I asked earlier but it is not in the changelog nor has anyone answered, has the Out of Memory (OOM) issue been resolved? If it has not then there is no point of even playing as I dont feel like restarting the client every 15 minutes when I hit mid game.

while i do agree with brad that at least now the game is playable. i do agree that with you that its not at the 7/10 mark. i cant comment on the 1.11 ai as yet though since impulse is non responsive on download with a 2.25gig patch which for some reason crashes all of impulse when trying to get it to download.

This curious phenomenon hasn't disappeared anywhere. It was there before release and it is there now. People are too close to the game and start forgiving gamebreakers like these AI faults. This kind of AI behavior simply strips the 'game' part of the game and converts it into nothing but an interesting sandbox test version. You can pretend to have some challenge until the AI just hands you the victory. Until the AI can actually give you a run for your money, I can't with good faith call the game any better than mediocre.

Like Heavenfall said over IRC the other day, he has played the game so much that he (laughingly) said he doesn't consider some bugs bugs anymore but rather features that you just have to live with. I know it was a joke, but something similar happens when you want to like a game enough and play it long enough to forgive some glaring problems. It's really hard being objective, and I feel anyone saying the game is a "7/10" is hardly doing that, whatever 7/10 means.

On the other hand, I will say that when the few problems that are breaking the game has have been addressed, it jumps from mediocre to very good in a heartbeat. I just disagree where we are at now, quality-wise. But that's just me.

I appreciate all the hard work you've all been putting in on this guys. We've got a great singleplayer game here. Still waiting on those turnbased multiplayer battles though...

Its just the silly thing needs to be reactivated after each update for w.e reason(the actual firewall pop up calls the program "Product activation" as far as i can tell its a separate app from elemental). I assume this doesn't happen on the CD version since i don't see this pop up for many people. I own both but when i purchased the digital+box combo i didn't see a point in waiting for snail mail to install so I can't confirm or deny this on the box copy.

Sorry for the nerd rage i've been a bit testy with the frequency people have been responding to me without actually reading what I wrote lately...

Incidentally, I was having the same exact problem for completely different reasons.

Don't mess with the core game files, kiddies!

My update of E:WoM v1.11 from v1.1 failed with the error "Download is smaller than expected!"

The AI is noticeably better than it was before.  Not good yet, but it's at least making an effort to kill me.

Now there's a couple AIs that stay above me on the power rating

I guess it goes to show that I am not that good at these kinds of games... but it has definatly gotten funner. I kinda wish they could form large enough armies to be a real threat to me, though. That doesn't really happen.

Then again, having bows helps

Stardock: I really appreciate how you guys are still working on the game, even after release. It is evidence of why you guys seem to have a good rep. I hated reading how Elemental was bad, because when I first ran into it, it looked like one of the few games I would want to buy. Thanks for the commitment.

I had the same problem, Lothos. With the update my game has yet to crash. Happy days ......

Just played my first game after updating.  The AI has definitely gotten better.  I cranked the AI up to Hard, and it kicked my butt in short order.  Granted, I'm new to Elemental and still getting used to the ins & outs of it, but this is the first time I've actually lost.  By the end of the game, the AI was throwing armies at me consisting of 3 or 4 units each, with attack 15 and defense 7 or 8.  My cities were too lightly defended and my troops spread too thin.  The AI took control of my only operational gold mine early on, and after that I didn't have enough gold to keep cranking out my crack troops.  Looks like I will have to start thinking harder now.

Thanks Frogboy! 

really glad to hear some positive reviews of the new ai work, froggy!  Good job and keep it up.  Polish until it shines!

The AI is almost certainly putting up a better fight, but that means I must do more, and that means more everything, so I've been hitting the memory wall pretty hard and fast. So are we ever going to get that 64bit exe?

Am I the only one getting crashes after 1.11? Never had a single crash in 1.1

They did not fix the OOM issue, frogboy said that already. You can make the exe use more then 2 gb guys. This will certainly help you with the OOM issues.

I can confirm all of the above.  Despite it all, I was still enjoying a fairly challenging war with Umber for the last couple of sessions.  The unprotected pioneers that sat around in my territory doing nothing were amusing...

However, at one point the sovereign himself showed up, completely unprotected.  I simply moved a unit onto him and took him out without losing a single HP, and wiped out the kingdom.  Very very silly.  Not sure I want to play again until another patch is released, to be honest.

Almost finished with a 1.11 game (just a bit of cleanup steamrolling to do), and it does seem better on the AI front, and no crashes until the pretty late game where I hit an OOM crash.

I could tell the early game AI was more dangerous, I was surprised to see surrounding nations with 2-3x the victory points in power when I ran into them, a lot more troops and cities.  Also they seemed pretty well placed, were grabbing resources and sealing off some passes on the map. They declared war on me after trying to extort me, and failed hard.  The victory points doesn't translate well to actual strength right now.

