I've been a bit curious about near-zero dev talk about ethical and/or religious systems also. Maybe they will work up the Life vs. Death into the two major religions of the official back story. But the recent posting about deliberately avoiding "good vs. evil" leaves me wondering if they are trying to avoid any formal religious terminology in the game canon.

Then I think about this old concept art image of a shaman, and I remain confused. After all, you don't need deities to have a religious system; you just need a cosmology story that illustrates a value system and a community willing to keep telling that story and trying to live by its advice.

And, for that matter, you don't exactly need a religious syetm to have dieties... Since "shamanism" in the real world is a very mystical, spiritual, and most importantly non-dogmatic religion, I could see shamans in a world of magic being essentially a type of magic-user, with emphasis on nature, life/death, and the spirit world.

Sounds good to me:D

"For the people who find complex and detailed economies fun, a simplified version won't be as fun."

And what about people who don't like complex systems in the 1st place huh?:p

I hope it will have a vice & virture as well as a trait system to compliment an ethical and/or religious system(s).

What sort of part if any will spies & assassins play in the game. Can I attempt to assassinate an enemy sovereign or a channeller working for one? Can I train infiltration, & assassination units at all or will they play no part in the game?

The religion mechanic in Civ4 is really lame. If they can't come up with a better mechanic than having silly expanding borders that wrap around a city and then take centuries to flip it, don't bother with religion.

Agreed.  It was nothing more than an excuse for a game mechanic.  Now, as a game mechanic I don't think it was horrible, but as an actual implementation of religion in a game I wasn't particularly convinced.  It also makes the assumption that differing religions always results in conflict/problems, which isn't always true.

Here is a good question: 

What are the changes between the alpha and the beta?

(I ask this because many people won't see the alpha, and the people who do won't be able to talk about it.  I think this will be on many people's minds when the beta comes.)

I'm still wondering about what sort of bonuses troops will be getting when operating INSIDE their own borders.

Im sorry to be late with this, but I'd just like to say that "micro expansion" or "episodic" situations im familiar with, never seem to end up giving you as much new content over the same development lifetime, as the traditional full "expansion" model for popular games.  I mean, you seem to get the same number of "expansions" as you might have had...they're just...smaller.  I mean, they idea is, you're supposed to be able to crank out that content much faster in smaller installments, but Im not sure it always works out that way in reality.

Perhaps it's just psychological.

In either event, I say do it like the great job you guys did with GalCiv 2.  If you can get as many meaningful regular updates, and as much or more new content as you did for that game in the significant expansion packs, over the course of that games development lifetime, I say you're golden.  If you think you can do that with mini packs, great, although there's a lot to be said for "If it aint broke".   As long as the new stuff is significant.

How will the spell system work? Will I be able to mix new spells by combining spells I've learnt? Will I be able to make spells perminant if I power them with essence instead of mana.

How will enchanting items work?

Can I use magic to transform human soldiers into other creatures, for example could I use a spell to make my soldiers undead if I had death magic? Could I give my soldiers the ability to heal quickly with life magic?

Well my last question wasn't answered, so I'll try a different question.

What ideas have been used in Elemental as a result of topics and posts within the Elemental Ideas forum?

Questions!

- How discrete will the victory conditions be? (I.e.: will working towards one hamper, help, or have no effect towards achieving another?)

- Will other players be able to know how close their opponents (AI or otherwise) are to achieving a victory?

- How exponential are events or decisions made in the very early game? (E.g.: Will finding or not finding an excellent resource during the very early game still have an impact 50 turns later?) What counters will there be for possible exploits?

- What paper/scissors/rock elements will be included so as to reward "scouting" by making valid counter-strategy choices accessible? E.g., there should be a way to overcome large "fireball" forces at slightly less cost than producing those fireball forces had costed.

- What paper/scissors/rock elements are included otherwise? So far, damage doesnt seem differentiated: an arrow or a mace all hurt the same way. Are some types of defense or offense better vs. other types of things, so as to avoid the Mine-Is-Merely-Bigger-Hence-I-Win doledrums?

- Will I be restricted to making a bunch of towns that all look and feel alike (e.g. they all have a single "factory", a "barracks", an "alchemy shop" or whatever), or can I have shiny diversity?

- I think I can list one element of "Fun" which I can get you to agree to. More complicated is not necessarily more fun; but the more valid, discrete and varying true choices (by that I mean that no-brainers are minimized) which exist in a game setting, the more fun. Make us think; make us choose between different true options, each of which might help, albeit in a different way. What examples of this element of "fun" can you think of?

Good luck with the Alpha!

I hope very few. Devs that listen to thier fans are great, devs who let thier fans build a game for them are... thats a terrible thought.

I don't know if this has been talked about at all but what about fortifications? Can we build any, thus giving our troops a tactical advantage in battles? Or might it be like Fire Emblem, where depending on what type of square your unit is on you get a bonus?

