After finally finding time to check out 1.3 more, I hope to ask two simple questions that might be of use for 1.4 and for FE.
While I really like where things appear to be going in FE, what still makes me apprehensive is what appears to be a lack of meaningful variety. By that I mean that there *appears* to be a great deal of variety, because the underlying game structure does not allow for pre-designed unit classes and hence every unit and event is formally unique -- but the actual differences appear (to me) cosmetic or superficial or strategically unimportant. (By the latter I mean that most of the more apparent forms of variance appear in the way a unit or event deals damage over time.) The more apparent signs of meaningful variance I found in the spells (since these are "pre-designed" and are not created or customized by the user in-game as units are).
So the first question is this:
1. There were hundreds of suggestions for spells in the Spell Contest some months ago, and about 30% of them appeared to be quite decent and about a quarter of those excellent. If only a quarter of *those* and others suggested on the forums in the last year or so were doable, that would still leave us with about 10-20 really great spells that wouldn't (it would appear) cost so much to implement, and about 50 or so fairly decent ones. Is there a reason the spellbook is still so slim? I would have imagined that this is your bread-and-butter -- the only place in the game where pre-made elements must be relied upon. What constraints are keeping you from greatly increasing the quantity of decentness?
2. As at least some people have been writing for more than a year now (e.g. mine from 2009, https://forums.elementalgame.com/369399 , https://forums.elementalgame.com/374597 here in 2010 https://forums.elementalgame.com/400669) you'll want more "flavor" in the way that units differ from each other in meaningful ways. You seem to be taking this to heart in FE. Is there a way you could incorporate the idea of abilities I linked to here in WOM and have us be able to test it out and give, say, a fairly decent palette of, say, 100-200 abilities that could be implemented (for FE but also for WOM)?
Thank you for your time.
