Multiple Players on the Battlefield

I really did like how several "tiles" could be included in a battle, thus allowing several players into the same fight.  If its not in this game, I won't mind, though it would be nice if it were.  I'd like to see something interesting with combat.  Though, the heavy use of X-com as an example system that is similar has me very pumped.  

I'm leery on espionage and assassinations, mainly because I'm tired of it.  In Civ IV warlords, I wish I could turn it off while leaving all other unrelated expansion features turned on.  I love it in Total War games sometimes (mainly when I'm using it) but I do not like it when others use it, but sometimes I wish it would go away for a while, just because I get bored of it.

Dominions did a great job with assassinations. They are actual fought out with the person being assassinated and there are many ways to have bodyguards. Not everyone had access to assassinations as well.

I'd say having multiple forces being able to participate in a given battle is a must for a game of this scale. I would be very disheartened if only two forces could battle at any given time in tactical combat.

I would thouroughly agree Darkodin. I only played the demo for AgeofWonders, but this was the coolest thing by far i saw in the demo.

Having multiple forces present on the battlefield also means that it is necessary to have unit locations relative to where they were on the world map, which is a positive feature. There's no other good way to simulate being surronded than that.

NTJedi, out of curiosity, is there a forum you aren't a part of? I've been seeing you fairly frequently for over seven years.

Being realistic isn't a very good reason for it to be in the game, being fair is a pretty good reason. But, for some reason, you're missing the elephant in the room: many-sided battles are so cool, and so much more fun! Plus it makes for better strategy. The HoMM type of 1v1 combat in series is really gimmicky, while the AoW:SM type of combat where everyone within a tile of the defending army joins the battle requires more thought and the outcome can be affected in many different ways.

I think a better solution than just drawing in all armies within a tile would be to have any movement points not used by army add to it's interception range. Should an enemy come into range you would have an option to intercept them automatically. Any combat within the radius you could optionally join as well. This solves the problem of people trying to out click the other players during simultaneous turns, as well as the problem of not being able to stop other armies that keep moving past you while your guys just sit there.

Minimum interception range could be 1 tile.

  I usually arrive on the RPG and TBS  forums... but you won't find me on any  FPS  forums. 

  For  RPGs and TBS games  I always request:   Random Game Generator;  Map Editor;  and  Multiplayer.    These features provide great replay value. 

   Actually realistic is a good reason because the more unrealistic qualities the less gamers are drawn into the gameplay.  The Elemental community would not accept swords being made of candy, dragons being afraid of mice and water mixed with fire creating mud.  As I've also written in the developer journals this provides more strategies.  It's funny how you try to disagree with me even when you agree with me.   lol

Yes Dominions did a great job with assassinations... there's a few areas of improvement, but overall the assassinations were fun and added another level of strategy to the game.

Realtiy is not balanced. A game must be balanced. The pretty standard way to do this is put mechanics into games because they are fair, then make them realistic through cosmetics, text, and lore.

I wasn't talking about gameplay balance... if you are adding the variable of gameplay balance into the discussion then that obviously takes a higher importance.  My point is that realistic qualities should be considered and evaluated whenever possible.

Haha, well I agree and disagree with you

Realism is not what makes games good. This is a fantasy game, and as such the vast majority of it is inherently unrealistic. That is, after all, the rough definition of the word 'fantasy.' It isn't realistic to have people who can shoot fireballs out of their hands, conjure up mythical beasts, set fire to the world or cause earthquakes with a thought or gesture or some words.

An enormous amount of things that are realistic are not much fun. It isn't realistic to have one overarching entity manage all the little aspects of an entire empire simultaneously. If we wanted to be realistic, we'd have to issue orders to generals and administrators, who would then propagate those orders down to their subordinates and hope that they are carried out how you want. There would be delays and miscommunication - and the same would apply to gathering information about your empire. But quite frankly, that doesn't sound like very much fun - you'd spend the game giving vague orders and receiving vague, delayed information.

