Elemental Forums
For developing Elemental as far as possible:
Sword of Aragon, Dominions, and MoM (Obviously).
A well done mesh of these three would be so supremely classic...gah.
I just have to say I loved Genghis Khan although I think I actually played Ghengis Khan II on SNES. The marriage and appointment thing would be great, but hoping for more for the female children this time around.
For the originality debate:
Yes, we want something original, but original does NOT mean "design the game as if the entire history of video game design never happened". A great novel can be original and groundbreaking while at the same time beind informed by the work of all of the other great authors that came beforehand. Art forms progress over time not because they're made in isolation, but because artists are constantly inspired by, or repulsed by, or are reacting in some way to what other artists throughout history have done (and yes, I pretentiously consider game design to be an art form. Sue me :-P).
There's certainly a balance to be struck, as you certainly don't want a derivative work, but good points of other games are worth pointing out. Even without copying a game mechanic, its possible to gain a good deal of insight on *why* that mechanic worked (or didn't work), and use that insight to inform your own design decisions.
Elemental's existing design was certainly not done in a vacuum. What would the concept for Elemental look like without Master of Magic or Civilization? There's a decent chance that without the inspiration of Master of Magic that Elemental wouldn't even exist. That said, even with as much of a debt as the concept already owes to MoM, its already clear that Elemental is very much its own game. Being inspired by Master of Magic has not turned Elemental into a MoM clone any more than drawing inspiration from Alpha Centauri, or Command and Conquer, or Doom would turn it into clones of those games.
Personally i would be thrilled if they let themselves be inspired by Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri. That game had the best story telling in any 4x game, and flavor was put in every nook and cranny.
Every faction had it's own distinct philosophy and was presented as a series of highly memorable quotes which accompanied tech-advancements, secret projects and ordinary buildings.
And "the book of the planet", a series of short interludes in the form of a excerpt of your leaders life, which are triggered by a specific sequence of events. (the first mind worm attack for example)
There was even a moment where the book of the planet influenced the game. The first time you breed your own mind worm, you get a bit about how you get one of your beloved pupils to lead the mind worm squad. And when that squad is destroyed you get a sad bit about how you lost your pupil. After which, iirc, one of your bases get renamed in honor of said pupil. (or the first new base you found gets named afther him/her)
Like i said, best storytelling in a 4X game ever, dispite having random maps.
The only thing I really remember from Alpha Cent, is that DIPLOMACY actually WORKED. It was crazy, the AI would be SCARED of me when I ruled 1/2 the map...good times.
Agree, I consider Alpha Centauri one of the best games ever made. I dig it out and play it at least once a year. The quotes were nice also, I remember one of them was someone from the University denying that research banned by the council was taking place. It really showed the University's pursuit of research above all else.
Another thing about Alpha Centauri I liked was how changing the height of terrain was handled. You could drop land into the sea to make you own islands or raise it to change the local climate. The coolest part was the Planet Busters, anyone who has used one knows exactly what I am talking about.
Fedor Petrov
Vice Provost for University Affairs
Yeah, i recognized the quote referenced, and probably could recite about half by heart. And it's worth noting that this particular quote accompanies the Retroviral Engineering tech.
Well, apart from the story telling, i really liked the custom unit designer (Clean Singularity Deathsperes anyone?), but since that's already planned for the game there's no need for me to whine about it. 
Age of Wonders 2 had some of the best tactical battles of the genre. Large battlefields with up to three squads of eight units on each side, each faction playing differently, and city walls breachable from every direction (instead of the ubiquitous single-gate battlefield.)
Combined with a good 4X strategy layer, this would be nirvana.
I don't like to name a top much of anything, but SMAC is definitely outstanding when it comes to a story layer for a TBS civ-mode game. And I think that's because of the random maps, not despite them. Immersive story is relatively easy if you stick to canned maps. Story bits that play well against a rondom map is a much neater trick.
I too think Alpha Centauri is one of the best 4X games ever made.
The gameplay was excellent, but what really set it apart (to me) was the really clear sense of identity that each of the factions had. The quotes and flavor text did an incredible job of helping you to see the opposing factions as having really unique identities - in a way that something like Civ IV, for all of its wonderful gameplay, doesn't quite do. Civ IV doesn't do an awful job, but I feel like I "know" Chairman Yang far better than I ever will know Mansa Musa or Shaka. Having each technology explained from the point of view of one of the factions was brilliant in this respect. As much as I believe that gameplay is the most important part of a game, Alpha Centauri is the evidence of exactly how much great writing, art, and voice-acting can enhance a game experience. It didn't hurt that it also had great gameplay which actually was significantly affected by factional strengths and weaknesses.
