Some beginner questions

from Elemental Forums

I pre-ordered the game a few days ago and played 1.5 games so far (game #2 kept crashing on "end turn", so I abandoned it). The game is promising, but there is some work left. I know what a beta version is, so I have no problem with this. I also know that I cannot expect a full manual and have to find out many things myself. But after some experimenting and searching, several questions remain unsolved. Can someone please help a total beginner in the world of elemental?

* The most annoying thing: how can I move an army out of a town? So far, I only managed to move them out one by one. Click on the unit in the 3x3 grid right of the city info window, move out, repeat with next unit until finished. There is surely another way of doing this. Unfortunately, I have not found it yet.

* How can I transfer a unit from one army to another army? Is there something similar to GalCiv2 where I can get a window with two lists of units, one for each army [fleet], and a one click solution to transfer a unit to the other army [fleet]?

* Hotkeys: Is there a list of hotkeys somewhere? After some internet search, at least I found that TAB cycles through the units. Before finding out this, I clicked on the units in the bar on the left to check if they have moves left. No fun. Does anyone have a full list of hotkeys?

* Is there a "move" command (ideally: hotkey) that lets selected units move towards their destination until their movement points are used up?

* Auto end turn: It waits if there are cities without building/training orders. Fine. But what if I WANT a city to be idle, to produce more research/good? This breaks the whole "show me the units/cities that need some action" system (which is of utmost importance, IMHO). Can I set the cities to "ignore idle state" with respect to the auto end turn? (Ideally, the "zzz" icon in the city list would be grayed out or replaced by some other icon for deliberate idle state.)

* In my last game, windows kept popping up which told me that someone destroyed some resource somewhere in the northeast. Is there any way to move the map to the destroyed resourced immediately instead of searching through your whole realm? Very annoying.

* Can someone explain the criteria for possible city locations? It is total mystery to me. In my last game, there were large patches of land where I could not build a single city. Any when I discovered a potential location with my hero, I could not settle there where I moved the pioneer there several turns later. What had happened? Do I have to guard the location until the pioneer arrives? What about the essence thing? Grain/production seems to be related to grass/forest, but what about essence? Is it related to the landscape or totally random?

4,684 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


I pre-ordered the game a few days ago and played 1.5 games so far (game #2 kept crashing on "end turn", so I abandoned it). The game is promising, but there is some work left. I know what a beta version is, so I have no problem with this. I also know that I cannot expect a full manual and have to find out many things myself. But after some experimenting and searching, several questions remain unsolved. Can someone please help a total beginner in the world of elemental?

* The most annoying thing: how can I move an army out of a town? So far, I only managed to move them out one by one. Click on the unit in the 3x3 grid right of the city info window, move out, repeat with next unit until finished. There is surely another way of doing this. Unfortunately, I have not found it yet.

* How can I transfer a unit from one army to another army? Is there something similar to GalCiv2 where I can get a window with two lists of units, one for each army [fleet], and a one click solution to transfer a unit to the other army [fleet]?

* Hotkeys: Is there a list of hotkeys somewhere? After some internet search, at least I found that TAB cycles through the units. Before finding out this, I clicked on the units in the bar on the left to check if they have moves left. No fun. Does anyone have a full list of hotkeys?

* Is there a "move" command (ideally: hotkey) that lets selected units move towards their destination until their movement points are used up?

* Auto end turn: It waits if there are cities without building/training orders. Fine. But what if I WANT a city to be idle, to produce more research/good? This breaks the whole "show me the units/cities that need some action" system (which is of utmost importance, IMHO). Can I set the cities to "ignore idle state" with respect to the auto end turn? (Ideally, the "zzz" icon in the city list would be grayed out or replaced by some other icon for deliberate idle state.)

* In my last game, windows kept popping up which told me that someone destroyed some resource somewhere in the northeast. Is there any way to move the map to the destroyed resourced immediately instead of searching through your whole realm? Very annoying.

* Can someone explain the criteria for possible city locations? It is total mystery to me. In my last game, there were large patches of land where I could not build a single city. Any when I discovered a potential location with my hero, I could not settle there where I moved the pioneer there several turns later. What had happened? Do I have to guard the location until the pioneer arrives? What about the essence thing? Grain/production seems to be related to grass/forest, but what about essence? Is it related to the landscape or totally random?



End of quote

1. Hold CTRL and click on the units you want to move out of town

2. Join armies by moving units into the same square (up to max army size). Split by CTRL and choosing

3. Hotkeys. No idea

4. If units have movepoints left they will move at end turn

5. Turn of Auto end turn. It only provides grief

6. Click on the exclamation mark on the right side (the notification list). I believe it will move you to the place in question

7. If another city has been placed nearby, then nearby setteling places will be removed as there is a limit to how close cities can be. Essence is a bit random, but could be influenced by nearby shards (I think). Basically just read the numbers and settle in the best places you find.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

To point 7, I'm not sure whether it's because I am totally noob, but for a while I didn't notice that there are stats on top of the mini-map that tells you how much grain and materials the location your mouse is pointing to have. Essentially, your main map might not show anything, but you can read off potential settlement locations this way. 

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


To point 6, unfortunately for destroyed resources and outposts there is no way in Beta 4 to zoom to them on the map. The icons joasoze mentions on the left of the display do take you to army events, city events and quest events, but not to destroyed resources/outposts.

It is one of the major remaining annoyances of the game, it has been requested several times by dozens of posters, so hopefully the new Beta 5 will fix it...

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, now I remember. What I do is click on "enemies in your territory". This will normally get me to the monster that has destroyed something.