And I'm sure there have been games with swords made of candy and all - we don't want it because we want Elemental to have a fairly serious tone. Not having swords made of candy is less about realism than about the tone and atmosphere that we are looking forward to. I mean honestly, having swords made of candy is more realistic than having magically flaming swords made of fantastically durable and light materials. Really for me, I only care about realism in the sense that as much of the game as possible should be intuitive, and taking some cues from the real world can help there (but it can also hurt!).

Realism isn't even secondary IMO, it's tertiary at best. I would put fun factor way at the top, followed by tone/theme not that far behind. Standing at fun factor, you'd need good eyes to be able to make out realism.

The thing one looks for in a fictional world isn't realism it is continiuty.  does everything in the fictional world follow the wrold's established rules.

I always liked multigroup battles in AoW. In particular for cases where I'd help an ally by putting a garrison in their town, that would let me join combat if they got attacked.

Given that towns can be multiple tiles in Elemental, it seems like something similar would conceputally be possible. I put some of my troops in your town, and if the town is attacked, I can help out. It would certainly not make any sense for a third party to be able to conquer an allies town while my troops are sitting in it without them helping the defenders.

I forgot to comment on this before... I love this idea! They could also have it so that the farther away your army from the battle, the longer it takes for those troops to join in. So if A and B engage in battle, and A has reinforcements 2 tiles away and B has reinforcements 4 tiles away (and both have enough movement), A's reinforcements could join the battle after 2 combat turns, and B's could join after 4...

The point I was making involves realistic fantasy and unrealistic fantasy... you're not the first I've had to explain the differences.

Unrealistic fantasy would be swords made of candy, mixing fire and water to make mud, dragons being afraid of mice, etc., etc.,  =  This is generally a bad idea...... unless some childs game.

Realistic fantasy would be swords made of iron, water and holy magic to create holy water, and dragons ignoring mice.

So we do look for a realistic fantasy world... unless you're into candy swords.  

    This is what's called Realistic Fantasy...  as I mentioned earlier  Unrealistic Fantasy would be  Dragons being afraid of mice.

   You're mixing real world realism with the realistic fantasy definition.  In a realistic fantasy one all power demi-god can provide thousands of orders via telepathetic thought.  In an unrealistic fantasy the gaming community would quickly protest on the forums how bunnies shouldn't be killing all the dragons during the first round of combat OR how their human population shouldn't be allowed to eat gold. 

    As I wrote earlier you are mixing real world realism with realistic fantasy.  Candy wouldn't be used in a realistic fantasy world because other resources are better.  The only type of fantasy game where candy swords would be realistic fantasy would be a kids game...  still possible, but a different type of realistic fantasy.

    Fun is also very important for my games, however I rarely use the word fun within my topics because it's an opinion and subjective.  What might be fun for you in one game might be torture for some other gamer... thus features I find important will include facts of why they are important such as replay value, game variety, etc., etc., .  

I'm so looking forward to a mod where the first turn we witness dragons being slaughtered by bunnies and the player hopes to find the cotton sword of candy in order to defeat said bunnies before they invade his town.

Actually that sounds like a lot of fun.

Very possible with modding... and great for introducing 5 thru 8 year_olds into TBS games.  Unfortunately it would never be popularly accepted amongst the community otherwise the demand would brought forth such an interest from previous games with modding and map editors.  

No I'm not. I understand the difference but you're also missing my point. In the Total War series, there is no magical excuse for having complete, immediate and simultaneous control over vast swaths of land and huge numbers of people. You have that ability because not having it would result in a whole lot of tedium and not very much fun.

The exact same thing is true in fantasy games. The only difference is that in fantasy games, particularly those with magic, we can come up with excuses to explain such things away.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there is a difference between unrealistic and silly. Candy swords and dragons terrified of mice are silly. Realistic fantasy is exactly what KellenDunk described, and that is completely irrelevant to whether swords are made of candy and dragons are afraid of mice. One could create a perfectly consistent world in which those things occur. The difference between that and what you and I agree we want is the tone of that world, not its realism. There are few enough fantasy strategy games that I'd rather the ones we have the pleasure of playing be serious and not stupidly silly.

