Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2359

Beta 2-B Preview`

In Beta 2 and Beta 2-A, we disabled the Adventure, Diplomacy, and Magic technology trees and enabled Civilization and Warfare.

In Beta 2-B, we are disabling Civilization and Warfare and enabling Adventure and magic.

But wait! How will wars be conducted? It is just going to be a mob of NPC recruits? How do we get food? How do we design better units? How do we better equip our sovereign and our champions?

The answer: Magic and Adventuring. Summon units. Get rare items. Enchant the land. Enchant your cities. Go on better quests to get much better stuff. Get access to far more powerful heroes.

I don’t even have a city and I am already summoning units such as this Imp.

Update:

Another instance:

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Dying to try this now

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Well, this is certainly going to turn things upside down!

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Color me excited!

...

Because, y'know, Excited is a color now... ... ...moving on!

I've been looking forward to trying out the magic and adventuring and seeing how they stand on their own against the other research tiers, so this is great news!

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Denryu

Join Date 07/2006

+93

Awesome! Magic FINALLY!!!!!!!

Thankyou

/notworthy

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The only question:

When?

I have 2 finals Friday, so if it comes out Thursday, my scores will be affected.

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Does this mean for one the betas we are only having diplomacy?

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You have earned my gratitude a thousand times over.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2359

The problem with diplomacy is that it really needs AI behind it to be meaningful, so it'll probably show up during the beta 3 series.

The AI in Elemental is so much better to do than in GalCiv.

For instance, I have APIs like pPlayer->GetAreaThreat(x,y,radius) which tells me the combat rating of any threatening units in that area. It's wonderful. I had nothing like that in GalCiv.

So I can then write things like pCity->CallForReinforcements(distanceaway).

So there's a lot more opportunity to write more sophisticated AI because the map in Elemental is done with vectors whereas in GalCiv we had some sort of array structure.

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Sareln

Join Date 05/2007

+19

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 8

The problem with diplomacy is that it really needs AI behind it to be meaningful, so it'll probably show up during the beta 3 series.

The AI in Elemental is so much better to do than in GalCiv.

For instance, I have APIs like pPlayer->GetAreaThreat(x,y,radius) which tells me the combat rating of any threatening units in that area. It's wonderful. I had nothing like that in GalCiv.

So I can then write things like pCity->CallForReinforcements(distanceaway).

So there's a lot more opportunity to write more sophisticated AI because the map in Elemental is done with vectors whereas in GalCiv we had some sort of array structure.

That's really cool, I could see using hooks like that to write up a mini-advisor add-on to sound alarms:

"Lord/Lady, our scouts have detected enemy troops near [city] and the local governor does not believe he has the forces to hold them, please consider sending reinforcements!"

Beric01, you better start cramming now, because Thursday afternoon launches are standard.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2359

One thing about diplomacy we're doing differently from GalCiv (or at least doing right) is the concept of a resource that is used for getting better deals. GalCiv diplomacy was wayyyyy too fuzzy. But that's for another discussion.

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kyogre12

Join Date 07/2008

+100

Um, does anyone else notice the typo in the title? The apostrophe at the end? "Beta 2-B Preview'"

But aside from that, nice update

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yeah this sounds fun. very fun indeed.

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Hawawaa

Join Date 09/2006

+33

Wow... I didn't see this coming. Cool!

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While I know all the answers are coming with the update, I'm just too curious...

In the Civilization research tier, certain improvements require your City to be of a certain level. Will the Magic research requirements involve City level? If so, will that just be granted to us, since we won't be upgrading housing and such this time around?

(Forgive me if this has been discussed, and please point me in the direction of that thread as I will seem to have missed it)

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 10

Very cool. I'm thrilled my "diplomacy as a resource" found it's way in to the game in some form .

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Very Sweet

So, If I save all the files I have now in a separate location, and then I take all the new files and drop them in the right places, it will work as a whole right? So I'll get all the features of Beta 2, 2-A, and 2-B?

J/K lol

DON'T try that people, you'll just end up having to re-download the Beta again. (Been doing some Mod testing lol)

To Modders: It might be a good idea to back-up the files you're working on though.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2359

Quoting AmericanPianist,

reply 14

While I know all the answers are coming with the update, I'm just too curious...

In the Civilization research tier, certain improvements require your City to be of a certain level. Will the Magic research requirements involve City level? If so, will that just be granted to us, since we won't be upgrading housing and such this time around?

(Forgive me if this has been discussed, and please point me in the direction of that thread as I will seem to have missed it)

How do you know you can't upgrade your houses?

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You enjoy this part don't you Frogboy? Witholding game data is one way to get your kicks I guess. But don't be suprised when I mod frogs into the game as a food source!

+ = +10 Food -2 Prestige.

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kyogre12

Join Date 07/2008

+100

Quoting seanw3,

reply 18

You enjoy this part don't you Frogboy? Witholding game data is one way to get your kicks I guess. But don't be suprised when I mod frogs into the game as a food source!

+ = +10 Food -2 Prestige.

How could you choose to hurt poor, innocent little frogs like that? The resource should be "Stardock CEO's" instead, much more humane (I mean this in the jokeiest way possible, please don't hurt me).

And can we please get that typo fixed, it's driving me nuts.

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Well I for one am really looking forward to this upcoming beta 2B.

Though it'll be interesting not to have the civilization tree to work off of, for improving towns with the civilization tech tree.

But as alluded to us by the Frog, who knows what we'll get as an alternative with Magic. And the adventuring tree.. that's got me kinda psyched.

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Icepick

Join Date 04/2006

Need to upgrade your housing? There's a spell for that.

Need to make better weapons for your troops? There's a spell for that.

Need to summon troops to pound a bone ogre into dust? There's a spell for that.

iShard: There's a spell for that™

(coming soon in 4 different flavors)

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Quoting Icepick,

reply 21

Need to upgrade your housing? There's a spell for that.

Need to make better weapons for your troops? There's a spell for that.

Need to summon troops to pound a bone ogre into dust? There's a spell for that.

iShard: There's a spell for that™

(coming soon in 4 different flavors)

lol!

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hmm this from my point of view the empire building part will be ignored for this part, you sure have your way of doing things differnt. wonder how close the people working on Civ 5 are thinking of "borrowing some features".

Will the beta tests can some achievement or something of sorts when the game comes out? "my eyes bleed red, eyes hurt no fun"

Any News on when beta 3 starts?

as well as when we get random maps?

Now Brad you know people are going to now do the same with mods... you started a trend.

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 17

How do you know you can't upgrade your houses?

I don't! But you did say that the Civilization research tree would be disabled, and that's the only way we've upgraded housing thus far. I guess I'll have to wait and see how it works on Thursday(ish).

...

Maybe it'll just work like magic.

Ha. See what I did there? Cause magic is enab....ok goodnight!

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Frogboy is a worse tease than my girlfriend.

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