Cauldyth

[quote]I've just started the second volume of A Song of Ice and Fire[/quote] Read slooooooooowly. [e digicons]:annoyed:[/e]

[quote]But in Elemental the population = military.[/quote] Only after they're trained. Until then, they're just soft squishy things.

[quote]But for population growth you forget to add the prestige bonus[/quote] Ah, my apologies. I haven't been able to play the beta in months, so I'm not familiar with this mechanic.

[quote]Getting 5 cities instead of 2 will let you have : more gold, more resources, more units built per turn (5 instead of 2)[/quote] No, a small city wouldn't be able to produce units as quickly as a large city. You'd have 5 cities that produce units very slowly as opposed 2 cities that can produce them quickly. [quote]faster population growth (thus more gold and research).[/quote] No, if you have 10% population grown, a large city of 500 gains 50 people.

[quote]Give other, cheaper than a new city, ways to grab land.[/quote] A good suggestion. I've never liked the Civ mechanic of your borders being defined by your city radii (the later switch to culture was a little better, but annoying in other ways). Speaking as a Canadian, we didn't claim the vast north by spamming cities all over the place up there!

I'm strongly in favour of any food-based solution, be it mine, Demiansky's, or someone else's. It's the only solution that feels natural. The governor thing just seems a little too forced. The game mechanics themselves (in this case food availability and consumption) should dictate how a typical game unfolds, not artificial rules and limits.

[quote]So the food footprint could extend 2x or more the radius, but building a farm on an actual crop resource would be limited to what Boogiebac mentioned.[/quote] Yeah, my proposal was to have it be separate from harvesting resources. It's just a method for determining how big a city can grow based on the terrain in its region and whether or not it has to share that terrain with other cities. The idea is to address both city spam and city size issues with a single, natu

[quote]So Lent is only 7 days long right? As in its already over by Thursday? [/quote] Sure... in Dog Lent.

[quote]I just want to say what whatever else we can do with our essence had damn well better be good[/quote] Maybe we could forge the One Ring, imbuing it with our essence. [e digicons]}:)[/e] I do believe, long ago, they mentioned being able to imbue our heroes with our essence, making them very powerful. Dunno if that's still the case though.

[quote]the true purpose (and importance) of Essence hoarding will soon be unveiled. [/quote] [e digicons]:drool:[/e]

Well, here's an idea I'm going to propose, just because it's 1 am and I can't sleep. Feel free to tell me it's stupid. [e digicons]B)[/e] Perhaps what's needed is a more natural way of limiting city spam and city size. In the real world, the limiting factor is the land. It simply can't support more than a limited number of people, be they in a handful of metropolises or dozens of small villages. Proposal 1 : Each city has a "food footprint."&

The idea of governors concerns me a bit. I would hate for Elemental to fall to the same game-breaking problems that struck EU: Rome, which quickly deteriorated into tedious shuffling and replacing of governors as better ones became available or old ones died off. It was a game killer for many people. I don't know if they've improved it since, but it crippled the game at release and many people never went back to it (myself included). Personally, I'd rather see city g

Martin Cirulis, CEO of Kerberos (makers of Sword of the Stars) routinely responds on the forums, but usually just to tell people that their ideas suck and that they should screw off and go make their own game. [e digicons];P[/e] And I'm only slightly exaggerating...

[quote]Consider this: It takes just as many turns to take the red path as the white path. The closest distance between two points should be a straight line. With Hexes, that's not necessarily the case. [/quote] I have no pro-hex or pro-grid preference, but isn't this just as much of an issue with square grids? With diagonal moves, you can take some significant detours from a straight line and still only use the same number of moves to arrive at the same destination. I

[quote]Allowing resource tapping improvements, and them only, to be built away from the main city hub.[/quote] This particular aspect gets a huge thumbs up from me.

"Gamey" comes from "gaming the system," which means to use the rules in a way that wasn't intended or forseen by the creator of the system, for the purpose of bypassing the spirit or intent of the rules and gaining an advantage. It is not a good thing. In practice, it usually involves doing something that would otherwise be considered absurd, but which the rules unintentionally allow or reward.

Presumably there will be additional benefits to the larger formations, beyond just lower maintenance costs. By bundling large numbers of troops together like that, you lose a lot of versatility not only in warfare but also in production. By devoting 20 turns to producing a large formation, you tie up the production in that city for a long time during which it can't respond to other needs that might come up. If you're producing 4 units at 5 turns each, you get a window every

Hmm, there's more cool new information in this thread than in the Dev Journals. :) This would seem to offer up all sorts of routes a player could take in designing their military.

Thanks for the clarification! That sounds great.

[quote]countless other 1-time 'special' buildings (1 per Faction or 1 per World) to make each city as unique as possible.[/quote] Yes!! [e digicons]B)[/e]

[quote]I can vouch for Anthony that he is an official Stardock developer on the Elemental team.[/quote] I trust that he is, but those badges are convenient when skimming a thread for official responses. :)

[quote]Well, first, we didn't want city spam. Thus, we created a system where building a smaller number of larger, older cities is rewarded.[/quote] [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e] [quote]Indeed, crafting a good city is going to be a continual series of trade-offs rather than a forever-growing list of improvements.[/quote] [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e] Those are two great starts. I'm tired of games where "every city has every improvement," and I'm equally tired

I also wonder how it'll relate to map size. If you play with 4 players on a small map, you'll have few shards, and large portions of your spellbook will definitely be ruled out. If you play with 4 players on a large map, it should be less of a problem. I like the idea of shard requirements in general, but I'm not sure how it'll relate to all of the other possible variables.

[quote who="KellenDunk" reply="19" id="2541453"]no it does not[/quote] Sorry, my memory may be failing me. It's been many months since there's been a beta build that will actually run on my machine, for whatever reason.

[quote who="GoaFan77" reply="11" id="2541246"]Okay, I'm really liking the sound of this game now. I hope we can make nonrandom maps as well though.[/quote] The beta itself already contains the map editor, so yes, you can make your own maps. :)