LNQ

I want to Quest for Booty! Arr.

No sound of Stardock Central yet, and it is supposed to precede FE beta...

Frogboy, I don't know where you got the under-appreciated part. I don't know many TBS players who don't appreciate random maps a lot. They are often downplayed by developers (understandably because they must be a *huge* pain to make), but the community usually cries a lot for them. Anyway, about the screenshots. I repeat what Heavenfall said: the last shot is incredible... It's beautiful. Now, since everyone always has something they feel that could be improved, let mi

[quote who="mqpiffle" reply="6" id="3021137"]it would seem unlikely that the AI would be fully integrated and balanced in just over three weeks' time. [/quote] This is not a requirement for the first beta.

I simply don't have time for MP. That's probably the same argument most that don't care for MP have.

What I meant is that it shouldn't first and foremost be considered a business move. Sure it has a positive effect on the Stardock brand, who would argue that. I just take it more as a personal thing.

It's basically just a Q1 2012 guess form the site. The actual release date for FE doesn't really matter since by preordering you're going to get into the beta. The release date will just be whenever we get v1.0. I hope it's later rather than sooner since it means the game will get more polishing time.

I don't think giving FE free should be considered a business move. I take it as a genuine thank you for us, and as such appreciate it a lot more. I wouldn't have any problem buying FE, but the symbolic value of how Stardock has handled all this is very big for me.

... a little more action please. [e digicons]:digichet:[/e]

You're simplifying the cases too much. "One has to be careful not to look at different circumstances and see the same strategy."

TheProgress, they're two different beasts, strategic and tactical. Tactical is much more about anticipating and countering your opponent's every single move, whereas strategic is about playing the optimal game and countering the opponent's grand strategy. While both use a TBS system, you can't really apply the exact same way of thinking into creating the AI for them.

That comment could mean that Derek humiliated the AI in tactical battles.

[quote who="Kantok" reply="19" id="3019077"] Quoting seanw3, reply 18I forgot that you can bring them back. That is a big relief. I missed that info whenever they said it. That is good to know.[/quote] I doubt it has been said anywhere. Just like being able to only build structures into the adjacent tiles, this is just a baseless rumor.

Oh I've missed mentions of Pixel Shader 4 and 5. Intersting, maybe that has been canned?

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="11" id="3016471"]Definitely not fog of war, anyway. You can join me in the silly corner any time you want.[/quote] Thanks! Possibly a placeholder texture, since it looks pretty ugly.

Totally off topic, but that world map looks really good. The map looks varied, interesting and nicely balanced with different terrain types.

What? Of course that's the fog of war. Don't be silly. EDIT: On the other hand, in the new post Brad just made there's a rimilar looking area in the map: http://content.screencast.com/users/draginol/folders/Jing/media/c14def07-e143-497e-8fe4-9683c9725a0c/2011-10-27_1453.png .. maybe it's a chasm?

If the AI was supposed to be scouting for new town placement, it did a pretty poor job not checking out the northern area that is covered in fog in the screenshot. Should do a better sweep of nearby neighborhood if emphasis is on empire expansion.

For some reason the FE beta doesn't appear on my games list on Impulse. Could you please fix this?

One month until thanksgiving.

Backwards compatibility just doesn't seem to be worth the price of it. You need to remember that Elemental needs to be playable 10 years into the future as well. Using old tech always has the risk of it becoming incompatible with new hardware. In my opinion the best option is always to use relatively high tech solutions during development.

FYI, all they would need is a unittype check after the end of the battle. The function would resemble something like these lines: function TownDefeated switch attackingUnitType case 'Spider' decreasePopulation destroyImprovement case 'Bandit' decreasePopulation decreaseGildar otherwise destroyTown This suggestion isn't that code intensive, really. Don't know why you think it would be.

Well yes I would much rather have those kind of portraits in game than the ones we have seen in screenshots.

[quote who="Ben Yeoh" reply="40" id="3015008"] Let the devs decide this. [/quote] Yes, my point was kind of that it's too resource intensive for Stardock to realistically consider the option of going 2D. I assumed it's taken for granted that we are talking about the devs as I'm not developing the game myself. Anyway, Brad has time and time again said that Elemental is not a AAA title, so there are limitations. Some of it graphical. I expect the qua

Regarding portraits, I don't think anyone would disagree that 2D painted portraits look a lot better, but I believe it would simply be too resource intensive to execute properly. I wish it would be feasible to make the 3D portraits slightly better looking, but I guess it's not going to happen. It does hurt the immersion a bit, but since it's not going to change I'm fine with it. About Random House, Goontrooper, you haven't read the journal entries about Brad's