I don't agree with Xan regarding that they should have released it last month. This is the only >strategy< game coming out. I bought XCOM and I would have bought this if I weren't getting it for free.
I do agree they >could< have released it last month. I think the extra time for polish and tweaking makes it a better game. Then again, they could hold off for another year and it would be an even better game then too.
In conclusion, it was release-worthy about a month ago. But it is better off having waited until now. And there will be some who think it should have been held back another month. Hell, I saw someone say they thought they should wait another >year<.
I absolutely agree with the above. Avoiding going with X-Com head to head was a great business decision. I am just winding down from X-Com. Finally beat it on Impossible Ironman, and now I am just researching things I never got around. By Tuesday, I will be done. I assume many strategy game fans will follow the same pattern.
And one month ago, Fallen Enchantress had a major problem - monster AI was wiping out newbies on easy difficulties. That could have been a disaster. The AI has become quite less freaky (It's still doing stupid things, but less often)
No, the time for release is right. There's a lot that I would love to have fixed, but the game is very playable. I just wish that the developers would pick some of the REALLY low hanging fruit - make sure that autosaves are 100% consistent with the end of the turn, display the path BEFORE the move, and allow units on the same tile to merge.