Looks like the item store is confirmed

Hadn't it be confirmed like weeks ago by BoogieBac?

That said, nice pic.

I know, but I don't like getting excited until I see screenshots. You never know when a feature could get "axed."

However this is pretty rocking. : )

Yorkshire shop? I like it already. Better sell attack whippets and enchanted pork pies, tho.

The wait whatnow?

Enchanted Pork Pies!? Yeah we have those... 10,000 G...

What!? You spent all your money on a palace!?

GTFO!

Seriously though, Shops were pretty much a must for that special RPG flavor.

Spotted dick and custard, maybe?

Well, that's good, but.. I still see a problem with having hundreds of metal stockpiled, the technology necessary to make all this awesome plate armor and longswords and such, able to train a platoon infantry wearing about 60 pounds of iron each - and yet my sovereign's running around in the leather he started with, because there's no way to outfit him with the same equipment I can give to new units. Having new armor available for gold in a shop is better than not having it at all, but really, can't there be a way to equip my sovereign directly from my own forges?

Ignore me if this is already in the works and, like many features, it's just not included in the current beta - but if it's not already planned to happen at some point, it ought to be. A shop is another good feature, but not a substitute; I'd hate to be using my city tiles on mines instead of markets, researching the very best steel plate instead of tax collectors, and find that this somehow leads to my sovereign being less well equipped because you can only equip him with gold spent in shops and not with iron and forges.

Come to think of it, the kids make this even more important - sure if it's just your sovereign, you might save up a few hundred gold to equip him. But what if you have half a dozen sons that want to charge into battle but have only daggers and the clothes on their backs? It's conceivable, even likely that you'll have the iron to equip twenty new soldiers but not the gold to buy armor for six sons, and that really doesn't make any sense - if you can make the equipment, you need a way to transfer it to existing units instead of limiting it to newly created ones. It shouldn't be difficult to put this in the shop interface, you just need the option to buy items for materials/metal/gems/whatever resources they normally cost instead of gold, if you have the technology to make those items.

Well I doubt the Sovereign is the one doing the forging... And it makes sense that his blacksmith would have to be paid one way or the other so he can eat, and survive to keep on forging. When you make troops there is a gold cost that could be considered part of the outfitting expenses in other words... Paying the blacksmith. I think if you consider it long enough you'll realize that even with the metal and the forges and the technology its not unreasonable for the Sovereign to have to pay for his armor so long as he himself doesn't craft it... Barring hes not some kind of psychotic tyrant who thinks his people can live on nothing but dirt and dreams.

Check this pic out....HELL YEAH!!!

Well adding armor to a new unit usually can add gold cost also, so the blacksmith would get "paid" something if you have some kind of mechanic like that included.

Honestly though, what looks more badass, that sterile chessboard picture or this:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/images/0/12/

That was one of the first pics of a in-engine battle they ever showed. Honestly I think it might even be just a "mock up". I like the one I mentioned above a little better. Not in terms of "action" as in what's going on in the screen shot. In the new pic it looks like they are getting ready to fight, standing off, looking across the field at the enemy. Builds tension. I like it

Haha I see where you're coming from but to know that that tension will be released by one little blob of 5 troops jogging over to poke one of the other little blobs instead of all one hundred of those guys charging at each other at once is a bit disappointing. I mean, look at how epic that battle against the dragon looks  

Nice one, Raven X. slipped in as the new desktop wallpaper. 

Will be interesting to see how tactical battles play out..

They look right next to each other though, and just standing there drooling...  And the dragon is striking a pose or something, he should be in the air burning and eating people.  I guess I just don't like the idea of things just sitting there during battles, they should be fighting, flanking, charging, retreating, and just doing something.

Another thing I don't like about turn-based battles is how much abstraction has to go on, a soldier shouldn't die because his hp hit 0, he should die because of bloodloss, because his head got lopped off, or because he just got burnt to a crisp.

The first thing I shall mod in shall be RTS combat, and, if possible, individual hp for each body part, and maybe even bloodcount etc.  Then I'll mod in a local resource system.  Needless to say I like my games extremely complex.

True. I can't say I disagree. I don't want to pop open the debate of "real time vs turn based" in this thread though. Especially since I'm probably in the minority thinking that both could be fun.

Indeed. It's my new Desktop as well . I've always said...Great Minds...think alike think like Mine

Have to say I agree there too, but, it's not exactly an "action" shot and we have to remember we're looking at a still picture.

I'm with you in the "Complexity Camp" as well too. I've been arguing that since I got here over a year ago. Probably not somewhere we want to take this thread right now though