Fantasy General is a Turn-Based Strategy game published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. in 1996. It is part of the Five Star General franchise, which also includes Panzer General, Allied General, People's General, and Star General.
The game uses a modified (slightly simplified) version of the Panzer General engine to simulate battles in a High Fantasy / Fantasy Kitchen Sink setting with some steampunk elements (such as mechanical units and steam-powered guns). Three play modes are available: 1) a campaign where the player leads an army in rebellion against the evil Shadowlord, 2) five stand-alone scenarios with preset forces that can be played against a computer or human opponent, and 3) Arena mode, where single battles with customizable armies, champions, and maps against a computer or human opponent can be set up and played.
Battles take place on a hexagonal map; the entire map is visible at the start, but there is a Fog of War which hides enemy units outside the player's vision. The goal of each battle is to either take and hold all of the objectives (marked with little flashing flags), or destroy most of the enemy's units, upon which the enemy will offer to surrender. If the offer is declined, all enemy units must be destroyed to win the battle. All maps have a time limit; failing to achieve the goal within this time will result in the player losing the battle.
Units are smaller than in Panzer General, each representing a squad of (usually 15) individuals or a single powerful hero, monster, or war engine. They are divided into ten classes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, Skirmishers, Archers, (Heavy) Cavalry, Light Cavalry, Sky Hunter (fantasy equivalent of fighter planes), Bombardier (ditto for bomber planes), Siege Engine, and Spellcaster. Each unit belongs to one of four races: Mortal, Magic, Beast, and Mech. Everyone has access to Mortal units (though the selection is different for the Good and Evil sides), but only specific characters have access to the others. Mortal units tend to be the weakest, but they're also the only ones that can be upgraded during the campaign game.
Two sides are available, Council of Five (good) and the Shadowlord and his minions (evil). Each side has four champions, each of which gives certain advantages to your units and has a distinct playing style. Thus, when playing the Good side, one can select:
- Knight Marshal Calis — charismatic leader, healer and cavalry expert
- Lord Marcas — mercenary warlord and infantry expert with larger army size cap and experience bonuses
- Archmage Krell — powerful offensive spellcaster who can recruit magical units
- Sorceress Mordra — limited spellcaster who can recruit beast units and summon magical ones for a limited time
The campaign game involves some 50-60 battles fought across six continents with five distinct climates (desert, temperate, jungle, snow, lava). Between battles, the player can buy new units and upgrade existing ones, assign magic items and, most importantly, set research funding for each of the ten unit classes in the game. It is known as being Nintendo Hard, in no small part because it does not give second chances; one lost battle will result in losing the entire campaign. It also features a fifth "champion" for the evil side, the Shadowlord himself. An official add-on added a 5-battle mini-campaign meant for experienced players.
The game is remembered for it's soundtrack, which took Christian mass songs such as Strife is O'er, Dies Irae, Victimae Paschali Laudes, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence and reworked them as battle hymns. It is also notable for having hand-drawn ink illustrations for each unit.
Fantasy General is currently available on GOG.com
and Steam.
A successor called Fantasy General II: Invasion was released by publisher Slitherine Software and developer Owned by Gravity in 2019.
This game contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The manual contains a lot of background information that is never provided in-game, and also explains the effects of the units' special abilities and champions' traits. So, for example, if you want to see what "Bloodlust" does, you'll have to look it up in the manual.
- Anti-Cavalry: Some Heavy Infantry-class units have a special ability that negates enemy Cavalry's charge bonus.
- Area of Effect: The Fire Wizards have a rather weak spell, but it does hit all hexes adjacent to the target as well. Also, the Staff of Winds gives units a whirlwind attack that functions the same way, but hits only flying units. Finally, a couple of hero units have a "Panic" spell that also works the same, but affects the targets' morale rather than causing damage.
- Artificial Stupidity: The AI isn't completely braindead, but it still makes some very amateurish mistakes. For example, it will always move and attack with its units in a set order, and this is often very inefficient, as you'd normally want to soften the enemy up using Skirmishers and Siege Engines before attacking with your melee units.
- Baseless Mission: In a way. While you don't build bases in this game, there are a couple of missions without any towns or fortifications, which prevents you from deploying or buying reinforcements.
- Beast Man: Several units are this (Lizard Folk, Rat Men, Centaurs, Snake People, even lion men and elephant men are all present), though interestingly enough, not all belong to the Beast "race".
