The Adventure Begins
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Starting A New Game
Selecting to begin a new game will launch the ‘sandbox’ mode of Fallen Enchantress.
This is the standard way of playing, however, before that it is advised to first play the Tutorial.
Sovereign Selection
When beginning to start a sandbox game there are a few steps needed to be take in order to set up the world.
The first step is to choose a Sovereign. The Sovereign is the hero that will lead the people to victory. They are very powerful units in their own right, with abilities that will affect the entire faction.
Each Sovereign is also tied to a specific faction, making the decision even more important.
Sovereigns may also be created.
See also: Sovereigns and Factions
Sovereign Creation
An example of each option is given by matching the number above to one of the numbers below.
| 1 Sovereign Name | 2 Faction Name | 3 Create New Faction | 4 Gender |
| 5 Available Customization Points | 6 Attributes | 7 Talents | 8 Appearance |
| 9 Sovereign Backstory | 10 Magic Proficiencies | 11 Profession | 12 Current Traits |
| 13 Current Equipped Items | 14 Sovereign Display Window | 15 Sovereign Stats |
There are many options that can be chosen when creating your a Sovereign. While some are purely cosmetic, others can completely alter the way the game is played. Choices that affect gameplay each have a point cost associated with them, the number of available points determines how many can be chosen.
- Faction - The faction of a Sovereign is one of their most defining factors. Every faction has its own strengths and weaknesses to consider, custom factions can also be created by clicking the ‘New’ button.
- Attributes - Attributes are some of the most powerful bonuses a Sovereign can select. They are split into magical proficiencies and profession.
- Magical Proficiencies - The magical proficiencies a Sovereign starts with are extremely important. While a Sovereign can increase the power of their spell traits as they level up, they cannot select entirely new proficiencies. Thus, whichever elemental disciplines are chosen to specialize in during character creation are the ones that will be locked to the Sovereign. Champions that are hired will still be able to venture into different proficiencies, provided they come with the required traits.
- Profession - Professions contain the most powerful specialization traits available for custom Sovereigns. As a result, while professions do not require points to choose they are unique in that a Sovereign can only have one of them. Every Sovereign must have a profession.
- Talents - Talents are optional traits, which require points, that a Sovereign can choose to start the game with. They are unique traits that will not be available for selection while leveling up. Note that some talents, known as weaknesses, are actually harmful. Selecting a weakness for a Sovereign will provide an additional point for customization somewhere else, however, only one weakness may be selected.
- Appearance - The appearance tab allows altering the look of the custom Sovereign as well as their starting equipment. There is a small selection of equipment that can be chosen to start the Sovereign off with. While most equipment does not require customization points, the more powerful items do.
- Backstory - The backstory tab allows creating a history for the Sovereign.
Faction Customization
An example of each option is given by matching the number above to one of the numbers below.
| 1 Faction Name | 2 Available Customization Points | 3 Race | 4 Ideology |
| 5 Strengths | 6 Weaknesses | 7 Appearance | 8 Summary |
| 9 Available Attributes | 10 Preview Window | 11 Faction Crest |
In order to create a custom faction there are a multitude of options to consider to get them just as desired. Much like Sovereign creation, every custom faction can have a number of unique traits, each with their own point value. The number of available points determines how many can be chosen.
- Race - The race of a faction is a very important decision. Beyond their physical appearance, every race in the world has a different set of traits all of their units start with. The race’s traits can be checked by hovering over their entry in the race spinner.
- Ideology - The ideology of a faction will determine their allegiance in the struggle between the Kingdoms and Empires of the world. It will dictate which Champions a faction can recruit along with providing modifiers to relationships with other factions.
- Strengths - Strengths are the traits that set a faction apart from the rest. They are unique bonuses that can only be selected at faction creation and will drastically change the way the game is played. Most of them require a customization point to select.
- Weaknesses - Selecting faction weaknesses frees up extra points. Weaknesses are traits much like strengths, however, they hinder a faction in some way instead of providing a bonus.
