Austinvn

[quote quoting="post"] I've been in the beta for awhile now, but I haven't really been playing. I've just been popping in to see the progress of the game. Now that we have something approaching the release build, I've started tinkering more. But I keep getting the feeling that I don't have a clue on what I'm supposed to be doing. Can someone give me some advice on what techs/spells/buildings/strategies I should be focusing on during the first turns? [/q

Edit: Also, nice work Stardock team! The progress just during Beta 3 is incredible (not even going to compare it to Beta 2). A friend asked me what this Elemental game was like and I didn't even know where to start; things have changed so much with just the last update, and I can't imagine where the game will be at release - I just told her to ask me again in 6 weeks. [quote who="Tridus" reply="86" id="2689172"]That's not even a kiting problem perse, since a ranged unit can kite just

[quote who="LikeTheWhirlwind" reply="154" id="2687766"]Counter attacks are going into the 3C build. Units are now refunded their action points every time initiative switches (defender to attacker, attacker to defender), rather than after each round. Units use these action points to counter attack. 1 AP per counter attack. When you're out of AP, you're done counter attacking. Please note that this doesn't affect what you can actually do during the unit's turn. They'll have al

[quote who="Tridus" reply="144" id="2687708"]You're encouraged not to use all your units movement or attacks in order to leave room for counterattacks. If you're actually moving and doing things, counterattacks are a total non-factor. Your opponent meanwhile is encouraged primarily to attack things that don't have counterattacks left. The only units that will be counterattacking under this kind of system are meat shields brought to get in between the incoming baddies and the import

[Disclaimer: wall of text of doom ! Had a busy weekend, going to reply to the entire thread at once ;)] First, a note on counterattacks: free counterattacks are obviously a bad idea, if a knight is getting ganged up on by 8 peasants at once, he just doesn't have time to simultaneously hit all 8 back. Subtracting movement from your next turn per counterattack is also a bad idea; what if my dragon wants to just ignore all those stupid peasants poking his toes fo

[quote who="Saije" reply="40" id="2684629"]You lost me... How does that gimp casting sovereigns? If your a casting sovereign you'll have a higher Wisdom anyway to get better spells. Now you can raise one stat and effectively raise three. + Wis = + Ess = + Mana[/quote] As far as the wisdom change, it's a nerf for both casters and melees, hard to judge who will be affected more. Prepatch you could get 15 int (either as a melee or a caster), and it gave you three ef

Definitely, this is a serious problem. So, in the name of realism, there should be a chance of having a child only when spouse and sovereign are in the same tile (pubs and theatres would add to this chance, naturally). Of course, we could make it even more Song of Ice and Fire-ish, add a chance of a false heir when your wife is in the same tile as any other male character with charisma greater than yours (charisma needs to be more useful, anyway) - and said child would naturally plot

[quote who="Blaze of Glory" reply="27" id="2682810"]I have already stated I am not a fan of learning everything is a spellbook when the nearest shard is forever away, but I can't learn spells for shards I have. I would like that changed to be able to learn spells for things I DO have. I think the research tree is a good idea in that you aren't guaranteed to learn A tech, but one of several. Why are spells different? If combining shards to the spell you get some kind of b

[quote who="Tridus" reply="17" id="2681869"]But if you're playing a melee sovereign, you can give half of it away and it doesn't really matter. You don't get weaker for doing it the same way a caster sovereign does (since your spells won't be that good anyway due to a lack of investment in INT). I'd rather see essence divorced from mana and used instead as the imbue people/land, really big spell, and resurrection stat (since you take an essence hit if you die and need to come back)

[quote who="Tridus" reply="34" id="2682729"] ... and why would you do that? Spells scaling off Strength doesn't make a whole lot of sense.[/quote] Well, there's always wisdom. We have to do something with the stat (starting spell points don't count) - and, really, it would be nice if casters had another stat that directly affects spells, so they just don't stack lots of int. Melees can up attack with str or defense with dex or health with con, casters can up effectivenes

[quote who="the_Monk" reply="39" id="2682638"] Did I miss the memo that turned this into the hate on anybody who plays a game with friends thread? How exactly is that what I said? I said clan-friendly. Clans are generally more than friends. For *many* (if not most) clans it's about being competitive not just playing with friends. nice try at putting words in my mouth though....... [/quote] Not to disagree with your rant, b

[quote who="WhiteElk" reply="31" id="2682646"] Question: Any plans for building a historical based TBS game?[/quote] No no, the historical TBS is going to be a mod for Elemental. It'll be called it FfH , Flight from Hell. No more magic or heroes, reduced effects of experience gain, real world religions (all bland and identical to each other), a huge but straightforward tech tree you can on