I think that my biggest knock on the AI in my current game is that it seems poor on evaluating situations where its impossible to damage an enemy unit, and to figure a counter.  Perhaps its an inherent balance issue, or an issue with the battle system, but I ran a bard/chrisma sov for champ hiring, then rushed heavy armors, then magical for endgame.  Often the enemy army had a much better battle value but couldn't put a dent in any of my champs.  Its probably not worthwhile for the AI to build 10 unit stacks with huge battle values if none of them can damage you at all.  The AI never researched any of the group formations (or at least built necessary buildings to make them), which might have done better and at less cost.  I did hit some early battleaxe troops that were a bit tough in the early-midgame but after that, nothing to speak of to challenge me.  To be fair I don't think its a champ only balance issue as the standard troops I designed were neigh invincible in full armor as well.

Also saw some stacks that started to attack me lategame 1 unit at a time instead of as a stack.  That was new to me.  Perhaps my most fun Elemental discovery this game is that you can rename enemy units.  I got a few laughs renaming the summons and units of cities I was about to take.  Always something new to learn

Randomly 1.11 also seemed to make the destiny ember content dissapear.  At least the sovs.  Not like there is a lot there atm, but still thought I'd mention it since it seemed to work with 1.10.

In any case, I always look forwards to new patches, and will be eager to see what the next one will be looking to address. 

If you uninstall and reinstall the Destiny Ember stuff, it will come back.

The AI is better, but my fps has become horrible.  So much lag now playing and not sure why.  Still the AI is a bit smarter, so its getting there.

120usd for 1.9 gb? damn man i rent you my connection for 30usd the month if you want, i would still have profit ^^

Kronk83    120US$ for decent bandwith?  is per month?  wow, is bad.  ouch!

1.11 is markedly better...  The AI is more aggressive and not as braindead as in 1.1 and earlier.  I still would like to see more character in teh AI from one to the next.  Markon - the Gilden Sov come after me in the first 50 turns as if he was umber and i'm kingdom.  Still 1.11 is progress in the correct trajectory, Keep it going SD and Brad!

IamDean has fixed my 1.4gig update problem.

It is explained here https://forums.elementalgame.com/401836

just scroll up to Reply #112 and read the following replys.

Love the game, cant wait to try this update out!
Thank you Stardock and Brad, you all are a breath of fresh air.

*Also, I didnt get the HUGE update.. it was about 8mb*

 So I finally had some time to play the new AI patch (1.11). On ridiculous it is starting to feel as good as GalCiv2! This is of course just my opinion, but I noticed that the way I played the game and what I thought about during the game was very different. I play on ridiculous so the creatures alone have as much health as a late game party in most cases and they are very agressive because they fixed the fight/flight AI issues. I also, as many may have noticed, use a set number of specific resources that I keep constant in every patch. Every player gets 3 gold mines, a library, and either a stone pit or an arcane temple within range of their capital and first expansion. The Baddies start on one side and the umm... Weaklings start on the other. In the middle there are a good mix of heroes and creatures that generally wipe each other out and then head towards nearby players. This is as it should be.

I used to be totally concerned with what was fair to the baby AI. I would refrain from do any research into diplomacy. I had to constantly avoid exploits to keep the game going past 200 turns and everytime the AI would get stuck I gave them huge sums of money and then went to war with them to get them to build an army without liking me too much. I would limit the game to diplo/conquest victory and try to play God for the civs that had trouble with economy.

Last game I played I began the same pattern, but this time the player locations got fubar and I was left with Empire all around my capital. I thought it to be a glitch with the cartographer's table, as often happens with your updates Stardock, but it turns out that the Kraxis had just traded starting places with the Capitar. They were far away, but were forging a city-trail straight for my capital and using every outpost to make forward observers, which somehow linked up with pioneers and proceeded to surround all the shiny resources I had near my capital. Because of this my economy flopped and I couldn't afford any traveling heroes that usually serve as the main source of my army. They also took my library so I couldn't research better weapons. If I hadn't gotten leather in time I would have been run over like frogboy usually is when he plays in his demos, I jest you good sir frog.

After successfully raking the nearest outposts near my city and needing to use all my mana for food spells, I was in good shape to use their own strategy against them. I simply followed the roads and towns they had built, capturing and razing along the way, until it led me to their capital. Of course I attacked and met them at a draw (I retreated like a Tarthian rat).

I was fairly satisfied that they had stopped the spearhead of my attack and was forced to go after smaller victories  to reduce their army's ability to train, which they took full advantage of. I cannot be sure if it was planned or mere coincidence, but the damn AI players all started researching adventure and let loose some "ridiculous" level beasts that snuck in my back door, doing what one does back there, to my economy.

I then rage-uninstalled.             

So I guess what I am saying is that this update was a game-changer for me. Go frak yourselves though.