1.09n impressions and Raze city button gone???

from Elemental Forums

Well, my first impression of 1.09n (after skipping 1.09 a-m) is "Geeze, the game really didn't change all that much."  I mean, yes, the UI is definitely improved, the new graphics for the spells are nice, even if they are ripped directly off of DragonballZ and a few of them are still duplicates.  I kind of expected my cities to get attacked pretty consistently so now I'm at a snail's pace crawl trying to build up a defensive army to go with my pioneer so I can defend my new settlements.  The global mana pool is as absolutely retarded as I imagined it would be.  The ATB bar is painfully missing, archery is still hax, magic is suffering from some severe ED now.  It leaves me scrambling for an attack spell.  Food is now a weird mix of "upgrade your city" and "build a new city."  I am still uncertain if, when I stop building hovels and start building shanties if all my old hovels get autoupgraded, because I can't find any hovels to destroy and replace with upgraded shanties after I build the first one.  Going from city level 3 to 4 takes a OMFuckton of shanties.  I mean, really, can we have a better progression there?  Still, I was lucky enough to find one whole oasis which gave me ample food to almost get to level 4 on my main town, level 2 on my secondary, and save enough room for 2 more cities (and no more food, if anyone was paying attention.)  That's ok, my first 2 cities were spec'd for tech research, and one came with a nifty tech drop.  I can just research "refined farming" to make room for another pioneer to take over another oasis.

Ok, yes, the game is prettier, but without some gameplay updates/changes it's just makeup on a mule.  Animations were still at a crawl in tac battles.  Yes, I'm playing on my laptop, but even my laptop can render watercolors pretty effectively.  I mean, the graphics look like concept art for World of Warcraft, and I can play World of Warcraft just fine.

SO!  I get my hacked out archery armies going, go to take over a nice area with 2 resource drops, only to find Cassadar had already city-spammed a nice little village right next to one of the 2 resources I wanted.  No worries, I shot down his empty little city, another -1 food for me, and hit X to raze the darned thing so I can put a city in an intelligent location and...

It didn't work.

Granted, I've *NEVER* razed a city before, so I have no prior experience with razing a city, so my X key *COULD* be broken or something, however, I'm pretty certain I've read on the forums that I can "press X for death" and I'm fairly certain I'm intelligent enough to follow those directions.  I tried lowercase x and uppercase X.  So, umm...What happened to the X button???

So.  AI city spam isn't really "fixed" perse.  When I stumble across little level 0 cities proped up right next to a resource node with no intention of upgrading to make proper use of that node, that's kind of city spam.  City spam is just limited to the somewhat finite amount of food you have.  I need my raze city back.  It won't be 1.1 without an ATB bar.  I need a level 1 ranged attack spell.  Put Tac battles back in Multiplayer.  Global Mana is a horrible idea.  Just stop it.  Instead of Janusk, how about a random spouse?  Beginning play needs to go faster, we need more immediate ways to be able to defend our towns that don't involve selecting "random unit which is randomly going to be the same damned spider you got 500 times in a row".  Maybe peasants with sticks should be "free".  I used to fetch my own switches for my dad, surely my peasants can do the same.  I also need to be able to repurpose my old peasants into other units.  "You, give me back that switch and hold this bow instead!"  In fact, I should be able to take 3 individual and indentically equipped units and assign them to a "group" or take 5 units and assign them to an "army" and likewise break up my group or army into their constituent individual units.  I'd be alot more prone to building peasants with sticks if they could wield a bow later, or a spear...or a rock.  It seems in the world of Elemental I'd still be working at McDonald's and Frogboy would still be modding other people's games instead of being a CEO, amirite?

That's about the sum of it.  Of course, I'll have about 4 people flame me for being "negative," 2 trolls quote me and go "OMG, Elemental sucks!" about 4 more people agree with my content but not my tone, then Frogboy will post something about "omg, AIing is hard" and get about 27 posts going "Woah!  You're so cool, Frogboy!" and Elemental will go on the same development path it always has, almost as if I had never written anything at all.

But...if anyone happens to care out there: Not impressed with 1.09n.  I was hoping for gameplay updates and tac battles in multiplayer, and some balance fixes.  If I wanted it to look prettier, I'd sprinkle glitter on my LCD and rub my eyes really hard.

