Goontrooper

[quote who="Cackfiend" reply="10" id="2988399"]at first glance I do wish there were races like in MoM and not all Human... but im sure once people are really familiar with all of them theyre figure out the differences etc[/quote] It should be more obvious in FE where they will be designed with more differences. Modders have been working hard to create other fantasy races, including classics likes Elves. I just hope in the future that we will be ab

Great thread! Really appreciate you 'blogging' your way through 1.4s development, this makes the wait for 1.4 and FE easier. I really like to follow this kind of thing. Anyways, very interesting changes so far. I think they sound good. [quote who="Frogboy" reply="2" id="2988324"]Sovereign now provides 1 research per turn. So no reason why research should be put off. Lowered the cost of spells to lev

Brad has started many times that the Games Division does not make or break Stardock. They have other products. I wouldn't worry about the company sinking because of the Elemental series. If anything, if FE is a big improvement, I'm hopeful that new people will buy it. It doesn't sound like you have read much about FE. As Campaigner stated, they are addressing some of your concerns, especially in making the races different. Not guaranteed that it will turn ou

Hm. I really hope we can expand a bit on what we have seen with WoM. I've been playing with the XML since last year, and there is quite a bit you can do and I have managed to make some of my ideas work, but it would be nice to have a bit more available. My skills are so limited that I doubt I will ever be able to do much beyond the basic XML anyways, but for the more talented out there, it would be nice.

Good points, and a running theme since early days of WoM development. The main problem I see with the current system is that there isn't much variety within each win condition. You mention several different 'paths' to victory in MoM and each has different ways to go about it. In WoM, there isn't that variety. Sure, you can build an army of guys with bows or melee or some mix, but there isn't enough variety to make a difference. I think FE will fix th

I disagree, partly. I think that 1.3 is a big step forward, for me, in terms of stability and playability. I have yet to have a crash, other than maybe an alt-tab once I think, but that is a big improvement in my book. As far as the pacing issue, that is something common to Stardock games. I often felt the same way about Gal Civ II, although it is more proncounced here. Have you tried playing with the pacing settings? Either way, I agree that it i

Thanks so much for the update! Tons of great new information and screens. I like everything I am reading and seeing so far. Really interested to see what other impact terrain has now...very cool to see rivers becoming useful and valuable. I'm still dying to hear more about the overall realm and city management stuff that has been talked about.

[quote quoting="post"] Will we have Pariden etc in FE? In a recent screenshot you've got the Kingdom of Tarth in there. Isn't it strange to have the same players in town if we're in a very different place in the world. Especially considering this quote from Brad: " It takes place on the eastern continent and revolves around a very different set of circumstances. The Kingdoms of the West's philosophy was gain control of strategic resources and overwhelm t

Thanks for the update! I'm looking forward to hearing more about those strategic aspects, and hope we get a dev journal on it soon. As far as FE beta, I agree that we need a better system for making sure that our feedback is being addressed. However, I think FE won't have the same issues because as they have said, one of the main problems with WoM was that the design and the engine didn't mesh, leading to problems with major design ele

[quote who="Emperor_Nero" reply="9" id="2981938"] Like stealing the way Civilization does it?[/quote] Can my eyes roll more than this? How would using a system similar to Civs be 'stealing.' Do they have a patent on it? In that case, Civ stole from the guy that invented chess. Bastards, Sid should have come up with his own ideas instead of making a game turn-based. Only chess can do that, damnit!

Alright, so now 1.3 is actually running really, really well for me. I'm not sure what fixed it, but something did. I've done a round of driver updates, virus scans, registry repairs, and I deleted my old saved games (my guess is that was it). Now it is running perfectly, no crashes so far after several games, although none in the 300+ turn range, so we shall see. I'm seeing some of the same bugs as other people, such as the weird torso thing with custom units.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="6" id="2981606"]The most obvious change I've noticed is that terrain is much more Civ/MOM like in terms of utilization. in WOM, all terrain was largely cosmetic with special spots.[/quote] Really? Wow...that would be a huge change, if I understand you correctly. So...does terrain now provide some kind of food / production / whatever bonus, per type? How does this work in FE?

