Winnihym

I think I have to respectfully disagree, Das, unless we can define what balancing really means. Is a 4 stack with longswords balanced to a 16 stack with longswords that has 4x less speed (ie, attacks come 4x less often)? What if the 16 stack takes 4x longer to build? Costs 4x more? How is the attack calculated, for the stack, or for each unit independently? Let's consider this for balance: I have 4 4x stacks, you have one 16x stack, equivalent power out

[quote who="Sethai" reply="34" id="2968350"] ...The easiest solution would just be to make ALL units behave a little more like groups. IE, monsters make 3 damage rolls between 1 and 30 and add them together, instead of one roll between 1 and 100. If we then give weapons a higher basic attack, then we can have a system where no attack value in the game is more than maybe 50 or less than maybe 10, and we can get much closer to the scale of numbers in MoM... ...Look at othe

No, you couldn't design your own units, but let's talk about balance. Balance includes things like how long it takes this unit to make it to the field, what its vulnerabilities are, what its strengths are (attack), and its cost. If, in the course of 50 turns, I can put out 2 stacks of 12 units, armed with good attacks (which we'll define as an attack 30), those units can put out 360 attack in 50 turns, or a strength gain of +7.2 atk/turn. If I build a monster t

The other way to cover some of this is, as Sethai said, to limit the damage per attack, and let all units melee. MOM worked because units with multiple figures couldn't each have a 40 attack; they were more like a 2-3 attack, and with buffs and training they could get up to a 5-6 attack each. That unit, by the way, was a force to be reckoned with, since it was 8x6 attack. Single units could have brutal attacks, like the sky drake with its 20+ attack, which could ki

Yes, we should be thinking about reintegrating spell research and mana production, and adding in spell power. The three level balancing act of MOM was one of the best strategic magic features.

Since we're discussing this, I'll just post a link here to what I think magic should look like. https://forums.elementalgame.com/402583 Winni

I dunno, LoA, I hear your words, but it seems a little odd to me. They're releasing digital only, most likely through Impulse only. I think that the majority of folks who will initially get the game will do so for free due to the Stardock policy regarding EWoM and EFE; initial sales are likely to be sluggish, as there's little info on the game, and there's some concern over the predecessor. It's the credibility gap again; I think if the game gets good review

MOM handled multiple units well, because attack values for any given combat were based on single unit on single unit combats. A unit with 8 figures in it (halfing slingers) was devastating not because of a single large attack, but because of 8 little attacks. I think each slinger had an attack value of 3 or 4, wihch in the MOM world was 3-4 30% chances to hit and do one point of damage. Defenders had a defense rating, of which each point was a 30% chance to mitigate one poin

I kind of don't get this; they've been very short on specifics of gameplay and function, without any real reason to be so obtuse. EWOM's been out for a year now, almost, and while the game mechanics may be changing for EFE, I don't think the game engine is changing substantively from EWOM. While there were some minor criticisms of artistic style, I don't think EWOM really suffered for its engine. Mechanics, however, were a different story, and where a lot

Definitely a great start; hopefully coding in new traits is relatively straightforward for modders. Are traits to include spell like functions, so we can train units with heal (priests), or arcane arrow (wizards), or blink (assassins)? I'd like to see us be able to imbue any spell from our spellbooks that we've learned into a group of units (requiring crystal, and other such things, of course). BTW, simultaneous damage could allow for blink to come back, now...

[quote who="Trojasmic" reply="9" id="2955793"] Quoting Tridus, reply 8 Where's Jon Shafer when you need him? For starters, each faction could have a Civ-like unique unit, unique building, and unique bonus. To borrow from MOM, each faction could be limited on the type of magic they can use (i.e. 10 books of earth magic vs. 5 books of fire and 5 books of air magic)... remember that in MOM? Does size matter? How about human-sized vs.

They've mentioned that combat in FE is to be based on initiative.

So, population, as of 1.2B, starts to be a limiter, more than even food, as to what you're allowed to do, and when in the game you can do it. This is a Good Thing. However, managing that population still seems to be a little removed to me. This is not a bid for local population; I'm actually a fan of global population, and want to see it preserved. However, I'd like to see a "population management" screen. I need to be able to idle my studies and

Why choose between Fantasy or Sci-Fi? In Jon's game, Procipinee has lasers.

You know, there's a good point here. City placement of buildings on the map has little value (there's no economic strategy to improvement placement, and only limited strategic value, such a choking off an access point...in a game with raise and lower land, not particularly valuable). Maybe we should go ahead and let the computer place buildings for us, since there's needless micromanagement to the process. By the time I'm L3 or above, I'm pretty much rand

I'd like to see this:  https://forums.elementalgame.com/402583 It covers a lot of what Trojasmic asked for.

Standard platters align tiny magnetic domains to store data, while SSDs push charge (in the form of electrons) into a tiny bit of silicon oxide. It's the same memory that your BIOS is written into. While there is a finite write cycle on these (coming from the small amount of damage that happens each time you force electrons into or out of the silicon oxide), it's no worse than what happens to the standard samarium-cobalt mixture that coats your drive; you're doing dama

*coughs politely* Item Forge! *coughs* Not an artifact forge, of course, but sometihng akin to MOMs "Create Item" spell.

Good lord, get out of the boat, Chip! GET OUT OF THE BOAT!

Thank you, great to see some of this!

You know, any information at this point would be good. We haven't really heard anything of substance since the release of how the game mechanic is handling weapons, speed, and tac combat. It would be nice to understand what they're thinking regarding magic mechanics, city building, and a host of other things that we simply don't have any real information on at this point, other than "it will be different". Some of us, heck, most of us have been here a long, long

Total shuttle costs per launch are roughly $500M, based on NASA's shuttle budget and the number of launches per year during normal operations. I don't even think the fuel costs are $10M.

As skills become more dominant in FE, it will be important for modders to have the ability to generate their own skills, tie animations/effects to them, and to include those as procs on weapons/armor. For instance, fire breath, ice breath, thrown weapons, wall crushing, etc. all should be moddable as effects through XML, rather than hard coded skills. Thanks!

According to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, it was actually August 29th, 1997. I've got conflicting reports. Looks like I'm watching Terminator again!

Today, April 19th, 2011, at 8:11PM (EDT, one presumes), Skynet became self aware, according to ancient prophecies. How's the AI coming, Froggy?