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="4" id="2681996"] Quoting KillzEmAllGod, reply 3will “World Difficulty” effect how soon higher level monsters spawn, was a bit unsure if you would have this. the UI really will need some love maybe even some nice art in it? so any plan of adding attack types for weapons? No. The spawn rating of monsters is dependent on players going up the adventure tree. What the world difficulty will do will be to determi

[quote who="Tridus" reply="19" id="2682617"] Quoting pad152, reply 17Magical System - Start spells Therel doesn't seem to be a spell level vs. character level system, a level 1 user can learn and use the same spells as a level 5 character. I'm still not sure this is balanced, will be see a level 1 magic user be able to take down a level 10 magic user? AFAIK damage spells scale with the intelligence stat. A level 10 caster should be doing more damage with fireball then

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="79" id="2681319"] This is incorrect, a melee sovereign most definitely needs to invest in Constitution as well, since he's going to be getting hit. This isn't the case for a caster, unless he chooses to dance around on the front lines. [/quote] I imagine casters will need constitution too if they ever want to take part in a tactical battle; units will have ranged attacks after all, and a fragile caster sovereign should be the #1 target if th

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="75" id="2681289"]It's also not quite accurate. Strictly speaking, a melee sovereign who only raises melee stats will be able to cast much fewer spells per turn (and not even all spells due to having low essence) while a caster sovereign who raises his INT/Essence scores will not only do more damage with his spells, but be able to cast more per turn (and more mana in tactical battles as well). So while the melee guy hacks better, the caster guy is able to fling sp

[quote who="Andorfiend" reply="73" id="2681283"] That ... sounds pretty bad. I'm not in the beta so I know no details of the system. However as a rule of thumb any permanent expenditure for a temporary advantage is a terrible idea. So my question is, are these essence spells permanent? Or are they poweful enough to turn a tough city battle into a cakewalk? If the answer to both those questions is 'no' then that is a self-gimping system. Rule three of good game

[quote who="Saije" reply="67" id="2681245"]I like the Essence = Mana Cap Idea... It was always intended and it fits perfectly. Now if you want to play a caster sov your faced with a choice. Use an overwhelmingly destructive spell at the cost of your essence, or tone it down and use weaker spells so your mana can regenerate. It doesn't make playing a casting Sov impossible and boring as some have stated, nor does it destroy the purpose of Essence which is made very clear.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="8" id="2681077"]After release, we can revisit this. But we're not changing it prior to release. [/quote] Just curious, does that mean the release will have the divide-xp-according-to-level system you just mentioned, or the everyone-gets-full-xp system currently implemented? Hopefully not the latter, bit too broken/easy to exploit, any xp dividing system is preferable. Also I'd like to second GW Swicord, merchants/researchers/etc need to be able

Just to put my two cents in, I think the simplest solution is best. Wisdom = mana. Problem solved. Think about the implications: -Now the currently-useless wisdom stat has a unique and essential purpose separate from int and essence. -Now all champions have mana based on wisdom, allowing 'normal' spells (ones that cost mana only) to be useable by many units, while 'epic' spells (consume essence) are still reserved for the sovereign.

You'd think that a modder should be able to create a 'shield' that has attack instead of defense, a dagger graphic, and voila you're dual wielding (technically). If you just want to look cool with two weapons, and don't mind if your character functions exactly like a 2h wielder (doing more damage at the expense of defense), then congrads you're done. Well, getting the animations right is another problem entirely, that solution would just have your character stabbing with the main hand.. but a

[quote]Instead, we need to reward players more for building up fewer, bigger cities.[/quote] Brad already has the right idea here; there's no need to punish players for spamming cities. You just need to give players a better option instead of building new cities, such as improving existing ones. Say I have a level 5 capital, two level 3 cities, and 500 gold to spend. I can spend that gold on a new building for my capital, or spend it getting the 3's to a higher level, or foun

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="62" id="2679920"]It's moddable. if you wanted to, you could have a million people on there. It's just XML and a number. [/quote] Also slightly disappointed by the small scale Elemental ended up going with, sounds like no epic LotR-style battles of thousands of guys hitting each other in Elemental, but this is excellent news - as long as it's moddable all is forgiven. As many people have already pointed out, 10,000 man armies won't work a

Edit: Sorry for double post, should've included this in the first one. [quote who="_PawelS_" reply="57" id="2679081"]In some cases watching the battle and then pausing and giving orders can take more time than turn-based. Also in pausable realtime the combat effectiveness relies on the player's reflexes (when deciding the right moment to pause), which is not good in a strategy game.[/quote] [quote]@steelfin: Sadly pause DOES NOT work with anything but single player.[/quot

Random maps are very important for multiplayer - it'll seriously hurt replayability if the maps are hard coded. I realize that balancing a random map up to multiplayer standards is an added difficulty, but: a.) better overall map balance (and particularly starting position balance) is a good thing for singleplayer too, it's not a sacrifice just for multiplayer, and: b.) imbalanced random maps are better than not having them at all, just give us the choice if we want o