Austinvn

[quote who="UmbralAngel" reply="8" id="2879756"] Quoting Sythion, reply 7 Nah. It's the points that are broken. Specifically, they consider lots of shit units > a few strong units. They are just added attack + defense values, which is just not going to work. This is exactly the kind of thing my proposal would fix... the AI would be able to swap out 10 weak and obsolete units for 1 new strong unit, which would make it more competitive. Only for un

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="21" id="2880186"] I'm not sure how popular our concept of an RPG would be. We're talking pretty old school stuff. No first person. Just old third person, party (Baldur's Gate / older Ultima). Very niche.[/quote] As long as it features a grue.

[quote who="Dr Franknfurter" reply="13" id="2876318"]*erebus continent seems to be a size above what you choose... i think it makes huge maps even bigger... or maybe that's just my impression from the useful land available[/quote] Yeah, in both FfH2 or MoM, I mentally think of any erebus map as one size larger and manually double the number of civs (so if I pick "standard" and it gives me 5 civs by default, I think of that as a large map and add 5 more civs in). I appreciate that they

[quote who="HsojVvad" reply="7" id="2876550"]I didn't want to make a new post, and thought here would be the right place to ask. I got the game with verion 1.11. So do I download the patch and then install it, or do I just turn Impulse on, and install the patch that way? Does anyone know what time? Would it be midnight, 2 1/2 hours from now? Eastern Standard time? Or anythime tomorrow. I want to start a new game, but I know, don't bother starting a new game because patched versions

[quote who="Lord Xia" reply="108" id="2870158"]Don't laugh at me, but the world was extreme and the AI was only Hard... I have played hundreds of these games, but I rarely play to win, I play and have fun. I was actually had troops with better gear than my enemies, but they had far more numbers and I eventually just got over swamped and couldn't produce troops fast enough to fight them off. I was trying a 1 city only game too. Just couldn't produce enough soldiers.[/quote]</

[quote who="RenegadePeon" reply="5" id="2871759"]If you can't attack early, there is no point to the early units. In my opinion, if you're getting to the end game units, your opponent is doing it wrong. There is no such thing as a rush. There is such a thing as too little defense, too late.[/quote] I'm not usually in favor of house rules, but let me play devil's advocate here: if there's nothing to stop you from attacking early and deciding the game right then a

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="17" id="2871776"] Quoting Austinvn, reply 15... I should note that, in general, balance problems aren't just problems for min/maxing metagamers trying to win as quickly as possible (though I realize the above paragraph may make it sound that way). Even if you're not aware of the one true strategy that beats all others, even if you're (for example) treating the game more like an RPG and doing whatever makes sense to you in-character, the moment you stumble a

[quote who="Veristek" reply="3" id="2871520"]Has Stardock or the devs said anything about improving the random map generator or incorporating ElemenTerra in their next big update or the expansion?[/quote] Not exactly, but changes to the resource placement system are planned. Look at Kael's (Derek Paxton) first reply in this thread . He's talking mainly about the increase to resource frequency in patch 1.11, bu

Add me to the list of those curious about multiplayer, particularly tactical battles. Not that I think it should take priority over balancing/adding to the singleplayer game, no no, I don't expect anything related to multiplayer to get any attention soon - but it would be nice to know vaguely where it falls on the priority list: "we plan to work on it after 1.2" or "maybe we'll get to it around the second expansion" or "what, some crazy people still care about multiplayer?"

[quote who="Mystikmind" reply="11" id="2869767"]Not even sure i follow too well? I think it is true for most games that an experienced player can smash an AI if that is what the player chooses to do. But that doesn't bother me at all, I'm the kind of player who is happy to 'nurture' AI opponents until they are worthy of a good fight. However, i have not yet managed to set up a good battle with an AI in Elemental so far, mainly because i haven't got around to it yet. Typically when my games ge

I did like the game, but the UI could use some streamlining. For example, why do I have to hit space to show my health bar? It really should be on by default, or activate automatically when first taking damage, hiding it only confuses new players - they might not know it exists at all, much less which keybinding toggles it. Sure it seems obvious to us veterans who discovered the health bar long ago, but we need to make sure the game is also fun for more casual players who can't invest the

[quote who="HsojVvad" reply="5" id="2867429"]How is the manual? Is it a Dead Tree Format manual in the box? Is it helpfull? Is there like a "civilopidiea" for Elemental? As I was doing some research, I read there is scenarios you do? I don't really care for scenarios. Is there an option where you start with a "settler" and found a city or town, and then continue from there? How may cities do you usually end up with? I like to have like 10-20 cities or more. From the screens I have

