Hm, eugenics by definition is only possible once you know genetics. If you don't, you are just following a gut instinct. Now, it is rather difficult to breed humans to reach a particular trait - we have long gestation periods and even longer time to reach adulthood. Not to mention you need a large population to see the results of your crossings, therefore it is unlikely to see substantial gains if you only cross King with Queen, Prince with Princess. Furthermore, many human traits aren't exactly inheritable in significant ways or have a heavy dose of environmental influence. For these reasons, I can't see how to apply it properly in this game unless, of course, in the looks of your King's children.

Reputation/Prestige is a different beast. Again (thrice today!) I bring forth EU III to the parlor. It has both Prestige (measuring how fantastic your country appears to be) and Reputation (how honorable or despicable you are). Prestige adds bonus to a lot of things, including espionage, number of merchants etc. Reputation is a thin line: you gain too much of it and you start to get bad looks from your neighbors. Prestige in Elemental can work the same way, with different conditions, of course: you kill a dragon, you gain prestige; you come to aid your ally, you gain prestige; you refuse to help the starving tribes on your borders, you lose some; you lose a war, you lose a lot of prestige. Reputation, however, is a little trickier because Elemental does not seem to have a casus belli system. I must ponder on it further.

Heh I already made the argument long ago for a Bene Gesserit breeding program. Of course if it was as detailed as i would like it would totally overwhelm the rest of the game. but it is definitely a fun idea.

Yes to finneglot, IRL you do need to have a large number of crossbreedings to determine which traits dominate etc., but for game purposes it would not be hard to lay down some simple genetic rules of the probability of passing a given trait on and also for game puposes you could make it a given that  such traits could be (scryed, whatever) at the child's birth so you would not have to wait until adulthood to determine what the result was. We are not asking for an actual true to life genetics simulation here.

At any rate, I don't expect any type of genetics program to be in this game, I would just like one. i ahve about 5 games worth of ideas I would love to see in this game, but honestly if they all went in the game would probably be unplayable.

Might still be worth two or three expansion packs. I try to hide from ads, but the equate-spending-with-love season is here again, and I'm constantly reminded of how quickly yesterday's wonder-tech becomes today's taken-for-granted feature. Players can learn as long as they want to, and what with that wacky Moore's law and all, the hardware's mostly waiting on us when it comes to complexity in a Civ-style game.

This business of disliking something as a 'game in itself' has never really happened to me, but then I've never been able to have fun playing anything but really large maps, so I'm ignorant when it comes to 'TBS skirmishes' and whatnot. My hope for the larger TBS genre, if not necessarily for Elemental, is to see the games come to include a sort of grand modularity that lets players choose to include or exclude large chunks of complex functionality based on their individual tastes without worrying that they are crippling the AIs or giving them wild bonuses.

When I found out about this whole breeding thing my thoughts instantly went to Naruto. What if in Elemental there were a select few powerful abilities that could only be used by those with the right genes? In Naruto these were called bloodline limits. One of the most powerful of these was an eye technique called the Sharingan that allowed it's user to read his opponents movements and to copy any technique an opponent used. If a user had great enough genetic potential when he became skilled enough he could use the eye to cast powerful illusions and damaging spells (strange I know).

This is the kind of thing that you could build an entire stratedy around. Imagine at the start of the game you pay (in creation points) a hefty cost to have this ability. Your offspring would inherit it. So in battle your channelers could learn any spell they saw cast. And would be able to read their opponents casting greatly increasing the effects of counter-spells. But there's a catch(beyond the huge cost at the game start). Everyone would want this ability. So you would have to guard your family very carefully, marrying off your daughters would be dangerous especially if they were skilled with the technique as their children then could inherit it. Keeping the most skilled of your heroes loyal would be vital too because if they defected they could have children who could match your power. Imagine the awesomeness of having to hunt down a traitor before he could pass the power on to his offspring.

denryu may have said it best.

i would love to play a game that has genetics and bloodlines but in the end may only muddle the spirit of elemental.