[e digicons]:omg:[/e] I didn't know anything like context-specific battlefields were being planned. Have you guys been holding out on us?! Love the setting of the battlefield in the third one. Love the statues in the first one. Love the greater diversity in battlefields suggested by the second one.
Competitor for Fallen Enchantress? I'll happily buy both, if both are worth it!
By the way, a couple of cosmetic things that might help reduce the overly orthogonal look of the maps: Increase the 'wobble' in the coastlines, so that the stretches where it's straight don't look quite as straight. There's already a wobble there, but I think increasing the degree and randomness of it would help. Make rivers more narrow, and then increase the random 'wobble of them within their squares so it looks like they're meander
Big thumbs up for the point of interest icons!
Well, I think people are getting too hung up on what time unit one turn equals. That's always been something that needs to be compromised in TBS games, with very few exceptions. Hell, in Civ, a turn is 40 years at the beginning! It takes centuries to walk between cities. Besides, this isn't earth - who says 1 season is 3 months? I'd be happy if they just called it a turn, rather than try to rationalize all of the building times and casting times t
[quote who="BlackRainZ" reply="41" id="3051849"]I also don't think taking 3 turns to cast it, with the current timescale of each turn being a season, is realistic.[/quote] Realistic? What "realistic" reference point do you have? [e digicons]:)[/e] I can't think of any fantasy fiction where a caster can raise an entire mountain range, period, let alone do it in a short amount of time.
I'll add my vote to being nervous about raise/lower land spells. It seems like it's way too easy, and devalues the existing natural barriers in the landscape. Also, minor typo in the foreign relations screen where it breaks down why they like/dislike you: should be "allegiance" [e digicons]:)[/e]
Shard Power Treaty intrigues me...
Currently, the public knows the first game as Elemental, not as War of Magic. However, if you call the new one Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, then that will force people (and reviews) to refer to them as "War of Magic" versus "Fallen Enchantress" when discussing them. That may have the desired effect - any negative sentiment towards the name Elemental will be shifted towards the name War of Magic instead, thereby 'cleaning' the Elemental name for the future.
As you yourself have said, Brad, developers are perceived to be as good or as bad as their last release. The public, in general, has a very short memory. If Fallen Enchantress is good, then it will get good reviews and good word of mouth, and people will buy it. Sure, the online forums on various sites will always have people who seem to take endless pleasure in pointing out past failures, no matter how long ago they were. That doesn't mean the bulk of potential cu
[quote]Unfortunately the damn Shrill Lord took out the city I had captgured earlier. [/quote] I guess that answers my question in the other thread about whether or not monsters will attack undefended cities! [e digicons]:grin:[/e]
[quote who="Frogboy" reply="37" id="3046130"] One of the biggest changes to FE over anything I've worked on before is the sheer number of treaties. Rather than monkeying around endlessly with AI on "trading" I've instead put that time into coming up with treaties that players can have with one another. (and before anyone ask, no, I'm not going to screw around with resource trading or tech trading, it ain't happening, it's a black hole that could be s
I'm not really asking for a cutthroat AI. It's just that if the AI is forced to build early defenses (to fend off the human player) while the human player isn't, then the human player has a huge advantage right out of the gate. This is why I liked Civ 5's cities that defended themselves. The early defense came for free to both the AI and the human. The AI can't spoil the human's fun by nailing undefended cities, and it's fair to both AI an
[quote]cheating would include an imbalanced map, getting champions placed in slightly closer to AI starting locations, etc.[/quote] For what it's worth, I love this type of "non-cheat" cheat - have the AI still play by the exact same rules, but simply give it a bonus of circumstance. I've been playing Distant Worlds lately, and you can give the AI a leg-up by simply giving them a better starting situation. It's still playing by the same rules, so the p
[quote]The AI could totally wreck me. My sovereign is out exploring and his champion and armed units is 2 tiles away from my capital. This is the kind of thing that game AI coding has to take into account. Post-release, I can do what I did with GalCiv and let modders add in “Bastard AI” but there’s no way I’ll get to it prior to release. Or probably not anyway. And besides, would that be fun? Most people would just reload the game. What’s the point?[/quote]
Really looking forward to it! [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e]
[quote who="onomastikon" reply="19" id="3039630"]Thanks much. Your English is excellent. I would have guessed that German is your native language, since you frequently place a comma between Haupt- und Nebensätze. (And you refer to your "mother tongue", which is natural for a German Muttersprachler!) Regarding combat, I was primarily worried about two things: 1., that there are so many different elements you can apparently put into your ships, unlike Armada or GalCiv
No game is going to appeal to everyone. If someone doesn't like some of the core game mechanics of DW, then the expansions won't make it any more appealing to them. Different things scratch different itches for all of us. We shouldn't get worked up when someone doesn't like something that we do. Diversity in tastes is a wonderful thing!
For the record, I found vanilla DW to be intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying, and never finished a single game of it. The first expansion was similar - I'd play a game for a while to do the exploration and watch the automation at work, but then grow bored and never return. Legends changed all that though.
[quote who="onomastikon" reply="10" id="3039499"]1. I have only seen one more review of this expansion (the one advertised on the Matrix site). Am I correct in believing there ARE no other reviews out there?[/quote] There are likely to be more reviews coming, but it's unlikely that you'll really see many from the big sites. CodeForce (developers) and Matrix (publishers) sort of exist in their own little niche which doesn't get much attention. Unfortunate, but t
Never, in the entire history of the internet, has one of these discussions ever accomplished anything. You people need new hobbies.
Wait... doesn't Brad have to work too?! What a slacker...
With Distant Worlds, I bought the original when it first came out, and it was 'neat' but I just couldn't get into it. I bought the first expansion when it came out and it was 'even more neat' but I still couldn't get into it. I bought the latest expansion when it came out 2 weeks ago, and now I'm in love with the game. It just scratches a lot of the right itches for me. It has all the things you'd expect from a 4X space opera strategy
Hmm, I kind of like the look of the dead trees. *shrug*
I get the impression someone on the art team has visited the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. [e digicons]:grin:[/e]