was released in 2007, and the first of the Elven Legacy games was released in 2009, I feel the technological advances made during the interim period should be taken into consideration.

While that's true so far as graphics are concerned (the newer games being very nice 3D action), the gameplay itself in the newer games has strong improvements. Off the top of my head:

1.) More factions.
2.) Terrain is much more important for attack and defense.
3.) The newer games lack the bugged research feature of FG. ;)
4.) The rewards are nicer for completing a map early. (Not sure what you mean by a "timer" -- I haven't played the final three EL campaigns, but FW and the first EL games have a turn limit per map, just like Panzer General games have tended to have back to the original PG.)
5.) Archers are much more useful. Siege units, too, but archers even moreso. This could arguably be a matter of scale, to be fair to FG: the older game's maps had a much larger scale, so archers could only shoot the next hex over, except for automatic counterfire support on a nearby friendly unit defense which still counted as shooting in to the next hex over. This meant archers in FG were really only good for defense, which was fine for the AI but not so much for the player. In FW/EL, the archers can shoot a reasonable distance in attack (not even counting perks for leveling up), without losing their automatic counterfire abilities.
6.) Unit upgrades make more intrinsic sense, and allow paths for specialty development.
7.) As a unit increases in levels of experience, they get a wide variety of special ability picks for further customizing the units. All picks are at least moderately useful, and picks are randomized for availability, so there's a great sense of tension in weighing which choice to take since no unit can ever have all the picks and there's no guarantee a denied good pick will come back again (nor that if it does it won't be paired with another pick the player wants for that unit, requiring another pleasantly hard choice!) This is absolutely not even remotely available in the old game. Did I mention that this semi-random skill customization system now makes siege equipment a viable unit class worth buying and investing gold in?
8.) Hero units can have up to three magic items (I may be misremembering this however), and items can be shuffled around (at some penalties) during a map.
9.) The player character is there on the field. (This may be regarded as a negative, though.)
10.) Spellcasting units can get more than one (usually not-sucky) spell, and don't change their one spell to something else (possibly even more sucky) when their type is upgraded. i.e. spellcasting units are actually worth having now and investing gold growing.
11.) Volunteer non-hero units which are awarded on a map for fast, effective play, can be kept in the army and grown like normal units, instead of only being xp-sponge cannon fodder. (Although if memory serves me right this can vary.)
12.) Plot triggers of various kinds can be (and are) built into the maps.

There may be other advantages I don't recall (and a few above I may be misremembering about FW/EL, as noted). But none of them would have required qualitatively more computer punch than was available for FG. Some were in fact incorporated into other 5-star games along the way.

Another consideration is that the missions in the newer games are on a timer and are a lot harder to win and a lot less fun to play for many gamers.

As noted, I don't know what you mean by "timer" -- the old game had map turn limits (with penalties for taking longer to finish), just like the newer games. (Do the EL expansion packs also have a real-time timer built in, like a phase pulse timer for multiplayer going back to PG1? -- for every unit you've got 10 or 20 or however many seconds to spend during your move and once that's up your move is done regardless of anything else? -- and the expansion campaigns force that on the player??) I've gotten a lot further in FW/EL than I ever did in FG, so eh. Both the newer and the older game can be very hard (even on normal difficulty) though. "Lot less fun to play" is subjective, and something I don't understand given all the major improvements to the gaming system (not even counting the graphical eye candy).

As an aside, the original version of Fantasy Wars had StarForce as its DRM scheme, so you might want to bear that in mind should you decide to buy the game somewhere.

That's certainly a drawback to FW compared to FG. ;) On the other hand, I've never once been bothered by Starforce on any of my systems, including while playing FW, so while it's a risk it isn't necessarily a drawback. 2/3 of the gaming can be found on the EL game and its expansions, and the story from FW isn't really necessary (though I like it).

[Greybriar]

Some of your points don't seem accurate to me, Jason, but that could just be my faulty memory and sorry, but I'm not going to fire up Fantasy General and its successors and play them for hours on end in order to respond to the lengthy reply you made to my comments about them.  :)

The only thing I will touch on is that years ago the StarForce DRM made the CD drive on my XP computer inoperative. I believe that was about the time a StarForce site forum moderator posted a link to download a pirated copy of Stardock's Galactic Civilations II. I have refused to install any game with StarForce on my PCs ever since.  >:(

[Darkspire]

For those that have the CD and want it to work through DOSbox.