At one point, iTunes accidentally went through my Alpha Centauri folder and grabbed all of its sound files as music - I'd put my music on random and have music interspersed with quoted from Zhakarov and Morgan - it was actually really cool (especially when it was just a three second "Resource Depleted" and then right into the next song)
Oh SMAC, how much I played that before.. newer found the expansionpack in the stores tough.. 
Very true...let's hope that Elemental's tactical battles will be at least as fun! 
Alpha Centauri is just Mom meets Civ. Custom Units (MoM) and everything else Civ. But the FLAVOR of the game--- it's look, the Faction Leaders doing most of the voice overs for the techs and the wonders --- that created a serious atmosphere for the game.
What I want from Elemental? A lot of inspiration from Mom. All the rest of those games can go jump into a lake, as MoM had everything but the "Castles" storyline.
I am confident that StarDock will make a great game. They've done really well with their Gal Civ game line. I have no worries, and the utmost confidence, that this will be a fun game.
Oh, and ShadowDragoon--- the expansion was really a payed patch. It does fix a lot of the bugs in the game. But the new factions suck, whether human or alien. And including the aliens really knocked the game down. Playing them is like going back to the released version of SMAC, strategy wise. You just nerve gas everything out of existance, without penalty, because the Aliens suffer no negative effects from doing so. But--- I think you can buy the full SMAC and SMAX set from Direct2Drive and other online distributors, if you still want it. I still play SMAX--- for the bug fixes, but I usually use the original factions, because they are just so much better then any of the newer ones (which all require "advanced" play by humans to have a chance at being successful).
After doing some research, I figured out what I really liked about Lords of Magic:
- The turn indicator. Knowing it was Death's turn and not knowing if Balkoth was going to fly over and kill you.
- Heroes vs. Army units, where one army unit indicated four actual units.
- The Battle Results screen, showing who was killed and what was won.
- The land really having different feels. Life's land was all green and happy, Fire's land was scortched, etc.
- Resource management. There were only a few different kinds of resources to manage, but you were constantly juggling between them.
- Artifacts. It was really cool to get an artifact from a cave, give it to your Sword Champion, only to have him slayed and killed by a Chaos Champion, and knowing that not only is that Chaos guy a badass, he now has your sword of life.
- Picking your Lord. It was a cool screen, to see all of the possibilities there, and picking the coolest one.
MoM
Nobunaga's Ambition (Remember that? One of, if not, the First Koie game on the 8 bit Nes)
Medieval/Shogun Total War
Lords of Magic (loved that game back in the day)
Yes I know that's four games.
It is often said that "Imitation is the Highest form of Flattery". If that is the case then these games have been flattered more times then I care to count. Someone above mentioned Spore. Spore was a great game though it has it's problems. It has Amazingly HUGE potential. I think that character creator should come standard with every game. The bad thing was once you got into Tribe and City level management it's like they dumbed it down to "Juniors First Strategy Game" levels so a 10 year old would like it. If it would of had the complexity and depth a game of it's caliber should have had we'd probably all be playing it right now.
Master of Magic
Master of Orion 2
X-com: Ufo Defense
Are three games I played back in the day, that have never been remade good, master of orion 3 was horrible, and all the new X-com like games were mediocre, but I heard 2K games picked up the rights to X-com so maybe we will see a decent sequel,
I'm a HUGE X-Com fan. It's the classic standard for squad based tactics in my book. I wish someone would do a true re-invent of that game. Can you imagine X-Com put with a truly 3D engine? That would rock.
If it captured the original feeling of X-com it would be sweet, most the inspired ones did an alright job but it didn't have the same feel as the originals.
I like to see a remake of syndicate as well, but since EA owns it. I hope I don't 
haha
That was hardcore strategy. I had the original and the 2nd one for SNES, still do. They had marriages in that game but it was very limited. I am thinking there was an interesting flavor to it though. <<<<<---- was a huge KOIE fan.
Yeah KOEI games are really cool. Genghis Khan, Romance of the 3 Kingdoms serie etc.
Nobunaga's Ambition was one of the hardest strategy games ever made. I don't know how they did it way back then, but the AI was incredible. The funny thing is it being a Nes game. Those disks had like almost no memory space what so ever. Even today with our massive system specs and all the room to code you could ever want most developers can't make a game that has as good a AI as a old school game like Nobunaga's Ambition or Romance of the Three Kingdoms 1 & 2.
Excellent games my friend.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
Stardock Forums