Oh, I don't know. I think that they picked the three most important areas to gut and renovate. Plus, I'm sure that there will be other little touches beside these three that have been mentioned only in passing, like unit encumberance, magical item crafting, etc.

The one thing I'm kind of worried about is that terrain still doesn't seem like it will have any bearing on resource yields or combat. From what I got out of the video, it seems like the wildlands:

1) Are visually appealing.
2) Have a difficult fight.
3) Have one or more of the appropriate shard type and a reward item.

Other than that, the game mechanics driving colonization, resource production, and modifiers to unit effectiveness seem pretty much the same. Would that be fair? Granted, I'm not saying that it doesn't look fun, but it would be nice if the land 'did' a bit more, too.

True enough. Although, right now, I'd say that this is more of a question mark for me than a disappointment. I think that the races' different starting stats playing a bigger role will help this as far as combat goes (and hopefully magic, as well). But, I haven't seen anything as far as unique buildings, more durable faction/sovereign bonuses, etc. It seems like there would be lots of low-cost things that could be done without adding lots of new capabilities to the engine.

I guess time will tell. Right now I'm cautiously optimistic.

Elemental's scope was way too big.  Stardock is refocusing this game.  Yes just I am just like the next gamer wishing for Elemental to have a-z features but its too much.  Lots of features that just didn't get enough love, attention and detail.  That is why we have expansions (we are getting this one for free). This is a good thing.

When you get the beta for FE, your getting the whole sandbox game (not campaign, cutscenes and a few other tiny things) and a good amount of time to test it. Judge things then.

Yeah, that's what I got out of them saying that it was on the other side of the 'feature split.'

Understanding that FE is meant to be a shorter timeframe, more condensed game with a regional rather than global focus...

- cutting the dynasties make sense.
- de-emphaszing the city build doesn't.

If anything, the city should be more engaging and meaningful in a game when you have fewer cities. They should be thinking more along the lines of Caesar IV and less Civ IV.

from what I've saw from the video of the the changes to the map they're doing before they took the video down... you will still have a global focus (world map)

I completely disagree. If that was the only thing done to dynasties, they would feel just like the glued on feature they are in WoM.

With the extremely weak implementation in E:WoM I can only applaud the design decision not to waste time on implementing a slightly better but still half-arsed dynastical upgrade.

Dynasties in games can be great fun when the game is centered around them and the game covers multiple generations during normal gameplay - to take an extreme example, look at Paradox' Crusader Kings or the upcoming Crusader Kings 2 - but when it is added as an afterthought or in games where a typical game lasts one or two generations it is seldom worth it.

I agree. By extension, i'm assuming their getting rid of the whole "proposal" action too. They could so something simple where the "class" of the wife provides a bonus to the empire (no more kid spawning but it would still have a purpose).

I propose a tag <GameIsFE>TRUE/FALS</> to easily switch between EWOM and FE

dynasties were flawed in their current implementation. heroes should be one of the best units in the game and handing them out almost at random either mean the player can massively abuse the system and get a huge advantage, or you have to water them down. neither is fun. and because there's no aging, you end up with loads, which is really fiddly to manage.

having said which, i would like them back at some point. medieval total war manages it quite effectively. so long as there is aging the build up is not too irksome. and if a fairer mechanic like essense is used to limit them then that will override the randomness of births and diplomacy abuse. if i'd designing it i'd still have the dynasty screen, but don't represent any of the family members in-game until you choose to imbue them by sacrificing essense.

I'm glad it got the cut.  It was a mechanic that wasn't much fun for me.

If it can be reworked in a better way, maybe it can be added back in the 2nd XP.