Substitute the drive letters  for whatever your setup is.

1. Make a directory on your C: drive DOS
2. Put the FG CD in the e: drive.
3. Run Dosbox
4. In the DB window type the following
mount c c:\DOS
press return
mount d e:\ -t cdrom
press return
d:
press return
install.bat
press return
5.Follow the onscreen instructions and go and make a cup of tea as it does take a little time.
6.type fg and press return and the game will start

Just remember to mount c: and the cd rom, change to c: and cd fg when you restart DOSbox (or write a script with the above in)

Have fun  :)

Darkspire

[Greybriar]

Thanks for the detailed instructions, Darkspire. I may follow them someday when I want to run Fantasy General on my Windows 7 machine instead of having to run it under DOS on one of my old PCs.

Hopefully GOG.com will offer an updated version of Fantasy General someday that will not require any tinkering on the part of the gamer. Then those who missed playing it back in the day can judge for themselves whether Fantasy General deserved the 92% rating it got from Coming Soon Magazine.

[Greybriar]

For those curious about Fantasy General, check this out:

[JasonPratt]

Darkspire,

D-Fend Reloaded already installed FG into its usual folder (FG on C drive) and created paths to the folder in DosBOX etc. etc. So I can run the game no problem, I just can't figure out how to tell DFR I want the CD calls for the music and sound to transfer to the C drive where the installer itself put them during maximum install.  >:(

I really thought the game itself, having installed everything from the CD, would have known what to do, without me having to add more commands to DB via D-FR.

When I get home tonight I'll try to pair up your DB installation instructions with what D-Fend has done, and look for what D-Fend didn't do and how to do that now (I guess).  ??? I do appreciate the effort, though. :)

[Darkspire]

Really sorry but I have no idea how a GUI front end works with DB, nor what it does to config files etc so I really can not be much help in that respect. I learned DOS many, many moons ago and when I say learned I can do most things by the CLI but as my dear old granma used to say 'What I know would fill a matchbox and what I do not would fill a library' There is a command for mounting a folder as a CD rom that can be used from within a config file, maybe you can use that to avoid the CD problems, only other thing I can think of is making an image of the CD and mounting that.

Darkspire

[ComradeP]

Hmm, I never really noticed the bugged research in FG. I more or less ignored some categories (the skirmish line didn't seem to have much of a point) and the enemy still had a mix of units.

The Hero units really helped, they were most certainly not cannon fodder. It made a huge difference in terms of both cost-efficiency and your budget to begin with if you needed to replace losses or if you could rest them. Rites of War had a similar system and just like in FG, it helped. The enemy's air units could barely lift their wings before Malric the dragon rider killed them.

The main drawback of the unit selection was, to me, the fact that mechanical units seemed to have little point as they were inferior to their non-mechanical counterparts in many categories.

[JasonPratt]

True, the hero units are definitely not cannon fodder in FG, especially Malric the Dragon Rider (whom on my recent replay I renamed Askic the Dragon Dominator.  ;D The other heroes can be just as godly but don't have his speed and ability to easily hit airborne units while being safe from most ground units). I realized I had never been able to use Malric before: I've always played the infantry-based PC before, who doesn't get Malric as a hero. This time I'm trying a more cav based army for speed purposes, since much of this game requires blitkrieging the map; although I understand the guy in the video above and his basic strategy: use force march on heavy infantry to get them in place fast and then let them defend or slug it out since they last longer with better defense than cav. The other side of that coin would be that all cav (heavy and light) can march fast and then also attack after long movement without having to wait a turn for attacking.

However, the volunteer units picked up along the way by meeting objectives early, like a group of peasants, do not gain xp. So while they can be added to the army without taking up a slot, which is nice, they cannot be upgraded and never get any better. Consequently, any fight they are in takes experience away from troops (including heros) who can grow stronger.


As to skirmishers, I would never try to play without them (neither in FG, nor in FW/EL). They have nice intrinsic defense, better than their stats would indicate, and their attacks hit many strong ground units without retaliation. Also they move as fast as regular light infantry or even faster, so they can keep up with cav pretty well. More to the point, light cav ARE skirmishers--and are the fastest ground units in the game!

