Sethai

i had no idea for a long time that defense came into the equation at all. i don't like the fact as it seems completely unintuitive. leather armour does not stop lightning bolts. i think magic should be undefendable and do what it says on the tin (this is what happens in dnd). then give magic resistance to some higher level creatures, special magic items for units, and as a buff that channellers can cast. damage calculation needs to be done through

btw i will never play a civilization game. thw whole "spearmen-attacks-helicopter" thing, and napoleon living for thousands of years is just too much of an immersion breaker for me.

the game needs magic resistance to give it strategy and depth. i will also agree that magic is too weak at the moment however and the game needs a lot of other stats a lot more first. ie: separate movement speed and number of attacks, charge bonuses for cavalry, flanking bonuses, separate defence values for missiles and melee. the whole spell system is far too crude at the moment. take a lesson from dnd. spell damage needs to be based on random rolls and constant modifiers. ie, ligtni

me, i'm reviewing it between 1am and happy hour! but in all honesty, stardock should discourage people from reviewing the thing at all until a couple of months time, then relauch the game with a massive patch (give it a title, as if it was a free mini expansion) then have people review it then. that's the best case scenario.

i have also had no technical prolems. aside from the mini map displaying the old games' map when i start a new one. on an aside, i love GC2, but i don't think it is really finished. i really hate some of the presentation and the amateur elements. the game has little atmosphere and the space aspect seems underused. production is a fundamentally awful mechanic, as evidenced by the all-factories strategy. the snathi make me cringe horribly every time i see them. the "weird radiation from

what i don't understand is why all the default sovereigns start with all the spellbooks. surely varying them would add more variety? and what is the game trying to tell me by doing this? that not taking all the starting books is an "alternative" gamestyle? that by not taking them all i'm gimping myself? i can see how starting without the book of air and spawning next to an air shard would be problematic. but if it's too big a problem then why allow the possibility at all and not just force ev

the mana regen rate is atrociously slow, especially for someone like me who went for a magic focused character. i assumed that this was down to my stats, techs or equipment rather than simply a global constant. if it's not stats i think it should be: i currently haven't had any use for essense yet, so that would make sense. something like 1+ 1/int above 10, so 3/turn if you have 12 essese etc (but impossible to go negative) generally i think the random element is far too strong in thi

am a little confused by this atm, though i suspect the above. sure would be nice to have something to barter with other than gilden and DC.

i got the construction of farms after a while; i had a click around everything in the first tutorial mission (though i wasted a lot of time trying to get the farmer npc to move there, thinking that was it. but honestly, i know resources aren't within the city, but i don't see why that stops you from putting the option to build on them in the nearest city's improvements list. does it?

honestly, they should just tell people not to buy or review the game for a few months and then try and organise a media relaunch in a month or so with a big free patch/expansion and shiny new trailers (give it an impressive expansion sounding name too, like relic did with Dawn of War 2: The Last Stand), and pretend that that is the game launch and that this is just an pre-order beta stage. the fewer reviews the game gets right now the better. though i for one am happy p

personally i prefer stats and game systems to special abilities. the latter seems tacked on, the former is integrated. game needs stats for magic resistance, separate defence versus missiles (you can't parry an arrow) and i still hate the whole concept of combat speed. just play it straight and give us a simple movement speed stat, no of attacks stat that make sense and are obvious in their meaning at first glance.

i think it needs some work. i'd like to see a linguistic theme for each faction: that would really help establish the tone. tolkien was a linguist and that may be part of the reason his world is so compelling. imo, stardock usually pays too little attention to immersion and tone (though elemental is an improvement) and this would be an easy way to improve this. but if the snathi are in the next gal civ game i will scream.

let me add my voice to the choir of people asking for succession of heirs. you can't have endless input without output: it makes no sense. yes, you should be attached to your sovereign like in an rpg, but even in an rpg your character's story is eventually over and retired so you can start a new adventure. if people really don't like this then let them turn it off, but you can't have one without the other imho. having said this, i would quite like a "lichdom" spell (or

alpha centauri was indeed fantastic. i could never get into the civ games because of all the silly abstraction involved: spearman stabs helicopter? genghis khan living for thousands of years? AC however was a very moving, immersive experience, mostly because it started with a fictional premise and developed it beautifully, rather than trying to some up all of human history in a game. some features i always wanted to see incorporated into the gal civ games, such as the landmarks like mount pla

yeah. i think the problem is getting situations set up with large armies and powerful spells using the beta, so you have good footage to take video of. as good as these are we could still use an official trailer that's faster paced with more spell effects and less menu footage.

both great! finally i have something to link to my friends to get them interested!

Planescape: Torment Seriously, I know it's a little off the beaten track but it's one of the most acclaimed yet undeplayed games ever made. Brad's a fan, and he's been talking about doing an RPG for years - even elemental is a move in this direction. It's

the limited control period idea is a good one. perhaps if you agree to release them after a reasonable period you are guaranteed an amicable departure, but if you keep pushing your luck the odds of it turning against you are increased? i think that would be a pretty cool mechanic.

stardock have never taken immersion in their games, or themselves, very seriously. i doubt this will be any different. they'll probably jump on it if they do anything at all. remember the snathi? *sigh*

honestly, i will be happy so long as the game matches the success of GC2. that was a sequel which always helps in the gaming world, whereas elemental has to fight tooth and claw for every customer. for all this talk of an evolving product, the game has to get good reviews at launch or it will be damned. people might take chances on blockbuster games in obvious genres with huge budgets, but if an indie game cannot get into the public sphere through shear quality, it is damned and might as well

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="25" id="2690523"] Well, it's a different representation of basically the same mechanic, though. The fixed cities are the representation of the province, which is as static as the city. The difference is this allows you to actually move around the province and have interactions with other objects in it. How movement is handled is also just a different representation. Movement in something like HoI is abstract, there's no geography or anything, you just select

the current oversimplification of tactical battles reminds me distinctly of the oversimplification of battles in GC2. brad likes to think of his games as glorified board games in which all the numbers can be traced by the player almost as quickly as the computer comes up with them. this is a noble purpose, but it leads to some ridiculous situations. anyone could look at the GalCiv battles and notice that it didn't have any mechanics at all to demonstrate big ships being outmaneuvered by small

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="22" id="2690501"] BTW anyone who thinks the TW games are fast because they are province based is dead wrong: they haven't been province based since 2004. Uh, given that Empire: Total War and Napoleon (just a reskinned Empire) are province based, what's your definition of that? [/quote] there are technically provinces, but movement is by a high res grid, rather than risk style province hopping. you control cities and (in the new

I loved different aspects of the galactic civilizations, total war and age of empires games, but i definately agree with the OP. if the pacing of the game is like the galciv games then all my games will go the same: colony rush while i research and wait for my population to grow enough to build anything worthwhile, only to find, by the time that i can that i am a second tier power and that the game has largely already been decided, leaving my tactical decisions redundant, and despite my huge&

perhaps a compromise situation is desirable? such as shards making certain spells easier to learn but not essential, especially in the mid game. then even a player who has intended to specialize has time to adapt and the player's hand is guided but not forced.