Let me start by applauding Stardock for the game. I can only imagine how difficult it is to create a complex game like Elemental without much money (no big publisher) and time (Civ 5 imminent) in the background. Now I don't want you to think that I don't like the game: It offers many features that other games in the genre don't and that I really like (RPG focus, organic city development, varying technology trees), but there are two things that don't sit well with me:
As much as I prefer the roleplaying, researching and city building aspect of Elemental over Master of Magic, I have to admit that the magic system in Elemental is rather bland, in my opinion, and cannot convince me right now. The amount of spells is secondary, but I don't "feel" the differences between the magical schools at all. Especially the elemental books are quite interchangeable, which is rather ironic given the title. I also find the books to be too easily attainable.
In Master of Magic choosing a school or a combination of schools altered the focus of your spells, your playstyle and therefore your gaming experience more prominently. Elemental treats magic more like an accessory, whereas the decision for a magical school in Master of Magic had a certain weight to it.
Life didn't offer decent creatures to summon, but helped to sustain and improve your regular army, Death could leach off of the opponents in a multitude of ways, but your creatures couldn't heal effectively, Chaos had the most destructive combat spells, but the other schools had specific spells to resist their magic, Sorcery was pure anti-magic and you could block your opponent's magical abilities, but it was also the most expensive mana drain, Nature was good for managing the terrain and your creatures, but it didn't offer valuable combat spells. In addition, Master of Magic managed to convey the idea that the schools are in direct competition. They featured spells to specifically counter or influence other schools of magic (Life vs. Death and Chaos etc.) In comparison the spells in Elemental are too similar in their effect.
I think this aspect ties in a little bit with my second issue. Units don't have enough abilities/characteristics that make them special. The engaging thing about Master of Magic was that most units had a variety of abilities that designated not only their use in combat, their effectiveness against certain types of monsters/units, but also changed the abilities of entire armies on the map (Flying, Swimming, Invisibility...). There were creatures that had 2 pages full of special abilities and you had to actually scroll to the next page to see them all. And even the most simple unit could have one crucial ability that was the tie breaker in combat (phantoms and their illusive attacks). Correct me if I am wrong, but I haven't seen one unit that is resistent, susceptible or immune to a certain type of magic. It is very unsatisfactory that the success of a spell is reduced by the physical armor of the target. Units need a different attribute that determines the chance of blocking a spell, like Resistance in Master of Magic. Alternativley you can do that even easier than to create a completely new attribute: Use Intelligence as the factor for both the attacker and the defender to determine the chance of success. You could easily explain it in the way that "dumb" creatures are more prone to be harmed/influenced by spells because they are unaware of the pattern magic and "sophisticated" units know the tricks and are therefore more likely to resist them.
All of that is missing in Elemental and I think that the game would profit a lot by considering these concepts. Again, even in its initial stage Elemental is a very good and special game, but I just wanted to let you know how I think the game could be improved upon. Thank You.
