Topdecker

[quote who="marlowwe" reply="6" id="2836285"] Actually, there are MANY reasons for not having a spawn frequency slider. For starters the game will be much harder to balance.[/quote] Random anything is a slippery cornstone for game design and good luck finding balance with random number generators. Some degree of randomness is necessary, but this one is burdensome. Too many monsters, you cannot explore, Too few and your sovereign does not level up. I

I wanted to try something a little risky so I saved the game and, as predicted, did not care for the outcome. When I go to restore the game, it starts to load but in the side panel is shows an AT WAR event which had not been their previously. I think that my nearest neighbor is declaring war on me - changing states before the reload is fully finished - which is causing it to crash. Anyhow, it seems like it is reevaluating wether it should declare war on load-up which cause

Warstaffs can be had around level 3 or 4 in the warfare research tree. I think that once you get equipment, improved weapons can be available and the warstaff is among them. I am almost always more interested in producing veteran groups, so I usually don't see them until mid-game, but they can be had much earlier if you are willing to dedicate research towards better gear. Top

I have had 3 games in row stall due to a lack of food. In one game, I had 3 cities and could nOT see a single food resource on the visible map. In another, I was moving along pretty well, but captured like 2 poorly place AI cities and then stalled out due to lack of food. In my games, the cities build stay at population 0 until I build a hut. And I have to have a food resource available before a pioneer can build a city. I don't recall any of that in previous v

Perhaps if food wasn't such a limiting resource, we wouldn't be having this conversation.[e digicons]:S[/e] The current beta build is completely unenjoyable due to the need to literally count beans. Top

I would guess that Summoning + Fire results in spells that are in both schools. Hopefully they are planning on making the ownership of the various nodes have a much greater impact on what you can accomplish (i.e. actually make them valuable). Top

I got SupCom 2 without having played SupCom 1. I enjoyed the campaign, but did not do much beyond that. It was still around 35 hours of game play and I would recommend the game. I do own SupCom 1... I decided, after reading all the pissing and moaning, that playing them in reverse order would give me the best chance to enjoy both titles. Top

Mixed bag for me... I have seen some large groups quite early, but they are not agressive. They will eat caravans, but they aren't attacking cities. Researching some gear and perhaps the healing spell pretty much allows you to knock these guys down with your sovereign or a champion. So anyhow, yes, I have seen some groups of 4-5 early on, but I converted them into to experience and money. Top

I've got to say that it would not trouble me at all if my sovereign or champions became a part of a unit, lending additional attack/defense. It might also allow other stats (charisma and hence morale) to has additional usefulness. Top

I have a few suggestions. Hire more heroes. Some of them give stuff like +20% food production. The money is a lot looser in this version, so hire heroes, get them to towns, and gear them up. Learn and cast the spell that gives additional food to villages and towns. Research and build caravans. This one is really very helpful as it also results in a road network that helps you move troops. Research and build graineries, fungus farms, etc.

The area of influence (or whatever it is called) generated by a captured city is pretty much crazy. I have a game where a narrow band of control wraps under an enemy city. It has a couple of points of interest, so good for me, but it looks...wrong. Top

Lack of food is probably the #1 reason that you are unable to build some important items. Research diplomancy until you can build caravans. Plural. Caravans have a big impact on food generation. Any time a caravan gets destroyed, replace ASAP. Lack of materials is an early game problem. The easiest way to get around this is to hire a couple of a heroes and have everyone go different directions while looking for stuff to loot. Caravan wreckage is alm

You need to build a few troops just to discourage this sort of activity. The AI decided you were ripe for the taking and moved against you. Top

I bought it well after release - no surprises or disappointments as I went in aware of the problems and I am prepared to journey upon the long road ahead. It should be an interesting ride :) If you've read about the game and know roughly what you are getting into and have the patience to allow Stardock to work on it, then yeah, I do not think you will be disappointed. Top

Do you mean without updating? No. FWIW, I updated and I was still stuck because I was well past the the trigger point. The campaign auto-saves as you go and I had to fall back to a save prior to the swamps and go from there. It did not take that long. EM

[quote who="Lonemessiah" reply="12" id="2808318"] Is this true? I am sure I read in another thread that this offer expired at the end of September. [/quote] That is what I understood when I jumped in on Sept. 28th. Top

[quote quoting="post"]Unlike Blizzard's recent Starcraft II, which changed so little about the game, Diablo III is really changing a lot. Gone is the 'Potion Dependancy' of nearly all Hack 'n Slash titles, and in it's place a new focus on the WoW-esque 'Ability Bar', promising to deliver varied and interesting combat. Is anyone else looking forward to the Diablo III? What annoucements, if any, are you hoping to see arrive out of Blizzcon? [/quote] The shift

Speaking of city spam, do enemy sovereigns retain the power to found new cities after the first one is placed? I ask because I took an enemy city, and then ghosted the sovereign, taking each new city he created because he would leave after a turn or two, allowing me to waltz in and take up residence. I built a lovely empire thanks to that, finally getting bored after taking 3 newly made cities. Message here is that founding cities as a sovereign need to cost s

The game was released on, what, the 5th of September? I would suggest getting a more comfortable seat, because the wait is going to be a longer one. cpl_rk: I think that the big changes being made to core systems is going to keep the AI improvements fairly minimal at first. You know, if they just concentrated on tactical battles and made the world AI more defensive minded, it would be an OK start. Top

[quote who="kenata" reply="8" id="2797464"] Considering Impulse is not a strong arm DRM platform like steam, requiring players to run it and validate their license for each play, I think this DRM talk is ultimately unwarranted. [/quote] I suggest that you look a bit deeper into this as Steam reportedly only requires a first-time run validation for games without online gameplay. Top

Population growth need to be tied to and limited by the availability of food. Top

[quote who="lackoo1111" reply="10" id="2796659"]Stardock fanboys . [/quote] Since you are so cool, explain why it would make sense for them to lower the price? Are they going to have a big stack of digital downloads that they can't store too long? Are the bits and bytes going to go stale? Top

I adopted gmail early (2005) and ditched my machine-bound email client immediately. I am not saying that Outlook is bloated, but for what it does, it might not be lean. The dependancies on specific pieces of Microsoft software make it even less attractive because those dependancies broaden the range of potential security problems. On a side-note, the anti-spam that gmail has is awesome. I went from wading through spam to almost never seeing it. I also use the c

[quote who="kyogre12" reply="10" id="2796642"] Not to mention that with all of the engine updates they've had to do to make the game better, any documentation they release now will probably be worthless in a month when 1.1 is released. [/quote] ^^^^ This. I think that mods are going to be limited to appearance altering stuff for the most part. Campaign/scenario mods will be difficult for a while because of the sweeping changes that are forthcoming.</

I jumped in at 1.08 and was aware of the problems. I'd urge Stardock to increase the price of Elemental every time they improve (not FIX, but improve) the game. I mean, why not? Top