I'll try not to repeat what the above posts already answered, which is all correct, just to add some details: Research is quite a bit broader than, say, Civ. You not only have the 5 categories to pick from (civics, warfare, magic, etc.), but several (2-5ish) technologies to pick from within each category. The bottom line is you're looking at 10-20ish technologies to pick from at any given time, they just split up the choice by having you pick one of 5 categories first, and then pick

[quote who="Fistalis" reply="42" id="2866831"]Now that i'm thinking about it.. the changes in 1.1 pretty much removed any significant relationship between stats and spells which led to the overpowering of traits. Thats where the issue lies in my mind. Its not that traits are overpowering simply there is no significant reason to boost any particular stat now.[/quote] In a way that ties into the armor problem. Con? No need for health if armor makes you invulnerable. Dex? No l

[quote who="Kantok" reply="106" id="2866626"] Quoting Wizaerd, reply 74 I still dont quite get why it has to be a new game... I dont want to have to choose to play either EWoM or FE, I want to play EWoM with FE content, as an actual expansion. I dont care if it's free or not, that isn't the point. How do you know you won't be able to? FE is taking the base of Elemental, improving the things they think need to be improved, adding a bunch of c

Sure the forums ask for too much, i.e. more than can be realistically added to the game, but this is better than asking for too little. Don't interpret requests on the forums as demands , they're more like suggestions . We're just throwing out ideas that may or may not make it into Elemental sooner or later; Stardock has given every indication that they listen to and appreciate these ideas, and some actually make into the game (in some form).. but it's clear that they feel no

[quote who="Fistalis" reply="29" id="2866769"] But assuming traits A, B,C, X , Y and Z are All balanced.. against each other.. one could still pick traits A, B and C. Totally ignore stat gains and declare the balance is broken. Hence one would have to limit the number of traits a person could choose.. reducing the customization options. To achieve balance A has to be = to B but also = to Stat I. Which is where the balance issues due to different catagories arises.[/

[quote who="Fistalis" reply="23" id="2866762"] t's about ensuring that there are different and roughly balanced ways to min/max, not just one stat to end all stats, not just one successful strategy that trumps all others. See this is what I don't get. You can't use custom sovs in multiplayer so why does it matter if there is ONE silly min max that you can walk over the AI with? Just cause it's there doesn't mean you have to use it.[/quote] The balance problem is not unique t

[quote who="Fistalis" reply="12" id="2866726"]And its not false for practical purposes. Name one game that had a plethora of customization options that is balanced and cannot be min maxed in some way?[/quote] Have you played Dominions 3? That game has a truly absurd amount of customization available, and while I wouldn't call it perfectly balanced, there's certainly more than one viable and potentially successful strategy to choose from. And this is by the way a multiplayer orie

Agreed on the need for an upgrade option; it's a basic TBS feature, made even more important in a game where even normal units gain experience and level up. There are several ways it can be implemented - say an instant resource cost, possibly discounted by old unit's value, possibly adding an extra gold fee, or needing to 'train' a new unit from the old one using the city's production. I'd prefer taking the time to train the unit rather than paying extra resources for an instant upgrade; I ha

[quote quoting="post"]“Fallen Enchantress brings the world of Elemental alive. Don’t expect many of your scouts to return, but those that are daring, lucky or strong enough to survive will be rewarded for their journey,” concluded Paxton.[/quote] Definitely channeling the spirit of Fall from Heaven in that quote - and I mean that in the best possible way. Alas for all my poor, poor scouts savaged by orcs and eaten by giant spiders.. they never had a chance.

[quote who="ElanaAhova" reply="126" id="2865189"]To keep my promise to compare it with GalCiv2: I've played GalCiv2 off and on for three years. Its great when the random events strike, and very predictable when they don't. If space empires's (Shrapnel games) ship and base building could be grafted into GalCiv2 - that would be an awesome game experience.[/quote] I'm curious, as someone who seems to be a fan of both, how would you compare Distant Worlds to Space Empire

Magic/adventure research is not the most straightforward way to play the game, but it is possible, as tanafres says there's a screen to tell you where your mana is going and allow you to cancel enchantments that are draining it. That being said you may want to try winning a few games as a conqueror and/or builder (i.e. warfare and civilization research) which is a much more.. direct? way to play, then see if you can start working magic back into your strategy without neglecting civ/w

Lost Libraries: actually living up to their names since Dec. 2010. Horses, though.. either they need to be more common or we can start calling them "Lost Herds."

On a related note, any possibility of having AI difficulty default to world difficulty like it used to? This isn't just a rather unfriendly newbie-trap, even veteran players miss this one until they see it mentioned on the forums (I know I did). On topic: The key is getting 1 level of military research (choose equipment) asap. Then you can outfit your sovereign/champions with some basic padded armor and oak spears, and start training some decent regular units with the same. From there