- Big Bad: The Shadowlord has conquered four continents of Aer and enslaved their populace. Its your job to stop him.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Orc King Dragga imagines himself to be a great leader and one of the Shadowlord's closest confidants, but in reality he's too lazy, greedy and incompetent to be much of a threat. At least in the campaign game; in Arena or Scenario mode, he's just as capable as his good counterpart, Lord Marcas.
- Black-and-White Morality: The Shadowlord and his minions are unambiguously evil and fight against the Council of Five, who are unambiguously good.
- Combat Medic: Units with a Staff of Healing have the same spell as Healers, and retain their combat skills and inherent spells.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Human-controlled units can only cast their spells immediately before or after moving. Computer-controlled units, however, can cast a spell at the beginning of a turn, and then move the casting unit later in the turn, after other units have already acted.
- Critical Existence Failure: Heroes and units with the Heroic ability will always get their full number of attacks, regardless of any casualties or injuries.
- The Dragon: In the campaign, Maloch of Blacklance is the Shadowlord's most powerful lieutenant, and the penultimate Evil champion you must face before the Shadowlord himself.
- Dragon with an Agenda: It's revealed that Maloch's primarly loyalty lies with his mysterious demonic patron rather than the Shadowlord.
- Easy Logistics: Unlike in Panzer General, your units do not require ammunition or fuel. The closest thing to logistics modelling is that your units cannot properly heal if they are adjacent to an enemy unit, and you cannot recruit units in your settlements if an enemy ground unit is adjacent.
- Evil Counterpart: Each of the four Good champions has an Evil counterpart with the same basic abilities: Maloch of Blacklance is the counterpart to Calis, Orc King Dragga to Marcas, Aelcar the Shadow Wizard to Archmage Krell, and Ssazikar the Snake to Mordra.
- Evil Only Has to Win Once: The manual isn't kidding when it tells you that the Council of Five cannot afford any setbacks or delays — losing only a single battle means losing the entire campaign.
- Evil Overlord: The Shadowlord is a classic example, being an expy of Sauron.
- Evil Tower of Ominousness: The enormous and evil-looking Shadowdark Castle is what you'll have to conquer if you are to finally defeat the Shadowlord.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Roman-style legionnaires, samurai, feudal knights, orcs, elves, dragons, werebears, mechanical men, snipers hanging from balloons, zeppelin bombers, armoured rocs, guys with flamethrowers... this game has it all.
- Fog of War: Normally, units have a "Search" stat that shows number of hexes they can spot enemy units from; any units outside that cannot be seen. The game does allow you to turn off the Fog of War, however.
- Geo Effects: Terrain has important effects on gameplay. Certain unit classes (Light Infantry, Skirmishers) are much better at traversing and fighting in rough terrain than others (e.g. Cavalry, Siege Engines).
- Glass Cannon: Many Cavalry class units are this, especially when inexperienced. Experienced, high-grade Cavalry is significantly tougher, though still much better at attacking than defending.
- La Résistance: The campaign game has the player lead a small force of rebels against the Shadowlord and his minions, who have occupied most of the world. The goal is to grow and transform this small force into a powerful army, free the occupied continents, overthrow the Shadowlord's minions, and then take the battle to the Shadowlord himself.
- Last Stand: The final battle on each continent requires you to fight the enemy champion's most powerful troops and storm their strongest castle.
- Living Shadow: Three Evil units, Shadows, Shadow Warriors, and Shadow Knights, appear to be powerful creatures composed of living darkness. All their attacks are magical — ordinary Shadows attack with their claws, while Warriors and Knights use weapons.
- Long-Range Fighter:
- Siege Engines are the only unit class that can attack enemies more than one hex away. As you'd expect, however, they are very weak in direct combat.
- Archers are a downplayed version. When they attack, the enemy unit cannot retaliate except if it also belongs to the Archer or Bombardier class. In addition, Archers can provide "Defensive fire" if an adjacent friendly unit gets attacked (except, again, if the attacker is an Archer or Bombardier). On the other hand, they're almost as weak as Siege Engines in direct combat.
- Magic Versus Science: Magic units get an attack bonus when fighting Mech units, and vice versa.
- Mighty Glacier: Heavy Infantry class units are very powerful but slow, especially those units that move in closed formation, which are very slow in difficult terrain. Higher-grade units have a "Force March" ability that allows them to sacrifice their attack for extra movement, however.