So I can run skirms (foot or cav) up to a tough unit and soften them up with strikes that don't risk my units at all; then follow up with a heavy cav charge, or heavy inf if in range, and/or sky hunters, to finish them off. Should someone attack my skirms, they not only get up to 50% intrinsic defense for being able to hide and withdraw (on top of whatever other natural defense they have), but their counterattack will usually hit first reducing the incoming damage as they wound or kill their attackers!

Archers in FG are like weak, slow skirms, although they do have the advantage of being able to attack ariel units (but only if immediately overhead) and can hit skirmisher units without worrying about counterattack. (And archers do provide one defensive round of counterfire to a nearby attacked unit, unlike skirms.) Archers in FW/EL can attack at distance, however, whether air or ground targets, and get hill bonuses (beyond any hill bonuses intrinsic to or bought by the unit when leveling up), so while I might forgo archers in FG (as in my current play) I'd never do so in FW/EL.


I do always ignore some categories for research (although all categories are forced to minimal 1%), but I make sure I'm seriously researching at least half my unit types, and so far that has kept me from running into the dreaded balance protocols in any campaign. In my current play, that's heavy and light cav; foot skirms; sky hunters; bombers; and heavy infantry (my only slow units, since they eventually get the ability to fast march); with a little more research for heavy cav, to get them to Phoenix Knights faster.

[ComradeP]

I may be mixing up unit categories as I'm no longer sure whether I didn't research skirmishers, or didn't research archers instead.

I went cavalry first most of the time, so light cavalry and heavy cavalry received most of the research. The lighter infantry types also didn't receive much love. For some reason, I tended to create an army similar to what I would do in PG most of the time, which meant a cavalry (tank) and air unit-heavy core, in this case with heroes (usually a handful of Sgt's, Lt's and Cpt's, I'm still not sure why the captain looks like a brigand) replacing the few good infantry units I tended to pick in PG (pioniere in halftracks mostly). My playstyle is generally about being able to hit something, with the enemy only being able to hit a few of my units.

My core was always focussed on taking the least amount of losses that I needed to replace, so in that sense FG could be played more economically than PG due to the heroes.

[JasonPratt]

True, and there are single-unit buys among the faction, too, especially mech. (Although mech is kind of useless until sometime on the 3rd continent when they can finally heal by resting, assuming the right mission is done successfully. But I'm happy to remove the option from the computer. I just finished the rescue of the captive mech maker last night, so yay I can haz non-healable units if I wantz!)

I've ended up buying three heavy infants, which I may regret later if speed becomes a problem, but generally I let them (with skirm support) go deal with nearby target paths while my cav forces (including their skirms) go for the longer routes. I'm starting to wonder if "Force March" was an ability that could only be used with Khalis (the infantry player character), though: I haven't seen it yet on my 2nd tier heavy infantry, and they're going to be much less useful if they can't run fast across the map. It is SO IMPORTANT to put a unit next to a town asap to prevent continual spawning. Skirms convert kills to morale loss 50% of the time (except against faster units, usually light cav and air), which is great for personal defense (and for building up deadly levels of xp fast, since like the original Panzer General units only gain xp for receiving wounds or kills, which is stupid), but means they can't park next to towns long before being driven back. And I may not have been able to avoid the godly unit "balance feature", since the computer buys two-shield experience troops regularly when given an opportunity.  :P On the other hand, light cav gets that awesome defense bonus against just about everything except air, and sometimes even then!

Speaking of Panzer General, I have just about decided that whenever I get around to playing that again, I may not buy artillery -- so much of the game relies on fast moving assault, and arty just isn't fast enough usually. Maybe later in the game when they become fully mech'd, but then of course I lose any experience they may have accrued. But on the other hand they only get xp when they take damage, and arty doesn't take damage well. So yeah, maybe save them for later, put my money into a few more Stukas and level bombers instead.

[Greybriar]

....As noted, I don't know what you mean by "timer" -- the old game had map turn limits (with penalties for taking longer to finish), just like the newer games....

I didn't have any problem looting all the treasures from the maps in Fantasy General--there was always sufficient time to to do so. But in Fantasy Wars and the Elven Legacy series it is well nigh impossible to loot every location within the time allotted.

Hmm, I never really noticed the bugged research in FG....

Neither did I.

Sorry for the delayed responses but I've been on vacation and am just now beginning to get back in the swing of things.