Liking it more and more

from Elemental Forums

I've been playing now for a couple of hours without any real issues (I windowed the game and this seemed to help with stability). Anyhow, I'm really starting to enjoy the game. I'm being drawn into the game world which wasn't happening before this version.

So thank you and well done to all the team at Stardock. :)

These are some short notes on what is working and not working for me:

Tactical Battles

I'm enjoying these now more and more but I think there is still some work to do here.

The balance is much better as it is no longer an exercise in 'insta-kill' but generally the battles are a bit too easy if you have magic and missile troops.

I would like to see a short summary as a tool tip if you have a soldier selected and then mouse over a target. Eg Select an archer and hover over a spider saying something like:
Base attack: 6
Distance modifier: -2
Height bonus: 1
Base defense: 2
Terrain defense: 2
Miss %: 50%
Max damage: 3

Maybe also a tool tip for melee as well that covers the likely retaliation strike.

Combat speed is way way over-powered in its application. Much prefer missile and magic troops to only be able to cast or shoot a maximum of twice per combat round. Melee is fine because of the retaliation strike.

Retreating is too easy. There should be an attribute (Dexterity difference between retreating unit and highest dexterity on opposing side) that needs to be tested before the unit can retreat. Attempt retreat and fail test is a wasted turn.

Path Finding

Seems as though the units only either know that they can enter a location or not. Often have units duck into forests when it would have been much quicker to skirt around the edge.

Magic

I'm not going to go into this much because I anticipate this will be quite different in the final version. I don't feel as strongly as others have about this aspect but I do like the balance between the power of spells in combat better in this version.

All I ask is please tie this more solidly in with the shards. The shards should be the strategic focus of the game and the spells should be the pay-off for controlling shards.

Tech Tree

Getting better. Still not there yet through. The effects are too over whelming and the tree too short. I'm guessing this will be much different in the final version anyway.

Perhaps a slider could be used with research where you can allocate some research points to research and other research points to development where you pick a bonus such as income boost, mining boost, farming boost etc.

I'd also prefer to see a cadre of base weaponry that can be accessed from the start such as short-bows. Research would open long-bows and they would have a bit more power. This would help balance things a lot.

AI

Haven't seen much of the 'I' yet in the games I've played. They are tending to spam a couple of cities then sit back and do nothing. A bit too easy to roll over at this stage.

Sound

I would really like a lot more ambient sound to help make the game world come more alive. Zoom into a city and hear the hum of the people, scroll to the mine and hear the hammering. Move to a forest and hear birds. Swamps and you hear frogs etc.

elemental
1,906 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top



Combat speed is way way over-powered in its application. Much prefer missile and magic troops to only be able to cast or shoot a maximum of twice per combat round. Melee is fine because of the retaliation strike.

Retreating is too easy. There should be an attribute (Dexterity difference between retreating unit and highest dexterity on opposing side) that needs to be tested before the unit can retreat. Attempt retreat and fail test is a wasted turn.

Missile troops feel too good in any case. I don't know about the mechanics, but they pretty much seem like retaliation-free damage from any range.

Agreed on retreating.. I don't know about tying it to dexterity, but at least that would make that stat a bit more interesting.




Magic

I'm not going to go into this much because I anticipate this will be quite different in the final version. I don't feel as strongly as others have about this aspect but I do like the balance between the power of spells in combat better in this version.

All I ask is please tie this more solidly in with the shards. The shards should be the strategic focus of the game and the spells should be the pay-off for controlling shards.


I'd love to see system similar to Dominions 3's here. That is, most tactical map spells (except the more powerful ones) can be cast for 'free', but strategic map spells could cost shards. Like, small-scale spells don't cost shards, raising a mountain and the likes does.

That being said.. I don't really have idea what shards actually do. Haven't gotten that far, I always just start new game at some point.

Need more epicness for spells too. Global effects and the like.. again Dominions 3 has a spell that wraps the world in eternal darkness. Stuff on similar scale would be cool. Maybe better example would be Age of Wonders, different spell schools have spells that transform the caster's domain. Water-domain starts slowly drowning the land (eventually need ships to move between places/swim etc), Air creates snow, freezing rivers and making farms produce less.

I want to create my own Mordor X(

 

One thing that would be also cool is spells that alter the caster.. both look-wise and gameplay-wise. Spells of flight, growing to gigantic proportions etc.

 

I dunno.. I just want more than coloured balls of hurt.

 


I'd also prefer to see a cadre of base weaponry that can be accessed from the start such as short-bows. Research would open long-bows and they would have a bit more power. This would help balance things a lot.


Atm tech-trees tend to be pretty linear as is, I'd like more choices. One is a nation that simply doesn't have ranged weapons. Slings/javelins might be ok. Slings with really limited range

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

By tying retreating with dexterity it will hopefully lead to assassin type units that specialise in attacking, a quick kill, then retreating.

Quoting Keemossi, reply 1


I'd love to see system similar to Dominions 3's here. That is, most tactical map spells (except the more powerful ones) can be cast for 'free', but strategic map spells could cost shards. Like, small-scale spells don't cost shards, raising a mountain and the likes does.

That being said.. I don't really have idea what shards actually do. Haven't gotten that far, I always just start new game at some point.

Need more epicness for spells too. Global effects and the like.. again Dominions 3 has a spell that wraps the world in eternal darkness. Stuff on similar scale would be cool. Maybe better example would be Age of Wonders, different spell schools have spells that transform the caster's domain. Water-domain starts slowly drowning the land (eventually need ships to move between places/swim etc), Air creates snow, freezing rivers and making farms produce less.
End of Keemossi's quote

Agree with you that Dominions handled its magic system extremely well (although a little complicated at first). And AoW for me has been the fantasy strategy game benchmark. I'm hoping Elemental can knock AoW off it's throne (at least in my mind).

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