Archonsod

[quote who="DKL" reply="40" id="2751418"] Maybe you missed the point, but it doesn't 'warn' you, it locks you out, refusing to start up. You cannot run modified exe anymore. And that totally qualifies as DRM.[/quote] No, DRM would be if it demanded you proved you had the right to modify or run the executable before hand. Not running a modified executable however is standard practice for multiplayer games. In fact, modifying the executable is often a good way to stop it working ev

[quote who="sagittary" reply="6" id="2750796"] Something like watchtowers and town halls? Though yes, more utility buildings would be nice. [/quote] Precisely, but specialised in those aspects to an extent. Rather than building an outpost and sticking down a town hall and watchtower, a specialised castle which has perhaps three levels of watchtower so it's "specialised" in watching the borders for example. Kind of like the Gal Civ II system in fact - Cities with res

[quote quoting="post"] Elemental needs a better combat system. Please give me one example of a rich, deep, tactical turn based experience that uses such ridiculous 1-N damage ranges as elemental. [/quote] Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for one :P It's not a bad system if implemented properly, Stardock however haven't implemented it properly. It's quick, understandable and easy to do, and you can get an incredibly deep system out of

[quote who="Robert Hentschke" reply="17" id="2750374"] "Static" stuff like buildings sound like nothing much for a 3D game but the GalCivs have always been terrible at displaying large amounts of "custom" ships with lots of parts. And it's probably a safe bet that this game uses a similiar technique. [/quote] Yup. The problem as far as I can tell is that it renders *every* object fully, irrespective of whether the player can actually see it or not. Elemental seems to work th

I actually prefer having to have cities next to strategic resources. It makes sense - you don't generally find people sticking down cities just because there's space there. Plus having cities few and far between keeps with the post-apoc atmosphere. Though the generic city issue is a problem. I think this is largely because you sometimes have to stick a city in the middle of nowhere simply to keep your borders contiguous due to resources being far apart. It would be nice to have

[quote who="Jharii" reply="22" id="2750458"] They don't do this. They uncover where they are located on your map. Think of it as they uncover or decrypt lost maps, learn of new methods ancient people hid entrances, learned how to look for signs of ruins, caves, etc. [/quote] You'd think the tech names would give it away. "Morrigan's Notes" for example. Do we think a) Morrigan wrote a spell in the margins used to raise weird basalt architecture complete with

[quote who="Mtn_Man" reply="265" id="2750281"] Quoting theomni, reply 259I liked sins of a solar empire, but felt a little cheated when basic things like diplomacy were turned into a paid expansion pack. Never bought any of the expansions since I felt they should have been included in any game billed as a 4x strategy. To be fair, Sins wasn't developed by Stardock, they were just the publisher. I'm pretty sure it was the developer's call to make "Entrenchment" and "Diplom

I thought ridiculous was the easiest level. Certainly easier than normal in my experience.

Yet to get mine, in the UK too.

Problem is, remove the speed buff and there's absolutely no reason you'd want a sword over an axe or hammer. Personally I have no problem with some items increasing combat speed, but then I'm under the impression you wouldn't be running full pelt through a battlefield in the first place. At least not if you intended to survive the experience.

Only criticism I have of the tech trees is that Diplomacy and Adventure could stand to be extended to a similar length as the Civ and Warfare trees. As it is, you can complete both by level 12, while Civ is more like level 32.

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="8" id="2747853"]Sovereigns are still weak as hell - there's nothing preventing us from just oneshotting it with spells, even if it's got a 2k combat rating army guarding it. [/quote] Erm, sovereigns will only die if you win the battle. So one-shotting it is useless unless you can also crush that 2K army. Well, it takes the sovereign out of the battle, but if their stack survives they'll be there with 1 hit point after the battle.

Yup, the low HP of heroes makes taking them into anything but a small skirmish suicide. I don't know what would be a better fix - scaling their HP up, or having some kind of luck or dodge system to give them a chance to avoid or reduce the impact of such attacks.

[quote who="gunnergoz" reply="19" id="2747218"]Part of the problem is that Elemental seems to be a very different beast on different machines. [/quote] The main problem is that people can't seem to accept that other people may like things they don't. Release a game consisting of nothing but the tactical battles in Elemental, as it is now, and remarkably, you'll find some people would actually love it. Other people won't. 'Bout time people remembered that t

You need more temples really. And to specialise those cities in arcane research. Get two or three ancient temples, specialise those cities (up to level 5 ideally) in arcane research and build all the special arcane research buildings in them. Of course, the problem you have then is getting those temples. If you get lucky you'll be able to grab them right off the bat. Otherwise, you may well need to capture them from an opponent. And if you're really unlucky there won't be many temples

To be honest I think it's a failing of the AI rather than the combat system. The glass cannons only work because the AI invests far too heavily in melee units and targets archers and spells somewhat bizarrely. Against another player or a sensible AI those glass cannons would never get to swing their hammers; they'd either be shot full or arrows or blasted by eldritch energies long before that happened.

New resources spawn only within their influence. New locations and spawns appear map - wide.

I seem to recall Brad stating at some point they already had a two year plan mapped out. I'd say a five year plan would be better, but I suspect this is the wrong game for that.

The model is backwards. I'm a consumer, I pay for the product, not the potential product they may be making at an unspecified point in the future; that would be the role of an investor who fully understands the risks and can afford to lose the money. If they want to publish DLC, expansions or whatever fine, I'll look at what they're offering and decide if it's worth what they're asking.

Rather than ripping off AoW II, would it not be easier to ensure the strongest army travels with the sovereign. Although given the only time the sovereign is vulnerable is when he's in enemy influence I'd kinda hope the AI already was sending it's strongest army in with him.

Fireball in MoM attacked all figures in the unit, which made it less effective than pretty much any other direct damage spell.

Yeah, we complained about this in beta. I'm not sure if it may be intended to discourage razing though.

To be honest I quite like the art style. More unique dialogues would be nice; replacing Janusk with a faction specific councillor might also be an idea.

[quote quoting="post"] Make terrain (and not merely terrain enhancements, such as fertile land) matter to economy, city building, questing, neutral spawning, and the chance of yielding special events [/quote] They do. Neutral spawns occur in forests, and they also cost twice as much for a unit to move through, as well as blocking building. I'm not sure I agree really; every map I get has that many impassable mountains that it gets claustrophobic. A li

[quote quoting="post"] 1. Is there a way to reveal the map without exploration? Can I trade maps with the other factions? It would be nice to know what's going on in the rest of the world without actually sending someone over there. [/quote] Kinda an exploit way to do it - buy a hundred or so bands of eagle eye and equip them all on one hero. It'll reveal a huge chunk of map. Apart from that you can either use the reveal spell constantly, or send out explorers.