If you're interested in older threads, I kinda wish both Of Fortresses and Enclaves and Fortifications? had gone on longer and gotten some dev participation.

Well, the tactical-ballte screenshot displays a piece of text saying "Swamp, -[I forget]%", so at least in TC the terrein is important.....

Hello again, and thank you for taking the time to listen to all of us. Here are some more questions:

- Biggest dissapointment in CivIV building was that after a time, all cities seemed similar: you can only build one temple, one forge, one X, etc. per city. Will Elemental let us have lots of pubs in one town, but only one forge, and 10 forges in another town, but perhaps only one pub?
- Biggest dissapointment in GC2 building was that each planet only had a limited building capacity -- once "used up", that planet was "done", thus reducing my amount of fun decisions to make regarding that planet. Will that be different in Elemental?
- Biggest construction dissapointment in unit construction in GC2: After a while, I found myself only hitting return to build warships and constructors. Since I like "peaceful" or "builder" or "diplo" wins, I found my lack of strategic choices deadening after a while: I would merely hit return and produce more constructors. The number of fun choices open to me which made a difference to the game decreased as the game progressed. Will Elemental have a late-game resource-sink for which to spend things and will Elemental require me to make real decisions in the late game?
- No strategy game can be fun if one particular strategic choice is always better than another: that's a "no-brainer", then that choice by definition is not a real choice, since there is nothing to evaluate. Will Elemental have many options open late game? Will hordes of whatever-wielders still have a real chance of overcoming a few select elite units?
- How discrete will the different victory conditions be? (Consider Star Chamber for a good example of three totally distinct victory conditions, each of which really requires nothing from the other two.)

- The "There Are No Knights"-concept is enthralling: you don't research "knights", you research techs which unlock unit-piece-building-elements. Yet there appears to be a small amount of danger involved here: In order to accomodate almost anything we can think of, the combat system (about which we have read little so far) must be fairly simply: Attack, Defense, HP. Won't that make everything "the same" -- e.g., will firing an arrow from a distance utilize the same "combat rules" than whacking something with a stick might? How will boni or mali for traditional RPG things like "strength" or "dexterity" or "endurance" play a role? How will specific types of attacks be implemented, so that counters to specific types of attacks can be implemented?

- In regards to the above: How exactly will the combat system work? Will my envisioned "Poison Fireball" need to be translated into mere Attack, Defense and HP rules? Will there be things like piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning and their respective counters?

Thank you very much

edit: I know the cloth map is a bit more involved that X's and O's, but get the idea

But that's pure contradiction with the warnings from Frogboy about Stardock's betas not being fun!

Some more, if I may?

- What details of the combat system will you implement to insure that the various units we can create will not differ in a primarily cosmetic fashion? (I.e.: Att 5, Def 4, HP 6 "Imperial Footman" vs. Att 5 Def 4 HP 6 "Dark Legion Crossbowman")

- Will channellers / heroes have slots for rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and belts for magical goodies?

- Will individual units we can make have slots for rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and belts for magical goodies?

EDIT: one more:

- What bothered me about the Civilizations series was the fact that cities grew if and only if they reaped enough food locally and they shrank if there was a local food shortage -- despite the fact that, at least sometime shortly after the early game was over, international trade of goods is common and (later) your units are able to teleport around the globe via flight. Elemental has trade and caravans. Will these caravans be able to carry food and/or food surpluses to other towns to help their growth?

Thank you!

All in all it is save to say that religion dictated the flow of the game to quite an extend. This made the careful planning of religion, how to attract one, and which one you should adopt into an imortant part of pretty much every game and it provided me with countless challenges and heqadaches. If you think that religion is just a minor thing in Civ IV is to say that you never really played the game on a high level like immortal or deity difficulty.

Brad has hinted a number of times that he wants magic to be truly world-shaking in a literal sense of the word -- higher level spells should be so powerful as to lay waste to entire landmasses. But what measures are being taken to avoid no-brainers here? 1 very powerful spell might be 100 times more potent than a low-level spell -- but the player should be able to weigh her options and have a difficult time choosing which is wiser: casting a single, vastly powerful and truly cool-looking spell once or casting an unspectacular spell 100 times. If the decision is much too easy, then an important balance element of the game could become broken, since competetive players will always choose the more effective path, and hence there is no real strategic choice. In other words: What steps are being taken to ensure that creating, say, 10 weak channellers instead of 1 powerful channeller is a viable option? How good are the low-level items / spells?

Often less means more. Simplified rules does not mean that there cannot be complex variety, vastly different styles, and hordes of choices to make as to the most efficient means of obtaining goals. Games like chess and systems such as  kickboxing or vale tudo are good examples of this I think.

What I do not understand in BoogieBac's message is the emphasis on "ONLY". Are you implying that a good game design should have as a goal ONE "right" choice people should make (e.g. building huge massive cities as opposed to many smaller ones) instead of many valid ones?