Sea Dragons

Dragons are cliche. I vote for something altogether more terrifying, more sinister, and generally more dastardly.

The Giant Horned Sea Beaver!

"The one-eyed, one-horned flying pur..." Oh, sorry about that.

I think that's an interesting idea, and I agree that I want ocean to be more than just empty space. But any sea serpants, etc. would have to be located further out in the deep ocean or something. Otherwise a fledgling navy could be ripped to shreds by some gigantic sea creature. Maybe they couldn't enter costal areas or something like that.

I certainly would want to see the oceans be just as mysterious as the forests and caves.    I'd almost want to go as far as to call for underwater dungeons that can only be accessed with a few "water-breathing" type spells or with aquatic creatures.

At least something for navy-heavy guys and pirates.

But we'll see what the ocean units turn out to be. 

Is elemental even going to have navies or just transports like HoMM? 

The Giant Frogboy?

Every good olde ocean has giant whirlpools, too.  I like the sea monsters, though - they've been missing from most games.  Giant krakens would be nice.  And maybe even an immense floating compass rose with wicked-sharp points, somewhere near the edge of the world...

I for one am partial to serpents, myself. Although it's only a matter of time before somebody comes on here asking for mermaids(/mermen?)... My wierdest monster idea would probably be a patch of giant (maybe 100 meters tall) sea-growing mushrooms that leave spores on passing ships that then grow into more giant mushrooms, and sink the ship.

Seconded.

Slightly off topic, but what is the accepted definition of a Kraken? Some things I've seen say they are basicly giant squid/octapi, others say they are sea serpents. Is there one that is more accepted than the other? I've never been sure.

Kraken are generally depicted as giant squids.  Or at least, some sort of aquatic invertebrate with tentacles.  For reference, you should watch the second "Good Eats" calamari episode.

To my knowledge, kraken originated as squid or octipi.  However other sea monster stories were later told using their name, which is where confusion might exist.

But yes, giant squid have always something feared from the deep, and I think if there are sea monsters, they should be very high on the list for acceptable monsters.

Another one would be the Megaladon.  Ok, so it isn't as fantasy, since they really existed.   But thats what makes them so awesome in my mind.  I'd want to have the super rare Megaladon as another possible sea monster.    Maybe even scale it up a notch by making it pretty fast and crazy strong (able to destroy pretty much all ships in 1 attack), but unable to take as many hits as I'd expect from a dragon or an invertibrate like the kraken.  

I agree...  I would like to see the game provide underwater battles as well as ship vs. ship battles. 

Also in regards to the oceans hopefully the game will have the oceans include the following:

Herbs(sea vegetation),

Structures(underwater caves),

Whirlpools(damaging sea teleports),

Water goodie_huts(see Heroes_3 for examples),  

I would susspect that sea dragons live only in the deepest oceans and come to the surface rarely

serpents then more common.

would be nice to be able to stealthly transport across the sea on a sea dragon.

recruiting a sea dragon gota be tricky business!

I like the idea of the ocean being a really scary place. It's a vast environment completely alien to terrestrial life - far more so than the sky, the only other major environmental 'realm.' I like the atmosphere produced in settings where the ocean is this huge place where all sorts of mysteries, creatures and even places can be hidden away. People are (almost entirely) forced to travel over it on clumsy vessels, rather than through it, with little or no knowledge of what's passing over them. Then there's the risk associated with ocean storms being much more dangerous than terrestrial ones - you have to deal with waves, capsizing, being blown overboard, etc - and in a fantasy settings throw in all sorts of other dangers.

I think that, without actually being more powerful, a 'sea dragon' should be even more formidable than its other counterparts - simply because people are not cut out for combating sea-based threats; it's as alien an environment we can find without actually leaving the world... Magic should be equally capable of dealing with any dragon, though.

So basically, I think sea-creatures should be even rarer than their terrestrial counterparts, but contextually even more powerful. After all, nothing but another sea-creature, a magically-enchanted unit, or magic itself can effectively combat something that's attacking your boat from underwater. And any sufficiently large or powerful creature shouldn't find it difficult to poke a big enough hole in a simple wooden ship's hull to sink it in short order.

I just hope water combat and water as a playable environment (both above and below!) are added in at some point in an expansion; or at least in a mod. 

If we're going to be ferrying men by sea then we should deffintely have the chance to encounter sea monsters and maybe even recruit one or two. Some options would be.

Sea Dragons

Mer-Men/Mer-Maids

Sea Elves

Kraken

Giant Sharks, Giant Crabs, Giants Snakes, Giant Electric Eels, assoted sea life etc etc

Also a handy spell to allow breathing under water so you can explore under water cities/caves/shipwrecks and other structures for lost magics.

pigeonpigeon stole my words; the best part about fantasy worlds is that they contain vast areas that are incredibly dangerous and shrouded in mystery. What better realm to embody that than the ocean? Oceans have always been seen as a hostile and unpredictable places before modern navigation, and I believe that sea monsters figure in about every sea-faring culture out there. I think that it would be great if the seas in Elemental are dangerous places to travel through, yet necessity may sometimes force you to venture beyond the coast. The exception should be sovreigns wielding water magic, who could make the seas even more frightening to his enemies (tidal wave, anybody?), but easily claim dominion over them himself.

It's because you copy and pasted my name (it would happen if you copy and paste anyone's name). That makes your post go all wonky (and I've never figured out how to fix it)...

you fix it by  pressing that "HTML" button at the top of the edit window (next to the paint-brush and the Slimey face) and then remove the tags next to your text.

Wait, I just realized. I thought it was because you copy and pasted my name, but that's clearly not the problem - you spelled my name wrong So unless copy/paste has taken an extreme dislike to my name... Then you did something else that caused the wierdness.

Wasn't the game (won't be?) landbased? Having sea/ocean like some kid of secondary stuff with autobattle? Altough I hope to get some "details" in water based terrain, I don't think it would be so cool in those circumstances. I hope that Stardock has some plans for an Aquatic Expansion... or someone makes the uber mod about it.

Sea Squirrels. With Ninja and Pirate training.

If there's sea-based trade then having sea monsters disrupting it and military naval units (is there confirmation of them?) would be good. Age of Wonders and MoM had them of course so I see little reason why they shouldn't be in.

At the very least something like-

Sea-serpent (Small, medium, large)

Titan Crab

Leviathan

Kracken

Merfolk

If Stardock are feeling particulary adventurous having some of these creatures come ashore with a 'amphibious' trait would be interesting.