So I played Elemental over the last two weeks, and have come through to the following conclusions, or show stoppers, which I think could do with some refining... And while a lot of these may seem negative, please let it be known that I'm really enjoying Elemental. Yes, there are some tactics that make it rediculously easy to "beat the game" - even when you're not gunning for the Spell of Mastery... But more often than not, there are some pretty annoying things that could have been sorted out...
Non-building AI: I have, on some maps, found some AI's that do not build anything in their home base. Their leader is usually 2-3 squares away from the city, milling about just looking at the scenery (and all alone at that!) and the city usually has some units inside (wolves, or something more dangerous), but the actual city has no structures. Their score is always around 5/10 - and this is usually quite far into the game (I am a fairly slow expansionist - so it can take time for me to meet enemy players). Even the other AI players seem to avoid these AI's - hence them existing for so long. Pretty much a show stopper since it makes it incredibly easy to defeat them (this is usually when I am playing with 4-5 other AI players, on all levels of difficulty - I'm now playing on Extreme because I'm finding the AI anal retentive in 1.1).
I think it would also help having an "ocean / water" directive on maps where there is water. I downloaded an island-styled map from the Internet, and boy was I upset when the AI refused to build ships, or use spells to teleport through to other locations, or use spells like raise land over the water to create bridges (or perhaps we could have a spell: bridge?). Also, why doesn't the AI actually ever cast spells? In all the games I have played, I have never had an AI confront me with magic in battle, and they certainly have not used their spells to terraform the lands (as I do - to create strategic blockades into my lands). Yes, they may summon a few creatures to help their armies out, but seriously, combat spells would make the game far more challenging. Getting back to my original point, basically I was able to wipe them out one at a time by simply teleporting my army to their islands and wiping out each settlement. And my entire civilisation was completely secure (and without defenses) because I realised the AI would never manage to make it through to me unless I actually built frikking bridges of raised earth to their islands...
Bandits etc: sometimes, the initial bandits / wolves / spawn are impossible to defeat, and they attack on turn one. Its pretty upsetting to have to restart a game at the first turn because you've been unable to equip your sovereign with anything - or have any spells, when you have two wolves / darklings with 12 hp each coming at you... So yes, perhaps something to stop this from happening? Its just annoying having to restart a game at turn one...
Diplomacy: More often than not, and even if my empire is leages above the enemy, they will ask me about setting up arranged marriages. Now I'm all for this, as for the AI this would make for a great strategic move! But if the AI is the one proposing an arranged marriage between our two empires, then why, when I get into the diplomacy screen, am I unable to actually go forth and setup an arranged marriage? The AI always says that there is no way it would perform an arranged marriage with me. BUT YOU JUST ASKED ME TO ARRANGE A MARRIAGE, you INCOMPETENT AI! If you're not prepared to offer one, then please, stop harrassing me about them! I think this is a pretty annoying flaw.
A secondary note to diplomacy, I also think that the AI shouldn't be able to go to war for refusing to give them gildar. And why the hell can't I demand gildar from them? Sheesh! There should be some kind of intimidation factor here - I hate it when games do this! I've had much weaker nations demand as little as 11 gildar, to which I refuse (as I am far ahead of them in terms of technology, weapons and magical ability), and they then decide to go to war against me. Yes, if the amount was higher than 11 gildar, and they were stronger than me, but seriously? 11 gildar? Pffft! I laugh at your merry band of wandering fools!
Units: I've only played one game where the AI bothered to build stacked units. One game. And that was on normal difficulty - which now that I'm used to the game, is like playing on childs play. But that's not the point: Right now, I don't even bother with units. There's so little variation between them, and the AI clearly has no idea how to equip its units with, you know, anything that is actually effective in battle, and as such, its usually a walk over with my archers filling the enemy ranks with arrows. That's when I even bother to build units - more often than not, I just get as many heroes as I can, equip them with bows and armour, horses if they are about, and run around wiping out every thing in sight. I have to admit, I am also thoroughly disappointed with the auto-resolve battle option, as I've more often than not lost vastly superior forces to peasants (yes, peasants! Against archers and a sovereign's spawn that can cast magic!). And no, they did not have superior numbers... Very upsetting!
Cities are also very under defended by AI's - more often than not I just need my merry band of adventurers to maurade their way through each city, pillaging (well, trying to - see next). Oh, and its a damn pity that the raze city command only *sometimes* decides to work per game. I rarely want AI cities, and as such, I now don't even bother with an all out attack on them, instead using volcano to permanently destory the settlement - far easier than praying that the x key will raze the city for me. PLEASE FIX THIS! If I don't want a city somewhere, I should be able to raze it from within the city screen menu (when you press 'd'). Often I will just allow the AI to take the city over again so I can attempt to raze it...
Spell of Mastery: why does it only take one turn to cast? Surely it should have a longer time/turn limit to cast? I wasn't happy when, on the first time I attempted to cast it, that it simply showed me the ending cutscene. One turn? Where's the challenge in that? It would certainly help to make it take a while longer to cast, perhaps have some kind of spell to either make it take longer, or at least give the opposing forces an opportunity to attempt to take control of one of the elemental nodes - to deny the caster the opportunity of an easy kill?
I'd also love for some more spells. What's the point of having a spell book that can go to level 11 and above - when you don't actually have any spells to go in them? I just sit there, researching spell levels, but there's nothing further that comes from them.
Oooh, and when you get a tech like Houses - please don't try and play the "build" sound for every frikking house I have! (A) it causes my PC to come to a crawl (i7 930 with 6GB RAM - although I know about the 2GB limit cause its 32-bit) and (
I really don't need to hear it trying to play that many sounds simultaneously! I'm sure there are collections of objects that dictate how many there are of a structure in existance, and instead you just play one sound and update? I am always paranoid when I am advancing any tech that 'upgrades' a building because I know, for certain, that I'm going to have to restart fairly shortly (from an out of memory exception from the game). I really, really wish you guys would release a 64-bit version of the game. Or make it less of a memory-whore...
PS: there also appears to be a bug when you're in battle and go over the different elemental shards you have - it says "string ref not found" or something similar. Oops.
Having said all this, I have to admit I do like it. With a couple of changes and updates, I'm sure Elemental will rock!