Your example of fire and water magic being used to create mud is a good example of where realism should come into play, though. Like I said before, the only real place where I think realism should enter the fray is to help make aspects of the game intuitive. We don't really have any realistic sense of magic (such a thing doesn't exist, if you ask most people) - but we do understand water, and fire and earth and air and what those things represent and are associated with. People's opinions will differ somewhat (it is ultimately very subjective), but pretty much everyone will agree that fire and water shouldn't make mud. So I will agree that realism should be considered when crafting the magical requirements needed to achieve specific results. We want the magical system to be intuitive, not something where you have to memorize everything by rote - and realism in this case is probably the best way to achieve this.

   Well based on this statement all games should be classified as fantasy games.  No game can provide all realistic functions and combinations especially within a timely fashion, but the facts and realism of the real world should be recognized to provide a more widely accepted truth/reality to the game.

  It's unrealistic for a nation fighting for its survival to be using candy as swords when other materials provide better results.  The same can be said of the real world where AT&T had originally claimed that it was unrealistic to sell TV through call centers and telemarketing.  So while the candy swords are silly they are also an unrealistic design for an adult fantasy game.

  For your benefit I will keep realistic and unrealistic to the basic elements.

  Magic is subjective, however a mage who has studied only fire magic and fire magic spells can realistically cast fireballs in the game.  Where a mage who has studied only water magic and water magic spells could not realistically cast fireballs without the help of some magic object or 3rd party individual.

I can agree with both sides here. In my opinion, i like to see realism in games, to an extent of making the game more enjoyable. I want to feel like i am actually in charge of a nation, or that my life (as a channeler) is important, and realism is necessary to make that happen. This is mostly why i was excited to hear we might get a more advanced economy in this game. I want my game to be fun and unpredictable, realism can make that happen too (through random events, etc.) because life itself is unpredictable. I don't think the argument is whether or not candy swords and docile smiley-faced dragons should be used (bc pigeon is right, that's just silly) but rather to what extent realism should be used. And even though it's in a fantasy setting, i think we still want to feel like the world is alive, and not just a game.

Eh that's just a cop-out. Total War is not a fantasy game. It has no elements of a fantasy story or a fantasy world, other than that the player acts as an omnipresent commanding entity for his entire kingdom. If you take the argument that any game that has any small unrealistic element to it is all of a sudden a fantasy game, then every single game every created by mankind is a fantasy game, and one of the smallest gaming genres out there all of a sudden becomes the only genre.

But you're making an assumption that there are better materials for swords. My point is, it's a fantasy world. I could create a fantasy world in which some types of candy happen to be supremely good sword material. Maybe it's a form of sucking candy that's as hard as steel but as easy to work with as copper. Honestly, it's more realistic to have a sword made out of candy than a sword made out of mithril - candy exists, mithril doesn't. One could conceivably make a sword of out candy (not that it'd be very useful) in the real world - good luck making a real mithril sword.

Ok? In case you didn't notice, I agreed with you on the magic front. In fact my very last sentence was: "We want the magical system to be intuitive, not something where you have to memorize everything by rote - and realism in this case is probably the best way to achieve this."

I'm not saying realism is irrelevant, just that it's not very important compared to other considerations. It's best used as a guideline for implementing a feature that is wanted because said feature will result in fun, strategic depth, desired atmosphere, etc - and even then it's a guideline that should be ignored as often as not (or more often). It should ~never be used as the reason for implementing something in the first place, IMO.

Exactly,  right on target!   Some individuals such as yourself grasp the understanding quickly.

'Realism' is a distracting and troublesome word in this context. From what I can tell, it seems that both pigeon and NTJedi want the game functionality to have internal consistency that is presented via words and images that can parse easily for 'the average' player while still providing some sense of a deeply imagined world. Most of the ping-pong (here and in other threads) on realism seems to me to boil down to matters of taste, not engineering, science, or even metaphysics.