Thank you for the prettier graphics though.  They are indeed nice.  I just think it wasn't the priority here.

elemental
7,022 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

So. AI city spam isn't really "fixed" perse. When I stumble across little level 0 cities proped up right next to a resource node with no intention of upgrading to make proper use of that node, that's kind of city spam. City spam is just limited to the somewhat finite amount of food you have. I need my raze city back. It won't be 1.1 without an ATB bar
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Raze city is actually a technology you research from the warfare tech line. In previous version, there was a bug that let you raze a city without the tech by simply pressing 'x'. The hot key should still work, but only after you get the requisite technology first. If I remember correctly, it is fortification for Kingdoms.

I am still uncertain if, when I stop building hovels and start building shanties if all my old hovels get autoupgraded, because I can't find any hovels to destroy and replace with upgraded shanties after I build the first one. Going from city level 3 to 4 takes a OMFuckton of shanties
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Yes, all hovels automatically upgrade to shanties when you hit level 2 with a city. Again though, you need the requisite technology first.

Beginning play needs to go faster, we need more immediate ways to be able to defend our towns that don't involve selecting "random unit which is randomly going to be the same damned spider you got 500 times in a row". Maybe peasants with sticks should be "free". I used to fetch my own switches for my dad, surely my peasants can do the same. I also need to be able to repurpose my old peasants into other units. "You, give me back that switch and hold this bow instead!" In fact, I should be able to take 3 individual and indentically equipped units and assign them to a "group" or take 5 units and assign them to an "army" and likewise break up my group or army into their constituent individual units. I'd be alot more prone to building peasants with sticks if they could wield a bow later, or a spear...or a rock. It seems in the world of Elemental I'd still be working at McDonald's and Frogboy would still be modding other people's games instead of being a CEO, amirite?
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While I agree that upgrading units makes sense, the rest of your argument here seems a bit lacking. Sure you could go out in your back yard and find a stick, but this is not the same as being trained to wield a club or a staff. As for your breakdown of groups idea, I would always rather have the group than the individual. Honestly, there has been a lot of debate on these forums about tactical combat and how to change it. At the end of the day, I will simply say that the best change for tactical combat is simply to make units more interesting. As I have said in other posts, I worked on a mod to this end myself ( Updated Weapons ), but there are many very interesting mods in the mods forum which you may find address some of your current issues.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

That's about the sum of it.  Of course, I'll have about 4 people flame me for being "negative," 2 trolls quote me and go "OMG, Elemental sucks!" about 4 more people agree with my content but not my tone, then Frogboy will post something about "omg, AIing is hard" and get about 27 posts going "Woah!  You're so cool, Frogboy!" and Elemental will go on the same development path it always has, almost as if I had never written anything at all.
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So?

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

So?
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HAHAHA! Way to sum up this entire post. :)

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Currently playing 1.09n108, and I recall it crashing often when I played it a few days ago, but like Mr. Hyde transforming into Dr. Jekyll, the game crashed only after 3 straight hours of play.. just in time for me to go to sleep. The Mana Pool lets me cast *many* spells at a time, and along with "pop as a resource" adds to the freedom of play. I have always played with the "Royalty" trait so that may be helping the pop grow much faster. And lack of food doesnt seem to be that much of a problem when I can cast the "food spell" (it gives +2 food?? thats what I saw), and I raze the huts as soon as a settlment rises a level and shift it to another settlment which is stuck at max pop.. all in all, game is definitely better.

ps: Impulse says Elemental has been played by me 40 times.. the numerous crashes of a few days ago added to the high play number :-p

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

So far i've found the upgraded systems to work much better than the old one.  I don't mind the mana pool and I think it's actually a better style of play overall.  

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I think it is a bit silly that you have to research the long, lost art of razing & pillaging. It made me think there was no way to burn down the AI's settlements after it engaged its GalCiv2 colony spam routines. That's pretty much my only issue ATM. You guys have done a great job with the patching. Just focus on finding those memory leaks hiding in the shadows, and we'll be on our way to great & stable game.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

For what it's worth, the tactical animation issues need to be resolved by the animators. Some of the animations don't "end" when they should, and the engine doesn't allow you to input a new command until the previous one has finished animating. This is especially bad with mounted archery, where if you look closely, after firing your arrow, you have to wait until the horse moves its head back to center before the animation actually ends.

 

As for the graphics, "watercolors" are actually harder to render than World of Warcraft. The graphic card has to make a pass or two (depending on how good it is. Two passes is an automatic loss of half your potential FPS) with some pixel shaders in order to change stark, mathematical shading into an approximation of artistic, human shading.