Depending on what it's 10% of, it is. 10% gold income is a really big advantage, that's 10% more money to support a larger army. Having a larger army the start of every encounter because of bonus gold the computer doesn't get is a pretty huge advantage, really. It's an advantage over myself from the last game where I didn't have it.

People do achievements because they want to, not because they're needed. What you're describing is more like the deeds system from Lord of the Rings Online, and that quickly turned into nothing more then a massive grind fest in order to get them all because in the harder areas of the game, those bonuses matter.

This will be the same thing if it does something meaningful. Want to jack up the game to really hard difficulties? You better go grind out all your achievement bonuses first. It becomes a time sink and not some fun extra optional challenge.

The system makes no sense in a sandbox. The whole point of a sandbox game is that starting it is hitting the global reset button from the last game. Carrying bonuses in doesn't do that at all.

I had no idea of Civs "achievements". When I say and read achievements I mean those you earn in games that gives you points and an avatar in an online profile like "Shen Long is in another castle" in Street Fighter II HD Remix.

Having achievements to earn is something that will make me buy a game. Bought Universe at War because I wanted achievements.

I don't care about achievements I just want a damn AI worth playing against.

This doesn't make sense. There's no reason not to. Just because it's never been done before doesn't mean it's "no place" for it. I'd love to play sandbox with achievement bonuses.

Not for me. A game is a game, there's no reason to have a "global reset". Having rewards for playing the game longer promotes playing the game longer, but every game being the exact same due to a "global reset" does not. With this way of thinking, carrying bonuses in absolutely makes sense in a sandbox.

Take Sins. I played the hell out of it, always Huge Random 9 AI FFA. Eventually.. it was all the same. Sure the maps were different, but there was nothing new to see. If I could enhance it by earning some bonuses from achievements, it would've lasted a lot longer.

Hopefully there will be an "acheivment" option we can disable. I too don't care much for giving the first people to build something a bonus. I want a nice and even gameplay. Not some crazed race.

Don't worry, there's not actually going to be any bonuses for achievements in Elemental

But you didn't change anything. The bonuses mean it's still the same game, only easier. That's not going to make it last longer. Deeds in LotRO are a good example again. They don't make the game last longer, they throw up a grind wall between the player and being maximized for doing the hard content.

This is no different. You're going to want bonuses to play on really hard difficulty, and so you're going to have to go do potentially dumb and annoying things to earn achievements to get them.

I have never played a game for achievments... In fact, I never even look them or or know ahead of time what they are... If I get one, fine... big deal... If I dont get one, that's fine too because since I didn;t even know about it to begin with, I'm not missing anything.  Achievements have never ever ever prompted me to play a game a second time, or play it a different way...  To me, achievements are a waste.

Achievements that are a pat on the back for wasting your time collecting virtual bottle caps don't enhance anything, they just disguise shallow game mechanics.  Moving on to another game will be much more satisfying.  Or you can use your IMAGINATION to set challenges for yourself in the game, rather than relying on the devs spoon feeding them to you.

Why do they need to persist over multiple games? In fact, why make them persist over multiple characters? It could add a nice touch to the dynasty system to make achievements earned by the current sovereign, and lost on that sovereign's death. In a similar way to the traits characters can pick up in the recent Total War games or Crusader Kings; if you go adventuring with your sovereign they could earn achievements from that; maybe they kill enough wolves that they get a minor version of the Dungeon Master trait, or they kill a famous dragon which earns them kudos from the other factions. Then they die and your next sovereign spends most of the game administering a city, so they pick up traits to help there.

As a further bonus they could be used as titles on the dynasty screen to show you just what your family is becoming known as. Grimnir the Accountant, son of Eric the Dragonslayer ...

You could do that, but it's not really an "achievement" in the way the word is normally used for games. Achievements are persistent.

What you're talking about could be a trait, or a legacy, or some such thing. An achievement reward like Annatar is talking about would be something like killing a dragon one game, and in every game after that starting with a +5 dragonslaying spear because of it.

Alpha Protocol's achievements aren't persistent

 It all depends on how you get them. If you have to do something to earn the trait then it's an achievement, if I need to loot six dungeons to get the dungeon master trait then you can still call it an achievement.

You rotter. The last thing I need is another trail of WTF to putter through at FoolTube.

Squirrels are Accursed Cute Rats, beasts that ruin most of the fruit that grows in my yard by taking a single bite and moving on, usually before the poor bit of reproductive output is even close to ripe. But that Foamy person is onto something with that bit about online achievements being part of an evil plot to keep folks with no real-world achievements snug in our couches and computing chairs.

Re the Library of Alexandria type improvements, I like how world-unique ones can really change a game depending on who builds it first. But I don't like the unit-oriented ones like the Hyperion Shipyards in GC2 because I like long games on large maps and it is too much bother to pay attention to little clumps of slightly-enhanced units.

In Elemental, things like the War College might end up being fun if A) The UI will tell us what the frak is so special about those Royal Knights, and The apparent shift back towards city sprawl gets killed during the push to RTM.

if you want bonuses, mod it into your faction or sovereign.