Brad mentioned terrain being different and more important in another thread: https://forums.elementalgame.com/411146/page/1/#2981536 I'd like to see a journal explaining this, or at least a big forum post.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="4" id="2981516"]In some respects, WOM was a bit like a GalCiv but for land (the terrain was rather meaningless). FE is like MOM where the terrain matters. And as a result, the two games become difficult to even compare. Hence, a lot of the ideas don't apply to FE because the game mechanics are more MOM-like than WOM-like.[/quote] Yep - exactly the way many of us feel about Elemental. But...

I really enjoy designer journals, and Stardock generally does a great job with these. It has been a few weeks since the last one. I'd really like to see the following journals: 1) FE Strategic Layer. We have seen lots of talk so far on units, equipment, champions, magic, and the game world. That covers about 2.5 of the 3 stated focus areas of FE, with magic and the world covered, and tactical combat partly discussed through ta

[quote who="Sir_Linque" reply="13" id="2981299"]I think the goal for the AI in FE will be in a completely different league than that of AoW's. I for one am glad tactical combat will be limited to features that the AI can properly handle.[/quote] I agree 100%. Right now the focus needs to be on making a good game, not a game that has tons of features that aren't fully implemented or useable by the AI. I'd rather have a game with 5 great features that the AI a

I think Fantasy Wars got this right. Really good TBS series, IMHO, for those that haven't tried it. Anyways, in that series, when a unit attacks all the men in that unit run into the target square and fight it out for a couple seconds. Cavalry runs down infantry, spells throw guys about. It is a small thing, but it makes the battles feel more alive. Probably outside the current scope of Elemental, but it would be nice for the 2nd Expansion or a future sequel.

I'm not a fan of the current cities built on the world map thing. It seems like a blending of the tactical and strategic levels in a bad way, same as in Civ 5 with tactical combat on the strategic map. I'd rather have a separate window for each city where you place buildings. This same map would then be used in tactical combat. Big dreams, I know. As for the strategic level, you would have a miniature version of what you placed in the city

This is one of the main things that should be addressed with 1.4 if Brad is going to keep working on WoM before the FE beta. Has anything official been posted about the strategic level in FE? I don't recall seeing much about it yet. Hopefully that will be the next diary.

I don't think this is a very productive post. Stardock is very involved in the community. I'd love it if they would get more involved in the 'idea' forum more, but they are way more involved, in a good way, than most other companies. Go read up on Fallen Enchantress. It is including many things that the community has asked for. I'm keeping my hopes up that it willl be better than WoM.

I also have the same or more stability issues with each new patched version. Really stinks, and that is the main reason I've mostly given up until FE. However, to say that Stardock has stopped caring or listening to us is just silly. If that was true, then they would have stopped working on WoM and focused on FE completely. However, as Brad as said during multiple detailed posts (which shows they are still listening) he wants to get WoM to a better state before the

Some good ideas here. Part of this will depend on FE, and how it turns out. Based on what I know about FE, here are my ideas: 1) Expanded Event System: This has always been one of the big problems with Elemental. A quality event system could drive random events, quests, and make the world seem much more interesting and alive. Events could be triggered by a technology, a building, a character, or any number of milestones. Along with that, open up the eve

I completely agree with pre-battle deployment. That is a really glaring lack right now. As part of that, you will need good AI code to ensure that enemies use intelligent deployments. I like the idea for facing, but I think it might be a bit too complicated for the current system. I think a simple flanking bonus of some kind would do a good job and place more importance on tactical positioning. Mind, I'm not against adding in facing, but I'm not sure if it is really needed in this sty

[quote who="Black-Knight" reply="8" id="2979517"] My point is precisely that those two things more often than not go together. If you can't relate with what is going on, the game is likely not much fun (example: what is believable about a sovreign alone founding a city then going alone by foot for years exploring a land, without a weapon or an armor? ...But as things are now he just has to do it because the AI is cheating A LOT!) [/quote] </

[quote who="onomastikon" reply="7" id="2979562"]I like Goontrooper's assesment of strategic advantages and disadvantages (as opposed to merely discussing tactical ones). Sadly, I think the design is far too advanced to implement most of what would be needed to make it work; there are no "classes" of units, and each (hero, army member, etc.) is a piece on the rather uniform board.[/quote] I agree that it is beyond the scope of WoM and FE, but it might