- Appearance - In the appearance tab the colors a custom faction uses for their buildings and units can be selected. While these selections are purely cosmetic, the art director begs players to avoid using 255,0,255 in faction color selections.
Map Settings
Once a Sovereign has been selected, it is time to choose the parameters of the world to play in. For the default game experience leave everything on this screen as-is. If you do choose to adjust your settings, you can match your world to your desired play style on this screen.
- Map - There are two different styles of maps that can played on: pre-made and random. In order to play a pre-made map the Load button must be clicked and then a map selected. In order to play a random map the button with arrows on it must be clicked.
- Pre-Made - Pre-made maps are maps that were made in the Fallen Enchantress map editor. While the land masses in them are always the same from game to game, distribution of resources and other objects can potentially vary.
- Random - Random maps are generated on the fly to form a new and unique play world. While they may not always feature the most well balanced world distribution, there is no better way to ensure a new experience every time.
- World Size - When selecting a random map the size of the world can be selected. Different world sizes are optimized for different numbers of players; going outside of these recommended numbers may result in bizarre world makeup.
- Map Type - There are a number of different map types that can be chosen when making a random world. The type selected will change the structure of the world to fit different concentrations of terrain types.
- Wildland Frequency - Sets the amount of Wildlands likely to appear in the game world. Areas designated as Wildlands will have to be conquered before they can be settled on.
- Champion Frequency - Sets the distribution of Champions in the game world. The more the merrier. Or not.
- Quest Frequency - Determines the amount of quest locations that are spawned on the map. This only affects quests spawned from Quest tiles on the map, not random events.
- Difficulty - Adjusts the difficulty of the world itself. This will not affect the other factions that are played against, but rather the creatures of the world itself. The higher the difficulty the more fiendish and aggressive they will be towards the player.
- Monster Frequency - Sets the number of monster lairs spawned in the world. Increasing the number of creatures in the world will create a much more dangerous environment in addition to boosting the potential experience and treasure your units could gather.
- Pacing - Modifies the speed at which all factions in the game research technology.
- Magic Strength - Determines the magical power of the game world. The more powerful the world is magically, the more shard resource nodes you will find across the land.
- Resource Frequency - Changes the frequency resource nodes will be placed in the world. This does not affect shards.
- Random Event Frequency - Adjusts the frequency of random events. Random events are quests that have a chance of occurring during the game without requiring any action from the player to start. They can change the world drastically, sometimes for the benefit of the player, other times to their detriment.
Opponent Selection
On the final screen of the world setup the game’s victory conditions and opponents can be adjusted. This screen allows to quickly and easily change the AI factions with broad strokes. In order to manually pick each faction that is in the game, the “Customize Opponents” button can be clicked for additional options.
- Number of Opponents - Sets the number of other factions that would be in the game. It is advised to keep the selection within the recommended number of players for map size to ensure an ideal experience.
- Kingdom Vs. Empire Balance - This option will set the balance of ideologies of the other factions in the game. When selecting opponents manually, this option will be set to ‘custom’.
- Typical Intelligence of Opponents - This option can set the general difficulty level of all AI factions at once. When selecting opponents manually, this option will be set to ‘custom’.
- Opponent Surrender Threshold - This sets how easily the AI factions of the world will surrender. The higher the threshold the more the player will have to dominate them before they will consider surrendering.
- Victory Conditions - The victory conditions section allows to select in what ways a player can be declared the winner.
- Conquest - Conquest victory enables players to win by eliminating all of their enemies.
- Diplomatic - Diplomatic victory enables players to win by forming an alliance with all players in a game.
- Master Quest - Master Quest victory enables players to win by completing the Quest of Mastery, a special epic quest hidden somewhere in the world.
- Spell of Making - This enables players to win a Magic Victory by casting the Spell of Making. It is unlocked through research and requires time and control of multiple shards to cast.