Unicorn McGriddle

Is GOO going to be a problem for modders?

[quote who="seanw3" reply="243" id="2559379"] And then you march a bigger army down his roads and take all his cities? Roads implemented this way sound like a "lose the game" button. But his roads could be cut off just like in real life when an enemy is coming, burning bridges etc. How did you think napolean was defeated?[/quote] So you spend all that money on roads for military mobility, only to destroy them. Now the enemy has a superior army and you have nothing.

[quote who="seanw3" reply="237" id="2557789"]I think that if my enemy built roads it should decrease his economy enough to offset his ability to build large numbers of soldiers.[/quote] And then you march a bigger army down his roads and take all his cities? Roads implemented this way sound like a "lose the game" button.

Likewise wish to upgrade.

Super-stacks and superunits (or supercombatants, in Dominions) are two different things. A super-stack is just a large army.

Also, dividing or not dividing your forces is a strategic decision. If you have one major army, a clever enemy could avoid that major army and rampage through everything else.

Tasunke, I'm not sure what you mean, precisely, by a soft cap, but I assume the existence of a hard cap at some point due simply to technical and design limitations on the tactical map. A reinforcement system could soften that, though. KillzEmAllGod, why would we WANT to keep large stacks out of Elemental? Should every tactical battle be a small engagement? Should a war be decided by a long string of tiny battles, or a handful of major ones?

[quote who="Shurdus" reply="225" id="2556358"]Then again, with roads between cities you may not be able to order a road being built between a town and the border with a neighbor. What if I want that because I plan to invade?[/quote] If you're not trading with your neighbor, you're not going to have a road. I like this speedbump to initial conquest -- players have a little more time to build up because initial contact is going to involve either trade and diplomacy or an army crossing

Let me get back to first principles here. Variable levels of complexity between game components are a design tool, and the complexity goes where the focus goes. Elemental could have a highly complex road system, and if roads were all there was, or the point of the rest, that would be good. But this is Elemental, and it's a spiritual successor to Master of Magic, not Railroad Tycoon. Its core areas are armies, cities, and magic. We've got some idea of how those

[quote who="Shurdus" reply="222" id="2556330"]Still not seeing the point against units building roads. As I stated earlier, it is not like your elite units should do it, at least not in times of war or combat. You let the guards who barely have any other function do it. You know, those units that you barely need to keep the peace? Those may as well build roads.[/quote] Two problems. 1. Now we're back to the workers-build-roads model that Stardock (and I) wanted to get away fro

It's not that superstacks should be negated in Elemental, it's that "how is your stack super?" should be an interesting question. I do see a couple of unavoidable natural upper limits to stack size, though: 1. A cap on armies due to the constraints of tactical battles. 2. Multiple fronts.

Given the focus of the world of Elemental, wouldn't a massive, map-altering project like the Great Wall be better represented as a spell?

I assume there will be options for making cities more defensible -- in terms of walls and wall upgrades, in terms of layout, in terms of defensive buildings, garrisons, spells, and even choices about where to place new cities. These are the built-up strongholds, the real siege points -- the places where long, large, complicated battles will be fought for immediately applicable high stakes. But field fortifications, how much are you going to build? A stockade or palisade, p

[quote who="Cerevox" reply="4" id="2556163"]Civ4 isn't the best example. FfH2 is quite good at that though. If you spread your troops out, and the other guy stacks them all into one square, he will lose the AOE blast fight.[/quote] Civ 4 IS the best example of what I was talking about, which is countermeasures against a giant single stack, and particularly the bombardment mechanics in Civ 4 which allow a single unit taking a single action to damage every unit in a stack. What

Agree with Tasunke. Civ 4 had to introduce bombardment (i.e., attacks that damage a whole enemy stack) because there is no player input beyond that level. In Elemental, you WANT players to have strong stacks that spearhead their military efforts. The battles that these stacks will have with each other are the crown jewels of the tactical combat system.

A lot of games tie fortification to armies staying in one place. Kohan, for example -- leave a unit somewhere, and it fortifies automatically. Move it and the fortification is lost. I endorse this idea for Elemental -- end turn without moving an army, and the army fortifies. Do it again, and it fortifies further.

Sorry, Tasunke, if I'd seen it I would have given you credit. Going back and reading your ideas, I see there are more origin steps in your formulation. If Talents and Weaknesses stay in, I'd rather keep Profession as simple as I imagined it, but if Talents and Weaknesses are folded in and Profession becomes an all-encompassing Character History, your approach is superior. Edit: Also, AndyRoo mentioned Mount and Blade before I did.

It's a matter of different specialties and choices. Under the right circumstances, one hero might be able to raise an effective army of peasants cheaply and quickly. But on the other hand, with a long lead time and a big city and plenty of money and resources, presumably any sovereign will have options for raising a dangerous army like those hypothetical veterans. Sure, if you can have your cake and eat it too, with a hero AND a high-quality army, that's better -- but it's n

Pushing military units into a road-building role moves them away from the massive game system they're intended to interact with, which is combat. Combat already has its own choices -- risk your army in this battle, or hang back? Defense or offense? Fast travel on a road, or concealed travel through a forest? Not to mention the entire tactical combat system. Imagine an existing game, let's say Civ 4, with a design change intended to give military units a domestic

"Prisoner" would be a nice origin, but I can't think of a good bonus for it. There should be several options for low-status origins -- not just peasant, but also serf, laborer, slave, goatherd (some kind of pathfinding bonus!), etc. More options for military involvement too, so that your character might have been an infantryman (bonus to defense), cavalryman (bonus to horse movement), NCO (bonus to morale), officer (reduced upkeep), and so on. In fact, which I feel that

[quote who="Icedo" reply="56" id="2555096"]Simultaneous turns! But instant attacking adjecting tiles to prevent army crossings.[/quote] How do you implement this? Do tactical battles just interrupt the orders phase?

Magicke was definitely onto something with the idea of rivers being useful for commerce. As I recall, Civilization handles this pretty simply by giving a trade bonus for working river tiles, and Elemental could probably benefit from a very similar system. Perhaps a river connection should give a trade bonus, river or lake presence in the city zone should give a food bonus, and rivers should count as links for the purposes of resource distribution (if applicable). Trade acros

And as an afterthought, I don't mind WE GO turn processing in the Combat Mission games, but I think sequential is probably better for something on the scale of Elemental. I don't want, for example, to have an army trying to fight an enemy army that never actually engages the enemy army because every time my army moves, the enemy army simultaneously moves elsewhere.

The more the game mechanics interact with turn time, the more the core game is shackled to a parameter that people are going to want to change based on personal preference. Being able to limit turn time in multiplayer is an unimpeachable option, but being able to exchange money and turn time is going to be a thorny balance issue for varying turn times, map options, etc., and involving time buildings in the city planning aspect of the game seems like a very bad idea. Some people ar

If you have a per-turn pool of roadbuilding capacity that has to be used that turn or it's lost, it will create a couple of related problems: 1. Micromanagement of roadwork. If the player doesn't always have each infrastructure pool building new roads, points will be lost to no benefit. 2. Proliferation of roads. With roads as a waste product of cities, they'll be everywhere and not special. There are two ways I can think of to band-aid these problems, and