This will be my running log of my experience trying to get FE to work under WINE. If anyone else has success in getting this baby to work please share.
First things first
I have to do the token, "Please make a native linux client." There is an obvious base of linux users who are willing to pay for quality games. We vote with dollars, satisfy us!
Current State of FE under WINE
Install: OK
* Beta Installer was a bit touchy, but in the end works fine. Things to remember when installing:
* Installer only looks at your WINE drive; make sure you have enough disk space for extracting and installing. The installer appears to ignore the actual free space on the drive where you are installing to. For me my root (OS) drive has <1gb available. So first the installer failed to extract with no error message (was out of space), then it failed to install citing unavailable disk space even though the drive it was installing to has 200+ gb free
Registration/Activation: OK
* Registration program (SDActivate.exe) failed for me on my main OS, worked under Ubuntu, and worked under VirtualBox
* To get it to work on my main (Arch - Wine 1.5.7) I had to do: winetricks winhttp. Registration should work after that
Launching: PASS
* Upon launch a series of error message will appear, all can be ignored (screen depth, screen resolution)
* The splash/loading screen will appear with Error Message: "Logon failed. You may have missing or stale registry data."
* To get past the error message at /localdataonly /username "user" /password "pass" as part of the command line argument when launching the game. The error message will still appear but can be bypassed by hitting the Esc key (thanks SteveAus!)
Creating Games: OK
* Game created right away with no issues
World Map: Buggy
* World Map renders correctly on a quarter of the time
* Tile textures appear above units, and tile icons, preventing play (impossible to know what is where)
* Zoom functionality works
Combat: Buggy
* Units do not appear during combat, similar to the world map base ground tile's appear above units
* Mouse positioning is way off (or potentially the render issues make it appear that it is off)
*Update on 04-Jul-2012*
Currently able to get the game working, but not quite playable