- Morale Mechanic: All units have a Morale rating, which starts at 100 and is modified by experience, some champion traits, and the presence of Heroes nearby. It will decrease as the unit fights and takes casualties, and can also be lowered by some spells. Low morale may result in the unit becoming "Disordered" or "Broken". The former gives it a chance of suffering a moderate stat penalty each time it fights, while the latter gives a large stat penalty and forces the unit to retreat whenever it is attacked. Morale can be restored by spending a turn resting.
- Mordor: Fire Isle, the Shadowlord's domain, is a land of volcanoes, lava pools, dead forests, and all sorts of horrible creatures. It does have towns, shrines and fortifications, however. The manual mentions the towns are populated by slaves taken from other lands during the Shadowlord's campaigns of conquest.
- Multiple Life Bars: Units that take damage have some of their members killed and others wounded. Neither can make attacks, reducing the potential damage the unit can deal. However, wounded members will recover if the unit spends a turn resting (as long as no enemies are adjacent), while dead members can only be replenished through recruiting at a town or fortification (which costs gold), or between battles. Heroes and units with the Single Entity ability avert this, as any "killed" results are converted to wounds instead.
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Nintendo Hard: The campaign can be very unforgiving from the second continent onwards, especially on Hard difficulty. First of all, losing one battle means losing the entire campaign. Unlike the computer, you don't automatically get new units for each battle, and you only get gold by conquering enemy-held settlements and fortifications, winning battles, and sometimes in shrines and temples. In order to maintain an advantage over the computer, you need experienced units, so losing even one such unit is a serious setback; lose several in a single battle and you'll likely be forced to reload because you no longer have a viable army. Furthermore, some missions, especially on the jungle- and swamp-filled third continent, have very tight turn limits. - No Campaign for the Wicked: The campaign is only available for the good guys. You can, however, play Scenarios and Arena battles as one of the Shadowlord's vassals.
- Obviously Evil: The Shadowlord and his minions aren't the least bit subtle in their evil, and they look the part.
- Orcus on His Throne: Downplayed with the Shadowlord during the campaign. He doesn't directly attack the Council's forces until you reach Fire Isle (his home continent), but he does occasionally send reinforcements to his lieutenants.
- The Paladin: Knight Marshal Calis, being both an experienced cavalry commander and a healer. Also the hero Sir Kalador, who in addition to being a strong Cavalry unit has a unique Dispel Undead spell.
- The Smurfette Principle: Sorceress Mordra is the only female champion in the game (the Evil champions are all male). There is also only one female hero unit (Shandel) for the Good side and two for the Evil side (Witch of Icethorn & Malkin Nightwing).
- Spikes of Villainy: The Shadowlord has prominent spikes on his shoulders, while his vassal Maloch has some on his shoulder pads and wrist-guards.
- Squishy Wizard:
- Spellcaster class units aren't very strong when attacked directly and also have only 10 members instead of 15, making them a lot easier to kill.
- All units belonging to a champion with the Archmage trait (Krell, Aelcar, the Shadowlord) get -20 to their Morale, making them a bit more fragile. This is not documented in the manual.
- Story Branching: Downplayed compared to Panzer General. Which battle you complete does affect which battles are offered next, as does the number of turns you take to win it, but ultimately the only way to win the campaign is to conquer the six continents one by one, in the given order.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: As in Panzer General, certain unit classes are stronger or weaker against other classes. Also important is the terrain in which they're fighting, and whether they're attacking or defending (e.g. Cavalry is very strong when attacking in the open, but much weaker when fighting Skirmishers in the woods).
- Tech Tree: In the campaign, a part of your gold income is set aside for researching higher-grade units. You can determine what percentage is allocated to which unit class.
- Units Not to Scale: Par for the course for an old strategy game: e.g. goblins are shown as being only slightly smaller than dragons and the riders of cavalry units are depicted as far smaller than infantrymen.
- Weaponized Animal: Several units are this, including fantastic animals. For example, Steamphonts are elephants armed with steam-powered guns, while Roc Knights are armoured rocs that drop stones on their enemies.
- White Mage: Healers are a Spellcaster-class unit whose spell will instantly heal all wounded members of the target unit. They have no other abilities except a weak skirmish attack, but players will often give them wands to make them more versatile.
