I have played 2 games in 950 and 1 in 952. I am writing [950] when the behavior has been observed in 950, but not seen due to no opportunity in 952.
When creating a new faction you can choose strength Scholars and weakness Uneducated, thereby gaining Knowledge technology for free.
[950] Regeneration spell description states +1 regen per life shard. No matter the amount of lifeshards, regen stays at 1 per turn in battle. Fix description, as more regen than one per battle turn is overpowered. When using the Troll amulet you would gain another regen per battle turn, which is enough. It works as described in 952 - overpowered.
The running in place has been noticed in the new 952 update (with an 950 save game). I have not seen in a true 952 game.
[950] The unit speed of 2 + horse/warg (1) + tireless feet (1) = 4 together with road bonus is fine. While I would love to get more speed as it would fit my playing style (running around with one invincible hero), it would seriously change the game balance. If more speed is required, then consider a teleport spell. A very expensive teleport to any town you own would probably not be a game changer. I liked what you did in 952 with horses. Now you have to make a real choice between the horse (+2 moves) and the warg (dodge). I use both as the occasion demands.
The Krax Fortify ability is overpowered, +30 to dodge is too much, make it +10. I like it so much, that I can't consider another race.
[950] In the battle screen the "auto resolve" (not the auto play) button, does NOT take the tactical situation into account when resolving the rest of the battle. This was noticed when I played some deady arena quest and had to fight 6 obsidian golems. I ran into a corner where there was an obstruction placed so they could only come two at a time at me. When auto resolving my hero would die having damaged ALL of them (meaning fighting them all at once despite space limitations). When autoplaying, things would progress normally (two golems at a time) and I would win.
[950] When saving a game (before some important event) and you still have some movement left and a movement path set, then upon loading the savegame the movement is executed and the event triggered by moving into the event. This is very annoying, as you might experiment with different equipment etc, but it becomes impossible.
The new initial cost of 2 for magic path in sovereign creation instead of 1 is actually a fair and reasonable balance change, even if I don't like it. It was overpowered as it was. I liked to do 1 life, 1 air and 2 earth for the spells you could cast on heroes. In the future I will give up on life, allowing me to take the empire path (only kingdoms do life).
Taking about spells; The help on spells is really badly structured - just an alphabetical listing. I would like to see spells sorted in their life/earth/magic-research etc requirements. A better structure might also benefit the rest of the help, but this was what I noticed, as I needed it.
I was in a situation were I could not pay the maintenance cost of my spells. I could not find any place were I could turn of spells cast on my heroes. The unsatisfying result was that spells I would not have chosen were dispelled.
I wish there was some way to decide if spells should be cast in auto resolve or auto play combat. I have noticed fire mages especially having a tendency to cast burning hands or some such, when a good whack with a sword would achieve the same. What I really want, is for each available spell or skill to be able to decide if it should be used at all or the frequency/situation when to use. I tend to only use spells which effect will last through combat, like haste or shrink. I don't like transient damage spell, not enough bang for the mana. In the end this paragraph is all about mana management and the automatic casting of damage spells that will deplete your mana pool.
Sovereigns professions are not balanced well. The Armorer profession is clearly the strongest and the effect is useful in the entire game.
The victory quest seems to easy for me. In my latest game I came across it by accident (exploring) and just decided to do it. Game was over shortly after. On the other hand my sovereign was level 29 (still in mid game), which perhaps is an indication that heroes level too fast in 952.
FE is a very rich game with possibilities for deciding what to research, how to build your cities and your units. However, in the end it does not really matter, as you can easily win by using 2 perhaps 3 heroes with the equipment they find. I have say that I just tried standard games. None the less I have not felt it mattered how I built my cities. The research matters a bit, mostly to get champions armor, if i get that far. I once designed and built late game unit. While it really was very powerful, it was also very expensive, I could only afford one, which was fair enough. The point is that the game is geared towards winning with single powerful units, not armies of middling strength. I prefer it that way, but it really makes the rich unit design somewhat superfluous.
An observation which I hesitate to share as I feel I am really criticizing you without adding any constructive suggestion, is that I don't feel the game is it's own. It reminds me a lot of Civilization 5 and the Heroes of Might and Magic series. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I enjoyed both games, but for some reason the similarity is so strong that FE does not come of as a unique game.
