(customization) Let us create our own factions from scratch

All the way down to the sovereigns underwear. Um... shirt, at least.

from Elemental Forums

I love Elemental, and I love creating stuff. I had a lot of fun creating ships in GalCiv 2, but spaceships aren't really my thing. They are too... distant, in a way. I mean, if you blow up a spaceship and kill dozens, does it matter? You get a fancy explosion, but that's it. If you kill someone on the battlefield in Elemental, you get up close and personal and see the enemy fall in front of you. It's a lot more fun- (I'm not a sadistic psycho! Ask my shrink!) ;P Naturally, I thought Elemental could be the best part from GalCiv 2 in a fantasy game, and I was almost right. But... where is the customization?

Don't get me wrong, I like the customization we have. It's not bad, it's just... dull. Creating my very own sovereign is fun, but after fifteen, twenty minutes, I have several. An hour into the game, and I have an army of sovereigns. Why should I care about my first one? And creating a faction is fun, except... I don't create anything. I just choose my stats and pick some clothes. That's about it. Even the unit designer is just like that. Pick a weapon, pick clothes, and off you go.

So here's an idea. Let us create everything. Let us import pictures and use them for our clothes. Let us design our houses and castles. We can already design buildings and stuff in the editor, but unless I'm mistaken, they are only for the wilderness. Why not let us design city houses? Let us design our flag. Heck, let us record our own voice sets, perhaps? If we can get horses, why not give us horse armor as well? And once we do, why not let us paint it ourselves? The models will be the same for everyone, but the paint will be different. Imagine a huge map with 6 players, all having a huge army they built themselves. That's why Warhammer got so popular. It's not just big armies. It's your own big army.

10,561 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Actually those tiles can also be used for city improvements and if you have gimp or paint.net with the right plugins you can also create your own textures.

The thing is you can do pretty much everything you describe if your willing to edit the XML files and can use one of the good free art programs out there.

 

P.S. If you look under Workshop in the menu there is a Faction editor already.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Ah, I see. And if you are willing to mod the game, you can have flying viking ships too? ;) What I mean is even if you can do some stuff like that, it should be a lot easier to do. In GalCiv2, you simply clicked Design Ship and got everything right there. Why then does it have to be so darn complicated to do even less in Elemental?

Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

There is a game like this. It's called Spore, and it sucks. Seriously though, I play a strategy game in order to use strategy, not to play dress-up or architect. I choose the default view for my units pretty much every time. That kind of feature would be nice, but it's like wanting dessert when you haven't eaten your meal. Lets get the meal finished first. (i.e. get a good, solid strategy game working before we add extras.)

 And, to my knowledge, Warhammer is popular because it is a good game with solid rules that work - not because it lets you customize your units. Gameplay is (and always should be) the primary concern.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I am an architect and I would prefer leave house and garden design in the office when I go home. This is a strategy game, customisation is a great thing as long as it is affecting useful purposes. Look at Master of Orion 2 rase custiomisation, just brilliant. Until the last turns you felt the differences between you and you enemies. It was great tool to make people think, use your strenghts and hit enemy weaknesses. Gal Civ had decent rase customisation but with time all the differences between rases were dissapering. In Elemental rase customisation is almost non existant.

What is nice about Elements is you can customise your armies. It is a shame though that all rases look like humans but some with surious deseases. They tried to make 3D graphics so hard and lost the focus on lore:/ Who cares about 3D when you see such poor ideas about alternative life forms. It does not kick my imagination at all. Just compare to MoO2!

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Dust-n-Bones, reply 4
I am an architect and I would prefer leave house and garden design in the office when I go home. This is a strategy game, customisation is a great thing as long as it is affecting useful purposes. Look at Master of Orion 2 rase custiomisation, just brilliant. Until the last turns you felt the differences between you and you enemies. It was great tool to make people think, use your strenghts and hit enemy weaknesses. Gal Civ had decent rase customisation but with time all the differences between rases were dissapering. In Elemental rase customisation is almost non existant.

What is nice about Elements is you can customise your armies. It is a shame though that all rases look like humans but some with surious deseases. They tried to make 3D graphics so hard and lost the focus on lore:/ Who cares about 3D when you see such poor ideas about alternative life forms. It does not kick my imagination at all. Just compare to MoO2!
End of Dust-n-Bones's quote

Alternative life forms in a Fantasy game??? MOO2 is great but it's SciFi.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

All the things in the OP are possible, they just require modding at the moment or some time and effort in the XML files. This isn't to say that it couldn't have a more friendly UI for it. Of course, there's a lot more factors than just this but I'm trying not to be a buzz kill today.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

This game isn't MOOII or Gal Civ 2. I imagine it'd be more difficult then we can imagine to properly set up a UI and a system to properly make all the things you're talking about. Why would an Elemental texture editor be any better then Adobe or GIMP? You can also get more into the details if you modify the XML code itself.

It won't be easy (either way) but it's certainly possible.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

It'd be great if the existing civs had actual working traits, like "Civilized" and "Influential."

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Alternative life forms in a Fantasy game??? MOO2 is great but it's SciFi
End of quote

What's wrong with that? It's a fantasy game, not a historical one. I realize that in order to use the unit editor you need a humanoid, but look at what Oblivion did with humanoid races - several different types of humans, elves, and orcs, along with cat people and lizard people. I don't see why it would be any harder in this game.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Snathi, evil squirrels ...

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

All I really want is a few more model options and the abaility to change their hair and skin colors, and more clothing options.  I could do wonders with thyose options.